Self Promotion Doesn’t Mean Spam
I’m not going to name names or point fingers but once upon a time, I did a Q&A with a web 2.0 up and comer. You see, I kept receiving email telling me how spectacular this person was. So I decided to investigate. She was a joy to interview and I posted her profile on one of my blogs and the testimonials and positive comments rolled in. And by rolled in I mean they kept coming…and coming…and coming. After a while it occurred to me they were all basically saying the same thing. I looked a little deeper and saw they all came from the same IP. I dug even further and realized all the letters sent to me about this great person were sent by that same IP as well. I had been had.
When I decided to pull the interview the self promoting diva confronted me. How could I do that? Look at all the nice things people were saying about her. Was there a problem? I told her of my findings and that I felt kind of stupid. She got angry and told me it was my own fault. I’m always telling bloggers to get involved in a little “shameless self promotion.” She was only taking my advice. Well yes, I do say that. But there’s a big difference between promoting a blog or a product and spam.
To promote my blog I have contests and polls, I put my URL in signature lines in comments and forum post, and I might even Tweet out a title now and then. Do I send email upon email to a high profile blogger asking her to check me out while pretending not to be me? No. That’s not shameless self promotion, that’s deceit and spam and it’s not what I mean at all.
People in the blogosphere are kind. They’re always willing to help out other bloggers. They don’t take too kindly to others trying to pull the wool over their eyes. When you promote do so in a way that’s not going to annoy or upset your fellow bloggers. You’ll find your traffic may happen slower, but you have a good honest fan base. Besides I’d much rather know people came to my blog because they liked what I had to say and not because of a bunch of false testimonials.
Some Basic Rules for Running A Blog Contest
Blog contests can bring in some good traffic, but you need to run them correctly, or they can be a total pain. I’ve run countless blog contests, some more successful than others. When I first started holding contests at my blogs I made some pretty dumb mistakes. The good news is that I can tell give you some tips about what you should and shouldn’t do if you decide to hold a blog contest.
Make the rules simple. SIMPLE. I just had a blog contest at one blog. We had 215 or so entries. At least 80 of those entries were disqualified because the people didn’t follow the very basic rules. And believe me, they were really simple. If you get too tricky with your rules, you’ll end up with about five decent entries.
Make readers work a little. While I don’t think you should make things too tricky, it can be hard work to snap up cool prizes for contests, so I’m not normally a fan of having readers simply “leave a comment” to win. If I don’t have a good simple plan, I’ll use an old standby, like, “Visit our prize sponsors website, and tell me an item you like.” NOTE: This is way too tricky for some people, but seriously now, if they can’t read and follow something this easy, well, maybe they don’t really want to win.
You don’t have to pay shipping. I always ask sponsors if they’ll send prizes to my readers, vs. the sponsor sending me a prize then me having to pay shipping to send one or more prizes off. I’ve never had a sponsor refuse. If you have a prize yourself to send, and work for a network, you can always ask if they’ll pay shipping. One network I work for will do this.
Always ask your sponsors where they’ll ship to. I used to forget this little step (back in newbie days), and I could have gotten into a lot of trouble. I didn’t, but that’s just luck. If you don’t ask, you won’t know to note something akin to, “Sorry folks, but this contest is only open to U.S. residents.” Then when someone from Australia wins, and the sponsor has to pay loads of shipping they didn’t count on, that’s trouble. If you’re paying shipping yourself, make a decision about where you can afford to ship as well.
ALWAYS have a notification disclaimer. Note somewhere in your post, “I will draw winners names on June 5th. I will email the winners for their addresses. If you don’t email me back in 5 days, I’ll draw a new winner.” If you don’t put a disclaimer in, you may wait, and wait, and then most likely wait some more. This means you’re tied up with a contest that should have been over ages ago. Also, contest sponsors expect a somewhat timely response. It’s not cool to make them or the winners who respond wait.
Send a quick thank you to your sponsors. Nothing fancy, but it’s nice, and it keeps you in their head should they feel like offering another prize at some point. I always send off a quick email thank you, along with links to any posts I did about their product / company. Often times this works in your favor too, because a company will add you to their press page, giving you an instant link.
There are many more ways to make a contest a success, but these tips above can help you avoid a lot of the obnoxious stuff that tends to come along with a contest.
Also check out: Where To Get Blog Contest Prizes
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?
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.
Twitter - Not Quitting Anytime Soon
This week I’ve been talking about time wasters. So far I’ve covered personal time wasters, email time savers, and my editorial calender.
Today Twitter.
This post will be real short. Twitter does waste some of my time. Some tweets on twitter are totally useless. Will this be a time waster I cut?
No.
Twitter sends a fair amount of blog traffic my way. Also I stay current on many of the blogs I enjoy via Twitter, which translates into less time spent clicking around, visiting my favorite blogs to see what’s new. Overall it’s a positive service with some time wasting qualities, but it gives enough back so that I feel it’s justified.
What do you think of your Twitter time?
So, How Come You Don’t Respond To Comments?
I’m dead serious.
If you work for a network, any network, where say team work is sort of encouraged by networks heads and editors, yet you refuse to respond when readers leave you comments, I’m just curious why. I’m not talking the random no response. I’ve done that. I’m talking about when I’ve left at least 10 comments at your blog in the span of a year, and you’ve never, not once responded back.
I have some ideas.
- Your page views are good no matter if you respond to readers or not, so why bother.
- I’m not leaving the right sort of comment.
- You’re too busy.
- You do respond to readers, just not readers who also blog for your network.
- Your editor never set it up so you get emails - you’re not ignoring me, you just don’t know about me.
Basically I’m curious because there are a couple of network blogs I like a lot. I’ll read, comment, nothing, and yet still return. Which one, I’m done with, because it’s getting old, and two this goes against everything I’ve ever heard about traffic. I.e you should respond back to readers.
I guess I’ve always thought responding is a good plan. I’ve never heard an argument against responding to reader comments. If you happen to be a network blogger who never responds I really am curious about how come (not in a mad way, in a very real curious way).
Maybe you can offer some ideas about this in the comments.
Should You Take Advantage of A Media Circus?
I hate when bloggers jump on every single media circus that comes along. It may be smart SEO but to me it looks spammy and needy.
What’s ironic is I posted the words “Hannah Montana” in a post yesterday. However, I had written the post on the weekend and had no clue about the whole Vanity Fair vs. Miley circus that was about to break, honestly, she was the only teen star I could think of when I wrote the post on Saturday. But the whole day I felt like a sell-out.
I work for some clients who urge me to jump on each and every media circus that breaks but I usually don’t. It’s one thing I just don’t do as a blogger. This is partly due to my total non-interest in celebrity events, and most of these media circuses seem to involve celebrities, but more importantly, it has to do with the fact that the topics I blog simply don’t relate. I could make them relate - I’ve done it before, it’s not hard; but again, I think it looks kind of lame.
I expect that if you cover certain kid topics, celebrity topics, or scandal topics that I’d see the whole Miley issue on your blog yesterday. Perhaps several times yesterday, but come on, if you blog about cars or house building, how weird is it going to look to write about this topic? Even if you find a killer slant, it’s going to look completely obvious.
To me, clients pushing hot topics daily is a reasonable request, I get the whole page view issue. If it really relates, sure I’ll post about it, but overall, to me, this is one of the major downsides of problogging. It’s also likely what makes me a less decent employee than some other bloggers, but I guess I’d rather post about the topic I was hired to blog about.
What do you think? Or rather what do you do? Do you jump on each and every media circus that comes to town, or skip it if it doesn’t relate?
Oh, btw, if you’re interested in jumping on events and would like to attempt to make it somewhat less obvious read this post at Performacing - it’s a decent take on this issue.
Balancing Post Count
Reader comment / question:
“It annoys me when a blog has 15 or 20 posts a day. To me, it feels like the friend who forwards 15 chain emails a day and also sends 2 or 3 personal emails… I won’t name names, but I subscribe to a couple of blogs that do this. When I get too far behind in reading the posts in my reader, the first thing I do is go to those blogs and mark all their posts as read without reading them. I also tend to skim their posts more often than other blogs because more often than not there is only one or two good quality posts a day from those blogs and a whole lot of stuff that is uninteresting. The blogs I am thinking of all have many co-bloggers and appear to be network blogs.
Do you think there is a point where a blog posts too much in one day? If so, do you think this is usually a function of having too many co-bloggers? Of not exerting enough editorial control? Of…?”
What I think:
First this is a really good question, but I wonder why you’d have blogs in your feed that offer “a whole lot of stuff that is uninteresting” - that sounds dull. I’d delete blogs like that. Not knowing the background of the blogs I can’t say why they offer dull content. It could be too many bloggers, or bloggers who don’t know the topic well, or it could be any number of things. Their editor may be telling them what to write, or the bloggers hate their topic so they write garbage just to get posts out of the way. One way to know for sure is to ask - most blogs have contact pages. Jot off a quick email that says, you’d like to keep them in your feed but…
I don’t think a blog’s interest factor has to do with post count, because every post has the potential to be interesting. For example, The Blog Herald and Performacing both sometimes post often in one day, and I find the posts interesting enough to read; or I at least skim them all. There are other blogs that post much more than these two, like many celebrity blogs - for the people who like celebrity blogs, a lot of posts are a bonus. For someone like me, it would be torture to have them in my feed.
I think it’s more what the bloggers bring to the blog then the actual number of posts. They bring lots o’ junk, well, you end up with a junky blog. If they bring seven or two nicely done posts a day, you still end up with a nice useful blog either way.
Post count in general:
There’s a downside to too few posts. I’m currently working for a network that wants one post a day at each of their blogs, and in some cases less. I’ll be shocked if this blog network grows at even a normal pace. With one exception, I’ve never seen a blog grow well on less than two posts a day.
While I don’t think the number of posts alone can ruin a blog, I do think there is one potential downside to too many posts. Once you get past six posts a day, it’s hard to follow a blog. If a blog is hard to follow, it seems unlikely that you’ll connect with your readers. I like when I can easily keep up with a blog. For me personally that’s about five posts tops.
Post count is variable though. You have to find the perfect balance for each blog you write. Most blogs I write for seem to have a traffic cut-off, as in traffic stalls once you get past a certain number of posts a day. That number, in my experience is four or five posts per day. If you consistently receive the same amount of traffic when you write four posts or seven posts, then why write seven unless you have something magnificent to say? You can save it for tomorrow.
Good post content - no matter the post count:
I think that as long as you follow the “So what” rule that I wrote about at FWJ, then you’ll be fine. Some bloggers really can write endlessly and interestingly about a topic, some can’t. But that’s dependent on the blog’s topic, and the blogger’s knowledge base. If you’re only churning out mindless posts for the sake of a higher post count, and not because you actually have something to say, you’re not going to keep a good reader base for long. People do want to read something interesting at your blog.
I think we should open this question up though. Maybe a blog does look way worse to folks if there are too many posts.
What do you think everyone? “Do you think there is a point where a blog posts too much in one day?” If so, why do you think this is?
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