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What Is Content that Keeps Readers?

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Everybody talks about content, but nobody actually defines it.

What is content and how can content keep readers?

Content is more than ideas, more than words and pictures on the screen, more than links to articles and data. Content is everything we communicate to our readers. Content is . . .

  • Information Quality content is both fact and analysis. It offers meat and potatoes that anyone can find together with something original–analysis, predictions, interpretation–that comes only from the writer. Everything is relevant. There’s no time waster anywhere. The writer’s decisions are the “value-added”–the secret recipe. If we have the best recipe, readers will keep coming back to us.
  • Presentation Quality content is top-notch presentation. Simple is elegant. The best information is lost, if nobody reads it. Too many long sentences; too many bullets; too many links interrupting the text–these get between the reader and the ideas. If it looks hard to read, it is. Like a great wine in a crystal glass, great presentation makes great content inviting.
  • YOU We saw from our interviews last week, how readers respond to the intangibles Indie brings to his blog. Our presence, our voice, our respect for our readers, they are the nuance, the one-of-a-kind sauce on the expensive meal. Too peppery, too sweet, too salty, too bland, and readers will think this dish isn’t worth having again. On the other hand, get the right balance and they’ll be back every night.

When a blogger provides top-notch content with something extra, readers can see it. They appreciate the writer, and they enjoy the experience. Readers notice that “value-added” difference. They’ll be back to see whether we can do it again.

And that’s when consistency is the operative word. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
SEO–Five Traits of Relevant Content
Turning Reluctant Readers into Loyal Fans
Audience is Your Destination

Building Readership: Community Participation

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Guest Writer: Hanni Ross

As recently discussed, community participation is a great way of building traffic to your weblog. Scrivs mentioned commenting on other weblogs as a way of getting your voice out there, and another post offers a great list of starting tips on building traffic. The key message from those two articles is community participation. The more you give to the community the more you can expect to get back. You might wonder where to start, well, that’s where we come in.

Say you’ve just written an article that you’re particularly proud of, how do you get it out there?

  • If you were inspired by another blog post then send a trackback/pingback (for a good explanation of trackback see here). This not only makes the original author aware of your post it also generates a link to your post on their site. Like-minded readers will therefore discover your post and who knows, they might feel the need to write a response or even to link to it from their own weblog.
  • Email the article to a few of your friends and cohorts. They might like it and also feel moved to write a response or to link to it. You have to be very careful on this one though, you can easily lose credit by appearing to “spam” your peers with your work.
  • Participate fully in any discussion that might happen in the
    comment section. Show your readers that you value their input and make your site a nice place to visit.

More generally, how can you gain community-wide recognition?

  • Say, for example, your weblog is primarily about cats. If you happen to frequent any cat forums on the web add your weblog’s URL into the signature. Similarly, if you are a member of any
    relevant mailing lists then it couldn’t hurt to add your URL to your signature.
  • Again participation in any resources on your weblog’s topic can only do you good. Get your name out there as someone who knows what they’re talking about. Think carefully before you write on any discussion boards or mailing lists – anything you write in a moment of madness might come back to haunt you…
  • If you do happen to write a column or just occasional articles for other websites then ensure to include your URL in your author bio. If you have built up a reputation elsewhere then there’s no reason why you can’t use it to show people that you’re channelling your efforts into a weblog too.
  • If you have expertise then share it. If you have a gardening background for example and therefore know more about caring for house plants than most then share your tips. Make yourself an indispensable resource.
  • Hunt around for any relevant directory sites and ensure that you’re included, that way people coming to your site are more likely to be those who will stick around as they are interested in your
    subject matter.

It’s important to communicate your energy, enthusiasm and ideas to others to make yourself known. Good luck!

We’re building up a catalog of tips here at Successful Blog, if you have any you’d like to share then don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments.

Tips: Writing Clearly

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Guest Writer: Hanni Ross

Recently I’ve been thinking about how important it is to be able to get your point across well. I’m not particularly good at this myself so have been doing some research.
In my research I stumbled across a powerpoint presentation entitled “How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily“.

You might be wondering what this has to do with Successful Blogs, but I think that it’s important that you take writing for your blog as seriously as you would take writing a newspaper article or even a book perhaps. It’s important to have a reliable method and to be organised with both the planning and writing of the article and in conveying the message you would like to get across.
The presentation touches on the writing process itself and breaks it down into five steps:

  1. Planning (deciding what & how to write)
  2. Drafting (getting it on paper once)
  3. Revising (getting it on paper better)
  4. Editing (fixing spelling, grammar, typing)
  5. Formatting (choosing typefaces, layout, etc.)

You probably spend a lot of time considering your entries anyway, but perhaps it’s worth putting in just that extra minute or scrutinising your writing process just that bit more to see how you can improve.

If you have a good writing process then you’ll produce good work; you’ll start to develop a style which you’re readers will recognize and feel reassured by.

Further than that, take a closer look at the article itself, are you Writing to be Understood?

Audience is Your Destination

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An airplane traveling from New York to Chicago is off course 98% of the time. Still it gets there. Why? The pilot is always adjusting with his destination in mind.

The audience is your destination. If you’re writing for yourself, you’ll head in a different direction than if you’re writing for people learning what you already know. It may sound obvious, but it’s still worth stating–if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to get there.

Too often bloggers don’t think through who their readers will be. As a result their blogs are all over the place. Ever loved a blog one day and didn’t know why you went there the next? That’s a blogger who hasn’t picked an audience.

Have you really thought through who your audience is? Here are some questions to help you do that. Take a shot at answering them all in one sentence.

  • Who am I writing for?
  • How are they like me and how are they not?
  • Why do they read blogs like mine?

Write down your audience profile. Revisit it every now and then. Adjust it as your readership grows and you get to know them better. Use it to guide what you choose to write about.

Now that you’ve got a clear destination. Other decisions get a whole lot easier. In my next post we’ll put this theory in practice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Questions about Burnout and Writer’s Block

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From: D. Keith Robinson

Teja asks:

Do ever feel like you are ever burned out? Or do your own tips on beating writer’s block help beat that?

I actually feel burnt out quite often. One of the reasons why I’ve posted on the subject is because I think I’ve come up with some pretty good ways to combat burnout. As you know I’ve got lots going on and I’m a fairly creative person. Burnout is something that is inevitable and unavoidable. There really is no getting around it.

Another quick tip on burnout: Writing about it, blogging my tips and tricks and all that, is actually really therapeutic as well. When I get an e-mail from someone letting me know I’ve helped them with burnout, it actually refreshes me as well. Strange huh?

As far as writers block goes. Those tips do help with burnout, and sometimes it takes just one good post or completion of one task to get over it. All the tips I posted I’ve used and they all work. In fact, I actually use many of those techniques on a regular basis. They’re not just for getting past writers block.

Thanks for the questions!

Related articles:
Writing–Ugh! 10 Reasons to Get Jazzed about Writing
Why Dave Barry and Liz Don’t Get Writer’s Block
How to Beat Writer’s Block
10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger
Audience Is Your Destination

How Often Should You Post?

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From: D. Keith Robinson

Knowing (or trying to figure out) how often to post to your blog is one of the most common questions many bloggers have. It’s a hard question to answer and it really depends on the kind of blog you’re writing and who your audience is. There are as many answers to the question as there are bloggers out there.

Basically what you need to do is figure out what works best for your own situation. And there are lots of factors that go into finding that optimum frequency of posting. I’m afraid I don’t have a “one-size fits all” answer for you, but I’d like to discuss some of the options and the pros and cons of those options. As well, I’d love to get your take on this age-old blogging question.

Post as much as you can! A common response.

In general I think most feel that the more you can post—the better. And, in general, I agree with that notion. But it really depends on the kind of blog you’re writing. For example, if you’re a link or news blogger, you might want to post several times a day at least. During my stint as guest editor for Lifehacker we had a posting quota of 12 posts a day!

Needless to say we didn’t make it everyday. But then again, I’m not that kind of blogger. My posts tend to be more like articles and so I feel that more than one a day is usually overkill. But again, it’s dependent on the blog, the audience and your own writing style.

If you’;re like me, and post more original content, and you’re able to come up with something good to talk about for you blog every day than good on you! Post away. However, I’ve found this to be very challenging for the kind of blogs I write for. In fact my goal is 2-4 posts a week and I usually don’t make that. Then again, I’ve got a few sites and together I average about a post a day.

One could easily argue I’m spreading myself too thin when it comes to posting frequency. But then again, there is the opposite argument.

Infrequent posting and success

I realize this stuff also depends on your definition of success, but I know many bloggers who’ve found success by posting as infrequently as twice a month. No joke. The theory here is that you’re posts are of a higher quality and when you do take the time to say something, you really mean it.

You can have success, again depending on what kind of blog you run, with infrequent posting, but it’s a rare situation.

A recommendation and a caveat

My recommendation for most bloggers trying to build and keep and audience is to try and post at least three times a week. However, this should be a goal and not a requirement. Again, there are exceptions. I run a product/recommendation blog and it might seem that my goal there should be to post several times a day. I’m no where near that. In fact I’ve not posted there in quite awhile. But then again, my goals for that site aren’t what you’d normally expect for that kind of blog.

As well, there are times of year, holidays and summer, where I find my posting naturally slows down. This usually doesn’t seem to have a large effect on my success. In the summer months I tend to have less time and less energy, so I post less. But my audience seems to read less as well. I notice a dip in traffic across all my sites that doesn’t appear to have anything to do with how often I post.

Consistency is more important

I think what’s more important is that you post on a semi-regular basis. One thing I recommend to new bloggers is they start with a weekly wrap-up of their chosen topic. This gives them something to post about every week, and something their readers can come to expect. Over at Asterisk I started a weekly music post. I’ve been doing that for over two years now, with only a few breaks, and it’s something that helped draw people to my site early on.

Do what works for you

There is no absolute formula for how often you should post. I’m of the opinion that quality content is more important and if you can write well and write often, you should. If not, don’t let the stress of getting something out overwhelm you. Experiment, talk to your readers and try to find a frequency that you can work with and that will meet your goals.

If you falter, don’t worry too much, just get back to writing and do your best. It is possible to bring a dead blog back to life and sometimes you’ll need to choose between blogging and something more important.

Related articles:
Audience is Your Destination
Blogging and Perseverance
10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger