Lots of people write blogs. Some write them to record their thoughts and lives, writing an invaluable historical account of life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Others write them to comment on aspects of more serious matters such as politics, economics, the environment and animal welfare for example.
Yet more, me included, write blogs in order to get their work out in front of people and to hopefully grow their network. All of us are hoping that people will read our entries.
In order to do that, we have to write posts that people actually read. If we don’t do that, we’re completely wasting our time.
My results have been mixed. Probably as mixed as my background and interests. I’m a martial artist, a self-protection instructor, a gamer, a tabletop battler, a father, a husband, a former journalist, and a wannabe author.
As a result my blog has posts from all of these interests. Some posts get more views than others and, some days go absolutely ballistic as a certain post seems to hit a nerve.
One of these is my account of my full contact zombie experience. Others are my very recent Bolt Action scenarios, and a post about making sandbags for my figures.
The reason that these did so well was that I was able to identify groups and forums on Facebook under the internet and then post links to the blogs.
Traffic went – for me – through the roof. As such I believe I have passed my first grading. I now know two areas that I enjoy writing about, and which people enjoy reading about.
How I work on this and increase my presence and readership is going to be part of my next grading. Who knows how long that will take, but it will be fun.
Matthew Sylvester 
Discussion
No comments yet.