How to Get Your Blog to Appear on Morning Roundups

There are thousands of people every day that plead with me to appear on Today in Blogworld (TiB).

Ok, not really.

But every article written aims for wider exposure. We want what we write to be read. Every link you get (even from a little guy like me) extends the life of your article. It’s a win if you get picked up by a curator.

Here is how I decide what appears on TiB in the morning. I use Feedly and subscribe to hundreds of feeds. I click through them relatively quickly. If something even looks mildly interesting I save it for later. At a set point in the day I go through everything that I saved for later. I read a little of each article and either link to it, trash it, or save it for tomorrow. I imagine others do something similar.

Here are six ways to keep yourself from appearing on TiB

1. Make me click through. Nine times out of 10 if you make me click through to keep reading I won’t do it. In fact if this is the pattern for your blog I probably don’t even subscribe.
2. Don’t have a catchy title. If you don’t have an effective title, no matter how amazing the article I doubt I’ll ever see it. This might help.
3. Bore me out of the gate. Your title might have caught my attention so I saved it. But if I start reading and fall asleep I’ll quickly move on.
4. Write a novel. This rule can be broken. Some articles are so good that they need to be over the typical 7-800 words. Some can pull this off. Don’t assume that you can.
5. Fail to ask. On occasion people will email with an article that they’ve written and ask me to take a look. I almost always do. Go the extra step and email me. But don’t do it daily or be Sir Spam-A-Lot
6. Promote sin. I want to be helpful to my readers. If your article promotes sin (which means slander, gossip, needless controversy, etc.) then I won’t even bother.

Here are five positive tips

1. Be helpful
2. Be unique
3. Spend time on your title
4. Use shorter paragraphs
5. Pictures can be helpful but don’t overdo it