Occasionally, I receive emails from people asking me about blogging. Now that the second edition of my blogging book is out, the volume of emails has only increased.

A common theme I see is people creating a blog, posting as often and as much as they can, only to run out of steam. Lots of work for dismal results.

Common questions are:

• Is blogging dead?
• Is blogging still relevant?
• I published N articles and made no money. How come?

There are other questions, of course, but these are the most common ones. These are not dumb questions.

People have legitimate reasons to be frustrated with their blogging efforts. One such email included a very relatable quote:

I spent 4 hours writing a 2348 word essay. It was read by 78 people. Maybe fewer, as I too visited the page.

Can we really blame her for being frustrated?

The fundamental problem is that a lot of people treat their blog as the product. Your blog is not the product. Let me repeat it, louder, one more time for those in the back. YOUR BLOG IS NOT THE PRODUCT.

Yes, blogging is still alive. Yes, blogging is still relevant. But blogging has also changed drastically. Most of the conversations that blogging used to spark have largely moved to social media.

Blogging is still amazing… but it’s not the product. Blogging can still change your life… but it’s not the product. Blogging can make you money… but it’s not the product.

If blogging is not the product, then what is it? Blogging is an incredibly useful tool. Specifically, it’s a content marketing tool. It can help you reach the people you need to reach and expose them to your product.

So what is the product then? The product can be you and your career, your business, a book you wrote, or something else that has value and for which you charge money.

If you treat blogging as the product, you’d be very disappointed to reach only 78 people, and be hard-pressed to make any money from it. Even if a quarter of them were to click on, say, your ads, it might not be worth your 4-hour investment in time. And trust me, such a conversion rate is extremely unrealistic.

78 prospective employers when you are looking for a job is not so bad, though. Well worth the four hours of writing. 78 prospective clients for your freelance business, could lead to thousands of dollars down the line even if only one of them were to sign up. 78 prospective readers of your book, might lead to quite a few extra sales.

If you treat your blog as the product, you’ll often need 100K+ people a month to extract any serious value out of it. If you have a product, even a small group of people who are the right fit for your product can change your life.

Reading my book will teach you how to ensure that the numbers are larger AND you’re leveraging them to promote the right product.

The post Your Blog Is Not the Product appeared first on Technical Blogging.

As Woody Allen famously said, 80% of success is showing up. He is right, you know. I believe that’s the case when it comes to blogging as well. Showing up on the blogging front means posting new content on a regular basis.

However, after following a predictable trajectory, in the long run many – if not most – blogs end up being abandoned.

A blog usually starts with a bang. The author is hyper-motivated. They’ll publish a series of posts, share their blog with family and friends, get some good feedback, and then… Then life gets in the way, web traffic disappoints one’s lofty expectations, posting becomes less frequent and more sporadic, monetization efforts fail or fall very short of the mark, and so on until a blogger pretty much gives up on their site entirely.

But wait… they’ll be back here and there with an apology post for not having posted much lately, then they’ll publish a little more before, sooner or later, disappearing entirely.[2] Life, after all, keeps getting in the way, and it’s not like all of us can retire off of this blogging thing.

That’s the usual path to blog despair.

Several months ago I received the following email:

I just finished your book and loved it. I also read your blog from time-to-time. Why did you stop blogging?

The subject was “y u no blog”. Why I no blog, indeed. You see, if you follow the steps within my book you can avoid the predictable pattern of blogging abandonment that happens to most people.

Blogging is a river, not a lake. The constant stream of new content that you post on your blog is what gives it an edge over other forms of content publishing. It’s part of what hooks readers to follow you, rather than just consuming the existing content with no expectation regarding what is coming around the bend next.

Blogging’s nature is also a curse. That strength quickly becomes a weakness if you fail to produce new content.

Amusingly enough, I myself failed to follow my own advice. My pattern of abandonment was slightly different, however.

Thanks to my blogging expertise, I still managed to monetize my “semi-abandoned” blogs quite well. They continued to bring in a decent side, passive income. They still, relying on existing content, managed to keep a steady traffic of new visitors.

Lack of blogging success is not what lead me personally to stop blogging on a frequent basis. A lack of proper organization did. This was compounded by the fact that I run a multitude of blogs. So the degree of organization required to pull it off is much higher in my case.

Sure, I can sit here and blame the number of blogs I run. I can blame being particularly busy with my day job, I can blame the beautiful weather we have in the Okanagan, I can blame my recent renewed focus on my health. What about the government? Yeah, sure, let’s blame them as well.

The real reason is me. I failed to blog regularly not due to lack of time. We all have the same 24 hours in any given day. I failed to blog regularly because I prioritized other things instead. Including some things that weren’t actually worth my time.

In short, I didn’t have my shit together[3]. I often also fell prey to black and white thinking. “Yeah, I could write a random post now, but I want to get back into blogging when I can do so regularly”. And so over time, months, and then in some cases, years quickly passed me by.

The buck stops here.

After significant research into productivity, time management, and personal development I can finally say that I’m headed in the right direction. It’s a process of course, but I’m well into it and am now organized enough to pull off the multiple blogs regular posting trick.

I’ve already rebooted this blog (posts go live on Monday), and my programming blog (posts go live on Tuesday). Math Blog will also be rebooted this week.

I have another project under wrap, too, which specifically relates to said topics of goal setting, the systems needed to achieve them, personal development, and the general topic of attaining success. I will announce the specifics here when ready, so stay tuned.

Back to the topic at hand, here are seven key suggestions to avoid the abandonment phenomenon:

1. Set a frequency (publicly disclosed or not) of at least two posts per month.
2. Be predictable by always posting on the same day(s). Even better, have an editorial calendar.
3. Schedule in your calendar a time for writing posts. I find that two hours are generally sufficient for a good post. If you finish a post in less time, use the remaining time to write more.
4. Schedule your posts in your content management system (e.g., WordPress).
5. Keep a cache of a few posts to be used if an emergency that prevents you from writing that week arises.
6. Have an idea file accessible from anywhere (e.g., on your Dropbox, Evernote, or Google Docs) in which you keep adding future post ideas and headlines that come to mind.
7. Consume content that is relevant to your blog. Resources such as books, blogs, videos, courses, magazine, etc. This will stimulate your imagination and help you devise new ideas for topics that are worth sharing with your users.

In the near future, I’ll discuss some of these key ideas and provide step by step instructions where relevant.

The post Avoid the Abandoned Blog Phenomenon appeared first on Technical Blogging.

I define Buzz Blogging as a style of blogging with the following characteristics:

1. Headlines that are purposely intended to induce curiosity (i.e., click-bait);
2. List-based posts, with the number of items included in the title;
3. Media heavy content, with a small amount of commentary for each item;
4. Posts that are either funny or make big promises about their usefulness (but rarely actually deliver on them).

An example of such a headline would be, “25 tips to be more productive – #4 will change your life”. Heck, who doesn’t want to be more productive or even change their life (for the better)? And now we are all curious as to what number four is. So the post gets clicks, and is shared far and wide on social media.

These lists are often compiled from Reddit threads, posting photos without much attribution in the process (or, and let’s not even go there, copyright permission from the photographer).

From the blogger’s perspective these types of posts have several obvious advantages:

1. Buzz posts are usually quick and easy to write;
2. They get clicked;
3. They tend to appeal to a broad audience, including international audiences who might struggle with more text-heavy posts due to language barriers;
4. They tend to go viral, as people mindlessly browse and share Buzz posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc;
5. They are like potato chips: you can’t stop at just one. The typical reader of Buzz posts is in “casual surfing” mode so they generally click on similar types of posts that appear on the sidebar or at the bottom of the page.

We could argue that they’re the new “infographic” of the blogging world. However, unlike infographics, you don’t even need a designer make such posts.

It might be tempting to apply these principles to your own blog. However, before you jump on the bandwagon, I urge you to consider the negatives of such an approach:

1. Buzz Blogging over-promises and under-delivers. The typical reader of a technical blog will notice and start to consider your blog to be “fluffy” at best, and as junk that isn’t worth their time at worst.
2. If you are using third-party pictures without the proper license (e.g., Creative Commons) you are liable for copyright infringement. Unlike BuzzFeed who can fight or intimidate Joe Photographer, you might end up having to pay up (and rightfully so).
3. It wastes an opportunity to connect with your readers on a deeper level, while at the same time arguably making the blogging world even shallower.

When it comes to penning great posts for today’s audience, I think that the following guidelines will give you a fair compromise and serve you well:

1. DO write enticing headlines;
2. DO NOT write misleading headlines or ones that promise the moon (your average post isn’t going to change most people’s lives);
3. DO make lists;
4. DO NOT transform your blog in a constant list fest;
5. DO use media content (photos, videos, audio) generously;
6. DO NOT skimp on the actual textual content of the post. Long text will always have a SEO advantage over Buzz posts which are, in reality, intended to be flash in the pan that relies on viral/social traffic.

What do you think? Will you give into the temptation of Buzz Blogging?

PS: I’m back.

The post Should You Give into Buzz Blogging? appeared first on Technical Blogging.

Blogs are an excellent tool for promoting your startup or business. If you’re not careful however, it’s easy to end up putting in a lot of effort into something that yields little in the way of reward. The following is a series of common blogging pitfalls that entrepreneurs should be aware of and which you’ll want to address when it comes to your own blog.

Blogging mistake #1: Not prominently linking to your main site

It can be extremely irritating for visitors to arrive on your blog, and not have an easy way to reach your main site. Yes, the reader could remove blog. or /blog/ from their address bar, but you should work under the assumption that inertia is a strong force. If it takes more than a negligible effort, a large percentage of visitors won’t bother doing it.

One of the chief goals of your blog is to get people to check out your product. You need to make this process as easy as possible.

How to fix it

• Link to the homepage or landing page of your choice from within your navigation bar. Home should link to your main site’s homepage, not your blog’s index. Call that link within the navigation bar Blog instead.
• If your main site’s logo is present at the top of your blog template, have it link to the main site.
• If the main site’s logo is not included in the template, add such a logo or a fairly good sized icon derived from it within your sidebar, then link that to the main site.
• Finally, link generously to the product or service when you mention it, be it from a short description in your sidebar or from within your posts. You want a person to look at your blog for a second, blink, and immediately know where to click to check out your offer.

Blogging mistake #2: Not integrating with social properties

Typically you opt to have a social presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ because you assume that doing so will help you reach a wider audience. If your site and these social properties are entirely separate spheres unto themselves however, you won’t capture the true value that they can offer.

It’s a mistake not to link back to your main site from these sites. That’s obvious. What might not be so obvious, is that it’s also a mistake not to promote these social properties from within your blog. In fact, properties such as your Facebook fan page, can help show your visitors that you are more than just an anonymous, faceless company. If you do a good job on these social sites, you can demonstrate how you interact with your community of customers and fans, to prospective customers.

Linking to your social properties also acts as social proof. When someone sees a large number of fans or followers, it leads them to consider you as being more authoritative, established, or worth following as well. And since you are showcasing these properties to your blog visitors, this will in turn boost these numbers and increase further your social proof.

Finally, it’s a mistake not to promote your blog posts on social properties. For example, when someone likes your fan page on Facebook, they subscribe to your updates there. By posting a link to your articles within that page on Facebook, you automatically reach visitors who may have otherwise vanished for good after their first visit to your blog.

How to fix it

• Link to your main site from social media properties that allow you to do so.
• Add a Facebook Like widget, a Twitter follow button, and +1 button to your sidebar. Note that this Facebook widget should be used to get people to like your fan page (therefore subscribing to your updates) and not your site. Specify the former URL, rather than the latter, when configuring the widget. Show faces when it comes to Facebook, as they are very effective at helping you immediately connect and capture the interest of your readers (after all, you’re showing them faces of their friends who like you, a quasi-direct endorsement for you).
• Post a link to your new posts on all of your chosen target properties. TwitterFeed is one of many available tools that can take care of automatically posting your RSS to social sites (currently, both Twitter and Facebook are covered). But even doing it manually, if you so choose to, does not take much of your time.
• Include a widget such as AddThis or ShareThis within your template, so that your individual posts can be liked, shared on Twitter, and posted on a variety of other sites by your readers. If possible, favor quality over quantity and opt for buttons that include counters (again, for social proof).

Blogging mistake #3: Making it harder to subscribe to, and regularly follow, your blog

Blogs that don’t make it easy to subscribe to new content rarely achieve a great deal of success. These day, browsers like Firefox and Chrome even ignore auto-discovered syndication feeds, making the process of subscription much harder.

You might think that RSS doesn’t matter anymore. In truth it does matter — more than most people assume actually. Even conceding for a second that your prospective customers are not the right demographic for feeds, you still need to provide and promote ways for them to keep up with your new content. You simply cannot expect them to come back to your site periodically.

How to fix it

• Keep track of your subscription stats via FeedBurner.
• Have a large orange RSS icon linked to your feed URL (see mine as an example).
• Include a way to receive your new posts via email. You can use FeedBurner (enable it through Publicize -> Email Subscriptions) or much more ideally, set up your own mailing list with a service like Mailchimp (that’s what I use and I highly recommend it). Mailing lists are one of the biggest assets you can have as a business, virtually regardless of what you do. Set one up even if your crowd is technical. Include the signup widget near the top of your template, like I’ve done here in the sidebar. You can then setup an RSS-to-email campaign within Mailchimp to have your new posts automatically appear in your subscribers’ inboxes.
• At the bottom of your posts invite readers to subscribe either via RSS or by email. You can generally accomplish this by modifying a template file or using the option to do so (if provided) within your blog’s software. For this blog, I use a plugin for the Genesis framework (i.e., Simple Hooks).

Blogging mistake #4: Only blogging about product announcements

While you certainly should use your blog to talk about and promote your products, unless you have more than one blog, it would be a big mistake to focus your site just on announcements about your products. You’d be missing out on the true marketing power of your blog if you went this route.

How to fix it

• Write for the audience you want to attract. If you prospective SaaS customers are people who intend to lose weight, don’t spend 90% of your blog time discussing cool features you introduced in your app. Instead, write about topics that interest this particular demographic such as weight loss, fat burning, healthy foods, lean mass gain, etc. This way you’ll gather a community around that topic. Make it the blog that absolutely anyone who is losing weight should follow, whether they use your app or not. All the readers that you’ll attract will be exposed to your product either by sheer branding (ergo the importance of logos and links in the template mentioned previously) or by following your blog regularly, and then ending up reading your occasional bona fide product announcements.
• Even when announcing a feature or posting about a product promotion, try to focus on how this will benefit the reader. Tell a story. Don’t just write a dry announcement. For example, if you are talking about an Android version of your app for dieters, talk about how stressful it is to try and keep track of calories when dining on the go, and how this new addition to your product line up will facilitate the lives of those who use your product.
• Focusing on providing value for your readers, rather than just pushing a sale, will greatly help you increase your business. This will in fact make you come across as more trustworthy and genuine, as well as help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. If I trust you and consider you to be an expert, I’m willing to buy from you and your recommendations.
• Have a small blurb or banner ad for your products at the bottom of your posts, rather than each post just being an ad itself for your products.

Blogging mistake #5: Hiding what your product is about

I hate it when I’m five minutes into a post of a startup, and I have no idea what these guys actually do or what they’re trying to sell me. This is far more common than it should be.

How to fix it

• Have a small description at the top of your blog (typically in the sidebar) that explains who you are and what you do. (e.g., “Acme Fat Loss” is a web application that helps you lose weight by tracking calories and suggesting recipes that are within your daily calorie allotment”).
• If your post has anything to do with your product, quickly introduce what your product does within your post. Don’t just assume everyone knows. For example, “The investment we received means that we’ll be able to allocate far more resources to the development of our calorie tracker and healthy recipe generator application”.

These are not by any means the only mistakes businesses do when trying to succeed at blogging. They are however some of the major, and perhaps most common, ones. Thankfully simple, effective fixes, as shown, are far from hard to implement and can be such a massive boon to you and your company.

The post 5 Common Blogging Mistakes Made by Startups appeared first on Technical Blogging.