Hi everybody-
I know that as a blogger, you’re busy searching out the best information you can, in order to bring your readers (and our publishers) the most authoritative information possible. However, I would like to ask that you check on a few things that will make life easier for the Blogburst editors, and perhaps yield benefits for your readers.
Archive!
It surprises me how many blogs I see that don’t have visible archives available from the front page. I have a specific need to find archives quickly - but I have no doubt that your blog’s readership would also appreciate the ability to get to all your previous posts in an easy way. Speaking simply as a reader, if there’s a blog I really like, I’ll read the entire blog beginning with its first post, and proceed in chronological order. Visible archives make this possible.
Most blog platforms give you the ability to display archives in the sidebar - usually as a list, graduated monthly. I find those to be the most effective. There’s also the calendar-style ones, which I don’t find to be as handy - but anything beats paging through “previous post” links alone. Please consider activating your archive widget in your sidebar, if you haven’t already.
Full Feeds
Much has been written on the philosophies and strategies behind partial feeds versus full feeds (here’s one small sample) but in Blogburst, we do need your full feeds. I have, in the past, seen major blog platforms flip everyone back to partial post output upon making platform-wide software upgrades. So, if you proceed with a software upgrade in your blog’s software (or your blog’s provider does it for you) I’d ask you to please check your settings and see if you still have a full feed output.
Be the main attraction
Think about your favorite blogs for just a second. Hold them in your mind. I’m willing to bet that these blogs that you’re holding in your mind right now are strong, and memorable, because of the strong voice of the blogger - the color and life that they breathe into the facts that they gathered for your perusal. I’m also willing to bet that they do not simply give you a link to someone else’s story, with a throwaway paragraph attached that simply describes what the story links to.
I realize that it requires much more effort to create your own voice, but I would encourage you to try. I truly believe that the “authority blogging” path is the most rewarding way to go, and your readers will certainly appreciate it. Is it hard? Well, it does take more effort, and you might not be good at it right away. However, most things worth doing take effort - and as my voice teacher used to say, “You don’t get better at singing by not singing!” This goes for “authority blogging” too.
Thanks!
I really like these general ‘how to get more readers/be a better blogger’ posts - please keep them coming. They’re really useful.
Hey, no problem. I’m just glad that my words can be of use! Thanks!
Thank you for these tips. It’s helpful and makes our blogging so much easier.
Robin
Actually, that’s bad advice on having the archives in the sidebar. At least on the SEO side of things. It bleeds your page rank out, and you can be penalized for this on the SEO side of things. That and the blogroll are real bad. The best way to go about this, if you like getting search engine traffic, is to have your archives on a seperate page. If you do this, and link back to your own posts when you are referencing something you already wrote about, it will lift your site in the search rankings. but if you have 10 categories, and you have them listed in teh sidebar, it links to each of these categories everytime you make a post. That means if you have 600 posts, you have 6,000 links to categories, which takes your PR juice way down. Now you factor in those 100 links in your blogroll, which nobody looks at because it’s clear that you couldn’t possible vouch for all of them, and your link count is a 66,000, and that’s not counting your link dumps, and the ones you link to in pages. Effectively murdering your link juice altogether. Believe me, you’ll do more for the blogs you like if you eliminate that blogroll, or throw it on a seperate page, and link to their individual stories. Also, you’ll do more for your blog. It will be less cluttered, and when you interlink to yourself, you’ll actually do yourself a favor.
I disagree with the archives bit as well (forgetting the SEO debate for a sec). For cleanness/clarity of presentation, I agree with Nick to have an Archives page (I don’t, but will once I get around to my redesign). Also, how you present your archives depends on your breadth of coverage and years in existance - even though my posts are generally short, Dock would spend an awfully long time reading each post in chronological order. Not ot mention most of that info is outdated - tech changes fast. I’ve found people more often want to browse topics/categories versus specific months.
In regards to Dock’s Give Me More Placement post, I’d like to know when and how BlogBurst plans to restructure blogger compensation. Many news outlets are getting great content - I assume BlogBurst is getting paid, but most of us are not.
I believe it’s the top 100 that get paid, correct? It’d be nice to get a little kick back now and then, even if it was 10 bucks each time we place an article.
Since you asked, Nick, and we’re on the subject, how many hits does a blog actually need to crack the top 100?
I have no idea!
Great advice, I’ve never really thought about the value of the blog archives, I’m off to move mine from the sidebar bottom to the top, thanks for the tip!
It it is more work creating a voice, but well worth it. That is why readers come back. We have been tweaking our voice over the past few months and feel we may be finding it a bit more now. We have also noticed repeat traffic picking up. That takes a good voice.
Thanks for the great tips!
Dock,
It is great to see you writing!
Let me chime in on a point that nobody, to my knowledge, has mentioned about archives.
Here are the 3 reasons why I have and always will have an archive:
1. Shows the history of my blog day one to current
2. It establishes me and my credibility. If somebody has been blogging for more than a year it is an indication of experience
3. For anyone who began blogging before 2007 it is a must have as it immediately establishes in the readers mind, if they understand the history of the blogosphere, how special that person really is for their longevity.
Wordpress quotes at over 2.1 million blogs established. What they fail to mention is the attrition rate, number of blogs abandoned, within that number.
Our very conservative guess at Domus Consulting is that more than 55% of blogs are abandoned before the end of the first year of existence.
Placing your archive establishes credibility in our minds.
dean
You have offered some great advice here on how to improve blogs and I will be implementing some of them.
Thanks for the great tips - very true and its good to get reminded what the blogging fundamentals are.
Something I’ve found odd is to have a posting with a large number of headline impressions and it generates a handful of views and yet one with only a few dozen impressions generate more views. The small number of impressions posts were not really superior to the large impression posts. Might be no more than less competition on the page for the reader’s interest but if I knew I wouldn’t be mentioning it.
Thanks for the tips. I had an archive just because it was there. Now I’ll change it to monthly to save some room and move it up the page.