Let’s Talk Traffic

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It never fails. I start talking blogging, and people want to talk traffic.

We’ve talked about this before, back when I shared some tips for gaining readers and more recently when we talked about judging blogging effectiveness.
Today, let’s talk traffic. That’s where the reality check is at, after all, right? That’s what’s important, right?

I have a tendency to be obsessive about things, and what better place to obsess than with the numbers? And how better to judge my effectiveness in this online world than by my numbers? Right? I have to remind myself, again and again, that no, this is not the case, at least not with the blogging I do.
I blog for me, because I felt like I had to. I can’t spend a lot of time with my stats, or I lose all focus for the real reason behind my blogging.
Why do you want traffic?
Are you trying to make money? Or do you want to establish a community around your blog? Or is it a pride thing, where you just want people to fawn over you and love you?
What are your reasons for wanting traffic? Spend some time with that. Dare I suggest you pray about your blogging efforts? Yes, and I even dare to suggest that maybe you shouldn’t blog.
How can you generate more traffic?
I’m turning to the experts (I am not one!) for help with this.
In a list I found recently at Problogger of 65 different ideas, I found myself thinking of some ways I could improve my traffic. Write a “5 ways to…” post is actually easier sometimes than anything else, and I needed the reminder.
My concern is often keeping traffic at my site once I have it, and there are tips here for not only getting the traffic, but keeping it once you have it.
If you’re looking for a step-by-step approach, try these five steps.
Offset all of that handy list with this post, which shares some blogging lessons we could all take to heart. But wait, I think that’s digression. We were talking traffic, right?
Consider engaging your readers and using some of these tips for doing that. Getting your readers engaged will likely get them talking about your blog, which will increase your traffic.
If traffic = popularity, then maybe you should consider how you can become more popular. There are a few tips (and action points) here, and I especially like how it encourages you to think about who your reader is. (Not so different from what you’d do in a book proposal, come to think of it…)
So what are you going to do first?
My plate is pretty full with other things right now, but I think I’m going to seriously consider putting some of this into action for my own personal blogging.
There’s always room for improvement, and whatever your blogging goals, traffic may be a way to measure your success. (I don’t think it’s the only way, mind you, but it is one way.)
What are you going to try? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

image source: Marketing Hackz

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Sarah Reinhard blogs at SnoringScholar.com and is hopelessly active onTwitter and Facebook. She’s the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families.

How Facebook Has Changed My Blogging

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I have a love-hate-hate relationship with Facebook.

I much prefer Twitter, which is more like a crowded lunchroom, where you can pop in and out (or not) as you please. You can stick around and converse (or not) or browse around (or not).
I love Google-Plus, which is like a restaurant (at least the way I’ve been able to use it), where you can come all the way in and sit down or you can pop in and grab a drink at the bar.
Facebook is more like a living room, sometimes crowded and sometimes empty. It requires ongoing maintenance and the interaction can be unending.
(The “unending interaction” thing is true of all three, admittedly. I just find it harder to manage on Facebook.)
In the five years that I’ve been blogging, things have changed in the blogosphere, in part because of how I now use social media, particularly Facebook.
For one thing, I definitely get less comments on my blog. The comments come over at Facebook much more frequently (I have my posts published through RSS on both my personal wall and on my page).
For another thing, I tend not to blog the short snippet posts that I used to post to capture “kid moments” and those sorts of things. They are the things that I now use as status updates or tweets.
However much I may struggle with Facebook, there’s no denying that it’s changed my blogging.
How about you? How has Facebook impacted your blogging?

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Sarah Reinhard blogs at SnoringScholar.com and is hopelessly active on Twitter and Facebook. She’s the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families.

Being a Better Blogger: Judging Your Effectiveness

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One step to being a better blogger is knowing the standards by which you judge yourself.

Oh, there are plenty of other people’s standards that you could go by. You could look at your traffic. You could measure number of comments and hot topics.
But all of that leaves a bad taste in my mouth and here’s why: I blog because a like it.
I’m a writer, and blogging lets me write. It’s a short and easy way to be published. It’s a way to interact with others, which is what I long for, many times.
Judging the effectiveness of your blog depends, first and foremost, on what standards you’re using. So let’s come up with some, shall we?
If you’re a writer, the writing should be good. Period.
If you need editorial help (some of us are better at self-editing than others), consider joining a group blog or a webpage where there’s an editor involved. Alternatively, you might ask someone to serve as your editor and to read/edit your stuff before you put it out there live on the internet.
Be passionate. Be interested. Be interesting.
Do people enjoy reading what you write? To some extent, this is an opinion, but there’s also a consideration here that’s worth your time.
If you are serious about writing–and since this is the Catholic Writers Guild, I gotta think you are–then it’s worth investing the time to be relevant and interesting to your audience.
Know who’s reading.
This isn’t meant to be tricky, but you should have an idea who’s reading your writing online. If you’re not sure, then compile a sample person.
Just as I do with a book proposal, I try to think of a specific person–or a couple of specific people–who I know are reading my blog. I even sometimes go so far as to name them: Sally, for example, is a sleep-deprived mom who has a baby on her hip and appreciates that I take the time to read books for her, so she doesn’t have to waste her time on them (not that I ever post a bad review, mind you), while George reads because he found my last article in the diocesan paper amusing and we both live in Ohio.
Don’t get me wrong: I write my blog for me, not for anyone else (and I know this about myself). It’s my outlet. But I still have an idea who reads. (It helps with those aforementioned book proposals, too.)
Now, I’m outta time for writing this post.

Your turn: how do you judge your effectiveness? What questions have I raised with this post?
image source: Sid’s Side
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Sarah Reinhard is the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families. You’ll find more of Sarah at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Being a Better Blogger: One Thing at a Time

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Last week, we talked about being a better blogger through focus. This week, let’s talk about something that I’m struggling with even as I type: doing one thing at a time.

It’s no surprise that as I was looking for an image to go with this post, the word “multitasking” seemed synonymous with “stress.”

There’s a reason for that, and if I sit down for more than two minutes at a time, it’s clear why: I can’t get anything done when I’m multitasking!

Yeah, yeah, I know. Juggling is part of my vocation and part of who we are as a people. What I’m talking about here is a certain kind of multitasking, the kind that forgets my core purpose and reason.

I posit, though, that in our blogging, we need to concentrate on one thing at a time. You can drive yourself batty trying to build a perfect and complete blog all in one hour, one day, or one week.

Here are some of the “one things” I’ve considered over time on my blog:
– quality of writing
– guest posts
– linking to others
– design
– ease of use
– interacting with readers

Is it more important to do them all, or to do them well? It is a quality vs. quantity question, and both answers are correct.

For your sanity, I suggest you focus on one thing at a time. You’ll get to a point in your blogging, down the road, where you’ll be doing everything at the same time and you’ll be doing them well.

What’s your first goal? Great. Do that. Do it well.

When you’ve done it, ask yourself what’s next. Do that, and do it well.

Repeat. You may find that you are going back to revisit earlier goals…and that would make you normal.

Pretty soon, the package comes together. It may take hours, or days, or weeks, or months, or, for some of us, years. With time, it gets easier to juggle more than one task in the blogosphere. At the beginning, do one thing at a time.

As you get more comfortable with blogging, you’ll find yourself revisiting things. Just like the laundry, some of these things are never really done. For example, your design might need some attention, and you work on that this week. Then you move on to focus on some categories and then on to another goal. In a few months, you find yourself revisiting your design.

So what’s the one thing you’re going to focus on this week?
image source: Kylie Makes 3

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Sarah Reinhard is the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families. You’ll find more of Sarah at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Being a Better Blogger: Focus

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A couple of weeks ago, I asked if you were making yourself a better blogger. In the comments, there was a resounding call for “tell us how to be better bloggers!”

So here I am. I’m not sure I’m the right person to do it, but I’ll tell you what I think. Just because I’ve lasted as a Catholic blogger for over five years and 2,400 posts doesn’t mean I know what the heck I’m doing any more than you do.

But that does make a point: you have to stick with it. For longer than a week or a month or even a year.

Let’s talk about focus.

I don’t mean picking a category or description for your blog (i.e., Mommy blog, Catholic apologist, life on a farm). I don’t mean setting aside certain days for themed posts (i.e., Mary on Monday, Wordless Wednesday, 7 Quick Takes Friday).

Those things might help you, and if they do, GREAT! DO THEM!

By focus, I mean setting your sights on the long view.

Ten years ago, when I was a newly-minted Catholic, a DRE convinced me to serve as a catechist. Then she shared this quote at the catechist meeting. I think it holds just as true for me as a blogger as it did for me as a catechist.

It helps, now and then, to take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are all about.

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter

and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Archbishop Oscar Romero


FOCUS.

It’s easy to get burned out in this new media world, especially as it gets crowded with more good stuff. It’s easy to feel discouraged by the fact that you’re putting a piece of yourself out there for people to see and they don’t comment.

Does it help you to think about who your audience is? Or does that distract you from doing what you opened that blogging window for in the first place? (That’s writing a blog post, and then writing another one, and another, and on and on.)

Do you find yourself inspired by someone else? What do they do well? How might you put their underlying practices to use?

What’s your passion? What interests you? What do you know about, or wonder about, or think about?

Want to hear what others have to say about it? I found these articles interesting, and if you’re struggling with blogging and focus, give them a read:

YOUR TURN: Let’s talk about focus.
How do you use focus?
How can you use it to help yourself grow as a blogger?
What further questions does this inspire?

I find that focus is a version of Dory from Finding Nemo, singing “Keep on posting, keep on posting…”

RELATED:

image credit: The Fordyce Letter

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Sarah Reinhard is the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families. You’ll find more of Sarah at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Are you making yourself a better blogger?

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I blame this weekly column for the folder in my Google Reader entitled “Blogging.” Before this column, I operated mostly by observation, relying on some of my favorite podcasts and blogs to keep me filled in on the geeky stuff I should know.

Now, however, I have hundreds of blogging columns to read.

That’s one way I try to make myself a better blogger. I haven’t been able to read very many of any blogs lately (much to my chagrin–I miss them!), but when I do, I try to skim through some from my blogging folder.

Among the feeds I follow are Copyblogger, Daily Blog Tips, ProBlogger, and Two Hour Blogger. I don’t read every single thing they write (though I’d like to), but I zip through and read the titles that catch my eye (or I read nothing, if I’m in the kind of whirlwind I’ve been in lately).

I’d love to hear what you have to say about this. What do you do to make yourself a better blogger?

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Sarah Reinhard is the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families. You’ll find more of Sarah at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Lack of Sleep = Lack of Blogging

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There’s nothing like a night of no sleep to put life firmly “in the way” of my blogging and writing, let me tell ya!

My answer to that this week was to put up a “out of office” post and just forgive myself…and try to appreciate the lack of screaming, thanks to the miracle of modern medicine now that the ear infection has been identified as such.

In other, more useful, news, I’ve had some success, in the last two weeks, with a daily email with a writing accountability partner. We thought about posting that dialogue here, but decided it might be too much.

So that’s my useful tip this week: find a writing accountability partner…and if it’s someone who writes and shares some similarities with you in your station in life, all the better. If you’re looking for someone, you might check out the forums at the Catholic Writers Guild website.



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Sarah Reinhard is the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families. You’ll find more of Sarah at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Readability Tool Success and Mobile Posting Fail

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First, something helpful…

This came to mind when, during a class last week at the conference, someone mentioned reading level and being appropriate for your audience (specifically children in a certain age range).

Did you know you can paste your text into an online tool that will test your document’s readability? Check it out here, with many thanks to an editor of mine who shared it with me about a year ago. The same editor also shared this website with me, and it explains fluency and reading levels in more detail.

You might wonder what that has to do with blogging, and I’ll tell you: in my world, everything has to do with blogging. 🙂 The truth, though, is that we can easily write over our audience’s heads without much thought, especially when we’re talking faith and theology and stuff that’s technical.

There’s also the fact that I have found myself writing for children (my current title is one example), though I never intended to be a children’s writer. (God has a sense of humor, after all.)

Second, a frustration that could have been cool…

There’s an option for mobile posting on Blogger (which is what we use right now for the CWG blog). I enabled it, entered my mobile number, and took the 20 minutes to type out a post on my phone’s teeny-tiny screen last Friday afternoon.

Turns out, it doesn’t quite work, at least not with my (non smart) phone. Oh well…it would have been SO COOL to be able to share things on-the-go via texting. It’s not to be (and it’s probably just as well…for you!).

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Sarah Reinhard is the author of Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families. You’ll find more of Sarah at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Babyspotting

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I have a whole collection of pictures of the baby with a whole collection of cool Catholics who were at the Catholic Writers Conference Live and Catholic Marketing Network trade show last week.

But…

But my Official Photographer has misplaced her iPod Touch, which has all the great pictures on it. She’s 13 and was such a help to me during my trip that I can’t hold it against her. In fact, I’m petitioning St. Anthony about it.

In lieu of that, I’m going to point you to the post I put up over at my place, which features some Guildies you’ll recognize (and who my little guy simply loved). When I get access to the pictures on my niece’s iPod, I’ll interrupt things here and share them. 🙂

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You’ll find more of Sarah Reinhard at her blog, SnoringScholar.com. You can also connect with Sarah on Twitter and Facebook.

A Resource for New Media Users

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Last week at the CWCL, I received quite a few questions regarding new media. They seemed to stem around these themes:

  • What is it?
  • Why should I use it?
  • How does it work?

I watched people take notes on what “backlinking” meant and how to “schedule a post.”

We’re a group of writers here, but I do think there is a place for discussion about new media. The number of people who approach me about it, asking for help and guidance, is growing. There is a discernment process for deciding whether any of this is right for you, but the trend leads, more and more, to writers being online and having a presence.

Today at my blog, I have a review of The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet, by Brandon Vogt. It’s an excellent resource for anyone and it examines the use of new media in light of our faith. Check out the website as well for more about the book and some nifty features.

I mention it here as something that could serve you in your writing and in your interactions with new media.

I’ll be tackling some of the questions I’ve received in upcoming columns. If you have anything related to blogging or new media that you’re wondering about, feel free to leave them in the comments here.

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Be sure to check SnoringScholar.com for more of Sarah Reinhard’s antics, tales of rural adventure, and writing updates. Her newest release is Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent & Christmas Reflections for Families. You can also connect with Sarah on Twitter and Facebook.

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