As you know from my Friday post, I was at the BlissDom Conference in Nashville over the weekend and it was all I could have asked for and so much more. I loved meeting all the bloggers I’ve been emailing and tweeting with for so long, like Andrea at Mommy Snacks (who is crazy, but in a really good way) and Marcy at Stretching a Buck (who may taunt Kroger-free me forever about free toilet paper at Kroger).
Not only did I love seeing all the bloggers, but I thought it was amazing that so many moms brought their new babies, like Meredith at Like Merchant Ships. She brought her new son who is oh so cute. I couldn’t take my eyes off him!
The BlissDom Conference was split into two tracks – one for Apprentices (new bloggers) and one for Mavens (those who’ve been blogging for a little while). I went on the Maven track and on the first day learned so much about building readership and better using social media, like Twitter, to market your blog.
So first, here are the five key takeaways from Day One. I thought all of them were very smart.
1) Network up, down and side-to-side. Collaborate with other bloggers and you’ll find new readers through these relationships. Meredith at Like Merchant Ships emailed Amy at MomAdvice to tell her she thought she could do just as well on groceries by shopping loss-leaders as Amy could shopping at Aldi, and the Iron Chef Moms Challenge was born. Both Amy and Meredith cross-linked to each other and both gained new readers through this fun collaboration.
2) Write with the bookmarking in mind. Write great content that readers will want to not only share with friends but bookmark for reference at a later date.
3) Syndicate your content. Post your content at sites like 9rules and Divine Caroline. You may find you are able to gather a new flock of readers by re-posting your content on these sites.
4) Pay attention to titles. Google pays attention to titles, and so should you. It’s fun to have cutesy titles but better to have titles with words that people are searching for in Google. The same is true for photos. If you post pictures with your written posts, make sure to name them using most-Googled words.
5) Be a strategic Twitter user. Use Twitter to share your posts and engage with other users. Amy at MomAdvice said that Twitter was her #2 referrer of readers. But remember, Twitter is a long-term strategy. You won’t build your traffic overnight, but it is a great way to build a loyal following.
It was a long first day, but so much fun. I ended the night with a great dinner with Amy at Mommy Snacks, Carrie at Money Saving Methods, Marcy at Stretching a Buck, Erin at $5 Dinners and Tricia and Cortney at Once a Month Mom. Or, as I like to fondly refer to them as the “Ohio Delegation” since they’re all from Ohio. I was so excited they were able to take this nice Virginia girl in as one of their own.
I’ll be posting on Day Two of the BlissDom Conference shortly, so stay tuned!
