Blogging is not an island. When you write a blog post, you assume people are going to read it and hopefully share it. You need to set your blog up to make it easy for your readers to share and contact you. Check out these six social tools every parent blog should have on their site:

1. Social Networking Site Profile Link. You do not have to include a link to every social network site you belong to, but you should include the ones where you are the most active.
2. About Me Page. This is one of the most important pages on your blog. When people come to your blog and like what you write about, they want to know more about you. Tell your readers why they should read your blog. Let them get to know you!
3. Contact Page. Make it real easy for your readers or anyone to contact you. If you are uncomfortable about putting your email on your blog, then using a contact page is perfect. If you have a WordPress blog, here is a great list of 18 contact page forms plugins.
4. Sharing Buttons. So, now your readers have found you and they want to tell all their friends about how awesome your blog is and share your posts. You need to make it easy for them. I always put sharing buttons at the beginning and the end of every post. At the very least, have a Twitter and Facebook button. If you are unsure which sites to add, try using AddThis or ShareThis and your users can choose which sites to share on.
5. RSS Feed and Email Subscriptions. The easiest way for your readers to know when you have updated your blog is to have an RSS feed or email subscriptions. The easiest way to do this is with a 3rd party service like Feedburner.
6. Facebook Page. The best way to keep your personal and blogging accounts separate on Facebook is to create a Facebook Page for your blog.

The easier you make it to read your blog, the more likely your readers will return and share with their networks.

What other tools will help make a blog more social?

Image from Microsoft Images