Panel at Blogpolis: Candice (Super Kawaii Mama), Eden (Edenland) Helen (Grab Your Fork) Darren (Problogger)
Yesterday was the inaugural Nuffnang Blogpolis conference in Melbourne. Around 300 bloggers from all over Australia came to pick the brains of some of Australia’s leading bloggers and connect with other Australian bloggers. Included on the list of speakers is Miss Blogher 2011 Eden from Edenland, you can see her at the Blogher Conference in San Diego.
The day was jam packed full with great content, and started with Nicole Avery of Planning with Kids talking about some of the tools of the trade why newsletters are so important and how to optimise your Feedburner information to get the most benefit.
One of the things that I’ve been asked but never before figured out how to do was make my blog available by email and now I have (see right column). If you’re like me and had no idea, log into your Feedburner account (if you don’t have one, get one now) and click on Optimize – there you can choose to share via email.
Whilst your in Feedburner, why not check out your Feed stats and see what your subscribers are finding the most interesting.
Then Michael Aulia from www.cravingtech.com gave us some tips on great plugins you may want to use (WordPress)
Qoate Newsletter Signup
WP Touch
YARPP
WP Touch
Then if you want to speed up your blogs loading time
W3 Total Cache
and then look at Cloudflare (not a plugin but a service)
Image compression tools:
www.smush.it
or the plugin Smush.it
Want to let everyone know about your latest blog post – then get Wise Stamp which adds your latest post in your email signature.
And then his tip for SEO was Clickbump SEO plugin
From Arnold Aranez Mr Gadget he talked more about SEO and Keywords.
Keywords are the words that you want people to find you by when they type that search into Google.
Once you’ve figured out your keywords, be consistent and use these keywords lots. But not too much that they are seen as spam.
Then, automate your social media – all in one SEO (plugin), Twitterfeed, Social RSS (Facebook)
Problogger Darren Rowse generously shared his tips to help you become a better blogger.
First think about: What is your brand?
“What people say about you when you’re not in the room” Jeff Bezos, Amazon.
What is your style, voice, uniquenesss, approachability, feeling, community.
Who do you want to read your blog?
What is your content strategy, marketing and communication based on the information from answering the question above.
Finding Readers:
Write great content, then get off your blog and share it via social media, commenting on others blogs and forums. This will build word of mouth to bring people to your blog.
Content:
Make it useful – solve problems and fulfil needs
Inform, inspire and interact.
Mix serving current readers with content to draw in new readers.
Write posts that people connect to emotionally.
Create projects that engage your readers – something they can participate in.
And finally:
A tip from Nikki from Styling You was to use the plugin Editorial Calendar to help you schedule your posts and work out where you’re going with your blogging.