Blogging Primer – Part 2: Keeping Readership

14 March 2005 20 Comments

Blogging Primer – Part 2: Keeping Readership

As we continue our journey down the road to a successful blog, let’s continue where we left off with building your blog readership.

There is one rule of thumb to keeping your readers: Content is King.

Think about it. Look at some of the sites that you visit every day and ask yourself why you visit them? Do you visit CNN.com everyday because of “today’s” news? Or maybe you visit Yahoo! Fantasy Sports because you are involved in fantasy sports? Or perhaps Fark for your daily laugh? Anyway you look at it, you go because these sites give you something in return for your time and effort.

Likewise, it’s so important to provide good content regularly to keep your reader interested in coming back.

So what is interesting? What will keep your reader? Well here’s a few answers.

Current Entries – What do I mean by current entries. I mean entries that are relevant to today’s issues. If you keep a tech blog, you will probably have poor results by writing about Windows 98 topics. No one uses Windows 98 anymore. No one cares about Windows 98 anymore. They care about Windows 2000 and XP. So perhaps your time and effort might be suited to those operating systems. If you like to write about politics, you probably won’t get much in the way of readers by talking about George Bush’s (41) tax hike of 1993, though politics is a funny animal and you might just prove me wrong. Bottom line, keep it applicable to life today.
Relevant Entries – This is very similar to the first point, but with a twist. There are two kinds of bloggers, and I’ve talked about this before. The first kind of blogger blogs for themselves and writes about things as an outlet for themselves to be able to journal their lives. The second type is the kind that writes for others and tries to meet their readers needs. The problem comes when the first type tries to be the second type and fails. It takes time to become read by others and if that is your ambition, then great. But walk before you run. Do your time.
Proper English – This is one of the biggest pet peeves of mine. Bloggers who like to write in camelcase (“I wEnT 2 ThE mAlL aNd HuNg OuT wItH Jj”) and bloggers who don’t have a firm grasp on the English language (“dat” is not a word. Neither is “holla”, at least while writing). I made an entry about bloggers who are like this awhile back. Your writing may be the only way anyone may ever know you. If the only thing they know about you is an uneducated bit of writing, your reputation may be hurt for a long time.
Being Yourself – Sun Microsystems sums this up very well in their corporate blogging policy: “Another way to be interesting is to expose your personality; almost all of the successful bloggers write about themselves, about families or movies or books or games; or they post pictures. People like to know what kind of a person is writing what theyÃƒÂ¯Ã‚Â¿Ã‚Â½re reading. Once again, balance is called for; a blog is a public place and you should try to avoid embarrassing your readers or the company.” In other words, talking about yourself is okay! It’s encouraged! But I don’t want to know about your trip to the mall unless something about it impacts me – be it a funny bit or something you may have encountered that speaks to something in my life. Does that make sense?

Blogging is an easy thing to do. But it’s a little more difficult (but not necessarily hard) to do well. It takes effort and concentration. The effort that you put into your blog will be transparent to the world outside. You may have the best design in the world created by a world renowned designer who has provided all the eye candy you can think of, but if the content isn’t relevant, then it makes no difference. Your eye candy might win a few click-throughs, but it’s not going to keep them. There’s a key difference there.

Next time we’ll look at the role search engines and design elements play in your blog performance.

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20 Responses to “Blogging Primer – Part 2: Keeping Readership”

Sean M. Crawford Sr 14 March 2005 at 10:24 am #

Hey dude I nice point. In reading the description in number 3 I do DAT!

HOLLA BACK
Sean M. Crawford Sr 14 March 2005 at 11:24 am #

Hey dude I nice point. In reading the description in number 3 I do DAT!

HOLLA BACK
Aaron Brazell 14 March 2005 at 12:31 pm #

lol. I had you in mind. ;)
Aaron Brazell 14 March 2005 at 1:31 pm #

lol. I had you in mind. ;)
David Nick 14 March 2005 at 3:29 pm #

What about “gotta” or “thru”??

Perhaps not proper Engrish, but what tha hell eh? LOL

Personally, and this is my humble opinion, but I don’t blog to get readership. Honestly. My blogging was a simple way of venting my frustrations with policies, and politics in general. And, along the way, I happened to hook up with some fine bloggers. :)

Funny how things turn out, but now you know where I come from :)
David Nick 14 March 2005 at 4:29 pm #

What about “gotta” or “thru”??

Perhaps not proper Engrish, but what tha hell eh? LOL

Personally, and this is my humble opinion, but I don’t blog to get readership. Honestly. My blogging was a simple way of venting my frustrations with policies, and politics in general. And, along the way, I happened to hook up with some fine bloggers. :)

Funny how things turn out, but now you know where I come from :)
Jody 14 March 2005 at 10:23 pm #

TrU DaT AaRoN, U RoCK!
Oh my goodness, I couldn’t even get through one sentence of that junk. I think gotta and thru are acceptable but tho for though should be banned. ;)
Good post Aaron, I’ve enjoyed reading the series, can’t wait for the next installment.
Jody 14 March 2005 at 11:23 pm #

TrU DaT AaRoN, U RoCK!

Oh my goodness, I couldn’t even get through one sentence of that junk. I think gotta and thru are acceptable but tho for though should be banned. ;)

Good post Aaron, I’ve enjoyed reading the series, can’t wait for the next installment.
Aaron Brazell 14 March 2005 at 10:38 pm #

Thanks, Jody. :)
Aaron Brazell 14 March 2005 at 11:38 pm #

Thanks, Jody. :)
redsaid 15 March 2005 at 5:28 am #

You forgot to include a chapter on “how to be re-linked after being bumped from certain people’s blogrolls.” ;-)

Seriously though… I am one of those bloggers who don’t link to news stories much, if at all. Make no mistake, I have nothing against bloggers who do it – in fact, I quite enjoy reading other people’s opinions about the news.

You see, I’ve always treated my blog more like a column (I used to write a column, many moons ago, when I was still employed). So even though I sometimes post infrequently (but I rarely skip a whole week), I always try and write something original (Well… that’s debatable, but you know what I mean!).
redsaid 15 March 2005 at 6:28 am #

You forgot to include a chapter on “how to be re-linked after being bumped from certain people’s blogrolls.” ;-)

Seriously though… I am one of those bloggers who don’t link to news stories much, if at all. Make no mistake, I have nothing against bloggers who do it – in fact, I quite enjoy reading other people’s opinions about the news.

You see, I’ve always treated my blog more like a column (I used to write a column, many moons ago, when I was still employed). So even though I sometimes post infrequently (but I rarely skip a whole week), I always try and write something original (Well… that’s debatable, but you know what I mean!).
Carol 15 March 2005 at 12:15 pm #

No one uses Windows 98 anymore. No one cares about Windows 98 anymore.

Actually, quite a few people use it. I’m not one of them, but those people are out there — along with the ME users (my condolences to them…) So I would expect they’re grateful for the few pages that still offer info on those topics.

That’s the wonderful thing about blogging — there’s *always* an audience, no matter what your topic.
Carol 15 March 2005 at 1:15 pm #

No one uses Windows 98 anymore. No one cares about Windows 98 anymore.

Actually, quite a few people use it. I’m not one of them, but those people are out there — along with the ME users (my condolences to them…) So I would expect they’re grateful for the few pages that still offer info on those topics.

That’s the wonderful thing about blogging — there’s *always* an audience, no matter what your topic.
David Nick 15 March 2005 at 1:26 pm #

ROFL Carol! I was waiting for someone to say it. You have to excuse Aaron, he was working for the Navy, they use nothing but the best that us taxpayers shell out for them ;)

::Ducking::

“Tho” Jody is a fine use of the term. I think it’s more appropriate use of the word than “Though”, I mean, who figured that one out? LOL “Let’s just add a ton of consonants at the end of it to confuse everyone in thinking it’s “Through” or “Thought” but mispelled” :(
David Nick 15 March 2005 at 2:26 pm #

ROFL Carol! I was waiting for someone to say it. You have to excuse Aaron, he was working for the Navy, they use nothing but the best that us taxpayers shell out for them ;)

::Ducking::

“Tho” Jody is a fine use of the term. I think it’s more appropriate use of the word than “Though”, I mean, who figured that one out? LOL “Let’s just add a ton of consonants at the end of it to confuse everyone in thinking it’s “Through” or “Thought” but mispelled” :(
liminal 15 March 2005 at 8:31 pm #

Good post. I think #3 is a bit more complicated, though. It’s possible to be coherent, eloquent, expressive and have a unique voice without focusing on completely proper language use. A great example of crossing the mundane/absurd with the proper uber-english is Manny Farber. He’s perhaps the best film reviewer that ever existed because his unique method of inter-mingling the lofty with quotidian slang. He’s a hero of mine!

Hooray for Manny Farber! Read “Negative Space” if you haven’t already!

Thanks Aaron,
Lim.
liminal 15 March 2005 at 9:31 pm #

Good post. I think #3 is a bit more complicated, though. It’s possible to be coherent, eloquent, expressive and have a unique voice without focusing on completely proper language use. A great example of crossing the mundane/absurd with the proper uber-english is Manny Farber. He’s perhaps the best film reviewer that ever existed because his unique method of inter-mingling the lofty with quotidian slang. He’s a hero of mine!

Hooray for Manny Farber! Read “Negative Space” if you haven’t already!

Thanks Aaron,

Lim.
Jody 15 March 2005 at 10:03 pm #

I’m not confused about “Though” :)
Jody 15 March 2005 at 11:03 pm #

I’m not confused about “Though” :)