-
Website
http://www.scobleizer.com/ -
Original page
http://scobleizer.com/2006/12/07/help-a-san-jose-mercury-news-columnist-blog/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
All Comments
Posting comments at other, relevant blogs is a terrific way to get comments at your own blog. It's business karma, y'know?
Provocative post titles, lists ("12 Signs of Blog Burnout", "5 Fatal Blog Design Errors"), and challenging content.
- converse with your readers, don't talk at them. Also, if someone posts a comment, interact & reply to them.
- don't be a columnist, be a blogger. Share information from other sites, don't just give your opinion on topics. Link to related blog posts and bloggers. interact with the "blogosphere"
on the technical side, I see the blog is not using categories. Everything is under "Uncategorized".
I'd like to add: buy your own domain name ASAP. So that when you eventually change blog domains, etc, etc you can just move your domain and keep all of your backlink history. I took me about four months to get under 10,000 on the technorati rank, and that would all be wiped out if I moved off of wordpress.com
I have some title resources here: http://engtech.wordpress.com/2006/11/22/the-sec...
All these are so logical points but how easy to overlook or ignore. You are right about the headings -- they are more so important because they appear inside your link (the heading text appears clickable) when the page appears in the search results whether it is Google or Technorati.
1) It is GOOD to mix up professional and personal info
2) Comment on other people blogs
3) The social web is more than blogging - participate in forums, news groups, etc.
4) Allow easy bookmarking
5) Go after exposure, but do not become slime. Use the press, friend of friends, but NOT paid pay per post
6) Enjoy it!
I think niche is the secret to getting a lot of RSS readers.
If you stick to your niche, people will read your feed religiously because they're interested in the subject. If you write all over the place (like I do) then you'll constantly lose subscribers as your focus changes from things that interest them to things that don't.
I started in a small niche and then got addicted to traffic and started writing content/how-to guides for search traffic -- specifically info I thought was hard to find on the net. While I find all my posts interesting, I think the average reader is probably only interested in every 1 out of 5. So even though I get around 3,000-4,000 page views a day, the actually number of engaged returning readers (which is the most important metric) is much lower.
But, yeah, that's important too.
Scoble (#18) - What's this? A blogger acknowledging there is good content in MSM??? The hell you say! :-)
15) if you are targetting the tech audience ensure Microsoft, Apple and Google are written about regularly.
Generalizing, regularly write about the top 3 guys in the niche you are concentrating on.
16) Once you start having a regular audience, sometimes write for them. You may not feel like writing about a particular incident/topic but your regulars would certainly like you to.
If people visit my blog, I owe them something in return, and I try not to forget that. That focus keeps me from talking too much about myself and MY life--pretty much the two least interesting things I could discuss. : )
And I will add that Robert was one of the main motivations behind my wanting to start a blog in the first place. So I listen to him!
So the sad truth of this is that if you want your blog to work you can't have any aspiration to be more than a blogger because, according to what I've read here, no one will read it. Sheesh.
So MY advice would be this...
Use all of the above to drive traffic to your blog. Write the frilly, no-substantial-content stuff at the TOP of the blog and put something with some substance at the bottom (I break mine up into "bligps," usually three per blog). Then, once or twice a week, write an entry that's sans the frilly stuff.
By the way, I'm a big fan of the "fun headline," so it smarts to think that may be costing me some hits. I always thought of it as, "Make 'em laugh and they'll want to read on." Surely there's some merit to that?
Asking your readers for their opinion (use the word "opinion") is also a good policy, not in every post, but now and then.
Do not imitate those ad guys who use "teaser" or clever titles that have no obvious meaning or relevance. The post title should advertise the content and make it immediately clear what the post is about.
Web users and blog readers are In A Hurry. They don't usually have time or patience to play guessing games.
Techbee: "lolita" is a porn term. I bet a lot of those visitors are wondering if you are showing some porn. I had the same problem over on Naked Conversations (which is one of the top terms for "naked"). I doubt those searchers are expecting a book on corporate blogging. It also made it impossible to run Google ads on our site because all we'd get are porn ads.
What I dislike most are the post titles that convey absolutely no sense of what the post content is about. While it's fun to do weird post titles now and then, to add variety and humor, we must remember search engines and RSS/Atom feed readers.
Skimming a list of post titles, users tend to not waste time looking at a post with a stupid, hyperbolic, or nonsensical title, unless it's so bizarre it pulls you in, like my "Blog Psychosis" or "Blogs and Murder", but they still have relevance and meaning, a user can quickly assess the possible value of the post.
If bloggers use titles like "In the midst of mourning" or other typical journalistic BS, they can't complain about low traffic numbers and no comments.
But book chapter titles and newspaper article titles are generally well written and we can learn from them.
My biggest complaint with online newspapers is lack of hyperlinks in the editorial content, and relegating comments to a stupid discussion forum, that generally gets very low traffic, rather than the more effective comment function at bottom of post/article.
Interact with your comment posters, reply swiftly to their remarks, within the thread itself.
Agreeing to post pictures of yourself as a naughty nurse or a wayward bridesmaid.
By the way, where exactly are your naughty nurse photos?
So I asked a few of them, "Why don't you ever comment?"
The answers when coming from people that work at search engines is surprising. They confided in me that they feared doing so. It shows what a long way we have to go to in terms of reshaping opinions! Charge on.
now, that doesn't mean to go spamming all over everyone's posts to just say "Kilroy wuz here!". however, if you have something interesting to say, then you are adding to the conversation & most folks won't rip you for trying to get attention... unless of course, you really are JUST trying to get attention.
in addition to commenting, if the blogger allows links, try including a link back to a relevant post on your own blog that's you've written about, like this:
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2005/08/sco...
(note: it may be unclear whether some bloggers allow links, whether they allow html, and/or whether URLs get turned into links automatically or not... play around and test it out. not everyone has preview either)
lastly, although most blog comments do accept your URL as part of the signin, i like to include my full name and URL at the bottom of posts just to make it clear. some may think this is overkill, but it also makes it easy for folks to click over to your blog at the end of your comment.
in short, commenting is likely the easiest way to get linked in the blogosphere... and most folks like to get comments, as long as they're not totally annoying or spammy.
(advanced users: apply this technique to TechMeme stories quickly, and watch the results)
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/
A niche blogger, focusing on a specific topic, may not care about getting 10,000 hits a day from Harry Potter worshiping Junior High dork males.
But for a mass blogger, who needs tons of traffic so as to increase the odds that some chumps will click on his dumpy text link ads and Amazon widgets, traffic numbers are important.
If you get 247 comments per post, are the comments adding relevant content or just knee-jerk agreements? Are you prepared to interact with all these comments, at least once per 20?
Most bloggers who whine about not getting traffic or comments usually sit around, too lazy to post comments on other blogs or email other bloggers with valuable insights, good questions, or vital critique.
There are many factors involved, and it depends on the type of blog, the intended audience, the blogger's goals for the blogs, and so on.
Name
Mail
Website
...then DO NOT add your a tagged blog URL again, at the bottom of the post.
That will look spammy.
Blogger Tips and Tricks
as well as
Dummies Guide to Blogger
Noticed this by chance. Yes I do. At How to build traffic to your blog
Peter
Dummies Guide to Google Blogger
I can also be found at
Testing Blogger Beta
No one is going to take time to read a "stream of consciousness" blog where there is no quick way to scan the text for paragraphs and ideas.
Bloggers so often tend to be solitary figures, clicking away in the quiet glow of their screens, but blogging is a social phenonmenon that must be treated as such to succeed.
A new exciting independent documentary is coming to San Jose on July 16th. The film, Dust & Illusions, explores 30 years of Burning Man and the rise and fall of an ideal born in the San Francisco underground back in the 1970s. With exceptional access to the people that the driving forces behind the early events to the organizers, artists and some participants, the film provides the first and unique critical perspective on this event so popular in the Bay Area.
Last weekend over 1,000 people converged to the theaters in Vancouver, Seattle, Olympia and Denver to see the film, and are raving about it.
For more information on the film, trailers, and specifics tot he San Jose screening, please go to:
http://dustandillusions.com/trailers
http://dustandillusions.com/blog/special-screen...