1. Consolidate Your Categories to 3-5 larger ones: None of your readers are going to take the time to go through fifty different category tags. Eliminating tags will also help focus your writing and make your posts sharper.
2. Optimize Your Blog Title for Search Engines: Is your blog title abstract? Or is it only your name? Both lack the information to help those searching for content online find you. The title of my personal blog was “The Necessary Things” (too abstract). I recently added a subtitle to help with search engine optimization: “The Necessary Things–Future Oriented Leadership Thoughts within Campus Crusade.” Much more descriptive and immediately lets people know what the blog is about.
3. Optimize Your Permalinks for Search Engines: Read this article on using permalinks. If you’re still using “ugly” ones please change to “pretty.” They don’t just look better, they also make your blog posts more findable.
4. Mix Media into your blog design and posts: Are there any pictures of videos on your blog layout? Are there hundreds of pictures or videos on your blog layout? Each person that gets into blogging leads more towards one of these three media elements: text, photos, video. A big part of the refining process of blogging is balancing each of these three media elements to increase engagement among your readers.
5. Post more often by reading more posts: Are you using an RSS reader? Are you reading any other blogs besides yours? Reading other people’s blogs has probably helped me with my own blogging more than anything else. If you have yet to dive into RSS I suggest starting with Google Reader. It’s easy to use and if you have an iPhone or a Droid there are apps that sync with it.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Jayson, I just read from Michael Hyatt that he added this comment counter next to his post title and it dramatically increased his traffic. I am also using WordPress. com. Can you try this and explain to us less techie types what to do to get this on our site? I don’t know if it works only with WordPress.org
Thanks!
Forgot the link, sorry…
http://www.studionashvegas.com/wordpress/displaying-comment-number-next-to-posts/