Do You want to Improve Your Blog with Some Daily blogging Tips? Read on to Find Out How
Two years ago today I launched a month long project here at ProBlogger that I still get feedback about today. For the month of August in 2005 I ran something called – 31 Days to Building a Better Blog.
When I started out on this project I wasn’t quite sure how it would end up – but it ended up being largely two things:
1. A month long series of my own blog tips covering a wide array of topics
2. A month long Group Writing Project – where readers were encouraged to write and submit their own blog tips (written on their own blog but linked to from ProBlogger)
You can see the results of the project at the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Summary Page where I list both my posts and those written by readers.
August is here again and after many requests to run something similar I’ve been planning another 31 day project and have decided to declare August 2007 another Build a Better Blog Month.
This time there will be a few changes – but the basics will remain the same (ie that I’ll be writing a tip per day for the whole month and that I’ll be linking to tips written by readers over the month).
The details:
My Posts
This year my posts will have a slightly different focus than last time we ran this project. Over this time I want to post 31 simple and practical tips – each with a task associated with them (homework). The tips will not be massive posts that will take you hours to reader and apply – rather they’ll be short, sharp tips that hopefully you’ll be able to spend a few minutes reading and then 10 or so minutes doing something about.
The Tips will not be about writing content (If you want a similar thing but with a writing content focus check out my very recent 7 Days to Rediscovering Your Blogging Groove project).
While writing content is absolutely central in creating a successful blog – I want to focus this next month more upon some tips around:
- finding readers
- building community/keeping readers
- monetizing a blog
My hope is that each day you’ll have something to read but then have an achievable task to do that over time will help improve your blog. Some of these tasks will be one off things and others will hopefully be skills and practices that you can revisit over the weeks and months that follow.
The tips that will come over the coming month will be basic enough for beginners to follow but also solid tips that should help any blog to grow.
To keep up to date with these posts you’ll need to either subscribe to ProBlogger using our RSS feed or subscribe via Email for daily updates.
Your Posts
I want to put a call out for readers to write their own blog tips and to post them on their own blogs. Once you’ve written your post (note – I’m only accepting new posts, not previously written ones) please let me know via this submission form where you’ll be asked for your blog tip’s title/post name, the URL of the tip on your own blog as well as your own name (all of this will be published). You’ll also be asked for your email (not to be published) so that we can contact you if there’s a problem with the submission.
At least twice per week over the next month I’ll post a list of the blog tips that you have submitted so that everyone can learn from your experience and expertise. Do you have to link back to ProBlogger with your post? No – but you’re more than welcome to if you would like your readers to find out what you’re participating in.
I will endeavor to find a prize for one lucky participant between now and the end of August – although the point of this isn’t really about competition or prizes – but is about us learning about blogging together.
Your posts can be on any topic that is relevant to helping other bloggers improve any aspect of their blogging (but please keep them to the theme of improving a blog). It could be on writing content, finding readers, SEO, blog design, monetizing a blog, blog marketing etc – as long as it’s a genuine tip I’ll include it. My hope is that you’ll particularly feel inspired to write practical tips that readers can apply to their blogging – to help them actually improve their blogs.
Please feel free to submit multiple tips – however please don’t go overboard (one per day as an absolute maximum). Please also keep them to being NEW POSTS.
Other Ways to Participate
If you don’t want to submit a post (or it’s not appropriate to write one on your blog) you can still participate in a few ways:
- ask a question that you’d like someone to write about in comments below this post
- submit a quick blog tip in the comments of this post (I’ll put together a compilation post of them later in the month)
- follow along with my tips and do the homework – let us know how you apply it in the comments of the posts that I write
- comment on the posts written (both here at ProBlogger and those who submit posts) – leave your own suggestions and tips on the topics covered and share with us what you’re learning
- link up to the posts that you enjoy that are submitted by others
My hope with this project is that readers will not only come away from it having read some good blogging tips – but that they’ll come away with it with better blogs. If you’re anything like me you probably read a lot of great tips and theory about how to blog better – but only apply a small amount of it. This project is actually about building better blogs. The more you commit to apply what you read the better.
Remember that to keep up to date with these posts you’ll need to either subscribe to ProBlogger using our RSS feed or subscribe via Email for daily updates.
The Project So Far
If you are looking for all of the posts so far then check out this page which has a good summary of it all.
