If you’ve been around the blogosphere lately, you’ve seen people posting a meme (pronounced ‘theme’) on their blogs, but what exactly a meme is can vary.

According to Chris Garrett of chrisg.com: “For bloggers Memes have become synonymous with internet quizzes, surveys, and novelties that people link to and pass around on their blogs, forums and via email, things like the ‘which superhero are you most like’ test… “

There are other types though, designed specificially to build links between blogs, which can help with Google pagerank and your technorati ‘authority’ score (which is based entirely on the number of websites that link to you.) like Mack’s at the Viral Garden.

Pariah Scott Burke of iampariah.com provides a list of memes that fall into the above category, but are also designed to provide content for personal bloggers by giving them a predetermined topic to blog about (took me a second to find it in his article.. go to the bottom and click on the word ’sidebar’ or ‘popup window’ to see the list). Some popular memes correspond with a certain day of the week, for example the Manic Monday Meme .

Now… should you do it?

In the case of the first type I described, the ‘What type of superhero are you like’ is mostly associated with the teen (and younger) blogging crowd and places like myspace. If your blog is for you and a small group of friends, this can be amusing, and would be fine. However if you’re trying to attract a larger audience to a personal blog in the wider world of blogging, I’d avoid them, for the simple reason that such information isn’t interesting to strangers.

Linkbuilding memes can indeed be effective for improving your technorati score, and as long as such posts don’t overwhelm the other valuable content of your blog. In fact, if the sole purpose is linkbuilding, then consider inserting your meme post just before you post something else, that way it won’t cloud up that valuable ‘latest post’ spot on your blog.

Memes designed to get a lot of people posting on a similar theme can be a great way to build content in your blog, but keep this in mind: Make sure the meme fits with your theme! For example, if you’re a humor blogger, and you want to answer the ‘why do I blog’ meme, make your answers FUNNY! This shouldn’t really need to be said, but there is a tendency of some bloggers to like to talk about themselves, what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it, without paying attention to the needs/wants of the audience.

Lastly, a meme can be fun, but don’t overdo them. I went to a blog recently and 4 out of 5 of his last posts were memes. Use them if you like them, but a blog with too many can seem like it’s all filler and no substance.

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We all want our blog visitors to return to our site, but what can you do to improve your blog to make sure that happens?

Here are 10 things I’ve learned that will keep your visitors returning.

1. Be consistent. Decide up front how often you want to update your blog, and do it regularly. I would suggest at least five times a week, as blog addicts (and most of us bloggers are exactly that!) like to come back every day! If your reader comes and sees you haven’t posted in a week, they’re less likely to bother coming back to check again the next day. If you’re going away, be sure you post a brief announcement post telling people so, so your blog doesn’t look deserted. This is especially important if your blog is young.
2. Be interactive. Allow comments from any source. I don’t return to sites I can’t comment on, such as ones that require a Google ID to leave a comment. Reply to comments, and visit the sites of your vistitors! Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog’s widgets are great for seeing who has been viewing your site. Go visit them in return, even if they didn’t leave a comment! Befriend them in one of these communities, and they’ll likely keep coming back! I once got a welcome email from a site where I had left a comment. The author had obviously been to my site, and she told me what she liked about it. This made me feel really welcome and a part of her online community.
3. Don’t make your posts too long. So many bloggers love to go on and on and on. I’d say this rule applies doubly if you’re writing a personal/humor/rant blog rather than a technical or niche subject blog. If you have a lot to say, considering breaking this up into a series of posts.
4. Good Writing. This can be a tough one, because people who can do it, will. But put the effort in and don’t let yourself get lazy, or even a good writer can produce some unworthy posts, driving people away.
5. Do it for love. Write about what interests you or makes you laugh, or moves you, depending on the subject of your blog. Write about things you can’t help but write about. You’ll lose interest quickly if you aren’t passionate about the subject.
6. Controversy. Don’t be afraid to state your opinion. Not everyone will agree, but it will give your blog some personality and spice!
7. Clear, inviting layout. Style does matter. Put some thought and effort into choosing an appropriate theme, and customise it as you go along. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first day, as it’s normal for a site to evolve, but do put the effort in! I find myself passing over Blogspot blogs, for example, that use that ever-common ‘dots’ theme. Experiment, and feel free to change the theme occassionally to see what people respond to. Choose one appropriate for your subject! A personal blog can be spicy, warm, and even zany. A professional blog can have some flair without being too boring! Check out blogs you like, and analyze their design and what you like about it.
8. RSS Feeds: Promote them. RSS feeds are a great way for people to keep track of new posts you make without having to visit. It may sound like a downer for the author, but in fact it’s a huge plus. This is a fantastic way to net in people who wouldn’t ordinarily come back.
9. Stick To Your Purpose. If it’s a humor blog, keep it funny, and don’t lapse into talking about your best friend’s tragic loss and how it’s affecting you. If you write a business blog, don’t talk about your pregnancy. If you want loyal readers, you need to remember why they come back, and give them what they want.
10. Analyze Your Traffic. Sometimes the search keyphrases people use to find you won’t tell you all that much, particularly if you are writing a personal blog. However, what is useful is to see what pages get the most hits, and what posts get the most comments. Over on Bitter Women, I found I got a huge boost in comments and additions to a social network like StumbleUpon if I talked about sex and gender issues. Whereas posts about funny things in the news don’t get as many hits, probably because the same articles often get written about by many many blog authors, and it’s harder to make something fresh that way.

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Reading a humor blog where the author digressed into talking about their blogroll prompted me to share my thoughts here. If you read that article, you see the I’ve already replied to him… but there’s more to it!

Bloggers feel slightly embarrassed, sometimes, that the things we do (such as blogrolling, commenting, adding friends in social networks) we do because we want to build traffic for our own sites. We all know it’s what we do, but it’s somehow a shameful secret, especially when you’re writing a personal blog.

The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with dropping the dead weight from your blogroll, and in fact, it’s not good for your site’s pagerank to just indiscriminately link anyway. Why should you care about your pagerank? If you aren’t interested in making some dosh with your blog, it doesn’t matter in the least. But if you want to build traffic, and use something like PayPerPost or sell text ads, it can matter a great deal! (And then there are those of us who are obnoxiously competitive and just want the best numbers we can get on a site so we feel some tiny rush of ’success’ every time we visit our stats page.)

So, here are my personal rules for blogrolls on all my various blogs (I have more than I like to admit).

• When I add someone to my blogroll, I usually let them know via a comment on their site such as (This post is great.. it prompted me to add you to my blogroll.) Often people don’t pay attention or know how to find out, so it’s not really fair to get mad at someone because it’s possible they don’t know you added them.
• If someone doesn’t reciprocate, I very often remove them. And there’s nothing in the world wrong with that. I usually give people 2-3 weeks, because not everyone is as obsessive about their blogs as I am. If you want to link to someone who doesn’t link to you, perhaps consider adding a ‘Helpful Links’ list and keeping them separate.
• If someone doesn’t update their blog regularly, I remove them without remorse. Remember, I’m recommending these sites to my own readers, and I don’t want to send them to dead sites.
• I never write to someone requesting to be added to their blogroll. As one of my favourite bloggers said, “That’s like inviting yourself to dinner.” If someone wants to be added to mine, I will only do it if I like their site. Again it’s the question: “Would I recommend this to a friend?” If not, I won’t recommend it to strangers either.
• You do not have to link to everyone that links to you. Sounds like this conflicts with my second rule above, but if you don’t like a site well enough to return, you shouldn’t feel obligated. Don’t devalue your own blogroll out of guilt!

Another trend of note is that some people put their blogrolls on separate pages. I would warn you that if you’re going to do this, anyone you have traded links with might feel slightly conned. They want the highest pagerank page possible linking to them, and that is almost always the main page. Not to mention that most of your readers will skip this page.

I have also noticed that some people keep a blogroll that extends down half (if not all) of their page, some even having hundreds of links! In my opinion, this devalues the blogroll completely, and only the top three or four are going to get any hits from you. Not to mention it’s just page clutter!

Last point: there is nothing wrong with being ruthless about who is and isn’t on your blogroll! It’s your website, and you should use your links in a way that benefits your site, whether that’s linking to sites you like and value, or using it to build your own traffic and pagerank.

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