There’s been a great meme going around lately which leads those tagged to share 10 of their favorite posts from the past. I’ve been tagged by Jeanne at A Writer’s Notes and Trinity at Rooms of My Heart, and it has been interesting going back through 7 months of posts.
It’s funny really… I had started a couple of niche blogs in January and then realized I needed to turn my static design site into a blog to take advantage of the inherent search engine friendliness of a blog vs. a static, rarely updated site. I just intended to put up some posts here and there, nothing too serious. I wasn’t going to put a lot of time into it. Well, things change.
1. In March, as I began to fully realize the power of WordPress, I realized I wanted to create a free WordPress theme. I got some great comments in the process, and made some friends like Cory and Brian who were a great help.
2. Then, in April, I was suddenly on the map thanks to the “I Follow Movement“. That whole thing did WONDERS for my site, and taught me the value of well-designed linkbait, and of…
3. Promoting your own content – this was key to getting the word out about the little You Comment/I Follow badges I created.
4. One of the bloggers I e-mailed was Alister Cameron which lead to me having the honor of guest posting on his site. Thus one of my favorite posts is not even on my site, but on his: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers.
5. In June, I participated in a writing contest that Char started, and was sponsored by Liz Strauss with the fun post 7 Ways that Blogging is Like Opera.
6. Another favorite from June is a post about one of the keys to success: learning to manage expectations.
7. Also in June, I offered a review of free website analytics options: The Ultimate Guide to Free Web Analytics.
7. By July, I was feeling the need to focus more on design topics and wrote 4 Reasons Your Blog Needs a Logo.
8. I also started taking a look at what inspires us as designers in posts like Design Inspiration: Early 20th Century Posters.
9. …and a look at 6 Outstanding Logo Sites.
10. And, finally, one of my favorites from this month has been Just Call Me Pollyanna, because it generated some great discussion.
Anyone else want to participate in this one? Do so, and leave a link in the comments so we can read your favorite posts!
Thanks for the links. I read through and enjoyed 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. I agreed with all of them even though I’m not sure how to implement all of them.
I also looked through 6 Outstanding Logo Sites…very nice logo examples there.
I still don’t fully understand the NoFollow/IFollow issue. I think if anyone leaves a link on my blog it’s live so others can click the link and get to their site. I always try to follow with an answer to anyone who comments on my blog as well.
I was given the honor to contribute a guest post today on http://www.emomsathome.com! Wendy is amazing!
Randa,
I’ve really enjoyed this post and the links it contains! I’ve enjoyed reading your work, as well as finding a few blogs I hadn’t known about.
Thanks for participating in the meme! Memes like this one are invaluable in helping us learn more about what makes different bloggers tick–and showing us why we should be visiting their blogs more often!
Regards,
Jeanne
Randa, thank you for participating this meme… This is a kind of step by step history of making a great blog, I learn from this that if we focus and follow the right step we will have a good result in future..
Nice post. I think it is a good idea to give those who run across a post on your site an easy way to get an good sense of your blog – and what better way than highlight some great posts. They can take a quick sense which can help them decide if they want to subscribe to your site feed.
I think a good place to point to this is in an about section (though some blogs use a “new readers notice…). I create a popular category and then tag my most popular posts which I then link to on my about page suggesting that new readers might want to browse that category, for example Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog most popular posts. Linking to this post would work well for you I think.
@Aruni – I enjoyed your post over there! If you want to understand the “no follow” issue more, check out my page on the subject.
@Jeanne and Trinity – thanks for tagging me! While there are lots of silly memes that go around, this is a good one.
@John – good idea. I do have my “most popular” in the sidebar, which accomplishes this purpose too.
it was a very fascinating read, Randa. Thanks for describing your steps to making your blog so popular and successful. Keep up the great work with this blog.
I was thinking quite a lot lately of the best ways to promote my old posts to the newer audience of my blog. I do have Popular Posts list on my sidebar, but I should also update my About page and probably create another page with a list of Featured or Best Bits. That’s all on my to do list… also I’ll most probably write a similar to this post on my blog as well, and if so – will submit the link in a comment to this post.
[...] entry credits but here’s another plug for the contest. I really enjoyed reading her recent Blasts from the Past post. She points to several of her posts and guest posts she’s done in the last 7 [...]
Thanks for this great post. I checked out one of the links about 7 habits of highly effective bloggers, and found it really useful. I also like the site flavicon design.