PureBlogging

If you are starting a new blog or trying to build an existing one, it is essential to know what you must do in order to succeed. Having a plan that includes building skills and working on the most important aspects of your blog will drastically increase you chances of achieving your goals.

From the time that I have spent developing my own blog and reading a few hundred others, these are the 9 factors that I see as being critical to success. Sure, without 1 or 2 of them you can still have an effective, popular blog. However, we should all be making an effort to improve in every one of these areas if we want to reach our potential.

1. Quality of Content.

Certainly the number 1 factor in determining long-term blogging success is the ability to create quality blog posts. As the number of blogs on the internet increases every day, quality content will only become more important in order to separate yourself from the pack.

Content is what keeps readers coming back for more. Quality content is also unique. If readers can get the same information in any number of other places, they will have no real reason to subscribe to you. On the other hand, if they can’t get the information anywhere else, they’ll have to get it from you.

2. Consistency of Content.

While quality is extremely important, consistency should not be overlooked either. This doesn’t mean that you need to post every day or on a specific schedule that you can never change. It does mean that you should avoid long periods of time with no new content. In this situation any momentum that you have built will be lost and you’ll have to re-do things once you start up again. Look at any of the top blogs in your niche. I’m sure they all publish new content regularly.

3. Community.

Blogs, more so than traditional websites, are very community oriented. Effective bloggers are able to build a strong relationship with their readers, which of course results in more loyalty from the readers, as well as more participation. Strong communities exist around successful blogs. Building a strong community can take a lot of effort. The blogger needs to be receptive to readers, respond to comments, help readers whenever possible, and generally show readers that they are truly appreciated and valued.

4. Network.

Part of building a blog is meeting other bloggers and developing relationships with them. It’s very difficult to grow a blog without also building a strong network. Your network can help you in almost anything you decide to do as a blogger. Other bloggers are some of the most valuable people you can know because they have the ability and opportunity to help you in a number of different ways. Of equal importance is the fact that you also have a lot to offer to others, and you have the ability to help them as well.

If you’re looking to get started building your network, there are any number of ways to get started. Personally, I have found writing guest posts for others to be one of the most effective ways to get to know other bloggers. Also, be sure to leave intelligent comments on other blogs, link out to others, and take advantage of social media.

5. Exposure.

Yes, in order to grow your blog other people will have to find you. Getting your name and links to your blog in front of potential readers is always important, regardless of what stage you are at in your blogging. Finding new readers is crucial if you hope to keep growing.

Fortunately, there are a number of different ways to get exposure. You could write some guest posts, promote your blog with social media, build inbound links, participate at forums, advertise, leave comments on other blogs, etc.

6. Name Recognition.

All of the most successful blogs have become recognizable to those in their niche. Once your name is easily recognized and associated with being a leader in your field, growing your blog and gaining loyal readers will be much easier.

Building a strong name and branding your blog is difficult and takes a lot of effort. You’ll need to work on some other things that we’ve already looked at, such as quality of content and exposure. If you can provide readers with the best content that they can find, and if you can get that content in front of your target audience, you will be on your way to building your name recognition.

7. Design.

Almost all of the top blogs have a unique design as opposed to using a free theme. The question then becomes did they achieve success as a result of having a nice design, or were they able to afford the design because they were first successful? But at the same time, does this question really matter? Ultimately you will need to have an attractive, unique look in order to be recognized as one of the leaders. Whether you get a unique design from the start or whether you wait to start making some money before you pay for the design may not make a huge difference. For WordPress users premium themes that may be used by a handful of other blogs, but not by thousands, can be an affordable option. Prices for premium themes usually range from $50 to $100, which can be much less than a custom design.

8. Focus.

In order to build a large and loyal audience, you blog will have to be focused on a particular subject or topic. A lack of focus can result in losing subscribers as well as unresponsive readers. People subscribe to a blog because they like what is being provided and they want to get more of the same. Although you have freedom to explore a variety of aspects of your topic, try not to stray off-topic.

9. Persistence.

All bloggers will at times become frustrated and discouraged. Building a successful blog takes time and a lot of work. That’s why such a high percentage of bloggers give up after a short period of time. To be successful you will at some point have to keep going when you really feel like quitting.

What other factors do you see as being critical to the success of a blog?

Popularity: 24% [?]

I’ve been a member of a number of social networking sites for quite a while. I’ve been Digging, Stumbling, Sphinning, and Bookmarking just like everybody else. However, unlike some of you, I’ve not been extremely active within any of these social communities. Sure, I visit a few of them several times a week, but I hardly ever take the time to network or submit interesting articles that I run across when browsing or going through my feed reader.

I plan to change all that and take a more active role in at least a few of these communities. Social media has changed the way people interact and communicate and I think it’s about time I got involved.

Here are links to my profiles on several of the more popular sites. If you take the time to add me as a friend, I will certainly reciprocate.

• BlogCatalog
• BloggingZoom
• del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook (I forgot I even joined here and fail to see any value what so ever.)
• Mixx (Just joined.)
• MyBlogLog
• Sphinn
• StumbleUpon
• Twitter (Still don’t really get the fascination but I’m trying…)

If you know of others that I should be checking out feel free to mention them here. Also, feel free to post your contacts and profiles below in the comment section, so that other readers will be able to add you as a friend as well.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Welcome to this week’s edition of Weekend Links! Every Friday, I reward the active members of this community by featuring an interesting post from the top commentators.

If you would like to see your post featured here, just join the conversation by commenting regularly and next week you just may make the list.

Comments were really down this week… something about it being Christmas or something. Who knew. Anyway, here’s this week’s list:

• Jamaipanese reviews Entrecard, a great blog promotion Tool.
• Michael Martine lists 6 ways to improve your blog over the holidays.
• Steven Snell provides a few networking tips for bloggers.
• Ruchir urges you to set your goals for 2008.
• Sharon Hurley Hall gives the details on ghost blogging.
• Roberta reports on the continuing troubles of Amy Winehouse. That’s one scary woman… Amy Winehouse that is… not Roberta.
• Blogging Tools shows you how to get the scoop on your blog.
• Darin Carter shows you how to perform a yearly search marketing cleanup.
• David Bradley explains how NOT to poison your dog this Christmas.
• Steven Finch lists his predictions for 2008.

It’s an exciting time around here. With the new team of writers there is new content being posted multiple times a day and the quality of that content has been outstanding. I’m very happy with the results so far. Which reminds me… I haven’t formally introduced the team to everyone yet. I’ll have to take care of that this weekend.

There are also a few new developments on the way… Stick around, I think 2008 is going to be a big year!

Congratulations everyone, you’ve been stumbled… Have a great weekend!

Popularity: 15% [?]

A while back, a client of mine complained that the copy I wrote had too many dangling prepositions, which is a fancy way of saying I had ended sentences with prepositions — something all of our fifth grade language arts teachers told us not to do.

And I admit it: Like feet into eel-infested waters, I dangled those prepositions. I did it because I was writing in a style that would put the reader at ease — in a way that’s informative and conversational at the same time. It’s a style you’re all familiar with, because it’s the style almost every capable writer on the Internet embraces. And if we all put listening to our fifth grade language arts teachers above creating cogent, readable copy, this blog — and many like it — would look a heck of a lot different. And it’d be a heck of a lot less fun to read. So when it comes to dangling prepositions, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

(See what I just did there?)

But alas: There are many writers on the Internet who never seemed to learn any of the most basic spelling and grammar rules — the ones that make their writing look cheap and amateurish. I’m frequently called upon to clean up copy on Web sites written by business owners who know more about pharmaceutical compounding or mold remediation than writing, and I’ve seen some real doozies, penned by people who think that if they avoid using contractions, we’ll all forget the ten run-on sentences they just wrote. But the mistakes don’t stop there — plenty of bloggers and copywriters make the same mistakes, over and over. Here are four of the more glaring mistakes I’ve seen repeated:

Spelling definitely with an A. For reasons I can’t understand, this one seems specific to the Internet; I’m sure some enterprising student could write a Master’s thesis in communications on how the Internet has affected the way we write, and the answer would be contained therein; for now, it’s easiest for copywriters to remember that the word definitely is not spelled defanitely or definately. Leave the letter A at the beginning of the alphabet, where it belongs, and remember that the word definitely contains the word finite.

Using an apostrophe to form plurals. The plural of house is houses. The plural of movie is movies. The plural of dangling preposition is dangling prepositions. And so it goes.

Really, the only time you’ll use an apostrophe in a plural is when that plural is also a possessive, and with possessives you’ll be using the apostrophe anyway. For instance: The sentence A surgeon’s hands are his most precious tools would turn into Surgeons’ hands are their most precious tools when pluralized. Unless there’s ownership going on, leave the apostrophe next to the semicolon key where it belongs.

Using passive voice. This is a little tricky, because a lot of people think the phrase “passive voice” describes the general tone of a piece of writing, when it actually refers to a very specific syntactic situation. Passive voice does NOT simply describe a piece of writing that doesn’t jump off the page, or that doesn’t make you want to buy the product or service it’s advertising — though if you use passive voice too much, these things may very well happen to your writing. I’ll explain.

Passive voice is the opposite of active voice — and active voice is something you want plenty of in your writing. A sentence uses active voice when its subject is doing the action:

Kevin wrote this blog post.

In that sentence, Kevin is the subject, and he’s performing the action of writing. In that sentence, I’ve used active voice. Try to avoid burying nouns that perform action in prepositional phrases at the ends of sentences, like:

This blog post was written by Kevin.

In that sentence, I’ve used the passive voice to demonstrate how much less direct and bold it is than the active voice. Passive voice has its uses, to be sure, but when you’re writing copy that’s meant to be assertive and confident, active voice is the right tool for the job.

Not paying heed to the classics. When I was teaching freshman comp, my students used to make fun of me for carrying a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style in my bag at all times. In response, I made fun of them for listening to stupid music and having silly emo hairstyles. But I found that the students who bought Strunk and White’s invaluable little book always wrote better essays.

The Elements of Style is, without exaggeration, the best writing resource I have ever used. Its writers (one of whom wrote Charlotte’s Web) address nearly every issue of grammar, style and usage you might come across as a writer. I don’t think I’ve ever had a question about writing that wasn’t answered by William Strunk and E.B. White. At less than ten bucks just about anywhere you buy it, it’s an absolute steal.

So remember these tips, and read sites like Copyblogger, which feature all sorts of valuable information about good grammar and usage. Someday it may even save you a heated discussion with a client.

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There are two basic ways that you can break into blogging. You can go the DIY route and set up your own blog. Or you can get hired to blog for someone else, usually as part of a blog network. Like with anything else in business, there are pros and cons to both approaches. Which ends up being right for you ultimately has to do with your goals as a blogger.

Pros of Blogging for Yourself:

o You make all of the decisions. There is a lot of creative freedom when you don’t have to answer to anyone. This means that you don’t have to worry about your opinions offending the people who pay you.
o Your profits are all yours. When you blog for someone else, you either get paid per post or you get a share of the profits. Many people would prefer to take all of the money from advertising for themselves and not worry about per-post payments. Blogging for yourself allows you to do this.
o It’s easy to stop. If you start blogging and find out that you don’t like it, you can easily quit when you work for yourself. You might be under contract when you work for someone else. However, this can also be a con as it may encourage you to give up too easily.
o The credit goes to you. Your name is on the work and you get the professional credit for the entire blog. If it’s a success, it’s because of your hard work and everyone knows it.
o You learn about a lot of different aspects of online business. The DIY approach always leads you to learn more about the ins and outs of an experience. If you really love blogging, this can be a terrific way to spend your time.

Pros of Blogging for a Network:

o There’s someone there to give you direction. When you first start blogging, there’s a lot to learn. It can help to get assistance from a network of people who have been doing it for awhile.
o You get paid every month. If you have a per-post payment deal worked out, you just get your check and don’t have to worry about advertising and revenue. Bloggers who don’t enjoy dealing with marketing prefer this route.
o You are pushed the extra mile. If you work for a good network, your supervisor will stay on top of you. This means that you’ll be encouraged to really develop the blog. Some people do better with external motivation than with being self-driven.
o There is someone else to deal with problems. Blogging is a great experience which provides interaction with others on a regular basis. However, sometimes those people who comment on your blogs can get downright nasty. Working for a network gives you other people to push those problems on to.

Some bloggers find that a mixture of working for themselves and working for networks is ultimately what works for them. This balances out the negatives and offers a number of positives. However, what works for your neighbor isn’t necessarily what’s going to work for you. You’ll have to just get in the blogging pool and splash around before you find the style that suits you best.

Links to what others have had to say on this topic:

• Deb Ng as a guest blogger at ProBlogger
• eXtra for every publisher – post one and two
• Blog Herald

Question of the Day: If you had to choose only one option (blogging for yourself or blogging for others) which would you go with and why?

photo link

Popularity: 15% [?]

Stats! Don’t you just love ‘em? I know I do and ever since starting my first blog I’ve been addicted to checking my stats. In fact, I had to wean myself off checking them several times a day, and have now narrowed my stats packages to just four. Here they are.

Getting Clicky

By far the most useful is Clicky, which I can now install on a WordPress blog as a plugin. If you’ve been using Performancing’s new stats package, you should know that it’s a rebranded version of Clicky. I love Clicky because it looks good and it’s easy to get all the info I really need from the dashboard, which is customizable. It’s easy to see where visitors came from, what they clicked on, who’s linking to you and much more. One of my favourite tools is the Spy view, which gives you real time stats. I also like the feature that allows you to link IPs to identity. I’ve reviewed Clicky in more detail here.

Google Analytics

You can’t talk analytics without considering Google’s own tool, which I also use. However, I find it most useful for checking my stats once a month for trends. I usually compare the month just past against the one before to see how things have changed. I like to see what’s gained in popularity, where my best traffic sources are and how my other promotional activities have contributed to increasing blog traffic. There’s also a lot more that I don’t use, such as goals tracking, but it’s there if you need it.

Buzz! 103 Bees

I only use 103Bees on one of my blogs and it’s a different kind of stats package. This makes it easy for me to see where search engine, social and paid traffic is coming from. It’s also useful because it tracks the questions and keywords that people ask in finding the site. I find it the easiest way to get an overview of this aspect of my site, and it works better for me than similar functions in the other stats packages. What I like about this is the ability to create To Do lists out of the questions, which makes it easy to identify future blog topics.

Feedburner

Although I look at Feedburner’s own stats, a new tool has made it even easier to make some sense of these. It’s BlogPerfume’s free online feed analysis tool. Just type in the address of your Feedburner feed and you get a selection of useful stats, including how your subscribers have grown, the number of hits, views and clicks, the potential ad value of your blog (this was slightly below other predictions, but it’s a new tool) and the predicted growth of your blog. I’ve also been able to find out which are the best and worst readership days on my blog.

Putting It All Together

So, how do I use all of these together to make me a better blogger? 103Bees tells me what people are using to find my blog, so that I can use these same phrases to generate new content. It also helps me to identify the posts that are popular with the social bookmarking sites. The Feed Analysis tool helps me track how the blog is doing and think about where it’s going. Clicky allows me to keep on top of daily reactions to my blog through links and email, while Analytics gives me a useful overview. I’ve noticed that the Clicky and Analytics numbers don’t always match up, but with these four tools I feel I have a good handle on managing my blog. What are your favourite stats packages and why?

Popularity: 16% [?]