It’s been a while since we’ve had a group writing project. Let’s get one together for August.
But . . . um . . . I got nothing. What should our next group writing project be on?
Refresher: a group writing project is one where I pick a very general topic and throughout the chosen week, participants post on their blogs about the topic. I link to them all here so everyone can read, comment and learn. One entry is chosen at random to receive a $30 Amazon gift certificate!
So you’ve found your blog niche and you even know what you want to say in your niche—the more specific, the better. How can you convey that message to your visitors the first time they visit your site?
Most blogs have a place for a tagline (in WordPress, for example, this is called the blog description). Find a catchy way to express who you are and/or what you say. It can help to focus on what you can do for your readers, and to keep it brief—short enough to fit in the title element of each page (the name that displays in the title bar and bookmarks of your site—more about headers).
If you can, express your theme or at least your niche in your header through images, your blog name and your color choices. Put your tagline in the header image of your blog, too.
While the header is a great opportunity to express your theme, your content will do it even better. Don’t make your header so large that you can’t see your blog content on the very first page—don’t make people scroll down to get to your content!
Have an about page, first of all. Here you can explain not only who you are and how you’re qualified to blog about this topic, but exactly what you’ll do to help your readers.
You can also put a short explanatory paragraph on your home page (above the fold—in the part of the page you can see without scrolling down). This seems to work best in the sidebar, but I’ve also seen it done in the main post column.
What do you think? How do your favorite blogs convey what they’re about before you even get to the posts?
Photo by Andronicus Riyono
I knew it had to happen sooner or later: like all first children, Hayden is having some issues with sharing. Or, to put it bluntly, stealing Rebecca’s toys.
(As a reminder, Hayden is almost 3 and a half and Rebecca will be one tomorrow.)
How have you successfully taught your kids to share?
I think we all have one: one of those uncles who delights in teasing and tormenting us. Well, with our fabulous family reunion last weekend, that uncle was at my house. Thankfully, the reunion coincided with the worst week for naps in the history of this house (grumpy kids who don’t take naps, won’t go to bed, and wake up two hours earlier than normal + 22 extra family members = fuuuun!)
I put Rebecca back to bed Saturday night after 10. Although she’d gone to sleep fairly quickly (after only 6 or 7 minutes of hysterical screaming) at the church during our family talent show, when we woke her to bring her home, she decided she’d rather stay awake. The two new teeth coming through don’t help. So despite repeated attempts at nursing her to sleep, she screamed for about half an hour.
My uncle who likes to torment me looked at me—probably drawn and exasperated—and says, “We all think you’re a terrible mother.”
And I smiled.
Because that’s exactly what most mothers think when their baby is bawling inconsolably. It’s the kind of recriminating self-talk that most mothers beat themselves up with. If I were a better mother, she wouldn’t be crying.
But to hear that same idea from my uncle, from whom I can’t take anything seriously, who I knew was just teasing me, made me realize just how silly that kind of self-talk sounds.
So thanks, Uncle Paul. I think.
Have you ever heard your own thoughts spoken by someone else—and realized how silly they sounded? How else have you analyzed your self-talk?
Last week in advice to lurkers or interested nonbloggers, I said that a blog has to have a niche, theme or thesis. A blog is always stronger when you start from there. For MamaBlogga, as you may have noticed, the theme is fulfillment in motherhood (although blogging advice from a professional is also a strong draw, I guess).
So how do you find what your underlying message is? How can you be sure you have something to share with the world? How can you find where you fit into the blogosphere?
Well, after that paragraph of questions, unfortunately, the answer is usually more questions. But first, I’ll tell you how I found my theme. If you read my interview with Mommy Brain Online for the Boost newsletter, you might remember that about the time I started blogging (three years ago!), I was struggling as a new mom. I’d just read I Am a Mother by Jane Clayson Johnson.
I realized that while I knew being a mother was the most important thing I could be doing with my life, it didn’t feel that way. I knew that it should, and I thought other mothers must feel the same way. I wanted to reach out to other moms who were struggling with staying at home or being a mother and offer encouragement and help them find fulfillment—and hopefully find that fulfillment myself.
And a blog was born. So, how can you find the same kind of mission for your blog?
First, you have to find your general niche—the area you’ll be writing about. For MamaBlogga, obviously that’s motherhood. There are lots of areas of blogging, and many of them are highly saturated—politics, for example.
Although it’s not very useful as a blog tracker these days, Technorati is still a good place to find out what blogs are about. The one hundred most popular blog tags give a good sampling of the most popular blog niches. For example:
So what are you knowledgeable about? What are you passionate about? What could you write about 3-5 times a week (or, at the very least, weekly)?
Narrowing that niche, however, is vitally important to finding your place. A blog just about “photography” is going to be a little vague. For example, one day you’re posting tips on adjusting the f stop to compensate for the white of a wedding dress in full sunlight and the next day you’re posting about how to use the zoom on a point and shoot, and then the next day you cover full HDR and then you fill out the week with others’ photos of a dog, a building, a beach and a person.
How will someone visiting your blog for the first time know what to expect next? How will they be able to tell is most of the posts are above their level—or below it? (And don’t even get me started on your blog readers!)
Sometimes we try too hard to be everything to everyone in our niche. But if you pick something narrower—portrait photography or HDR or how to get the most out of your camera—you can actually appeal to more people because you’re appealing to a specific segment instead of small portions of several segments.
Again, we look to ourselves to find this theme, this passion. We’ve already identified an area that we’re knowledgeable (or want to learn more) about. So let’s specialize a little further—what are you passionate about? How can you help other people interested in the same thing? What can you teach or share with people to help them learn, grow and improve?
The more you help other people through your blog, the more you can grow your blog. And for me, the more I enjoy blogging!
Next week, we’ll look at how to express that niche in the first impression of your blog!
What do you think? What themes have you seen in your favorite blog niche? How do you see that blog’s post clustered around that theme? (One other note: today is my five year anniversary! Woot!)
Photo by Andronicus Riyono
Rebecca is growing up! While she’s still physically quite small, every once in a while I’ll notice how long her legs are getting or how chubby her little belly is. (Especially after dinner!)
Last week, she finally learned to pull herself to standing. It took her a while to reach that milestone, but she’s really caught on! And a week or so before that, I pulled her hair back into pigtails for church—and she really looked like a big girl!
The ten minutes of wrestling and screaming to get her hair that way, we haven’t attempted it again. But we will at some point.
Her first birthday is coming up quick—it’s hard to believe it’s only been a year, but it’s hard to believe it’s already been a year!
How do you celebrate first birthdays? Do you think the time continuum of early childhood (where the days drag but the months fly by) gets better or worse as time goes on?