Anyone Blog?

Marshy77

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Over the last year or so I've wrote a few articles that have been published on a local fanzine about my football club and really enjoyed doing it. Writing was never my thing at school and I didn't think I could do it but found that I really enjoyed the whole process of it and also really rewarding.

Decided to start a blog on Word Press and have started to set up my account/page. In the process of publishing my 1st blog but wondered if anyone else writes a blog and could offer some advice on how to get your blog read, how to promote, do you use tags and if so how many, where do you promote it, is layout important, is there a standard that catches the eye etc.

Looked at some bloggers sites and they have 20m+ followers which is insane!!
 

Tongo

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I write a blog on Cricket, although there's a few pieces on other sports including a couple on Golf:

www.yahooovercowcorner.wordpress.com/

I've found that the best way to promote what I write is via Twitter. Start following a few people with similar interests, they then tend to start following you and might retweet your stuff and it goes from there. I've been doing it for nearly 3 years and its been a slow burner but making decent progress. I've had the odd bit featured in Minor Counties match programs and a piece featured in the Minor Counties Yearbook last year. My blog also was featured in the blogs section of Wisden in the 2018 almanac. If I get 100 hits for a piece then i'm happy as some of the pieces I write aren't gonna get loads of people reading them. I enjoy the process of writing and the game / sport as a whole so i'm not worried about mass coverage etc. Many blogs simply focus on moaning about the national side which isn't really my thing.
 

fundy

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I write a blog on Cricket, although there's a few pieces on other sports including a couple on Golf:

www.yahooovercowcorner.wordpress.com/

I've found that the best way to promote what I write is via Twitter. Start following a few people with similar interests, they then tend to start following you and might retweet your stuff and it goes from there. I've been doing it for nearly 3 years and its been a slow burner but making decent progress. I've had the odd bit featured in Minor Counties match programs and a piece featured in the Minor Counties Yearbook last year. My blog also was featured in the blogs section of Wisden in the 2018 almanac. If I get 100 hits for a piece then i'm happy as some of the pieces I write aren't gonna get loads of people reading them. I enjoy the process of writing and the game / sport as a whole so i'm not worried about mass coverage etc. Many blogs simply focus on moaning about the national side which isn't really my thing.


have added you on twitter Tongo, will try and remember to retweet some of your articles as expect I have some of your target audience (at least the degenerate gambling ones) following
 

Kellfire

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I write for www.craftandslice.com from time to time, a craft beer and pizza website. My friend who runs it works in social media and he handles most of that side of things - he knows the best times of the day, week and month to push content, how to keep things ticking along and what content will draw readers. I have free reign to update our Instagram account but he's definitely the mastermind.
 

HomerJSimpson

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Homies an avid blogger too, may be able to offer some advice

Not much more that I can add over and above what Tongo has said. Ultimately I enjoy the writing, and it is usually a blog in connection with a youtube video I've done so one feeds the other and I make sure there are links to both. In the old days of my previous Three Off The Tee blog which I had via blogspot I could connect to groups via Google+ but once that option went to Wordpress. I tend to get it out on Twitter and ensure I link in the course, event etc into the tweet along with a link to the blog and/or video

I did make the mistake of trying to get retweets from well know stars and also other golfing websites and while it may work short term, it isn't a valid long term strategy. I have found you simply need to keep pushing the name of the blog on social media (I use facebook, twitter and Instagram) and make sure there is content to read/watch (in my case) as often as possible so you build a loyal following. Don't get down when you think you've done a great piece and it doesn't get the numbers. I've done a few over the years I thought would do great numbers (similarly with videos on my youtube) and they simply don't get the views. Find a style and ideally a niche and develop it from there

I have changed the focus of Viewfromthe19th.com to make it more about product and course reviews and general posts and not so much about "me". There are and will be the odd post (lesson tomorrow may be worth a blog) and my quest for single figures still gets a passing nod but I tend to look at appealing to as wide an audience. My other advice is develop a rhino skin as plenty on here (you'll see as thread develops) and in social media land happy to knock your efforts. As I said I enjoy the writing process so a labour of love more than anything (and still got a book inside me somewhere to draw out) but some will simply see you've posted something and have a pop usually without reading it at all or the opening couple of paragraphs at most.
 

fundy

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Not much more that I can add over and above what Tongo has said. Ultimately I enjoy the writing, and it is usually a blog in connection with a youtube video I've done so one feeds the other and I make sure there are links to both. In the old days of my previous Three Off The Tee blog which I had via blogspot I could connect to groups via Google+ but once that option went to Wordpress. I tend to get it out on Twitter and ensure I link in the course, event etc into the tweet along with a link to the blog and/or video

I did make the mistake of trying to get retweets from well know stars and also other golfing websites and while it may work short term, it isn't a valid long term strategy. I have found you simply need to keep pushing the name of the blog on social media (I use facebook, twitter and Instagram) and make sure there is content to read/watch (in my case) as often as possible so you build a loyal following. Don't get down when you think you've done a great piece and it doesn't get the numbers. I've done a few over the years I thought would do great numbers (similarly with videos on my youtube) and they simply don't get the views. Find a style and ideally a niche and develop it from there

I have changed the focus of Viewfromthe19th.com to make it more about product and course reviews and general posts and not so much about "me". There are and will be the odd post (lesson tomorrow may be worth a blog) and my quest for single figures still gets a passing nod but I tend to look at appealing to as wide an audience. My other advice is develop a rhino skin as plenty on here (you'll see as thread develops) and in social media land happy to knock your efforts. As I said I enjoy the writing process so a labour of love more than anything (and still got a book inside me somewhere to draw out) but some will simply see you've posted something and have a pop usually without reading it at all or the opening couple of paragraphs at most.

link in your signature wont load for me Homie, server down?
 

Tongo

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Not much more that I can add over and above what Tongo has said. Ultimately I enjoy the writing, and it is usually a blog in connection with a youtube video I've done so one feeds the other and I make sure there are links to both. In the old days of my previous Three Off The Tee blog which I had via blogspot I could connect to groups via Google+ but once that option went to Wordpress. I tend to get it out on Twitter and ensure I link in the course, event etc into the tweet along with a link to the blog and/or video

I did make the mistake of trying to get retweets from well know stars and also other golfing websites and while it may work short term, it isn't a valid long term strategy. I have found you simply need to keep pushing the name of the blog on social media (I use facebook, twitter and Instagram) and make sure there is content to read/watch (in my case) as often as possible so you build a loyal following. Don't get down when you think you've done a great piece and it doesn't get the numbers. I've done a few over the years I thought would do great numbers (similarly with videos on my youtube) and they simply don't get the views. Find a style and ideally a niche and develop it from there

I have changed the focus of Viewfromthe19th.com to make it more about product and course reviews and general posts and not so much about "me". There are and will be the odd post (lesson tomorrow may be worth a blog) and my quest for single figures still gets a passing nod but I tend to look at appealing to as wide an audience. My other advice is develop a rhino skin as plenty on here (you'll see as thread develops) and in social media land happy to knock your efforts. As I said I enjoy the writing process so a labour of love more than anything (and still got a book inside me somewhere to draw out) but some will simply see you've posted something and have a pop usually without reading it at all or the opening couple of paragraphs at most.

Yeah, I've often found this. The pieces you think people will like don't catch the imagination / the interest whilst there will be others which will rocket out of nowhere which you wouldn't necessarily expect. Much depends on what you are going to blog on. If its well worn territory then its difficult to break through everything else. My most popular pieces have often been about levels of Cricket that don't get particularly great media coverage. So the Minor Counties pieces get plenty of interest as there isn't a huge amount of coverage of it in the media so the clubs are willing to retweet etc.
 

fundy

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Yeah, I've often found this. The pieces you think people will like don't catch the imagination / the interest whilst there will be others which will rocket out of nowhere which you wouldn't necessarily expect. Much depends on what you are going to blog on. If its well worn territory then its difficult to break through everything else. My most popular pieces have often been about levels of Cricket that don't get particularly great media coverage. So the Minor Counties pieces get plenty of interest as there isn't a huge amount of coverage of it in the media so the clubs are willing to retweet etc.


will dip in and read some of the minor counties pieces when ive a bit more time, have to admit since i stopped playing lost touch with that part of the game!

fair play to any of you who do this regularly long term! had my fill running a website and its content for a couple of years and certainly dont miss a lot of it!
 

Marshy77

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will dip in and read some of the minor counties pieces when ive a bit more time, have to admit since i stopped playing lost touch with that part of the game!

fair play to any of you who do this regularly long term! had my fill running a website and its content for a couple of years and certainly dont miss a lot of it!

I've kind of got the interest and want to do it at the moment but will see how long this phase goes on for!!

Some great advice, cheers. Anything just keep posting and I'll picking up on it.
 

HomerJSimpson

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Over the last year or so I've wrote a few articles that have been published on a local fanzine about my football club and really enjoyed doing it. Writing was never my thing at school and I didn't think I could do it but found that I really enjoyed the whole process of it and also really rewarding.

Decided to start a blog on Word Press and have started to set up my account/page. In the process of publishing my 1st blog but wondered if anyone else writes a blog and could offer some advice on how to get your blog read, how to promote, do you use tags and if so how many, where do you promote it, is layout important, is there a standard that catches the eye etc.

Looked at some bloggers sites and they have 20m+ followers which is insane!!
What is the blog called
 

Kellfire

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will dip in and read some of the minor counties pieces when ive a bit more time, have to admit since i stopped playing lost touch with that part of the game!

fair play to any of you who do this regularly long term! had my fill running a website and its content for a couple of years and certainly dont miss a lot of it!

My issue is thus - I blog about beer so I go to specialist beer events or launches with every intent on writing content. Guess what becomes a low priority after a couple of beers? :D
 

Norrin Radd

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I had a blog that was about match angling,was getting upwards of 500 hits per week. Basically it was my match fishing exploits when I fished for a club and also my open matches.
I don't fish anything like as much now and have let it slip into the realms of never to be seen again .
Was good fun writing it and the comments I got were always supportive and in praise of what I was doing. I did think about a golf blog but my golf isn't anything like as good as what my angling skills are so gave that idea up pdq.
 

IainP

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It's called InTheBeginning and is going to be all about House Music - from the beginning of the scene to dj's/producers and clubbers view and experiences. Bit of a niche so not too bothered by numbers but would be good to see people reading it.

https://inthebeginning.press/

I'll aim to keep an eye on this.

You may expose a few differing opinions of the early days (across UK and US geographies), but should be enough to agree on🎛📢🎹
 

Marshy77

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I'll aim to keep an eye on this.

You may expose a few differing opinions of the early days (across UK and US geographies), but should be enough to agree on🎛📢🎹

Thanks Iain. It's in it's very early days of putting it together but have made contact with some really well known and dj's that where there from the start. I've always loved House Music but was slightly too young to go out late 80's. Read Marshall Jefferson's book and a book called the 2nd summer of Love last week on holiday that made me want to hear about other people's view. Read loads of other books and always been interested in stories from people that were there or involved.

The Marshall book is really interesting, especially to hear it from the Chicago side, from where it and who 'apparently' started it - which is a debate in it's self.
 

Marshy77

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Posted my first blog over the weekend, link above if anyone fancies reading it. Got a few things lined up over the next couple of weeks for articles from dj's (if things go as planned).
 
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