Blog Hints – Refer To Yourself In The Third Person?

This week I have collected some fantastic links to articles about blogging. I have added them all to the Bloggers Are Helpful list – Is yours there? If not email me a link to it and I’ll add it next week.

Why does Snoskred refer to herself as Snoskred?

Yes, you may have noticed this here on the blog. If you look to one sidebar you’ll see things like Snoskred Loves, Snoskred Scambaits, Snoskred On The Web. In that sidebar the word Snoskred appears over 20 times.

Don’t I know who I am? Is there a danger I might forget if it’s not written everywhere? Or is there a deeper plan at work?

Google for the word I = 1 – 100 of about 3,560,000,000 for I
Google for the word Me = 1 – 100 of about 2,120,000,000 for Me
Google for the word Snoskred – 1 – 100 of about 28,200 for snoskred

I am the number one search result for Snoskred. How I got there is partly because of referring to myself in the third person. It is a useful “white hat” (ie not illegal or dodgy) way to get your blog higher up in the ranking for your name.

Everyone knows who I am. I use the name Snoskred everywhere I go. If someone were looking for me and wasn’t sure how to find me they can google.

On the other hand, the name Snoskred is very unusual. So it wasn’t exactly difficult to get up to the top on search engines for it.

Snoskred = Norwegian for Avalanche.

Yes, very suitable! ;) The real word has the funny ø in it. I stopped using the ø some time ago when I found it was causing issues – plus everyone wanted to copy and paste the o because nobody knew how to make it – not even me! ;)

Sometimes people spell it wrong (I have google alerts set up for the common mis-spellings, ie snoskerd, snosekrd, snosekred etc) or mistype, that’s fine. I don’t mind. Well I do a little, because I always take care to either copy and paste the name of fellow bloggers or triple check I got it right, but we all make mistakes, even me sometimes. :) But I do still want to be able to thank people when they refer to me even if they mis-spell it.

Advice For Newer Bloggers –

One of the biggest pieces of advice I would give to any new blogger would be – make an unusual (nick) name for yourself and then refer to yourself using that name everywhere you go. Google the word first, and make sure there’s not too many hits for it.

If you can’t find a name you like, try this fantastic resource I often used for finding names – http://www.babynamenetwork.com/ – scroll down a little to see browse names by origin and find a country or culture that appeals to you.

Blog Stuff –

I found so many great blogging articles this week I thought I would post it separate from the weekly wrap up.

What Everybody Ought to Know About Blogging – 97 Blog Tips – At the end of the 31 days there is going to be a fantastic collection of articles all together in one place. Is yours there? If not, submit it here. But be quick, time is almost up.

10 Lessons in Blogging Learned on a Shopping Expedition – I love to blog, and I love to shop.. Darren Rowse combines both into a smart blog article. ;) If I didn’t have to pack it, I’d go shopping too!

Added to the Bloggers Are Helpful list this week –

Blog Basics –

Catch New Readers Up On The Basics of Your Blog – We have to remember not everyone has been with us from day one. Once a month it is worth doing a blog post which links (using good relevant keywords for the search engines) new readers back to a few posts from our past.

When you talk about something on your blog that happened previously, link back to the post where you mentioned it. Keep your readers in the loop, don’t expect them to psychically know, or to have read your entire archives. There just isn’t the hours in the day.

Search Engine Optimization for Blogs – SEO – This is a must read for anyone wanting to get more traffic from search engines. ;)

If Your Blog Disappeared, Who Would Miss It? – Ya’all would, right? ;)

10 Tips for Increasing Comments on Your Blog – Excellent article, Thomas. ;)

How do you link to yourself? Anchor Text for Internal Links Matters – This is important reading for all bloggers because it DOES matter. That’s one reason I put in the “Snoskred Is” section. It also matters when you link to other people, so keep it in mind.

Use smart keywords – I usually use the title of the post that the author used – to link to people – instead of writing this post, write “Meg from Dipping Into The Blogpond wrote this great post about Social Petworking“. Fellow bloggers will thank you greatly for it! It’s also a lot quicker, I just copy and paste the title and then link it. ;)

Food For Thought –

Converting Visitors Into Subscribers – We all want more subscribers, but how do we convince those precious visitors to subscribe?

10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber – Reading the Bumpzee community feeds you can see the echo chamber effect in action sometimes.

Top 10 Sins of Blog Usability – I agree with all of these.

Thirteen Blog Clichés – I changed my mind on a few of the things I do on my blog after reading this one.

101 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog – This blog article was updated in 2013, an excellent read. :)

Writing & Blogging –

20 Surefire Ways To Beat Writer’s Block – Feeling a little.. blocked? Try this to jumpstart your writing.

Plan When You Post Before You Publish – Do you know what days are the most busy on your blog? Do you consider these things when you post? ;)

Over To You

I hope my fellow bloggers reading this found something useful in the list above. Comments are closed on this post now, but if you have something to say you can always contact Snoskred via the contact page.

If you have any posts and articles about blogging which you would like to see posted on Snoskred – Life In The Country – please contact Snoskred with a link to the post.

If you liked this post, feel free to Stumble it – and don’t forget to come back tomorrow for my article Blog Design – Open Your Eyes. :)

(updated 27/02/2015 – removed the broken links)

Similar Posts:

blogging tips, commenting on blogs

15 thoughts on “Blog Hints – Refer To Yourself In The Third Person?

  1. Hi Snoskred

    Another wonderful post! Great tips and links.

    BTW if you Google “Social Petworking” look who’s first! It doesn’t take much – a bit of SEO and someone who links thoughtfully.

    Many thanks :)

  2. I never thought about “why” a person would write posts in 3rd person, but your reasoning makes perfect sense. Sewingmom may just have to change the way she writes!

  3. Excellent resources. I will have to come back and read. Right now I am visiting for Click & Comment Monday. I am off to visit someone on your blogroll.

  4. great tips! I had a question: I never do labels on my posts. do you think adding those would make it easier for people to search my blog?

  5. I rarely refer to myself in the third person but I have ranked #1 for most of my my websites. The only one I’m not ranking #1 is The Raw And The Cooked Amazon and Brown University are ahead of me leaving me in the number three spot. :-)

    I now rank #1 for my real name and that is simply by signing my name on the websites I frequent. My two newest websites are less than two weeks old but I secured the number one spot I didn’t use myself in the third person but those key words
    (weigh, videos, diva’s, online, videos, loss) are woven throughout my pages.

  6. I need to come back when I can follow all of these links, but I did click through to Thomas’ blog, and I was impressed! A real Microsoft guy who has time to blog! :)

    I have ALWAYS wondered what Snoskred meant but never asked you. Thanks for clearing that up! And last comment, I can’t believe it’s never occurred to me to refer to myself in the third person to catch the attention of search engine traffic. BEST TIP of the day for me!

  7. an excellent post with so many useful links :) I know I am number one in google and other search engines for my name but just wanted to confirm it! I didn’t think anyone noticed before you wrote this article :) but I never thought of referring to myself by that name on my blog, I think its a brilliant idea and i will experiment with that!!

    PS: with your quality of posts, how will I keep up?? :) will be sending some in a day or two!!

  8. Just one note before I get into the comments – the majority of these posts will always be available in the “bloggers are helpful” section of my sidebar. :)

    Lis – I’ve read every single one of the articles and learnt a lot from them. :) it’s all great stuff!

    Kim – Hey there, I read your blogs. ;) Thanks for leaving a comment! ;)

    Meg – I’m going to get into SEO deeper in a future post. :) I think a lot of people are dead scared of it or they don’t understand it. It really is a lot less complicated than it is made out to be. ;)

    Lynne – I don’t do it too often with posts though I will sometimes by accident just because I’ve got used to referring to myself as Snoskred. :) hehe

    Cybercelt – If you have any posts which I could add to that bloggers are helpful sidebar.. in fact I should add your pay to post series. I’m on it, I’ll fix it before the day is over. ;) but if you have any others please send me links and I will add them – that goes for anyone reading this.

    Christine – labels is a tricky one since blogger put in their robots.txt. It will actually ignore all your labels. :( It’s much better to work a keyword into your post three or four times than to label it. If you were on WordPress then I’d be saying something different. Blogger is making life hard for us. :(

    Julie – Yours is excellent for Julie Pippert but for just Julie on it’s own not so good. It would be hard work to climb to the top of that pile of Julie’s. :) You’re #5 for Pippert on its own, have you ever considered just using Pippert as your sign off? ;) Sort of like a nickname?

    I only say that because people tend to use one word when referring to someone if you give them an option of two words, especially when it is a first and last name. So someone might say “Julie said” rather than “Julie Pippert said”. I think most of the time here on my blog I’ve referred to you with the two names as far as I can remember.

    Opal – with such a beautiful name as you have, if I had it I’d be splashing it everywhere. :) And I’d create a special Opal header for my blog to go with it, because I love Opals. We have some of the best Opals in the world in Australia – and some of the best Opal shops. I can spend a lot of time just looking at them.. :)

    I think it is good to aim to be in the top 10 at least, for the words you want to rank for. Well done on getting there so fast!

    Elizabeth – Thomas is quite impressive. ;) hehe I love his blog. There’s a lot of search results for your name, so it may be worth considering using a nickname. It’s never too late to do it, at least I don’t think it is. Opal used to be Vegan Momma and only recently changed to Opal. ;)

    Pearl – Your writing is excellent.. :) you’ll have no troubles. I’m looking forward to receiving it!

    Renegade Science – It is pretty easy to follow though.. it just means being conscious of how you’re referring to yourself. ;)

    Thanks for the comments all! ;) I am glad you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)

    Snoskred
    http://www.snoskred.org/

  9. This is funny. I always refer to myself as Jennifer..simple. I always use the username ladylike4 if it is available or ladylike4444 if it isn’t.

    You search ladylike4 and I am numbers 1-70 in the search…yeah they are all me. LOL….

    The coolest thing now though is I have been doing this so long. When you search just “Jennifer”. I am like number 12 or so. I think that is pretty cool. There is like Jennifer Love Hewitt behind me. LOL…

    See ya…

Leave a Reply to Lynne Cancel reply