How to Build an Online Platform: tumblr

Photo credit: Scott Beale on Flickr

Continuing with my somewhat sporadic How to Build series, it’s time to talk about one of my favorite social media sites—tumblr!

tumblr is a surprise favorite, because when I first created an account, I had no idea what I was doing. It took me several weeks of seeing what other people were doing and playing around for me to really get it. But I’m glad I stuck with it, because it’s now a pretty fabulous traffic source, and also I find inspirational and/or funny things on there all the time.

• tumblr birthday: July 9, 2011 (roughly 3.5 years, as of this writing…at least, that’s when I reblogged my first post)
• Followers: 840 (as of this writing)
• Time spent weekly: Honestly? No idea. I check it daily and sometimes spend two minutes and sometimes…considerably longer. 

Tips: 

• Follow a bunch of blogs that interest you. This is the quickest (and most enjoyable) way to get the most out of tumblr, while also learning how tumblr interactions work. I follow writing blogs, art blogs, author blogs, and loads of blogs about books. Right now, my most liked and reblogged blogs (according to tumblr) are Beth Revis’s tumblr, YA Highway, Corinne Duyvis’s tumblr, Renée Ahdieh’s tumblr, Nita Tyndall’s tumblr, The Writing Cafe, The Art of Fiction, Disability in Kidlit, and It’s a Writer Thing. 


• Add tags when you reblog. If you’re familiar with Twitter hashtags, these work fairly similarly. I’ll admit I’ve been a little lazy with this lately, but this actually really helps other people stumble across your posts, even if they don’t follow you.


• Create your own posts, when possible. Reblogging is great, and probably will be 80% of your tumblr interactions (which is fine, because a large part of tumblr is about sharing each other’s posts). But I also recommend you try to share your own content whenever possible. I cross-post all of my Writability posts and bookishpixie vlogs on tumblr, and occasionally cross-post Instagram pics or create something just for tumblr. It’s a great way to show your follows a little more about you (not just what you like to reblog) and can be a nice way to inject extra personality.


• Add commentary when you reblog. You don’t have to do this every time, of course (I definitely don’t), but when you see something that you can comment on, go for it. The great thing about tumblr is you can see what other people have commented, and sometimes the comments end up being more interesting than the original post (or make the original post more interesting). This is also another great way to inject personality and give the original poster extra feedback. 

So those are my tumblr tips! Now I want to hear from you: are you on tumblr? What tips (or questions) do you have?

Twitter-sized bites: 

Looking to build a platform on tumblr? @Ava_Jae shares her experience and a few tips. (Click to tweet) 

"Follow a bunch of blogs that interest you," and other tumblr platform building tips from @Ava_Jae. (Click to tweet)

How to Create Twitter-sized Bites

Photo credit: Jason A. Howie on Flickr

I get this question a lot, so it seemed only natural that I should write a post about it.

A little while ago I started including fun and easy share options for Twitter, which I like to call “Twitter-sized bites.” They make it easy for people to share my posts, and I’ve noticed a definite increase in shares since adding them. So yay!

Making them is actually relatively easy to do, and since a lot of people have asked me how I create them, I’ve written up some easy steps. Enjoy!

1. Write the line that will appear on Twitter. Generally, you want this to be a short message because you need to leave room for attribution and the URL. Sometimes I’ll do a question, or a quote from the post, or a summarizing line. Experiment and see what works for you. 


2. Make sure you included attribution. I’ll either include it in the message (i.e.: “Writer @Ava_Jae…”) or I’ll add it at the end (i.e.: via @Ava_Jae). There isn’t a right or wrong way to do it, but don’t forget this step!


3. Find your permalink. In Blogger, this is under “Post settings” beneath the Scheduling option when you’re drafting your post. If it's not showing the link, just click the box that says "Permalink" and it'll show up. Copy it and move on to the next step. UPDATE: If you have Wordpress, check Margarita Morris's comment below for directions on this and the next step.


4. Go to bit.ly and shorten the permalink URL to a bitlink. Paste your permalink into the section at the top of the page that says “Paste a long URL here to shorten.” Once you do, a pop-up should appear with your new, shortened URL. Yay! Copy that and move on to the next step. 


5. Go to clicktotweet.com and choose “Basic Link.” You CAN sign in and make an account if you want to, but I don’t want to. “Basic Link” is in the top header next to “Downloads” and it’s all you need for making tweetable links.


6. Paste your bitlink and the message. If your message is too long, this is where you’ll see it. Edit it if you need to, make sure you have all three components (The message, the bit link and the attribution), then hit “Generate New Link.” 


7. COPY the ctt link it gives you. Clicking on the link they give you will NOT give you what you need—it’ll show you a preview of the tweet, which is fine, but not what you’re going to embed. Instead, highlight the link they provide you with and copy it. 


8. Go back to your post and make the section you want readers to click. For me, I stuck with a simple “Click to tweet” message in parenthesis. Highlight whatever text you want to use, then hyperlink it.


9. Paste your ctt link into the hyperlink settings and check “Open this link in a new window.” After you’ve done so, click done and you’re ready! Yay! Enjoy your new clickable tweets. 

That’s it! Pretty easy, right? Now go enjoy your very own Twitter-sized bites! :)

Twitter-sized bites: 

Wondering how to create clickable tweets for your blog posts? @Ava_Jae breaks it down here. (Click to tweet)  

Blogger @Ava_Jae shares 9 easy steps to creating clickable tweets for your blog posts. (Click to tweet)

Why Tumblr is Useful for Bloggers

Photo credit: Julia Roy on Flickr

Way back, I wrote a post about tumblr for writers, so if you don’t know what a tumblr is or why it maybe useful for writers, that’s where you want to go. This is related, but more blogger-centric.

When I first created a tumblr blog several years ago, I signed up thinking it might be good for inspiration and a little social media fun. I definitely didn’t think it’d one day become the fifth largest traffic source for Writability. But after many years and more than a couple posts becoming way more popular on tumblr than I ever expected, I’ve come to realize tumblr can be a fantastic way for bloggers to share their posts.

As a rule, I generally share every post I publish on blogger in full on tumblr. When I first started experimenting with this, I initially just shared a couple paragraphs then included a “read more” link, but I found that people usually didn’t click to read more and they often didn’t share because the post was incomplete. So I tried sharing the posts in their entirety instead, including a link to the original post on the blogger blog, by sharing it as a link post rather than a text post.

Much to my surprise, that worked about a thousand times better. Sometimes literally.

Because of this happy success, I thought I’d share with you a couple steps to maximizing your tumblr reach:

1. As mentioned above, share your posts as a LINK post. See the screenie up there? That’s the button you want to press. The reason this works better is it allows you to share the URL of the original post, so if people are interested they can click back to your blog and check it out. As proven by my traffic, people do click.


2. Make sure you title your link post. I’ve often seen posts shared that were just a URL. Those tend to get less shares, because they look messy and aren’t as clear as those that are titled. Titling your post is easy—just type in whatever the title of your blog post is in the box that says “Title.” Pretty self-explanatory.


3. Use tags. I read somewhere that tumblr only pays attention to the first five tags that you include, so make sure you choose your tags carefully. These are important, because oftentimes people will search certain keywords for a post they’re looking for, and if you tagged your post with that keyword, they’ll come across your post even if they’re not following you. It’s an easy way to get a little extra exposure.


4. Follow blogs that are similar to yours. As I run a writing blog, I follow other blogs that often share posts about writing, like The Writers Helpers, It’s a Writer Thing, The Writing Cafe and How to Fight Write, all of which are excellent blogs that you should definitely be following if you’re a writer on tumblr.
   
   The reason this helps you with exposure is because oftentimes, bloggers will notice when a certain follower often shares their posts, which can lead to said bloggers checking out your blog, which can lead to them following your blog, which can lead to them eventually sharing some of your posts. The tumblr community is pretty awesome like that. :)

The great thing about tumblr is your posts have a shelf life of basically forever. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a post suddenly get tons of reblogs (or shares) months after I originally posted. It happens, and it happens pretty frequently.

So if you’re a blogger whose been considering starting a tumblr blog, I definitely recommend it. It’s been a wonderful experience thus far, and one I intend to continue for a long time.

Do you use tumblr? Why or why not?

Twitter-sized bites:

Blogger @Ava_Jae shares how tumblr unexpectedly became her 5th largest traffic source. #bloggingtips (Click to tweet)  

Bloggers, do you share your posts on tumblr? Writer @Ava_Jae talks how and why you may want to consider it. (Click to tweet) 

Why tumblr is useful for bloggers and how to maximize your shares there. (Click to tweet) 

Simple HTML Tips for Bloggers

Photo credit: f-l-e-x on Flickr

When I first started blogging, I was well aware that it would entail writing consistently every week. What I didn’t really consider, however, was just how useful my limited HTML knowledge would be.

You see, the large majority of blogging is getting the words to screen, but before you publish a post, you have to check the formatting, and depending on the blog host you use, the formatting might not always play nice. Which is when you have to dig into the code in order to avoid serious formatting frustration.

When formatting my posts, these are the most common HTML tags that I use:

NOTE: You’ll notice that most of the tags actually come in pairs—that’s because in HTML there are opening tags and closing tags. The opening tag indicates where a certain feature or style should begin (for example: italics begin HERE) and the closing tag indicates where the feature/style should end. Closing tags are always indicated with a backslash (/) before the abbreviated code within the brackets.

• <body></body> : I don’t actually touch these tags, and for simple blogging, you won’t need to either. All you need to know is that the next within these tags is what makes up your post. 


• <br /> : This is a paragraph break. I often have to insert these manually when doing bulleted or numbered lists so that there are spaces between the bullets or spaces within a bullet for a multiple paragraph bullet. These don’t need an opening and closing tag–just place <br /> wherever you’d like your paragraph break. 


• <ol></ol> : This is an ordered list tag, to be used to create numbered lists. You place the opening tag at the very beginning of the list, and the closing tag at the end, with list item tags (<li></li>) to differentiate every point within the list. So, for example, a simple 1-4 numbered list in HTML would look like:
  
            <ol>
                      <li>One</li>
                      <li>Two</li>
                      <li>Three</li>
                      <li>Four</li>
            </ol>
  
  NOTE: You don’t need to indent in order for the HTML to work—I just did that to make it a little easier to read.


• <ul></ul> : This is an unordered list tag, to be used to created bulleted lists. You use this the exact same way as an ordered list tag, except you use “ul” instead of “ol.” You can easily convert an ordered list to an unordered list or vice versa by simply going into the code and changing a single letter in the opening and closing tags of the list. 


• <i></i> : This indicates italics. You don’t usually need to type this manually because I’ve rarely had the italics button glitch out on me, but it’s useful to know so you can recognize it while looking at the HTML. To put a word or phrase in italics, you insert the word(s) between the opening and closing tags, like so:
  
            <i>I want this to be in italics.</i>


• <b></b> : This indicates bold text. It’s used the exact same way as the italics tags. 


• <u></u> : This indicates underlined text. It works just like bold and italics. 


• <blockquote></blockquote> : I'll bet you can guess what these do (hint: I use them for my Twitter-sized bites and/or any quotes). Like italics, bold and underline, these are tags that I rarely have to adjust manually, but it's helpful to know what it does. 


• <h1></h1> : These are heading tags. There are actually six different heading tags, varying from <h1> to <h6>. The <h1> tags are the largest and <h6> are the smallest. Like the last couple tags, the text between them is what is affected. 


• <a href=“[website address]”> [link text] </a> : And this, my friends, is what an embedded link looks like in HTML. Allow me to break it down a little:
  
  The <a href=“[web address]”> is all part of the opening tag. Within the quotations, you place the web address you want the link to go to (without the brackets). So if you were awesome and linking to my blog, the opening tag would look like this:
  
            <a href=“www.avajae.blogspot.com”>
  
  Next is the link text. This is the visible text that people see and click on, so, for example, it might look like this:
  
            <a href=“www.avajae.blogspot.com”>Check out this awesome writing blog.
  
  Finally, you need the closing tag, or the link won’t work at all. This is the easiest part—you just add </a> at the end. So your full embedded link would look like this:
  
            <a href=“www.avajae.blogspot.com”>Check out this awesome writing blog.</a>

The nice part is these tags are all universal and can be used on any server that allows for HTML editing and in any browser.

I hope this helps your HTML-editing needs. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a shout below. :)

Have you edited HTML before? What tags do you most commonly use? 

Twitter-sized bites:

Are you a blogger struggling to understand HTML? @Ava_Jae shares some easy tips to demystify your blog's code. (Click to tweet) 

Do you struggle with your blog's HTML? Here are some simple tips to make editing HTML easy. (Click to tweet) 

How to Find Blog Photos Using Flickr

Photo credit: Andy Woo on Flickr

So I received another question! And it's one that I've been meaning to answer, anyway.

As many bloggers are aware, including blog photos is a great way to add a little extra engagement to the page and make the post look more interesting visually. But with copyright laws and the possibility of lawsuits if photos are used incorrectly, it can sometimes be a little scary to start using photos.

The key is to find photos under a Creative Commons license, and I find all of mine through Flickr.

Flickr is a free site that you can log into with a Google, Facebook or Yahoo! account where photographers (amateur and otherwise) around the world upload and share their photos. And my favorite part about it is that you can search through copyright-free photos for free use in posts.

The steps are pretty simple:

1. The search. Once you've logged into Flickr, you go up to the search bar in the top right corner and type in whatever key word you want to use to filter through photos. I usually choose something related to the post, so for instance, for this post, I searched "photos" "pictures" and "photography." 


2. The Creative Commons filter. After you get your results, click “Advanced Search" to bring up the advanced search menu. From there, choose “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content” at the bottom and it “Search” again to filter your results with only pictures that are copyright-free. 


3. Choose your photos. Generally, I open up any photo I find interesting in a new tab, then mark my favorites with the star-shaped favorite button. This allows me to save any photos I like for future use and to also remind myself a) not to reuse them and b) to go back later on and let the person know I've used their photo (which is optional, and I am majorly behind on). 


4. Copy the URL. Once you've picked your photo and checked the Creative Commons settings to see the rules (which is done by clicking the hyperlinked “Some rights reserved”…usually it's to add attribution, which you should always do anyway, but it’s good practice to check), right click the photo and select the size you want. I usually choose “Medium 500.” It will then bring you to a new page with just the photo. Right click the picture again and choose “Copy Image URL." From there you can use that URL to upload the picture into your post.

So that’s it! Don’t forget to add attribution (I usually like to link back to the artist’s Flickr page) and you now have a photo for your blog post. Enjoy!

If you blog, where do you get your blog post photos? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Not sure where to find blog post photos? Blogger @Ava_Jae shares four easy steps to finding copyright-free photos. (Click to tweet)  

Don't break copyright law for a blog post photo—here are four steps to finding copyright-free images. (Click to tweet) 

How to Think of Blog Post Ideas

Photo credit: Cayusa on Flickr

For roughly a year and a half now, I’ve written blog posts three times a week. I haven’t made any changes to the blogging schedule because I believe it’s important as a writer and a blogger to post consistently, and as of yet, I’ve never missed a day. I’ve also never run out of ideas.

Well.

That last part is a little misleading. Saying that I’ve never run out of ideas makes it sound like over the course of the last year and a half, I’ve never had a day where I wasn’t sure what I was going to post about, which is nowhere near the truth. I have, in fact, often had days where I stared at the screen, wondering how in the world I was going to come up with and write a post over the course of the next twenty-four hours.

But being the stubborn, stick-to-the-schedule person I am, I’ve always managed to wring a topic out of the air, one way or another.

The truth is, there’s nothing mystical about thinking up blog post ideas. While some days I’m lucky and the idea will just make itself known to me with little effort on my part, most days I have to go looking for ideas. Lucky for me, I have plenty of sources of inspiration all around me. Such as…

• The blog archives. For those of you who run a blog, I highly recommend keeping a blog archive list. The funny thing about blog archives, is that while I originally created mine to make it easy for readers to dig through my old posts, I soon realized it was just as useful for me as it was for my readers.
  
  You see, when your posts start reaching triple digits (and even before that), it can start to become a little tricky to keep track of what you’ve written about and what you’ve missed. When I’m searching for blog post inspiration, I nearly always start by scrolling through my archives: not only does it keep me from unintentionally rewriting an old post, but it gives me a general idea as to what areas I could explore more in, and what areas are already well-saturated with posts.


• The brainstorming list. I’ve written in the past about how helpful it is to keep a running list of ideas (both for writing and blogging), and this is a large part of the reason why. When I’m low on ideas and searching the archives isn’t helping, I often turn to my brainstorming list and either spend some time thinking up new ideas, or choose one that I’ve already thought of but haven’t written about yet.


• Life. You’d be surprised how many ideas you can generate just from your everyday life. I’ll often turn to a problem I’ve recently encountered in my WIP, or a stage of writing I’m in, or a book I’ve recently read to try to think up of some blog post ideas. Another great life source is current events: whether in publishing or just a topic that’s trending online (that’s related to whatever you post about, of course), writing about current events or topics is a great way to tap into a collective discussion online. 

These are just a couple examples of places I find blog post inspiration from—now I want to hear from you. Where do you find blog post or writing inspiration?

Why Write Blog Posts Consistently?

Photo credit: Stefan 1981 on Flickr

Before I began blogging, I went through a research phase. I scoured Google and my favorite blogs in search of advice for new bloggers like me. I hunted for tips that could help me start a successful blog, and the advice I saw most often kind of surprised me. It wasn't about bringing in mass amounts of traffic, or SEO, or a stellar commenting system, it was this simple tip: write posts consistently.

What surprised me even more was this: it didn't really matter if you posted every day, a couple times a week, or a couple times a month as long as you posted consistently.

Now naturally, blogs with more frequent posts tend to receive more traffic than blogs that post once a month, as new content brings in new page views, but in this case the goal isn't necessarily to bring in hoards of traffic, it's to get your readers used to coming to your blog. It's to create a posting schedule people who follow your blog can remember, so that they know when to expect your next post.

It's simple, and it works.

But there's an added bonus to writing consistent blog posts that many of those articles I encountered didn't mention, namely, the way it affects you, the writer.

Writing consistent blog posts has many benefits for the writer:

• It teaches you discipline. Consistency requires discipline. Whether it's three posts a week or four posts a month, it takes discipline to have your blog posts written by the posting date, which brings me to... 


• It teaches you how to meet deadlines. Most fields require you to meet deadlines, and if you'd like to be a professional writer (indie or traditionally published), you'll definitely have to learn to meet deadlines. These posting deadlines are self-imposed, and they're great practice. 


• It shows you that you are capable of writing under pressure. Being able to write under pressure is an essential skill for the writer. If you're an indie, you need to be able to write the sequel to your book while knowing that readers are waiting for the next update, and if you're traditionally published, you need to be able to write with many looming deadlines and agents/editors/publishers waiting for your work as well as your readers. 


• It proves that writing well while uninspired is possible. Once you begin writing consistently for any project, blog or otherwise, it won't be long before you realize that every day is not equal in the eyes of the writer. Some days the writing comes easily and other days it'd be easier to withstand hours of coffin torture than write a single word. But when you have to write consistently you learn something else, too—you don't need to be inspired to write well. You just have to write. 

What do you think? If you have a blog, do you write consistently? Why or why not?

Twitter-sized bites: 

.@Ava_Jae says it doesn't matter how often you post as long as you post consistently. What do you think? (Click to tweet)  

How does consistently writing blog posts help writers? @Ava_Jae shares four main benefits. (Click to tweet)

How (Not) to Be a Successful Blogger

Photo credit: marsmet544 on Flickr

While the Great Blogging Bubble is a thing of the past, as every single one of you reading this can testament, blogging is still very much a thing that is alive and well. New writers take up the call to online journaling every day, while others jump ship, leaving their blogs to gather virtual dust online (or, alternatively, obliterating them altogether).

So it is little surprise that many surf the interwebz to try to glean insight as to what makes a blog popular, how to gather more traffic for their new online venture and how, ultimately, to be a successful blogger.

Well, my fellow web-surfer. You have come to the right blog.

From the mysterious blast of ingenious insight that brought you the likes of How to Write a Masterpiece and How (Not) to Write the Perfect Query Letter, I bring you ten secrets to being a successful blogger:

10 Golden Rules to Blogging Success*: 

1. Write ridiculously long sentences and paragraphs and actually it’s best if the post is one hugenormously long paragraph (no shorter than 1000 words because really, who wants to waste their time reading a tiny post?) because everyone knows that the more words you fit into a sentence the better the sentence is and also, no one wastes their precious time skipping from one paragraph to the next anymore so you might as well fit whatever you can into one single large paragraph (or title, if you’re that skilled). The heading basically says it all, I think.


2. LIGHT COLORS ON A DARK BACKGROUND—OOH IT’S SO PURDY. Without pretty, eye-popping colors to give your readers the migraine of a lifetime, your little blog will never be remembered.


3. ALSO EVERYONE LOVES CAPS LOCK. WHAT’S THE POINT OF EVEN TURNING CAPS LOCK OFF ANYWAY HUH? PLUS IT’S COOL BECAUSE SUDDENLY YOUR READERS WILL READ WITH AN EXTRA-LOUD VOICE IN THEIR MINDS SO IT’S KIND OF LIKE YOU’RE EMPHASIZING YOUR POINT WITH YOUR LOUDNESS. READERS LOVE LOUDNESS.


4. Comment on other people’s blogs about your blog. There’s little point in commenting if you don’t leave a link to your blog, anyway.


5. Ignore your blog comments. It’s not like your readers actually appreciate when you take the time to answer their comments, so why bother?


6. Change up your blog topics. Everyone knows your readers will get bored if you start doing that thing where you consistently write about one topic.


7. Only post once or twice a year. Too much more and you might clog up your subscribers’ feeds, which in turn could scare them away.


8. Proper grammar and spelling is conforming. aND ur nawt a cuhnformisst R U?


9. Only post about your one-eyed gerbil, Alfredo. Because, as I’m sure you already know, the one-eyed gerbil is the international mascot of the blogging world, so no one really wants to hear about anything else, anyway.


10. Don’t put any thought into the design of your blog. No one cares about the design; they just want to know about Alfredo.

And just like that, the secrets to gaining a raving horde of fans for your blog are yours. Use them wisely.

* = Please don't actually do any of this. Please? 

What blogging secrets would you add to the list? 

Are You Waiting for Good Ideas?

Photo credit: djwtwo on Flickr

So the other day I was surfing the Twittersphere, trying to figure out what today’s post would be about, when one of my lovely followers asked me an interesting question.

“I was wondering if you always knew what to write about on your blog. I post only when I have something to talk about. But you need to post three times a week. Seems hard to me.”

Well, lovely anonymous follower, to the first part of your question—no, I don’t always know what to write about. In fact, I often don’t figure out what my post will be about until the day I write it (like ehem, now).

To the second part, here’s a secret: it is hard. And it’s also easy. Allow me to explain.

I suppose I could wait for a blog post idea to come to me—I’m not going to pretend it never happens, it does. Sometimes when I’m driving or working on my WIP or just daydreaming in general, I’ll come up with a good idea for a post. Then I celebrate a little and write down the idea.

But ideas don’t just come to me three times a week right in time for my Monday, Wednesday, Friday blogging schedule (that’d be too easy). So if the day before I’m supposed to post comes and I still don’t have any posting ideas, I sit in front of the computer and stare at the blank screen and flip through my blog archives and refuse to leave the computer until I’ve started writing a post. No exceptions.

Because yes, I could wait for an idea to come to me, but like most things in life, blog post ideas don’t often fall from the sky and land on your lap—sometimes you have to get up and go find them. And some days it’s hard—some days I sit at the computer and stare at the screen for what feels like years and the schedule-loving part of me whispers you need to write this post today so you have something to post tomorrow. You’ve never missed a day, Ava. Don’t start now. And I stare and stare and stare and it feels like I’ll never figure out what to write about.

Except I don’t give myself an option. I don’t allow myself not to write a post when I have one due. If I’m supposed to post tomorrow, then I’ll come up with a blog post idea if it kills me (and I’m still here, so the strategy seems to be working pretty well).

And some days it’s easy—some days I write a post and it spawns two or three other post ideas, so I add it to my list of running blog topic possibilities and then I do something else and sometimes more ideas rain down on me like wonderful gifts from the heavens. Some days I whip a blog post draft out in ten or fifteen minutes and I dance around in little circles in my mind because I feel accomplished and now I have all this extra time to do other things.

Yes, those are the easy days—but it’s certainly not every day, or even every other day. In fact, most days fall under the first category and the truth is, I don’t mind it.

Because blogging has taught me something important—that sometimes the best ideas don’t just fall in your lap, sometimes you have to chase them down and wrestle them onto the page. And it’s not just blog post ideas—it’s any sort of idea or inspiration that you need to keep writing.

Because yes, you can wait for the ideas to come, but why wait when you can go get them yourself?

I know it’s not as easy as it sounds, so I ask you—do you wait for blog post ideas to come to you or do you generate them yourself? Where do you get your posting ideas from?

Guest Post: The Secret Ingredient to a Successful Blog

Photo credit: Furryscaly on Flickr

Very exciting news, everyone! Are you ready?

I have another guest post! And it's on the amazing ProBlogger again! If you read it and let me know what you think, not only will you make me a very happy person, but you'll also find out what the super-secret ingredient to a successful blog is, and I know you're all dying to hear what it is.

So! Check out the post and let me know what you think! Then you can come back and look at the sparkly picture of fireworks because fireworks are awesome.

Have a wonderful day!

How to Make Your Readers Run

Photo is author's own

It’s happened to most of us—you’re cruising along the web, opening and browsing through blogs, websites, or randomness you just happened to stumble upon when BAM!—your biggest web pet peeve slaps you in the face with the force of an angry kangaroo on speed.

What happens from there depends on you level of tolerance and self-control. Some of us instantly close the tab and block the trauma from memory. Others ignore it and continue to enjoy the content of the page despite the screaming pet peeve alarm. You can probably guess which camp I’m in.

So after a quick survey on Twitter and reviving repressed trauma (the things I do for you guys), I have compiled a list of five ways to make your readers run from your blog faster than a cat from a bubble bath. 

Ready? Go!

1. Really long paragraphs. Readers like short paragraphs, especially online. Why? Honestly, it’s just easier to read. It’s light on the eyes and it feels faster while you’re reading. Not to mention the increase of reading on mobile devices. Ever try to read a long paragraph on a cell phone? Not pretty.


2. Light text on dark backgrounds. People tend to make this mistake because they think it looks cool. You know what’s cool? Being able to read without feeling like the words are glaring at you.
   
   
   Don’t believe me? Let’s do a quick experiment. Which is easier to read?
   
   
   This gorgeous neon text on awesome black background of emo-ness?
   
   
   Or this normal black text on a light background?
   
   
   It doesn’t look cool, ok guys? It drives readers away from your blog en masse.


3. Teenie, tiny font size. This is hard to read. If your blog looks like this, you're giving some poor far-sighted person a migraine. Worse—you’re making normal people squint and feel like they need glasses. Make your font bigger. Like, at least 13 (though I’ve read that font size should really be larger than that, so I’m being nice with 13). Larger font = happy readers.


4. Auto-playing music. I know why people do this, really I do. Setting the atmosphere of your blog with some music sounds like a good idea. But guess what? Some people like to listen to their own music while browsing the web, then when the auto-playing music starts playing all of a sudden two songs are playing at the same time fighting for your attention and I don’t know about you guys, but I go crazy finding the tab to SHUT OFF THE FOREIGN NOISE.
   
   
   You know, so I can listen to my music in peace.
   
   
   Then there are other times when music just makes reading difficult. The idea is to appeal to as many readers as possible, and playing music is a guaranteed way to alienate some readers. I’m not saying they’ll all care (there are plenty of people, I’m sure, who don’t really mind), but there will be some who leave just because there is music playing. And you really don’t want that, now do you?
   
   
5. Terrible spelling and grammar. I have a feeling this annoys writers more than anyone else, but numerous grammar and spelling errors on a blog makes it look highly unprofessional. I’m not saying the occasional typo will kill you (it won’t, we all understand you’re human), but when your blog reads like a 14-year-old’s text message, there’s a problem.

So there you are, my fair readers—five ways to turn your blog into a nightmare. But I’m sure there are plenty of other methods that have slipped my mind.

What are your worst blog or web design pet peeves?