Over on Twitter last week @JapanNewbie asked me about how to get people viewing old posts on your blog once they drop off the front page. In this video I tackle the question with 5 suggestions including using:

• Best of Sections
• Autoresponders
• Related Links
• Best of Posts
• Repost Old Content

I’d love to hear your suggestions on how you drive people back to your older blog posts?

Related Reading:

• Updating Old Posts on Your Blog – how and why.
• Interlink Your Old Blog posts

Watch this video at full size on Youtube at How to Get People to Read Your Old Posts.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

5 Tips for Getting Readers Viewing Your Old Blog Posts

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A Guest Post by Charlie Gilkey from Productive Flourishing.

No matter how big their blog is, every blogger loves and wants comments. When you’re just starting out, there are few bigger thrills than writing something and having people comment and give you feedback about what you’ve written. Veteran bloggers love comments and also know that the quantity and quality of the comments says a lot about the impact of the particular post in question.

But sometimes you write something that you think is awesome and the comment thread is like a ghost town. To say that this is discouraging is to put it too lightly. Not only does it suck, but it’s enough to make you start thinking that your writing sucks, and it makes it really hard to hit write and hit publish the next time, too.

Here’s the deal, though: just because you’re not getting a lot of comments doesn’t mean that your posts suck. Here are eight reasons why you might not be getting comments – and what you can do about it.

1. Your Posts Are Too Long

While it’s hard to say that long post always get fewer comments – there are a lot of different considerations at play – as a general rule, longer posts set a bigger barrier to commenting. I write a lot of long posts, and I’ve seen this bear out time and time again.

There are two things to keep in mind when you’re writing longer posts: 1) most blog posts are short(er) and 2) your readers are busy. If they’re used to reading 500 word posts on other blogs and then hit your 3,000 word post, they’re might be a bit overwhelmed. It’s not uncommon for them to bookmark your post for reading “when they have time” and move on to the next, shorter post, only to forget to come back and read yours. (For more considerations on blog length, check out Post Length ‚Äì How Long Should a Blog Post Be?)

Some bloggers manage to thrive in the long post format, but you’ve got to understand that you’ll be going against the current if you write in that style. That’s not a bad thing – just understand that you might not get as many comments as if you wrote shorter posts.

Once your post is published, it’s probably best to leave it, though. In the future, see if you can take a long draft of a post and split it into a series or discrete post. Also try varying the tempo of your blog by following a long post with a short post and vice versa.

2. You Haven’t Asked Them to Comment

Sometimes a post just ends and it’s not clear to your readers whether you actually want a response. Because they don’t know whether you want a response or not, they might not comment.

Furthermore, if you don’t answer comments at all or regularly enough, it sends the message that you don’t really value comments. Larger blogs get a pass on this one, since many people understand that bloggers with larger audiences can’t answer every response.

When you conclude a post, ask your readers what they think or end it with a question that makes it clear that you’d like a comment. If you haven’t been responding to comments on your blog, start doing so.

3. They Don’t Know What To Say

Have you ever read a post and were so inspired that you felt that anything you might say wouldn’t do the post service, but at the same time didn’t want to say “Great post!”? Or have you read a post that was so deep or complex that you honestly didn’t know how to respond?

I’m sure you have. Now, why don’t you think that can happen with your own posts?

Before you write off a lack of comments as a sign of your utter brilliance, though, check your post to see if you wrote clearly and simply. Ask if what you wrote was relevant, useful, or interesting to your readers>. And if it is a bit of inspirational awesomeness, consider editing it and including a question or statement that lets people know that you’d appreciate some feedback.

4. They’re Doing What You Told Them To Do

If you give your readers a great tip that requires them to do something to implement it, be prepared for the possibility that they might actually go implement it.

Similarly, if you’re doing a link roll-up and you tell people to go check out the links you’re talking about, there’s a good chance that they might go do that.

I know that this is obvious in hindsight, but it’s easy to forget that our words can influence people into action, and it’s possible to unintentionally steer people away from commenting.

5. They’re Chasing Links On Your Blog

Writing posts that include links to older posts or using plugins that show related posts do have an effect on the number of comments you’ll get. If they click a link that’s midway in your post, they’ll probably read the second post before they comment on the first, and if that second post is linked to others, they might just keep clicking.

It’s for this very reason that you don’t find many links on a sales or landing page, and if you do find them, they eventually lead back to the original page. Marketers know that people will click on the links, and if those links lead away from the original page, that’s probably a lost sale.

While it’s not exactly an exclusive either/or choice, think about the relationship between how long people stay on your blog (due to interlinking) and comments. If you write compelling headlines, there’s a good chance that those related post plugins have an effect on the number of comments you’re getting. Change your linking strategy or consider turning those plugins off a bit if you’d like to see if they’re making a difference.

6. They’re Following Your Social Media Trail

This is very similar to the last two points, but if you’ve given your readers a bunch of different ways to connect with you, then that’s another thing that might keep people from commenting.

Think about how many times you’ve clicked to follow someone on Facebook only to get lost in a chat on Facebook, or how many times you’ve followed someone on Twitter only to get engaged in conversations there. The same thing goes for badges and links that send people to blog networks.

If you’d prefer more comments than social media connections, consider placing your social media links further down the page or only keeping the ones where you’re active.

While you’re at it, it’s probably a good time to declutter your sidebar.

7. It’s Hard For Them To Comment

I ran into this one the other day. I wanted to reply to a friend’s blog that was hosted on Blogger and found myself frustrated that I couldn’t just leave a comment like I can on other websites. It gave me five or six different options – none of which I use – and, ten minutes later, I finally went with the “best fit” option just so that I could comment. If she weren’t my friend, I probably would’ve given up.

Some of the other comment implementations like Disqus can also set a barrier to comment. I’ve often bailed on those, too, because I didn’t remember my OpenID and didn’t feel like figuring it out. (Luckily, they’ve improved substantially over the last year.)

The harder your readers have to work to comment, the less likely that they’ll do it. Think long and hard about all the comment plugins you might want to implement – and remember that sometimes the best solution is the simplest one.

8. You’re Posting At The Wrong Time

If you post when all your readers are asleep, then the soonest they’ll comment is the next day, but then your post is in with a bunch of others in an RSS feed. Likewise, if you post after the time that your email subscribers get their daily email, the soonest many of them will read what post is the next day when they get that hit.

Figure out when your readers are active and try to publish when they’re reading posts. This takes a bit of homework and observation on your part, but it makes a huge difference in terms of the number of comments you’ll get on your post.

There’s More To Comments Than Content

What you may have noticed is that the first five of these points have to do with the content of your individual posts and the last three don’t have anything to do with your posts. It’s hard to say what would have the biggest effect since each of our blogs are different, so take a look at your post and blog from your reader’s point of view, pick one that you’d like to tweak, and see if it has any effect. (By far the easiest place to start is by changing your comment plugin/solution, though.)

As you can see, there are a lot of different reasons that people might not be leaving comments on your blog, and many of them have nothing to do with you or your posts being unworthy. Keep writing and testing what works – that’s the only way you can become a better writer and grow your blog.

About the Author: Charlie Gilkey writes about meaningful action, creativity, and entrepreneurship at Productive Flourishing. Follow him on Twitter to get bite-sized slices of mojo.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

8 Reasons You Might Not Be Getting Many Comments

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The books of choice at bed time in my 3 year olds room are all Curious George books at the moment. He’s crazy for George.

Needless to say that the 6 Curious George books that we have are getting read again and again – I pretty much know them off by heart…. to the point that I’ve started taking less notice of the story itself and more notice of HOW its been written.

There’s one thing about Curious George Books (or at least the ones we have) that I’ve noticed that really makes them more engaging than some of the other kids books my boy reads.

Do you know what it is?

It’s something that draws my boy further and further into the book.

Any ideas what it could be?

It’s a technique that actually causes my little guy to ask me to turn the page – something that gets him thinking about what is coming next – something causes him to be curious – just like George.

What do you think it is?

This technique is not only a page turner – its something that draws my boy from being a passive listener/reader of the book – but actually gets him interacting with the book – talking about it as I’m reading.

Have you guessed what it is?

The technique is simple – on every second page there’s a question.

It’s not a question that needs an answer – but it’s a question that engages the person reading the book and draws them deeper into the story.

They are questions about what will happen next, questions about what the reader thinks or knows, leading questions that draw readers to keep reading but also to become engaged.

It’s a technique that is powerful not only in children’s books – but in all kinds of writing. Perhaps it’s something worth experimenting with in your next blog post.

If you do – I’d love to hear how it goes.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

A Lesson from Curious George for Bloggers

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Next week here on ProBlogger I will be beginning a series of posts with tips for bloggers in the first week (or month) of their blog.

I’m halfway through writing it (I’m hoping it’ll be useful to established bloggers starting second blogs too) already and have a heap of content written but thought it might be good to include a few reader and Twitter follower tips scattered through it as well.

I’m not so much looking for tips on Pre-Launch stuff like getting a domain, choosing a blog platform etc – I’m more looking for short tips on taking a blog that is set up to being an active blog.

So if you have any tips for bloggers starting out – I’d love to see them in comments below. I won’t be able to use them all but those I do I’ll certainly credit back with a link to your blog.

All I’d suggest is that you try to keep your tips relatively short and to the point as I’ll be using these as short snippets at the end of my posts.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The First Week Of Your New Blog – What Do You Do?

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Posted by Danny Dover

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Chapter 4: Finding SEO Problems

Sections:

• 15 Minute SEO Audit
• 10 Minute Brand Reputation Audit (Not included in this blog post)
• Identifying Search Engine Penalties (Not included in this blog post)

15 Minute SEO Audit

The basics of SEO problem identification can be done in about 15 minutes. When completing this audit I recommend you take notes based on the action items listed in each section. This will help you later when you do a deeper dive of the website. This audit is not comprehensive (See Chapter 9 for a full annotated site audit), but it will help you quickly identify major problems so you can convince your clients that your services are worthwhile and that you should be given a chance to dig deeper. The smart ones reading this section may notice that it builds upon the ideas expressed in Chapter 2. The dumb ones reading this, will think it is Harry Potter. The latter might enjoy it more but the former will end up with better SEO skills.

Prepare Your Browser

Before you start your audit you need to set your browser to act more like the search engine crawlers. This will help you to identify simple crawling errors. In order to do this, you will need to do the following:

Disable cookies in your browser

Switch your user-agent to Googlebot

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

When the search engines crawl the Internet they generally do so with a user-agent string that identifies them (Google is googlebot and Bing is msnbot) and in a way where they don’t accept cookies.

To see how to change your user-agent go to Chapter 3 (Picking the Right SEO Tools) and see user-agent switcher. Setting your user-agent to Googlebot increases your chance of seeing exactly what Google is seeing. It also helps with identifying cloaking issues (Cloaking is the practice of showing one thing to search engines and a different thing to users. This is what sarcastic Googlers call penaltybait. ) In order to do this well, a second pass of the site with your normal user-agent is required to identify difference. That said, this is not the primary goal for this quick run through of the given website.

In addition to doing this you should also disable cookies within your browser. By disabling them, you will be able to uncover crawling issues that relate to preferences you make on the page. One primary example of this is intro pages. Many websites will have you choose your primary language before you can enter their main site. (This is known as an intro page.) If you have cookies enabled and you have previously chosen your preference, the website will not show you this page again. Unfortunately, this will not happen for search engines.

This language tactic is extremely detrimental from a SEO perspective because it means that every link to the primary URL of the website will be diluted because it will need to pass through the intro page. (Remember, the search engines always see that page as they can’t select a language) This is a big problem, because as we noted in Chapter 1, the primary URL (i.e. www.example.com/) is usually the most linked to page on a site.

Homepage

Next, go to the primary URL of the site and pay particular attention to your first impression of the page. Try to be as true to your opinion as possible and don’t over think it. You should be coming from the perspective of the casual browser (This will be made easier because at this point you probably haven’t been paid any money and its a lot easier to be casual when are not locked down with the client) Follow this by doing a quick check of the very basic SEO metrics. In order to complete this step, you will need to do the following:

Notice your first impression and the resulting feeling and trustworthiness you feel about the page

Read the title tag and figure out how it could be improved

See if the URL changed (As in you were redirected from www.example.com/ to www.example.com/lame-keyword-in-URL-trick.html)

Check to see if the URL is canonical

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

The first action item on this list helps you align yourself with potential website users. It is the basis for your entire audit and serves as a foundation for you to build on. You can look at numbers all day, but if you fail to see the website like the user, you will fail as an SEO.

The next step is to read the title tag and identify how it can be improved. This is helpful because changing title tags is both easy (A big exception to this is if your client uses a difficult Content Management System.) and has a relatively large direct impact on rankings.

Next you need to direct your attention to the URL. First of all, make sure there were not redirects that happened. This is important because adding redirects dilutes the amount of link juice that actually makes it to the links on the page.

The last action item is to run a quick check on canonical URLs. The complete list of URL formats to check for is in Chapter 2 (Relearning How You See the Web). Like checking the title tag, this is easy to check and provides a high work/benefit ratio.

Global Navigation

After checking the basics on the homepage, you should direct your attention to the global navigation. This acts as the main canal system for link juice. Specifically, you are going to want to do the following:

Temporarily disable Javascript and reload the page

Make sure the navigation system works and that all links are HTML links

Take note of all of the sections that are linked to

Re-enable Javascript

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

As we discussed in Chapter 2 (Relearning How You See the Web), site architecture is critical for search friendly websites. The global navigation is fundamental to this. Imagine that the website you are viewing is ancient Rome right after the legendary viaduct and canal systems were built. These waterways are exactly like the global navigation that flows link juice around a website. Imagine the impact that a major clog can have on both systems. This is your time to find these clogs.

Your first action item in the section is to disable Javascript. This is helpful because it forces you to see your website from the perspective of a very basic user. It is also a similar perspective to the search engines.

After disabling Javascript, reload the page and see if the global navigation still works. Many times it won’t and it will uncover one of the major reasons the given client is having indexing issues.

Next view source and see if all of the navigational links are true HTML links. Ideally, they should be because they are the only kind that can pass their full link value.

Your next step is to take note of which sections are linked to. Ideally, all of the major sections will be linked in the global navigation. The problem is, you won’t know what all of the major sections are until you are further along in the audit. For now just take note and keep a mental checklist as you browse the website.

Lastly, re-enable Javascript. While this will not be accurate with the search engine perspective, it will make sure that AJAX and Javascript based navigation works for you. Remember, on this quick audit, you are not trying to identify every single issue with the site, instead you are just trying to find the big issues.

Category Pages/Subcategory Pages (If applicable)

After finishing with the homepage and the global navigation, you need to start diving deeper into the website. In the waterway analogy, category and subcategory pages are the forks in the canals. You can make sure they are optimized by doing the following:

Make sure there is enough content on these pages to be useful as a search result alone.

Find and note extraneous links on the page (there shouldn’t be more than 150 links)

Take notes on how to improve the anchor text used for the subcategories/content pages

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

As I mentioned, these pages are the main pathways for the link juice of a website. They help make it so if one page (most often the homepage) gets a lot of links, that the rest of the pages on the website can also get some of the benefit. The first action point requires you to make a judgment call on whether or not the page would be useful as a search result. This goes with my philosophy that every page on a website should be a least a little bit link worthy. (It should pay its own rent, so to speak) Since each page has the inherent ability to collect links, webmasters should put at least a minimal amount of effort into making every page link worthy. There is no problem with someone entering a site (from a search engine result or other third party site) on a category or subcategory page. In fact, it may save them a click. In order to complete this step, identify if this page alone would be useful for someone with a relevant query. Think to yourself:

1. Is there helpful content on the page to provide context?
2. Is there a design element breaking up the monotony of a large list of links?

Take notes on the answers to both of these questions.

The next action item is to identify extraneous links on the page. Remember, from Chapter 2 we discussed that the amount of link value a given link can pass is dependent on the amount of links on the page. To maximize the benefit of these pages, it is important to remove any extraneous links. Going back to our waterway analogy, this type of links are the equivalent “canals to nowhere”. (Built by the Roman ancestors of former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens)

To complete the last action item of this section, you will need to take notes on how to better optimize the anchor text of the links on this page. Ideally, they should be as specific as possible. This helps the search engines and users identify what the target pages are about.

Content Pages

Now that you have analyzed the homepage and the navigational pages, it is time to audit the meat of the website, the content pages. In order to do this, you will need to complete the following:

Check and note the format of the Title Tags

Check and note the format of the Meta Description

Check and note the format of the URL

Check to see if the content is indexable

Check and note the format of the alt text

Read the content as if you were the one searching for it

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

The first action item is to check the title tags of the given page. This is important because it is both helpful for rankings and it makes up the anchor text used in search engine result. You don’t get link value from these links but they do act as incentives for people to visit your site.

Similarly to the first action item, the second item has to do with a metric that is directly useful for search engines rather than people (they are only indirectly useful for people once they are displayed by search engines.) Check the meta description by viewing source or using the mozBar and make sure it is compelling and contains the relevant keywords at least twice. This inclusion of keywords is useful not for rankings but because matches get bolded in search results.

The next action item is to check the URL for best practice optimization. Just like Danny Devito, URLs should be short, relevant and easy to remember.

The next step is to make sure the content is indexable. To ensure that it, make sure the text is not contained in an image, flash or within a frame. To make sure it is indexed, copy an entire sentence from the content block and search for it within quotes in a search engine. If it shows up, it is indexable.

If there are any images on the page (as there probably should be for users sake) you should make sure that the images have relevant alt text. After running testing on this at SEOmoz, my co-workers and I found that relevant anchor text was highly correlated to high rankings.

Lastly and possibly most importantly, you should take the time to read the content on the page. Read it from the perspective of a user who just got to it from a search engine result. This is important because the content on the page is main purpose for the page existing. As an SEO, it can be easy to become content-blind when doing quick audits. Remember, the content is the primary reason this user came to the page. If it is not helpful, vistors will leave.

Links

Now that you have an idea of how the website is organized it is time to see what the rest of the world thinks about it. To do this, you will need to do the following:

View the amount of total links and the amount of root domains linking to the given domain

View the anchor text distribution of inbound links

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

As you read in Chapter 1 (Understanding Search Engine Optimization), links are incredibly important in the search engine algorithms. Thus, you cannot get a complete view of a website without analyzing its links.

This first action item requires you to get two different metrics about the inbound links to the given domain. Separately, these metrics can be very misleading due to internal links. Together, they provide a fuller picture that makes accounting for internal links possible and thus more accurate. At the time of writing, the best tool to get this data is through SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer.

The second action item requires you to analyze the relevancy side of links. This is important because it is a large part of search engine algorithms. This was discussed in Chapter 1 (Understanding Search Engine Optimization) and proves as true now as it did when you read it earlier. To get this data, I recommend using Google’s Webmaster Central.

Search Engine Inclusion

Now that you have gathered all the data you can about how the given website exists on the internet, it is time to see what the search engines have done with this information. Choose your favorite search engine (you might need to Google it) and do the following:

Search for the given domain to make sure it isn’t penalized

See roughly how many pages are indexed of the given website

Search three of the most competitive keywords that relate to the given domain

Choose a random content page and search the engines for duplicate content

How Do I Do This and Why Is It Important?

As an SEO, all of your work is completely useless if the search engines don’t react to it. To a less degree this is true for webmasters as well. The above action items will help you identify how the given website is reacted to by the search engines.

The first action item is simple to do but can have dire affects. Simply go to a search engine and search for the exact URL of the homepage of your domain. Assuming it is not brand new, it should appear as the first result. If it doesn’t and it is an established site, it means it has major issues and was probably thrown out of the search engine indices. If this is the case, you need to identify this clearly and as early as possible.

The second action item is also very easy to do. Go to any of the major search engines and use the site command (as defined in Chapter 3) to find roughly all of the pages of a domain that are indexed in the engine. For example, this may look like site:www.example.com. This is important because the difference between the number that gets returned and the number of pages that actually exist on a site says a lot about how healthy a domain is in a search engine. If there are more pages in the index than exist on the page, there is a duplicate content problem. If there are more pages on the actual site than there are in the search engine index, then there is an indexation problem. Either are bad and should be added to your notes.

The next action item is a quick exercise to see how well the given website is optimized. To get an idea of this, simply search for 3 of the most competitive terms that you think the given website would reasonably rank for. You can speed this process up by using one of the third party rank trackers that are available. (Refer back to Chapter 3)

The final action item is to do a quick search for duplicate content. This can be accomplished by going to a random indexed content page on the given website and search for either the title tag (in quotes) or the first sentence of the content page (also in quotes). If there is more than one result from the given domain, then it has duplicate content problems. This is bad because it is forcing the website to compete against itself for rankings. In doing so, it forces the search engine to decide which page is more valuable. This decision making process is something that is best avoided because it is difficult to predict the outcome.

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If you’re a fan of flying helicopters, or Star Wars for that matter, you are going to love the RCX4 Star Stryker from Digittronics. WebProNews caught up with Patrick Le at CES 2010 to get a closer look at the intriguing gadget.

The X-Wing fighter helicopter comes with 4 screws and is designed to fly both indoors and outdoors. According to Le, it can hover up to 1 mile from the remote.  Unlike some of the other toy helicopters, he said the RCX4 is very stable because of its integrated 3D Gyro system.

Reportedly known as the first helicopter in the world to be modeled after a spacecraft, the RCX4 Star Stryker is available for $399 at www.digittronics.com.

Do you want a formula to guarantee the success of your blog?

Yesterday I was interviewed by a journalist about blogging and half way though the interview he asked me what the formula for successful blogging was.

His question was innocent enough and asked without agenda but as I pondered it and pondered the many successful blogs that we see in our medium it became very clear to me that while it might be simpler to have a formula to follow to make our blogs succeed that there are many many different approaches to success in this field.

One of the things that I love about blogging is that there really is no wrong or right way to do what we do and for every ‘rule’ us people who blog about blogging might write – there is always an exception of a blog that has done the opposite and still had good results.

Yes there are some principles that we might see in many successful blogs – but even as I’ve been recently exploring some of these I see examples of blogs that buck the system and succeed despite doing so.

Last year I came up with a list of ‘debates’ in blogging to illustrate some of the diversity of approaches in blogging. Recently – after being accused of being too narrow in my focus – I revisited the list and added a number of ‘debates’ to illustrate the variety of approaches that bloggers take.

All in all I’ve come up with 29 areas that bloggers take different approaches in – yet there would be many many more.

Some of them are debates that might come down to a bloggers ethics, although most are simply different approaches that might be based more upon a bloggers goals, the niche that they’re in and the type of audience that they’re attempting to connect with.

29 Debates Bloggers Have about Blogging

1. RSS Feeds - Full vs Partial Feeds
2. Comment Sections – Comments vs No Comments
3. Post Frequency – Post More vs Post Less
4. How Many Blogs? – Focus upon One Single Blog vs Having Many Smaller Blogs
5. Domain Names – long vs short, hyphens vs non hypens, .com vs other extensions (like .net, .org), local vs global domain extensions
6. Hosting – hosted vs self hosted
7. Post Titles – descriptive vs keywords
8. Content – Link content vs Original content
9. Paid Reviews – Happy to Write Paid Reviews vs Not Doing Paid Reviews
10. Design – Professional Design vs Templates
11. Links to External Sources – Should Open in a New Page vs Should Open in the Same Page
12. Ownership – Use Social Media vs Build Your own properties
13. Post Length – Long in Depth Posts vs Short, Sharp Posts
14. Topic – Niche vs Broad Topics
15. Dating Posts – Dates on Posts vs Non Dated
16. Blogger Name – Anonymous blogging vs Using Your Name
17. Subscribers – RSS is Best vs Email is Best
18. SEO – Writing for Search Engines vs Writing for Humans
19. Personal Blogging – Sticking to Topic vs Injecting Personality and Personal details
20. Comment Moderation – Highly Regulated and Moderated vs Anything Goes
21. Social Media vs Search – focus upon social media rather than search engines as traffic sources
22. LinkBait – Anything goes (e.g.. Personal Attacks) vs Strong Boundaries Around What is and Isn’t Acceptable
23. Bloggers Participation in Comments – Respond to Every Single Comment vs Let Readers Talk to Each Other and Don’t Interact
24. Blog Platforms – WordPress vs ((Insert Other Platforms Here))
25. Monetization – Blogs Should Be Monetized vs Blogs Should Never Be Monetized
26. Affiliate Disclosure – Disclose every affiliate link vs Site Wide Disclosure vs No Disclosure
27. When To Start Monetizing – From Day 1 vs Once You Have an Audience
28. Text Links – To Sell them vs Not Selling Them
29. Outsourcing – Outsourcing content (or other aspects of blogging) vs producing your own.

Some of the above debates are over things that some bloggers feel quite strongly about (there are a few that I do) – but in almost every one there are blogs doing a full spectrum of things.

I wanted to share this updated list mainly to celebrate our diversity and variety as bloggers and in the hope that those who might be looking for ‘the formula’ might see that there’s a wonderful array of choice at our finger tips and with that comes a lot of freedom to forge our own paths as individuals.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

29 Debates Bloggers Have about Blogging

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guest post by Kelly Diels

I have a problem with authority.

Step inside my echo chamber. I’m a blogger, and apparently now a ProBlogger (just quit my job and I’m making money!) so I’m keenly interested in bloggers who blog about blogging. Especially bloggers who blog about blogging for money. ‘Cuz, like, I like to eat. And I figure that reading and digesting and applying the bloggingforcash lessons of those who have climbed this hill a little longer, for a little more money, is a good idea.

And up high on the meta-blogging mountain they yodel: get thee some authority-y-y-y.

Yet every time I read that I need to get authority, I recoil, I cringe, I raise my feminine fist to the heavens and wail and curse and gnash my teeth.

My neighbours don’t love this. I’ll probably hear from the authorities, soon.

What’s my problem with authority?

In really precise and technical terms, it icks me out.

First, in real life, my aversion to authority is a philosophical, political, feminist, and don’t-wanna-be-bored thing. I don’t want to do what I’m told because a lot of what we’re told to do by institutions, experts, parents, teachers, bosses, friends and lovers is just patently bad for us as human, feeling, thinking, interesting people.

Second, when it comes to blogging authority, I don’t understand what we’re talking about:

• What is this authority of which we speak?
• How do we get it?
• Why do we want it?

Online Authority. What Am I Talking About? I Have No Idea.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

It might be worth stating that the type of blog that I’m talking about in this series is a blog that isn’t purely about profit or traffic – but a blog that has influence in its niche.

It is certainly possible to build a profitable and/or well trafficked blog without Trust – in fact I know a few bloggers who blog purely for Search Engine Traffic who don’t really care about influence, brand or loyal readers but who just want traffic that they can convert to cash…

What I’m on about is helping bloggers to not only be profitable and have traffic but to build blogs that have profile, influence, authority, credibility, respect and a brand that opens up opportunities beyond quick profit. - Darren Rowse

Good blogging creates authority, plain and simple. Writing consistently about your area of expertise makes you an authority figure within your industry and niche. You will enjoy a definitive advantage over competitors who do not blog, and likely even over those who have been blogging for shorter time periods.

Professionals and other business people have long been writing for trade publications and newspaper columns to build authority, coupled with networking in the community and at trade shows and conferences, all in an attempt to build word-of-mouth referral business. With blogging, you’re building authority and networking all at once, and on a global scale if your business model benefits from that kind of reach.

The goal is not to be on the A-List as determined by the Technorati Top 100 Blogs. Your goal is to be on the A-List for your niche, geographic region or industry. - Brian Tracy

It’s much slower and harder with an authority blog to develop traffic as you have to be more choosy. It’s not enough just to do linkbait or SEO tricks, you have to attract the right people and delight them with your content so they subscribe and come back. Here you actually need to get to know your audience and what they like. You have to treat them as individuals rather than a herd of potential ad-clickers. -Chris Garrett

Authority. The Common Ground (I think). It Is Male Territory (I think).

What do these guys have in common?

• they’re guys (this might have been obvious from the question) and white, male and pretty ones
• they ranked high on Google for “blogging and authority”
• they were who I was thinking about when I was thinking about blogging and authority, because I’ve read them and learned from them
• and I still don’t know what they’re talking about.

I’ve got a theory about why I don’t know what they’re talking about and it all starts with liberal arts. I’m slandering Socrates right now.

I went to University for a long time and during that time the title of nearly every book and academic paper started with “Beyond ________.”

Beyond Pluralism. Beyond Democracy. Beyond Feminism. Beyond Macrophysical Marathoning and Towards Paper Mâché. I just made that up.

My point: all of the writers arguing beyond a concept were reacting to a history or an asserted wisdom that constitutes the canon. They were suggesting that there was more to their field than the regular, accepted arguments and outlines.  They were saying, yes, that’s true, but there is so much more to this story.

I have a suspicion that the reason I’m not grasping ‘authority’ is because that’s what these bloggers and social media thinkers are doing, here, too, with online authority. They’re saying things like “it is not enough to…”, “the goal is not…”, and “isn’t purely about profit or traffic” – all of which makes me suspect there is a discussion or core knowledge animating these beyond-ish arguments.

So I’m convinced that they all know something I don’t – which is easy, because I know nothing. And I know it. Thanks, liberal arts.

(For this I paid an average of $17,000 a year for six years. Ah, higher education.)

And because I think there is a core idea underneath these discussions, I keep asking this question: when we’re talking about online authority, what are we talking about?

Is authority

• internal, like mastery of your subject and therefore of your domain and possibly the world?
• an external perception, assessed by others based on your contribution?
• Empowerment?
• Knowledge?
• Expertise?
• Reputation?
• Search engine rankings?
• Some bundle thereof?

Questioning Authority and The Tautology Thereof.

So I asked, directly.

I went to the Misters and the Masters (because sometimes – a lot of times – they are the same and I know this from real life and Women’s Studies, thanks liberal arts) and asked them by e-mail,

What is authority and why do we need it?

Yes, I questioned authority by going to the authorities on authority for advice about authority. Ahem and a’men. All men. Again.

Chris Brogan: Is authority the same as trust? A great question. No. Authority is that sense that someone knows enough about something as to be useful. Trust means that PLUS the sense that you’d take this advice, implement it, and follow one’s recommendations on some things (not necessarily all) without much question. I think authority is to the left of trust on a spectrum, so to speak.

Chris Garrett: Authority could be credibility, could be based on your expertise, experience or results, but it is often simpler than that.It is the answer to the question “why should I listen to YOU?”

Can you demonstrate that you have valuable knowledge, insights, ideas? Have you done something that I would like to be able to achieve too? Do other people look to you as the go-to person in your subject area?

What it absolutely is not is beating people over the head with your credentials and calling yourself an expert – in fact that would work against your authority rather than in favour of it. Labels do not create authority because what a badge gives we can undo in moments as soon as we open our mouths

Chris Guillebeau: Authority matters! All authority is perceived authority, meaning that it is determined largely by personal interpretation — but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. When people look to you as an expert and trust what you say, you have a powerful relationship with them, either as a blogger, a marketer, or just a human being. Credentials for credentials sake aren’t that important anymore, but authority is here to stay.

Jonathan Fields epends who’s asking. If you’re a kid, it’s the folks who make the rules. If you’re a grown up, it’s the people who refuse to be constrained by the rules. Those who question authority, create their own paradigms, push envelopes and buttons, then bring others along, opening doors, expanding world views, crafting experiences and solutions and, most importantly, walking the walk.

Real authority is also about aligning words with deeds. It comes from those who dare to live. Those who dare to be judged. Those who open themselves to failure and swap spewing for doing. Real authority takes work and risk. Because if it was easy, everyone would be doing it…and everyone would be an authority, leaving the word so diluted as to have no import.

Honestly, I’m Still Not Getting It. WTbadword is Authority?

These are some smart answers from some very smart people – but I’m still not getting it.

So I posed the question to my friends, family, lovers and stalkers who then proceeded to break Twitter and blow up my blog comments.

Neat fact: the people who answering my question “what is authority and why do we need it?” are not all men (nor are most of them named “Chris”). Holy revolution.

Authority to me, and based on my experience, is that you believe what someone says without having to verify it from a 2nd source. It’s half trust, and half faith that someone knows what they’re talking about. - Nathan Hangen

Authority is earned on some level. Chris Brogan became a social media authority when everyone believed he was. My question is…when did HE believe it? - Kelly Livesay

Authority is also respect. Have learned that, (in my culture anyway.) a person must choose between authority & respect…or will we choose rapport and communication and transparency? Rapport encourages connection, a lack of fear and a sense of security. But there is a cost – often a loss of respect comes with rapport if it’s chosen over authority, especially if that person is a woman. - Franis Engel

Authority is in the eye of the beholder - Mary H Ruth

“Authority” squelches innovation, originality, unconventional acumen. It keeps us looking 4 the same answers in the same places.  “Authority” says that “they” are experts when actually “they” might just be louder or more privileged, male, white, pretty.”Authority” can have sumptuous merit – lived experience, deep digging, TRUE interest. It leads tribes. Bottom line: ALL AUTHORITY NEEDS TO BE QUESTIONED, including one’s own, for true freedom and creativity. Never stop asking. - Danielle LaPorte

I think we are moving to a new place about what constitutes authority, so I am glad you are writing about it. The etymology of authority goes back to the word “autor” -from the Old French for “father”. So there are the patriarchial roots….My new definition of authority is authenticity + clarity (haven’t figured out what to do with the o yet). When I show up as fully myself – with my beautiful flaws and mistakes and fears, and say “this is my truth” from a place of clarity – that is worth listening to. This type of authority is on the rise. If your authority means getting people to listen to you, to follow you, that’s fauxthority. You’re just looking for clones. If it means showing people the possibility of authenticity + clarity to find their truth, now we’re talking. -Lianne Raymond

Authority and Women. That’s a No Go, Boys.

Rich, gorgeous stuff, yes?

And a bit thematic and consistent.

Did you notice a point that kept emerging from the women weighing in on authority?

Authority might be a bit off-putting to women: it feels pretty linear, competitive, male,  and exclusive. And – again with the precise language – kind of icky.

(Bloggers and internet marketers, take note. There is an ISSUE here. More than one woman talked about how authority doesn’t resonate with them, or how it signals all the wrong things. It might be as simple as speaking a different language or it might be more.)

No wonder I can’t get my head around what authority means. We all mean different things by it, and it resonates and triggers wildly different associations in each of us:

• Credibility
• Trust
• Respect
• Experience
• Rapport
• Influence
• Connection
• Social Proof
• reputation
• Accountability
• Google

I don’t really know what to do with that. How does one systematically go about attempting to manufacture influence and manipulate perceptions?

(Actually, I think this is called “branding”).

Still: fertile ground.

Wherein It Turns Out Online Authority is Way Simpler and Less Sexy and Sexist Than I Thought.

Buried in all of this yummy, complicated, thinky hummus were two great potatoes:

Authority is landing on 1st page of Google for search term. Preferably in the top 3 - Dave Doolin

Normally “Authority” online is a reference to how Google values your website / pages. Google considers a Site more authoritative if it has the keyword in question in the site’s URL, if it is an older site, if it has plentiful backlinks from other sites considered to be high value sites, and if the content relates well to the search (among other things). Not too differently from how one might look for an Authority on a topic — who does everyone else look to / listen to (link to) for information on a specific topic? - Bruce Nunnally

Oh well, okay then. Now we’re talking. Now we’re sheering off all the emotion, politics, genitals and gendered intersections and just talking about results.

Search engine results.

I think we just figured out the old school (really old school – as in Platonic) online authority that everyone is obliquely telling us to get beyond.

Authority is the Goddess Google via John Mellencamp. Worship Accordingly.

So at its most basic, Platonic level, online authority is search engine results.

And contained in this most minimal of definitions is an action plan. Here’s how you get online authority:

• backlinks (guest posts)
• backlinks (commenting on other blogs)
• backlinks (great content and value aka “linkbait“)
• backlinks (community. Play nice.)
• backlinks (relationships. Be nice.)
• and all the stuff bloggers advise you to do to build traffic, dominate SERPS and create online authority is about…backlinks

I must confess that my inner feminist, idealist and fist-shaker just died a little for the 47 millionth time since I started this essay approximately six hundred years ago.

Fortunately, all of my alter egos are resilient. And persistent.

So is John Mellencamp, from whom I unabashedly stole the title of this piece. His 80s old school words of wisdom, in song:

I fight Authority, Authority always wins
oh, I’ve been doing it since I was a young kid and I always come out grinning.
I fight Authority. Authority always wins.

And Authority is Google and I’m pretty sure she’s a woman.

To woo her, you’ll need backlinks. To keep her (and her friends, the ones she very kindly sends your way), you’ll need plain ol’ likeability, credibility, and respectability.

You know, exactly what everyone was telling me but I just had to keep questioning. Curse you, liberal arts.

_____________________

Kelly Diels writes for ProBlogger every week. She’s also a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

I Fight Authority and Authority Always Wins. (And What IS Online Authority Anyway?)

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guest post by Kelly Diels

In November, I rebranded and relaunched my blog. I screwed up, I suffered, I sniffled, I refuted the advances of a pervy tech wizard. And I thought: I’d better track my results to see if this was worth it. This better have been worth it.

It was.

On November 10, my Alexa rank was 1,082,076.

Two months and one day later, it is 173,556.

So, in just two short months (and one day), I raised my Alexa rank by almost one million places.

In three months (in the screen shot above, look at the bottom right figure of 1,766,896), my Alexa rank increased by almost two million places.

How’d I do it? I’m so glad you asked.

Once you get past the first set of ingredients – have a seriously small and unpopular blog – the recipe is simple. It simply requires a ridiculous amount of work and a bit of creativity.

Still, I’ve itemized and analyzed what I did differently in the last two months just so I could whisper sexy blog secrets in your ear.

Here is a list of my torrid confessions.

1. Write unique stuff

Yes, this is just another way of saying “write great content! great content! great content!”. There’s a reason everyone says it, repeatedly: because it works.

I admit it. When I started blogging, I was a wannabe. I wanted to be Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse or Yaro Starak.

Now, I just wannabe myself. I’m lit-on-fire for the written word, I have big, ballsy opinions, I’m in bed with surprise, and I love to love. That all shines through in my transparent and sometimes pulpy posts. I know the blogging and business-writing rules and alternate between obeying them and breaking them with abandon. It is roller coaster writing, to be sure, but it seems to be a ride with an lengthening line up.

The lesson: be you, write you, and write wild and free.

2. Get your great stuff out there

In two words: guest post.

I don’t have a commenting strategy – or maybe I do, but it goes like this: don’t really do it, unless profoundly moved or delighted by the post or am crushin’ on the writer and you know who you are – so guest posts are almost exclusively how I get in front of new audiences.

Guest posts bump up my traffic significantly. In the last two months, the single greatest driver of my traffic was, you guessed it, ProBlogger. There was even one day when I had two guest posts up on both ProBlogger and Write to Done.

That day was a good day.

(That day was the day I started making money – but that’s another post, entirely.)

You know who I blame for my promiscuous guest-posting?

Josh Hanagarne, World’s Strongest Librarian. He encouraged/pushed/nagged me to guest post, but I was too timid. (Really. I was scared. What if people said no? Rejection is not my thing.) When coaxing me to approach other bloggers failed, spectacularly, he took a new approach.

He demanded a guest post from me for his site. So I sent him one and his people loved me up. It was like rolling around in a meadow full of daisies and puppies and then a unicorn slid down a rainbow and gave me a cupcake. Magic.

Then, after more encouraging/pushing/nagging from Josh, I wrote a guest post for Darren Rowse at ProBlogger. Of course, I didn’t submit it for ten days until I got exasperated by my own cowardice, cursed myself out and straight-up courted that fearsome dragon – Rejection – by pressing send.

Darren accepted it in something like 15 minutes and made nice virtual noises. Later, he said he’d publish as much as I could send him. That was all I need to hear. I sent him A LOT.

Suddenly I had confidence and started sending pieces all over the place.

And my blog grew. So did my traffic.

The lesson? Guest posts work predictable magic on your blog. Go forth, guest post, bewitch and bedazzle.

And have big, strong, nagging friends.

3. Write more, more often

I used to post new pieces 1-3 times a week. Now I post 5-7 times a week. I’ve simply developed a habit of writing every night. It is sometimes painful, almost always exhausting, I’m wasting money on cable I never watch, Facebook misses me something fierce, and I have very nearly stopped dating.

(Very nearly. Not entirely. If I stopped dating, what would I write about? I romance in the name of research. THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE ALL OF YOU.)

And then there’s Twitter. I’ve written 322,560 words on Twitter, which is basically a novel in Tweets.

Oh. That just made me a little sad.

But other than that twinge – I could have written a novel in the time I spent Tweeting, oh yes that stings - I’m ecstatic. I’m having so much fun. I’m seeing results.

And my blog is growing.

The lesson? Don’t worry about statistics. Worry about quality.

I didn’t set out explicitly to raise my Alexa rank. I set out to improve my blog, light my writing on fire, and make a lil’ love to my people (and find more of them). And, as a result, my blog took off and took my Alexa rank with it.

You can do it, too. Please do.

And then tell me all about it on Twitter, where I still won’t be writing my novel.

_____________________

Kelly Diels is a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Boost Your Alexa Ranking (by a MILLION Places!) in Two Months and One Day

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Last week we published a post by Jade Craven which contained a list of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010 from her perspective.

As tends to happen with these kinds of posts – the list caused a lot of discussion!

Not only did people post comments about it and Tweet up a storm – some bloggers even put together alternative lists of bloggers that they are watching in 2010 (see Sherri’s list here for example).

Sherri’s list got me thinking – perhaps it’s time for a mini ProBlogger ‘Group Writing Project’.

My hope is that this little project will not only highlight some great bloggers, but that it’ll help bloggers generate a little link love from one blog to another within niches and also be useful to your readers (and hopefully some of these posts will generate some buzz for your blogs – these types of lists generally do!).

Your Task is to write a ‘Bloggers to Watch’ post on your blog

Jade’s list last week was a list of bloggers that she’s watching (and as a result did have a focus upon a certain type of blogger that she follows) – but my hope is that this little project will generate some lists of bloggers that focus upon all kinds of niches/industries.

• If you’re a craft blogger – write a list of Craft bloggers to watch in 2010.
• If you’re a sports blogger – write a list of sports bloggers to watch in 2010.
• If you’re a political blogger – write a list of political bloggers to watch in 2010.

Your list doesn’t have to be 30 bloggers – it could be 100, 50, 30, 10…. or if you have a small niche even smaller.

Once you’ve created your list…. Tell Us About It

After publishing your list – come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your new post (please only submit new posts that have been written this year).

Also take some time to surf through the other comments left on this post to see what lists that other readers have created!

I’m looking forward to reading your lists of bloggers to watch!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Create Your Own ‘Bloggers to Watch’ List and Tell Us About It Here

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