1. Add a Feedburner Subscription Box.  Make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your posts by email.  Over time, you subscriber list will grow.  Think of your blog as an ongoing E-newsletter. Burn the feed for your blog at  Feedburner.google.com and monitor your blog stats.  Use the free widget to publicize your blog with an email subscription form.

2. Make your blog searchable.  Having a Search Box on your blog makes it easier for folks to find content that you may have written about in the past. Search on my blog is also useful to me. I use search when writing my blog to quickly find and link to relevant articles I’ve written in the past.

3. Add a Facebook Fan Box.  Alright, I know this blog doesn’t have a Facebook Fan box, but that’s because I don’t have a Facebook Fan Page.  Most Tourism businesses and regions are different in this regard – AT LEAST THEY SHOULD BE.  If you don’t have a Facebook Fan Page stop reading this post and build a Fan Page.  Read this post on the number of Canadians who use Facebook with some great charts showing how popular Facebook is these days in Canada!   Then check out this post and add a Facebook Fan Box to your Blog (updated).

4. Make your blog social by adding a Google Friend Connect Box that encourages your fans to connect with a Google, Yahoo! or Twitter.  I also recommend TwitterCounter.com Widget that is pretty nifty way of connecting your Twitter Community.  It shows the Twitter folks who have recently visited.

5. Add a Disqus Commenting System.  The heart and soul of any blog is the conversation that takes place with readers. Disqus Commenting System is a fav because it makes it easy for readers to comment with whatever social profile they prefer.  It also allows Guest Commenting.

6. Allow Guest Commenting.  OK, I admit it, this one is a pet peave.  I often come across blog posts that get me excited about commenting and they limit commenting to members!  PLEASE make it easier to comment by using a comment management tool and permit guest comments.  Comment spam takes a bit of time, but its a sacrifice your readers want you to make.

7. Visit your Blog Guests. Your readers often have an online life too! Follow them on twitter, visit their facebook pages, read their blogs and comment on their Web sites.  It’s just good karma and will help you grow of a wider community of fans and friends.  One of the reasons I enjoy Twitter and FriendConnect widgets is it  makes it easy to click over and see what my visitors up to.

8. Draft a new About Page. This is really high on my list of things to do for our tourism Web site as well as my blog.  What better time to consider what makes your blog tick than the turning of a new year.  Start by taking a few moments to answer three important questions.

1. Who are you writing for?  Think about who your readers are, what interests them and why they might subscribe to your blog.
2. What topics do care about? What kind of writing or multimedia content do you focus on?
3. What makes you tick? What gets you excited?

9. Make it easy to contact you.  Determine an action you want your readers to take if they want to connect, then provide the contact points that you want folks to use.  For most tourism industry folk providing access to your email address and phone number are critical, but consider also providing links to your Google Profile and other social networking profiles if you want folks to connect with you there.  If you have a Google account, you may also want to add a simple Google Docs Web form to collect incoming requests for more information.

10. Feature Guests and Link to Others.  If you see something that you think your readers would be interested in, link to it.  If you see someone doing something interesting in your community, quote them or invite them to join you for an audio podcast.  Writing about or featuring others on your blog can expand your audience by appealing to the audience members of your featured guests.  One of my favourite things to do is record Skype conversations with Audio Hijack Pro and post them on my blog.

Supercharge your blog in 2010

Choose one of these ideas that is new for you and spend a bit of time this week adding it to your blog.  Your fans and readers will thank you for it.

Got any ideas to add?  What are you doing to supercharge your blog in 2010?

Tweet This