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So you started a blog already? Then nothing happened? No wonder!
By 2024 there is an awful lot of competition when you publish online!
With the advent of AI the Web gets flooded with mediocre “me too” content.
Don’t fret though! I’m here to help with blogs, social media and search!
How can I help you with blogs?
Who the heck am I? I Am. Call me Tad. Blogger since 2003. I’ve been:
- 25+ years into online publishing
- 20+ years into blogging for numerous blogs
- being a professional blogger and SEO since 2004
Thus I know how popularity and success work on the Web.
How can I help you with blogs, social media and search then?
For a start I can tell you how it all works!
What I learned about online publishing in 25 years you can now read in 25 minutes.
Also there is no added bullshit here to sell you hosting or other affiliate products.
101 successful popularization techniques
This is my list of 101 ways to make your blog more popular and successful.
I used most of the techniques to increase my own popularity successfully. I even call it popularization!
Other measures have been taken by numerous popular bloggers to achieve blogging success.
Thus I may have to catch up on them myself haha!
1 – 5: X/Twitter
1. Socialize on X/Twitter, the people on X will support your blog if you do it right
2. Follow engaging people on X/Twitter who share your interests but not too many
3. Reward people sharing and resharing your content, or say “thanks” at least
4. Share only the best content, so people get interested in you and visit your blog
5. Use inline X/Twitter update embedding tools to allow quoting of your blog posts
6 – 10: Niche communities
6. Contribute to niche social news communities like Growth Hackers or Product Hunt
7. Become a power user at the one that fits you best
8. Share exceptional content from the niche communities or social media groups
9. Use a unique avatar like the illustrated turban wearing weirdo image I use
10. Socialize with other active users and connect with them on Facebook or LinkedIn
11 – 20: Your blog
11. Keep your blog design as clean and simple as possible but be memorable at the same time
12. Use self-hosted WordPress, as it’s the most widely used blogging platform and makes socializing with comments and pingbacks easier
13. Use a custom design or customize a black and white WordPress theme
14. Allow pings, trackbacks and real links in comments (drop the so called “nofollow” attribute)
15. Reply to your genuine commenters who add value in the comments
16. Link to other bloggers, most notably your peers, not only the well known ones
17. Create pillar or flagship content like huge lists, thorough tutorials, unique resources
18. Be the first to say something: break news, uncover scams, debunk myths
19. Review and address other bloggers personally
20. Create and publish a list of blogs that are similar to yours and/or a good supplement
21 – 30: Other blogs
21. Accept and support authorities in your field
22. Make a list of the top 10 blogs in your field and try being like them and better
23. Contribute guest posts on other blogs
24. Notify other bloggers when they have broken links or their design does not display correctly on some browser
25. Get inspired by other bloggers
26. Comment on other blogs, out of interest, not only for marketing purposes
27. Meet other bloggers in real life and connect
28. Share others’ blog posts to your favorite social media or vote there for them
29. Do not expect other bloggers to like you just because you’re there, actively befriend them
30. Do not annoy other bloggers by Skype, mail or other means, only contact them if it really matters
31 – 40: Writing
31. Write about popular topics but not those everybody else already covered
32. Be unique! Find a new angle to a story instead of mere repeating or linking
33. Use striking, funny, easy to remember post headlines like “The Day I was Reborn, Twice”, “Help! I Ate my iPhone”, “10 Ways to Become a Millionaire in 5 Weeks”
34. Do not write too short or too long posts, depth not size matters
35. Write timeless blog postings not just yesterday’s news
36. Know your audience and offer it what it wants, not only what you think is appropriate
37. Be yourself, do not write like you would write for an employer, write as if you write a letter to a friend
38. Offend offenders who spread nonsense
39. Do not offend people weaker than you
40. Ask questions and incite discussions
41 – 50: HTML and CSS
41. Use clean, lean HTML and CSS for website speed, limit the usage of fancy scripts
42. Use headings, lists, bold, italic and other means of making a text readable
43. Use large headlines for posts, and slightly smaller subheadings above chapters
44. Use the h2 tag for post headlines (h1 is for the blog name)
45. Use good looking webfonts to make your body text and headlines look better and more readable
46. Do not use fonts for headlines which are not meant for them and look ugly (Verdana)
47. Make your font size readable in your posts but not too big, your readers are not half blind
48. Use colors that contrast but not too much and not too many of them, black on white is still best
49. Be original but let people recognize that your blog is a blog, by using some well known elements
50. Use simple CSS rather than high level JavaScript animations that take up a lot of bandwidth
51 – 60: Images
51. Always use images in posts
52. Use striking images in your posts, like collages, bright colors, images that metaphorically illustrate your point
53. Be original, do not just display the Google logo when you write about Google
54. Do not steal images without proper attribution
55. Use a list of images to attract large audiences, but don’t forget #54
56. Use .png screen shots or parts of them as images for your blog posts
57. Use pictures of beautiful women (but SFW)
58. Do not use pictures as the only content of a post if it’s not a list
59. Do not use images that are bigger than 100kb, not everybody in the world has a fast connection
60. Use thumbnails for bigger images
61 – 70: Topics
61. Cover the most important things in life: Love, peace, happiness, community, freedom
62. Yet find a niche and rarely searched for keywords
63. When you write about something cryptic like SEO call it findability or popularization
64. Write subjectively and about how you feel, tell personal stories
65. Interview interesting and well known people
66. Write about stars, people love stars: Angelina Jolie I love you!
67. Write about what you know first hand, what you have experienced
68. Focus on positive topics! Do not just spread “doom and gloom”
69. Do not write about your wife, kids, where you live, how much you earn for privacy reasons
70. Write you earned millions of dollars by blogging to get known
71 – 80: Blog promotion
71. Contribute to blog communities on other blogs by commenting and beyond
72. Promote your best blog posts (repeatedly) – not all of them
73. Add carefully selected sharing buttons to social media sites your preferred audience is at
74. Use WordPress as it’s already optimized for search to the max out of the box
75. Link out to others to get links, do not engage in link exchange, link buying or selling or any automated link schemes
76. Do not use keywords like “california real estate” as your name when commenting unless it’s your blog’s name (then add as as John of x)
77. Don’t overdo conventional SEO on your blog, it’s in most cases counter productive
78. Do not create merely “content” – write articles, reviews, interviews
79. SEO is not Spam, don’t ping dozens or hundreds of blogs just for the backlinks
80. Do not automate your blogging efforts
81 – 85: Getting Subscribers
81. Display a (big) orange feed icon ideally where everybody can see it
82. Use Feedly to check out similar blogs and how your content displays
83. Let people subscribe by email using a third party tool
84. Offer a full feed not just excerpts
85. Explain what a feed is for people new to the concept and offer a choice of the best feed readers
86 – 90: Branding
86. Create a personal brand. Use your name. Don’t blog as “admin”
87. Get a unique and remarkable name for your blog
88. Get a short and memorable nickname for yourself, Tadeusz Szewczyk = Tad Chef
89. Use your blog URL and/or avatar throughout the Web
90. Get a short and memorable domain name [partner-link], I use seo2.blog
91 – 101: Miscellaneous
91. Do not offend people for being different than or disagreeing with you
92. Be open minded, let anything and everything inspire you
93. Treat your readers and other bloggers like real people, with respect and compassion
94. Explain things you know, there are always some people who don’t know what you take for granted
95. Be different but stay true to yourself, do not pose as somebody else
96. Do not overload your blog with ads, or hide content with opt-in overlays. Keep it clean and simple.
97. Do not use Google Adsense unless you make real money with it, otherwise you lose more credibility than you earn
98. Become an expert in your trade, be a specialist for your topic, don’t try everything at the same time
99. Do not try to do everything or be everywhere, concentrate on the stuff you like, prefer and are good at
100. Cooperate with others, altruism is the best egoism
101. In short: practice SEO 2 to popularize your blog
Originally published October 29th, 2007. V2 republished August 14th, 2010. Last updated August 29th, 2024.
* (CC BY-ND 2.0) Creative Commons image by Rob Hogeslag