How you could make your blog popular
Another attempt to please the TEFL dominatrix and be worthy of her blogger Summer Fayre:
Here are some general tips on getting people onto your blog that you could try:
- Think carefully about what people will want to read and write about that
- Try to write provocative posts (even if you don’t really believe what you are writing) to get loads of comments
- Try to write worksheets with topics that aren’t available on the internet (“Present Perfect Continuous Passive” etc) so that people searching for that will end up at your blog
- Jump on each TEFL bandwagon before any other bloggers get there
- Think about your tags very carefully so that you are ranked high on Google searches. If you spent half an hour writing your post, you should probably spend half an hour thinking about the tags you use
- Use your Facebook page, emails etc to get your friends and family to click on your blog and so drive your traffic up
- Aggressively network at TEFL conferences etc and mention your blog as much as you can
- Use some non TEFL tags about things people generally are searching for (celebrity erotic home videos, new Apple products etc) in the hope that Google drives some (mistaken) traffic to your site
- Link to every vaguely relevant blog (even if it isn’t one you particularly read or recommend), in the hope that they link to you
- Click on your links so that the blogs you link to think that loads of traffic is coming from your site and so will think that you are important and link back to and mention you
- When you put your link on education blog lists use general terms like “English teacher” so that as many secondary schools etc think your blog is relevant and so click on the link
- Pay link listing sites to put a link to your blog
- Leave comments on every blog and forum, even if you can’t think of anything relevant to say
- Leave comments on other popular sites like football sites to get clicks on your name and so make your blog stats seem high
- Make sure that you are in every TEFL mag going and that your blog is always mentioned in your biog
- Ditto with giving talks at TEFL conferences
- Only read and comment on the blogs etc that have driven the most traffic to your site
- Make sure you post at least once a day
- If you can’t think of anything interesting to write about, at least think of an interesting title and first line to get people who have subscribed to your RSS feed to click on it
- Start a blog on each available platform to link to yourself and drive people to your site
- Add links to as many words on your post as you can. If 75% of the post is blue and underlined, you are getting there
- Only start a TEFL blog if you are prepared to put many hours a day for years into it
Yes, some people really do recommend/ try to do those things (and I have been guilty of a few!) but getting loads of people who come once and never come back while filling what could be useful thinking and writing time with link mania is neither going to help you with Google nor build a readership in the long term. Instead of that, you could try these:
- Write about things you feel passionate about and so find easy to write about
- Write while you are still passionate about it, and get it up fairly quickly before your interests move on or your doubts overwhelm your passion
- Write things that you would want to read
- Only link to, read and comment on forums, Yahoo groups, blogs etc that you find interesting (i.e. don’t force yourself to do anything, just let it flow)
- Delete links as well as add them, so that people know your links are worth following
- If your ideas develop until you think you can and would like to write an article for a TEFL magazine or give a conference talk, give it a go. If they’ve asked you for a biog, may as well mention your blog in it to fill up the space.
- Whenever you have nothing to write about, don’t. Ditto for having better things to do than read other TEFL blogs, forums etc. Despite the rumours, Google ranking is affected by few of the silly suggestions above, including when you last posted. Therefore, everything you have written so far will be there and accessible just like when you wrote it, and therefore it will remain worthwhile even if you never write again.
- If you think you only have one thing to say and will then probably stop, write it anyway (see point above)
- Use your blog as an excuse to do things that you wanted to do anyway, rather than something stopping you doing those things due to lack of time or making you do things you wouldn’t otherwise like spending all day on discussion boards. If you were thinking of doing an MA or saw an interesting TEFL book that you hadn’t got around to reading, you can write about those things on your blog and so kill two blogs with one stone.
- Dare say there is something you young whipper snappers could do with your Twitters and whathaveyer, though don’t ask me what
Following those tips (preferably better than I have), you should attract a readership of likeminded TEFLers who will keep coming back, read a few posts every time they come, and comment whenever they feel like it. People will also get to know that it is worth a look every time your blog comes up on a Google search. Having said that, it can take a while to get to that point and it can be quite demotivating that your earliest posts (probably the ones you spend most time writing or have been thinking about for longest before you write them) get very few readers because nobody knows they are there or haven’t got into the habit of adding you to their regular reads. Here are therefore a couple of things you can do that aren’t as desperate or counterproductive as the ones at the top but can help likeminded people actually get to know that you exist, mixed up with a few things that help you with Google and at the same time help make your site more useful:
- List yourself on Onestopblogs
- Make sure you can find blogs and posts that you want to comment on and post on by looking at Onestopblogs once a day or so
- Start Google Alerts on stuff you are interested in reading about and so might want to write about. This will also lead you to the kinds of blogs and sites you will enjoy, and so good links for your readers and people who might find your blog interesting
- Cross reference stuff, e.g. “If you liked this, you might also like…” (as long as that is true!) or worksheets connected to blog posts
And here’s how we TEFLnetters (TEFLnutters?) can help:
- Ask me to list or mention your blog- if (but only if) I like it, I most certainly will
- Start your blog on EnglishClub blogs
- Write guest pieces for TEFLtastic
- Leave comments on the TEFL.net forums (you can put a link to your blog in the signature, unlike Bad Dave’s ESL Au Lait)
- Write book reviews for us and mention your blog in your minibiog
Reading this again, those last few lines look exactly like the kind of shameless salesmanship that I was trying to take the Mickey out of at the beginning of this post. Maybe it’s a “There’s a reason why Ricky Gervais plays nobs so well” kind of a thing?? Hmm, wonder if I can think of a tag or two to get fans of The Office on here now that I’ve mentioned it. Just one more quick look at my blog stats and I’ll get right down to it…
My other blog posts on blogging:
-TEFLtastic policy document and manifesto
- What is the point of TEFLtastic blog
July 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Thanks for the tips and hints. They’re really insightful.
Regards,
Marisa