Okay, since this week has been pretty slow at work, I was able to do some more research on successful blogs. Two things stood out to me that not many people think about: having a calendar of upcoming posts and the ability to email the author. I took the liberty in adding both of these to my own blog.
The calendar may seem like it’s just another add-on, but one way that bloggers can utilize this awesome thing is by ‘living up’ to it. Think about it–if you broadcast that you are planning to post something, it gives you an incentive to actually do it. I set mine up by planning a year’s worth of posts (at least 2 a month) and putting them on my calendar. As I was making the calendar, I also added specialty posts around holidays and seasonal events. I may not have something to post every day, but now I’ll at least have 2 posts a month that you will know about (more if I add another post topic.)
How do you do this? It’s actually quite easy! You just have to create a Google Calendar, plan out your posts, and sync it to your blog (I found it the easiest to make a new page and put it there. The tutorial that I followed to do this is here). The calendar automatically updates whenever you add to remove something from it from the Google site, so you don’t have to worry about updating 2 calendars, and your readers will see the updates instantly. Right now, I have many holes in my calendar because I ran out of topic ideas, and this is where my other addition comes into play.
If you’ll look to the right, under the sign up bar, there is now a section that give you the option to email me. Once you click it, it pulls up an email automatically addressed to me so that you can request topics or give personal commentary. Like I said, confidentiality is extremely important to me, and I will not spam your email, and I will not give out your email address. The only thing that I will do is reply to you to: 1) accept your topic and tell you what day I will be posting about it, or 2) ask for clarification.
If you would like to have this option on your blog as well, all you have to do is (either on your About page or on the Text widget) use the HTML code as follows: <a href=”mailto:youremailhere.com”>email me</a> This particular code would pull up a blank email addressed to youremailhere.com after you click on the words ’email me’. Simple enough, right? (If you just want to put it in a post like I did above, all you have to do is highlight the words you want people to click to email you [i.e. ’email me’], click the hyperlink button, and put your email address instead of a web address.) And, tada! You can now be emailed through your blog just like me!
Now you can have your own calendar and email option! I hope this post has been helpful to any (and all) bloggers out there! Thanks for reading!
~Love Lindi
Little Lindi Line 