As I promised you all, especially personal bloggers, in Part 1 of 20 Tips For A Personal Blog Success and My Love Story With StumbleUpon, I will put up another 10 tips for personal bloggers to get more traffic, and hopefully some links to their blogs. Let us look at what are the 10 tips I am offering this time round.
Cut Down Unnecessary Widgets
One of the most frequent thing I see when I visit most of the personal blogs are widget like games, pets, Hug Me, chat box, time and so on. I know personal blogs for some are just a personal space and what widget that you would like to place on your blog is out of my control but I would be pleased if you will hear my explanation.
Widgets must be usable, such as a chat box for communicating with your readers, Twitter to tell your readers what are you doing or even a game (just one) to make your readers stay longer. Having a lot of widgets will slows down the site load speed which will irritate first time visitors, attentions of readers will be diverted from your main contents and your whole blog design will be spoiled with the clogged sidebars or footers.
Travel Frequently
If you have the chance to travel a lot, a personal blog is a must for you. When you travel a lot, you will not encounter a blogger’s block as you will have things to share such as photos of food and your destinations to share.
When I say travel, it might not be restricted to other countries (of course this is the best), it can be a shopping mall near you, a mountain in your neighbourhood which you can enjoy a wonderful scenery or even a restaurant opposite your house. Get to new places frequently and you will have a reason for your readers to visit your blog.
Keep Up With Current Issues
Although you will be blogging about your own issues, blogging on some current issues once in a while will give something fresh to your readers. What kind of current issues? Well, it all depends on what kind of readers do you have. If they are mainly from a country, post some events about the countries that will catch their attention. If your blog is mainly visited by teenage girls, you can try posting news about a male celebrity which they like a lot! 
Optimize Word Of Mouth Marketing
Compared to a niche blog, personal blogs are easier to be marketed through word of mouth. You can make a new friend and at the point of knowing each other, tell the person about your blog and if possible, prompt him to give you his blog URL if he has one. Having your blogs known by your friends will help as well as a link on their blog might bring in some traffic for you.
Don’t Go Too Far With Thoughts
When I write about my thoughts, I won’t go on and on with it. When you think about a lot of things at once, don’t write all of them out. Put it in different posts and post it on a different time. Posting a post with too many issues in one shot will keep your visitors away from voicing themselves up because after reading your post, their heads might be spinning.
No Friends Birthday, Unless…
It is nothing to do with you. They might be your best friends ever but I can tell you that this kind of posts will definitely give a punch on your blog. Other than your close friends that will read it, I guess no one will. I am not trying to make your friends leave you but unless they are famous offline or online, no “outsiders” will actually bother about it. You might want to do the “evaluation” yourself as I don’t want to be branded as a selfish blogging guider. 
Look Out for Breaking News
Breaking news will always be a hit. Walk around your neighbourhood or drive around in your car, you might be lucky if someone is attempting suicide or you caught an aircraft slammed into a building. You will get a spike in traffic if you market or spread out the news well. If you are lucky to get a Digg effect, I wish you luck that your bandwidth will not be used up.
Short and Nice Posts
You might be wondering why I am writing this long and I am guiding you not to write this long. This is not a personal blog! People read personal blogs for fun and sometimes people with no blogs read blogs as well. I suspect these people won’t stay long on your blog and the best way to capture their heart is to post something short and nice.
Don’t Do Everything Your Way
I know that personal blog should have everything about you, your thoughts and your daily lives but not everything can be done in our way. Our thoughts might be opposite of what others want. When you comment or post something, hold yourself from getting radical. Don’t get yourself into trouble by becoming a blogging criminal which might get you into trouble.
Being Pretty or Handsome
I don’t have much to comment on this. Handsome men and pretty girls often get all the traffic in the personal blog world. This is common sense at work. I know some might not have the outer characteristics to be in the category, you can always impress others with contents, blog design and your personality. “Cool” perhaps?
I am done with my long list of 20 Tips For A Personal Blog Success. If you want to revise or read more on this, you can hop over to Part 1 of 20 Tips For A Personal Blog Success. I hope you like it. Do you have anything more to add in? Are you going to try some of these tips out? Tell me about it!
Wayne Liew is an online marketing consultant, online marketer and editor of Wayne Liew Dot Com. 
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
very good tips……….. however, some bloggers are impatient to earn money first, and quality blogging later…. or something like that….
very good tips……….. however, some bloggers are impatient to earn money first, and quality blogging later…. or something like that….
i fully agree on cutting down the sidebar widgets or whatever “COOL STUFF” that moves around. that is really distracting and bandwidth eating.
Well, one or two should be fine, but not a dozen lolz!
Where is your chat box?
i fully agree on cutting down the sidebar widgets or whatever “COOL STUFF” that moves around. that is really distracting and bandwidth eating.
Well, one or two should be fine, but not a dozen lolz!
Where is your chat box?
Travel need money ler… how to travel frequent? muahahah~~
Travel need money ler… how to travel frequent? muahahah~~
Being handsome? That’s something that I possess
Being handsome? That’s something that I possess
I think travel in own town first lar….. that one don’t need much money…. then after you introduce your town to the the world and the ads money pilled up, then use it to travel to the next town…. and repeat what you did to your town and so on…. or something like that….
I think travel in own town first lar….. that one don’t need much money…. then after you introduce your town to the the world and the ads money pilled up, then use it to travel to the next town…. and repeat what you did to your town and so on…. or something like that….
good tips
good tips
Wayne, it’s a good article and I think the next few article will too. Keep up the good tips pal
Wayne, it’s a good article and I think the next few article will too. Keep up the good tips pal
@ kljs
This is why many personal blogs fail. They should focus on bringing in visitors first.
@ jayhan
I have removed it because this is no longer a personal blog and it keeps giving me some irritating pop-ups.
@ Sean
You can go to a restaurant near your house and blog about it.
@ Edward
OK, I admit you have that.
@ kljs
Yes, start with nothing and reinvest the money earned.
@ lukxiufung and Kenneth
Thanks.
@ kljs
This is why many personal blogs fail. They should focus on bringing in visitors first.
@ jayhan
I have removed it because this is no longer a personal blog and it keeps giving me some irritating pop-ups.
@ Sean
You can go to a restaurant near your house and blog about it.
@ Edward
OK, I admit you have that.
@ kljs
Yes, start with nothing and reinvest the money earned.
@ lukxiufung and Kenneth
Thanks.
Twitter is not just for famous people! Everybody with a blog can benefit from Twitter! I’ve written a guide on it
Twitter is not just for famous people! Everybody with a blog can benefit from Twitter! I’ve written a guide on it
Post edited. I know after reading your articles on Twitter that it can helps to bring in traffic and build a base of readers if we socialise well using Twitter. Previously, I am just on the negative side about them.
Thanks for correcting me.
Post edited. I know after reading your articles on Twitter that it can helps to bring in traffic and build a base of readers if we socialise well using Twitter. Previously, I am just on the negative side about them.
Thanks for correcting me.