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32 Resources To Make Your Blog Warm and Welcoming - Day 2 of 7 Days To Making Your Blog Blossom

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7 Days to Making Your Blog BlossomGood afternoon,

Hope your day has been most swimming indeed!  My day has progressed rather nicely - had my early morning coffee and my morning coffee and my breakfast coffee and my lunch coffee and my…. in other words, I’ve completely recovered from my exertions of a few days ago!

And that means…it’s time for Day 2 of Making Your Blog Blossom!

Remember in our first lesson, I gave you the following ideas regarding your blog and asked you to focus on ONE of them:

  • Getting more subscribers to your RSS feed?
  • Getting more commenters?
  • Having more blogs refer to your articles?
  • Bringing in more money?
  • Being viewed as a Subject Matter Expert?
  • Building your own personal community?

Hopefully you’ve done that!  And with that bold decisive decision, it’s time to ensure your whole persona of your blog is suffused with that ideal.  

Thus, let me now ask you to imagine the following.

It was a dark and stormy night…

Oops! Sorry, wrong imagery.  :)  Let’s start that again:

A visitor comes to your blog….

 Does the welcome she or he receives accomplish the goals you desire?

No?  Well then, let’s first that this instant via:

Before you begin - Write a post that describes how new visitors can get the best benefits to your site.

I cover this in my Day 4 to a More Profitable Blog - Craft Your Why Subscribe? page.    Step 2 of that lesson takes the concept further by showing you how to write your Best Benefits page.

Now, about what should you write?  Well, you know your site best… so keeping that in mind, consider the following goals.

Getting more subscribers to your RSS feed:

Highlight how by subscribing to your feed, your visitors will have every niche article easily available to them without any action on their part.  Include direct links to that allow visitors to sign up both for RSS feeds and also eMail feeds.

Want some useful RSS icons?  Check out:

Getting more commenters:

Welcome your reader and segue towards the benefits commenters get (do-follow links, gravatars, etc.)  Perhaps offer a quality report about niche topics that you automatically send to every person who comments.  Consider adding comment "chatterbox" posts, ie, posts that welcome discussion and give definitive benefits to all who participate.

Useful comment thingees include:

Having more blogs refer to your articles:

Welcome your reader and highlight your background that showcases your knowledge and subject-matter-expertise.  Proactively inform your reader that you hope the information found is useful, and to feel free to refer to your blog posts in their writings as well.  Include links to other blogs that have referred to your article, thus supporting your notion that your blog is a valuable resource within the niche. 

Resources that encourages others to link to your articles include:

Bringing in more money:

Welcome your reader and write copy that leads them to download your free ebook, points them to your pre-written tutorials or reviews that have your affiliate links or eBay links or Amazon.com links embedded, or otherwise sends them to pages that are a bridge between you and making money. 

Useful plugins/resources for such things include:

Being viewed as a Subject Matter Expert:

Welcome your reader and highlight your background, awards won, forums at which you’re an active participant, etc.  This is one of the easiest things to do if you have a proveable track record that can be verified on Google.

Resources to assist you with this include:

Building your own personal community:

Welcome your reader and point the way to your personal community forum, the fact you welcome commentors and have in place all sorts of goodies to make their experience enjoyable and memorable, and then encourage them to check it out and invite their friends along as well.

Resources to help you build a blog community include:

One you’ve written your Best Benefits post and tweaked it to your best abilities,

Step 1 - Download the What Would Seth Godin Do? Plugin

I wrote extensively about this over at 21 Days to a more profitable blog - Day 3! Customize your blog’s welcome message for new visitors.  Please visit, read, and then download the plugin.

Next,

Step 2 - Customize the WWSGD plugin to point to your Best Benefits page

Check out Step 1 of 21 Days to a more profitable blog - Day 4! Craft your Why Subscribe? Page and Network. You’ll see an actual example of how you can configure your plugin to direct new visitors to your Best Benefits page.

And then joyfully pounce upon:

Step 3 - Announce your new welcome page on Twitter.

After all, that’s one reason why we participate in social networks, isn’t it?  You can alert your network to your blog enhancement and ask for evalutation and constructive feedback. 

Wasn’t that simple?  Now whenever anyone new comes to your blog, they’ll immediately be directed to a Welcoming message that helps YOU, the blogger, achieve your own personal blogging goals…which impressing your readers as to the quality of your content.

Nice, eh?

And that brings me to:

In closing

In this lesson, you learned how to set up a targeted Welcome page and direct newcomers to it. 

And of course (you really didn’t think I’d close a post without this now, did you?)  an opportunity now arises! 

(remember, there’s no such things as problems in real life - just misunderstood opportunities)…..

HOMEWORK -  Let’s say that your visitors want to tell their friends about what you have to offer - have you made that easy to do?

How can you accomplish this?  Hmmmm?  :)

Thus, until tomorrow!  (and don’t forget, if you think any of your friends would benefit from these tutorials, please do share them!  They’ll thank you for it…guaranteed).

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:

Beginners blogging tips: Install the What Would Seth Godin Plugin.

Intermediate and/or Advanced blogging tips:  Encourage visitors to tell their friends about your resources as well.

#END highlights of this blog writing post

Like this post? Please feel free to tell your friends and Digg It - I very much appreciate your time!

ps - want some useful ideas about welcome mats?  Check out:


HOUSTON COUGARS - Welcome Door Mat Rug-NEW


WINCRAFT=JEFF GORDON WELCOME MAT=NEW SEALED 20 X 30


WINCRAFT=JEFF GORDON WELCOME MAT=NEW SEALED 20 X 30


DOOR MAT WELCOME DOORMAT RAIN DEER HOLIDAYS THROW RUG


Welcome Iron Graphite Rubber Home Entry Door MAT 18×30


Pebble Welcome Mat


Lowell Davis~ A Gift For You~Dog on Welcome Mat~Look~

Popularity: 12% [?]

Related posts:

  1. 22 Resources To Make Visitor Blog Promotion Easy - Day 3 of 7 Days To Making Your Blog Blossom
  2. No Hype, Just What Works - Barbara Blueprint: 7 Days To Make Your Blog Blossom
  3. Free Make Money ebook downloads
  4. 16 Resources To Give Readers Their Own Edge - Day 6 of 7 Days to Making Your Blog Blossom
  5. 21 Days to a more profitable blog - Day 4! Craft your Why Subscribe? Page and Network

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Posted on : Jun 05 2008
Posted under 7 Days Blossoming Blog, Insights, Marketing, Tutorials |

7 Comments

  1. Rockstar SidNo Gravatar (1 comments.) on 05.06.2008 at 15:11 (Reply)

    Awesome work..Great resources for any blogger.

    Thanks for linking to my blog.. :-)
    Rockstar Sid’s last blog post..Recommended Bookmarking plugin for wordpress blog

  2. BarbaraNo Gravatar on 05.06.2008 at 15:37 (Reply)

    @Rockstar Sid

    Thank you for your kind words and your great resources!

    Barbara

  3. Jeff JohnsonNo Gravatar on 06.06.2008 at 12:06 (Reply)

    That’s a lot of resources.  It will take me time to go through them.  I’ve been looking for good free icons for RSS, thank you for sharing.

  4. BarbaraNo Gravatar on 06.06.2008 at 12:13 (Reply)

    @Jeff,

    Glad you liked them!

    Barbara

  5. Dennis EdellNo Gravatar (46 comments.) on 06.06.2008 at 21:20 (Reply)

    Rockin lists Barbara :-)

    You may also want to check out - http://www.feedflare.ca/free-rss-buttons

    Dennis Edell’s last blog post..By: Dennis

  6. BarbaraNo Gravatar on 07.06.2008 at 05:39 (Reply)

    @Dennis,

    Thanks for the idea!  Those are some ‘way coolio buttons.

    Enjoy, Barbara

  7. 22 Resources To Make Visitor Blog Promotion Easy - Day 3 of 7 Days To Making Your Blog Blossom » Personal Edge Insights - Barbara Ling on 10.06.2008 at 11:01

    [...] in our last lesson, I gave you 32 resources to help you make your blog welcoming.  Today, I want to take that a [...]

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