Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 10:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Start with a Need - Battling Bloggers Block
6. Start with a Need
One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given by the person who taught me to public speak many years ago was to identify a need that those who are listening to you might have and to use this as the starting point for a post.
People buy into what you are communicating if they have a felt need that they feel you might be able to help them with.
Starting with a need not only helps your audience or readership but that it can also help in the writing process. I’m much more motivated to write if I’m communicating on something I need to learn about myself or something that I’ve found an answer to.
So when you’re looking for that elusive topic to write about (this is after all often the hardest part of getting past bloggers block) ask yourself some questions to help you get in touch with the needs of readers in your niche:
- What questions do I get asked most of all?
- When I first started exploring this topic what was my biggest question or need?
- What is my biggest current need in the area that I’m blogging about?
- What words do people come to my blog having typed into search engines (you can get this from most stats packages) and what does this tell me about what people need?
Once you’ve identified the need you’re well on the way to writing a useful original post that should be popular with your readership - if you can find something worthwhile to say about it that is!
Read the rest of the Battling Bloggers Block Series
Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 03:11 pm by Darren Rowse
The Silly Season Kicks Off
Has anyone else noticed that in the last few days things seem to have taken off in terms of traffic?
I can only really put it down to it being just over a month to go until Christmas but the past 48 hours have seen a nice bump in traffic across most of my blogs - especially those which are product related. Of course the corresponding jumps in earnings are there in both Adsense and eMiniMalls with the later achieving a record day for me yesterday in direct earnings (they’ve steadily improved for me since the large slump on 16 November due to design changes).
I noticed yesterday that my referral earnings for the eMinimalls referrals program also went up which makes me wonder if others are experiencing bumps in traffic over the past few days also. This is what happened for me also in the days before the US Thanksgiving holiday - they tend to continue to rise until the day or two before Christmas - when they generally die for a few weeks.
How have your traffic levels been over the past few days?
Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 02:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Combine Two Disconnected Ideas - Battling Bloggers Block
This is part 5 in the Battling Bloggers Block Series
5. Combine Two Disconnected Ideas
Regular readers will know that I like a Tangent - I love to take everyday situations, ideas and experiences that have no relation to blogging and find ways to combine make them illustrate a point.
Some of the best inventions and scientific discoveries come out of this type of thinking - bringing together two ideas that have not previously been connected to form something new and fresh.
Of course this type of thinking doesn’t just happen - it takes practice to be able to see the world this way.
Edward De Bono has many creative thinking techniques that help people develop this type of thinking. I’m not completely sure which of his books I read it in - but I seem to remember him suggesting free thinking brainstorming around a question like:
‘Think of as many uses as possible for a fork’
The challenge was to come up with as many answers as possible (no answer was too silly) in a short period of time. The answers are useless (unless you’re in the cutlery manufacturing business) but the thinking processes are valuable as you begin to learn the power of creative thinking and thinking outside the box when it comes to everyday objects.
This is the type of thinking that was behind some of my older entries on blogging like a goose, talking about blogging and parenting, blogging and marriage, starting the Blogger Idol meme, and blogging and Travelator users and their techniques (among others). Now it might just have been me who enjoyed the challenge of writing these posts - but I found them fun ways to talk about things I’d talked about many times before - with a twist.
Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 10:11 am by Darren Rowse
OSM gets back in it’s PJs
Pajamas Media became Open Source Media and today are becoming Pajamas Media again. The ‘other’ Open Source Media responds.
What a saga.
Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 09:11 am by Darren Rowse
Feedster Top 500 Updates
Feedster have updated their Top 500 Blogs page and have added tags into the mix. So now blogs have tags next to them which makes it a much more useful list. So now the enternetusers entry looks like this:
If you click on the ‘blogging’ tag you get taken to a list of the top blogs with that tag. This new feature responds to the call of many who critiqued the last update of the list (August) saying a more useful list would be one with categories of some kind.
Also new is the drop down list that you get giving you options to subscribe to the feeds of these blogs via different services when you put your cursor over the XML button.
Now all I need to do is work out how to add my photo to it. I’ve tried to add my picture about 15 times now and don’t seem to be getting anywhere.
update: Scott - the guy who puts the top 500 together - has written about the new features and thinking behind the changes here
Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 08:11 am by Darren Rowse
Read Other Bloggers - Battling Bloggers Block
This is part 4 in the Battling Bloggers Block Series
4. Read what other Bloggers are Saying
Ok so this one’s not rocket science but it needs to be said. One of the strengths of blogging as a medium is the way that bloggers interact with one another and build upon each others ideas. Here’s five tips for using what others say (and don’t say) for creating original content:
a. Build on the work of others - As a result when I’m looking for inspiration for a new post I quite often look to see what other bloggers are writing about in my niche. What are they learning? What is the hot topic of the moment? What could you add as a fresh perspective on what they are learning? One of my recent popular posts on 13 Tips on Asking other Bloggers for Links came directly from this technique as I bounced off a short post by Robert Scoble. While his point was totally valid - I felt there was more to be said and so built a longer list around his original idea.
b. Look for the gaps in Conversation - Another useful question is to ask - ‘What are other bloggers in my niche NOT writing about?‘ It’s all very well and good to join a conversation - but look for the gaps in conversations also and you might just find yourself starting a whole new line of thought. Asking this question takes a little more discernment but is a skill worth developing as it has the potential to set you apart from the crowd.
c. Look outside your Niche - Don’t just limit yourself to reading bloggers in your own niche either - sometimes it’s when you look outside of your own niche to see what developments are happening elsewhere that innovative ideas comes. The Blogosphere is full many smaller blogging communities, many of which are doing incredibly creative blogging. Go exploring a blog neighborhood you’ve not visited before and you could just stumble upon an idea to bring back to your own.
d. Read Other Bloggers Archives - An area of blogging that frustrates me is that once a post slips off the front page of a blog it seems to lose it’s worth. The problem with dates on blog posts (and I see some positives with it also) is that it can make very relevant posts seem ‘dated’. The fact is that there must be an incredible wealth of knowledge locked away in the archives of some of your favorite blogs. Spend some time scanning them and you’ll probably find hundreds of ideas that you could bounce off with some posts of your own.
e. Credit where Credit is Due - One final thought - as always, be generous with giving credit to the bloggers who inspire your thoughts. While in bouncing off them you might create your own original content - but acknowledging the work of others who have gone before you in the conversation costs you little.
Written on November 23rd, 2005 at 01:11 am by Darren Rowse
Free Writing - Battling Bloggers Block
3. Free Writing - Just Write - When I run out first sit down to work out what to say for a public speaking gig I often lock myself in a private room and just begin to speak (to myself) randomly on the topic that I’ve been asked to talk about. It feels a bit odd when you first use this technique but it’s amazing how quickly a talk begins to form in your mind as you do it. I find as I do these exercises that the first few minutes is generally pretty gibberish but that in most cases as I write whatever comes out that eventually I hit on an idea that is worth building on.
I also use this same technique with blogging. Some writers call it free writing and argue that it helps exercise your right brain - I’m not sure of the technicalities of it - but I find that it definitely gets the ideas flowing. One of the hardest parts of writing a post can be starting it - and this technique attempts to help with this.
Free writing purists say to start writing whatever comes into your head (any topic) - I do this from time to time but more regularly set myself a broad topic so that if I do stumble onto a good idea that I have some chance of using it on my blog.
It’s amazing to see what flows out of this type of exercise. Some of my best posts ever have been as a result of forcing myself to start writing. Quite often I’ll start writing on one topic and end up on another or will end up publishing only a section of what I write (having deleted the unordered gibber at the start) but on many occasions there is a gem or two in the mix that can be a post (or two) in and of themselves - or at least the beginning of a post.
This is part 3 in the series examining how to beat Bloggers Block
Written on November 22nd, 2005 at 09:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Adsense Thanksgiving Themed Ads
I’m hearing reports from Adsense publishers that Adsense are asking some publishers if they will give them permission to run special Thanksgiving ads this Thursday on some of their ads.
Ads will be normal running ads but will be made to look “thanksgiving-ish” according to the email.
This looks to be similar to what Adsense did with their Halloween Themed Ads in October.
Written on November 22nd, 2005 at 06:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Subscribe to Comments Feature Added
After many readers making the suggestion I’ve finally added a Subscribe to Comments Plugin to enternetusers.net.
So now if you want to know when others add comments after you to check the little ‘ Notify me of followup comments via e-mail’ box and you’ll get emails every time anyone comments.
I’ll be interested to monitor how comment levels go over the coming days.
Enjoy
update - ok - I thought that went too smoothly - it seems to be putting the check-box way down the bottom of the post and messing with the page configuration. Might have to play around with this.
update - fixed it. Thanks to Mark J for the suggestion in comments.
Written on November 22nd, 2005 at 12:11 pm by Darren Rowse
Idea Journals - Battling Bloggers Block
This is part 2 in the Battling Bloggers Block Series
2. Keep an idea Journal - I have a little Moleskine notebook (pictured) that I carry everywhere with me. I use it for all kinds of purposes but largely it’s for capturing random thoughts and ideas - often for speaking and blogging.
Idea journals are great in the short term as they are great for recording those impulsive ideas that flow through my mind all day everyday and for creating ‘to do’ lists for immediate action. However I also find them great in the long term and occasionally get my older idea journals out and flick through them to find unused creative ideas that I never go around to implementing.
It’s often when flicking through idea journals in this way that an idea leaps out. In fact the interesting thing I’ve noticed is that it’s often these discarded ideas that simmer away over time and seem to mature into my best posts.
I know I’m a bit old fashioned in writing my ideas down in a book - I know many of you use PDAs and computers to do the same thing - but I’m a bit of a visual kind of guy and like to draw diagrams, arrows between ideas and to doodle while I dream.
How ever you do it - an idea journal can be a valuable tool on many levels for bloggers.
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