My top 10 tips for anime blogging

Having been around the anime blogsphere for over eight years now, this is a topic I’ve been constantly thinking about – what can one do to make their anime blog successful, or at least attract a decent number of readers? As I’ve said before in other posts, I believe it’s important to blog first and foremost because you enjoy it, and not solely because you want lots of readers. Of course, having fun expressing yourself and having readers is ideal XD I certainly don’t have the most successful blog in town, but I do have a somewhat decent readership, which is what most anibloggers strive for at the least. So what are the strategies I’ve learned over the years for getting readers?…

I consider most of these things equally important, but for convenience’s sake, I put them into a top 10 list. I also tried to avoid obvious things like “give each post proper tags” and “don’t be a jerk to your readers” XD

10. Start each post with an attractive picture
Pictures are very important for an anime blog, since anime is such a visual medium. I’ve found that having at least one nice-looking header picture on every post is helpful. First off, when people scroll down your blog’s homepage, they’ll be greeted by a consistent column of eye-pleasing pictures, which will add to your blog’s overall appealing design (see #5 on the list). Another reason is that, if someone finds one of your posts through a search without even seeing your homepage, they’ll see at least one nice image. Just think, what would people rather see in an anime blog: lots of pretty anime pictures laid out in a consistent, neat fashion, or a wall of plain text with only one or two random pictures? Using a picture that matches the post topic is ideal of course, but sometimes the topic doesn’t have any kind of anime picture that matches it (like this post for example). So in that case, I just use any nice anime picture I can find (using a picture from a currently popular anime could help, but it’s usually not necessary). Fan art is great for post opening pictures since there are some amazing fan artists out there that make anime pictures that look better than the official ones! But if you do use fan art, it’s common sense courtesy to link the image back to the artist’s profile page on whatever site you got it from.

9. Have another outlet for readers to follow you (i.e., Twitter, Facebook)
Promoting your blog on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the like is great since so many anime fans also have accounts on those sites. Twitter in particular is very popular among anime bloggers since you can not only use it to post a link to any new posts you write, but you can also easily communicate with your readers if they’re on Twitter too. Making a Facebook page for your blog is another option. Putting yourself and your blog on a social media site helps potential readers find you more easily than they would if you just had a blog and nothing else, helps you promote your blog by posting links to new posts on those sites, and lets you communicate quickly and easily with people who follow you.

8. Follow other anime blogs and comment on their posts
Anime blogging is a tightly-knit community, with most of the prominent anime bloggers knowing who the other prominent anime bloggers are, knowing when new blogs pop up, the new bloggers getting to know the old bloggers fairly quickly, etc,. So one way anime bloggers help each other out is by linking back to each other’s blogs and posting those links in their “blogroll.” Another way is linking back to a specific post from that blogger in their own post if they happen to talk about a similar topic. But of course, in order for other bloggers to link back to you or quote you on one of their own posts is to get them to know that your blog exists. There are several good ways to do that (besides just saying “Hey, check out my blog!,” which would be weird XD) One way is to simply follow their blog and comment on their posts, which lets you leave a link back to your own blog in your comment profile. There’s been several occasions where I’ve commented on a blog, and then the next thing I know, that blogger commented on one of my posts! Another way is to simply link back to their blog in your blogroll or links page, or link back to one of their posts in your post. Most blogging platforms should inform people when someone links back to one of their posts, so they’ll be able to see that your blog is linking to them. Yet another way is to simply follow and communicate with other anime bloggers on sites like Twitter because, again, you can post a link to your blog on your Twitter profile that they can see. The trick is to find a balance between being proactive with promoting your blog, while not being too obviously direct about it XD

7. Have unique post topics and/or a unique style
With so many anime blogs doing the same episodic reviews of weekly airing anime, or posting their thoughts on the same anime news topics, doing something unique on your blog is essential for people to notice you among the already established blogs. What I personally do is focus my blog on anime-related editorials, with topics that most other blogs don’t talk about, while still doing typical anime reviews once in a while at the end of each season. Some bloggers opt to focus their blogs on one particular aspect of anime, such as Anime Instrumentality focusing only on anime music, and moetron being a reliably updated anime news source. This doesn’t mean your blog will fail if you decide to do the same old episodic reviews – you would just have to do something that makes them stand out. Maybe you could post accompanying screencaps and give them funny captions, or just develop an entertaining, witty writing style that goes beyond just “this is what I think of this.” You can either post topics that no one else posts about, or post the same old topics but in a way no one else does XD

6. Break up long posts of text with images and/or subtitles
As I said in #10 on the list, pictures are very important for an anime blog. Even if you have a nice header image, if someone clicks on the full post and is greeted by just a wall of plain text that goes on and on, that’s not very appealing. What a lot of bloggers do is insert appropriate pictures after every few paragraphs in a long post, with a short caption if necessary. That way, when someone views the post, rather than having to make the effort to read the paragraphs in order to know what it’s about, they can quickly glance at a few pictures and maybe be enticed to actually read the post if the pictures catch their interest. I don’t do this all the time though as there are simply some topics that don’t lend themselves well to appropriate pictures (this post for example). In which case, breaking up your paragraphs with bold, italicized, or underlined subtitles is a nice alternative. Again, I only add pictures and subtitles to especially long posts. If it’s just 3-5 paragraphs on a consistent topic, I leave it as is.

5. Have a neat, appealing homepage and overall design
Your blog’s homepage is usually the first thing people see, so of course you want it to look appealing. As I’ve said already, pictures are important for a visual medium like anime, so having at least one anime picture on your blog’s homepage, like the main top header image, would be great. Besides that, just having a neat design that’s easy to navigate and clearly structured is as essential for a blog to get views as it is for any web site really. If I visit a blog that bombards me with rollover images popping out at me while a window of top posts is continuously scrolling by while something else in the corner is flashing at me, I typically just click away. At the same time, if I visit a blog that’s just plain text all over with no pretty pictures, with disorganized sidebars or posts that aren’t broken up by the “more” tag and force me to keep scrolling down and down until I get to another post, again, I’m tempted to leave. So you want to have a blog that’s not so fancy that navigating it becomes confusing or annoying, but also one that’s not so plain that it’s boring.

4. It’s okay to have a non-anime post here and there, but not too often
Some people use their blogs as simply an outlet for personal expression on whatever topics interest them, even if the topics have nothing to do with each other, which I think is great. But! If you’re looking to attract a consistent readership, it helps to keep a theme for your blog and stick with it. If you have an anime blog but often post about completely unrelated things, like your political views or a trip you took to Hawaii, you’re probably gonna lose some readers who come to your blog expecting anime topics and continually get disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with a non-anime post once in a while – it could even work well as a nice break from the norm that both you and your readers appreciate, and at the same time they can get to know a different aspect of who you are, which in turn could make them relate to you better. But readers may start to feel alienated if such posts are too common. Posting about things that many anime fans also like – such as video games or Japanese cuisine – isn’t as off-putting of course (like how I occasionally write about Pokemon games or American animated movies). But if you have something totally unrelated to anime that you want to write about just as much, I suggest starting up another blog =)

3. Avoid typos as much as you can (proofread!)
This goes along with #5 in terms of applying to all successful blogs and web sites, not just anime ones. The more spelling errors and awkward grammar your post has, the more likely I’ll be to stop reading in the middle and go somewhere else. We all make mistakes and even posts I’ve proofread several times still have one or two typos, especially if they’re really long. But just try and be as error-free as you can. I recommend proofreading as you write, then going away from your post for a while before giving it one last proofread.

2. Reply to comments
Replying to comments is what helped my blog go from getting 0-1 comments on average per post, to getting anywhere from 6-10 on average (not counting my replies of course), or sometimes a lot more depending on the post. I’ve always thought that one of the main purposes of blogging (as opposed to just making a regular website) is being able to interact with your readers by replying to their comments. People really like it when a blogger whose post they enjoyed responds to what they have to say about it (I know I do!) and will likely come back again. I know it’s difficult to reply to every comment, especially on old posts that you’ve already replied to a lot. But try and reply to as many as you can, especially on new posts and especially on long, thoughtful comments (if someone took the time to write a good comment, it’s nice to show them you acknowledge it after all). Or if you have one of those insanely popular blogs that gets 50-100 comments within an hour of a new post going up, then yeah, it’s understandable that you can’t reply to everyone XD

1. Post often, or at least consistently
This is kind of an obvious one but it’s probably the most important, which is why I have it on the list as #1. It’s not automatically true that the more often you post, the more successful your blog will be. Quality over quantity is more important in my opinion…as long as the gap between quality posts isn’t too long! So if you post everyday, but your posts are sloppy and dispensable, you won’t be as successful as someone who posts every 10 days, but with noticeably more time and effort put into each one (news blogs are different of course). Then again, if you can only churn out a post once every 1-2 months, but they’re above average posts, it probably still won’t be as good as posting once a week with average posts, at least in terms of keeping a readership. For your typical anime blog, I would say it’s best to post every 3-5 days if possible, but no less than every 2 weeks. I can bet that the main reason I don’t have as many consistent readers now as I did in 2009-2012 is because I had to gradually decrease my post output from every 3 days to every week and then to every 10-14 days due to my work and school schedules. But that’s how it goes. Finding a blogging schedule that fits your busy (or not so busy) life, that’s both consistent and often enough to keep readers’ interest, is one of the most important factors of successful blogging in my opinion, and also one of the most difficult =O

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If you have an anime blog, are there any other tips you can suggest to new bloggers?