I want to take my blog to the next level #Blogchatter

Hi Folks,

I was tagged by Aseem to write this post.

Oh great! Just what you needed! More advice on the beaten till blue topic of taking your blog to the next level! And here you are....wondering whether your blog has even made it to Level 0?!
Gosh! It's your first literary venture after stringing words together to complete a 300 word paragraph-writing at school! You are dabbling around forgotten words, verbs, tenses, adjectives and what not! Don't you wish you had paid a wee bit more attention when your English teacher was droning on about grammar? 

You are at a stage where you are fervently referencing your kid's grammar textbook and reverently looking at them when they nonchalantly complete the exercise on punctuation without so much as batting an eyelid!

You also repeatedly bless Sunder Pichai and hope he and Google will come up with more online help for writing/blogging newbies like you!

Just when you get the hang of writing/blogging, you start hearing people talking of writer's block, digital identity, SEO, Yoast (or maybe it's Toast?), blogging community, sharing on social media, page-views, traffic generation, user-friendly interfaces, HostGator (some kind of Alligator maybe?).....yada, yada, yada!

I tell you its a whole world out there, they call it the 'Blogosphere', comprising of these species known as 'Bloggers'. Physical traits similar to the regular Homo-sapiens, but the upper-storey is differently wired....basically it is attuned to happenings on a different plane, beyond normal human comprehension!

Are they nuts you ask me? Hmm, how do I answer that? I am a part of the tribe after all! Well, diplomacy being my middle name, I'll tell you, we are above-average individuals, who have so much to say (also probably no one willing to listen to us) that we have to resort to blogging for these outpourings. In turn we find favorable platforms on the 'Blogosphere' where we 'meet' and reach out to other like-minded fellow-bloggers in cyber-space and sometimes even face-to face! We folks thus live harmoniously, reading each other, sharing our posts, exchanging thoughts and occasionally deigning to circulate our creations with the rest of the reading-writing world.

You get a fair idea on what blogging is all about? No? Well,what did you expect? Such mighty secrets are revealed only in paid workshops!

Do you seriously want to take your blog to the next level?

Then the sanest piece of advice I can come up with is: PROPS

Practice

Research

Observe 

Persevere

Support 

Besides these self-explanatory pointers above, I would like to share a few of my insights on blogging that I have grasped so far.... 

Your blog is an extension of your thoughts, so it must be just that....You in a blog!

Remember write what you are best at, here is where the question of finding your 'Mojo' or niche comes in. 

Content which is closest to your heart and most spontaneous, is your niche content.
 

Ponder on this, if you are a lay person (not from the blogging/writing world) browsing on a regular weekday or even a weekend, what would you be most likely to read? 

Your posts must be relatable, engaging, entertaining or informative enough to capture the attention of a casual reader on the net.
 

For the readers of today, time and attention span being pretty brief, your content/appearance of the blog has got to captivate them to make them hang around long enough to read the entire post. 

Keep your writing crisp, yet captivating.

Almost as important as writing, comes reading, connecting, networking on various social media platforms.

Sharing, connecting with like-minded bloggers, being part of such communities is vital for your blog.
 
Being no big authority on the rules to make one an Ace Blogger, I shall confine my words to only what I am sure works for me!

For all the tips and tricks of blogging, listen and tune into @Blogchatter: An online twitter-chat community that caters to all genres of Bloggers, educating, encouraging and motivating on everything blogging!

@Blogchatter: Tune in 8.30 sharp every Wednesday on Twitter

I want to take my blog to the next level with Blogchatter

I now tag Stephen to write his take on the topic.

 

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