Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Broke and Bookish where you list that week’s featured top ten list.
1. Show Your Personality- You are what makes your blog. It’s your personality that sets your blog apart from the multitude of other blogs.
2. Never Compromise Your Ethics- Sometimes there will be times when you feel compelled to compromise your ethics just a touch. To give a better review than you actually agree with, to allow advertising that you don’t like, to get into drama that will demoralize you. Remember who you are.
3. Learn HTML- HTML sounds scary right? It’s not. It’s very straightforward. You can just learn the basics and many blogs have info that will help you out. Parajunkee has Book Blogging 101, I have Blogger Helper, and I’m sure there are a ton more.
4. Don’t get bogged down in “Must Read”- This I feel is the No. 1 reason for the high blogger turn over. You get started blogging in a very small subset of a genre and then every single offer you receive is for this genre and then you have all of these review books and it just seems like every single book is the exact same.
5. Get on twitter- If you are not talking on twitter you are missing out! Be social on twitter and you will make a ton of friends! Some people to start chatting up: @isabooksoulmate from Book Soulmates, @jenni_elyse from Jenni Elyse, @ForLoveAndBooks from For Love and Books, @Darth_Chic from Em Reviews Books, @emsreadingroom from Emily’s Reading Room, and so many more including me @missiontoread.
6. Take Breaks- I have started only blogging 5 days a week. Weekends were impossible to keep up with and there really was no reason to do it. If you need a longer break take it. When I began blogging I was blogging every single day regardless if life was going to shit. Now I am just fine taking a week off. Your readers aren’t going to leave you when you take a few days off.
7.Freaking FOR LOVE OF ALL GOOD IN THE WORLD get rid of Captcha- Get rid of captcha. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason for it and you will miss comments by having it. Getting rid of captcha tutorial and remember if you want to use blogger comments captcha is default remove them in settings.
8. Pick and chose your content- Yes, memes bring in traffic. Yes, they can be easier than thinking up a topic on your own. And YES, they can mean that you have incredibly good content. Just chose wisely and don’t overfill your blogs with them.
9. Design IS important- When I began blogging I knew nothing about design. Nothing. And I couldn’t justify the cost of a design so I learned about design. Design keeps people on your page. If I can’t read it because you’ve selected a horrible font, have neon colors everywhere, or have white font on a black background I’m outta there.
10. This is supposed to be fun! If it’s not change something about what you are doing!
Categories: Top Ten
Great tips! I second the one about getting rid of Captcha--I often start to comment then get all frustrated with Captcha and delete what I had written. I removed it, and I've never gotten any spam on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI really wish I'd had getting rid of captcha on my list - it drives me mad, and I think it drives away potential commentors! I've never had any spam on my blog, even since getting rid of it!
ReplyDeleteGreat list!
Tara @ Hey, Tara
Excellent advice! Especially about Captcha because that just makes me crazy!
ReplyDeleteJenny @ Into The Morning Reads
#7....THANK YOU. No joke, half the time I'm too lazy to do captcha because it takes 3 tries and I don't feel like figuring out whether it says lazy cabana or crazy banana. So, they miss out on whatever awesome thing I had to say. I hate captcha with the fire of a thousand suns!!
ReplyDeleteThe second point is so important! I know that I once gave a more positive review than I would have had I not known the author personally, and it still haunts me. (I had to think of the Vampire Diaries scene: Dear Diary, today a chipmunk asked me what my name was. I told him it was Joe. This lie will haunt me forever." XD)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I really love your list and hope some newbies will find it!
Patricia // My Post
YES to number 7 and then some!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd just to keep my sanity, I always take weekends off from blogging and email. It help tremendously!
Thanks for mentioning me in your list! :) I had quite a few of the same ideas as you, especially the CAPTCHA one. I wish we could just have Blogger and Wordpress disable that feature for good!!!
ReplyDeleteI wish Blogger would at least make it an option at start-up so that people know it's there.
ReplyDeleteAh! That is a good idea to take the weekend off from email as well. I'm always on top of email. The only time I relax from it is during class. I'm a compulsive checker. Maybe I should try and take a day off from it as well!
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by!
Yeah, tour books were once my thing that I had such a hard time giving a negative review to. Now, I know I have to give books the review they deserve by me. It does no good to play up the positives and leave out the negatives.
ReplyDeleteEarlier today I was trying to comment up a storm, but kept running into Captcha! UGH!!! Seriously!
ReplyDeleteI've had spam issues, but it takes like a minute to reject the comment. Why should my readers be the ones that have to maintain a spamless blog? It's my job as blogger to do it.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting these incredibly helpful tips. I especially like the links to the HTML 101s. New follower via GFC :)
ReplyDeleteThanks to pretty much everyone's TTT this week, I have gotten a Twitter account. Seems like good advice to follow, lol. =) and I agree about Captcha and design. Very easy to fix things that could easily keep people away from your blog. Good Advice!
ReplyDeleteJennifer @ A Librarian's Library
Ohh, great advices :D I'm sort of a new blogger; but I do think I managed to do just fine on my own :) I think. I do like my blog :) Loving your advices, though :D And Captcha needs to go. I'm most likely not coming back to a blog who has it.. because they are killing me :p and making it suck to comment. Hoping it will go away :D
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting on my review. <3
Love, Carina @ Carina's Books