Animal Jam Blogging: The Basic and the Bold

Hey there fellow Jammers! For the next couple of days, I will be posting some tips, hints, semi-secrets and tricks for making your blog eye-appealing, not to mention to draw in visitors!

I told Alisha Harris a while ago on the Questions page that I would do this, except I forgot. >.< I'm so sorry!!!

I am doing this now, however, so get ready to rock your blog!

Today, let's start with the basics of Animal Jam Blogging. If you are reading this for the detailed little tricks, just wait for a couple of posts. :)

Here are the basics of Animal Jam blogging for daily updates:

• MECHANICS, MECHANICS, MECHANICS!!!! This is a given for any blog, but I will emphasize it for Animal Jam blogging. Capitalize, punctuate, spell, and grammar-ify correctly! The whole point of  AJUB (Animal Jam Update Blogging) is so that people understand you. it doznt help iff ur sentces look like dis or eeven like dis espeshully like dis. u need to puntshuate corectly so that people ken undurstand u so ur sentces arnt all mashed up like dis. Example of a hard to understand post: hey jammers hows it goin todays new item is the tan carpet what do you think of this item bye jammers!!!!!!!
• Make your posts longer than a sentence. Any AJUB post can look like this: "Hey Jammers! The new item today is the Tan Carpet! That's all I have time for today, see you Jammers!" Some good ideas for lengthening posts to longer than a sentence are:
• Find some things of interest around Jamaa. Write a story about it, open it up for discussion, or just point it out.
• Have contests! Everyone loves a good competition! You don't have to have a fabulous prize to make a contest great! Just make sure the contest is original. Riddle contests, screenshot contests, and story contests are all great ideas!
• Create comics and funny pictures! Nothing gets a good blog audience involved like a few laughs!
• Show little things like tips and tricks for blogging/Animal Jam (like what I'm doing now). 
• Put up guides for player-controlled things, like clans, trading, and adoption.
• Engage the readers! Some Bloggers complain that they don't get enough comments. Well, to do so, you must add something to the post that will draw in the reader, get the reader to read, and then ask for a response. Things like funny pictures and interesting facts will get readers to respond, but if you can't do that, just add a question into your post. Things like "What do you think of this item?" and "What is your favorite ______?" should trigger responses.
• If you feel that you are not receiving enough pageviews/followers, be assertive! Go out and put your Animal Jam blog out on the Internet! Visit other blogs and ask if they will mention your blog, or even just ask if your blog can go on their blog list, if they have one. However you do it, just find the right people who will be kind enough to share your blog with the world.
• Last but not least, BE YOURSELF! Sure, you can look at other blogs for ideas of how to structure your posts, etc., but when it comes down to it, have your own, unique personality. Be as  spunky, vivacious, funny, and as you as you can possibly be. Be yourself, and you will find that you fit right it in the blogging world!

I hope you find those tips useful! More are coming either tomorrow or in two days. I will put these up on a page, so you can read them all together. Things that are coming soon:

• Managing your template
• Boosting stats
• HTML decorating
• More!

Happy blogging!

~vms915