This is Day 6 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 60+ of us bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers. You can read an overview here.
Today is a massive dose of medicine that should really taken over time, well that is what I thought when I looked over the list of posts that Darren mentioned. The internet is full of such articles; so it is great that we have a list filtered by someone trustworthy and influential. I have read many of these and seen a few video; recently that of Chris Brogan‘s Kitchen talks and those of Daren Rowse. The points that have stood out or me:
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- It Takes Time
It is easy to say that when you have been blogging for a few years and your blog is successful, but it is true. Even Darren says something like two years.
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- It Takes Effort
Not Luck, Chris Brogan says that. You can see that he advocates hard work. It you want to get a better blog then you gotta make some sacrifices like waking up early and not watching that lame movie.
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- It Takes Thought
There is a purpose to everything; whether you like it or not. You want lot of page hits, lots of comments, an Alexa rank of under 100k, all you family to keep visiting your blog. Whatever it is there is strategy needed to obtain those goals. I read a great book by Donald Miller called a Million Miles in a Thousand Years; what story do you want to tell about your blog.
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- It Takes Help
Seth Godin‘s post on first, ten is great. There is so much power in collaboration. He says that you need to try first with ten people then move on. However, I think that it does not matter where you are in your blog, get ten people now and stage a drive – it will put a little bit of extra momentum into you endeavors. This is something I have been trying to get right for a while, it has not worked because I have not had the right people, close by, with the same interests and intentions as me, but now with all of use here on the same project looking for the same outcome, hmm I think that this is an opportunity for us all.
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- SEO, etc
One set of principles and technical aspects I have always had in the back of my mind is that of SEO. I am sure that a better understanding of the principles involved would be good – not just using plug-ins like the All in one SEO pack. There are so many articles, long articles, on the subject. I am sure that delving into them will help you achieve your blog objectives. Refer to the point about “It Takes Time”, lol.
Discussion
- What are your thoughts on the 5 points above?
- What tips have proven to be most effective in developing and improving your own blog?
- What tips stand out as things you want to implement or get better at?
- Did you find any other articles not listed that could/should be considered?
The Extra Mile
A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further today…
- Reply & give other bloggers feedback on the little things they do.
- When other bloggers include a link to a new article they’ve posted today, click, read, and comment on it.
- Check previous posts in the series for new comments.
- Tweet, share, & bookmark this post.
Phillip Gibb; I am a Christian, a husband to a beautiful wife and father of two stunning children. It is my dream to make a Film one day and to Glorify God on my journey there. I blog at SynapticLight and twitter at phillipgibb.
102 Comments
Just to add to my own answers: I found this interesting dynamic list of articles : Biggest List of Traffic Generation Tips
The link didn't work. Probably an IntenseDebate issue. Here's the link… http://www.fmsseo.com/2225/biggest-list-traffic-g…
Another 20+ articles of blogging tips. Great, just what we need. 😉
thanks 🙂
Thanks for the link Philip to our article.
On your point number 5. I think plugins and tools that make SEO accessible to blog and website owners are great but I think it is extremely important to understand why you would use such a tool / plugin and what the best configuration settings are etc. I've worked on quite a few websites and blogs where the site owners had all these great tools but have had them configured incorrectly, worst case being a site owner who had all of his pages set to no index no follow. Learning SEO does take time but it is time well spent. 🙂
Regards,
Karl
pleasure 🙂
I downloaded a few pdfs that I still need to go through, it will take time. It is also a balance of how fanatical and how natural you want to be. But I think that some good 'fanatical' short term; well spend, effort will make it easy to be natural – because once you SEO is correct it will work for itself. Ideally. No that I speak from experience.
I agree with many of your comments. Blogging is more than just being "about me." We have to make a point to serve our readers. Blogs that do well are those that serve well, that meet a need.
I talk about servanthood in my blog today: http://junctionforjesus.blogspot.com/2010/05/what…
Wow.
Point One – Check
Point Two – Acknowleged
Point Three – Really?
Point Four – I didn't know I signed up for a pyramid scheme when I started blogging!
Point Five – I didn't even know what SEO was until I googled searched it! How do you do it?
Anyway, another post in the series "The Best Safety Device is a Careful Man" encouraging husbands to Christlikeness in relationship to their wives:
A safe man is careful with: His eyes! (cont'd)
"I have been terrified by the idea that what I lay my eyes on comes through them, like a window, and has the potential to sear my soul."
http://preparation4eternity.blogspot.com/2010/05/…
I haven't googled SEO yet so you are ahead of me! : )
social networking is the pyramid scheme in full effect 😉
Phillip, thanks for writing today’s 31DBBB post. Excellent job! “Massive” is probably an understatement. We could probably talk for a week about the tips in any one of the 27 articles referenced in today’s lesson. Everyone ready to drink from the fire hose?
Of all the tips in all the articles, I think you’ve picked out 5 gems. Great bloggers write exceptional articles and do it consistently. To do that, you have to make the effort to set aside time to think and write. These guys don’t wake up in the morning and blog if they can find the time. They don’t wake up in the morning and wing it, writing whatever’s on their mind.
I’m still working through all the articles in this lesson, so I’ll be back with the tips I’ve found to be most important in developing this blog as well as tips I’d like to work on to improve it further.
I love the firehose illustration, perfect.
I think one needs to work thru the articles on a week by week basis, maybe finding a few aspects and working on them otherwise the water with knock you off your feet.
So much info
There is so much information to read just from the links given in Day 6. It is going to take me awhile to go through each them. However, I am finding lots of ideas and seeds for posts in each of my readings.
Scheduling the time is a battle for me. Still trying working out a schedule that works.
I started reading these over the weekend. I was overwhelmed by all the information, but thankful to have it all in one place. I started a list of things that were either red flags for me about what I'm doing right now and a list of things that I can do in the future. I was encouraged by a lot of what I've read- much of this stuff has come from trial and error over the past couple of years of blogging.
I appreciated William Dicks' Google Bookmark list. Thanks.
My new blog for today is: What difference will North Point’s Video, “Sunday’s Coming” really make?http://bit.ly/9sp0hT
Great post…sorry for the lengthy comment on your blog…haha..I guess I'll have to revisit this topic.
Thanks for leaving the message. Let me know when you post more on this topic!
You are welcome Chad!
My brain feels officially fried after going through all those list and I now think my blog sucks and I should probably stop writing altogether! 🙂
Fortunately I wrote today's post before reading "Can't Never Accomplished Anything":http://www.nolanbobbitt.com/welcome_to_nolans_wor…
Great post, just read it and commented. We all go through these struggles. I think there are some awesome people here that are willing to lift each other up. Probably one of the best groups I have worked with.
I agree. This group feels very inviting, plus no one has tried to sell me anything. Maybe that comes next week? 🙂
I'm going over to read the post in a few. Just wanted to encourage you. I have enjoyed reading you posts the past week. You have a good perspective to write from.
Way behind today. Still trying to get caught up from last week, should be all done in about 90 minutes. I haven't given up, just running late. a lot like the white rabbit. Thanks for all the comments everyone has left on my blog so far.
Peace,
B
It took me awhile to catch up today as well!! Hello Monday! 🙂
Keep it up, you can do it!
I really appreciate the boilerplate blog post for this lesson. I just looked at the list of links and was so overwhelmed I shut down and watched the Tudors this weekend. But I suppose that's also a really good illustration of being persistent and taking the time to do the work. At the same time though, I think it's really hard, even for a dedicated reader to go through a list that's longer than 10-15 points unless it's 25 really short one liners.
yeah, a bit much indeed. I am not sure if blogging tips/tutorials/how-tos are just stock posts of some people to get a boost in their traffic.
I agree. I think this is one to bookmark and read over the course of several days. It's a catalog of articles rather than, for instance, a list post.
Probably over the course of years in my case.
I've read a lot of these links before and to be honest I'll likely read them again down the line and still not have it all sink in.
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All of the points listed is great advice.
I am finding that the essence of 'community' is probably the strongest of all these.
With others that have the same goals you are able to encourage others and in the process receive a lot of encouragement yourself.
This past week I learned so much, I thought I knew a lot about blogging, but I realized like a teenager at his first week at bootcamp, I ain't seen nothing yet.
http://ragamuffinray.blogspot.com/2010/05/bloggin…
yeah, and community starts with relationship.
however, we try to fabricate community without relationship – which is evident when people do not keep contributing or returning.
I, personally, do not know how to make community happen. One think I do know, is that people can smell desperation; and get 'turned off' from forming any form of relationship. Just like the teenager the keeps getting turned down all the time because he tries too hard or the girl who can't get a date because she is too needy.