Written on July 16th, 2007 at 11:07 pm by Darren Rowse
7 Days to Rediscovering Your Blogging Groove
Are you finding it hard to sustain your blogging inspiration at the moment? This week I’d like to help you get your blogging moving again.
Have you lost your blogging groove?
If you have - you’re not alone. Last week I chatted with a lot of bloggers who are either feeling disillusioned, uninspired, uncreative or just plain bored with their blogs. The result was that their blogs were suffering.
Perhaps it is the time of year (many in the northern hemisphere have all the distractions of summer while those of us in the south are feeling the winter blues) or perhaps it’s something else - but I’m sensing that many bloggers could need a little bit of a boost right now.
So this week I’d like to invite you to participate with me in a little project called the ‘Rediscover Your Blogging Groove‘ project.
Each day over the next week I’m going to announce a new type of post that I’ll invite you to write on your blog.
I’ll attempt to make them general enough to for most types of blogs (some of you might need to get a little creative) and will write a few ideas and thoughts on how to approach the type of post that I’m writing about. I’ll also try to give a few good examples from around the blogosphere of each type of post.
The object is simply to take the post type and write something on your blog that bounces off what I write.
- There’s no need to link back here (this isn’t about me, it’s about you getting your blog groove back).
- There’s no prizes (this isn’t an official enternetusers group writing project, hopefully the reward is simply feeling a little inspiration to write some good content)
- I’m not going to create a big list of posts that you all write (although you’re welcome to show off your posts in the comments announcing each day’s post type so we can see how you approached it).
- There are no ‘rules’. Take my suggested post types in any direction you’d like, tweak the, change them, ignore them, do it over a longer period if you can’t manage 7 posts in a week - do whatever you like - but have fun with it.
The Daily Tasks
Day 1 - Write a List Post
Day 2 - Answer a Question
Day 3 - Write a Review
Day 4 - Write a Link Post
Day 5 - Write a Tip Post
Day 6 - Ask a Question
Day 7 - Tell a Story
Written on July 16th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
The Three Little Blogs: A Cautionary Tale
Bloggrrl had insomnia last night and so write herself a great little bloggytale - The Three Little Blogs: A Cautionary Tale - very creative.
Which little pig blogger are you?
I think I’ve been all three on different blogs over the years.
Written on July 15th, 2007 at 02:07 pm by Darren Rowse
The Story of the Day Google AdSense Wrote a Bad Check
Mobile Jones has one of the funniest yet familiar sounding posts (and an update) regarding Google sending her a bad check.
It tells the story of one AdSense publisher trying to communicate a simple problem with a company that has, for good reason, become a little too impersonal for their own good.
I’ve personally had pretty good service from the AdSense team, particularly since they opened an office here in Australia, but I’m sure many bloggers will find the story familiar, not necessarily because they’ve been sent bad checks (although I did have a lost one once and had to wait 6 weeks for another to be reissued) but through attempting to get a personal response.
Looking forward to seeing what the next step in the story is!
Written on July 15th, 2007 at 07:07 am by Darren Rowse
Which Search Terms Bring You Traffic?
So I told you the search term that brings enternetusers the most traffic from Google….
What search term brings you more traffic than any other term?
Check out your stats and see what’s bringing in the most visitors for you and tell us in comments below.
Bonus Question - What’s the funniest search term that brings you traffic?
Written on July 15th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Starting a Blog - What We Wish We Knew
This is the last post in the ‘What I wish I knew when I first started Blogging’ Series. In this post I thought I’d pull together a few comments from readers which are a little more general in nature.
What intrigues me about these comments is that there are a few themes:
- Start Now - a number of people regret spending too much time thinking about blogging and not actually blogging.
- Plan - some regretted that they didn’t put a little more thought into their blogging before they started. This includes both strategic planning around niche and branding - but also practical things like permalink structures.
What interests me is that these two themes could almost be seen as contradictory and they sum up two types of bloggers that I come across constantly.
- Bloggers Who Rush In
- Bloggers Who Plan their Blog to Death
Too much planning can kill a blog (or at least can kill the opportunity for your blog to become established as first and can kill your passion for a topic) while not enough planning can lead to a blog that doesn’t reach it’s potential because it’s foundations are shaky.
Reader Comments
This list of comments has some real wisdom in it - if you’re just starting out, take note!
John Wesley writes - “I would have thought more about niche and branding. In the beginning I didn’t understand how important those things are so I had to adjust as the site developed. Having a plan from the start would have helped a lot.”
Lori writes - “I wish I would have made a plan and researched my niche before jumping right in.”
rami writes - “I’d focus on one topic only per blog.”
Gamermk writes - “I wish I’d have started my new blog that I’ve had for a couple months, a year ago. I had the expertise to do it back then as well, just not the drive. The market I’m in won’t last forever and it was a costly mistake I think.”
Vincent Ma writes - “The one thing I really, really wished I knew when I started was how important it was to carefully setup the permalink structure. I started with the default and realized I should have used something like category, postname. Saved by Dean’s Permalink Migration Plugin.”
LintCollector writes - “I wish I’d used a better permalink structure from the beginning. I accepted the WorPress defaults and have post URLs like: domainname/wordpress/archives/118 - If I were starting again, I’d set defaults to something more meaningful and search-engine friendly like: domainname/title-of-blog-post/”
Rebecca writes - “I wish I had been a blog reader before become a blogger.”
Zen Zoomie writes - “I wish that I had started earlier instead of just thinking about it. It took a swift kick in the pants to get me to finally stop thinking - start doing….”
Dean writes - “Get started…. You will learn by getting wet, you will make ‘;mistakes’ we all do, but you learn by doing. The blogosphere is quite forgiving but each day you delay you fall further behind…. Identify your niche, register an appropriate domain, self host wordpress, pin your ears back and go.”
Squib writes - “I began with too many blogs, each of which represented a component of what I enjoyed writing about. After awhile, I discovered that I was writing primarily about two things all of the time, poker and politics, so I merged my blog into a single entity and found my niche.” and “Also, it is important to know your reasons for blogging. If it is commercial, then traffic is very important, otherwise it’s nice to be read but it’s not necessary to be read by the thousands to have a successful blog.”
This ends our series of posts on ‘What We Wish We Knew When We First Started Blogging’. I’m sure there’s a lot more that we could cover and I’d invite you to continue to submit your thoughts in comments.
Thanks to everyone for your involvement in the series both in your initial comments which made up an important part of my posts but also in your continued comments.
Written on July 14th, 2007 at 06:07 am by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 14 July 2007
- Redfly Marketing have released a firefox plugin that allows you to see what Google results are in different parts of the world for the keyword you’re searching for. As someone with blogs focussed upon geographic areas I can see how useful this would be.
- Steph writes about how using capitals to start words when writing URLs can help when promoting your blog
- Brian wants to know if Deleting Posts is wrong? - I’m not sure I’ve ever done it but don’t really have a problem with it like some bloggers would if the post becomes dated or you change your opinion on something or you’ve written something you later regret etc. I personally would probably just update old posts with new information to help readers see the journey I’ve been on with a post - but don’t really mind if others take the delete option. Head over to Brian’s to have you say.
- DoshDosh writes a good guide to optimizing your site for Google Images - the list is a good one, although I’d caution readers to approach it with moderation. I’ve got a few blogs that do very well with Google Images and don’t do all 19 things. Perhaps I could do better but the danger is becoming so obsessed by it that you can get distracted from other core blogging functions.
- ChrisG asks Does Your Site Frighten Readers Away? Great question to ask - I’ve been asking it myself of late and we’re just a few weeks away from a complete design overhaul here at enternetusers to rectify some of the things I’m not satisfied with.
- Mark shares his 11 Blogging Lessons
Written on July 14th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Finding Readers for Your Blog - What We Wish We Knew
This post is part of the ‘What we wish we Knew’ Series. In this post I’ll share readers comments on the topic of finding readers for a blog as well as some of my own experiences and advice.
We’ve talked about setting your blog up right (hosting, domains and platforms), making money from blogs and writing great content - but while all of these things are important to think through, they are somewhat useless unless you have readers stopping by to engage with your content.
It’s no wonder then that the most common question I’m asked is ‘how do I find readers for my blog’.
As with all of the topics we’re looking at this week, how to find readers is something that will vary from blog to blog significantly. But if I had to identify a top 5 things that I’ve learned on the topic over the last 5 years I’d summarize it like this:
1. Know Who You Want to Attract
When I was a younger single guy a wise friend gave me a valuable piece of advice for finding a life partner. He said - ‘Darren, write a list of what you’re looking for in a partner’. He went on to explain that when you define what you want in life you’re more likely to spot it when it comes by your way. You’ll also be more likely to know where to go looking for it. Read more on defining what type of reader you want and going after them.
While I’m not sure my friend would have expected his advice to turn up in a post about how to attract readers to your blog - I think there’s some truth to it. I wish now that I’d spent more time in the early days of blogging thinking about my reader (or potential reader).
2. Build Community
While I will always argue that quality content is essential in drawing readers to your blog I am increasingly convinced that one way to build your readership is to create spaces that people will want to belong to.
Build an interActive space where people feel empowered to add their comments, give readers jobs, give them homework, make your readers famous and create spaces where you step back and let your readers take the lead in showing their expertise and you’ll build a blog that people will want to be a part of and a space that your readers will promote for you.
3. Think Outside Your Blog
I’m about to make a very, very, very obvious point - please forgive me. The readers that you are hoping will discover your blog don’t come to your blog. What?
Let me explain with a short story. I was talking with one of b5media’s bloggers yesterday and they were telling me how much time they’d spent on building a great blog and yet were upset that their readership hadn’t really grown. My first question was - ‘how much time do you spend on blogging each day?’ Their answer proved to me that they were serious about blogging - they were investing hours every day.
My second question was ‘how much of that time do you spend working on your actual blog and how much of it do you spend off your blog?’ The answer was quite illuminating for both the blogger and myself. They spent 90-95% of their time writing content, answering comments and tweaking their own blog and only 5-10% of their time off their blog interacting on other people’s blogs and sites.
While all of the activities that this blogger was doing on their own blog were important, the majority of that effort was spent on internal activities and keeping current readers. The blogger wasn’t engaging in spaces where their potential readers were. I suggested that this next week they see what happens if they decreased their posting rate a little and spent more time on other sites (other blogs in their niche, forums and social sites).
4. Leverage the Traffic Tsunamis
If I have a regret about this area of finding new readers it is that I wish I knew earlier about how to leverage the power of the waves of traffic that do come to a blog from time to time.
Even in my first few weeks of blogging I had some little waves of traffic come in as other blogs linked up and ask the search engines began to find my content. However it wasn’t until a couple of years into my blogging that I realized that I was so over the moon celebrating the peaks of traffic that I had that I was missing an opportunity each time they happened.
The problem was that each time a new ‘wave’ happened I’d find that the next day my traffic levels would return to ‘normal’. A handful of new readers might hang around but it wasn’t really anything I’d done that kept them.
It wasn’t for a long time that I began to experiment with harnessing the power of the waves of traffic that came in and attempting to create reader loyalty (or blog stickiness) at these times.
Now my first reaction when I see a wave of traffic arriving on one of my blogs isn’t to jump around the room thinking about how great I am - it’s in putting strategies into place to make sure that some of those new readers come back again tomorrow. Read more on how to surf traffic tsunamis.
5. Learn some Basic Search Engine Optimization
I learned about SEO in a bit of a backwards way. The search engines found me and started sending large amounts of traffic to my blogs - and then I decided I should work out why so that I could help them send me even more traffic.
I discovered pretty early on that the best way to build SE traffic was the same way that you built other types of traffic - writing great content that people found useful and linked to. This needs to be at the core of your SEO strategies - build a great blog.
However there are other techniques that definitely help in building search engine traffic. I won’t regurgitate them all here because I’ve previously written a guide to Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers that I think sums it up pretty well.
The one thing I will emphasize again here is that SEO is important, but it’s not something to obsess about. Learn the principles and keep them in mind as you set up and run your blog - but don’t let SEO be your only traffic generation strategy. Keep a holistic approach and you’ll build a much more sustainable type of traffic (and the other strategies will help your SEO too).
Remember - strategy #1 for SEO - build a great blog.
Reader Comments on Finding and Interacting with Readers
That’s enough of me talking about finding readers and blog promotion - what did readers write on the topic when I asked them what they wish they knew about blogging when they first started?
Andrei Rosca writes - “I wish i knew the importance of talking to every single one of the visitors that were leaving comments. By just talking to them you show that you care about their opinions and you encourage them to say more often what they think.”
Crazykinux writes - “Network with bloggers in your niche, they are your best source of new traffic at first.”
baiguai writes - “I wish I knew the importance of getting involved. Whether it is with other blogs, or forums, or other online communities. It is through these outlets that I have found my most loyal readers, but it was slow going because I didn’t network enough at the start.”
Expectant Father writes - “I kind of thought that: “If I blog, they will come!” This is so very far from the truth. It takes a lot of elbow grease to feel like you are getting anywhere.”
Patsy writes - “I wish I knew how important commenting on blogs is. I visited tons of blogs in my learning process and I just recently started commenting.”
What do you wish you knew about finding readers for your blog when you first started blogging?
Written on July 13th, 2007 at 11:07 pm by Darren Rowse
About Me…. and the Search Term Competition - The Results
Ok - the last 24 hours has been a little silly around here with the Guess the Search Term Competition. The idea emerged out of me looking over my Google Analytics account yesterday and noticing a slightly odd search term coming up as brining in more traffic than any other from Google.
What was the search term? Has anyone guessed it yet? The answer is yes - in the last 12 hours a number of people guessed it in both the original competition post and the followup one.
The first to guess it was Phillip Molly Malone who got it at 3.44pm this afternoon (my time).
Phillip wins the month’s membership at Blog Mastermind Mentoring program (thanks to Yaro for putting up the prize at very short notice).
So what’s the search term?
“About Me”
Like I said above - I was a little surprised when I saw it too. For starters it’s not really related to my overall topic, secondly I was surprised by the numbers of people searching for the term (over 5000 visitors came via it in June) and lastly I just can’t work out why people would be searching for that term in those kinds of numbers.
The page people are arriving on after searching for ‘About Me’ is How to Write Your “About Me” Page.
PS: A few people have been asking what the other Top 5 terms are. Here’s the top 5 (with links to where they go):
Anyway - thanks to everyone for participating. Congratulations to Phillip - I’ll put you in touch with Yaro shortly to get your membership to Blog Mastermind.
Written on July 13th, 2007 at 01:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Guess the Search Term Competition Update - Keep Guessing!
update - this competition is now closed. The winner has been announced. Comments are now closed
It has been a little over 12 hours since I started the Guess the Search Competition so I thought it was time for an update.
The winner is…. no one…. yet
The search term has not been guessed to this point. In fact out of the top 5 search terms that bring traffic to enternetusers only
- 1st Most Frequently used search term - yet to be guessed
- 2nd Most Frequently used search term - ‘enternetusers‘ - Comment #16 (Robert) was first to get this
- 3rd Most Frequently used search term - yet to be guessed
- 4th Most Frequently used search term - ‘how to make money‘ - Comment #68 (Florchakh) was first to guess - quite a few others suggested similar variations on this
- 5th Most Frequently used search term - yet to be guessed
OK - so it looks like this game is a little harder than some thought it would be (including me).
So I’m going to give everyone a second guess here in this comment thread
I said I’d give a hint after 24 hours - but I think I’ll start doing so now because it could take a while!
I’ll start with a fairly general hint or two:
- The term we are after has two words in it
- It does not contain the word blog (or any variation of it - ie, not ‘blogging, blogs, blogger etc)
If there’s still not a winner in another 12 or so hours I’ll give some more hints that will hopefully be a little more obvious.
Remember there’s a month’s free enrollment in the Blog Mastermind Mentoring Program for the Winner - so get guessing!
update - this competition is now closed. The winner has been announced. Comments are now closed
Written on July 13th, 2007 at 02:07 am by Darren Rowse
How To Write Excellent Blog Content - What We Wish We Knew
This post is part of the ‘What we wish I knew when I first started Blogging’ Series. Below I’ll share readers comments on the topic of Writing Good Blog Content as well as some of my own thoughts.
One of the most key aspects of any successful blog is the ability to create content that keeps drawing people back to your blog. I’ve written so many posts on this topic and know that ‘excellent blog content’ means something different on every blog - as a result I won’t pretend that what I write in this post will be a definitive guide to writing great blog content.
However I can tell you five things that I wish I knew in my early days of blogging about writing content (with a few links for further reading).
5 Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier about Writing Content for a Blog
- The Power of Titles - the title has the ability make or break a blog post. It impacts how (and if) it’s found in search engines and social bookmarking sites, it influences whether people visit your blog in News Readers, it affects whether people leave a comment and is vital in whether people actually read what you have to say. Read more about using Titles Effectively on Blogs.
- The Viral Nature of Lists - a single well written list post can launch a blog to great heights in the blogosphere. While the prolific nature of lists in the blogosphere can also mean your lists get ignored, I find that when writing the same content as a list that you write as an essay like article the list will almost always get more attention. Read more about why lists are great for getting traffic to your blog.
- The Importance of Being Original - perhaps the best lesson that I ever learned as a bloggers was that people are drawn to others who speak their mind, who have something unique to say and who say it in a creative and fresh way. Say what everyone else is saying in the same way that everyone else is saying it and you’re almost guaranteed of being largely ignored. Read more about how to avoid joining the echo chamber and saying something original.
- The Value of Well Formated Content - people don’t read content on line in the same way that they read content in other mediums. Online readers tend to scan content. As a result if you place visual cues in your posts that draw the eye to important points you’ll find people stick with you longer into your posts. Read more on How to make your content Scannable
- The Impact of a Good Image - another simple technique for providing an additional point of interest in your posts is to provide something visual. I don’t use images in every post on this blog but find that when I do that those clicking through on the post in my feed reader increases. Images have the power to communicate in ways that words cannot - use them. Read more on Using images to make your posts POP in RSS feeds.
Reader Comments on Writing Excellent Blog Content
There are plenty of other lessons I could talk about - but I think my readers have even better insights. Here’s some of their comments on the topic of writing content and what they wish they’d know in the early days of their blogging:
D writes - “Understood the true importance of titles before writing the first post.”
Crazykinux writes - “Great content attracts visitors. Post, post, post!…. Having enough great content takes awhile; we’re talking in months people here, not days.”
NetBusinessBlogger writes - “Posting original content! I started blogging to make money. I created around 30 blogs (i don’t hesitate calling them spam blogs)…. At some point, you start realizing that this method of earning money is not life long as the traffic never grows. Once the visitor comes to know that the content is plagiarized, he is never going to come back! Today I’m happy that I’ve deleted all those spam blogs and currently I’m working on just 2-3 blogs which have genuine original content written by me. Its a great feeling to see your blog grow!”
Deb writes - “There is room for ‘my style’ within the general acceptable practices of blogging.”
SEO Expert Blog writes - “I wish I knew that it is much better to write 1 or 2 high quality posts a week than 1 or 2 medium quality posts a day.”
Arjun writes - “I think the single most important thing I learned over time was that I needed to write content that had value. I know it sounds obvious and stupid, but initially I wrote a lot of long articles that were more for me than anyone else.”
alam writes - “Using draft and future posting effectively.”
Lisa writes - “Keep the posts short!”
Tara writes - “I wish I would have known that it’s really OK to get raw and blog from the heart.”
Principles of Marketing writes - “Being a lot better at keeping on target is the one thing I wish I could have learned when I first started”
Bret writes - “I wished I had just focused more on producing content on a regular predictable basis. I’ve gone through a week here and there where I just didn’t have time to post. If I had a reserve of posts to draw from I could have filled those low stops with something ready to do. I feel that the dry spells had a negative impact on my slowly growing readership. I would highly recommend to all new bloggers to create a stock pile of posts ready to fill the dry spells and to just focus on establishing a good routine for creating content. Once you have that, go ahead and start to focus on other aspects of your blog.”
Margie writes - “Just because someone else has written about it does not mean you should not write about it too, because your post may offer information or insights that the reader has not encountered before.” and “Also, I wish I would have known that creating a blog post can be like an appellate brief, sometimes you just have to wade in. Start with an idea or a link and research and let it grow as you find more info, edit out earlier stuff, etc. Just wading in is more productive than staring at your blank screen in fear! And when you get done, after a bunch of ‘drafts’ you usually have something decent.”
Danielle writes - “Read blogs. I wrote my first month’s worth of posts without reading another blog. Once I started reading blogs, I learned about the importance of layout and text formatting from my own reading experiences…..Less is more. Concise and clear writing captures a larger audience. Too much flashiness in blog design take any from the content. Catergory tags should be kept to the minimum keeping the ‘feel’ of a blog more focused especially true for personal blogs….. Memes increase your audience. The weekly memes such as Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Thirteen and Manic Monday can be consciously utilized for your own niche and bring a wider range of readers to your blog. I have gained a fair amount of ‘regular’ readers through utilizing memes.”
Tanya writes - “I wish I knew that it takes so much time. It’s different when youre in school - you have that time, but with a full time job and two blogs at which I ’should’ post daily - I’m tired all the time.”
BenQ writes - “Not to ever worry what friends and family think! I wish I would’ve known straight from the beginning not to be scared to blog about certain subjects.”
What do you wish you knew about writing good content on a blog when you first started blogging?
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