Savvy Affiliate

Day 11 of The 100 Days To Webpage Excellence Guide

Writing a post on your blog every day is important in order to keep the traffic up and attract new visitors.  However it can be extremely difficult to come up with a new idea to write about every day, especially if you want that idea to be a good one.  Instead of trying to think up something new everyday, take one great idea and expand it into a series of posts.  A series of posts can be great for you as a blogger, since they can be much easier to write than many disparate posts, and they can be good for readers as the readers know what they will be seeing the next day.

So what makes a good series of posts, and how can you write one?   A good topic for a series of posts should be several things, interesting, have many areas to cover, and in demand.  Clearly you need to pick a topic which your visitors want to read about, and one that will keep them interested.  A topic you can write about in detail is essential if you expect to actually be able to create a series.

What are some tips on creating a good series?  Although writing a blog series is as simple as writing several posts and linking them together, writing a great series requires a little more work.  Here are some things you should work on as you write your series.

1) Write the series in one sitting - By writing all the articles of your blog series at one time, and then spreading them out using the Wordpress timestamp features, you can ensure that they all get written.  Although having a series can be great for attracting readers, stopping your series halfway can anger people, and having a post hanging over your head every night can be a lot of pressure.  By writing your series all at once, and then posting, you can ensure that you don’t start until all the posts are written.  Additionally, by writing the series at one time you can make sure that you don’t lose your train of thought during the posts.  It can be awful to start a series and sit down the next day and not understand what you were going to write about, or why you thought it was interesting.

2) Interlink the series - Chances are you will have new visitors who aren’t reading your site daily.  They will stumble onto one post in your series and find it interesting.  If you don’t link to any of the other posts in the series, they won’t even know those posts exist, and may very well leave your site.  By linking up your series you can turn a on off visitor into a multipage reader, and perhaps even a subscriber.

3) Make the progression natural- A good series should flow from one post to the next.  For instance if you were writing about how to win a poker tournament, a good series might be How to play when you first sit down, How to play on the second day, how to play at the final table, and how to win a heads up battle.  Each naturally ties into the other, and leads your visitors to follow your series in order, and to read them all.   If you post series doesn’t tie together neatly, your visitor might not feel obligated to read them all, costing you page views.

4) Spend time on the title - Although it is very important to write a great title for regular blog posts, it is even more important to do so for series.  The title of your series will span all of your posts, and a crappy one can doom the series to failure before you even begin.  Spend some time in order to make sure that the title accurately describes what the series is about, as well as intrigues your visitors into reading your series.

5) Invite comments - When you introduce your series, ask your readers if there is anything they would like you to cover.  It could make a great addition to tag onto the end of your series, or it could inspire you go to back and improve one of the posts that are in the series already.

So do you tend to write single posts or posts in a series?  Which one has generated a better response from your readers?

Be Aware of the tone of your posts, it will carry over to your entire site

 One thing that I have noticed as I have been reading more and more blogs, and subscribing to more feeds,  is that some bloggers tend to be consistently upbeat in their posts, but other bloggers are always cynical or negative.  More importantly than that however, is the fact that the blogger’s attitude tends to invade all aspects of the site.  If you go to a site with an angry or negative blogger, you will likely find comments that are full of angry or negative posts.  On the other hand, if you go to a site which is more upbeat, the posts tend to follow.

As an example many can relate to, blogs often post their monthly traffic and earnings at the end of every month.  Although everyone can be happy when the earnings go up, what happens when the site falters?  Well the upbeat bloggers generally have a more pleasant post.  For instance Rich Minx started the 4 c club, for those bloggers who make 4 cents a day from AdSense.  On the other hand, I have seen numerous posts on other blogs, I won’t single any one out, where they write about AdSense cheating them.  I can’t count the rants I’ve seen where people angrily stated that their traffic had greatly increased over the past month, but their AdSense earnings hadn’t gone up at all.  Therefore Google must be cheating them!

Although I can’t speak for anyone else (not that that doesn’t stop me from trying), I personally greatly prefer to read positive bloggers over negative ones.  I have dumped several blogs from my feeds because I thought that their posts were just too down beat.  After all, people have to deal with that sort of stuff in their every day life, many will reject it if you try to impose it on their online experience.

The bottom line is more pleasant blogs tend to retain readers better.  So take a look at your blogging persona.  Would you classify it more as upbeat or angry?   I would strive for the former.

And why some people’s posts never seem to attract any attention

How much time to you spend writing a blog post?  10 minutes?  Maybe 15 if its a good one?  Well How much thought do you give to writing your posts title?  10 seconds?  Maybe 15 seconds if you’re stumped? If that describes you, perhaps you should give some more thought to creating a catch title, it’s important.

One could make the argument that your posts title is the single most important thing about a post.  For sure, the content of the post is important, and images are worth 1000 words.  However word for word your title packs more punch than any other aspect of a post.

Why is a post title so important?

Alright, what makes up a good post title?

A post title is an intriguing promise to your readers.  You are saying, read this post, I have something new and exciting to offer you.  You won’t be disappointed.   Your post title is a sales pitch.  So in order to find what makes a good post title look at what makes a good sales pitch.

A good sales pitch

1) Starts with a declaration.   Look at this post title.  It is a declaration that some people have a method of attracting links.  A declaration makes the reader assume you know what you are talking about

2) Promises a solution - The Why or How in the post title tells the reader that you will show the secret of whatever you are talking about.  This says, in effect, Some people used to get all the links… but read this post and you’ll learn their tricks

3) Qualifies your statements - If you come on too strong you’ll sound like a used car salesman or someone on an infomercial.  Qualify your statement with “Almost” or “Seem To” and it will make you more seem more grounded.  Although outlandish claims may get you some readers once or twice, and may land you a Digg every now and then, getting credible by making realistic claims and living up to them will help you more long term.

That’s all there is to it.  Model your post titles after those sales pitch tactics and you will see results.  If you are having trouble coming up with a killer title for a specific post, check out 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas that Work

Day 9 of The 100 Days To Webpage Excellence Guide

In order to keep readers interested in your Blog you need to regularly generate content.  Your visitors will come to expect a pattern of blog posts from you.  If you post in a sporadic fashion, or don’t post at all, they will likely not come back.

The easiest way to make sure that you are writing regular content is to set yourself a goal of writing one blog post per day.   If you make sure to post everyday find that several good things occur

If you can’t do one post a day, try three a week, or one a week.  However the less frequently you post, the higher quality each post will have to be.  If you are posting several times a day, many readers will forgive you if some of your posts aren’t as good.  However if you are only posting once a week, it should be a noteworthy mass of content, and should attract a lot of attention.

Another important thing is that you keep your posting schedule regular.  It won’t do to write 6 posts one day, and then not have any more posts coming for a week.  You want to make sure that your readers always see fresh content when they come to your page.  Luckily Wordpress has a handy option of delaying your blog posts.  You can write them all in a batch at once, then spread them out over the course of a week.  Additionally this is great if you are writing a series of posts.  It will enable you to keep your train of thought, and edit your previous posts if you decide you want to change the order of your series.

Writing a Post of the right length is important, too short and you don’t get any attention, too long and you’ll lose your audience

 When you are blogging it is important to keep your post length in mind.  In order to maximize the benefit for everyone visiting your site, your post should neither be too short nor to long.  There is a wide range of people who you are targeting your post towards, keeping them all satisfied can be difficult.   Here are people you should keep in mind as you post

Alright, alright, but what’s the magic number?  Although there is no one magic number for posts, and how long yours should be depends on your niche and your writing style, I have found that posts between 500-1000 words tend to perform best.  Right around 750 words is the sweet spot.   In school, we generally considered on page of a report (12 point, double spaced) to be 250 words.  A 750 word post is equivalent to writing a 3 page report on a topic.  Enough space that you can put out some interesting ideas and arguments, but short enough that it is easily read.

But why is making it longer bad?  If your primary objective of your site is to make money, you want people to come to your page and read your entire post because most people click on ads after they are done reading a page!  Think about it, what do you do with a site that you don’t enjoy?  Do you click on the ads or simply hit the backspace key and leave?  Very few people will lose interest in a post and then click on ads on that page.  If people don’t like a site or are bored by it they escape the by the quickest means possible.  If you want to make money, you have to keep a readers interest until the end of your content, and then shunt them off onto your advertisers.

How does a visitor decide if he like a site?  Your new visitors will be faced with a decision, did they like your site or not.  Should they come back or not.  They will make this decision whenever they finish reading a page.  If they do finish, they will likely decide they enjoyed your post.  If they don’t finish, they will just assume your post wasn’t worth reading, and neither is the rest of your site.

Additionally, right sized posts are more linkable!  If you want other bloggers to link to your pages, they will likely have to have read your post and enjoyed it.  If they only got halfway through and found themselves drifting off, they will assume their readers will do the same.   Even if the first 1000 words of a post are good, if the last 1000 are bad, you’ve lost your link.   So don’t take that risk.  Cut your post off and benefit from it.

For reference, this post is 729 words.  Might have got a little tedious if I kept going on eh?

What’s your average post length?   Short or long?

Blog Op has recently posted a ton of great content.  3 Super posts in a single day, Chris is over there kicking it up a notch.   In case you missed it here is are the links to the posts.  All are a worthwhile read.

 Supplemental Results Hell - Are your pages appearing on Google’s main search results?  Or are they getting return as supplemental results that people won’t see unless they click “Similar Pages?”  See how you can find out if you are in supplemental results hell, and what you can do about it.

Are You Pinging The Right Services? - Chris correctly points out that some sites seem to get updated in Google reader and Bloglines much quicker than others.  Perhaps that is because some people aren’t pinging the right services?   He has a list of some different sites that you can ping.  Pick one or many to make sure your page updates.   I personally only use http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ and have never had any trouble.

Niche Blogging - One thing that new bloggers will get thrown at them time and again is that they need to find a niche and stick to it.  While this may be true in order to maximize the amount of money you make from your blog, it isn’t necessarily true in order to maximize the enjoyment from it.  The bottom line is, it is your blog, you should do what you want on it.  If you want to vary your theme a little bit, and that will keep your interest going, then go for it.

Day 7 of The 100 Days To Webpage Excellence Guide

One thing that new bloggers sometimes fail to understand is that The internet is a unique medium, and your information must be presented in a unique way.  Although you may have a great idea, have written a well researched post, and are generally on top of your game, it means nothing if nobody reads your content.  On the internet, people scan, not read, webpages.

When you read a book you are confronted with blocks of text, and you work your way through them on paragraph at a time, one page at a time.  On the internet however, people generally skim over webpages and pick up the most important information.  If they like what they see they may read the whole article, but don’t count on it.

The moral of this story is that you have to make your webpage easy for your visitors to read.   There are several different things that you can do to make sure that your content is easy to read. Implement these tips and you will find your users sticking around longer.

– Tips on Writing Style –

1) Keep it simple! Only 1 topic per page please.  Long rambling blog posts may be easy to write,  (actually I think they’re hard, but to each their own),  but they are extremely difficult to read.  Pick 1 topic for each post and stick to it.   If you want to cover more than 1 topic, start another post.

2) Paragraphs, learn to love them.  - Use paragraph breaks liberally.  Huge blocks of text are very intimidating on a webpage.  Break up your thoughts with paragraphs.

3) Lists - Lists can be a bloggers best friend.  They are a uniquely scannable method of writing. As a bonus they are generally incredibly easy to write. Pepper your blog posts with lists and you won’t regret it.

– Appearance –

4) Differentiate Your Text - Use bold, italics, and block quotes to make your important text stand out from what is around it.  This will ensure people reading through quickly can get the most important content.

5) Make Your Links Look Classic - Make sure that you are links are easy to pick out and distinguish from the surrounding content.  Blue underlined text is classic for links.  Don’t make any other text blue, and try to avoid underlines so as to not confuse your visitors.

6) Sub-Headers - If you must write long posts, break them up with sub-headers.  Make each section topical so the user can scroll down the page to find the topics that they are interested in.

If You Write About Something Frequently, You Can Get In The Habit Of Only Thinking In Those Terms

One of the problems I have found while I was blogging is that I tend to use the same keywords over and over again in a single blog post.   For instance I often write about blogging more efficiently. And have found that because I am stuck thinking of the word efficient, I use the same word over and over again in the blog post. Although this makes it easier to write, to maximize my search engine listings I want to hit a wide range of keywords with every post.

It is very good to climb to the top of the Google rankings for a keyword that you are targeting.  However it is even better to climb to the top for that keyword, and also rank well for a dozen other keywords.  Recent studies have shown that almost half of all Google searches are unique! This makes it almost impossible to try and guess what people are looking for, or how they will find your site. Look up your hits from your top 10 key phrases.  Then count the hits from your next 100.  Chances are you are getting many more hits from keywords that you didn’t target, or even think of targeting, than the few that you are trying to rank for.

Although there is no reason to give up targeting specific phrases you also want to make sure you rank in a wide swath of potential searches.  Take the word efficient for example.   Although I may think that a person is most likely to find my post by using the phrase “Blog more efficiently,”  In fact there are dozens of synonyms that are also likely to be used.   A quick check on Dictionary.com shows that efficient has these synonyms

able, accomplished, active, adapted, adept, adequate, apt, businesslike, capable, clever, competent, conducive, decisive, deft, dynamic, economic, economical, effectual, efficacious, energetic, equal to, experienced, expert, familiar with, fitted, good at, good for, handy, masterly, organized, potent, powerful, practiced, productive, proficient, profitable, qualified, ready, saving, shrewd, skilled, skillful, systematic, talented, tough, useful, valuable, virtuous, well-organized, workmanlike

So while I may rank well for efficient blogging, what about being a clever blogger?  Or a proficient blogger?  These are all potential search phrases I missed.

If you find yourself using a single word or string of words too often, look it up in a thesaurus. The thesaurus can aid in helping you climb in the search engine rankings, and it can also give you new post ideas.   Although I’ve played out the efficient blogging theme for a while, perhaps I can write a post about being well-organized, and making sure you are acting in a businesslike manner?

 So do you use any kind of language tools when you are blogging?  Have you ever turned to a thesaurus for ideas?

If You Want Frequent Visitors, They Need To Care About Your Site Almost As Much As You Do

One of the things that can make one site a success, while dooming another blog to failure, is reader ownership of the page.  Reader ownership of a blog is how emotionally invested your readers are in your blogs success.  In order for your webpage to succeed, you need visitors who want you to succeed!

If your readers want you to succeed they will do many things to make it happen.  They will post links to your site on their own page, they will Digg your posts and submit them to other social networking sites, they will comment on your posts and become active in your community.  All of these are vital to a blog’s success.

So now that it is established that you must get your readers to like your site, and want to make it succeed, how do you do that?   Well here are some tips on increasing reader ownership of your site

1) Discuss before making big changes - Give your readers advance notice before making big changes in your site, either in its design or its style.  Some of your readers may be using your site because they like a certain feature you are going to get rid of.  However if you bring it up ahead of time, and don’t just spring the changes on them, they are much more likely to accept the changes and understand why you implemented them.  Alternatively they could make a good argument for keeping some things on your blog they way they are.  Listening to your readers may stop you from alienating a large portion of them.

2) Invite their comments, and respond to them.  You invest a lot of time in writing your content.  Invite your reader’s comments on what they like and what they didn’t like.  Learning to tailor your content to what your readers enjoy will ensure that you keep your current visitors around, and attract new visitors.

3) Reward top commentators - Set up a top commentator sidebar (plugin), make sure that those links are Do Follow.  This will reward your top commentators both with some search engine rankings as well as some visibility on your blog.

4) Set up MyBlogLog - MyBlogLog is a great tool for finding out which bloggers are visiting your site.  If they are visiting your site frequently, you should return the favor and see if you find their site interesting.  If you do, be sure to either link to them or leave a comment about how much you enjoyed their page. MyBlogLog is one of the best tools available for networking with other bloggers.  Blogging is no different than any other business, networking is critical to success.

Do you think you have any reader ownership in your site?  Would your readers care if you stopped blogging?  Or would they move on without a thought?