Every blogger hopes to reach readers who will enjoy and hopefully use the content they offer. Bloggers imagine reaching people throughout the world with their wit and wisdom, and they find it rewarding when those readers offer constructive feedback. At least I think they do. I do, anyway.
It takes many of us a little while to get into the groove of blogging, and even then there are good days and bad days. I’ve made plenty of mistakes blogging, and I’m sure I will make many more. In hopes that someone can learn from my pitfalls, I offer you my tongue-in-cheek blogging advice.
Here are five surefire ways to make your blog utterly forgettable.
1. Post boring content in a boring way. Yep, send your readers straight to snoozetown, and you can be pretty sure they won’t be coming back for more anytime soon. Being completely self-absorbed is an excellent way to achieve this goal. So is colorless writing. Feel free to drone on about any old thing for as long as you like.
2. Skip proof-reading. No matter how many times I proof-read before I hit the submit button, I always miss something. So what? Who cares if my words are a mess? Readers will more or less get the idea of what I meant. Spelling is overrated, anyway.
3. Write too much. Just write whatever pops in your head and don’t bother to edit or reread it. More is always better, right?
4. Talk down to your readers. Assume that you know way more than they do about everything, and don’t expect to learn anything from them. In fact, don’t even invite them into the conversation. That’ll show them!
5. Along the same lines, ignore your readers. Post every now and then, if you feel like it. And comments? No need to answer those. People just wanted to let you know they were there. You don’t owe them the courtesy of a reply. You already gave them a blogpost. What do people want from you, anyway? Sheesh!
Tomorrow is February 3. That means that in five months it will be my birthday. The day that will end the 47 for 47 Challenge year. On that day I will have either met my goals or not. I don’t anticipate sitting at the computer on my birthday studying the list, alternately congratulating myself and beating myself up, although I suppose that could happen. Just knowing that the list is there for all to see and wonder at is pretty powerful motivation to get going on some of those items.
The whole reason I began blogging was for me to spout off about how wonderful I am (or not) and how great a job I was doing taking care of myself (or not). Sadly, it’s been more of the not, but happily, the blog has grown beyond that original seed of an idea, so even with my many screw ups there’s still something interesting to read from time to time. There must be. People keep coming back, and new readers find me and follow BulgingButtons every day. How amazing is that?
But I digress. It’s a talent of mine. Not digression per se, but procrastination. I’m taking the long way around telling you that I’m ready to get back up on that horse. I’m ready to eat my fruits and veggies and do my exercise. I’m ready to drink my water and hold myself accountable. I’m ready to try again.
I know, you’ve heard it all before. You are patient, bearing with me all this time. You’ve listened to me wax poetic about delicious meals and sedentary pursuits. You’ve endured my whiny musings on feeling low, sick, discouraged, and frustrated. You’ve nodded politely when I’ve gotten excited about some small victory or another, and through it all you’ve hung in there with me. You are warriors.
You tune in hoping for some news of progress, some positive report from the front line, but I offer you little. A scrap here, a morsel there. Still, you support me. You forgive me my sins. You remind me that I’m only human, after all. You offer your hugs and support and encouragement and laughter. You open your worlds to me, and what do I give you in return?
Hopefully you know that I give you a piece of myself. I write from the heart (how disgustingly cliche, I’m sorry). I don’t sugar coat, and I don’t worry much about hurt feelings. I do, but not in my writing, because I’m generally a pretty open-minded nice person. I’m not likely to say anything cutting or mean, so I don’t worry about censoring myself, after all, I know I’m not going to yell at you. I’m far more likely to yell at me.
I try to give you something to think about, or smile at. I try to stay positive and upbeat and focus on the good things in life. I try to offer my observations and experiences in a way that’s interesting or thought provoking. I’m not trying to tell anyone who to be or what to think, but I’m allowing you all a glimpse of who I am and what I think. That doesn’t sound like a significant contribution to the good of humankind, but right now it’s what I’ve got to offer, take it or leave it.
This was supposed to be the year of loving myself enough to do all that I needed to make my life as wonderful as possible. I’ve done a lot of positive things, but I have so much more to do. It’s a little like getting my house ready to sell. I want to fixate on tiny inconsequential things at the expense of the obvious. In terms of the house it’s simple, CLEAN UP. In terms of my life it’s simple too, LOSE WEIGHT.
I think I can lose 50 pounds in 5 months. That’s sane and safe and would go a long way toward improving my health and life. There, I’ve written it. That makes it real.
I’m cleaning up and resisting the temptation to do silly things like rearrange drawers. I’m also committing to eating better and moving more. That’s about as much as I can handle right now. I did go to the grocery store and purchase some delicious mandarins, salad, yogurt, carrots, hummus, orange juice, and water to wash it all down.
I also purchased some light beer. Hey, it’s the Super Bowl, and the sweetheart is in the kitchen cooking his yearly pot of gourmet chili. I better take my walk before the festivities begin. Besides, the 3rd isn’t until tomorrow.
On days when the number of visits to BulgingButtons seems to stagnate, in spite of the sparkling gem of a post I have just shared with the world, I start to get a little peevish.
“Is anybody out there?” I wonder. “Am I irrelevant?”
I wonder if I’ve missed something. Some way of reaching out to people who might learn from or at least enjoy reading something I’ve written. In my heart I know they’re out there. People who want to make positive changes in their lives, but feel stuck for some reason. People who are not severely damaged, but may have a few dings and dents. People whose overall outlook on life is positive, but who still need a boost now and then. People like me.
I want those people to join the 500 or so others who have already discovered my little corner of the internet. I want them to read my words and shake their heads, and post their own thoughts and experiences. I want to draw them into the conversation. We’ve got a pretty cool little community over here, and I would love to see it grow.
With that outreach in mind, my brain started thinking about ways to share the blog, short of walking up to strangers on the street and handing them this web address. That would be weird, right? Yes, it would, in case you weren’t sure. My brain went back to the days of my life as a candle lady. Back in the day I wanted to expand my client base and grow my business so I read a few books and learned a few things. One thing that stuck was to go where the clients are.
So, where do people like me go? Well, everywhere, but one of my favorite places is the bookstore. You know, the giant one with the comfy chairs and the Starbucks inside? I love that place, and lots of other people do too. What if I printed up a few cards with a catchy phrase and my web addy and placed them strategically inside selected books? You know, kind of like what people do with their secrets in the PostSecret books? By the way, I look for those secrets. Haven’t found one yet.
I could put them in cookbooks, in Yoga for Dummies, in “Yes, You’re a Good Enough Mom” books, in “Get Creative” books, and in so many others. I think it would be fun to spend some time at the bookstore, slipping in “bookmarks” with the BulgingButtons addy on it. But honestly, I don’t know that I would get a single hit from the effort. Perhaps if I had something to gain from the exercise, aside from a couple of curiosity clicks, I might run with the idea. It does tickle me to think of putting my mark all over the bookstore, though. Maybe some lonely day when there are crickets chirping on my stats page I will actually follow through on this guerilla marketing plan. In the meantime, I would love to hear any crazy schemes you have for getting your content out there.
Every blogger hopes to reach readers who will enjoy and hopefully use the content they offer. Bloggers imagine reaching people throughout the world with their wit and wisdom, and they find it rewarding when those readers offer constructive feedback. At least I think they do. I do, anyway.
BulgingButtons 
