Tag Archive for: blogging for beginners

Blogging for Beginners: Stats & Stuff

In my less compulsive moments, I like to think that I don’t care about my blog stats.

And really, I blog anyway. Even though they’re not spectacular or crashing the server with their high numbers.

It’s not about the numbers.

Go ahead. Laugh. I just did. Because it’s SO EASY to forget.

What they are:

Stats tell you how many visits you have to your blog. They can vary in the amount of detail they give you, depending on the software you use or the blogging service.

Your stats (or statistics, if my shortening the word is giving you the shakes) can tell you a few things. They can tell you how many views your blog is getting. They can tell you where people are coming from and what’s bringing them to you. They can tell you that on a certain day in July, you had some highly unusual traffic.

They can drive you crazy. Be warned.

You can usually find them through the Dashboard of your blogging service. (In order not to make this a highly technical post, I’m going to point you to Google for specifics beyond that.)

How to look at or use stats:

Using your stats as a guide can be helpful. You can get a feel, for one thing, of who your audience is.

To check the number of people you have in Google Reader, you click on “Feed Settings” at the top, and then on “View details and statistics.”

 And no, I won’t be sharing my numbers with you, though you can check them for yourself. (I made the mistake of checking a few of my favorite bloggers first. My dignity is still intact, but barely.)

You can see what topics or posts are popular. One thing I’ve noticed is that at certain times of the year, certain posts from my archive get popular. I’ve also noticed that I get a bit of traffic from Google Images, which isn’t the same as people coming by to read my stuff (though maybe, just maybe, one or two do).

A few ideas to improve your stats:

Improve your post titles. Say what you’re going to say, but do it in a way that catches someone’s attention, as in “The “Control” of Self-Publishing.” Or be straightforward and use a list, as in “5 Reasons Your Would-be Publisher Was Not Very Nice.” Want some tips? Read this, especially the part about search engine optimization.

Interact elsewhere online. Be part of the community. Make people want to visit you and read what you have to say.

Read the blogging blogs and do all the little tricks. Though, arguably, if you’re blogging just to get traffic, maybe you and I have different ideas about why we blog in the first place (see the point below about blogging purpose).
Write for your audience. So you have a group of committed readers. Who are they? What do they like about what you’re writing? They’re already coming and reading, so tap into that!

How to stay sane despite your stats:

Be realistic. I have to remind myself, day in and day out, that I am not the next Jennifer Fulwiler or Simcha Fisher or Danielle Bean. I can only be Sarah Reinhard, and that is all. In fact, there can be some very detrimental things with comparing myself too much with those pillars of blogging, those bastions of my feed reader, those favorites of mine. I have to be happy with who I am.

But…it’s good to set goals, to set high standards, to not settle. (How’s that for contradicting my previous paragraph?)

Revisit your blogging purposes. Why are you blogging? Should you blog? Do you need more or different focus? Would another alternative–such as a Facebook page or a general website–build your platform in a way that’s better for you?

Blog traffic is not the same as book sales. Sometimes, you have to just stay sane and ignore your stats. I know one heavyweight blogger who gives up looking at her stats for Lent. If you find yourself too attached to the numbers, I would encourage you to do the same.

YOUR TURN: What questions do you have about stats (aside from the technical “how specifically do I check them in my blogging software”)? What tips and pointers do you have to share?

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Blogging for Beginners: Terms & Concepts

First, we covered getting yourself a blog. This week, let’s talk vocabulary.

This is a starter list, so chime in if you have questions or you’re unsure about something bloggy.

Blog
Everyone says this is short for weblog. In five-plus years of blogging, though, I have never seen anyone who actually blogs refer to their site as a weblog. It’s like putting the “-” in e-mail (as opposed to writing it “email” without the hyphen). Your blog is where you write. It’s updated through RSS, so it’s changing. A blog is a kind of website. A website is not always a blog.

A blog is like a newspaper–changing frequently. A website that’s not a blog, on the other hand, is like a book, with content that’s not changing. Though you probably update your website, it doesn’t require a steady flow of new material day after day.

On a blog, you keep a frequently updated series of entries, providing news, commentary, or other content.

–Related terms:
  • Blogosphere
    The world of blogging. Is it a real word? Nah, probably not. Except that those of us who are completely entrenched in it don’t know that, so let us live in our little world of made-up words, wouldja? 🙂
  • Blog (the verb)
    The act of writing for your blog, as in “Sorry, can’t help you right now, I’m blogging!”
Post
An entry on a blog. What you are reading right now is a post.

–Related terms:
  • Category or Tag

    You have the opportunity to categorize your posts, depending on what kind of blogging software you use. I use WordPress on my personal site, so there’s a chance to use both categories and tags. This allows you to flag key words and specific content and organize yourself. For example, here on the CWG blog, I often tag my posts blogging. We have other bloggers who write about fiction.
  • Comments
    This is where the conversation takes place on blogs. Comments are the responses other people (or even the author) leave on a post.
Page
This is an unchanging portion of your blog. It’s a webpage, essentially, and it’s different from your blog feed because you don’t type a post to change it. For example, here on the CWG blog, the Blog Schedule is a page. And here I’m talking about a page within a blog, which is different than a webpage. (Confused yet? Sorry!)

–Information that belongs in a post versus on a page:
Blog posts highlight information that’s not going to be around forever. Eventually, it will be in archives (though you could link to it later, repost it, etc.). Pages, on the other hand, would contain information you want people to find and that doesn’t need to change. On my website, for example, I have a page for my speaking topics, which changes every so often but is mostly static.

Sidebar
Many blog designs have areas on the side. Those areas are called sidebars.

–Related term:
  • Blogroll
    A listing of links to other blogs, often found in a sidebar or on its own page within a blog or website.
Link
This is an example of a link. See how it’s a different color and when you hover your mouse over it you can click? That’s a link. It’s text or an image that takes you to another webpage or file.

–Related terms:
  • Backlink
    This is when someone links back to your blog or a post on your site.
  • Permalink
    Some posts have long and unwieldy links, or you’ll notice that the URL has extra junk at the end, because you were referred by somewhere else. A permalink is the permanent link for a post, one that does not change and always leads to that post.
Feed
This is what makes it possible for your blog posts to be delivered to people via email or different reader programs (i.e. Google Reader). There are a variety of feed types, such as RSS, Atom, or RDF.
Those who read your blog from a feed reader (like me!) have a different experience of your blog than those who actually visit your website. For one thing, they don’t see anything other than your post–no background, no fancy sidebars, no pretty header. Just the post. It makes it easier to take in a lot of information from blogs in one place.
If you want to know how it is for your readers, I suggest signing up for a feed reader (I like Google Reader) and subscribing to a few blogs. More details at this article, Feed 101.
Related term:
  • RSS
    Stands for “rich site syndication” and is one type of magic that makes your blog content appear in my feed reader (I use Google Reader, but there are lots of others). RSS allows web content that’s regularly updated to be delivered to people via different methods (as opposed to them having to always check back with the actual website). If you want to learn more, here’s a great explanation of what RSS is (and it’s written in English, too).
Stats
Statistics, including how many people are viewing your site, what posts are most popular, and what color you should wear. There are a variety of different programs and add-ons for this, and we’ll cover stats in more depth in a future post in this series.

Related term:
  • SEO
    Search engine optimization, or “how you get people to find you,” although that makes it sound more important than it is. Wait, it IS important. But it can also be distracting. Just like stats.
Further Reading:
Have I left anything out? What term or concept has you scratching your head and wondering? Ask away in the comments!

When Sarah Reinhard isn’t blogging at SnoringScholar.com, she can usually be found on Twitter and Facebook. She’s in denial about the amount of reading time she doesn’t have right now and has authored a number of titles, including her latest, Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families.

Blogging for Beginners: Get Yourself a Blog

You’ve decided that you want or need a blog, and now you need to wade into the waters of setting it up. This week, let’s cover how to do that.
1. Blogging Platforms
I’m going to mention the two I’ve worked with at length.

I spent many years on Blogger, and in fact, this blog is hosted on Blogger. It’s easy to use and easy to get started with. If you decide to move to another platform, it’s relatively easy to migrate your posts, but you could start and stay with Blogger, I think. It’s also tied in with Google, so there’s search engine optimization that happens automatically (or so they say).

Highly recommended for beginners and those who are technically-challenged.

WordPress has really become popular in the last couple of years, and it’s because it is a very versatile platform for websites in general. There are a lot of free templates to let you choose and customize how exactly your blog looks and a great community of helps and tips.

Highly recommended as a website solution. It will probably take a little getting used to and need you to read or watch tutorials.
  • Other Platforms

I don’t have any experience with any other blogging platforms, but TypePad always seems to make the top three lists and seems to be easy to use and to make a nice finished look. If you have other recommendations for blogging platforms, please include them in the comments!

2. Hosting and Such
Do you want to have your own website (which costs money) or just use the free service? If you want a custom website address (also known as a domain name or URL), you’ll have to spend some money for hosting.
You can register your domain name and do an installation of the full version of WordPress with both of these providers. You may also opt to have custom email (i.e. [email protected]) hosted as well.
In both of these providers, you have the option to have a “site builder,” which is a guided set-up process and helps you learn the ropes.
3. What Next?
Well, now you write! Yes, there is a bit more to it than just that, but only as much as you want there to be. You can have fancy sidebars with blogrolls and even widgets of content.
For more on this topic, take a gander at these resources I found online:
Next week, we’ll look at some terminology and jargon, so if that last paragraph has you scratching your head, never fear!
The comments are open for questions, as always, so ask away!
Sarah Reinhard has been blogging at SnoringScholar.com for six years and is also active on Twitter and Facebook. She’s the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families.