Written on July 26th, 2007 at 05:07 am by Darren Rowse
More Pillars of Exceptional Blogs
Rory Sullivan has written a great companion post to one that Leo Babauta wrote here at enternetusers (4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs).
The main point of Rory’s post is to point out that to build a great blog it takes more than just writing great content - to put it in his words, you need to ‘work the system’. By working the system, I don’t think Rory is talking about manipulating anyone - but rather he’s saying that it’s more than just writing. He gives 4 great pillars for growing exceptional blogs:
- Visit and Comment on Popular Sites
- Point Visitors to Your Site
- Strike Diggers Gold
- Be Prolific, Be Everywhere
To be fair to Leo - the brief for writing his post was on ‘writing exceptional content’ and not meant to be an all encompassing guide to successful blogging and having observed his style and chatted to him I think he’d be the first to agree with Rory’s suggestions. Perhaps he slightly over stated his case in his previous post when he wrote - ‘Content is king, as they say, and that should be the focus of all your efforts.’ I think he’d admit that he’s put his efforts into other activities also.
The reason I think Rory and Leo’s posts are great companion posts is because they do give a more holistic guide to building a great blog.
Leo is right because without great content a blogger doing all the things to attract attention and get visitors will be working on a pointless quest because the visitors might come once but once they see a poorly written blog they’re not likely to return. Rory is right because you can write great content until you’re blue in the face but if you never work at getting your blog into the spotlight you’ll never build a readership. Both are vital aspects of blogging.
Of course there’s probably another 10 or so potential companion posts that could be written as writing great content and finding readers are just two parts of creating an exceptional blog.
Perhaps add to the mix:
- Pillars of Exceptional Blog Design
- Pillars of Creating a Blog Community
- Pillars of Great SEO
- Pillars of Converting First time Readers into Loyal Readers
- Pillars of Monetizing Blogs…. etc etc
Ultimately - blogging is a task that needs a variety of skills, techniques and strategies coming together in a holistic way - something I’ve written about numerous times before (for starters at - There’s a Hole in My Blog - Holistic Blogging and 18 Lessons I’ve Learnt about Blogging).
What other ‘pillars’ would you add to the lists?
Written on July 25th, 2007 at 01:07 pm by Darren Rowse
SketchCasting
Here’s a nice idea that I’d like to see more bloggers experimenting with - Sketchcasting! I think it’s got some great possibilities.
Written on July 25th, 2007 at 06:07 am by Darren Rowse
“If you had a Gun against your Head to Double your Readership in Two Weeks, What Would you Do?” - An Interview with Tim Ferriss
Two of the most popular posts on enternetusers over the last couple of months were an interview that I conducted in April with author Timothy Ferriss who wrote the best selling book The 4-Hour work Week. Tim’s also been developing a blog as part of his 4-Hour Work Week site and has seen some amazing traffic growth over the last few months.
I thought that it might be time for a follow up interview to see how the book launch has gone and what Tim has been learning about blogging. I hope you enjoy this chat with Tim.
How’s the 4 Hour Work Week Launch Going?
The books is screaming along. It’s been an unexpected and incredible ride thus far. From hitting #1 on the Wall Street Journal list and nailing the NY Times, it’s been a string of firsts for me. I was #2 on the NY Times business bestseller list for June, and the #1 slot was a political book. Very odd. So I’m hoping to move some mountains this week and hit #1 there, which would be a lifelong dream fulfilled. Fun stuff, to be sure.
Congratulations on that - How long have you been blogging now?
My current “real” blog has been up since early April in earnest, so about 3-4 months. I did play with another Wordpress blog for a few months before that, but it was mostly to get comfortable with the tools vs. building a reader base. I would say 3-4 months of serious traffic creation and real posts.
Why did you start your 4 hour work week blog and have your reasons for doing it changed since you started?
I started it to create a community, a sense of belonging for not only others… but for myself. I wanted to attract like minded folk to discuss cool topics. More recently, this has moved towards having fun but also catalyzing some serious world change. It sounds ridiculously naive, but I used the blog to help get http://www.donorschoose.org, an educational non-profit, into the finals for American Express’s competition for $1-5 million in funding. There is some serious power in numbers and proActive readers.
I’m also beginning to realize that you can monetize a blog without bastardizing your vision, sacrificing editorial purity, or otherwise “selling out.” There’s no need to sacrifice on either end.
Tell us a little more about how you think this is possible - ie” monetize a blog without bastardizing your vision”
Step one is understanding your readers. by this, i mean defining them psychographically and demographically. What would they buy? Then, it’s a simple matter of finding advertisers who would pay for “sponsor”-level access to this market. Choose someone who belongs to an industry that you’ll likely never write about. Problem solved.
There are certainly other avenues — affiliate programs, Amazon Associates, etc. — that add additional revenue with marginal additional effort. Last, and few bloggers consider this, is launching and offering your own products to your audience. I get hundreds of emails per week requesting the same types of help. There will be online educational modules or other products on the way to help these readers, and I will launch them on the blog.
The aforementioned sources of income would be “direct” income sources from the blog. “Indirect” income sources — those that result from the credibility your blog creates — are much broader and can be even more profitable and fun: speaking gigs for $10-30K, corporate training in foreign countries, etc.
I’ve been watching your alexa ranking and you’ve seen some nice growth (over 10000) - what’s behind it?
It’s just direct response advertising meets PR.
Study the top stories at Digg or MSN.com and you’ll notice a pattern: the top stories all polarize people. Do not try to appeal to everyone. Instead, take a strong stance and polarize people: make some love you and some hate you. Hate is an extreme, but here’s the gist: what you write, in order to create the highest pass-along value, needs to be “remarkable”. Is it something that is worth remarking upon?
If you make it threaten people’s 3 Bs — behavior, belief, or belongings — you get a huge virus-like dispersion. Most of my explosive posts, which have brought in 1000s of new Feedburner subscribers, have nothing to do with my book. “Geek to Freak” is about how I gained 34 lbs. of muscle in 4 weeks. “How to Travel the World with 10 lbs. or Less” is obviously not (though a great case study in how to use Amazon Associates naturally).
Polarize your audience, elicit some attacks — which create disagreement and rebukes and debate — and be anal about the numbers. Track what works and what doesn’t. Fine tune what works and test it again. Rinse and repeat.
I also gauge my progress by…
1) Feedster subscribers
2) Alexa ranking
3) comments, in descending order of importance
What’s your biggest source of traffic?
Trackbacks from diverse leading blogs and guest posts on popular sites like Huffington Post. To the first point, I write on a diverse range of topics, so I can get linked to from more social circles. From muscle building to ultralight travel, I tie it all into a larger concept of “lifestyle design.”
Just because you write about PR, for example, doesn’t mean that you can’t tie PR into everything from celebs to current events to political commentary. Broaden your trackback value. To the second, seek out popular blogs and offer to guest post. Most blogs that post multiple times daily are looking for good material and writers. I only post 1-2 times per week, so I don’t have that constant pressure, but hundreds do.
Borrowing traffic is a lot faster than creating it, and the former often leads to the latter.
Apart from what you’ve already mentioned - what have you found works?
Headlines are #1. If you have a great headline, you can get great pass-along. If you have a mediocre headline, even a world-class post will be ignored. I’ll put one version of a headline on my blog and repost the same body copy with a different headline on Huffington Post or elsewhere.
I’ll also tweak headlines after a post has gone up to see if it triggers any spikes. Not good for Google rank, but great for quick and dirty testing. I’ll note here that, in my experience, you should look at unsubscribes more than new subscribes. Why? It’s easier to determine why people have quit vs. jumped onboard. Usually, it’s bad headlines, bad copy, or too many unhelpful comments, which triggers too many worthless email to readers.
I’ll also add graphics, videos, etc., or remove the same, from duplicate posts to see the effect. It’s an imperfect approach, but you can draw some general conclusions, at least for my audience.
In our last interview you talked about how you’d found that posting less often was actually helping your blog. A month or two later - do you still find this to be true?
I think so. It allow comments to accumulate, which reinforces the perception that you blog is popular. It also offers you the breathing room to focus on quality, which creates the popularity and stickiness. People have a lot of crap information being forced upon them, so I only want to add a good dash of fun and education when I have something worthy to say. Definitely still true for me. Last but not least, it takes a while for posts to propagate through the web, and most people simply trackback to your most recent post, so leaving a post up for a few days in pole position has been an important tactic for me. I don’t plan on posting more, but I might do it for a few weeks just to see the effect.
If you were starting your blog again knowing what you now know - what one thing would you do the same and one thing would you do differently?
Posting frequency and philosophy would remain the same. I would add at least one graphic to each post, bold/italicize more to make the posts easier to scan and digest, and I would also discuss more topics that nearly everyone feels they can comment on (e.g. exercise, travel). Educational reform is great, but it shuts a lot of people out of the conversation. I’ll still post on these issues close to my heart, but I think my rise could have been even faster had I focused on pulling more people into disagreeing and commenting.
Just ask yourself: would my mom, dad, best friend, or co-workers try and give me advice on this? If not, you’ll miss a lot of comments. Explore topics where people think — often mistakenly — that they have some real expertise. Fanning the flames this way brings out some brilliant dialogues… and huge traffic jumps. I want at least one person to call me a liar per post or I don’t feel I’m pushing the envelope enough.
What do you like about blogging?
I have learned a ton from my readers. I like the fact that some of my heroes have contacted me through my blog. You can really change the world with one good blog post. I believe that.
What don’t you like about blogging?
What I dislike is anonymous cowardice. There are a lot of weirdos and psychos. Blogs give every genius and every idiot a voice, so you need to be willing to tolerate and filter the latter.
I’ve been promoting educational reform and a few other things that most view as very positive. One of the results? I’ve had a few loonies sending me death threats. It’s ridiculous. If that kind of stuff will really shake you, I don’t recommend trying to build a huge audience of readers. Anonymous cowardice, as well as threats and psychos, bothers me.
Any last tips for enternetusers readers?
Think big and think fast. If you had a gun against your head to double your readership in two weeks, what would you do? I’m serious. If you absolutely had to, what would you do? It is really possible to ethically build a huge fan base and have some fun along the way. I’ll close with a return to fundamentals: study good headlines. Look at Digg.com, msn.com, and follow a bit of pop culture like E! or the nightly news just to see how they use teasers. The headline doesn’t even need to describe the article or post. It has just one purpose: to get them to read the next sentence.
Think big and don’t settle for what everyone else is doing. Test assumptions and push the envelope. It’s a good ride.
Thanks to Tim for giving his time again for this interview. If you enjoy the way he thinks, check out The 4 Hour Work Week for more Timothy Ferriss Wisdom.
Written on July 25th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Free Blogging Tips Podcast with Darren and Yaro
Just over one month ago Yaro Starak launched a great new Blog Mentoring program called Blog Mastermind. When I first announced the program the reaction to it’s launch was mixed. Quite a few readers signed up, others decided to wait and see what those who signed up said about it and there were others who criticized Yaro’s sales page (in fact quite a good discussion took place about the sales page).
Since the launch Yaro tells me that around 300 members have signed up for the program. The response has been so great that he’s had to hire a couple of extra Pro Bloggers to help with the program.
I’ve spent a few hours this week lurking around the members area of Blog Mastermind and am really impressed with what’s being provided to members. In addition to Yaro’s regular tips there’s some great audio interviews, video case studies and teaching and a great forum area with some great learning going on.
Yaro tells me that he and his team are also working on some more advanced tips for those members who are not coming in at an entry level.
Listen To Yaro and My Podcast Interview
This week Yaro and I spent an hour chatting about some blogging tips and recorded it as a free podcast for enternetusers readers. Some of the topics we covered include:
- Yaro on the convergence between the Internet marketing and blogging world
- How to build buzz and traffic by releasing a viral PDF report
- Tips on how to build relationships with other bloggers
- Darren talks about techniques to capture more repeat readers using your blog archives
- Customizing pages based on where your traffic comes from
- Why adding an email list newsletter to your blog is critical
- Tips to monetize your blog or newsletter using direct sponsorship
- Testing how your ads convert on your site to increase income from sponsors
- Using split testing software to improve the performance of ads on your blog
- Testing different elements of your blog using crazy egg
- Buying sites with the profit you make from blogging
This podcast is free - listen to it here - I hope you enjoy it!
Get a Discount on Blog Mastermind
Yaro’s also been generous enough to offer enternetusers readers a special discount on the program for those who sign up before Friday of this week - instead of $77 per month he’s offering it for $47 - or $1.57 per day (and the monthly price will not go up if you sign up at this time).
Yaro’s also rewritten a new sales page - especially for enternetusers readers which has the special discount offer. As always, Yaro offers a money back guarantee so if you sign up and find that the program doesn’t fit your needs then he’s more than happy to refund your money. I’ve heard from one reader that they’ve got their money back on the program because they found that they didn’t have the time to take it as seriously as they needed to.
Lastly - a quick thanks to those enternetusers readers who have emailed to let me know how they’ve found Blog Mastermind. I won’t republish your comments here - but you’re more than welcome to tell of your experiences of it in comments below to help others worth out whether this is a program for them.
Written on July 24th, 2007 at 05:07 am by Darren Rowse
Using Google Analytics to Compare Traffic from Different Periods of Time
Matt Huggins has put together a useful article titled Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Website Traffic Metrics with Google Analytics which will be very useful for anyone wanting a primer on how to use Google Analytics. Matt’s post reminded me of something I’ve been using Google Analytics a lot more for recently - comparing different periods of time to one another.
I’ve been getting a lot more into Google Analytics over the past few months - it’s one of the most useful metrics programs that I’ve ever used and has so much power under the hood.
There are a number of metrics that I keep an eye on but one of them that I’ve been tracking lately is to compare traffic from one month to another.
Let me illustrate. Here’s the last month’s traffic graph from enternetusers (click to enlarge):
Now lets compare the this graph with traffic last month? (note - I’ve lined it up so that the periods both start on the same day of the week so that we can compare Mondays to Mondays and Saturdays to Saturdays):
You can immediately see that the dips and flows in traffic had some similarities on many days but that there were a couple of big variations. The first spike was when one of my posts got some attention on Digg’s front page for a few hours and the spike around July 2 was when we had some server issues one day.
OK - to this point it’s just an interesting graph - but one of the things I then like to do is drill down to different types of traffic.
Lets take a look at search engine traffic over the period:
With this graph we can see that from last month (green) to this month (blue) there is a noticeable increase in traffic coming from search engines. In fact lower on the metrics page we can see that there was a 6.11% increase over the month. Not bad considering that on the day of my server issues there was a 60% decrease. You can also clearly see the weekly cycle of traffic which is almost perfectly surf clothing swimwear one month to the next for the first half of the month.
Drilling down even further we can check out the comparison by actual search engine:
Here’s Google:
Here’s Yahoo:
Knowing this helps you in thinking about the SEO strategies that you’re using. Obviously some of the changes that I made a couple of weeks ago are paying off when it comes to optimizing for Yahoo.
Drill down even further and you can do the same analysis on particular keywords. Lets take a look at one from the same period - the word ‘blog’:
Obviously something was going on this month with this word. Either there was a lot more searching for the word mid June or my ranking for the word shot up.
The type of analysis that you could do using these types of comparisons are endless. You can compare how many pages are being viewed, time on site, bounce rate, page views, ad word campaigns etc. You can also do it with different periods of time (week to week, year to year) and you can drill it down in any number of ways.
You can even compare how a specific post does from one month to the next. For example after revealing that ‘About Me’ was the #1 search term to bring me traffic from Google last week - the page that the traffic all went to (How to write your About Me Page) has had an increase in traffic:
Virtually every stat that you can check on Google Analytics can be compared from one period to the next - and the results of doing so can be quite illuminating - particularly when you’re tracking changes that you’ve made to your blog to see how they convert.
PS - How to Compare Periods: I just mentioned that I was writing this post to a friend on IM and they told me that they didn’t know that Google Analytics could do this. I suspect others will want to know how to compare different periods also - so here’s how:
Once you’re on your analytics dashboard click on the date area in the top right hand corner. This will open up a screen like this:
Select the first period of time that you want to compare.
Once you’ve done this check the ‘Compare to Past’ box and the ability to select another period will open up:
As mentioned above - I don’t just choose the period exactly before the first one as I like to start the periods on the same day of the week. You could do it with calendar periods though if you wish.
After you’ve done this simply click ‘Apply Range’ and it’ll compare the periods for you.
Written on July 24th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
How Can I Make enternetusers More Useful for You?
It’s time for a reader question - how can I make enternetusers more useful for you?
Every 6 to 12 months I like to ask readers this question in an effort to keep improving the blog and making it more effective in helping to improve your blogging.
I don’t like to lead such discussions too deliberately - but find that the discussion is better if I give a few general questions to stimulate the conversation. So here are some areas you might like to comment on:
- Topics - are there topics (specific or general) you’d like covered in the coming months? What are the main issues that you’re facing as a blogger at the moment? What would you like to learn about or grow most in for the remainder of the year?
- Types of Posts - reader questions, tutorials, case studies, short tips, guest posts, tool reviews…. have your say about what you’d like most/least
- Posting Frequency - too many posts, not enough, just right?
- Design - we are just weeks from launching a complete redesign - so your comments and ideas would be helpful at this point
- Blog Features - what would make your reader experience better?
- Community - do you feel you connect well with other readers? Are there features that you’d like added to help connect more?
- Services and Tools - what could enternetusers offer you to help you improve your blog?
- What Frustrates You about enternetusers? What is Best about it?
- Other Ideas and Feedback - anything goes, big or little.
The ‘Rules’ - Any feedback, suggestions, dreams or ideas that you have are welcome. While I can’t promise to respond to each comment or put every suggestion into place I make a commitment to you to read anything you have to say.
All that I ask in return is that you be honest, courteous and constructive with your feedback.
enternetusers is a project that I pour a lot of time and effort into - as a result sometimes criticism can be a little difficult to hear - however I think it’s vital to take it all on board if this is to continue to be a valuable resource for bloggers wanting to improve their blogging.
So it’s over to you. Feel free to either leave your feedback in comments below or to share them privately with me via my Contact Page.
Written on July 23rd, 2007 at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse
Tell a Story - Rediscovering Your Blogging Groove Day 7
Today’s task in the Rediscover Your Blogging Groove project is to tell a story.
One of the more helpful books that I’ve read in the last couple of years is The Story Factor by Annette Simmons. In it she talks about six different types of stories and how they can each be important in influencing people.
These six types of stories are:
- “Who I Am” Stories
- “Why I Am Here” Stories
- “The Vision” Story
- “Teaching” Stories
- “Values-in-Action” Stories
- “I Know What You Are Thinking” Stories
I’m looking to write a series of posts on these types of stories in the future so won’t go into great depth about each one except to say that stories are incredibly powerful ways of communicating for bloggers.
Stories are effective because they:
- engage the imagination of readers
- go beyond facts and theories
- reveal something about yourself as a blogger
- trigger emotions and the senses
- provide hooks for readers to latch onto in your blogging
- are relatable to readers
- illustrate your points in ways that can be much more convincing (and convicting) than other types of information
The key with stories on blogs is making them tie into the rest of your blog - ie make them relevant and ensure that they have some point to them that is useful to your readers on some level. While telling the story of how your dog dug up your vegetable patch might interest you, the readers of your blog about (insert your blog’s topic here) may not be quite as fascinated - unless you use the story to illustrate something about your topic.
So what type of stories could you tell on your blog?
Here’s a few starting points:
- Personal Discovery Stories - tell how you discovered a lesson. These stories show your readers how similar you are to them.
- Stories as Analogies and Illustrations - tell a story that on the surface has nothing to do with your topic but which illustrates a principle that is very relevant
- Success Stories - tell how you achieved something. These stories can be inspirational and motivating for your readers.
- Failure Stories - I find that these stories are incredibly powerful - particularly if you are able to show some lessons learnt through a failure
- Tell Someone Else’s Story - sharing the journey of someone else and how/what they learned can be effective
- How I did it Stories - these practical stories can be effective because they talk your readers through a process in a relatable way
- Picture Stories - using images or video can be another great way of communicating a story because it engages the senses in a way that text can’t (similarly - audio posts/podcasts can do this too).
I’m sure there are plenty of other types of stories to tell. Feel free to suggest your own in comments below.
Homework - Tell a Story
It’s time to write your story post. Post it on your blog and then come back to the comments section below to share it with us so we can see how your approached it.
Examples of Story Posts
If you’re looking for some examples on story posts - here are a few stories that I’ve written here at enternetusers.
- Becoming a enternetusers - A Story in Many Parts - the story of how I grew my blogging
- Blogging Stories - How Blogs Change Lives - the story of a reader
- Lessons from an Umbrella Salesman - one of my many ‘tangent’ posts
- Blogging in Formation - Lessons from a Goose - another tangent post
- Weddings, Blogging, Intentionality and One Whopping Big Tangent - one more tangent post
- A Day in the life of a enternetusers - another story that has been very popular
Read the rest of the Rediscover Your Blogging Groove Project
Written on July 22nd, 2007 at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 22 July 2007
- Get your Red WordPress T-Shirts - now available.
- Chris G ponders the topic of Short Term Gains vs Long Term Value in blogging and observes some bloggers going for instant gratification - perhaps at the expense of long term benefits.
- One of my favorite blogs, Slacker Manager, has just been sold (to b5media) and it’s old owner (brendon) is looking for a new author. A great opportunity to take over the writing of a very established blog with a sizeable readership (over 8000 RSS subscribers).
- One Man’s Goal asks Does Monetizing Your Blog Cost You Readers?
- Web Worker Daily has a useful post for Firefox users with 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers. There’s a couple there that I’m going to try!
- One last question for the day - Scott Karp asks whether Newspapers should become local blog networks?
Written on July 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Ask a Question - Rediscover Your Blogging Groove Day 6
Today’s task in the Rediscover Your Blogging Groove project is to ask your readers a question.
The ‘question post’ idea comes directly from one of my own weekend strategies for posting . I like question posts for a number of reasons:
- It gives readers a sense of Community and Participation
- It increases Blog Stickiness
- These posts don’t take a whole lot of effort to write (although can take some moderation)
- They are great for helping you to gauge where your readers are at on certain topics and can even give you ideas for future posts.
- They open up opportunities for followup posts as you summarize the answers, pick up conversations and even answer the question yourself etc.
- They can be great for generating incoming links to your blog as other bloggers pick up the conversation on their own blogs.
Of course some readers resist these types of posts because they are scared that nobody will answer the question. This can be a little disheartening - but if you construct the post well and include your own answer to the question then at least there is something there of value even if the conversation doesn’t emerge.
Remember that only around 1% of blog readers tend to leave comments - so if you don’t get a lot of responses it doesn’t mean that no one is reading - keep trying.
What question should you ask?
Really anything goes - however a few ideas come to mind to help you formulate effective questions:
- Keep the question relevant to Your Blog’s Topic
- You might like to try asking a question that builds on a previous post
- Ask questions that are answerable (and not ones that are to hard answer)
- Ask questions that readers will want to know the answer to
- Suggest to your readers some possible answers
- Sometimes either/or questions (where there are only two answers to choose from) can be great for generating a debate - they are easy to answer and a great way to help train your readers to comment
- You may like to try using a Poll tool to give your readers a way to vote on a number of options
- Controversial questions can be a great way to get a conversation going - but be aware readers could get fired up.
- Be willing to share your own answer - but if you’re confident you’ll get people responding you might want to consider holding off on your own answer and do it in a follow up post (this means 2 posts instead of 1 but also means you won’t skew your reader’s answers)
- Do you have a frequently asked question that you don’t know how to answer? Ask your readers for their opinion - you might learn something.
- Sometimes more personal (yet on topic) questions can be worth asking. Ask your readers how they do something or what tools they use. For example a while back I asked readers to tell me what their favorite lens was at DPS and followed it up with a summary of popular DSLR lenses. The response from these two posts was fantastic as many readers not only had a say on a topic but enjoyed reading what others were doing.
Having all that in mind - your homework for today is to go back to your blog/s and ask a question. Once you’ve done that, come back to this post and share the link with us so we can check it out and see how you’ve approached it.
note: while your previous question posts might be interesting - I’d prefer it if you only posted links to new posts below - after all, this series is about helping you to improve your blog NOW rather than looking back - thanks.
Read the rest of the Rediscover Your Blogging Groove project.
PS: Thanks to Mark for the inspiration on a new logo for this series.
Written on July 21st, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
Write a Tip Post - Rediscover Your Blogging Groove Day 5
Today’s task in the Rediscover Your Blogging Groove project is to write a ‘Tip’ Post.
I know today’s task will be easier for some of you than others because your topic is more suited to writing ‘how to’ or ‘tip’ posts - however I’m sure that if you put your mind to it and get a little creative you can do it!
The idea behind today’s task is simply to help your readers in some way. What do you know that they might not? How can you teach them what you know?
9 Tips on How to write a Tips Post:
1. Present the Need - Most people will not read your tip post if they don’t feel they need to know what you’re teaching. Right at the top of your post (and even in the title) you need to show people why reading your tips is important. Tell them what problem you’re overcoming, what need you are trying to meet or what they’ll learn and how it will enhance their lives. Do this and you’ll increase the chances of them reading through your full post.
2. Base it On Your Own Experience - One of the best ways to write these posts is to base them on something that you have either done or something that you do. Perhaps it’s some process or workflow that you take for granted that will give someone insight into something they’d not considered before.
3. Base it on Someone Else’s Experience - Another technique is to base your tip on what someone else does. This might be someone you know well and that you’ve observed do something - or it could be a total stranger (How Donald Trump Gets His Hair to Comb Over….).
4. Choose Something Basic to Teach - sometimes it is the most simple and basic tips that people appreciate the most. Go back to beginner type instruction and you might find you connect with a lot of readers that advance posts wouldn’t hit the mark with.
5. Break it down into Steps - if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about teaching people via the web it is that you need to learn how to communicate in bite sized and achievable steps. Use well formatted points, bring in pictures, screenshots and examples to show processes and give live examples where possible. Numbering your steps can be a great way to keep people on track if your tip is sequential or a workflow.
6. Link to Previous Posts - never assume that your readers have read everything you’ve previously written. When you’re referring to something that you’ve previously taught - link back to it so that new readers can catch up.
7. Consider a Series for Complex Tips - if what you’re teaching is a more complex or longer process it might be worth breaking it down into separate posts over a series. You’ll need to carefully consider the cost and benefits of doing this as it can break your momentum and cause reader frustration if not done well.
8. Anticipate Questions - while you’re writing your tips post make note of any questions that you can imagine readers asking as they read it. Incorporate the answers to these questions either in the post itself or at the end in a little section dedicated to reader questions.
9. Update Your Posts - The great thing about ‘tips’ posts is that they can often have quite a long life in terms of relevance. My post on How to Hold a Digital Camera is still as relevant today as it was the day I wrote it. However I would suggest you revisit these posts from time to time to see how you can update them and keep them relevant. This is important if you’re in a fast moving niche - but is also important because if you’re anything like me you’ll learn more about your topic over time and when you go back to older posts you might find things that you now know more about or would change. While some would say updating posts isn’t the done thing in blogging I don’t have an issue to it if the updates make the post more useful to readers.
Homework - so now it’s time for you to go and write a tip post of some kind. Like I said above, this might be easier for some of you than others depending upon your topic, but don’t feel that the tip needs to be a long essay - it could be something quite simple and quick. Or you might even try writing something a little humorous.
If you’re looking for a little inspiration, check out the ‘How To…’ group writing project submissions where there’s a list of hundreds of tips and how to posts.
Once you’ve written your post come back here and share the link in comments below.
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