Attract and keep visitors to your blog

If you want to keep the attention of your visitors, you'll need to start thinking about just how you're going to grab their attention before you even start thinking about how you're going to keep it.

Create the content the audience wants

Obviously you want to write about something that interests you, otherwise there's really no point in writing. But you also want to make sure you're writing about something that's interesting to others, or you're not even going to get yourself an audience!

There's something called the Keyword Selector Tool, which you can use to find out how people are using keywords. If you're writing about religion, for example, then you'd enter the word 'religion', and it will bring up a list of searches done during the previous month that include that word. You can do this for any keyword or series of words.

When you can see how people are using keywords in their searches, you can then start to create content that takes advantage of the search terms that people are using. For example, "religion and spirituality" is a popular search term, so if you throw in a post that includes the words that people are searching for, then people are going to find your content when they do a search for it.

Solve their problems

Most people aren't searching for information without reason. Whatever they're searching for is usually to answer a question or solve a problem they have. If they find your site, they're going to want you to give them the answers they're looking for.

If you're not providing them with those answers, then they're going to go find someone else who will.

Obviously a personal blog isn't necessarily going to do help others solve their problems, but then you're probably not looking for a large audience either. It's only if you want a much larger audience that you need to make sure you're providing information that they're looking for, that will help them with their problems.

Write for yourself

You obviously need to make sure that you're thinking of your readers when you write, but the motivation for writing has to come from yourself. Ultimately, everything you write has to be for you, no one else.

Writing takes a lot of time and effort, and if you're not putting in the time and effort, you should be finding something else to do with your time instead.

It's easy to write, but it's not easy to write well.

Combine quality with consistency.

I can't remember where I found that statement, but it's excellent advice. In order to be good at what you do, you have to do it all the time. As you write, make sure you edit it; make it better than what it is, and improve upon it all the time. Commit yourself to write quality material, and be consistent with it. But do it for yourself. Do it because you love it.

Being yourself

Following the above advice will help you become clear about who you're writing for and why you're writing. But you can't lose sight of the fact that it's you who's doing the writing.

Even though your audience is there to read the information you provide, they would also love to see your personality and your unique perceptions shining through.

It's you and the personality that you present that will keep them coming back. Even if the personality is something that's made up entirely for your writing, keep it consistent. Make it as part of the theme of your blog. Your unique style will keep them coming back.

Understanding your weaknesses

If you find that you're unable to write something down, it's often because there are gaps in your knowledge about the topic you want to write about.

Do some research to gain more knowledge, so that you can speak with sincerity and authority. Those are two very important aspects of your writing.

"We teach mostly what we need to learn."

As you teaching people with your writings, you're learning as well. The more you write about a particular topic, the more you have to understand it. The more you research it, the more you become an expert on it.

You can't teach someone without learning it first, so writing for your blog is helping you learn and grow as well.

You get something from it, and so do the readers. Everyone wins.

Get people to comment

You're going to get a lot of visitors to your site. Most of them are looking for what you are providing, but some of them are going to know more about what you're writing than you do. There's nothing wrong with that, and the more you can get them to share their own knowledge, the better it is for you and for your website.

If you end your posts with requests for feedback, or if you ask questions to inspire debate or to provide you with more information, you're going to get visitors responding. A responsive bunch of visitors is going to make your site look more active and inspire even more people to involve themselves in conversations.

Make sure you reply to everyone's comments and feedback, even if it's to thank them for taking the time to say hello. Your own response to their comment helps them feel that you care about what they say. Make sure you do care! It also gives you the opportunity to answer any questions they might have, or ask your own questions of them.

Check your stats

No matter which service you use to provide statistics about your site, they're all going to show you where your visitors come from, what your most popular pages are, what people are using in their search terms that bring them to your blog, and how many are returning visitors.

All of it is important. Knowing where your visitors came from helps you to see who might be linking to you, and you can check the referrer out as well. You might even link back to them and start networking. Knowing what people are searching for that brought them to you helps you create more content based on popular searches. And, of course, knowing what your popular pages are helps you to create even more such popular pages.

Your stats have a wealth of information for you. Make sure you understand how to take advantage of it.

Be flexible in your approach

As you understand more about what your audience wants and how you can deliver it to them, the tone of your site is going to slowly change. You might have started your blog with the theme of digital cameras, and you write about anything and everything to do with digital cameras. However, over time, you learn that your audience is more interested in how to take photos for various events or conditions, and so you decide to start doing more 'how to' posts.

Being flexible allows you to adjust the content of your blog so you can take advantage of what your audience is looking for. If you have no flexibility in your writing and in your approach to blogging, then you're not going to reach your potential, and you're going to feel like you're wasting your time.

If you aren't flexible and don't learn to adjust, then you are wasting your time!

Listen to the feedback of your visitors so that you can understand what they're looking for. As long as it doesn't take you away from your own passions, give it to them!

Without listening, learning and changing, you're not going to reach your goals of attracting and keeping more and more visitors.


If you have any of your own suggestions to attract and keep visitors, please feel free to share them with us.

Creating your reality without fear

What holds most of us back from achieving our goals and dreams is fear. Fear of the unknown, of failure, of rejection, and even of success itself, because of a fear of the responsibilities that success would bring. We find all manner of fears to justify not moving forward on our goals.

These fears prevent us from using the Law of Attraction to attract what we want. Even though we might do our very best to manifest the things that we really want, we never get them. Why not? Because of our fears.

Here's some tips to help you recognise your fears and then get them out of the way, so that they can stop interfering with what you really want.

Understanding the whole package

First, imagine that what you want to manifest is already in your life. Instead of thinking about it happening in the future, imagine that you're currently living it. Take a few minutes to imagine it and make it as real as possible.

If your intention is to manifest a nice house, then imagine living in it, right now. How does it feel? What are you doing in your new house? What are people saying to you now that you've got your new house? Take a few minutes to make this as real as possible. Imagine the smells, the colours, and the feelings.

Now consider the side effects of having what you've manifested. How will it affect your health, finances, relationships, career and spiritual practices? How do others treat you now that you have it? In what ways does having it change you or those around you? Everything that changes causes changes around it, so try to imagine how the manifesting of your desires causes change around you and within you.

Don't make it idealistic, as that defeats the purpose of this exercise. Instead, imagine the most realistic scenarios you possibly can. Include what you know of the people around you, your health, career, finances, etc. How will the manifestation of your desires impact upon them? Everything we want to manifest carries with it a lot of side effects, which we often fail to take into account.

If you spend at least 10 minutes doing this exercise, you'll quickly understand what else may result from the manifestation of your desires. If the side effects of your manifested desires are unrealistic, then your intentions will fail, because deep down you know they're not going to happen.

To have our intentions manifest, we need to understand and accept everything about them.

Discovering the fears that sabotage our intentions

When you start considering the side effects of your intentions, you'll notice some resistance. Some parts of what you visualise will seem fantastic, while others will be less than desirable. As an example, if your intention is to manifest that new house of your dreams even though you know that your spouse hates the kind of house you want, then you're going to feel some resistance about manifesting it. You want the house, but not the side effects.

Anything undesirable that comes up for you is a pointer to your fears. That's what you need to look at.

What holds you back from achieving your intentions are those fears. Using the example of a spouse that won't like your dream house, we can see that it's the fear of how you think they might react that holds you back. Even though you want this house with all your heart, and you visualise everything about it, in the back of your mind might be the fear that your spouse is just going to hate it.

It's the fear of this happening that prevents you from achieving your desires. Your fears and desires both exist in your consciousness, and therefore there's an internal conflict that results in the failure of your desires to manifest in your life.

As you explore the possible side effects of your manifested desires, make sure you note down those side effects that you resist, or which cause negative feelings in you. Anything that comes up as a possible negative aspect of your manifested desire should be written down in a list. Write it down! This is so you have something substantial that you can work with over time, and which you won't forget.

It only needs one fear to keep your intentions from manifesting. Understanding what your fears are is an important step in moving past them.

Learning acceptance

In order to manifest our desires we need to eliminate the fears that conflict with the intentions. When the fears are gone, the intentions will have nothing stopping them from manifesting into your life. If you don't address the fears, however, then it doesn't matter how much visualisation you do or strength of will you have, your desires are not going to manifest.

One of the simplest ways of addressing your fears is to accept your fears. Turn the fears into a consequence and accept them as part of your life. For example, if you accept that your spouse isn't going to like the house of your dreams, but at least it's much better than what you have now, then you've turned the fear into a consequence. The consequence of you living in your dream house is that it will be better than what you're in now.

A fear is an outcome you resist, while a consequence is an outcome you accept.

When you fear some of the side effects of a desire, then you are effectively resisting the desire. There is a subconscious intention for the desire NOT to manifest, which outweighs the conscious desire for it TO manifest. When you turn the fear into an acceptance, then that allow your desires to manifest.

If you aren't ready to accept those consequences, then you aren't ready to manifest those desires.

Work on each of your fears one by one, by acknowledging them as fears and then accepting them as consequences. They might not be consequences that actually occur, but if you accept them instead of resisting them, then you can create positive beliefs that will replace the fear. This means that you take the same consequence and find a way to interpret it as positive instead of negative.

The process of doing this does require a lot of very deep self-analysis, which might take some time. Don't expect overnight results. However, in order to move past those fears which are holding you back from achieving your desires, you do need to engage in these exercises.

Manifest your desires by dealing with your fears. You'll never regret it.

Thanks to Steve Pavlina.

Dating for introverts

Being an introvert who used to date a lot, it took a while for me to work out what I was comfortable with. I never knew it was because I was actually introverted, but recently I've become aware from my internet research that there are a lot of introverts who could do with some tips on how to make dating work for them.

Here's a few things that I've found and learnt for myself, that might just help you with your first date/s.

1. Make the first meeting short, preferably a coffee in a cafe. This allows you to feel comfortable that you can leave after a short time if you want to, because you're in a neutral location for a short time.
   
   
2. Suggest a specific start time for you to meet, and tell them that you've only got, say, half an hour. This gives them the impression that you're busy and they can feel privileged that you're fitting them in, but it's especially important for you to set a limit for your time, so that you don't overextend yourself.
   
   
3. Use your excellent observational skills to gain information about the person, and about how comfortable you might feel if you see them again.
   
   
4. Reveal only as much information as they do, within reason.
   
   
5. Take a trip to the bathroom if you start feeling anxious or overexcited. Calm yourself down again.
   
   
6. Don't try to be extroverted! There's simply no point trying to be something that you're not. If they start to like you, they're only liking who you're pretending to be, rather than who you really are. Be yourself, so that there's honesty at all times, and give them the chance to like you for who you actually are.
   
   
7. Don't use alcohol or drugs to loosen you up. If you're not ready for the first date, then reschedule it until you are. It might also be that the person you're trying to meet isn't actually someone you want to meet, and your subconscious is telling you not to waste your time. Be aware of your feelings.
   
   
8. If you're getting irritable during the date, think about why. Pay attention to any uncomfortable feelings you might have, like anger, fear or even boredom. Try to work out what it is about the person that's making you feel this way. Read the signs.
   
   
9. Don't push yourself to have physical contact, like kissing. Make sure it's only when you feel comfortable, and don't give in to pushy dates! You're there to enjoy yourself, not for them to enjoy themselves at your expense.

Remember that you're the one in control, even if they're the super-confident extrovert. You can make the choices about what's good for you, like how long you want to stay, where you want to meet, what you want to talk about, and when you want to leave.

Be yourself, and enjoy yourself.

The secret to you

The Secret is a fantastic documentary about how the Law of Attraction works, and how you can make it work for you. Here's an excerpt about it from my old blog:

The Law of Attraction is a universal law, which you might also know as 'like attracts like'. Whatever is on your mind is what becomes a reality in your life. As was said in the show, "Thoughts... become... things..." The trick is to think of things you want, instead of the things you don't want.

Most people, however, focus on those things they don't want. You know what I'm talking about. They want more money to get out of debt, 'cause all they can think of is the debt they're in. They want a new car, because all they can think about is how horrible their current car is. They want a new job, because they hate their current job.

But the more they FEEL the things they don't want, the more they KEEP what they don't want. And they get more of it!

Why is that?

It's because the universe is giving you those things you are passionate about. Even the things you don't like create passion in you, and the more energy you put into the things you don't want, the more the universe will give it to you. It thinks that the more passionate you are about something, the more you want it.

When you are passionate about those things you want, rather than those things you don't want, and when you can FEEL them, that's when the universe will give it to you.

Now you can download The Secret To You, a visualisation tool that will help you "transform your life into happiness, prosperity, health, love and joy". It's only 16.8 Mb big, and when you play it, make sure you maximise the window size. You'll need the latest version of Quicktime.

How to stand out from other blogs

Lorelle wrote an article called Truths and Consequences of Blogs That Stand Out, which I'll use as the basis of this article (thanks Lorelle!)

If you want your blog to stand out from the rest of them, then there's a few things you need to take into account as you aim for that goal.

Looks count

Everything is about looks. We like to look pretty to make ourselves more attractive, and we are attracted to people and things that appeal to us. So the first thing that we need to take notice of with our blog is how it looks.

It has to be easy to read, without being too cluttered. If it's too 'busy' then people are going to get lost trying to find something interesting. It the design interferes with the ability to read it, people are going to move on.

Think about books. What makes them attractive? For a start, they're easy to read. Dark text on white background, and fonts that are easy for the eye to see. If there's any pictures, they don't interfere with the text and there's a decent amount of white space between the picture and text.
Navigation is important too. You have a blog that you want people to be able to get to other content that you think is important. How are they going to do that if you have no navigation features? Categorisation works wonders, helping your visitors see what kinds of content you have available, and allowing them to browse through your site according to the categories that they're interested in. Important Pages need to be stand out as well, and Popular Posts inspire visitors to hang out a bit longer and read what others find interesting.

Remember also that the website design should reflect the content. If you have content on mountain climbing, then a design that includes mountain views would be applicable. A photo blog would include photos in the design. General musings about life might have a design that reflects the theme of your life, or of how you want to present it.

Looks count, but they need to be appropriate to the content of the blog, otherwise people just aren't going to take it seriously.

Content is King

It doesn't matter how good your site looks, if you don't have good content, visitors aren't going to hang around for long.

Good content means good writing, spelling and grammar. However, that's still not important if what you write about or how you write it grabs the visitor's attention and holds it. Providing good quality information or entertainment are two very good reasons visitors will stay, and they might forgive a few spelling errors if the content is worth it.

If the content gives the visitor the information they're looking for, meets their interests, or challenges their thinking and motivates them, then they're likely to spend time there. If it's really good then they'll return time and again to find out what new content you've added.

The best quality blogs are those that focus their content on a particular topic or theme, rather than putting lots of different topics together on the same blog. Being a 'specialist' gains traffic and reputation, while talking about anything and everything doesn't help those visitors stay focused. If you're not focused on a particular topic, then your visitors aren't going to stay focused on you.

It's about traffic

A lot of people think that the more traffic you have, the better your blog is. Not true. Traffic is only important to the blog owner, as hardly any of the visitors to your blog are going to be aware of, or even care about, how much traffic you're getting. What makes your blog popular is not going to be the traffic, but the content and how people find the content.

Search engines, directories, links on other blog's blogrolls, and even placing comments on their blog. They all help bring you traffic. What's important though, is not how many links you have, but good your content is.

Your reputation will be enhanced by people finding your blog and then writing about it or linking to it. That increases traffic, but that's only because they think your blog is worth other people reading it. And that comes from having a good look and good content.

It's about convenience

Many websites offer incentives to sign up to their newsletters, or they don't have anything like that at all. Instead, you have to bookmark the site in your browser and come back to it every now and again to see if they've updated the content. These are static sites and they don't add a lot to the convenience of the visitor.

Non-static sites like blogs allow visitors to subscribe to RSS feeds, which delivers your content to them as soon as you publish it. Very convenient!

RSS Feeds allow visitors to automatically subscribe to your blog so that any new content you place there is sent to them, without them having to remember to come and visit it. On some blogs you can even subscribe to the feeds of various categories, so that the only content received is of those categories that you're interested in. Allowing this option for visitors to your blog will only increase the convenience of it for them.

Comments are another convenient feature of blogs, allowing visitors to agree or disagree with your content, or even to add or correct information that might be of use to you. Not only do comments increase the convenience for visitors to engage in interesting conversations about your content, but the convenience allows you to update your own content based on what you might learn, as well as to inspire your visitors to hang around longer because of the conversations they have with you.

Pings and trackbacks allow search engines and directories to be notified when you've updated your blog, allowing users of those sites to visit your blog whenever you update it. Trackback comments allows you and your visitors to see what others are writing about your content.

Your outstanding blog checklist

Again, from Lorelle's article, we have this checklist. Check your blog against it, and see if it meets the standard of an outstanding blog. Use what you learn to make any changes you might want, to help you achieve 'outstanding blog'.

1. Is it readable?
2. Is it easy to read?
3. Is it easy to navigate, leading the reader to other content from every page?
4. Does it offer content categories, helping direct readers to related subjects on your site or blog?
5. Does the design match the content?
6. Is the content consistent with a specific topic, theme, or subject?
7. Does the content showcase you as an expert, hobbyist, or vague curiosity seeker?
8. Is the content well written, spell and grammar checked, and encourage readers to read?
9. Does your blog’s design and content give people a reason to return?
10. How convenient is your site or blog to use?
11. Does it offer feeds?
12. Does it offer comments?
13. Does it offer trackbacks?

How to host your own community

A List Apart has this great article on how to host your own community. Following that link will give you more information about the below:

• Are you really ready to start a new community?
• Laying groundwork
• Get ready and send invitations
• It’s party time
• Be ready to improvise
• Keep your partygoers from leaving
• Don’t let things get out of hand
• Dealing with party crashers
• Enjoy your own party

I've been working with forums for quite a while now, and most of the suggestions are things I already have learnt to do from experience. None of my forums have gotten over 50 members though, so they've never been 'great forums'. But still, I've enjoyed doing them over the years.

If you have a forum of your own, or if you want to start your own community, I hope you'll get some value from the above information.