Darren Rouse’s ProBlogger self-guided Blog Tutorial
Do you know what a Sneeze Post is?
Would you know how to develop an editorial calendar for your blog?
Do you have a plan to boost your blog’s profile and readership?
Luckily, when I first started to develop this blog, I had the foresight to think that I needed a definite goal. But that’s about all the pre-planing I did before starting to work on the graphics and layout of my blog, contemporaryquiltart.
We have a family friend named Peter Brockmann. Peter is the person responsible for helping me rapidly get my Quilts4U website onto leading pages of Internet searches for my various quilting products. Peter said I HAD to start a blog to bring traffic to my Quilts4U website.
Darren Rouse
Not long after I got started developing the blog, I came across Darren Rouse’s ProBlogger 31 Days to a Better Blog. Right away I knew I had discovered a rich and reputable source of information to develop my blog.
A great feature of Darren’s programme is the follow-up forum for each exercise. Registered users can post and/or read the responses to the daily questions Darren presents to help analyze and share experiences. I made a number of good connections with bloggers in similar niches to mine. They were just as glad to be approached by me since we understood the common goals and methods of this programme.
Here are some of the 31 topics covered:
- Create a short tag line and a longer “elevator pitch”
- Write and promote a list post
- Analyze a top blog in your niche
- How to build community
- 27 must read tips and tutorials from other blogger sites
- Join a forum, start participating and promote your blog
- How to set up alerts to monitor what is happening in your niche
- Develop an editorial calendar for your blog
- 7 ways to identify reader problems
- Pay special attention to a reader
- Tips on how to ask a question and why questions are important
- Improve some one else’s blog
- Analyze the stats on your blog
- 17 statistics to monitor on your blog
It would be complacent to say that one could ever finish the 31 day programme. Knowledge leads to improvements, improvements build experience, experience inspires professionalism and the doors never cease opening. At the beginning stages, I couldn’t know or even predict which way I would go in the maze, or where my interests would be taking me.
Day 1 is all about goals. This is the goal for my blog - Improving the web presence of quilt and fiber artists through mutual links, quality websites and a serious and professional level approach to marketing our art via Internet blogs and Websites. Having this specific goal forces me to consider what it is I want to post on my own blog. I can direct interesting but not so relevant topics to other sites where I guest post. (more on blog goals)
I want to keep as current and comfortable as possible with technology. I am impressed by what so many people are doing on their blogs and websites, and not just the art related blogs and websites. I am inspired by the generosity of thousands of strangers who offer quality advice and suggestions on just about any topic. What an explosion of talents! What a global village we belong to!
ProBlogger is free. It’s value is priceless. This Internet skills post is part of this blog’s goal for Quilt artists.
