Blog Tips

Reblogging: The How and Why

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If I Reblog someone then THEIR blog article will be looked at instead of mine.

I guess some look at blogging as a competitive thing. Personally, I blog to write and enjoy the company.

First, if you are new to blogging or looking in to blogging as something you want to do, you may want to know what Reblogging is.

Reblogging is when you read the post someone has written and you enjoy it to the point you want to share it with your own readers. If there is a button on the screen that says Reblog then you can click that button and normally type a message in a field that pops up. Then you click enter or send and part or all of the post will appear on your blog with your message at the top to introduce the post to your readers. Some Bloggers even Reblog their own Posts.

Why are the reasons you would ReBlog a Post?

  • You really like an article.
  • An article inspires you.
  • The article is informative for your friends.
  • A friend is on vacation and you want their blog and name to continue to be seen in the community.
  • You want to help a new blogger by sharing their wonderful work with my friends.

Always do an honest Reblog. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.

Now for how to Reblog properly.

What, I don’t just click Reblog?

You can, but if you really want to do it right you need to take another step.

This is what I do when I see a blog article and realize I am going to Reblog.

Step 1

I go ahead and pull up my Posts page in the Dashboard.

Step 2

I click Reblog on the other person’s post and type in something appropriate as to why I am Reblogging the article.

Step 3

After I have Reblogged, I refresh my Post Page in the Dashboard section and there is the Reblogged Post.

Step 4

I copy and paste the Tags from the original bloggers page into the Tags on the Reblogged post, click Add, and then click Update.

Why do I do this?

Sure, by Reblogging some of my Friends that are not the other persons Friends will see it but with the Tags included the article will be in the WordPress Reader for people a second time and maybe draw attention.

In all honesty, in the marketing world, sometimes it takes a person seeing something 19 times before they will take true notice of it or do something about it. No, I’m not going to Reblog a post 19 times. But if you see an article you like Reblog it. Maybe other people will do the same and that’s a few more times it gets passed around and those search engines can find them.

This doesn’t take but a minute of your time, and if you truly enjoy something, then do it. You do two things with your blog;1) You have fun with it, and 2) You provide your Friends with the best and most relevant thing for them you can. Sometimes that best is something from someone else.

That’s all for this Blog Tip.

For  a related article  click here to go to Blog Tip: Links to Blogs and Articles-How To and Why. You will leave this page by clicking the link that is embedded in the word here in the previous sentence.

Much Respect to my Friends and to those passing by.

@RonovanWrites

 

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© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites©.wordpress.com-June 25, 2014.

Quick Tips: 2 For Basic Blogging

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Quick Tips: 2 For Basic Blogging

by: Ronovan

 

 

1)      When writing an article and you put in images/media make sure to click Preview on the right of the screen before publishing. Sometime what you see in your editing window is not what you will see in the finished article. Do this even for articles without media, just in case.

 

2)      If you put links in your article/post make sure to click the “Open link in a new window/tab” when you go to insert the link. You don’t want people to leave your own article even if it’s just to go to another one of your articles.

 

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-June 20, 2014.

 

 

Blogging Tips: It’s NOT your content.

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It’s not your Content

by: Ronovan

 Featured Image -- 1487

You’re new to the Blog world or even been around the Blog a few times and you wonder “Where are all the people that should be lining up to read my work”. (See what I did there, “Around the Blog….Around the Block. No…I tried. And I have no idea why L. L. Cook J’s ‘Around the way Girl’ is going through my head now.)

Blogging is like a lot of things in life:

  • It takes time
  • It takes practice
  • You have to work it
  • And it takes great patience

 

When I started blogging I just wanted people to read my creative pieces. I didn’t really think about how many I wanted to read it or how I would get them to read it, I just wanted to create and click publish.

 

We like to say we don’t care how many people show up to the party. As long as we put out the nachos in case someone decides to join in we think we’re okay. But we all know we really like to see those faces show up, even those we don’t know. This article is mostly for people who want to increase their readership.

 

I want to say one quick thing. If your home page is where your most recent posts go then here is what might happen. A person goes to the page, reads the top article, then reads all the ones below it. You get one view for all of those read articles. Some people put in a ‘read more’ break that you place in during your posting process to shorten what’s on that page to create more space or they do it to actually force a click to the next page. I personally no longer do the ‘read more’ just because. I’m happy people showed up and try to make it easy as possible.

 

The truth is, most of us have content in our articles that is good. We’re going to connect with someone and we’ll find our niche or group we seem to speak to. But it doesn’t happen overnight.

 

Time

Like I said you can’t bring in hundreds of views of your articles overnight unless you just write some hot button issue and get it out on social networks properly at the right moment. Perhaps hot button is your theme. If so then make sure you do something unique with it to stand out from the crowd.

 

Practice

Getting your format set up just right takes time. I’ve been through several themes for my blog and tested the waters on what I write. I know what will bomb and what will receive some generally decent response for my site. I still don’t mind bombing as long as I have fun and don’t do it too often. I want my readers to know they can always show up and have something good/useful to read.  That is one reason I put out as much material as possible. The other reason…I’m insane.

 

Work it

It’s tough to say this but just putting your content out there doesn’t mean people will show up. You need to do some work and help people find you, in other words, get the ball rolling:

  • Visit other blogs and comment:  You are thinking you barely have time to do your own blog but you would be surprised at the ideas you        come up with by taking a few minutes to visit elsewhere. Blogging isn’t just about blogs, it’s a community of supporters.
  • Link back to other blogs but only if relevant: Don’t just put a link to another person’s blog in your article for no reason. Make it be because it pertains to your article. Honest blogs get honest followers who stay with you.
  • Share in Social Networks: Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn, whatever your options are use them and share your articles there and spend a few minutes just being at least remotely involved.
  • Tag your articles properly: This one is a work in progress for everyone. You have to look at your work and see what it is and what words best describe it. Visit other blogs similar to yours that are successful and see what kind of tags they use.

 

Patience

You have to be patient. Once things start rolling…they roll. But it will take some time. Just keep working and putting out a lot of content, but quality content.

 

That’s all for this time and I hope there was something useful for you. Just remember that it’s not always about the content or the writing.

 

The only way you will fail is by giving up.

 

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-June 13, 2014.

Blogging Tips: Curious about where your ‘view traffic’ is coming from?

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Blogging Tips: Curious about where your ‘view traffic’ is coming from?

by: Ronovan

 

“I don’t care where it comes from as long as I get it!”

 

That’s the attitude of most or at least many of those with websites, depending on the purpose of the site. If you are just wishing to share your creativity, then this article is not for you. This article is for those wanting to increase viewership and perhaps their online presence for professional reasons or maybe even just curious about where and how people find them.

 

For those falling into the second category, the following I give you in response to the “I don’t care…” comment.

 

“Seriously? Seriously? I can’t believe you thought that.”

 

Empty FreewayMaybe it’s the former data analysis guy in me, yeah, I did that too on top of having been a teacher and other things…cry with me now…okay now on with the show, but I want to KNOW.

 

You want to grow your readership like a web, not a straight line. By straight line I mean with only one source of followers/readers/viewers. This can mean just your friends or family or fellow bloggers. You want ALL of that and more. With a web you don’t depend on one type of viewer.

 

On your WordPress Stats page you can see under Referrers where your visitors are coming from. It may be;

  • Reader
  • Dashboard
  • Twitter
  • Or even a link on another bloggers page.

 

For those who are striving for web presence, you need to know these things.

 

REFERRERS information

You can view this information by;

  • Current Day
  • Yesterday
  • Summaries. Within Summaries you have other time span options.

 

If I click on my ‘All time’ option, which is my entire blog history, I can see that the WordPress.com Reader and Light Traffic FreewayTwitter are basically tied for first place in Referrers with dailypost.wordpress.com and WordPress Dashboard almost tied for third.

 

If I look at the ‘7 Days’ option I see that dailypost.wordpress.com is first, Twitter is second, and WordPress.com Reader is third.

 

I know why dailypost.wordpress.com reader is in first with a huge increase. I started the Writing 101 Blogging University this past Monday and participants post links to their assignments on a certain page for others to click and see.

 

I look at both big picture and little picture to see how things have been and how things are recently. If my Reader response is dying off, I have to determine why. If Twitter is dying, then why is it?

 

Twitter

If you use Twitter you can also see if your Tweets are generating clicks back to your articles.

  1. Go to the ‘gear’ in the upper right corner of the screen, click and then click Analytics
  2. You can then look at each Tweet and see the number of clicks that each resulted in, within the body of the Tweet in the first column, how many Faves you received, Retweets, and Replies. You may also see something that says 4XNormal Reach or some other number. That means you reached that much more of your normal audience with that Tweet due to ReTweets (RT).

 

There are more data options to view but these are the Twitter options I want to look at for our purpose today.

Busy Freeway

This information can help you look at when things happen and what content you put out that either increased or decreased your site traffic. I’m not saying you should write to increase traffic, unless that is your purpose. If that is your purpose then you need to use what you have available to you.

 

If you look at my categories and offerings you will see I am random and just write whatever comes to mind. But some want to keep their site within a certain theme. In the Analytics of Twitter you can even see the interests by percentage of your Followers to see if you are reaching the people you want to reach. But that is for another article another time.

 

Write and create for you and as long as it is honest creativity you WILL find your audience.

(I would have included images of my traffic numbers but they are so much lower than everyone else’s that I didn’t.)

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-June 08, 2014.

Writing Tips: Following for Inspiration

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gettyimages © Original Photo by Frederic Cirou
gettyimages © Original Photo by Frederic Cirou

Did you know I follow fashion blogs? And I don’t do it to just see the pretty women. As a writer I like to write about a lot of things and the characters in my stories have experiences and sometimes as a man I just don’t know some of the little things that I need to know about parts of society that would make a moment connect with a reader instead of  totally destroying the scene for them.

What’s popular in shoes right now?

I have no idea. To me it’s what I like at the time, but for women there is a whole other level to it. And men, isn’t that one reason we should love and appreciate those little things? How often have you noticed how her nails seem to match her shoes and how those shoes show off her ankle just right? It’s an art form.

Pants, skirt, or dress?

I have no idea what is appropriate for certain occasions. I just know when a woman looks nice and that is fine with me. Men are lucky. We just throw on about anything and no one thinks about it because we aren’t supposed to know any better. It’s an observation on society in a way but women are supposed to know what to wear. And when a woman gets it all right, every person looks at them and pauses and the skies open up and angels sing.

I follow Food blogs as well.

You want to describe something a character is eating but all your mind sees is a bacon burger at McDonald’s but they are at a nice upscale Italian restaurant. Food blogs help me see different kinds of foods as, I want a romantic dinner not burger town. When you want to have something that is edible but sensuous to see at the same time, you need to go to the blogs. And men, ribs, steaks, and nachos aren’t going to cut it. The food has to be as sexy and elegant as the woman you are with.

Do I follow certain kinds of blogs just for reference?

No, I also follow for inspiration. I follow Artists, Photographers, Poets, and some that I don’t even know what they would be categorized in. Some of my favorites are those who would fall into the category of Life Survivors. I get inspiration for characters from something they share either emotionally or visually.

Yesterday I read a blog where the woman just poured out her soul and I connected to a spirit that could drive any female character in a book to the top of the lists. We follow blogs to support each other in the blog world but we also do it because we like what we see. And no I don’t stalk anyone. I do watch for posts from everyone I follow though.

Now Follow for Inspiration.

 

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-May 15, 2014.

Blogger Psychology: Views vs. Likes, Which Satisfies you?

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Being a new blogger it may confuse one at times to see more ‘likes’ than ‘views’. And which ones do you really want? I don’t even have a gut feeling on it really because I see the advantage of both and that, I think can cause the confusion. Yeah, I’m a Gemini. I’m not into astrology but being that whole twin thing, I really fight myself by seeing both sides of a situation. So even my opinion below will likely disagree with the ‘experts’ and even myself.

‘Likes’ are a psychological hug or pat on the back for most of us. While ‘Views’ are the way our work gets seen. Some people just aren’t going to click Like for a number of reasons, but they will keep coming back to read what you have to offer and thus View your work.

Am I a pro blogger? I’m not a pro, whatever that really means in Blog World. But I have realized a great many things since I’ve been blogging.

  • Be happy with your Likes, and use that for motivation. Remember though, how many blogs do you read and don’t click but you go back again the next time? I love the Likes because that’s one way I find people who have things to offer that I will Like and most likely Follow.
  • As long as I am getting the Views, then I am getting noticed.
  • Blog to share, not to receive praise. If you fall into the trap of wanting praise you are going to change how and what you blog. You started blogging for a reason; make sure you stay true to that.

These are just a few thoughts from someone who has gone through what a lot of new bloggers are going through now and even some veterans. We all share the same concerns about the numbers game, so don’t think you are the only one. Just keep doing it. Sure you want people to Like your work, but you really did this to share it so people could View it.