Blogging Q&A

I’m wearing two hats today: my marketing consultant hat and my author hat. Awhile back, I wrote a post 8 Twitter Tips for Writers. It did very well, so I’m guessing a lot of authors are looking for ideas.

Today, I’ll answer a few questions related to blogging. Some of the advice is based on my decades of experience as a marketing consultant and blogging enthusiast – the latter for at least the last five years. Other bits are based on my experience as a blogging author for the last six months.

Feel free to add your comments. If you’re an author, what’s working for you? It could very well be different than my own experience and points of view. If you’re a reader, do you like visiting author blogs, and what are your favorite topics?

Do you have a website too?

I don’t. I hear from fellow authors all the time that I MUST have a webpage. Some even tell me that I should have done that first. I have noticed that some of the folks giving me that advice set up websites for a living. Coincidence? J

I refuse to give in to the guilt because I have good reasons for setting up a blog first.

It was faster and easier than setting up a website. Yes, there are advantages to setting up the blog within a website, but for now, Blogger works for me.

It’s a better platform for real interaction. Granted, I haven’t seemed to discover the “secret sauce” that gets readers to comment, but at least I feel like I’m talking to readers. Websites are so static. I always get the feeling that I’m being “talked at” when I visit a website.

It allows me to get more pages out there – fast. Anybody who has been involved with website development knows the ins and outs of SEO – Search Engine Optimization. The end goal is to improve your chance of being found by potential readers using search engines to find their next read. It’s a mind boggling science, but one of the tricks is to have more pages. It’s much easier to add pages when you’re writing a blog than working within a more static website.

How often do you blog?

My problem isn’t that I don’t blog enough. I love blogging! I would blog everyday if I didn’t have my marketing consulting gig to focus on. Plus, I need to finish my edits to Caution to the Wind so I can get a release date set.

I am trying to keep it to two to three posts a week. That allows me to keep the blog fresh, but still find time for other things

How long should a post be?

Shorter is better given that reading blog posts is often something people do between other more important tasks. I’m a big believer in keeping posts to less than 400 words. Unfortunately, I’ve already passed that, so I’ll leave it here for now.

Remember, add your comments. Plus, I have some ideas for other questions I’ll answer in a future post. In the meantime, if you have a specific question, feel free to reach out to me or add it in the comment section below.

MJ