A Birthday Celebration and Some Blogging Advice

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This week Problogger.net is celebrating it’s 3rd birthday by giving away $54,000 worth of prizes! Now that’s my kind of birthday party! It will be going on all week, so make sure you check it out!

For the latest contest, we’re supposed to give blogging advice. I’ve only been blogging for 4 months, but I have learned a few things that might be useful to people who are trying to get their blog off the ground.

First, post frequently. It helps me to set up a posting schedule. I’m still working that out on this blog, but over at Being Frugal, I post a challenge on Mondays, about frugality on Tuesdays, about Debt Reduction on Wednesdays, try to do a Review on Thursdays, and another post on Frugality on Fridays. I always do a link love post on Saturdays and a passage from the Bible on Sundays. It really helps me to think up post ideas when I have a subject matter in mind.

Respond to people who comment. I usually respond in the comments section, but sometimes I’ll send out an email. People like to know that you read what they write. So let them know.

Comment on other blogs. When you comment on another blog, the owner of the blog will frequently click back to your blog to see who you are. And sometimes that person will become a faithful reader. Being active on other blogs also helps develop a sense of community amongst bloggers. This is especially important in the mom-blogger crowd, it seems.

Participate in Carnivals. Some of my favorite carnivals are the Mothers and Daughters Blog Carnival, the Carnival of Family Life, and Works-For-Me Wednesday. If you haven’t participated in a carnival before, try it! It’s lots of fun. You write a post that fits within the subject matter, and then you submit it either through the Blog Carnival page (or Mister Linky in the case of WFMW). The carnival host then posts all the links, and you can visit the different blogs to read all the posts. And people will come to visit your blog, too! When you get brave enough, you can volunteer to host a carnival. I hosted my first carnival last week!

The most important thing is to have fun. If you don’t enjoy writing and don’t enjoy your subject matter, you won’t enjoy blogging very much. But if you enjoy what you’re writing about, and you enjoy interacting with your readers, you will be motivated to post more frequently, and your blog will continue to grow.

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