Building My Blog

So this blogging thing is not too bad.  I thought at first I would never be able to keep up with it however I found another blogger that recorded her way through a book on how to build a better blog and it is helping me too.  Tonia at Tonia's Roots started a series called "31 Weeks to Build a Better Genealogy Blog".  She implemented the ideas from Problogger's 31 Days to Build a Blog, with a genealogy twist.  I love it.

I am on Day 4 and my assignment is to analyze a successful blog in my niche.  I've decided to analyze Tonia's Blog.

In Tonia's blog I find content about her family, DNA, Evidence, Military, Brick Walls, Research and Technology.  These are her categories listed on the side.  I do not see a category for historic events or lineage societies which are things I'm interested in but that won't deter me though from reading her blog regularly. I also do not see a list of blogs she follows.

Tonia writes in first person with a story telling style.  It's like we are sitting at the kitchen table and she is showing me what she has found.  Her blog is not one of those mega blogs with thousand of followers but she has been doing this a while and it shows in her professionalism.

As I read her posts I notice that most people make comments when she shares something she has recently found but there are not very many comments if any on her personal family stories.  Most of her followers just "like" the post on facebook or tweet about it.

I like the clean and neatly organized look of her blog.  It is very easy to find her content links however her tabs cloud is no fun to look through.  Her subscribe buttons are easy to find at the top but there is not one for Pinterest.  And I love blogs with "Search this Blog" options especially when there are thousand of posts.  She does not have any advertising on her blog but does have 3 affiliates at bottom in her footer.  I get the impression she is not interested in making money from her blog which is just fine with me.

Now that I have done the exercise I have a much better idea of what I would like my blog to be like.  I would like tabs at the top for my main categories of interest and I would like people to find my surnames more easily.  Eventually I would like to promote my professional genealogy business with it but I'm not there yet.

Thank you Tonia.  Looking forward to reading more of your posts.

Until next time, happy hunting!
Kristina