Interactive blogs are the most successful: Part 1
Feb 3rd
The key element to the Web 2.0 craze is the interaction that takes place on a dynamic website. Previous to Web 2.0 sites the websites were static allowing no interaction between visitor and web master. Research is showing that the more interactive blogs are the most successful.
If you want a highly interactive website or webpage you can start a Facebook page or a free blog with Blogger, Wordpress or another blogging platform. There are inherit problems with these free blog options since you do not own the domain name but that is a topic for another article. What I want to cover in this article are the ways that you can make your blog more interactive and the way that I do this and recommend that you do it is by using purchasing your own domain name and installing Wordpress, a free blogging software that is easy to use and has many plugins that will add lots of interaction making your blog one of the most interactive blogs.
Here is a list of items to consider adding to your blog that will rank you up there with the most interactive blogs.
Commenting on articles
People can read your articles and benefit but when they can comment on your article it is even better. On top of that there are plugins for Wordpress that will allow the commentator to receive and email when someone replies to their comment. This is fun for the people and attracts traffic. Traffic and comments will add value to your site that is good for SEO with Google and other search engines. Something that will attract even more people to comment on your blog is if you allow their name to have a hyperlink and make that hyperlink a ‘do follow’ link. Making the links ‘do follow’ requires a little editing of a file in your Wordpress files (instructions found on my blog). This ‘do follow’ may attract spammers if you have a good page rank (PR) but you can moderate the comments and not allow spammers to post. You can also add a captcha to your comment posting so a bot cannot enter comments. In the end the traffic and comments may give you more value with Google. Surely this will make your blog one of the most interactive blogs.
Social Networking
There is a great Wordpress plugin called ‘Socialize’ and installing this on your Wordpress will add a pretty row of social network icons like Facebook, Twitter, Delicious and more. This is standard and allows people to easily share your post on their Facebook feed for example. When I watch something good on Hulu there are social network icons below the video that allows me to post the video link right to my Facebook feed allowing me to share this video with hundreds or thousands of people. This makes your blog one the top interactive blogs but there is another benefit called viral marketing. A virus spreads to other cells in the body by infecting one cell. Viral marketing is similar that one person reads an article like the one you are reading and then shares it with their friends or colleagues. The result is your blog gets more traffic and becomes one of the most interactive blogs.
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Continue to read “Interactive blogs are the most successful: Part 2“
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Interactive blogs are the most successful: Part 3
Feb 3rd
This will conclude our 3 part series of interactive blogs. In this third part we will look at some internal plugins or widgets that will help the visitor to your site navigate to helpful information with greater ease and as a result should make your site, on a whole, more productive.
RSS Feed
If you don’t have an RSS feed you are missing an extremely valuable tool. The RSS feed is another form of viral marketing as mentioned in part 1 of this series. Visitors to your site can subscribe to this feed and will receive updates as you add content to your blog. I personally use Feedburner provided by Google and there is a Wordpress plugin for that. You will have to get an account with Google and then setting up the feed is mostly automatic. You will be able to have Google add Adsense to your feed earning you some extra money. This will provide further interaction.
Newsletter Subscription
A newsletter can be set up to send the subscribers an email each time you add new content to your website. Unlike the RSS Feed you can send your subscribers a newsletter at will. This was you can send them information that is not posted on your website and can post information on your blog that will not be sent to the subscribers. A well ordered newsletter that is enjoyable and informative and not just sales pitches, one after another will build relationships built on trust and respect and will be worth it’s weight in gold for years to come. Therefore, a newsletter is a part of the most interactive blogs.
Recent Posts and Comments
One the Wordpress dashboard in the widgets section there are recent comments and recent posts and placing these on your sidebars will create fantastic on page navigation for your visitors. If they come to your site through an article on “Cleaning your dog’s teeth” and they see another recent post on “How to groom your dog and not get bit” they are likely to continue browsing your site. Recent comments can also catch their eye and lead them to read more and meander around your site stumbling over more and yet greater information.
Related Posts
There is a Wordpress plugin for this option and it will pull posts that are related by tags into a list like the recent posts. I know that I would like to link to all the other relevant posts from one so that people can keep reading, learning and growing. This plugin takes care of that for you by pulling all related content into a list for the visitor. I just love it when you can automate all these great systems to help your readers.
When you use all the tools that we have covered in the last 3 part series you will surely have one of the most interactive blogs!
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Interactive blogs are the most successful: Part 2
Feb 3rd
Posted by billwynne in Interactive blogs
1 comment
Here we are with part two in the series of how to make your blog one of the most interactive blogs on the Internet. In part one we looked at the value of allowing people to comment on your articles, we considered allowing people to be emailed when someone replies to a commentators comment and we looked at making the URL in the name field a ‘do follow’ link. We also considered a plugin for social networks like Facebook and Twitter. One of the best Wordpress plugins for this is ‘Socialize’ or ‘AddtoAny’.
Now lets cover a few more items that will add more interaction to your blog.
TweetMeMe
Have you seen an icon on a post that says “Tweet” and tells you how many Tweets a blog post has? This is another great Wordpress plugin called TweetMeMe. This will allow people to Tweet your post on their Twitter account. This is interactive for them and more viral marketing for you.
Comment Rating
This is yet another Wordpress plugin that will put a little green thumbs up hand and a little red thumbs down hand on your comments. This will allow people to simply click the green or red hand to applaud or deject a comment left by another. People just love to comment on other people’s comments, don’t they? This is a great asset to making your blog one of the most interactive blogs.
Community
There is a Wordpress plugin for joining a kind of site community. I tried this and honestly I did not like it but I am sure it is very appropriate for someone’s blog. People do love to feel like they are part of a private club.
Forum
If you are real serious about a particular topic and plan to be very focused you may want to consider adding a forum to your blog. This can draw lots of traffic and become a place where people will come to share and grow together. These can become like little communities and I am part of forums where we know each other and it is a great experience. Both communities and forums will creative interactive blogs.
Surveys/Polls
Like I said previously, people like to comment and be heard. You can create an enjoyable and profitable exercise for people to do with surveys and/or polls. If you had a site that was heavily involved in Mac products now would be the perfect time to take a poll about the new Ipad. In a few weeks you could take a survey from the people that bought the Ipad and see how they liked it. This is another value tool to make your blog one of the most interactive blogs.
We are going to have one more part to this series and in it we will include some items that are not necessarily interactive but will help make the navigation more efficient and the productivity of your site much more valuable.
Continue to read “Interactive blogs are the most successful: Part 3“
Go back to “Interactive blogs are the most successful: Part 1“
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