Correr Es Mi Destino » The Saturday Series

Picture of the Week: Lonely Dog

Zhu — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:30:36 +0000

Lonely Dog, Ottawa, October 2011

Canadians like pets, and in residential neighbourhoods it’s common to see people walking their dogs after an early diner, no matter the weather.

However, unlike French, Canadians are well-behaved and they pick up after their dogs—streets here are not dotted with dog poop. In fact, the last time I saw… er, a little accident in the middle of the street, was on Parliament Hill and the culprit were no doubt RCMP horses. Apparently, officers don’t have to pick up manure.

Some stores, including Roots, state that dogs are welcome to shop with their owner. However, after an incident this summer where a dog bit a greeter’s nose at Home Depota lot of big-box retail stores moved to officially ban pets.

I personally think pets should wait outside. No matter how cute they can be, they don’t really need to follow their owner in. I sometimes get annoyed when owners let their pets roam free and unsupervised—yes, I like your dog, can you please get it off me now?

10 Blogging Basics I Learned

Zhu — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 12:15:39 +0000

Plan Your Next Move, June 2011, Ottawa

This blog evolved a lot since I wrote the first post in 2006. I don’t spend as much time tweaking it as I did because it’s time-consuming and, at this stage, I’d rather focus on content. But I learned a lot during the past few years.

I started this blog from scratch and I think I made just about every single mistake possible because I didn’t know anything about blogging. Looking back at screenshots of my first blog, I cringe. I know better now.

To close the All About Blogging series, I’d like to share these 10 blogging basics I learned.

Pick a good URL — I spent about one minute brainstorming for my first URL on Blogger: zhu-canada.blogspot.com. I was briefly proud of it and then spent a year hating it because it wasn’t memorable and didn’t say much about the content of the blog. When I moved to WordPress, I had to pick a domain name. This time, I took it seriously. I settled on correresmidestino.com because the phrase meant something for me and there is a story behind it (see About This). Yes, I know, it’s Spanish and some people may not understand it at first but it’s a good conversation starter!

Tip: Picking a URL is like picking an email address—it may not feel like a major decision but it sticks.

Remove these stupid widgets! — I get it: playing with HTML is fun and empowering at first. We’ve all been there, stacking cute and funny widgets in the sidebar or in the footer. But local time or temperatures, awards received, map of visitors, countdown to whatever, music player that starts automatically etc. can be a real annoyance for visitors. It makes pages slow to load and most of these widgets are pretty useless.

Tip: Less is more: think hard and get rid of useless widgets. Draw attention on your content instead.

Readability matters — If you want to be read, you have to make your blog readable. On my first Blogger site, the content box was light blue and the font was way too small. What was I thinking? Well, I wanted the design to be cool. It’s always best to keep the content area white and use black font (white font on black background is a pet peeve of mine). Or, and paragraphs exist for a reason… please do hit “enter” button once in a while!

Tip: Choose a legible font and please, ditch these handwriting fonts!

SEO does too — I’m not a SEO expert but I learned a few basics. For instead, give your image a title instead of using the default one, such as “D-1234”. Use a sitemap on your site (there are several plugins to do that with WordPress). Link your posts internally. Use “pretty URLs” such as myblog/this-post-is-great rather than myblog/p_25658.

Tip: You can check your global SEO ranking for free on Website Grader.

Who and why or the two basics — When I visit a new blog, I want to know who writes it and why. The About Me page is the one I click on first and it gives me a general idea of what to expect. If the page is entertaining, clear and well-written, I’m drawn to the blog and want to explore more.

Tip: Examples of great “About Me” pages can be found at Latinaish, Gail at Large, 100 Miles Highway, Lovely Awkward and many others!

Tags and categories, too much is too much — The point of tags and categories is to help users navigate the website. I cringe when I see an endless list of tags only used once: what’s the point? Make sure you always spell your tags the same way too, otherwise you will end up with duplicates, such “Funny stuff” “funny stuff” “funny Stuff”.

Tip: A great plugin for tag management is Simple Tags.

Keep up with the updates — Plugins, themes and core platforms are usually updated once in a while for a reason: better usability, improved security etc. Yes, upgrading to the latest version of WordPress is a chore because there is always the chance that something will go wrong. But you still have to do it and trust me, you will enjoy the results.

Tip: Backup your database regularly, with plugins such as WP-DB-Backup.

Don’t annoy your readers — Be nice to your readers because they can make or break a blog. While there are no guarantees that they will like your work, try at least to not annoy them. Don’t put too many intrusive ads and ban pop-up windows altogether. Please, stop using these annoying social media widgets that scream “share me on 20 000 websites!” If you write a sponsor post, disclose it. Basic courtesy towards your readers goes a long way.

Tip: More ads doesn’t mean more revenues. Analyze your click-through rate and take it from there.

Keep it simple — Not everyone is a fan of minimalistic look but less is often more. Ultimately, readers want to see your work and that’s what you need to focus on. Very few people care about the funky colour of your links, the comment redesign that took you two days of work or the latest widgets. Make your work the centerpiece of your blog and keep the rest simple.

Tip: Ask readers for feedback when adding or removing major functions in your website.

Improve what you can and ask for help for the rest — I’m neither a designer nor a coder. Yet I often found myself skimming through pages of php code trying to fix a bug or to install a new function. I’m glad I didn’t pay someone to build my blog because I learned a lot through trial and error. But now, I know when to ask for help (and pay for it) and it makes a huge difference. For instance, I bought the theme I’m currently using and customized it myself. It is well built and it made a huge difference in terms of customizing and tweaking. Plus I can use the great technical support when I screw up something!

Tip: Forums such as Digital Point are a great place to ask for help or find a qualified person to give you a hand.

All About Blogging: Dealing With Blogging Annoyances

Zhu — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 12:15:50 +0000

Irked Monster, Ottawa, August 2011

Overall, I find blogging very rewarding: it’s a chance to develop or polish writing skills, to build a community around a theme and to connect with people all over the world. Praise is nice too—who doesn’t like a pat in the back?—and you will generally receive unexpected positive feedback.

Yet, some little things can irk you. These blogging annoyances are everywhere and you’d better start to learn how to deal with them to keep your sanity.

Here are four annoyances you will probably come across.

Spam — 88,155 spam comments and counting. That’s how much spam I got since I move to WordPress in 2007. I’m at war against spam: I value comments and I hate to see junk mail getting through valuable input. Luckily, Akismet blocks 99% of spam comments I receive, I just have to go through the spam queue once in a while to make sure no legit comment was flagged by mistake. Protecting your blog from spam is important: whenever I see spam lost among comments, I can’t help thinking that the blog is abandoned or that the author doesn’t give a damn about it anymore.

Copyright issues — Some bloggers put vaguely threatening notes indicating they own copyright over their materials. Others put watermarks all over their pictures and resize it such a way that you can barely see them—but hey, at least they won’t be stolen, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work like that. A lot of people tend to think that online content (designs, articles, pictures) is free and available for use. Most of the time, contacting the offending website to explain that your work is being used without permission and that you want to have it remove ASAP is enough. If this doesn’t work, you can contact the platform on which your work appears (Blogger, WordPress, Flickr etc.). Tip: to find if some of your pictures have been stolen, you can use TinEye, a reverse image search.

Silly and outrageous requests — I encourage people to contact me if they have any question and I regularly receive emails regarding to life in Canada, immigration, travel or photography. But I also get what I call the “WTF Questions”. Like this guy who wanted me to email him my old filled in immigration forms so that he could just copy them. I mean, of course Mr. I-have-no-idea-who-you-are, you’re welcome to have a look at all my personal information, including my banking information, social insurance number and the copies of all my IDs! And then there are always entertaining requests. For instance, this is the story of a food blogger who was invited to a culinary trade show in Italy. The catch? She had to develop a recipe, promote the event and pay for her own airfare from the U.S to Italy! A lot of companies or marketing firms contact bloggers with pretty outrageous requests and use the “good publicity” angle. The best way to deal with these requests is to pause before clicking on the reply button. Turn insult into opportunity and explain why working for free isn’t going to happen. Hopefully the company will get the message.

Hate mail and trolls — Well, let’s face it, sometimes people do not get the message (see above). No matter how right or polite you are, you may receive unpleasant emails. The best way to deal with these is to hit delete, otherwise you’ll be feeding the trolls. Don’t get upset over such emails or comments: there is a bunch of anonymous out there who just love lashing out in a very passive-aggressive kind of way. Over the years, I’ve gotten comments picking on my English, accusing me of being a fake Canadian/French because I have dual citizenship, I’ve been called a traitor by some French-speakers unhappy to see me blog in English etc. Don’t get upset over it and cheer up by checking out Passive Aggressive Notes or My Favorite Hate Mail—you’ll see, you’re not the only one dealing with weird strangers!

Have you experienced any blogging annoyances? How did you deal with it?

All About Blogging: Ten Tips To Be a Better Writer

Zhu — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 12:15:41 +0000

Owned, Ottawa, September 2011

How hard can writing be? You just have to type what you’re thinking, right?

Well, it doesn’t quite work like that, even if your spontaneous thoughts and observations can be a good starting point.

When you’re writing for an audience, a few basic tips apply.

Write with passion — Presumably, you are blogging because you have something to share: your life, your passion, a story or a skill. If you are passionate about it, it will show. Don’t force yourself to write about something you are not comfortable with or not interested in because readers will feel it. Blogging shouldn’t be a chore. This is not school, you don’t have to write a minimum number of words on a set topic. For instance, I can’t do book reviews for the life of me. I spent my high school years dissecting Victor Hugo’s Castigations (the title of the collection of poems says it all, trust me!) and while I’m still an avid reader, I turned down book review offers because it’s just not my thing. No one will enjoy reading a tedious review!

Build some context — Blogs create their own little universe, with occasional mentions of family members or particular life events. If your blog is mostly for friends and family, that’s fine because they know you. But if you want to build a bigger readership, you want to make sure people know what you are talking about. This is why About Me and About this Blog pages, where you present your universe, are important. Don’t hesitate to link to previous related articles to add context and information. Finally, go easy on private jokes only two or three people can understand, otherwise it feels like you are intentionally snubbing your readers.

Stop that constant navel-gazing — Some people live amazing lives and can write about themselves without boring the audience to death. But 99% of us are just regular folks are frankly, a detailed account of your life isn’t very interesting unless you are an exceptionally good writer. I know Justin Beiber “wrote” his autobiography at the tender age of 13 but most of us aren’t quite ready for that yet.

Don’t take yourself too seriously — Relax, it’s just a blog! Some readers will disagree with you, some will troll you, some will ignore your efforts to have the best blog ever… who cares? Don’t take yourself too seriously and accept that you are one blogger out of millions. Have fun and please, don’t start dragging readers into your blogging drama.

Use spell-check — On the practical side of writing, I really encourage you to use spell-check. Everybody makes typos, but when they pile up, articles can be a real pain to decipher. I tend to write my posts in Word, which catches most grammatical errors and typos, and I’ve seen a huge improvement compared to when I used to write directly in the WordPress text editor.

Use online tools — There are tons of free online tools to improve your writing. For instance, non-native English speakers will find WordReference very useful (and if you have a question, their forum is awesome!). I also use Synonyms, Visuwords (an online visual dictionary) and Wikipedia (for place names, historical events etc.).

Typography matters — Arranging text and selecting fonts isn’t only aesthetic, it has functional goals. For instance, it’s hard to read a message when there are no caps after a period, or where there are a lot of duplicate whitespace. Some plugins such as WP Typography offer intelligent character replacement and styling for ampersands, quotes, acronyms etc. The font family you choose also affect readers’ experience: Courier or handwriting fonts may feel “funky” and original but they are hard to read and shouldn’t be used for long text.

… And so do editing and reviewing — Ideally, everyone needs another set of eyes to catch grammatical and spelling mistakes. Most of us don’t have a luxury of a dedicated proofreader at home, but you can always set your text aside for a while and proof it again with fresh eyes. You’d be surprised to see the number of typos and mistakes you will catch!

Limit the length of your articles — I personally believe that articles under 200 words will be better on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, and article over 1,000 are just too long to keep readers’ attention (to give you an idea, most press releases are around 500 words). I’m the type of person who likes to write a lot but I learn to check the word count and to do some serious editing if I was close to my self-imposed 600–700 words limit.

Don’t forget that writing is subjective — In maths, 1+1=2 (or so I’ve been told). But writing isn’t an exact science. Two persons can relate the same event very differently. Yes, grammar matters but there is no perfect way to write. Develop your voice and be proud of your achievements!

All About Blogging: What to Blog About When There is Nothing to Blog About?

Zhu — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:25:29 +0000

So Many Posts But No Inspiration, Ottawa, August 2011

No matter how much you enjoying blogging, chances are you experienced or will experience writer’s block at one point or another. Bloggers all have different ways to deal with it. Some choose to go on a hiatus while others apologize bluntly about their lack of ideas and promise to return soon with more material. Finally, some writers will feel so discouraged that they will simply stop blogging.

So, what to blog about when there is nothing to blog about?

Well, there are several ways to hack yourself out of a writer’s block.

Completing or starting a meme — If you’ve recently been tagged for a meme, now would be the time to complete it. As long as you manage to spin it in a fun way, most readers don’t mind them. And don’t forget it’s the chance to get some backlinks too! Haven’t been tagged lately? You can volunteer to complete a meme or start a new one. For instance, lists such as “X things…” are always popular. Identify your newly published list as a meme and write some basic rules. Usually, you should tell people to answer a set of questions or follow a model and list a few blogs you are “tagging”. Don’t forget to comment on the tagged person’s blog, inviting them to visit your blog to participate in the game. This way, you can generate interest from other readers of the tagged blogs to visit your blog as well.

Doing a photo essay — If you are lost for words, why not use a picture? Pretty much everyone has a camera these days. Even if you are primarily a writer, you can try yourself at a photo essay. Photo essays are basically a collection of pictures around a theme, such as a specific event, the weather, your home etc. Pick several of your best shots and arrange them in a way that suggests a story. For example, if you enjoy cooking, you could illustrate your best recipe step-by-step. Try to see the world from a different point of view, and don’t forget that your readers come from all over the world. What is common for you could be very exotic to them, so don’t be afraid of taking pictures of your hometown, your house etc. Just add a little bit of text for context and don’t forget captions!

Starting a series — Series are a great way to ensure you will have material for several weeks and some continuity in a theme. I usually start by picking a fairly broad subject I’m comfortable about. It is very important to write an outline before you start the series. If you promise your readers ten articles on XYZ topic, you don’t want to run out of steam half-way! I usually write series articles little by little but I follow the general outline I devised when brainstorming the series, complete with keywords and ideas for each posts. Series give your readers something to look forward to and allow you to explore a chosen topic in depth. I find my previously published series often become reference posts!

Additional tip: make a list of article ideas — The best way to prevent writer’s block is to maintain an up-to-date list of article ideas. I have a little widget on Netvibes, my homepage, with tons of ideas I picked up while reading other blogs or listening to the news. I write down a short one-sentence summary of the topic along with keywords, quotes and examples, and I work on the article whenever I’m inspired.

Do you have any tips to tackle writer’s block? Have you ever tried any of the suggestions above?

All About Blogging: 8 Neat WordPress Plugins

Zhu — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 12:15:50 +0000

Building a Better City, Ottawa, August 2011

One of the perks of WordPress.org is the plugins, these mostly free and easy-to-use programs that enable you to enhance or customize your website.

Some plugins comes with the WordPress default installation, such as Akismet, one of the best plugins against spam. But really, the choice is endless. The WordPress plugin directory currently has more than 15,000 plugins available for download.

The choice is almost too vast, so I decided to make your life easier. Here are eight neat WordPress plugins you should test!

Broken Link Checker: this plugin monitors your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found. I recently spent a few hours going through all the broken links it found on my blog. I had more than 100! If you link to news websites, government websites or simply other bloggers, you most certainly have broken links. Broken link checker give you several choices, such as updating the link or unlinking.

Clean Archives Reloaded: When this blog began to grow, I looked for a good way to create an archive section. Clean Archives Reloaded is the best plugin I found. It organizes all your articles sorted by month with the number of comments for each post. You can collapse and expand the months. You can see it in action on my Archives page.

Flickr Gallery: If you have a Flickr account and would like to show your pictures on your blog, look no further. This plugin is perfect! It’s easy to install and highly customizable. There are tabs for your photostream, your sets, your collections and your most popular shots. And when you click on a picture, it displays in a pretty framed box. You can see the plugin in action on my Snapshots page.

Contact Form 7: This is one of the best plugin for your Contact page. You can choose the fields for your contact form and receive emails directly at the address you provided. No need to put your email address anywhere on your blog! Besides, the form is easy to implement and looks very professional.

All in One SEO Pack: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques that can help website visibility and web traffic. Most of us know some basics but really, it’s an art. This plugin will help your website’s SEO and you won’t get a headache, I promise—it works out-of-the-box. For instance, it optimizes your titles for search engines, avoid duplicate content and much more!

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin: This is a feature I believe all blogs should implement. The principle is simply: a list of related posts is presented under each article, and encourages visitors to read more about subjects they are interested in. This plugin does a great job and the list, populated automatically, is usually very relevant. Besides, it’s a great way to show your older posts!

WP-PageNavi: It’s just commonsense to install this plugin, because it makes your readers’ life so much easier. Instead of having two links at the bottom of pages, such as “older posts”/”newer posts”, this plugin offers an easy way to navigation by page number. You can see it in action on my homepage for instance. It currently says “page 1 of 93” and you can go to any page by clicking on the appropriate page number.

Xhanch — My Twitter: I’m not that active on social media websites because this blog takes me enough time. Besides, there are so many social media platforms that it’s easy to spend many unproductive hours just reading junk. But I somehow got into Twitter, mostly because I chose to integrate my latest Tweets in the sidebar of the blog. Xhanch is a perfect plugin for that, and I love the clean customizable design and the funky Twitter bird icon (different ones are available!).

Do you know any great plugin that could be added to this list? Did you try some of the plugin listed above?

All About Blogging: 5 Blogs Turn-Offs or Why I Stopped Reading Your Blog

Zhu — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:15:15 +0000

Bilingual Stop Sign, Ottawa

I love reading blogs. Seriously, I do. And I don’t “force” myself to follow blogs I’m not interested in just out of politeness. If I leave a comment, it is because I have something to say. If I added your blog to my feed, it’s because I enjoy it.

From time to time, I scout the web for new interesting blogs related to travel, photography, life abroad—the kind of topics I’m into. For instance, I check Expat Blog to see what’s new. I read the blog description and open it in a new tab to take a look.

Will I subscribe to the feed? Maybe. But definitely not if your blog has one or more of these “blog turn-offs”.

What’s the topic, exactly? — Most people start a blog for a reason, and that reason usually becomes the main theme of the blog. For instance, I started a blog because I wanted to share my experience immigrating to Canada. As time goes by, most people don’t stay 100% on topic. New sub-themes are developed. For instance, I got into photography, I still love traveling and I’m interested in immigration topics. This is what categories are for—to organize your sub-themes. Now, sub-themes should be somewhat related to the main theme and you’re not supposed to have hundreds of them. Well, some blogs have and it’s pretty annoying. For instance, I recently subscribed to a blog because I read a couple of articles on living in Montreal. But then, the blog switched to OS systems, YouTube videos and cars. Err… no thanks, I unsubscribed. Same goes with blogs endlessly reposting videos and memes. You need some original content!

Grammar, people, grammar! — A lot of bloggers are not native English speakers but choose to write in that language, including me. I’m sure I make my share of grammatical mistakes and I often wonder what I sound like to a native speaker. To make sure reading my articles is as painless as possible, I use spell-check and I review and proofread everything. So what if the occasional mistake slips through? I’m pretty confident you understand me, right? Yet, some bloggers, including native speakers, choose to ignore the fundamentals of language, like paragraphs and punctuation. I don’t know how you feel about it but I have a lot of problem reading huge blocks of text when there isn’t a single punctuation mark, including caps. You want people to read you? Then make it easy for them.

Too much ads, no content — Like I recently wrote, I do monetize my blog. I have a few ads, hopefully relevant and non-intrusive. Most of us do have some kind of advertising program going on. After all, blogging takes time and energy and we are offering a service. That said, I don’t think blinding your readers with ads is wise. I personally stay away from any blog that uses pop-ups. I simply hate when a website disables the back button to force you to stay on that page—it’s a cheap trick. And if you start having more sponsored posts than genuine articles, don’t expect me to tag along. I want to read article from a real person, not corporate speak.

Am I talking to a wall? — Blogging is about interacting, and bloggers should never forget that their success depends on readers. If a reader made an effort to add to the discussion, please acknowledge it. No one is perfect and, like I said before, I reply to all comments but it sometimes takes me a little bit of time, and occasionally a comment slips through. If the number of comments is overwhelming, some blogger chose to “talk” to their readers in a follow-up article. It doesn’t matter how you do it, but please, do acknowledge your readers. There is nothing worst than talking to a wall. In short, don’t encourage comments if you don’t care about them.

Wow, that’s some bad design! — Blog design is a personal choice. You simply can’t please everyone: some like it minimalistic some like to make a bold statement, some blogs put a lot of effort into design and others use standard templates and themes. That’s fine! Now, you still want to make sure users can actually read your blog. For instance, I’d love people to realize that green font on black background equals headache. That the dozen of widgets you stacked at the bottom of your page make my browser crash. That I really don’t want some music to start automatically when I open your blog.

What are your blog turn-offs? What makes you click the “unsubscribe” button?

All About Blogging: Blog Monetizing, What Works Best?

Zhu — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 12:05:10 +0000

Rich Man, Poor Man, Ottawa, August 2011

In 2007, when I moved to WordPress, I started researching ways to monetize my blog. I had to pay for the domain and cover my hosting fees—and Correr Es Mi Destino was growing.

In 2008, I wrote a first article titled Making Money with Your Blog, in which I detailed the progress of monetizing my blog. Since then, a lot changed. For the better, mostly.

I get way more traffic than I did in 2008: today, I have about 50,000 visits a month. I completely gave up on some monetizing methods but I also found some new ones. And the hosting fees are paid off.

But first, what didn’t work?

Well, Project Wonderful wasn’t a great way to make money. Not enough people to bid on ads, the amount of money I was getting for the hassle was ridiculously low. Bye Bye Project not-so-Wonderful!

I haven’t been very proactive in looking for deals with advertisers directly. I was lucky because they found me rather than the other way around. I’m not blogging for money so I guess I’m not a marketing expert yet. I doubt I will ever be actually. Yet I had some small successes.

How do I monetize this blog these days?

Google Adsense — I’m still using Google Adsense and while I try to make the ads as unobtrusive as I can, I display them in the sidebar, below the posts titles and close to the comment section. I find most ads are very relevant to the theme of the blog (i.e. immigration, travel), Adsense definitely improved that. My click-through rate went up as well and I certainly appreciate reaching the payout threshold more than once a year. All in all, Adsense isn’t a bad way to monetize a blog. It doesn’t take much effort and ads blend in well.

Text Link Ads — Text Link Ads became my main source of blog revenue and has proven to be very efficient. It took some time though. At first, only a few links sold, bringing monthly revenue under $10. Little by little, more advertisers bought links and I make over $100 a month now. This is a passive income since I don’t have to do anything, thanks to the TLA plugin. Links ads are non-intrusive and I have about 20 links sold for over 700 posts, hardly a concern for SEO.

Sponsored Posts — Advertisers occasionally contact me directly to offer me paid guest post, typically including one link to the service or business they provide. Either the advertiser writes the post, either we find a suitable place in a published post for the link. Sponsored posts are usually a good deal for both parts because when advertisers contact you directly, there is no middleman and no commission added. You can easily be paid through Paypal. For advertisers to reach you, make sure to have a dedicated Contact page.

The Shop — This is a personal project I’m developing. I must admit it hasn’t paid off so far but art is always hard to sell—nothing new here. I decided to sell prints of my most popular pictures about a year ago. First, I used a middleman website but the commission was too high. So I built a dedicated page and buyers can contact me directly through the website. It’s a rewarding way to showcase my photography and I really enjoy when buyers from all around the world are interested in a print.

Are you making money with your blog? What works best for you? What didn’t work at all? Don’t be shy, and share your tips!

All About Blogging: Building a Community

Zhu — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:30:15 +0000

Customer in Training, NY State, August 2011

One of the main differences between a blog and a static website is the interaction with the community. But this kind of interaction takes months or even years to build and must be constantly addressed and redefined.

The interaction mostly takes place around three actions: commenting on articles, sharing the content and contacting the author.

Commenting on articles is the easiest and most common way for readers to provide feedback. Blog managers must make commenting as easy and straightforward as they can. This is why I personally don’t think users should have to register or jump through hoops to leave a comment. I stopped commenting on some blogs because the comment system requires users to log onto Facebook—I don’t have a Facebook account and I’m certainly not going to create one for that. On the other side, threaded comments systems are now widely available and make discussion easy because commenters can reply to each other.

Spam is always an issue but I don’t think users should have to prove there are legit commenters by solving a captcha. Some are very hard to read and nothing is more annoying than spending a minute or two trying to get them right. Spam plugins like Akismet do a great job of blocking spam anyway.

Finally, authors should take a minute to reply to comments. I know I haven’t always been good with that and I apologize. I now reply to each person individually directly from the WordPress dashboard. I must admit I get slightly annoyed when I leave comments that are never addressed or answered, I feel ignored as a reader. So I assume my readers feel the same and I’m working hard to let them know I appreciate they take the time to comment!

All bloggers hope that readers will be sharing the blog content on social media such as Twitter, Reddit, StumbleUpon etc. because it can really boost traffic. Most single post pages feature some kind of social media buttons to share content easily. Just make sure it’s not one of these annoying floating boxes that will follow readers everywhere basically demanding them to share the content!

Finally, readers should have an easy way to contact the author. Most people don’t want to leave their emails because it can be easily harvested by spam bots. There are several workaround to protect your email address from spam: you can put an image of your email address or you can use a contact form plugin. Just don’t bother using old tricks such as spelling it out (“user at gmail dot com”) because they don’t work anymore!

I set up a dedicated Contact page and I use Contact Form 7, a WordPress plugin. Because I receive a lot of immigration-related questions, I also set up a Coming to Canada page explaining my immigration story and offering resources. It’s an easy way to answer questions that always come up—I just send people to this reference page.

How do you interact with the community around your blog? What works best for you?

All About Blogging: 5 Ways to Promote your Blog

Zhu — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:00:45 +0000

Traffic Sign, Ottawa, Summer 2011

Getting traffic is every blogger’s main goal. Some dream big while others are happy to just share their creative skills with similar-minded people. But where to start?

I can’t stress enough how many blogs and websites there are on the Web, and how important promoting your blog is. “In space, no one hears you scream”, and in the cyber world, no one will find you if you don’t adopt a proactive approach.

Are you interested in getting more traffic? Here is what I learned in my five years of blogging.

First, sign up with a traffic monitoring website or install a plugin on your blog to gain some insights. Google Analytics is a popular choice for detailed web stats. I also use Counterize, a WordPress plugin that brings to data to my dashboard. You can see a list of stats plugins for WordPress users here.

So, when I look at my own stats, I see my new traffic mostly comes from five different sources.

Forums — I used to be quite active on a number of forums, including Settlement.org, where I still answer some immigration-related questions. I usually include a signature in my profile linking to this blog. Most forums allow that and it’s a non-spammy way to get relevant traffic. If you want to get some traffic from forums, pick one that speaks to you, where you can both help and learn something. The key is to be consistent. Don’t just come, put your link everywhere and disappear.

Memes and links — We all get “tagged” once in a while. It happened recently with My Seven Links: Laurel invited me to complete the meme and I tagged five people in return. This is a good way to meet other bloggers and get more traffic—just don’t do memes too often, readers may get tired of it! I also try to link to other bloggers when they offer useful resources or when the post is particularly good. I also get traffic from other bloggers who link to my articles or quote me. For instance, I was recently interviewed by Life out of a Suitcase where I talked about my new life in Canada.

Blog carnivals — Carnivals are organized around a specific theme and aim at gathering a number of articles from bloggers around the world. You can either host a carnival or simply participate by sending a previously published article. I check out the website Blog Carnival once in a while and send submission to carnivals I’m interested in. For instance, I often participate in the Byteful Travel carnival or the Carnival of Cities. Each time I get some traffic, especially when the carnival host promotes it via Twitter or other social media.

Comments — Meaningful comments are a great way to discover new bloggers. Whenever a new reader leaves a comment on this blog, I always check out the associated website. Not all of them become my daily read but I got to know quite a lot of blogs this way. And it goes both ways: when you add something relevant to the conversation, chances are other commenters or the author of the blog will want to know more about you. Just don’t be that annoying person who write “great job” along with five different referral urls. Don’t.

Social media — I must admit I’ve been very slow to get into social media. I don’t have a Facebook account (I’m busy enough with that website!) and the profusion of social media sites means you could spend your time spreading news about news about news. Yet, I somehow got into Twitter and I find it’s a very useful tool to promote blog posts and bits of news. The traffic I got from it amazes me. I’m also on Reddit, especially on r/Iwantout (an expat subreddit) and r/Canada and I got great traffic for some submissions.

How do you promote your blog? Any tips to add?