You can find the previous two parts to this series of articles; Part 1 and Part 2.
This series of articles aims to discuss the key points you need to cross off, if you wish to setup your own design site. Some things I hope to discuss are to open your blog up to guest writers, be aware of your friends contributions and how giveaways can help.

Once you have finally attracted your readers to your site and are reading your articles, you don’t want this to become a one time visit for them. You want them to check out the rest of your site and to be interactive in the conversation of the opinion you expressed in your articles. Encourage them to comment on your posts and offer up their opinion on the topics you raise, you may find they agree with your opinions, they could offer you the other side to the argument from which you hadn’t considered. By encouraging your readers to engage and comment on your articles it could provoke other readers to take part in the debate if they see that various opinions have been aired and want to air their own two cents into the argument. It is good to promote a healthy debate between yourselves amongst your readers.

If you write articles which provide your opinion on issues and ask to hear your readers opinions, they are more likely to become involved in the debate. If you simply provide your own one sided opinion your are simply trying to put across your own point without listening to the other side of the coin. Be willing to listen to what people comment back and engage in the argument yourself, the comment box is a great way to get quick concise opinions and small debates between your readers. This increased engagement may lead to you picking up new ideas for follow up articles or ideas for another strand in that topic.

In order to attract more readers to your articles it is necessary to provide engaging content, which isn’t just focused around one similar topic each time. People are going to catch onto your content being boring and repetitive, if you are just providing the same old roundups on typography each time. You need to mix up your content providing inspiration, articles, freebies, recommendations and advice. By covering all the bases not only are you providing excising readers more engaging and varied content but you are also attracting newer readers who may find your new wave of topics interesting to read. Who may in turn seek out other pages on your site and read on further.

Another way to engage with your readers on a personal level in through the social networks such as through Twitter and Facebook, there you not only have the ability to work on promoting your article on a one-to-one level. But also in provoking the debate with individuals as well, be interactive in your Facebook page could provoke you to ask one lined questions and discuss new ideas and opinions with your users engaging their opinions on the matter. This could further strengthen your articles swaying of opinion and direction if you hear first hand what other designers and readers feel about a certain issue.

When you are building your site with both content and promotion be sure to recognize the contributions of others which have helped you along the way in helping you achieve what you have up until that point. I know that when I first started in writing I found it hard to get people to Retweet and promote my articles across the web. I was producing content that seemingly non-one was willing to pass onto other people. But once those few initial relationships were made, they began to multiply and word of mouth quickly spread to help promote my articles and my site as a whole.

By recognizing other people who help promote your articles, they will in turn offer your name around more to the people they interact with and could see you increasing the number of people who are willing to help in spreading your articles and site. One simple way to thank people is through Twitter for their RT’s and promotion of their articles, I also often find myself spending a set amount each day I’m promoting the content of others who help me in promoting my own articles.

By helping someone else will see the same favors return to you, if you retweet one persons article you could see that favor returned three fold in them retweeting your next article, the same could be said for promotional votes as well. One of the ways in which I recognize the input of friends across the web is by showcasing them on the page ‘Associates.‘ Here I simply showcase the great people who have helped me along the way by showing users who they are, how to find them on social networking sites and of course linking my readers to their personal websites as well. If you do this it may see the favor returned with users putting up links to your site in their blog roll sections or wherever they wish to return the favor.

A blog roll is simply a selection of links of your friends and associates who you feel are worthy of promoting to your readers, it is often seen as a great thing and people will more often than not return the favor to you. Seeing you both spreading the word of your website to prospective readers.

Offering up guest writing opportunities for other design blogs is another great way to get your readership involved in your community, people will be more likely to want to write for your site if you have a large readership. But there is no written rule in not allowing guest writers until you have established yourself, why not get people in while you can if they are willing to take away the burden of writing for that day. It’s great to hear another persons opinions and don’t forget they are writing for you, you have ultimate control in if their writing gets published or not.

Be strict in making sure that the content they are writing is up to the kind of standards you have set out for yourself, but don’t put people off from guest writing if you are going to be rude and picky in what users are willing to write. Be open to communication through emails is a great start, usually dialogue between the guest writer and website author will be to settle on the topic of choice. You as the website author will know the kind of topics a guest writer should be writing and you can direct them to avoid those topics you either think are inappropriate or those which you don’t think are good enough to attract readers to your site.

Once the topic has been chosen the guest writer can provide the content either by preparing it and emailing the topic to you, another great way to make guest writers more comfortable and welcoming is by opening a guest author account on your WordPress site. They are limited to simply writing and formatting their guest article within the parameters of how you wish all your content to be formatted. From experience I know this can often be a great thing in motivating you not only to write great content as a guest author, be can often be a spark to make me want to write for that blog/site again the future. The guest author account in WordPress give the writer the spark in producing the article but they also are able to see their article (in preview) in your sites layout, before you then review the guest post before you choose to publish the article.

On the flip-side to allowing guest writers on your new site, you can also improve the word of mouth of your site by guest writing for other blogs and design sites. You get a chance to work under the tutelage of other writers in working to their standards, you may also pick up different ways in which they work, which could improve the method of which you work. When posting as a guest writer you are given a biography box of which to showcase who you are as well as linking people to your site and Twitter page. Guest writing could bring over people to your site if they feel impressed after reading your guest article.

I know that I have often gained more users after writing guest posts on other sites, it has also helped me build up relationships with other site owners which I hadn’t previously communicated with before. This has often further lead to a mutual respect and understanding often as this relationship grows, you will often mutually promote articles from which you have both produced. Giving you another person from which will help you promote your site and its content.

You can find the previous two parts to this series of articles; Part 1 and Part 2.

Be sure to keep a look out for more help and tips with further advice in this series of articles on the essential elements of your first WordPress design site.

Part four coming soon…

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