No more excuses about why you aren’t blogging for your business.
If 10-year-old Tyler Duswalt can start and maintain a blog, so can you.
Tyler is author of The Short Book on How to Become a Blogging Expert—A 10-Year-Old’s Top 25 Easy Tips to Help You Start an Effective Blog (Craig Duswalt International, $9.95).
He published it last year, after his blog, CPCheats, became a go-to source for kids who wanted to cheat at Club Penguin. The online role-playing game, published by Disney Online Studios, involves a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities. Players use cartoon penguin-avatars and play in a winter-set virtual world.
One of the criticisms of the game is that it allows players to cheat. Hence, Tyler’s blog which has had more than 85,000 views.
I learned about Tyler recently when I spoke at Author U in Denver and met his dad, Craig Duswalt, who also was on the program and taught authors about how to market like a rock star.
Craig says Tyler wrote the book himself. No professional editors. No book coaches. No picky proofreaders. Just sage advice from a 10-year old blogging expert who use phrases like “And that’s all I have to say about that” at the end of a chapter.
Here are some of the questions that people typically ask about blogging, and Tyler’s responses, excerpted from the book:
Q. How many times should you post to your blog?
A. ”As much as you can every week. Try to post at least once a day. I post about three times a day…But here is one thing not to do: do NOT Blog if you know you won’t have enough time to make posts. It’s useless.”
Q. How can you get traffic to a blog?
A. ”One way to get more hits is to Comment on other blogs and typing in your blog’s domain name at the end of your comment.”
Q. What’s the very best way to get traffic?
A. ”Contests! You can make a POST for a contest that will go on for a certain amount of time. I had one before. I used to play an online game called Club Penguin (Disney MMO game) and I bought a gift card for a membership. Then I had a contest where if you commented on my blog you would get entered in a drawing. Very fun. I got 1,000 hits in one day because of that contest.”
Q. What does a blogger need to do so that the search engines can find a blog post?
A. ”When finished with a post, and before publishing it, go to the area that says tags, and type in a few things that will get people to find you on the search eninges.”
Q. How do you sell products on a blog?
A. “All you need to do is to set up a lnk to the website where you want to sell the thing that you are selling. For example, your post might look like this:
TITLE: Buy my product!
POST: Hello! I just bought a T-shirt and was wondering if you guys want to buy it. If you want it, click the link: http://ebay.com/pinktshirt
Tyler also covers polls, how to post photos and audio, how to add pages, copyright, video/picture galleries, widgets, blogrolls and more.
He doesn’t blog anymore because he doesn’t play Club Penguin. But his tips are perfect for anyone who wants a quick overview of what’s possible with a blog.
Yes, it’s a lot of work. But as Tyler explains in the Bonus Tip on the last page of his book:
“Have Fun With Your Blog! Well, this is the end of the book. I hope you enjoyed these easy tips, and I wish you luck on your blog.”
Convinced? Ready to start your own blog? See “Time-saving Tips for Smart Business Blogging,” a grown-up’s guide to blogging. It comes with 23 pages of handouts that include 101 ways to find content for your blog, and tips for writing better and faster.
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