Create a Successful Blog to Boost Your Writing Career

According to Blogcount.com there are over 100 million blogs in existence, and 30% of American readers actively read them. Without a doubt, this is a fast growing, powerful communication vehicle.

Writers around the globe are jumping on the bandwagon to use blogs as journals, as a way to showcase their work, as vehicles to reach readers, for promotional purposes, and a variety of other personal and professional reasons.

Whether blogs are effective or not for the purpose in which they are created is hard to measure at this time. Other than tracking the number of hits and gauging the activity on a particular blog, it's not easy to determine if the blog itself leads to publication opportunities or book sales.

However, there are measures you can take when creating your blog posts to ensure you are getting maximum exposure from your blog along with keeping your reader base coming back for more.

The following suggestions will help you along the path to blogger success, which will, in turn, lend itself to endearing you to your readers, promote book sales, and reach a broader audience.

Post Daily. Consider even posting twice a day. You want to give your audience a reason to visit to each day, something to look forward to.

In addition, be sure to consistently post around the same time each day. Not only will this be useful for ingraining the habit, it will give your audience a time to look forward to without having to constantly click on your website to find a new post. If they know a topic is posted early in the morning, it will be reassuring to them to be able to click and find your latest blog at any time throughout their day.

Create Headline Topics. Think about your topic and its appeal factor prior to posting. It's easy to blog about the ins and outs of your daily writing profession, your latest hero creation, or even the woes of parenthood. While these are good topics with wide appeal, if you want to truly entice your readers to look further, it's important to give your topic some pop and sizzle with catchy titles and engaging topics.

Blogs are communications vehicles, much like a daily newspaper who's prime goal is to inform and entertain. Readers will return again and again to blog with substance and appeal, but also with information they crave or want. Choose your daily topics as you would topics for a daily newspaper.

Engage Your Readers with Pictures, Contests, Polls, and other Fun Items. Think outside the blog box a little. Another way to keep readers coming back for more is to involve them in your blogging process. Insert pictures from your vacation, a book-signing, or even a cute picture of your cat. Actively seek your reader's opinions via polls or open-ended questions requiring an answer, rather than a comment. Think about conducting interviews or inviting others to blog with you.

Also consider a daily, weekly, or monthly contest for their participation. The extra incentives may draw out responses from those who may have been to shy to participate, or may keep those who are semi-interested in your blog, returning on a regular basis to participate more.

Think Like a Search Engine. Pick out a few key words, such as "Romance" and "Love," words that are pertinent to your blog and your writing style. (other good examples are "Comedy", "Suspense", "Erotic", and "Chick Lit." Next, be sure to repeat the words as many times as reasonable in each and every post you make. This catches the attention of search engines when they scan for criteria, they typically factor in the number of times a word appears on various web pages and rank accordingly.

Another bonus to this particular line of thought: Readers will begin to associate the words with your writing. When a particular word or phrase is used consistently, a reader will connect it with you subconsciously. This is an effect form of promotion used in name and image branding.

Speaking of branding, be sure to Use Brand Name Words when blogging. For example, if you mention you had a donut, name it for what it is, such as "Dunkin Donut", "Krispy Kreme", etc.

Popular names are searched often and while it may seem silly that someone who is searching for Krispy Kreme donuts will be interested in your website, remember that many people on the Internet are potential readers. While they may not be looking for you, when they stumble upon your blog, they may be interested enough to stay for a bit, read the posts, and come back later for more.

If anything- there's one very powerful thing that happens even if the reader does not return to your blog, which is name recognition. They may come across your name at a later time and it will be familiar to them, which will make the average person stop to take another look. Again, subconscious marketing.

Also worthy of mentioning, it makes your blog post more interesting and familiar to the reader when you are using real names instead of generics.

Insert Links. Use other website links in your post if possible. Maybe your topic for the day is "Romantic Getaways" as you're currently writing about your hero/heroine's escapes in the Bahamas. It's easy to fit in a link to a Bahamas tourism website or your favorite vacation planning website.

Again, search engines pick this up, but another advantage is your readers will love the extras. They'll appreciate you took the extra step to find information for them, should they like to further research the topic.

Other links to consider are links to excerpts and purchase links if you have included a particular novel of yours in your daily blog. At a very minimum, be sure to list your website!

Proof your work. Spell check is your friend. Be sure to edit your blog as diligently as you edit your first draft. The last thing you want is to have a reader think you don't take your job as a writer seriously. Excessive errors and poor grammar are not only the makings for a disruptive read, they will reflect poorly on you as a skilled writer.

If your blog engine does not have a built-in spell check feature. Create your text in a word-processing program first, then copy and paste to the blog.

Lastly, repeat after me… Promote, Promote, Promote.

It's worthy of repeating three times and committing to. If you want to have a successful promotional blog, you have to let people know it exists. Put the URL on your business cards. Make sure you have a clear link to it on your website. Mention it in your newsletter. Announce it to your reader groups and online boards, not just when you start it, but on a regular basis, especially if you have an attention-getting new topic. List it with every search engine, just as you would your website. Take out a small ad in your local newspaper. Whatever creative, inexpensive way you can think of, the key is to get the blog information out there and accessible to the world at large.

Whether you follow on or all of the suggestions detailed in this article, you will be at least one step closer to getting maximum exposure from your blogging efforts.

Above all, remember, as a writer, your blog is a reflection of your craft-be sure to put forth a little effort to ensure it's an accurate reflection.

You'll be happy with the positive results!