“13 Tips for Beginning Bloggers (Which I Learned the Hard Way)” plus 1 more

13 Tips for Beginning Bloggers (Which I Learned the Hard Way)

Posted: 16 Nov 2010 11:09 AM PST

This article is by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project.

I started The Happiness Project blog as a way to test the argument that novelty and challenge bring happiness (turns out they do!), but I knew nothing about blogging when I began.

Here are some strategies that I learned the hard way, through experience. As Benjamin Franklin once remarked, "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

Start simple. Add bells and whistles over time. Many people get paralyzed at the outset, because they're overwhelmed by the desire to figure everything out before launching. Don't get it perfect, get it going.
Post every day. It’s counter-intuitive, yes, but strangely it's easier to post every day than to post three or four times a week. You don't procrastinate, you loosen up, you stay engaged with your subject, and you'll be taken more seriously by readers. But if you stop writing for a while…
Don't point out that you've been lax about posting! It's boring, it shows a lack of commitment, and maybe readers won't notice if you don't say anything.
Include the text of the post as well as the URL if you want to bring a post to someone's attention by email. Often, people won't bother to click through, even though they might like your post if they did!
If you feel squeamish about posting something—don't. Wait a day or two, and think it over.
Join the community. Link to other bloggers who write about your subject, shine a spotlight on their work, get to know them. Blogland is a friendly, helpful place—and the truth about human nature is that people become interested in you when you show an interest in them.
Read about blogging. My favorite resource is ProBlogger, of course.
Use lists when possible. People love reading lists, especially tips lists. I know, tips lists seem like a simplistic way to present information. But people love them. I post a tips list every Wednesday.
State the purpose of your blog very prominently. A new reader shouldn't have to ask, "What's this blog about, anyway?"
Maintain quality. I have checklist to try to keep my posts interesting and my voice true:
- Am I being funny?
- Am I giving interesting information from science, history, literature, etc.?
- Am I revealing my character?
- Am I telling stories?
- Am I showing what it's like to live in New York City?
- Am I linking to other bloggers?
- Am I comfortable with my parents reading this? (I never work blue.)
- Am I criticizing anyone except myself?
Keep a separate document containing your blog entries. I have an 800-page document containing every post I've ever made. That way, I can easily search, copy, and paste the material on my blog when I need it for other purposes.
Keep a running list of ideas. Invaluable.
Most important? Have something to say with every post, and with your entire blog. This sounds obvious, but it's a lot easier to write when you're trying to tell a story, explain an idea, give a review, link to an article, or whatever. If you're having trouble with your blog, forget about the blog and focus on what you want to communicate instead.

More experienced bloggers, what are your top tips to help those just starting out?

This article is by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project. Follow her on Twitter @gretchenrubin, and buy the book THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, the #1 New York Times bestseller.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips

13 Tips for Beginning Bloggers (Which I Learned the Hard Way)

Your Readers Buy Products! Do You Offer Them?

Posted: 16 Nov 2010 05:00 AM PST

Recently I gave a presentation on monetizing blogs. I talked about how developing your own products to sell to readers can be an effective way to build a blogging income.

During a question-and-answer segment of the presentation, one blogger stood up and said:

“My readers don’t want to buy products! How else can I make money?”

It was a question that I’ve heard many bloggers ask over the last year—and one I used to ask myself.

I once was afraid that if I dared develop a product and promote it to my readers, they’d push back—and push back hard. However when I bit the bullet and did produce a product, I found that my fears were unfounded.

Readers buy all the time—we all do. We buy to survive, we buy be entertained, we buy to learn, and we buy to enjoy our lives.

I asked the blogger who asked this question what topic they blogged about, and she told me that she was a travel blogger. As a group, we quickly came up with 20 or so things that people interested in travel buy (guide books, luggage, accommodation, flights, and more). Her readers were buying products all the time—she just wasn’t offering any.

Readers do buy. Many even enjoy the process and go out of their way to be sold to. My lovely wife is one example: she amazes me with the amount of time she puts into researching and buying products online (she’s an online marketer’s dream come true!).

The problem isn’t that blog readers don’t want to buy—they do!

What readers don’t want is to be annoyed.

In my experience, it’s not that you have a product to sell that turns readers off—it’s the way that you promote it that has potential to offend.

Readers don’t like to be tricked.
Readers don’t like false hype.
Readers don’t like bait-and-switch tactics.
Readers don’t like finding that they’ve bought a low-quality product.
Readers don’t like aggressive and intrusive selling.
Readers don’t like being badgered and annoyed repetitively.

I think many bloggers balk at the idea of developing a product to sell on their blogs more because they think that to sell, they’ll need to use the above tactics, and annoy their readers. We’re so used to seeing these techniques practiced by internet marketers that we think it’s the only way.

It’s not.

I love what Sonia Simone recently said in a presentation at Blog World Expo. She said, it’s not about “selling” to your readers—it’s about making them an offer.

It’s not about tricking people—it’s about producing a compelling product that meets their needs and offering it to your readers in a way that represents a win/win transaction. It’s about making the offer in a way that allows your reader comes away from the interaction in a better position whether they buy the product or not.

There’s much that can be written about how to make these kinds of offers (and in many ways, that’s why we developed Third Tribe Marketing), however I think the starting point for many bloggers is shifting their mindset.

The starting point is to realize that in most cases is’t not buying that offends people—it’s the sales techniques that annoy.

PS: Brian Clark provides a good post on offers here.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips

Your Readers Buy Products! Do You Offer Them?