What's your 2016 Blogging Genealogy goal? Personally, I plan to blog more about my ancestors as I research them. Do you plan to blog more in general? More consistently? Concentrate more on just a handful ancestors? Share your plans with everyone in comments below. We all need the inspiration! (Trust me.)

​~Caroline

Question: How do you eat an elephant?

Answer: One bite at a time.

Ah, the New Year! A time for reflection of the last year and a time to look forward. A good time to take a look at the blog posts we wrote, lament the ones we meant to post but never did, and plan out the ones we intend to post this new year.

Blogging about our ancestors can become overwhelming. After all, there are a lot of them. But just as the answer to the popular brain teaser of how to consume an elephant is to eat it one bite at a time, the answer to how to blog about our ancestors is to take it one topic at a time. (I'd say one ancestor at a time, but even that can be overwhelming if there are many facets of their lives we have uncovered.)

So, in order to help you along your blogging way, I'll post monthly genealogy blogging prompts to hopefully inspire you to share your family stories.

Jan 1 — Ellis Island Day

Blog about an ancestor (or family unit) who came through Ellis Island. If you're like me and don't have one who came through there, write about a port an ancestor did come through. What do you think it was like for them? (Or do a little Googling to find that out.) Have you been there yourself? How is it the same or different than when your ancestor was there?

Jan 3 — Memento Mori "Remember You Die" Day 

Okay, this sounds a bit morbid, but we ARE blogging about dead people, right? So, run with this one by posting about an ancestor's death certificate or record. Take apart that death record (figuratively, of course) and share what all the details are in the record. And/or transcribe the details as a blog post. What about their life did you learn from the document? What did you not learn but were hoping to find?

Another idea would be to write about a favorite tombstone or cemetery.

Jan 11 — National Clean Off Your Desk Day

After cleaning off your desk in honor of this day, which ancestor was taking up all of the space on your desk? Why? If because of researching, what did you find out about that ancestor? What were you hoping to find that you're still looking for?

Jan 13 — Make Your Dream Come True Day

Blog about one genealogy dream you have you'd like to come true. Just one. ;)

Jan 16 — Civil Service Day

Have any ancestors who were civil servants? What was their job? What did they do? How did you find out they were civil servants? What did their job entail in that time period? 

Jan 23 — National Handwriting Day

Blog about a handwritten document you've uncovered in your research, or just transcribe it as the blog post. If you're diving deep with it, how is it pivotal to your research? What does it say? What does it mean? Who else in your family tree does it mention or affect in some way?

Jan 25 — Opposite Day​

Which of your ancestors do you consider to be the total opposite of you. Why? In what ways specifically?

Jan 1—8 New Year's Resolutions Week

Pretty self-explanatory. Here's mine: Blog more about my ancestors because it's the single best way I've found to find more cousins and to help me sort out my research.

Jan 8—14 Universal Letter Writing Week

Pick one ancestor and write them a letter on your blog. Express your frustration over your research about them; communicate your utter satisfaction in finding out something about them; or simply ask them the questions about their lives that keep you up at night.

Jan 17—23 National Handwriting Analysis Week

Have a document with your ancestor's handwriting? What does it say about them? No, you're not a handwriting expert, but is it legible? Flamboyant? Or how did it make you feel when you found the document with their handwriting? Was your ancestor literate? Or did they have just their mark on documents instead of their signature?

Jan 18—24 National Bible Week

Are you lucky enough to have bible records for your ancestors? Transcribe a few of them on your blog. What story do they tell of that family? Is it legible? Do you know who wrote the entries? If not, who do you think did? Why? Were they all written in the same handwriting, with the same pen at the same time, or is it obvious it was written down as it happened? Does it answer any research questions about that family or a particular ancestor? Or does it lead to more questions?

Get Organized Month

Many start the new year out by getting their research in order. Share what are you doing to get organized. Are you getting elaborate with your plans, or are you going to just tweak a few things at a time? Are you getting your physical files in order, your digital ones, or all of the above?

International Brain Teaser Month

Which ancestor teases your brain the most right now? Why?

International Creativity Month

Share a creative research method you've used to help you find more about your ancestor. Or share a creative way you've shared your family stories with family members.

Feel free to share a link in comments below about whatever you write/blog about this month — even if you didn't use one of the prompts listed above. Share your family stories with everyone. You never know who you might inspire, or maybe you just might find a cousin!

~Caroline

In my last post about rolling out the welcome mat for your potential cousins and visitors, I mentioned placing a link to your Surnames & Location Page on it.

However, we hadn't gone over that yet. How many times have you landed on a family history blog after Googling your ancestor's name and location, and you're like, "Wow. This person has been blogging stories about their ancestors since 2009. And will you look at that? She's written all these stories, but I don't have time to figure everything out and see if we're related!"

Yeah. Happens to me all the time. {LOL. ;) }

Well, if you don't have some type of way for your potential cousins to quickly skim and see if you might be related {and that can be a pretty big 'might' sometimes}, then will they read everything? Or will they simply move on? My Google Analytics on my family history blog says they tend to leave. If it were me, I wouldn't, but? Everyone's different in how they handle things. 

So? You need a Surnames & Locations Page on your family history blog. And here's how you do that:

1. Log into your Blogger.com account.
   
2. Select Pages from the menu located on the left hand side. {Like we did in the step-by-step instructions for creating a Page for a Comment Form.}
3. Select New Page and then select Blank Page from the lil' drop down menu that magically appears. {Love magic.}
4. Give your New Page a title. I chose "Surnames/Locations". You can totally do something different.
5. Welcome Paragraph with a call-to-action for your lovely potential cousins to contact you. Basically, you're making a link to your Contact Me page. {Here's more information about adding a Contact Me page to your family history blog.}
6. List your surnames. I chose to put these in bold to make it easier for busy, busy potential cousins to scan the page.
7. I then listed under each surname the locations I've found my family line to have lived at one time, and I put these in chronological order. If known, I listed town, county, and US state. Basically, I was trying to capture my family's migration route -- as I currently know it to be.
8. When done, select Publish.
9. Hover over the light blue area located on the left side of your of your Surnames & Locations Page box thingy. This will allow you to drag & drop your new page in the order you want it to show up in on your blog.
10. When done arranging your pages, select Save Arrangement.
11. Now select View Blog. Ta-da! {Magic.}

Your Turn
Admittedly, my Surnames & Locations Page could be much better. I've seen better ones, but? It's the one I've got to show and tell you. And? There are a ton of ways you could do this Page as well. So? Share in comments below a link to your Surnames & Locations Page. Let's share & give everyone some ideas for their own. {Don't be shy.} =)

~Caroline

It's always nice when you land on a site where you can tell they're happy you showed up, isn't it?

Are you welcoming your visitors on your family history blog? Are you making visitors feel comfortable? Are you greeting those potential cousins? 

A welcome makes people feel better. And do I really need to tell you that a happier and more comfortable potential cousin is more likely to contact you? {Yeah.}

Here are some tips for rolling out the welcome mat for your family history blog visitors:

Tip #1
Create a short & fun welcome on the Home Page of your family history blog. And? Don't hide your welcome. Put it near the top of your sidebar. On Blogger, you can add this by adding the Text Gadget via the Add a Gadget Feature on the Layout Menu. {Like when putting the Search Box Gadget on your family history blog.} You can also do this very easily on your Weebly Blog by using the Text feature.

Tip #2
Create a Welcome Page on your blog. Depending on how you've set up the Pages feature on your blog, this will create a tab or button right above your blog posts. Make your Welcome Message a little longer than the one you made for your sidebar.

Tip #3
Add an image to your Welcome Page. Everyone likes an image. It catches readers' eyes and attention. And that's part of what you're trying to do with your Welcome Page. Plus it makes it easy to share on image-centric sites like Pinterest and makes people click on it on sites that prefer shares with images like Facebook. 

Tip #4
Put two Calls-To-Action on the Welcome Page of your family history blog. Yeah. Not one, but two calls-to-action. The other part of the reason for the Welcome Page is that you want to connect with your distant cousins so you can collaborate with them. So? First, ask them to take a look at your Surnames & Locations Page and then link to it. And, second, ask them to contact you and then link to your Contact Page.

Don't have a Contact Page on your family history blog? No worries. Learn how to make and add a Contact Page to your family history blog.

Don't have a Surnames & Locations Page for your family history blog? No worries. We're covering that in the next blog post.

Remember: A comfortable, happy, and welcomed potential cousin will be more likely to contact you. So? Welcome them!


~Caroline

Um. Not a real cloud. And not a storage cloud. 

But a Label Cloud. 

If you've been blogging a while and you've added the Label Gadget to your Blogger Family History Blog, then you know how unwieldy that list can get. Even worse, it's ugly and not really all that usable by your family history blog visitors. 

You know, those potential cousins you want to read your stuff to see if you're related? Yeah, those folks.

So? Make a Surname Label Cloud. Here's how:

First, your blog posts need to be labeled with the surnames you've been writing about in each post. Hopefully, you've been doing this already. If not, you'll need to go back to each post and add labels to them. If y'all need instructions on how to do that, then I'll blog about that next. {Ha! Another blog post idea. ;)}
Too much trouble? Then I guess you'll be skipping this tutorial today, and I'll see ya' at the next one. ;)
Then:

1. Log into Blogger.com.
2. Select "Layout" in the left side menu.
3. If you are not using the Labels Gadget already, then select "Add a Gadget," scroll down in the Gadget Pop-up Window; and select the Labels Gadget.
4. If you are currently using the Labels Gadget, then select "Edit" on that gadget.
5. Follow the screenshots-with-handy-dandy-instructions-on-them below. They are in order from left to right, top to bottom. Just click on the image and it will become bigger. Like magic. ;)

Have any questions? Comments? Let me know in comments below!

~Caroline

© Copyright 2013 Caroline M. Pointer

As a researcher, you scour the Internet looking for your ancestors. You look high. You look low.

What's the first thing you do once you land on a site?

Start reading it? If there's a lot of stuff or a lot of pages on the site {or blog}, that might take a while. And? You're in a hurry. The weekend is almost over. It's almost time to take off your Weekend Research Warrior Hat and put the Ol' Day Job Hat back on. *Big Sigh*

So then you might look for a search box. 'Cause, duh. That would be easier, but...

...you can't find one! "Never mind then," you think. "It's time to switch the laundry and make sure I'm ready for the ol' day job tomorrow. Maybe next weekend."

That's exactly what happens when potential cousins -- the exact people you're wanting to contact you -- visit your blog and you don't have a Search Box on it.

And? You've got to think of yourself as a salesperson because you are. You're selling your blog to your readers. You're trying to get your potential cousins to stick around on your site and search it. You're selling the idea that you just might be related since they were searching for the same ancestor you've written about on your family history blog {like a gazillion times}.

The ABCs of Blogging Genealogy
So like a good salesperson, you want to Always Be Closing that sale. Don't just quietly suggest they search your blog by providing that unassuming Blog Search Box. Tell them to search your blog and suggest you might be related.

And here's how you entice your potential cousins with that carrot on your Family History Blogger Blog:

1. Log into your account on Blogger.com.
2. Click on Layout in the menu on the left hand of the screen.
3. And then follow these easy screenshot steps. Click on a thumbnail and the image will become bigger. They're in the order you need to do the steps.

Now? Go forth and sell, you Family History Blogging Salesperson, you. ;) Do you already have a Search Box? Are you going to add a Call-to-Action to it? Share what kind of Call-to-Action you ended up putting on your Search Box below

~Caroline

So. You've created a blog, you've been blogging about your ancestors, you've been responding to comments on your blog, but? You still haven't made any cousin connections.

What else do you need to do to make your family history blog as inviting and as enticing as possible so that cousins will contact you for possible research collaboration?

Well,...

...there really isn't anything better than just blogging and blogging content {posts about your ancestors} so that Google will index your blog so that it ends up in search engine results.

But? Once someone ends up on your blog and realizes that they just might be related to you in some way, how easy do you make it for possible cousins to contact you?

Putting your email address directly on your blog may be helpful for cousins to contact you. However, it also makes it easy for spammers to span your email. Who needs that?

Also? How many times have you had a cousin contact you via email, but not provide some important contact information of their own so that you can easily contact them back? I know that's happened to me in the past. I mean, I like to know the name of the person who has contacted me so that I can address them properly when I contact them back.

And here's the solution: create a Google Contact Me Form in your Google Drive and embed the HTML code for the form on your website. Sounds complicated, I know, but it's not. I promise. It's a 2-step process because you create the Contact Form and then embed it on your family history website or blog. Below I created two slideshows with step-by-step instructions for this 2 step-process -- one for the creation of the Contact Me Form in Google Drive and one on how to embed it on your Blogger Blog. Now, I used Blogger Blog as the example because it's a popular free blogging platform. However, you can embed this Contact Me Form wherever you want using the HTML code.

Creating a Contact Me Form in Google Drive
 Before you start the slideshow, the first step is to navigate to your Google Drive account. Then...

Adding the Contact Me Form to Your Blogger Blog
Before starting the slideshow:

1. Sign in to your Blogger.com account.
2. If you have multiple blogs, select the blog you want to add the Contact Me Form to.

Then...

If you have any questions, please comment below or, you know, Contact Me.

~Caroline

My blogging friend, Lynn Palermo at The Armchair Genealogist, {who I had the awesome pleasure of meeting at RootsTech last year} is holding her 2nd annual Family History Writing Challenge starting February 1st. It's a month-long program designed to really get you focused on your family history writing. She has a great line-up of guests as well as activities scheduled to help you get going in the right {or write ;) } direction with your family history writing. 

So check out her challenge. You can either participate in the challenge or watch from the 'sidelines'. Either way, you're sure to find something very helpful for your family history writing endeavors. =)

~Caroline

Blog awards are nice and flattering. They're even better when they are awarded to you for your blogging. It's nice to be appreciated and complimented.

Back in 2009-2010 many blog awards were all the rage, and believe me. They made their rounds several times over in the genealogy blogosphere, not to mention in many, many other blogging niches. Everyone was complimenting everyone, linking to everyone, and proudly posting their blog awards on their sites with links back to the creator of the blog award. Everyone was feeling pretty good... 

However, what everyone failed to realize {or at least most folks} was that this was a SEO {Search Engine Optimization} strategy, or tactic, designed to mostly benefit the creator of the blog award. I say "mostly" because every blog award encourages each recipient to give it to 3, 7, or 10 {or any other random number} recipients. Thus, making the award and the link go viral. And I say it's an SEO strategy, or tactic, because it was designed to increase the inbound links to the creator of the blog award, which was kind of gaming the Google Search Results because Google's algorithm favored those blogs or sites who had many inbound links. Many inbound links to a blog or site can indicate that blog or site is an authority or influential about a particular topic.

Which is all fine and dandy if this was still 2009-2010 and Google hadn't introduced their Panda and Penguin updates to their algorithms. Google wants to make sure that every time you search for something in Google that it returns back to you results that are of a good quality and that are what you are looking for. And a site or blog that has created a blog award and thus received a higher ranking not by legitimate means but by gaming the system should not be up at the top of the search engine results list {SERPS}. Therefore, Google tweaked their algorithms so that these sites get penalized in search results.

Not only does the original site get penalized in search results, but the blogs who contributed to the original blog's linking tactics may get penalized as well in search results. I say 'may' because the process could be construed as a blog network, which is also penalized by Google in search results. Loosely defined, a blog network is a group of blogs with a common interest that promotes itself as well each other's blogs. {And that could cover a lot of things. Note my usage of the word 'loosely'. I'm trying not to get too technical here.}

And there are other SEO linking strategies and tactics that are both acceptable to Google as well as no-no's. A very good blog post that explains all the ins and outs of SEO linking strategies is from the company CMS Buffet, Linking Strategies: The Complete Guide. It's written for businesses {their potential clients} so that businesses can understand what's acceptable and what's not regarding SEO linking strategies in our new Panda and Penguin Google World. It's quite lengthy, but it does touch upon blog awards and their accompanying badges. Basically, it says you can still hand out legitimate awards, but the trouble comes when it starts to grow, or go viral. {That whole now-you-give-it-to-3-7-10-blogs-you-think-deserve-this-award-virality thing}. Blog awards, according to this blog post, are not "Black Hat Linking Strategies," but they are iffy when it comes to how Google treats them when deciding how to rank your blog or site in their search results.

But? What do family history bloggers {the ones who are not trying to monetize their sites, but research and find cousins, that is} need to know about Search Engine Optimization {SEO}?

Just keep blogging about your ancestors. If you want to show appreciation of someone's blog, visit their blog, read their posts, and comment on them. Tell them you like what they wrote, how they wrote it, that it touched you deeply, that y'all are related, understand and laugh at their sarcasm, etc. Be natural about it. And when folks take the time to comment on your blog posts, acknowledge them. Converse with folks in your blog comments.

Then on your favorite social media network, tell your friends about their blog. Share it.

In other words, network.

And if you do get nominated for a blog award? Thank the person who nominated you. Do it profusely for they've given it with a pure heart out of appreciation for your writing and sharing, and five will get you ten that's the only reason they gave it to you. So thank them. However, be cautious about placing links back to other sites with blog award badges, or at least the viral aspect of it.

~Caroline

Other related blog posts you might be interested in:
Blogging Genealogy: SEO
Want More Cousins to Visit Your Genealogy Blog?
3 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Genealogy Blog

It's nice to have new blog visitors, especially if you've been spending a lot of time and money on social networks to get them to your blog.

But if you've ever looked at your blog's stats, you may have noticed, that they come, read a blog post {if you're lucky, 2} and then they leave. And oftentimes, silently.

They're in and then they're out.

They didn't even read enough to determine if they might be related in some way.

So how, then, do you get a blog visitor, and most especially a potential cousin, to stay and read?

Well, I've talked about telling a story, 'cause who doesn't like a story? And I've talked about finding the right blog voice 'cause no one likes to be preached to or bored to death. {Or maybe you do. I dunno. *shrugs*} And I've talked about increasing your traffic to your blog as well 'cause relying on Google to direct them to you is helpful, but sometimes you need to help Google out. {And then I further talked about increasing traffic with Cousin Awesome Sauce and 3 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Genealogy Blog.}

But? There are some other things you can to do to subtly suggest to your visitors to stick around and not be that read 'em and leave 'em visitor.

The following are 3 things you can do to your Blogger Platform blog this weekend to convince your visitors to read 'em and to keep reading 'em until they forget what time it is and who they are. {'Cause why settle for anything less, right?}

Add the LinkedWithin Widget to your blog. 

This is the widget that suggests to your readers 3 of your other seemingly related previous blog posts for further reading below each blog post. It's a great way to get old content read and keep your readers on your site longer or to get a potential cousin reading more and long enough so that maybe they'll contact you. Their site has some instructions on how to add it to your blog. 

Basically, once you get the code for the widget from their site, highlight and copy the code then go to the back end of your blog and:

• Select Templates
• Select Backup/Restore to backup your blog before making any changes. {And this is really important. If you save it, mess with your blog, and don't like it, then you can restore it to before you messed with it.}
• Select Edit HTML.
• Check the box Expand Widget Templates.
• Paste the code for the widget right before the </body> tag. {To help you find this tag, use your browser's Find feature by entering </body> into the Find Search Box. See Image.}
• Click Save Template.
• View Blog and check to see if it appears on any blog post. Relevancy will improve once LinkedWithin indexes all your blog posts.

Create an Ancestor Landing Page for an ancestor or family you tend to write about frequently.

It happens to all of us. There are just some ancestors we tend to write about more than others. Additionally, our visitors and readership - over time - tend to grow. As we network online and offline, we tend to gain new readers. And this is a good thing. So make it easier for them to get caught up with your stories about a particular ancestor by creating what online marketers call Landing Pages. And every time you write a new story as a blog post, add a link to it on their Ancestor Landing Page. This way, it's easier for new visitors to catch up on their exploits. {Oops, I mean stories. Yes, stories.}

I've done it for a fairly popular {At least with my awesome readers. 'Awesome' because they actually read what I write and come back for more.} ancestor of mine, my Big Paw Paw. He's naughty. He liked getting married. And then divorced. And had mistresses. And sued family. And was sued {even by the federal government}. So here's Big Paw Paw's Landing Page. Notice that since I made it a Page, he's in the navigation of the site. {He's popular. So I don't mind.} However, an alternative would be to make the Landing Page as a blog post, back date it {so it doesn't show up in RSS feeds}, and then add a link to it in the sidebar. Below are some screenshots of his landing page.

The idea isn't just to increase traffic to your blog, but to invite and subtly suggest they stay a little bit longer and read some more. When a potential cousin reads more, they are more likely to contact you and share. And I know this from personal experience. I've had cousins who have found my blog. Contacted me for more info. {Not to give it, mind you, but to get it.} And then a month or 2 later email me and tell me, "Ohmigosh. I finally read all your blog posts about our family. I've got more to add and share with you."

That's why, if your'e related to me, I tell you, "Go read my blog," before ever handing over anything. 'Cause that's double the work. And I try very hard not to do that. I'm lazy like that.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Lemme know below. =)

~Caroline