Hi Beth!
How have you been? I see you moved to Astrology Media Press. I just read your article there on the astrology bloggers who lose interest and abandon their blogs, and I feel like I’m starting to fit that profile. =( I’m still enjoying blogging, but my numbers are really down. You were nice enough to send me some info. awhile back on adding tags and keywords, but I never got around to doing it. I was just wondering if you could tell me exactly how to do that . . .
I can’t move to AMP as we discussed, because my material is not original, and I’m not looking to charge, so having a PayPal button is not important to me. Thanks for any tips.
Starperson
Dear Starperson,
I’ve been extremely busy setting up the AMP site and pages and getting things off the ground. Well, its here and ran right into Mercury Rx so little things keep cropping up that demand my attention. But I still find time to blog.
Keeping your interest up, and avoiding blogger’s block, especially when your numbers are down, is the main challenge for any blogger. While it is always nice to see that you’ve engaged other people, its good to remember that the original intent of a weblog was to act as a sort of electronic diary. It is really a place to stretch and grow, to generate insights about your thinking processes. As long as you do that, you have reasons (and things) to blog.
Driving traffic is always a hot topic for bloggers. Astrology blogging is such a small niche in the blogosphere, using tags and keys is essential to bringing people to your site. You can read about tags and keywords here. But also, you need to spend more time than the average blogger promoting your site. I know you have a Twitter page and you use it, so keep tweeting. Also, use the search feature in Twitter to find other astrologers and follow them. Most will give you a follow back.
Networked Blogs app and Pages in Facebook has been a Godsend to me while 451 Press was burping itself out of existence. Both of those helped me to maintain contact some of my readers while the 451 site went up and down. I recommend both these Facebook features to help build traffic to your site.
AMP is set up as a opportunity for astrologers to blog without the restrictions that other networks put on you in terms of how you can promote yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to! But even if a person didn’t want an AMP blog, the AMP Community is set up so people can meet up with like minded souls so check it out. Yes, AMP is young, there is a lot of growing to do, but it has a lot to offer besides a web page.
