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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:

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:

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:

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...

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,...