Are You & Your Readers On the Same Page?
It’s my one year anniversary at one of my favorite blogs. Because of that, I’m doing this whole week long celebration deal; going back over the year, thanking people who link me, and covering the best posts of the year. This is not the first time I’ve done posts at a blog of mine that features the best posts of the year - and by best I mean the posts that get the most traffic.
Whenever I do a best of the blog type post, I’m always surprised, because the posts I actually like best almost never make it into the best posts category. What I adore, and what my readers adore is often very different. What I think will get tons of pages views, often won’t. Most ironically, it’s often the posts I don’t research or spend all sorts of time on, that get the most traffic.
Why!? It’s frustrating, no doubt. Am I that lost about the blogs I write for, or do readers just love to shock me? Honestly, I don’t know. However, recently at one of my blogs, we posted a poll asking readers what they want to see more of, and then proceeded to write more on those topics. Sure enough, traffic has increased. Supply and demand works. Or I suppose that would be demand and supply.
Now, if readers wanted to see stuff that doesn’t relate to my blog, I won’t go that far, but I will adjust to make folks happy. Will you? When was the last time you checked to see which posts are doing the best at your blogs? Can you name the five last posts that bombed? Have you asked readers lately what they want to read?
How willing are you to adjust your blog (or blogs) to meet your readers needs and wants?
Tips for Pitching a Blog to a Network
Many network bloggers, or aspiring network bloggers, have great ideas for blogs. If this is the case, they might want to pitch it to their networks. The worst they can do is say "no", right? If you have an untouched niche or a fun idea running around in your head, do suggest it to your editors. Here are a few tips to help you out:
Take Your Time
Instead of rushing off a hurried email to your editor, take your time to craft a well-written, well thought out proposal. Describe exactly what you had in mind with the blog and why you feel it will be successful. Include:
- Possible name and available domain names
- A detailed description
- Statistics regarding the niche
- Links to other similar blogs
- How you plan on making it different from others in the niche.
- Who do you feel will read this blog?
- How do you plan on promoting your blog?
Don’t Bug
Don’t bug your editor or contact at the network. If you don’t hear back in a day or two remember editors and people in charge are busy and get email inquiries from hundreds each day. After a decent amount of time, say 30 days, write back and inquire. If you still don’t receive an answer you have several recourses:
- Continue to wait
- Shop your idea elsewhere
- Start up your own blog
If the network turns down your idea
If the network turns down your idea, hopefully they will give you a reason. For instance, they don’t see it as a profitable idea or they already have a similar blog. You can continue to shop your idea around or you can start the blog on your own. It’s good to remember being turned down is nothing personal. There’s a business decision behind it, but that should deter you as a blogger.
You also not let one rejection discourage you from coming up with other ideas in the future. Bloggers are creative people and rejection is only a momentary setback. If you think positive, you’re sure to find an outlet for your ideas.
No Link Love For Blogging Bloggers Today
I was going to link to some good blogging posts today, but decided not to. Deb did on Sunday anyhow, and we read a lot of the same stuff.
I like blogs in the niches I blog best; probably because I (thankfully) get to blog what I enjoy. I love architect bloggers, and also really like blogging and green bloggers. These are the topics I write about most, and likewise the blogs I visit most.
However, breaking out of your niche is cool. I think bloggers should have a good handful of blogs, that don’t relate to their own topic, that they visit on a regular basis. There are payoffs for visiting outside of niche blogs. The biggest is you have no idea what other people read. If folks see you around, making comments, they might click your name and like what they see. Sometimes you get the oddest, most seemingly out of character readers.
Example: For the longest time, at Offbeat Homes, I got a ton of page views from one guy. I went to investigate. Turns out he didn’t even have a blog, he was on one of the social network sites - MySpace or something like it, where we had one friend in common. All this kid (he was young) talked about was beer. How to get it, drink it, and beer based shenanigans; typical kid just found beer behavior. He did however, like my blog. He’d link to it, and this kid had oodles of pals, who also only talked about beer, but they liked beer guy, so they’d click on his links. End result, me with lots of page views (and some odd comments - but I can live with that). You never know who might like you.
Another benefit is it keeps you from wearing out. Maybe five of my blogs are green, or have a heavy eco slant. I love green, really, but sometimes I’m just so tired of thinking about it all the time. Reading outside of my niche probably saves me from complete and total saturation; my brain gets a rest. You can also get some quirky ideas. You’ll find stuff you don’t normally blog about, that you can perhaps slant to your topic. All in all it keeps things fresh.
So today, forget reading all the blogging blogs, forget blogs in your niche, go find something new. If you have no clue where to start, here are five random ‘out of my niche’ blogs I visit.
Now tell me five out of your niche blogs you like. I need some nice new reading.
Try Adding A Current Event Link To Your Posts
Over at Tree Hugging Family, co-blogger Peggy and I have been trying some different blog traffic building techniques out. If they work out, I may be sharing some here so that you can give them a shot at your blog. The first new trick we tried in May was a current event link.
A major issue at THF is that we post a lot, always have some sort of feature and poll going on, and we often have contests too. Who can keep up? We were trying to keep readers up to date with links before, but it got super annoying to end each post like this:
“Don’t forget to enter our contest, oh and this contest, and check in at the poll. We’re also running some special features this month like blah feature and blah feature, AND hey, are you signed up for our current green challenge?”
That’s like six links and it’s obnoxious. Plus, although we have a contact us page, it seems that people can’t find it, because we’d get comments like, “How do I contact you?”
We decided to try a current event link. Here’s what we did:
At the start of May we wrote one post and titled it current events. We made one basic link back that says, “Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008” Now, if you click on it, you’ll see that we have all our contests, features, and events, posted in link form in this post, plus we included easy to find contact information.
We’ve been updating this one current event post all month, and then we’ve been simply inserting this link at the end of each and every post we write.
Has it worked?:
So far on our end, it’s been much simpler than a massive reminder link at the end of posts. This also fits our main goal of having THF be a reader friendly experience. We want folks to find what they need without much work. Also, both page views and links to our blog have increased this month. It’s tough to tell if the master link is helping there, but it seems like it. We’ll know better after doing this a few months in a row.
Why not give a master current event link a try at your blog, and see how it works for you? If you do try it out let me know if your traffic goes up, or tell me what sort of response you get to it.
10 Ways to Let Your Competition Be Your Guide
I’m always hesitant to use the word "competition" to describe other bloggers in my niche. I always like to look at them as colleagues in which to share ideas and community rather than the person whose traffic I should be stealing. For the purpose of today’s blog post, we’ll allow it just this one time.
If there’s one thing I learned with Freelance Writing Jobs is that if you have a popular blog, others will want to do the same exact thing. It used to frustrate me, but I decided to use this to my advantage. Rather get frustrated with all the other job listings blogs, I look to them to see how I can do things better or different.
Some of my network blogs are in competitive niches as well, my blogs on saving money or beauty tips certainly aren’t the only ones out there. How do I stand out among the rest?
Here are 10 ways I let my competition be my guide.
- I participate in their communities - It would be silly to expect no one else to have the same type of blog, wouldn’t it? My philosophy is, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The great thing about the blogosphere is that there’s room for everyone. If I’m not going to be the only blog re-listing freelance writing jobs or offering tips for finding said jobs, I’m going to welcome the others into the neighborhood. By participating in the other blog communities I’m offering my insight, learning and gathering new ideas from others, and maybe even gaining a reader or two.
- I look to see what they’re missing - When I look at another blog like mine I wonder what they’re missing. What do their readers have questions about and what topics aren’t they discussing? Offer something your competition doesn’t have and people will respond.
- I define my niches. When I visit other blogs in the same niche I wonder how I can do things differently. For instance, with Freelance Writing Jobs I became more than a "relisting" blog. I began offering advice for finding and getting jobs. At this blog, Jennifer and I target bloggers who work for others rather than the usual make money online blogging blogs. At the List Maven, my beauty blog, I offer all tips and product reviews in list form, and at Simply Thrifty I offer stories from my youth and updates on home DIY projects. Even my celebrity blogs are different - I have one featuring celebrity role models and one featuring celebrity lists. Now when people visit me it won’t be the same old thing they see on other blogs.
- I continue to evolve - This holds hands with point number 3, by continuing to evolve I don’t get stuck in a rut. I don’t have to talk about or do the same things over and over. It’s ok to change your blog’s focus now and then to adapt to your readers’ tastes. Sometimes that’s by widening a narrow niche, other times it’s by changing a blog’s design.
- I look to see what my competitors do right - When I see other blogs in my niche, I want to know what they’re doing right. I’m not going to copy them, but I am going to use them for ideas for bettering myself and my blog.
- I investigate the most and least popular articles - What topics do their communities respond to most and least? This will give you a good indication of what your readers might like to learn about. Don’t copy, but do add your own point of view.
- I investigate their traffic - Knowing how the competition is faring can be a great kick in the ass. How many comments do they get? What is their Alexa, Technorati or Google ranking? Are they at the top of the search engines? Where does a lot of their traffic seem to be coming from? Do they get lots of track backs from other blogs?
- I investigate to see who is linking to them and why - Other other blogs and communities responding to my competitors’ posts? If so why? What makes one post more popular than another? Is controversy or negativity such a good thing? Knowing which posts get the backlinks might give you some good ideas of your own -and might also give you an idea of other communities to target.
- I offer to trade guest posts - By trading guest blogger posts with your competitors or fellow niche bloggers you’ll be sharing ideas and traffic.
- I keep them on my radar - Even the bloggers with the most popular blogs keep their competitors close. Even if you only visit the blogs or feeds once a week, know what others in your niche are talking about as well as the reaction of their readers. This way if they start to all of a sudden gain a lot of traffic or comments you’ll know why…and know what to do to use it to your advantage.
Are You Playing Blog Favorites?
Most probloggers I know have plenty of blogs at any given time. In fact, most bloggers I know have five or more blogs. Right now I have about 8 blogs that are currently being updated, plus I also need to network them.
What happens when I don’t pay attention, is I start playing favorites. By playing favorites, what I mean is that at the blogs I like best I may…
- Post more often.
- Post higher quality posts.
- Use my best material for said favorite blog, even though it might fit at another blog.
- Network that blog like a manic.
- Make sure that the blog is nice and tidy (i.e links work, blogroll updated).
Why I play favorites:
My reasons differ, but it usually comes down to one or more of the following…
- I LOVE the topic.
- It’s more trouble free than other blogs. For example, if I barely work at it, I’ll still get new readers. It’s easy, thus a favorite.
- I like my readers at one blog better.
- The blog pays better.
- My boss is cool.
- Everyone else likes the blog - such as people link to it, it gets traffic, the blog gets nominated for awards, etc. Who doesn’t like love?
Problem: If you spend all your time at one or two blogs, your other blogs suffer. As a blogger you really do need to find a suitable amount of time to give to each project. If you play favorites, it becomes tough to accomplish this.
Right now, I actually do have two favorite blogs (I’ll never tell which). I also have some solutions for how to deal when you clearly like one blog better than another. But I’ll do that post next. First, I’m curious, because I can’t be the only one; do you play blog favorites, and if so why?
5 Mistakes New Bloggers Should Avoid
In the three years I’ve been blogging I’ve seen other bloggers come and go. I’d say about seventy five percent of the bloggers I’ve seen start out have disappeared when things didn’t work out. The ones who took the time to do it right are the bloggers who have been around for a long time. The ones who didn’t last all seem to make the same mistakes. In case you’re just starting out in this business here are a few common mistakes newbie bloggers should avoid.
1. Thinking Blogging Will Make You Rich Right Away
Though certain bloggers do make six figures a year, this isn’t the norm. Sure, they got lucky, but they also took the time to do things right. It can take years to earn decent coin from a blog. Many wannabe bloggers enter into this thinking it’s going to make them rich right away. That’s rarely, if ever, the case. Many bloggers are lucky if they earn $25 or $35 a month for their personal blogs. The ones who earn hundreds, and even thousands a month are the ones who have been doing this the longest.
2. Not Doing Enough Research
This goes hand in hand with item number one. Know why the top bloggers are the top bloggers? They took the time to learn about blogging. They researched the best ways to bring in traffic, to bring in revenue, and to cultivate a community. They didn’t just open up a Blogger account, throw on some Adsense and say, "OK, I’m now a blogger."
3. Choosing an Over-Saturated Niche
Blogs about blogging, making money online, writing, food, celebrities and working from home are a dime a dozen nowadays, yet every day more and more crop up. If you’re going to choose one of these over-saturated niche’s be sure you offer something different. If you’re just rehashing what the other blogs are saying, there’s really no reason for anyone to visit you.
4. Choosing A Niche You Know Nothing About
A couple of years ago, soon after people started thinking there was something to this blogging, a fellow work at home mom decided she was going to start a blog. She researched and found out the word "mesothelioma" offered the highest paying Adsense payout of all the keywords. Did she know anything about Mesothelioma? No. Did she and her blog make a lot of money? No. Did it last? No. Because she didn’t have a clue she only wrote two posts and left it at that. If you can’t write your passion or write what you know, it’ll quickly become apparent.
5. Not Doing Enough to Promote Your Blog
It’s not enough to create a blog and post to it, how will others know it exists without shameless self-promotion? Bloggers in all stages of their careers can’t be shy about getting out and promoting their blogs. There are so many ways to do this without being spammy. Visit forums, participate in Twitter, become a part of another blogger’s community. Soon, traffic will be flowing. To just think people are going to show up is a big mistake.
Whether you blog for someone else or blog for yourself, it’s easy to make make some common mistakes. Do take the time to research blogging and learn the best ways to bring in traffic. Find out what folks in your niche want to know about and learn ways to promote community. To not take the time to cultivate your blog is a big mistake.
What are some other mistakes you can think of that new bloggers make?
The Argument for Posting Ahead
Whenever I talk about posting ahead, the biggest argument not to is time. "I don’t have that kind of time, Deb. I only have time to do my daily allotment each day." I’m here to tell you posting ahead can be a huge time saver, and can also save you from having to play a catch up game later.
Let me explain…
Recently I accepted a lucrative offer from one of my clients. The money was such that I couldn’t refuse, but my workload, of course, grew. And by grew I mean more than doubled. Though I made some minor adjustments (dropping a difficult client, for instance) I kept all my network blogs. The problem is that it’s hard to post once or twice a day when you’re working almost full time for someone and maintaining your own busy blogs. So I took a few hours over the weekend to post ahead to my b5 blogs ( I have four of them). On Monday there was no denying the benefit of this as it enabled me to fulfill my other obligations without having to worry about finding the time to post to my other blogs. By Tuesday I was learning another major benefit to posting ahead.
Expect the Unexpected
The flu caught me by surprise this week. I started feeling slightly under the weather Monday night but by Tuesday morning I couldn’t function at all. Tuesday and most of Wednesday were spent on the couch or in bed. Though I probably would have taken a sick day today if I worked in the real world, the truth is I can function in the blogosphere. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t post ahead of time. Trying to catch up on four blogs for two or more days would have put me far behind. Taking the time to post ahead proved to be a very good investment.
Now before you bombard me with comments and emails telling me there’s no time for posting, I have a few suggestions. Perhaps one will work for you?
Finding the Time to Post Ahead
Wake up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later: You know why I get so much work done? Because I wake up a couple of hours before the rest of my family. I know waking at four doesn’t appeal to everyone, but for me it’s only temporary. School is a full day next year and then I won’t have to wake so early. My partner Jennifer Chait likes keeping very late hours, by the way.
Switch off with a spouse: My husband and like to switch off on the weekends. I’ll take our son to the park so he can get some work done around the house, and he’ll take him for a hike so I can work as I need to. This also frees us up to spend time as a family.
Make a sacrifice here and there: Give up on that hour of reading or tv watching one day a week to get a little extra work done. When you see how much time it saves during the long run, you’ll be happy you made the effort.
Posting ahead saved me this week. If I didn’t do this on Sunday I would be in a panic because I’m so far behind. Even one or two posts can save you in the event of illness or an emergency. Do think about it…
Spend Less Time On Email & More Time Blogging
The other day I posted my personal biggest time wasters while blogging. Today I’m posting some solutions I’m considering for email and moderating blog comments. I’m tacking these two time wasters together, because blog comments are one major source of email for me.
How I already save time on email:
Have decent email: I use Gmail for my major email account. I.e. anyone that matters gets my Gmail account. Gmail is very good about clearing spam (knock on wood) and so far I’ve never had an issue with them, like I have with other email providers. At first it was tough for me to get used to the whole forum-like thread on Gmail, but now, I really like it. If you have an email account that passes too much spam through, consider changing providers.
I don’t respond to everyone: I used to respond to everyone, even if it wasen’t that useful to me personally, like a PR person with a tip I couldn’t use. I’d email to say thanks anyhow, but no thanks. Now I’ve pulled back a bit on email etiquette. I respond if it’s important, if you’re a friend, and often if it’s someone with a question about blogging, but that’s it.
New ideas I have to save time on email:
Don’t answer every email right away: There are some people who say that you should only check your email if you’re ready to respond. I used to do that. Problem was I’d check my email 3+ times a day. Now I don’t answer all my emails right away. I’ve been saving them up. I still do check my email maybe 3 times a day, in case there’s some sort of client emergency, but I’ve been trying to answer the bulk of them at night.
Check your email once a day only: This is too hard for me to do, but I’ve been considering bucking up and trying it. The issue is that on weekdays I’d have 100s by nighttime if I didn’t do a sweep a couple of times a day. What I do currently is fly in, and scan for unimportant emails , which I delete, and toss everything else into labeled folders.
Delete all blog comments right away: It’s not always up to me whether I get comments emailed or not; sometimes my clients or networks have them sent to me. However, what I’ve found is that if I read and respond to comments when I see them in my inbox, it wastes a lot of time. My new system that I’m working on is simply reading my comment panels once a day at all my blogs. I’m not too good at this yet. I like to read comments as they arrive, but it does waste more time than dealing with them all at once.
Deal with special groups of emails once a week only: I get lots of emails from people asking me to do product reviews or giving me tips on topics. I’m saving all these in a PR folder that I sort, read, and answer once weekly. I’m also part of a stumble email group, so I’ve been labeling and saving these as well.
I started working on my email problems last week and so far it’s been better. It takes time to develop new habits though, and most days I really want to go comment at my blogs right away, or respond to stuff that’s not a dire emergency. If I follow through, I think the above ideas are really going to help me.
Obviously I’m not the best person to be giving email advice (it is one of my issues) so I decided to search out a few links you can read that address email nightmares:
12 Rules for Getting a Grip on Massive ProBlogger Email - great tips, some I’ll be trying out.
Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload - an older article, but had some nice tips surrounding how to send better emails, and how to let people know that you’re not an email slave.
10 Tips for Managing Email Effectively - excellent pointers about all areas of email management.
20+ Firefox Plugins For Managing Email - extra plugins tend to make my world more difficult, not easier, but these may work well for you.
What’s your best tip for managing email overload?
Wasting Time While Blogging
We all waste time at work sometimes, and usually a little time wasted does no harm. However, I literally have no time to waste. I get two full days to work, period, each week. I’m a single work-at-home mama, who homeschools, so time is tight. My son’s dad has our son Friday evenings through Sunday evenings which is when I do the bulk of my work – that by the way means; I try to get everything done for the upcoming week (currently about 3 articles and enough posts for around 10 blogs). It’s near impossible. Actually it is impossible. I’ve never, not once, had a week where I get it all done on the weekend.
Partly, this is because I’m working with a small amount of time, but also I waste some of my time. Last week I made a list of all the ways I waste time.
- Not knowing what to blog about first.
- Email, or should I say EMAIL!
- Moderating and responding to blog comments.
- Breaks during work hours.
- Getting side tracked while posting.
- Forums.
- Sleep, meals, and exercise.
- Twitter.
Some of these problems are larger than others. I also jotted down some solutions, including some solutions directly related me only having two days to work in the first place.
Over the next couple of days I’ll be posting my solutions – and how they’re working. I put some into motion this weekend. If you’re wasting time in the same ways that I do, or if you’re a single work-at-home parent maybe my solutions will help you to improve your productivity too.
What ways are you wasting time during work hours?
