If you write an Areavoices blog you’ll want to see this

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Tracy Briggs

So you’ve been writing your blog for awhile…everything is fine. But there’s something missing. The magic is gone. Cue the melodramatic music. Okay, I won’t go that far. But the fact is, sometimes we roll along and blog the way we always do and end up feeling like it could all just be a little bit better.

Well, then along comes help in the form of a fabulous man named Shane Mercer. Shane is the Community Content Coordinator for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He describes himself as “The Forum’s blog guy.” Anyway, over the past few days Shane has been posting some great tutorials about making your Areavoices blog even better. His topics have included how tagging helps organize your blog and make it easier for readers , cool things you can do with menus , and how to use the text widget.

Great advice for anyone using Areavoices. There are two places you can find these tutorials. Shane’s blog or The Support Blog.

Thanks Shane! And if you have specific questions, let us know. We can put together a tutorial to answer your question.

Growing Pains can wreak a little havoc sometimes

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Tracy Briggs

And no, I’m not talking about the 80′s sitcom with Alan Thicke. In this case, I’m talking about Areavoices.

Throughout the last couple of years, we’ve seen tremendous growth in both the number of people writing blogs and the traffic these blogs are attracting. People are loving what they’re reading in our blogging community and Forum Communications is happy to be the vehicle to bring this blog content to you.

But with the tremendous growth, sometimes we’re stretched pretty thin trying to keep up. More spammers are trying to gain access to our readers and our spam filters are having to work overtime. The result is sometimes legitimate blogs get marked as spam. If that’s happened to you, just let me know as soon as possible and we’ll get you unmarked.It’s a quick fix.

Also, on occasion some of our bloggers are getting an error message when they try to log in. Again, the result of high traffic. Here’s what Product Development Manager Chris Welle says,

Right now the issue is that during the morning – due to high traffic – the site will become very slow to respond. This will make it incredibly difficult to post new content in the morning. My short term recommendation would be to try and post your stories in the afternoon while we continue to isolate and implement other solutions.

One longer term solutions that we will be reviewing is to see if we can’t put parts of Areavoices behind a CDN to help relive the amount of bandwidth it takes to host the site. The hope is that by moving parts of the site to a CDN we can save on bandwidth to make the site more responsive during peak traffic. We know by following WordPress.org’s example that their fix for running their own software is to continuously throw more hardware at it when issues arise — that isn’t a luxury we can always afford so we will need to get creative.

Other potential fixes will be to run some updates to Areavoices WordPress software – we are a few revisions behind at the moment.

There is one issue that we can’t ‘fix’ per-say and that is the issue of spam, though we have taken steps to relieve the amount of spam posts, comments and blogs that are created (which can chew up it’s much needed resources) we can only do so much. Spammers are sophisticated creatures and it’s a continuous cat and mouse game between the anti-spam programs we use and the spammers, as a result there will be times when the spam will get through. It’s annoying but it is something we will need to live with when running an open platform like Areavoices (our third largest site in the FCC Network).

In closing, we’ve been trying to determine what can be done to alleviate the morning issues and will be working towards a few solutions over the next few weeks. Also, if there are times where you’re not getting responses via the support email please feel free to reach out to me directly.

So, thanks for your patience. Areavoices is a fantastic way to get your content out to the thousands of people reading our Forum Communications Papers. We value having you in our Areavoices community and hope to make it even easier in the future.

Four Tips for Bloggers to Avoid Getting Marked as Spam

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

And I’m not talking about the lunch meat. As I mentioned in the last blog post, occasionally legitimate blogs get marked as spam. It’s a bummer. But it does happen. So you log on to write a blog post, something you’ve done countless times before. But WHAMMO! The screen comes on saying that you’ve been marked as spam.

What do you do?

Where do you go?

First, relax. It’s not that big a deal. We know most of the time it’s nothing you’ve done. To quote that old breakup line, “It’s not you, it’s me.” But in this case, it’s “It’s not you, it’s them!” Them being spammers who are working hard to get people to see their blogs and in the process the spam filter is getting you.

Grrr….spammers!

There are some fixes being examined. I won’t go into the sordid (and techy details). But in the meantime, you have some power to get the spam filter from trapping you. Here are:

Four tips for bloggers to avoid getting labelled as spam:

1. Be careful about words you use within posts. Anything about Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Live Streaming tend to get marked. You can’t leave all of those suspicious keywords out of blog posts all the time, but avoid them if possible.

2. Make sure they request that stats be added to their blog. Email your request to add stats to support@areavoices.com. We have noticed that once blogs have stats added they haven’t gotten marked as spam. Not a definite solution, but it appears to be one tool.

3. Put time and effort into the look of your blog. If you notice a spam blog it’s pretty bare bones. Make a nice header, add and manage widgets – anything to set you apart from a spam blog. If it looks like a spam blog the spam filter thinks it is one. If it quacks like a duck…..

4. Along the sames lines, make sure to fill out your “About” pages. These are nice explanations of who you are and what you’re writing about. Again, if a blog looks legit it’s less likely to get marked as spam. Not foolproof, but helpful.

If you have questions, let me know.

I need your input!

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

Hey Areavoices Bloggers! I need your opinion.

As always we’re looking at ways to improve and expand Areavoices. I’m interested in what you think. What do you want?

First, let me start by saying we are currently addressing the needs to tweak our spam filter. Areavoices has grown so fast we are being hit with spam blog posts. And let’s be honest. They mess it up for all of us. Because the filter is working overtime to trap the spammers, legitimate blogs sometimes get caught. (Think dolphins in a tuna net). I am so sorry about this. The good news is – it’s a super easy fix. Just email me or support@areavoices.com and your blog can get unmarked as spam in a matter of seconds. The spammers have also forced us to currently suspend postdating your blog post. In other words, if you write a blog post and set it to publish in two or three days, right now it won’t be able to do that. We’re working to solve the issue and hope to reactivate that feature. Again, our apologies. Again, email me if you have questions about scheduling your posts. We might be able to work something out.

So as we work on those issues we’re also examining things like whether you’d be interested in purchasing more storage space, custom domains, or different themes. Right now at Areavoices you can choose from dozens of themes and most bloggers find they have adequate storage space, but again let us know if you’d like something more.

Thanks!

What’s the best time to post on Facebook, Twitter or my blog?

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

That might be one of the questions I get asked the most as I speak to people trying to optimize their social media experience. They want to know when they’ll get the most “bang for their buck” with their post. If they’re going to take the time and effort to write on their blog, Facebook or Twitter they want to know when their post will receive the most clicks.

Now bit.ly, the link shortening service, has made it even more clear. They’ve issued a new report that spells how what times of day posts get the most click throughs. And it turns out a college professor of mine way back in the 1980′s was right. More on that in a minute, but first….the results of that study.

Drum roll please….

It turns out according to the bit.ly report, your tweet is most likely to get clicked between the hours of 12:00pm and 2:00pm (Central Time), Monday through Thursday. You should avoid at all costs, Tweeting a link after 8:00pm any night, or after 3:00pm on Fridays. (While Happy Hour doesn’t officially begin until 5:00pm, not surprisingly Joe and Jane Worker are already mentally eating those bar nuts a couple of hours earlier).

The story is similar on Facebook, where the most successful posts hit between 12:00pm and 3pm. So you do have an hour more grace period with Facebook.

Now where does that professor of mine come in?

Let me explain. He used to tell us he would only hold tests between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning. He claimed we college students weren’t out of our drunken stupor from the weekend until Tuesday morning and we were gearing up for the upcoming one by Thursday afternoon. He was a jaded and cynical man. I’m not saying he wasn’t right. But still jaded and cynical.

Okay, so what about Areavoices blogs? Our research backs up what common sense would tell you. Think about how you use the internet. When do you go to news websites? We get our highest traffic on weekdays, right after 8:00am (as people are logging on their computers for the workday), between 11:00am and 1:00pm (logging in and out for their lunch hour) and right before 5:00pm (as you can’t stand to work anymore, you take one more look at the news before the trip home.)

So if you’re concerned about maximum traffic, strive for these times. But if traffic is not an issue, post away day and night to your hearts content. Now I must submit this blog post right now, as it is 2:30pm on Friday afternoon and I’m a half-hour away from those mental beer nuts.

Check out our newest videos!

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

Many thanks to Hailey from Becoming Midwestern and Jared and Cody from Movies in the Mancave for recording testimonials for Areavoices. The three of them have definitely been shining lights in Areavoices land.

Both Becoming Midwestern and Movies in the Mancave are fan favorites garnering hundreds and sometimes thousands of views from around the world.

Hailey, Jared, and Cody took time out of their busy schedules to share with us why they’ve like blogging on Areavoices.

Check out their testimonials. Thanks guys!

Pinterest: Online obsession boosts blog traffic

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

“My name is Tracy and I’m a Pinterest addict.”

“Hi, Tracy.”

I can almost envision this conversation with some women I know from church. A couple of months ago, as we waited for our children to leave choir practice a conversation started about Pinterest. I had no idea what they were talking about. Imagine my embarrassment when I found out it was the hottest new website around. (I try to stay in the loop on these things, but failed miserably this particular day.)

Well, just a couple of weeks after taking the Pinterest plunge, I find myself a full-scale Pinterest addict, just like many of those women in church. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either a great way to organize valuable content or a complete time suck. What’s Pinterest all about?

I won’t go into great detail here. Suffice it to say Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. If you’re like me, you occasionally rip out magazine articles and pictures when you find something you’d like to save: decorating ideas or haircuts or recipes. My kitchen is full of these scraps of magazine copy. Honestly, I usually end up throwing the crumpled up pages out before ever trying the recipes, haircuts or decorating ideas. So be it. Pinterest helps with all of this by allowing you to virtually pin images and articles by category onto your personalized boards. So I can create a board with my favorite recipe ideas. (My food board is called “YUM!” as that is an expression I use almost always when trying a great new recipe.) When I surf the web and find a recipe that looks great I simply click “Pin it” and I can put it onto my board.

For information about the popularity of Pinterest and how it works here’s a good article.

I mention this now to you Areavoices bloggers because Pinterest can actually help you get more traffic on your blog.

For example, Areavoices blogger Erin writes a blog called Fairly Crafty. Recently, she wrote a blog post about making her own glittery formal shoes. What a great idea for all those girls and women trying to pull off proms and weddings on a budget. Erin can create a board called “Weddings” or “Style” or “Crafts” and simply pin her link to those boards. Soon enough, her pin will not only be on her board, but the general Pinterest boards and those specialty category boards. So that means anybody surfing Pinterest for Wedding ideas will see Erin’s shoes pop up. Not bad.

Here’s another success story. Sherri Richards writes the Top Mom blog. Most days, her blog will receive a couple hundred views. But back in October Sherri wrote about her efforts to make a homemade Halloween costume, Jesse from Toy Story. She included pictures and instructions and decided to pin it to her board. What followed was about 2,500 new views to her blog!

Now, you have to be careful. Pintrest is a pinboard not a billboard. They discourage an overuse of self-promotion. Don’t pin every blog post you make, be selective. But if you think something is worth sharing, do it.

Pintrest is another opportunity to get your ideas in front of new eyeballs. Give it a shot!

Adding a Featured Image to your post

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

Have you had a chance to check out our updated Areavoices homepage? It’s pretty cool. It displays our featured blogs in a more visually pleasing way. Instead of a row of text, you see the blogs displayed in a square grid-like pattern. (See below.) But it could definitely look better than it does right now. And we’re going to need your help with that.

If you notice below only 2 of the 12 blogs in this grid have a picture within their square. That’s because most of the blogs have not used the Featured Image sidebar to associate an image with their blog. Selecting a featured image is super easy to do, takes just seconds and ensures that your blog has an image connected to the text. A picture is worth a thousand words, so why not select an image to feature with every post? I should say a featured image is different from simply inserting an image into your post. You can use the same image within your post for your featured image, but you don’t need to.

HOW TO USE A FEATURED IMAGE WITH YOUR POST

1) While you’re writing a new post within your dashboard, you will notice a sidebar on the right side of the screen entitled “Featured Image”

2) Click on “Set Featured Image”

3) You will be asked to upload an image either from your computer, url or your media library

4) When you find your image, make any changes to the image that you wish and click “Use as Featured Image.”

5) Click “Save All Changes”

That’s it!

It’s important to remember that you must choose a featured image for every post you do. You can’t set it once and be done with it. But you can use the SAME featured image with every post (For example: your picture or your logo). Once you upload that image it should stay in your media library which makes it even easier to find each time you need it.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!

Don’t forget adding a featured image to your post makes for a more professional looking blog and can even boost your blog traffic!

Upgrade Update

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

Thanks to all of you who’ve had questions and comments regarding our new Areavoices home page. The upgrade started on Tuesday. As I’ve said previously, the upgrade provides a visually more appealing layout of Areavoices blogs. They’re displayed in a square grid-like pattern.

Currently, our talented group of developers is working on getting the search function and the registration information up and running. In the long run, we hope to also reinstate the activity feed that a few of you have asked about.

Thanks for your patience as we make Areavoices even better!

One important note: As we are now making our display of Areavoices blogs more visual, we’d ask you to consider adding a featured image to EVERY post you make. That does not mean you have to insert a photo into the post. It simply means that their is an image connected to that post. To add a featured image: after writing your post (and before you click “publish” scroll down the page. Look at that bottom right and you’ll see the featured image. Click on “set featured image,” upload a photo, then click “use as featured image.” You can also insert this image into the post but you don’t need to. Click “Save” and you should be ready to publish. Now when you go to areavoices.com your blog will be listed with the accompanying image. (Again, right now only the top 50 or so blogs are found in the square grid). But every blog can still be found in our directory.

I plan to blog in more detail about this in the next day or two. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.

The “Brady Bunch Update” is scheduled

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

You might have read in this blog last week that some updates are being made to Areavoices.

In a nutshell, Areavoices users will see security enhancements and the implementation of a search function, which will enable readers to more easily find information.

But the biggest change is what you’ll now be seeing on the homepage of Areavoices.com. Right now if you go to www.areavoices.com you see a list of our featured Areavoices blogs. But after the update, you’ll see some featured blogs displayed in a square, grid-like pattern. I’ve referred to it as a Brady Bunch kind of look (you know what I mean, right? Kind of like the open to the beloved ’70′s show where the faces of the main characters were displayed in boxes, one atop the other. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I insist you spend some quality time on Nick at Night.)

I was happy to hear today that the developers working on this update have actually adopted my Brady Bunch reference, calling this “The Brady Bunch Upgrade.” (It’s nice to feel like I’ve made a difference in the world.)

To make this happen, the crew here at FCC interactive will have to take the site down for awhile. And it’s happening TONIGHT.

The upgrade is scheduled to start at 11:59pm tonight. It shouldn’t take too much time. But it will mean you will not be about to go on Areavoices.com for about 2-3 hours. We should be up and running again by early morning.

I will tell you the list of featured blogs will remain under the directory tab. Not all of the featured blogs will appear in the new “Brady Bunch” squares. To start we’ll be displaying the most active/popular 40 or so blogs in the squares. That’s just a nice place to start. I will be adding new blogs to the squares in the future. If you’d like to make sure your blog is featured in the square layout, just shoot me an email at tracy.briggs@fccinteractive.com

But again, all of your blogs will still be found on the directory the way they are now.

Because some of the blogs will now be displayed in a square, I would like to ask some of you to add a featured image to each post. It’s really easy to do. I will do a video tutorial of how to do it, later this week after you get a chance to see the new design. Adding the featured image is entirely optional, but will make your blog stand out a bit more.

So again, the update starts at 11:59pm tonight. Areavoices.com will be down for a couple of hours. Might be a good chance to catch up on some Brady Bunch reruns.

Areavoices bloggers: The World is Taking Notice!

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

Congratulations Areavoices bloggers! You’re attracting a lot of attention!

According to data from Quantcast, more than 300,000 people around the world are reading Areavoices blogs every month. Our audience extends from the United States and Canada all the way to The Netherlands, Australia, India, The Russian Federation and more.

If you click on the Quantcast link, you can see the blogs are gaining about 100,000 new readers every year. (100,000 in January 2010, 200,000 in January 2011).

What’s the reason? Well it helps that many Areavoices blogs are featured on the 36 news websites of Forum Communications from Minnesota to Wisconsin to North and South Dakota. If you write a blog and you’d like to see it featured on our news websites please send me an email at tracy.briggs@fccinteractive.com. Make sure to include your blog address so I can check it out.

But the bottom line for Areavoices popularity is simple: Great content.

Areavoices bloggers are writing about hundreds of topics. Just go to our directory to see the wide range of subject matter. You can guess what some of the most popular topic areas are.

Okay, I’ll give you a few seconds to think about it.

(Play Jeopardy music here)

That’s enough. Our most popular topic areas are sports, arts and entertainment and food. Makes sense right? People love their football, movies and grub.

But people are often surprised to know that our most popular individual blogger is Bob King or Astrobob. His blog about astronomy attracts between 30 and 40,000 readers every month. So it just goes to show you there’s an audience for everything. If you want to write about it, someone will want to read about it.

So I’ll say it again, if you’d like to blog on Areavoices, just shoot me an email or better yet look at the tutorials and FAQ’s on this blog. Learn how easy it is to start your blog at www.areavoices.com .

And congrats to all of you Areavoices bloggers who are building an audience around the world!

Top 10 Ways to Avoid Blog Burnout

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Tracy Briggs

Not long ago, I received a call from a blogger who was sick to death of writing his blog. This is not a picture of him. This is Jimmy Buffett. I’ll get to him in a minute. But first the blogger…

“I just sit at my computer, staring blankly at it, feeling like I have nothing to say. I’m just so sick of writing.”

A classic case of blog burnout. So what should this once prolific blogger do?

Relax, take a deep breath and read my “Top 10 Ways to Avoid Blog Burnout.”

If this doesn’t work don’t say I didn’t try.

Enjoy! And feel free to leave your own tips for avoiding and dealing with blog burnout. And be sure to watch my electronic newsletter posted below from Smilebox. If you’d like me to email you this newsletter, just leave a comment here and I’ll get you on the mailing list.

TOP 10 WAYS TO AVOID BLOG BURNOUT:

10) Focus on quality not quantity. Never write just for the sake of writing. It’s better to have 2 good posts in a week, than 5 mediocre ones.

9) Read other bloggers posts. And not just blogs that you normally read. Go outside your comfort zone and read posts from many different bloggers. They might inspire you in ways you wouldn’t expect.

8) Get a little help from your friends. The Beatles might have said it best. Get a little help from a guest blogger. Or just interview an interesting person in your community.

7) Look at your blog stats and see what’s resonating with people. If you know what topics have hit with your readers, you might get that boost you need to write more.

6) Read and reply to your commenters. You might get inspired by one of their observations. Or not.

5) For heaven’s sake don’t obsess! Perfection is overrated. If you’re stressing out over every word in every blog post, you’re taking this whole blog thing way too seriously. Make it good, but it doesn’t need to be perfect.

4) Rework a favorite old post. Maybe you didn’t have enough time to really get into a topic that you loved. Well do it now. Find a new angle. Start a new conversation about a favorite old topic all over again.

3) Remember, short blog posts are generally more popular than long ones. If you feel like you’re running out of time to post, maybe you’re posts are too long. Consider breaking subject matter into 3 or 4 shorter blog posts. That’ll help your blog traffic and make you feel less overwhelmed to produce a lot of content.

2) Put yourself on a schedule. Make a certain couple of hours every week as your “blog time.” Write several posts and post date them so they’ll publish whenever you’d like them to. It puts less pressure on you to post everyday and it helps you stay focused.

And the Number One Way to Avoid Blog Burnout is…..

1) Embrace it then move one…..
There’s a reason bosses like vacations. Workers come back refreshed, inspired and more productive. The same can be true for blogging. Take a break. Go to the islands, drink margaritas and listen to Jimmy Buffett. Maybe, it’s just the break you need. Your blog isn’t going anywhere. You can take a break for months at a time and your Areavoices blog will be waiting for you. (And really if you’re in the islands drinking margaritas with Jimmy Buffett, you’ll probably have a lot to write about when you come back!)

Happy Blogging! (and/or say “hi” to Jimmy!)

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Three simple ways to get more comments on your blog

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

When it comes to comments it seems you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. In fact over the last year or so, I’ve found that a fear of comments keeps some people from starting a blog at all. They don’t want to get nasty feedback and deal with online trolls who have nothing better to do than trash other’s work. I tell them, of course, most comments aren’t like that and comment management is really no big deal. You can simply select that all comments on your blog be “moderated” meaning that no comment will see the light of day until you approve it for publication.

Still while some are a little reluctant to allow discussion on their blogs, others are craving it. I asked a few Areavoices bloggers what they’d like to learn about blogging and a common question was: “How can I generate more comments on my blog?”

The fact is a blog that encourages interactivity with it’s readers will tend to generate higher traffic. I’ll use our own Forum Communication featured blogs as a good example. Anytime, FCC bloggers have asked for participation amongst their readers, high page views have followed. For example, in one given month three out of the top five blogs were blogs where readers participated. (Oct, 2011 Bestof.areavoices.com, Beautifulwomen.areavoices.com and fargostar.areavoices.com). In this case, these blogs asked readers to vote. But we also find when you simply ask for comments, traffic will rise as well.

It’s why shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars continue to thrive. People like to feel heard.

So here are three simple ways to generate more discussion on your blog:

1) Ask yourself a simple question – “If I didn’t write this blog post, would I be interested enough to leave a comment?” Many times we get so close to a particular topic that we lose perspective. You might be so immersed in the topic that you’re losing the big picture. If you have a broad issue that you’re covering, try to narrow down to a couple of key points in which you’d like to seek comment. Not to be too corny here, but remember that old adage: Keep it simple stupid.

2) Lead the horse to water and make him drink – Ask for what you want to receive. I teased my mother in law a few weeks back when she told me she left a ladder by the stairs hoping my brother-in-law would bring it upstairs. She was angered when he didn’t. When I asked her, “Well did you ask him to bring it upstairs?” she said, “Well, no.” Because my brother-in-law is a nice guy, I’m sure he would have loved to do it. But he didn’t know what was expected. My point here is this, ask direct questions, “What do you think?” “I want to hear from you.” “Am I wrong or am I right?” Again, people like to feel validated and heard. They want their opinion out there and your blog can be that vehicle.

3) It’s a two way street – when someone does comment on your blog post I strongly urge you to reply back to them. It’s not always practical to do so, but if someone takes the time to add to the discussion on your blog site, it’s worth telling them you appreciate it. You can even disagree with them, but just let them know they were heard. Also, remember to comment on other people’s blogs. The number of comments you leave on blogs is directly proportional to the comments you get on your blog. Relationships form and your name recognition increases. And if you work for a business and have your own website, traffic to your website goes up.

Next up on your questions: How do you avoid blog burnout?

Soon to come: answering some of your questions

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

As we get ready to wrap up 2011, my mind is turned to one thing. Okay, maybe two. I keep thinking I should try to make some batches of peanut blossom cookies to win the favor of my in-laws.

But mostly, I’m thinking of one thing: The fantastic year we’ve had on Areavoices!

Over the past year, our number of featured bloggers on Areavoices has grown from about 250 to about 700. That’s also resulted in growth in the number of people reading Areavoices blogs.

In January of 2011, about 207,000 people a month were clicking on Areavoices sites. This past month, approximately 260,000 people a month were reading Areavoices blogs.

That’s a lot of great content out there that you might not have had access to just one year ago. Content about travel, health, money, family, food and more!

If you’d like to start a blog your audience is ready for you. Just send me an email at tracy.briggs@fccinteractive.com and I can help you get started. You can also find all kinds of tutorials on this blog. One that actually takes you through how to set up your blog. It’s fun and easy. Okay, enough of the sales pitch (actually, it’s not really a sales pitch since it’s FREE to set up and run your blog).

The purpose of this blog post is not just to celebrate our growth this year. I wanted to highlight what I’m hearing from our bloggers: specifically the questions I get asked pretty frequently.You’ll find most of my FAQ’s on a separate page of this blog. But in the upcoming days, I’ll highlight some questions in greater detail.

First up: How do you generate more comments on your blog?

Are you proud of your blog?

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

Are you proud of your blog? Well, share it!

We’ve made it easier to share your Areavoices blog on your website. We’ve tweaked and sharpened our Areavoices logo to enable you to post it on your website. You can link your blog url to the share button and in one click people will be taken to your blog.

Lisa Farnham from Trollwood Performing Arts School has done it. She writes a fantastic blog about the school in Moorhead, Minnesota. See how she posted the Areavoices button right alongside buttons for YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Good company.

www.trollwood.org
It’s easy to do. You should be able to save the image on the top left of this post to use as your share button.

Let me know if you have questions!

An easier way to find my blogging tips

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

It seems the blog posts in which I get the most reaction are those that include blogging tips. I’ve been writing them periodically and categorizing them as “Areavoices 101.” But I just realized today that the categories of my blogs weren’t easily visible on my home page.

Well knock me over with a feather! What was I thinking? You would think as a self-proclaimed Blog Queen I would know better.

So I’ve changed the front page of my blog. You’ll see right under the picture of me is a list of the categories of my posts. It includes a category of our weekly digests of recommended blogs, but it also includes all the posts I’ve made with tips and advice under Areavoices 101.

It should make it easier for you to scroll through the tips you missed.

I’m so sorry I overlooked this simple way of displaying my categorized blogs. (Remember you can do this on your homepage as well).

Let me know if you have questions or if there are other blog tips you’d like to hear about.

Areavoices “A Team” newsletter: Will your blog traffic go up if you do what this record-breaker did?

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

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The top five things to learn from our #1 blogger

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

The other day I was looking through Areavoices Quantcast data because, well, you know that’s what all the cool people do. Actually, while it sounds a little dull, I find it fascinating. Quantcast breaks down how many people are reading each of our Areavoices blogs.

Almost every month the same guy is at the top of list. His name is Bob King and he’s a photographer for the Duluth News Tribune. But he’s not blogging about that. He blogs about his hobby: Astronomy.

His blog, Astrobob is the number one blog on Areavoices (I’m excluding the Topics blog here because that blog is not really a written blog, but a discussion center for the day’s top news stories).

About 27,000 people across the country read Astrobob every month. That’s double the audience of the second place blog, Bisonmedia. The gaps widens even more when you include the global audience. That puts Bob up to about 41,000 people a month.

I mention this now for a few reasons. I think bloggers and would-be bloggers can learn a lot from him.

First, I think Bob is a good lesson in writing about what you love. As a rule, food blogs and sports blogs will tend to have a higher audience, but this is evidence that if you write something well your audience will find you. You might think nobody cares about what you care about. You wouldn’t have an audience. Wrong. There’s a niche for everyone. Write your passion: find your followers!

Second, he’s consistent. He writes often. His readers know that they won’t go weeks without hearing from him.

Third, it’s visual. Not surprising from a photographer, but Bob includes stunning photography and impressive graphics in his blog.

Fourth, he breaks down sometimes scientific information in a reader-friendly format.

Fifth, don’t always look for the newest blogs to get your Areavoices fix. Sometimes the oldies are the goodies. Bob has been blogging for years and he’s great at it! Check him out! What are you waiting for for heaven’s sake!

Get it? “For heaven’s sake?” An astronomy blog? I’m punning you and it’s only 7:00am. This is going to be a great day!

Check out Bob and the other recommended blogs of the week in a post later today.

The Top 5 Blogging Roadblocks

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Tracy Briggs

As I go about the area extolling the virtues of blogging on Areavoices, I’ve found a few common misconceptions about blogs and blogging in general. They’re often the factors that keep people from setting up a blog. But in most cases they’re not true.

Here are the top five blogging roadblocks:

Blogs are political or inflammatory

You can see why this misconception still exists today. Some of the earliest blogs focused on politics and the blogger often did so in a vicious and inflammatory way. But news producers anxious to fill their 24-hour news hole, flocked to them as quasi-legitimate sources of political info you couldn’t get anywhere else. Their relaxed and every-man tone made for good TV. If that’s the first place you had heard of blogging, that makes for a skewed first impression. And first impressions are tough to change. The fact is only a small fraction of bloggers write about politics. The most popular blogs are actually about food, sports, health, money, family and travel. That’s what people want to read about. For example, our most popular blogger on the Areavoices platform is a photojournalist who writes about Astronomy. Astrobob has a worldwide audience reading his posts.

Blogs are time consuming

They can be, but they don’t have to be. The best blogs are less than 500 words. People sometimes lose interest in longer pieces. Remember you’re not writing a PhD dissertation. Your blog can be casual and conversational. Have fun with it, like writing an email to a friend. And for those people who write press releases, the hard work is already done. You’ve written the content. All you need to do is copy and paste the press release into your blog. Easy as that.

Nobody would be interested in what I want to write about

First of all, so what if that is true? You can blog just for fun. It’s a nice stress reliever. But the fact is there’s a niche out there for just about every activity and hobby. We even have a blogger writing about raising chickens in his backyard. Why not? Someone out there might share your interests. Share you knowledge with them.

Nasty commenters would pollute my blog

The fact is you control your comments. You can completely turn off comments so no one can reply to your posts. Better yet, you can monitor your comments, so when someone chooses to comment on your post you can read it, but unless you approve it, it won’t appear on your blog.

It costs money to write a blog

Not on Areavoices it doesn’t. Our platform is free and easy to use. Just create your blog at www.areavoices.com. Some blogs are chosen to be featured on our Forum Communications websites. Just let me know if you’d like your blog to be considered.

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