How To Run A Blog

By Jorge Antonio Vallejos

This post is a starter for others but also a reminder for myself.  September 18, 2014 made it four years that I have been running blackcoffeepoet.com.  Four years!  This past year I have fallen off the keyboard: irregular postings and discontent readers because of my irregularity.  For three years I posted 3x a week.  Time to get back to that schedule.  The next few points are a reminder of what I have to do to get back to there and what novice bloggers can learn from my experience.

Post Consistently

Readers generally don’t visit blogs and sites that post irregularly.  Why visit and outdated blog or website?

Post consistently!

Choose days that work for you to publish work and let your readers know your schedule. After setting your schedule stick to it!  Nothing irritates readers more than coming to a site and seeing an old post they’ve already read.  In this day and age readers like new content and consistency.

Stick To Your Guns

In other words, stay on topic.  What is your blog about?  I run a literature blog.  But I’ve always stated that I mix my politics with my writing, and my writing is my activism (poetry and essays).  Hence the special weeks about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Trans Day Of Remembrance, December 6th…

Readers like to know where they are going and what they are going to get: focus.

Without a them and focus I would not have the worldwide following that I do.

The Title Says It All  

A title lets the reader know what your post is about.  Titles are also picked up by GOOGLE search (I’m still learning about this).  Good titles matched with good writing are win win!

Over the last four years my titles have not been the best in terms of attracting GOOGLE.  I’ll be going back to change titles and using the topical titles to let my readers know what they are in for.

Bad titles I have used in terms of GOOGLE have been my interviews.  Example: “Interview With…”.  The persons name would be best to start off with.

Good titles I have come up with have been:

Reena Virk (1983-1997): A Poem and Roundtable in Remembrance

The View Needs To Widen Their Scope on Jenna Talackova: Discussing Transphobia While Being Transphobic

Remembering Helen Betty Osborne

Response Equals Respect

If your readers comment on your blog the best thing to do is to respond.  For the first two years I did not do that.  Bad move!  Readers I have started to interact with have been coming back to my blog.  Response equals respect.  I may not agree with all peoples who read my blog, or comment, but I respect the fact that they took the time to visit, read, and write me.

Feature Your Best Posts

Good posts should not be left in the past.  Feature your most successful posts on a special page on your blog.  Click on my page Popular Posts.  New and old readers visit several of my posts that are now two and three years old.

Be A Good Host: Direct Your Readers To Places You Want Them To Visit

A Popular Posts page and a search bar (look to the right) help your readers go back in the past.  Again, old posts are not bad posts.  With the important topics I highlight I want readers to have access to them at all times.

Hold Off On Holding Off

Convicted!

The whole purpose of this post is to remind me not to be away from my readers to long periods of time.  If you want to lose regular readers or new readers visiting your blog stay in active.

We are going full circle here: Post Consistently!

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