I was just going back through some of the posts here at For Bloggers By Bloggers and realized that there is a TON of value here for the blogging community.
If you are a new blogger or well established, there is valuable content for your particular situation.
For example:
If you need specific blogging tips, Social Media help, or ideas for a great blog design, FBBB is “Helping You Make Your Blog The Best It Can Be” (our tagline).
Why has this blog enjoyed a nice measure of success over the course of it’s short life? I believe it is because the Bloggers start each post with two questions in mind:
- How can I add value to this community?
- What practical strategies can I give the readers that will help them add value to their blog. Check out Danny’s series 5 Days To Turn Your Blog Into a Social Media Hub or Bob’s tips for using WordPress as shining examples of these practical strategies.
With these things in mind, let me offer you:
3 Strategies You Can Use to Add Value To Your Blog Starting Today
(Note: each of these strategies are employed here at For Bloggers)
1. Make Subscribing Easy!
If you are adding value on a consistent basis over at your blog – your readers want easy access to that value. They want to be able to pull your content into their stream of information and they want to do that with ease.
Ask yourself: How many ways can my readers get access to my blog updates and where are those access points located in my blog design?
Your answers to these questions should be:
- My readers have several ways to connect with me and my content
- My “access points” are easily recognizable and above the fold (they should not have to scroll down to see them) on your blog.
Take a look just to your right here on this page. You will see that Danny has placed a FeedBurner email subscription box at the top of the sidebar and made it stand out visually.
Just underneath that box is the “Subscribe By Feed or Network” options which include the ability to follow For Bloggers on Twitter, by email (again) or by RSS feed.
2. Make Searching Easy!
I admit that this is a pet peeve of mine. If I come to your blog and you do not have a way for me to search it, I’m steamed from the start. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only blog reader that feels this way.
Again, if you are providing valuable content on your blog, your readers want to be able to dig around a bit and see what they can discover. It is a proven fact, the longer a person stays and digs around, the more likely they are to return time after time.
It is a simple addition to your blog that adds good value.
WordPress comes loaded with a search widget that you can easily place in your sidebar.
Many themes like Headway and others allow you to place a search box in several different positions. Take a peek up at the navigation bar here and you will find our search box.
3. Make Finding Related Posts Easy!
To carry on the idea from point #2, you should have on your blog a Related Posts plugin so that you can direct your audience to other blog posts. This plugin will use some super secret algorithm that I don’t understand (and don’t need to) to place related posts as links or images under your present post.
The idea is to add more value by opening up more content to your community.
My plugin suggestions:
nRelate Related Content (displays images)
Look below this post to see how this strategy works.
Your Turn:
This is the fun part! Are you using and of these and how is that going for you? What other strategies or tools would you suggest that will add value to a blog?
Let’s chat below!
image: thesoupboy
About Frank Dickinson
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