Are you blogging the wrong way?

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | January 28th, 2009

Over the last several months, some people have been predicting the end of blogging. They are not only wildly incorrect, but also simply taking a contrarian stance in the misguided hope that it will get people talking about them. In regards to the latter, they have been successful, however public opinion generally seems to think that they are dead wrong. Blogging isn’t dead. It’s not dying. In fact, it doesn’t even have a mild case of the sniffles. Like SEO, it is rapidly evolving though, so you can either choose to keep blogging as usual and become irrelevant, or you can choose to evolve and become more successful than ever. The choice is yours.

The thousands (or maybe millions) of “me too” blogs out there are quickly falling to the wayside. There is more readily accessible information available today than ever before, and as a result, people are suffering from information overload. That’s why they are becoming increasingly selective about the blogs that they do read, choosing those that regularly publish useful, original content with personality.

If you don’t have a blog, what are you waiting for? Start one now. Literally, stop what you’re doing and install Wordpress. While you’re at it, a custom theme wouldn’t hurt. Now, it’s time to start focusing on what works.

Develop original, compelling content on a regular basis. Your focus should be on quality over quantity – two or three well written posts is a good start. Below are some guidelines for developing powerful content that keeps readers engaged and coming back, and encourages them to contribute.

• If you’re going to post about a subject that everyone has already posted about, make sure your post stands out. Instead of just posting the facts, offer your
  opinion on the subject, how you think it will affect something/someone else, what caused it, etc. Basically, you want to provide more valuable information than
  simply what occurred.
• Develop forward-thinking projections. If you’re in the real estate industry for example, don’t talk about what effect the current housing market will have on home prices, because everyone else is already doing that. Instead, talk about what effect the current housing market will have on long-term investments other than real estate or how it will impact the business community. Take your post in a direction that no one else has taken.
• Be controversial. The easiest way to get people talking is to take a contrarian stance on something, especially something that people are passionate about. Howard Stern, Ann Coulter and Paris Hilton have all used this approach to achieve tremendous amounts of publicity. If you’re going to take this route, you should only take a contrarian stance that you actually believe in. Just keep in mind that it’s easy for your stance on a subject to become what you’re known for.
• Link to other blogs often. There is speculation that it may help your search engine ranking, but more importantly, it adds value for your readers and encourages other bloggers to link to you, which definitely does increase your exposure, referral traffic and search engine ranking.
• Allow moderated comments on your blog. Part of the appeal of blogging is the interactivity and sense of community. If you allow your visitors to comment on your posts, they will feel more like members of your community and will be more likely to contribute, which helps to increase interest by creating dialogue and introducing multiple viewpoints. If you do choose to allow comments on your blog, you may want to consider removing the “nofollow” attribute, which will motivate more people to post comments, and will also help you to earn more exposure.

Let your personality shine. Information, no matter how useful, is still a commodity. If your posts read like a dissertation for a statistics class, you won’t get many repeat visitors. You have to decide how much “personality” is right for your blog. Two people that you can learn a lot from, Chris Brogan and Rae Hoffman each take a very different approach. Chris takes a more subdued approach, maintaining a positive tone and never speaking negatively about anyone on his blog. Rae tends to take a more aggressive approach, and has no qualms saying exactly what she thinks about a person or situation, and sometimes say things that would make sailors and truckers blush. Both provide priceless information. They just present it in a very different manner and have achieved tremendous success in doing so because they are being themselves. The easy path would be to find someone that you admire and try to emulate them, but that won’t work. Their style works for them because it’s authentic. Just be yourself and you’ll connect with your readers. This has a far greater impact than you may imagine.

Whatever you choose to blog about, it should be something that you’re passionate about, not just the subject that has the greatest profit potential. If you are passionate about something, you will be more likely to put in the hard work to make it successful. This often takes considerable time, especially in competitive industries, so if you’re only in it for the money, you may be tempted to give up long before you’ve achieved any profit.

It’s said that no man is an island, and this applies to blogging too, especially these days. When blogs were few and far between, it was easy to connect with other bloggers. It’s a bit tougher now because all of the high-profile bloggers are inundated with requests for links, reviews and just about anything else you can think of. If you want to achieve success online, it’s important to establish and nurture relationships with others. The key is to take a different approach by giving first. You could regularly comment on their posts, link to them in your posts, send them leads if they aren’t in direct competition with you…the list is endless. Basically, it works just like life – be good to people and help them out and they will do the same for you. Don’t be a kiss-ass though. You should also be utilizing social media, such as Linked In, Twitter, Digg, Sphinn and the vast ocean of others to help promote your blog. The same rules apply here, connect with other users and you will achieve exponentially greater results than you could ever achieve on your own.

The bottom line is that to achieve or maintain success in blogging today, you’ve got to do more than just produce content – that’s what everyone else is doing. You’ve got to produce useful, original content with personality, connect with others and help everyone accomplish their goals.

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