I’ve received several requests and questions from readers, friends, etc. that all point to one salient issue. “What can we physically do to improve our blogs?” or “What actual activities should we complete, in order to make our blogs better?”.

It seems that launching a blog for some new and inexperienced blog owners is a huge exercise (and for some a steeper learning curve than for others). I’ve often observed clients who have launched their blogs, fail to garner traffic, further excitement and buzz, or for that matter, reach any of their goals and blogging aspirations. After a time they become discouraged as they feel let down by their blog.

One of the biggest barriers I’ve observed (among others) is that often people just don’t do anything, mainly because some don’t quite know what to do (or how) and others just need more motivation.

Some launch their blog and expect the Internet horde to rush over and visit. To be blunt, the days of “Build it and they will come”, are long over. A blog is akin to your business tools, if you don’t use it, it will become rusty. Defining some of the barriers to improving a blog is well and good, but what can we do about it?

As many of you know, I’ve recently recovered from a disaster, which prevented me from posting for a few days. As such, this has provided me further motivation to provide more valuable content; content that I’m sure you’ll all find valuable.

This post is the beginning of a series exploring hands on activities we can complete, after which you’ll have improved your blog. We’ll be completing activities such as linking, using social media, cleaning up our blog design, developing and examining our SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), creating sticky posts, improving SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and much more!

Personally, I urge you to please do three things:

1. Diligently participate in each activity.
2. Provide feedback in your comments as it’s helpful to everyone.  Learning not only about successes but also suggestions and alternatives.
3. Provide ideas or suggestions if you think I’ve missed something.

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