I've found Blog Blazers to be a gold mine of instruction. That's why I'm recommending it to my students in one-on-one and classroom settings. Stephane Grenier quizzed 40 fantastic blog authors on how to create a high-profile, high-traffic, and high-profit blog.
This week, I'm sharing some of my findings
Open to a page. Any page. I turn to page 160 – drat! only one third of the page is full — it's the end of the Penelope Trunk piece. Yet, there's still gold in this nugget:
"…blogging opens tons of doors — via networking, especially because bloggers have access to people they would not otherwise get access to."
Anyone who has invested the time in blogging (both the reading and the writing) can attest to this as fact. Of course, those who haven't invested the time think blogging is full of lint (they blame it on the blog).
So let's look at one of the questions Stephane poses, along with some answers:
What is the most common pitfall new bloggers generally fall into?
- Al Carlton: "They expect instant results and quit too early."
- Asha Dornfest: "Trying to affect a cynical, snarky blog persona. I can't STAND authors who throw around negativity in an effort to appear intelligent or edgy. Come to think of it, I don't like people who do that in real life, either.
- Benjamin Yoskovitz: Not linking to other blogs in an effort to keep visitors from leaving (one of several tips on this from Ben)
- Dane Carlson: Not posting and then apologizing for not posting.
- David Armano: Self doubt will kill you.
- Pamela Slim: They get sucked into statistic paranoia…As soon as you start to select content just to provoke incoming links, you are doomed.
There are a couple of themes repeating on this question:
- Too many quit too early (or don't write often enough)
- Too many write about themselves without considering what their reader wants to read
- Too many want big numbers in a hurry
My own answer to this question:
New bloggers are so hungry for someone to read their post (or comment on it), but they don't do likewise. Go cultivate relationships and conversations away from your blog. What goes around comes around.
How would you answer this question?
Tomorrow we'll take a look at who these bloggers look up to (with some of my own heros).
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I hear it from a lot of business owners: “Where is the ROI with all this Social Media?“ If this is a question you ask yourself, maybe we should work together a bit more. We can work together solo, or via a professional learning community. Find and increase your ROI. There is a “there” there.
