I will NOT lay claim that I know everything about blogging. I don't. In fact, it wasn't until October that I discovered I can find my blog statistics on my Blogger dashboard. See, I'm slow on the uptake.
I'll be the first to admit that I love looking at my STATS. I find it interesting that I get more hits on the day AFTER I post my blog, plus people seem to look at it on their morning breaks or lunch hour. :-) I've had people from South Korea, Turkey, South Africa, Ukraine, Brazil and of course, the US looking at my blog. Do I know who these people are? No, but I suspect some of them might be my Facebook Farmville friends. *waves* Hey, Farmers!
Anyhoo, on my last blog I promised to tell you about FOLLOWING. I follow numerous blogs. It's easy to set up. There's nothing worse than sorting through the blog list on your favorites bar only to discover the blog hasn't posted anything new in days/weeks/months. When you set up FOLLOWING, it updates the bloglist with the newest blogs that have posted. It's easy-peasy to scroll down the list and click on the topics that interest you, and ignore the rest.
I should also point out that it posts the first three lines of those posts, roughly 35 words. Make your first 35 words worthy to snag the potential blog reader. Something to think about.
I will qualify my comments to reflect my experience with Blogger. I don't know about Wordpress or the other blogs systems. I also don't know if you can FOLLOW if you do not have a blog.
See, told you I don't know much.
Following a blog is easy if the blog has a FOLLOWERS set up on their blog page. To set it up, simply pick the 'gadget' and add it to your design. Blogger automatically has it set up for the reader to follow with one click.
IF you want to follow a blog that doesn't have FOLLOWERS listed on their page then you have to follow them from your dashboard, under Blogs I'm following. Click the blue ADD button to copy and paste the URL link to the list.
IF you want to DELETE a blog, click the blue MANAGE button. A new screen pops up with all the blogs you follow. Click the 'settings' button next to the blog you want to delete. To the right on the pop-up screen, there is a highlighted DO YOU WANT TO STOP FOLLOWING? Click it, and it removes the blog.
That's it.
I like FOLLOWING. It frees up my time to do other things, like virtual farming or writing. And I have to admit that I'm more conscientious about the first few words on my blog.
Since it's the time of year to make goals and start writing. One more round of edits for FAERIE and I'll continue querying it, while I edit TROLL. Then I need to come up with a story for book 4, tentatively called TROLL 2, since it's a continuation of TROLL (my hero escapes, but not without losses).
Oh, Lissa wanted a candy recipe so I'm trolling through my goodies and will post a recipe on Monday lovingly called POLAR BEAR POOP.
Later, Peeps.
I was already following you on Google Reader but I added my follow on your Following thing (my mind blanked out. lol) I need to add one of those things.
ReplyDeleteI do look at my stats. Since I started putting up excerpts of my own and of other writers, they've gone up, which is interesting.
On Wordpress, a blogger can add a subscribe widget to her blog. Then, if a reader wants to keep up with that blog, she clicks the subscribe button and automatically gets an email when each new post goes up. The post is in its entirety in the email, so you can read it there (or delete it asap if it doesn't grab your interest). I think there's a link to comment in the email, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by, Edie!
ReplyDeleteInteresting observation about your stats--I guess my interests don't follow most reader's tastes . . . hm, that DOES explain a lot!
I've tried to follow your blogs on Wordpress, Marilyn, but it makes me jump through too hoops to sign up. It was very frustrating so I just added you to my Blogs I Follow list. It's right there for me every morning when I check in AND it doesn't clutter up my email box.
ReplyDeleteUgh, I didn't know that about WordPress. Since all my blogging is done with them, if I want to sign up to follow someone, I just click the "subscribe" and that's it -- they've already got all my information.
ReplyDeleteAll the blogger things have to do things their own way, Marilyn. Now that I have some wordpress blogs on my list, I can follow without problems.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, if the topic doesn't interest you, just scroll past it.
Followers are nice, but I prefer to call you Minions.
ReplyDeleteI like minions. :-) But I prefer to call my followers, proteges.
ReplyDeleteWell, you want to help people, i just want people to do my bidding. :)
ReplyDeleteLearned something new today!
ReplyDeleteFollowing really saves a lot of time, Meg. I can scroll down the list quickly since it has the most recently posted in order. :-)
ReplyDelete