ProBlogger: 13 Tips for Promoting Yourself Without Sounding like a Jerk

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13 Tips for Promoting Yourself Without Sounding like a Jerk Posted: 30 Jul 2020 05:06 AM PDT The post 13 Tips for Promoting Yourself Without Sounding like a Jerk appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 55 of the ProBlogger podcast. So you've been blogging in your niche for a while now. And the more you've written about it, the more you've learned. You're now considered somewhat of an expert in your field. And your archive backs that up, with lots of great content that can really help those looking for answers. But how do you spread the word about your content (and your expertise) without sounding like a jerk? This is a question I've been asked a lot, particularly by  Australians. (I think it has a lot to do with 'tall poppy syndrome', where people don't like to boast about their achievements.) And I've asked myself the same question a lot over the years. So this week I'd like to offer you tips for promoting yourself without sounding like a jerk. 1. Do good stuff This may seem pretty obvious, but it needs to be said: make sure your content is worth finding. If you're a blogger, you need to be blogging well. If you're blogging on a specific niche, you need to understand it and have something worthwhile to say about it. Promoting content that fails to deliver may do more harm than good. Because even if you build up a solid archive content down the track, people may never bother coming back a second time. 2. Don't think of it as self-promotion As I mentioned earlier, some people (particularly Australians) don't like to boast about their achievements. And that's exactly what self-promotion can feel like. So don't think of it as promoting yourself. Instead, think of it as promoting ways you can use your talent, knowledge and expertise to help other people. My passion is helping other people improve their blogs. I've been blogging for quite a while now, and in that time I've learned a lot and developed some skills and expertise. But I can't just sit and wait for people to come to me. I need to get myself out there, find people with questions and issues, and let them know how I can help. And that's what you should do too. 3. Start with passion How often have you seen the word 'expert' or 'guru' on someone's Twitter profile? It's become such a cliché these days that most people either ignore the claim or laugh at it. But when someone says they're passionate about something you react differently. You feel compelled to read their content just so you can find out more about who they are and what they've done. Passion is infectious. It stimulates conversation, which then gives you a way to talk about what you can do for people. So start with your passions, because people will find them much more interesting. And they'll find you much more interesting as well. There will be plenty of time to talk about your achievements later. 4. Be a learner, and share what you're learning Another reason to avoid words like 'expert' and 'guru' is people might think you've stopped learning, and are no longer open to new ideas or new ways thinking. I'm not interested in hearing from people who think they know everything there is to know about a topic. I want to hear from people who are still learning by gathering knowledge and asking questions. And then sharing what they've learned with others. So don't be afraid to let people know you're still learning. Share what you've learned. Share the things you've tried that haven't worked as well as those that have. And never stop, because you will never know everything. And that's okay, as long as you're honest about it. 5. Tell stories When you get the opportunity to talk about your skills, achievements and qualifications, don't just rattle them off as if you're reading a list. Tell a story. Not only will it seem more natural, it will also put your achievements and qualifications in context. And your reader will feel a connection rather than just an admiration. But don't try to manipulate the conversation you're having just so you can tell your story. Just have them ready for when the time is right. 6. Let people interpret the facts for themselves As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people have the word 'expert' or 'guru' in their profile. And what puts a lot of people off about these claims is that it's all open to debate. What makes someone an expert? And who decides whether someone is one or not? But facts are much less open to interpretation. So rather than claiming to be an expert on something, talk about the number of followers you have, or the number of books you've written about the topic. And then let them make up their own minds about you. Ideally, you'd include these facts in a story rather than lead with them. But if people ask you point blank about your credentials, feel free to use the facts on their own. 7. Don't compare yourself to others The only time you should ever compare yourself to someone else is to point out why they are better than you. Don't ever talk about how much more you know, or that your skills are better than theirs. Because you'll be seen only as someone who puts other people down to make yourself look superior. And that can seriously affect your reputation. Instead, compare yourself to what you were like previously. Show them how much better you are now than when you first started. When I talk about my blogging journey, I often mention that I had no credentials when I started out. I talk about having 20 jobs in ten years, about my average English marks at school, and how it took me three months to learn how to make text bold. Of course, later on I'll talk about the number of readers I'm now getting every month, and how I got to travel the world. People like to see other people succeed. It makes them feel that they can do it too. And using these before-and-after snapshots is a great way to show you have succeeded. But your success doesn't need to have anyone else failing. 8. Give credit where it's due You've probably achieved some great things over the years. And while you may have accomplished a lot of these achievements on your own, there's a good chance you had someone helping you with some of them. And if that's the case, you should acknowledge those who gave you that help. In my final year of high school, I received the third-highest mark for my year level. It's an achievement I was very proud of. But I also know it had a lot to do with being part of an amazing group of students. That year I was in a small politics class with eight or nine other students who were amazing. We worked together, and spurred each other on. And so whenever people congratulated me on my marks I would always point out the other people in the group, and how much they helped. Yes, I worked hard. But I'm not sure I would have worked as hard if I didn't have them supporting and encouraging me. It's the same with the ProBlogger events. People often compliment me for organizing and running such a great event, but most of the work is actually done by my team. So I make a point of thanking them publicly for all their hard work, and let people know who most of the credit should be going to. This isn't about putting yourself down. It's about telling it like it is, and giving credit where credit is due. 9. Don't go too far with modesty I think we've established that no-one likes a bragger. But a lot of people don't like excessive modesty either. Not only can it come across as false modesty, it can also make it seem like you don't believe in yourself. So you need to strike a balance. By all means point out your flaws. After all, no-one is perfect. But don't be afraid to talk about your achievements and celebrate your successes. 10. Let other people promote you Letting other people talk about you is often far more effective than anything you could say about yourself. People will pay far more attention to what other people say about you than what you say about yourself. Testimonials are a great way to show what other people are saying about you. And a testimonial from the right person can give you a lot of kudos. But make sure they're not too 'gushy', and don't have too many or it may come across as boasting. 11. Build meaningful relationships Some people attend networking events with one goal: to get their business card into the hands of as many people as possible. But I'd much rather make meaningful connections with four or five people during the event than leave with 200-odd people having only a vague idea of who I am. Similarly, when promoting myself I try to go deep rather than wide. And I suggest you do the same. Of course, if you find yourself speaking at a conference then going wide might work, Having a large audience hanging on your every word can be a great opportunity to spruik yourself a little. But when you have the opportunity for some one-on-one time with people, you should make the most of it. Engage with them, listen and respond to their questions, and be genuine. And you should do the same when you're online. Don't just tell people about yourself in your tweets. Engage with them. You're much better off making real connections with a few key people in your industry than having everyone know you a bit about you. 12. Read the mood of the moment There are times when self-promotion is perfectly acceptable. Job interviews are on obvious example. If you don't sell yourself there you'll come across as someone who either doesn't want the job or doesn't believe in themselves. But you wouldn't want to try it at a dinner party. There you would need to show some restraint, because it's a different type of interaction. You might be able to bring up your credentials and achievements as part of a story, but it won't be anything like that job interview. You also need to consider people's cultures and even personality types. While some may find your self-promotion quite acceptable, others may not. So how can you tell when it's appropriate? By reading the signals and responding appropriately. If someone asks what you know, who you are, and what your experience is, by all means talk about your credentials and experience. But don't force it on people if they don't ask for it. 13. Be generous Want to know the secret to being a great influencer? It's pretty simple. Just use what you know to help those you influence. What's the point in developing all those skills, and all that knowledge and expertise, if you're not going to share what you've learned? Being generous and sharing your expertise will not only help others, it will also help you by growing your influence. People will quickly discover who you are, what you know and what you can do. And shout about you from the rooftops. This is the best self-promotion because it's not really self-promotion. You're simply being generous and useful to those around you. Yes, some people will take everything you have and give nothing in return. But you'll be amazed how many people will tell other people about you, what you know, and what you can do if you're generous to them.   So there you have it: 13 tips for promoting yourself without sounding like a jerk.  And now that you know the best way to promote yourself (or not promote yourself as the case may be), I want you to give it a shot. Tell us one thing you're going to do, and then let us know how it goes.   Photo by Ashes Sitoula on Unsplash The post 13 Tips for Promoting Yourself Without Sounding like a Jerk appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 21 Mistakes Bloggers Make (and How to Avoid Making Them Yourself)

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21 Mistakes Bloggers Make (and How to Avoid Making Them Yourself) Posted: 23 Jul 2020 05:45 AM PDT The post 21 Mistakes Bloggers Make (and How to Avoid Making Them Yourself) appeared first on ProBlogger.  This post is based on episode 46 of the ProBlogger podcast. When people interview me about blogging, I'm often asked about mistakes I've either made myself or seen others making. And the hardest part about answering that question isn't coming up with them, but rather deciding which ones I should mention. Because believe me, there are a lot of mistakes bloggers make. Today I'm going to talk about 20 or so of those mistakes. But this is by no means the complete list, and I'm sure you can think of plenty more. (If you do, please share them with us in the comments.) 1.  Not starting a blog in the first place A lot of people have trouble getting started because they want their blog to be perfect from the word go – the hosting, the design, the topic, even the first post. Unfortunately, a lot of these people will never think their blog is perfect. And so their thoughts and ideas never see the light of day. I know people who've been talking about starting a blog for years. One of my friends has been thinking about it for nearly as long as I've been blogging. And every time he talks about it I say, "You could have started ten years ago just to see what would happen." If you haven't started your blog because you want everything to be perfect, I strongly encourage you to make a start anyway. It doesn't have to be on your own domain, or even use your own hosting. Set up a blog on blogger.com or wordpress.com (both free) and see what happens. The truth is your blog will never be perfect – not when you launch it, nor at any time after that. You will always be finding ways to improve it. So let go of that perfectionism and just start. 2. Giving up too early While some people have trouble getting started, others find it hard to keep going. When most people start blogging they're driven by passion. But after a while that passion starts to wane (often around the three-month mark), and blogging starts to feel like something they have to do rather than something they want to do. And after looking at their relatively low traffic and subscriber numbers (it takes most blogs a year more to get going), they may well feel they have better things to do with their time. Another time bloggers often contemplate giving up is at the one-year mark. Instead of celebrating their first anniversary they look at their numbers and think, This is all I've got to show for a full year of blogging? If you're thinking of giving up because you're not getting the results you expected, please don't. All of the blogs I've had over the years took a year (if not longer) to reach the point where they had decent traffic and generated a decent outcome. 3. Not differentiating yourself Whatever niche you've chosen, chances are there are already hundreds (if not thousands) of blogs out there covering the same niche. When I started blogging about photography back in 2007 there were already hundreds of photography blogs around. So how can you differentiate yourself from those other blogs and offer something unique? One way is to share your own uniqueness – your opinions, your stories, your experiences, your personality, and your sense of humor. You can also work on developing your voice – the way you present yourself and the position you take with your topic. What will you be to your reader? A companion? A friend? A teacher? A journalist? Whichever option you choose will change the way you write your posts. You can also try to hit a particular type of reader within your niche. When I started writing for Digital Photography School, my aim was to be a companion to those who were new to cameras and photography. That set me apart from other photography blogs where the content was more advanced and written in a more professorial voice. I'll admit it's getting harder and harder to differentiate yourself from everyone else. But try to find something that sets you apart and makes you unique. 4. Not blogging on your own domain (or on the wrong domain) I'll be completely honest: most of the blogging mistakes I've made have centered around domains. And I think I've made just about every mistake there is to make. While blogging on wordpress.com and blogger.com is okay to start with, eventually you should be using your own hosting and your own domain. And unless you plan on targeting a specific geographical area, you should try to get the .com domain if you can. You should also choose a domain name that's memorable, is relatively short, and doesn't have any hyphens or other punctuation. And I'm making these suggestions as someone who has made all of these mistakes. My first blog was on a .org.au domain even though I was targeting an international audience. ProBlogger was originally on a .net domain. And Digital Photography School's domain has hyphens between each word. If you have made any of these mistakes it's not the end of the world. After all, Digital Photography School is still doing well despite its hyphenated domain name. But if you're just starting out, try to choose one that avoids these issues. 5. Having an irregular posting schedule While you don't necessarily need to publish every day, you should try to establish some kind of rhythm with your posting. It's good for you as a writer because it will get you into the habit of writing regularly. And the more you write, the better you'll become. It's also good for your readers. If you publish your posts regularly (Monday and Friday, Tuesday and Thursday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or whatever works best for you), your readers will know when to turn up for the next one. But if they keep coming back and finding nothing new to read because you decided to skip a week, they may stop coming back altogether. Posting regularly also help you build a decent archive over time. Even if you publish only once a week, you'll still have 52 posts within a year. And those archive posts create paths into your site from search engines and social media. But while having more posts will obviously create more paths, how regularly you post is more important than how often you post, at least to begin with. For Digital Photography School I started writing two posts a week (Tuesday and Thursday). then increased it to three posts a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). After a while I started posting every weekday, and then every day. These days we publish 14 posts a week. But it has taken us years to reach that point. 6. Being too apologetic While posting regularly certainly has its benefits, sometimes life makes other plans for us and we have to skip a post. And that's totally fine. We all have other things going on in our lives besides blogging. Which means there's no need to start your next post with an apology. There's a good chance your readers didn't even notice, and now you've just brought it to their attention. And while I can understand you wanting to be honest with your readers, it can be more of a distraction than a help. So instead of apologizing about the post you never published, focus your energy on the one you're about to publish. 7. Focusing on traffic rather than your readers There's nothing wrong with writing the occasional post specifically to be shared (and hopefully go viral). After all, it could bring in a wave of new readers. But if they're the only posts you write, you may well find your regular readers disappearing sooner or later. Don't write blog posts to bring in traffic. Instead, think about the people who are reading your blog and write the kind of content they need. And if it happens to go viral as well, then it's a bonus. For example, infographics do really well on Digital Photography School. They get a lot of shares on Facebook, and drive a lot of traffic to our site. But if that's all we ever posted we'd get a lot of people visiting the site and then quickly disappearing. Why? Because infographics alone won't help our readers improve their photography. They also need to learn about ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and other less glamorous topics that will help them master their cameras and take better photographs. These days we try to mix it up as little. Our editorial calendar for each week will include something that's shareable, something our readers can act on, and something that's a bit more engaging. But the other posts we publish that week will be geared towards teaching our readers different things. By all means create content that will get people's attention. But don't make it your sole aim. Instead, focus on creating content that will change your readers' lives. 8. Creating too much clutter When you first launched your blog it probably looked very clean and sleek. But what about now? Chances you've added a few more widgets, navigation elements and ads over the years. Is it still looking relatively clean? Or has it become so cluttered that it's turning people away? It might be time to have a look at your blog's design, and either remove some of those elements or redesign it to better accommodate them. You could even ask your readers (or at least a close friend) what they think about its design. And next time you add a new element, think about whether you can remove something to maintain a balance. 9. Giving great blog posts terrible titles It can take me hours write a blog post, or even days if I'm covering a topic in depth. And when you've been writing a post for that long it can be tempting to quickly think up a title and then publish it. Please don't. Using the first title that comes into your head can really cost you. It can be the difference between people reading your blog post and just glossing over it (or even skipping it completely). Ideally, you should try to come with at least ten titles for your post, and then choose the best one. You may also want to ask other people for suggestions if they're willing to help. So make sure you spend some time on your titles. The effort you put in will make a real difference. 10. Not having a topic or niche Most successful blogs have a well-defined topic, niche, or target demographic. And while there are successful blogs that don't have an obvious topic or niche, they usually have something that defines them. It might be the style of the blog or what they do. Or it might simply be their sense of humor. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from creating a blog where you have the freedom to talk about anything and everything. But there are costs associated with having one. You may have trouble getting your readers to stick around. They may have come after reading what you wrote about a particular topic. But if you never write about that topic again, they may not see the point in coming back. (This is where having an engaging writing style can help.) You may also have trouble monetizing your blog. This is especially true if you plan on working with advertisers because they tend to align themselves with a particular topic or niche. Monetizing your blog by selling products or services can also be tricky of you don't have a topic or niche to 'anchor' them to. So when you're planning your blog, think about what they will all have in common. It could be a topic or niche, or a particular writing style. 11. Choosing a topic or niche you're not interested in The first blog I started making money from was one where I reviewed digital cameras. It was quite profitable, and at one point I was making more than $100,000 a year using a combination of affiliate marketing, and advertising. Amazed at how much money I could make from one blog, I created more to try and replicate my success. One of them was about printers, which seemed like a natural progression from digital cameras seeing as printers were being used more and more to print photographs. There was just one problem: I wasn't the slightest bit interested in printers. (I still don't like them very much. And they don't seem to like me either.) The fact I wasn't interested in printers made writing about them a real challenge. I certainly couldn't write about them as naturally as I could other topics. And my lack of enthusiasm for them came through in my writing. Yes, I was making some money from the traffic I got from search engines. But my heart really wasn't in it, and I was happy to let it go. Back then I had around 30 blogs. These days I have two. And they're both based around topics I'm genuinely interested in. That interest has not only kept me going year after year, but also helped me engage with people and build strong relationships with my readers. If you want to build a profitable blog, you may as well base it on something you're interested in. 12. Having too many ads on your blog I don't have a problem with you putting ads on your blog. In fact, if your long-term goal is to monetize then I suggest you put them up on day one. It will send a clear message that you're monetizing your blog, and save you from endless conversations about why you've put them up down the track. But you need to be careful about how many you put up. Having lots of ads on your site can make it look cluttered and less appealing. And being bombarded with ads asking them to buy this and buy that could drive readers away. (You also run the risk of being penalized by Google for having too many ads on your site.) You also need to look at it from a revenue perspective. A dozen ads competing for people's attention are not only less likely to be clicked, but also more likely to be ignored. One or two ads placed in prominent positions stand a much better chance of being clicked, which means you can charge more for them. 13. Expecting your readers to come to you A lot of people think a blog is like that baseball field in Field of Dreams. Just build it, and the people will come. But the reality is blogs don't work that way unless you already have an established readership who can spread the word for you. So you need to step away from your blog and head to wherever your potential readers hang out. And then you need to discretely tell them about your new blog. Not by shouting about your new blog, but rather by helping people and being useful. 14. Writing about "How to make money blogging" on your first blog Some people start their blogging journey by looking for the most profitable niche. And when they discover the people making the most money from blogging are writing about making money from blogging, they decide to follow suit. Even though they haven't made a cent from blogging themselves. Please don't make the same mistake. Making money writing about making money blogging is quite difficult because so many people are already doing it. And a lot of people really aren't interested about blogging. Digital Photography School is far more profitable than ProBlogger simply because people more people are more interested in photography than in blogging. So write about something a normal person would be interested in –photography, food, clothes, travel, whatever. Just make sure it's something you are interested in and can genuinely talk about, and have some expertise or experience with. There's nothing wrong with blogging about blogging, or even about making money blogging. But you're going to much more successful if you've already done it on another blog or had some experience. 15. Not being useful with your blog The most successful blogs (at least the ones I read) try to meet the needs of their readers and/or solve their problems. People are much more likely to come back to a blog that has affected or changed them in some way. So ask yourself whether your blog is making a difference. Is it bringing about some sort of change? Is it solving a problem? Is it useful? Your blog doesn't need to end poverty or bring about world peace. It just needs to be useful to someone, which could mean: teaching them how to hold a camera teaching them how to make a soufflé teaching them how to be a better parent giving them a laugh making them smile making them realize they're not alone. The change you make to your readers' lives doesn't need to massive. But if your blog doesn't bring about any change or solve a problem, you may want to rethink what your blog is about. 16. Writing for search engines instead of humans There's no denying that Google can bring a lot of traffic to your site. But if you focus on what Google likes rather than what your readers like then it will be pretty much useless. Sure, you'll get people coming to your site from Google's search results. But they'll disappear pretty quickly once they read what you've written. So forget about Google. Focus on your readers instead, and help them solve the problems and issues they're having. If your content is useful to them they'll keep coming back. They'll also share it with other people, which will in turn improve your search engine rankings. (Search engines use this information as part of their calculations.) It's good to know how search engines work. But your focus should always be in your readers and what they need. 17. Becoming a stataholic Google Analytics is quite seductive, isn't it? It's easy to lose track of time as you pore poring over all the information it has collected about your blog and your readers. How high your blog is ranking. How many comments you've got. How many page views you've had. What your bounce rate is. How much money you've earned from AdSense. How how many followers you have on Twitter. How many likes you have on your Facebook page. But while it's good to know how many people are reading your blog and how they're using it, those metrics can be an incredible distraction. They can not only take you away from creating content, but also feed your insecurities and get you really down if you're not careful. I recommend choosing a specific amount of time each week to check your stats (e.g. a few minutes at the start and the end of each day). I start my day by checking my stats to see what happened the previous night. And I do the same at the end of the day. I also set aside about an hour each week to really dig into my Google Analytics and some of the social media metrics around my blogs. And for the rest of the week I focus on creating content for my blogs. 18. Growing your blog through link baiting or personal attacks When I started ProBlogger I saw a lot of bloggers try to grow their traffic by attacking, baiting and critiquing other bloggers. These attacks (often made anonymously) were sometimes disguised as satire. But in a lot of cases it was a nothing less than a blatant attack. While you can grow your traffic this way, you can also damage your brand. And once you have a reputation for writing snarky, attacking content it can be very hard to shake. You're much better off having a reputation for creating uplifting, constructive, and life-changing content. Be careful about getting into that ranty, snarky space. While there may be times when you need to be blunt and to rant, try to balance it with different types of content on your site. 19. Not knowing why you're blogging Most of us start blogging without knowing exactly what our goals are or why we're doing it. But you really need to work it out sooner rather than later. Because how can you hit your goals if you don't know what they are? Yes, good things will come your way if you just keep blogging, particularly if you're changing people's lives. But you should also think about your goals – not just for your blog, but also for your life tin general. I try to set aside time at the start of each year to come up with some goals. It helps me stay on track and make progress throughout the year. If you don’t have a goal it's easy to become lazy because you don’t have anything driving you forward. 20. Thinking there's only one way to monetize your blog A lot of bloggers fall into this trap. They look at how one blogger is monetizing their blog and try to do the same with theirs, thinking it’s the only way it can be done. But there are plenty of ways you can monetize your blog depending upon the size of your audience, your niche/topic, and how well your blog is established. By all means choose one to get you started. But don’t be afraid to try the others as well. 21. Thinking you need to know everything first A lot of bloggers have insecurities around different aspects of blogging: “I'm not technical enough." "I don't know about design." "I'm not a great writer." "I'm not very good at marketing." When it comes to the technicalities of blogging, I’m sure we all have areas we don’t know much about. When I started blogging it took me three months to work out how to make text bold. Even now I’m not very technical, and leave that aspect of blogging to someone else. (Fortunately the tools we have today are so much better than they used to be, and so you don't need to know as much.) But the truth is you don't need to know everything about blogging before you start. Or everything about your topic for that matter. By the time I started ProBlogger I'd already been blogging for a couple of years. But I certainly didn't know everything there was to know about making money from blogging. So I was transparent with my readers about what I did and didn’t know, what I was learning and what I already knew, the mistakes I’d made and the successes I’d had. If you’re transparent with your readers, you'll find they can be very forgiving.   So there you have it: 21 mistakes bloggers make (including me). But as I said in the introduction, there are plenty more I could add to the list. What mistakes have you made, or seen other bloggers make? Let us know in the comments.   Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash The post 21 Mistakes Bloggers Make (and How to Avoid Making Them Yourself) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 9 Ways to Grow Your Blog Faster

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9 Ways to Grow Your Blog Faster Posted: 16 Jul 2020 05:30 AM PDT The post 9 Ways to Grow Your Blog Faster appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 246 of the ProBlogger podcast. As you may well know, I started blogging back in 2002. And over the years I've tried all sorts of things to grow my blogs and make them more profitable. Some of them worked. Some of them didn't. And some seemed to work really well to begin with, but ended up being more of a hindrance than a help. But in the 18 or so years I've been blogging I think I've come up with nine ways to grow my blogs that still work to this day. And in this week's post I'd like to share them with you. So here are nine things I believe will help you grow your blog faster. 1. Engage with your audience, and find out what they need My first blog was just a place where I could be creative and talk about things that interested me. But about two weeks in I started getting emails from people saying things like, "That's really interesting", "That really helped me" and "Thank you for writing that." And that's when realized I how had an opportunity to help other people. I can still remember getting my first comment (well, the first one that wasn't from my mom). The comment included his email address, and I thought that meant I was supposed to send one. So I did, and wrote something along the lines of, "Thanks for your comment. Who are you? I'd love to know a little bit more about you." He wrote back saying, "I've left hundreds of comments, and no-one's ever emailed me. So thanks for that." He then told me who he was, and we started having a conversation. At that point I decided I'd do the same for anyone who left me a comment. And for the next two years I sent a personal email to everyone who commented on my blog. It was one the best things I've ever done. Not did help me build engagement and relationships with my readers, it also helped me understand who they were and what they needed. And when you know what your readers need, you can create content, products and services to meet those needs. When I started Digital Photography School I created avatars to represent the different types of people I'd be writing for. My first ones were pretty simple –basic demographics, where they hung out online, how they spent their money, their questions, what they thought they needed, etc. But over time they became more complex, including things such as their pain points and what they really needed. On ProBlogger we get a lot of questions from our readers about the technical aspects of blogging. But I've also learned there's a lot of fear amongst our readers. I often hear things like, "I used to have a blog, but I can't get over the fear. It's stopping me from blogging." And so we talk a lot about fear, and how to overcome it. Something else to look our for are people's goals and aspirations. What do they want to achieve? What do they dream about? Any content you create that can help them achieve their goals and realize their dreams will be like gold to them. 2. Create content that can transform your readers' lives Great content leaves a mark on those who read, watch or hear it. So try to create content that changes your reader's life in some way. Now it doesn't have to a major change. It could be simply making them smile by writing something funny, or giving them some news about your topic that makes them feel more informed. You could also write a piece that inspires them, and motivates them to act in some way. Or could you could write about something happening in your life that makes them realize they're not alone. Think about why people might be coming to your blog. Think about what they need, and what they hope to get from you. (Sounds a bit like an avatar, doesn't it?) But don't stop there. Think about how you'd like them to feel and act after they've visited your blog. What change would you like to see in them? With Digital Photography School it's easy to explain what we want to achieve. We want people to take their amazing cameras out of automatic mode and give them full creative control. And that's how I explain what the blog is about. Never tell people, "I have a blog about photography" (or whatever your blog is about). Instead, explain what it is in terms of the change it makes in your readers' lives. In our case, it's "… a blog that takes people from automatic mode to having creative control of their cameras." 3. Focus on your readers' hearts and minds instead of their eyeballs The best way to grow your blog is to engage with your readers and build a relationship with them. Traffic can be fleeting, but good relationships usually last. Some of you may remember a site called Digg, where you could post links and people would vote on them. The more votes you got, the closer you got to being on its front page. Well, one day my content made it to the front page. And in the space of two hours my site had 150,000 visitors. Naturally, I was ecstatic. It seemed like all of my dreams were about to come true. I'm going to start making money. I'm going to become well-known. I'm going to get a book deal. Unfortunately, those 150,000 visitors were all snarky teenage boys who all left negative comments. It pretty much destroyed the community I'd created. And to add insult to injury, the sudden spike in traffic ended up crashing my server. I quickly realized that while having all those eyeballs makes you feel good in the short term, it don't necessarily lead to sustainable growth. For that to happen I needed not only the right kind of readers, but also readers who would engage. A lot of people say that content is king. But I think community is just as important as content, particularly if you’re trying to monetize your blog. (It's what a lot of the algorithms are looking for these days.) So how do you build engagement? The first step is to be engaging yourself. That means not only writing engaging content but also responding to comments on your blog, joining Facebook discussions and responding to people on Twitter. Live video is another way you can engage with your readers. When I do live videos I don't have hundreds of thousands of people watching me. I'm more likely to have a few hundred. But I know those people are far more likely to leave a comment on my blog, share my content, sign up for my newsletter and  buy one of my products. 4. Design your blog to suit your readers In the early days of ProBlogger we offered our readers pretty much any content we had to keep them on the site. But these days we try to find out the journey our readers are on, and then help them along that journey. At the bottom of our front page (and close to the bottom of every other page) you'll find the words "I need help to…" followed by eight options: Start a blog Create content Find readers Build community Make money blogging Be productive Understand technology Get work. Over the years we've identified these as the eight main reasons people come to ProBlogger. We've identified, over the years, that our readers have eight main reasons they come to ProBlogger. And each one leads to a portal page where we have created an experience for our readers. We greet them with a video where I explain how I've also experienced this pain point. And then we provide links to a curated list of posts and podcasts, that help them get past it. Getting people to a page where you can demonstrate you know them and what they're going through, and then provide content that can help them, is very powerful. Even something as simple as setting up a cookie so you can show than the posts that have been published since their last visit can make a lasting impression. 5. Use challenges to teach and engage your readers Over the years ProBlogger has had a number of spikes in traffic, engagement and profit. And I can track them all back to challenges I was running at the time. The first challenge happened in 2005 by accident. It was two in the morning, and I was wide awake thinking about the blog when I suddenly had a thought: How about I write a series of blog posts? One a day, for 31 days. And in each post I teach the readers something about blogging and then give them something practical to do. The next day I launched “31 Days to Build a Better Blog”. I had no idea what topics I'd be covering during those 31 days, and so I had to make it all up on the spot. But I wrote and published the first post (the longest post I'd ever written), and people started joining up for the challenge. It soon became more than just a learning experience. It quickly became a way for everyone to engage, especially when readers started showing each other what they'd done for their 'homework'. After running it in 2009, my readers asked if I’d consider creating a PDF version of it. “We’ll pay you for it,” they said. At the end of 2009 when I did it, my readers said, "Hey, we really would love it if you could create a PDF version of this." Some of them were saying, "We'll pay you for it," and I was like, "How much will you pay me for it?" I turned the content into an ebook and I put it on sale. I didn’t think I’d sell many copies seeing as the content was freely available on the website. But in the end around 10,000 people bought it. I’ve also run a “7 days of writing challenges” event on the podcast, which really took off and helped it grow as well. 6. Collaborate with others Collaborations are one of the most powerful things I've done to grow my blog. Blogging is a juggling act where you’re trying to create content, build engagement, drive traffic, maintain your social media accounts, and keep WordPress and all your plugins up to date at the same time. And it’s really hard to keep all those balls in the air. But it becomes a lot easier when have other people helping you keep all those balls in the air. And the best way to get that help is to work with other content creators. I learned very early on that I didn’t know much about blog design, and so I found someone willing to design my blog for free if I helped them with content and driving traffic to their business. As bloggers, we should be collaborating more. Think of all the articles and books written by multiple authors. And more and more YouTubers are creating videos together and then reposting it on their own channels. Why don't we do that more as bloggers? 7. Create evergreen content For my first commercial blog (a photography site I had before starting Digital Photography School) I write two types of posts: news and reviews. The news posts (which were pretty much “Here's a new camera!”) did really well… For the first few days, at least. After that, no-one cared. Fortunately, the camera review I wrote were far more evergreen. And looking at my ad revenue, the reviews were also earning about ten times as much. It got me thinking. What would happen if I had even more evergreen content about this particular area of photography? And that was how Digital Photography School came to be. Now DPS does have posts about new cameras and camera-related products. But here’s a comparison between one of our news posts and one of our more evergreen posts. A post we did on Adobe's new version of Lightroom did quite well in its first week. On day one around 3,000 people read it, and by the end of the week that number grew to around 11,200. But over the past three years we’ve only had another 18,000 viewers. And right now it’s only getting one new viewer a month. Two weeks later we wrote about a topic we get asked about from time to time. In the first couple of weeks it had about 16,000 visitors, but that number has now grown to 42,000. And that’s the beauty of having evergreen content. 8. Maintain your archives  When was the last time you went through your archives? Are they holding up well? Or are they embarrassing? You might not think you need to worry about those old posts because they’re not generating much traffic. But if a reader happens to come across one that has broken links, missing images and information that is flat out wrong, they could come back to haunt you. That doesn’t mean you have to get rid of them. Sure, some posts may be beyond redemption. But there’s nothing wrong with giving the others a bit of an update. Fix up the spelling mistakes. Rewrite that lame introduction. Update the images. One of my posts on Digital Photography School about ISO has had more than 40 million views. I’ve been updating it every six months since 2007, and believe me it’s a lot better now than when I first wrote it. A lot of the big bloggers aren’t publishing anywhere near as much new content as they used to. Why? Because they’re now focusing on publishing better content. Yes, it’s often deeper and longer. But they're also updating their archives because they get a better return on improving their archives than creating lots of new posts. If you've been blogging for five or six years, you've probably written about everything there is to know about your topic. So why not spend some time improving those old archives, and even republishing and re-sharing them? 9. Be careful about where you spend your time Finally, I want to talk about where should be spending your time while trying to grow your blog. Start by focusing on what’s already working for you. For me, that’s search engine optimization. Search sends me more than half of my traffic, while Facebook sends me only 8% of my traffic. So why would I spend three hours a day on Facebook when search is converting so much more? Email is my second biggest traffic source. We’ll be sending out a newsletter tonight, which means today will be our biggest day of traffic. And focus more on the things you have more control over. You don't own Facebook. You're building their asset. You don't own Instagram. You're building their asset. Start building your own assets — your podcast, your blog, your email list.   I hope this post has given you ideas on how you can grow your blog faster. What will you try first? Let us know in the comments.   Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash The post 9 Ways to Grow Your Blog Faster appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 7 Areas to Focus on During Your Mid-Year Blog Review

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7 Areas to Focus on During Your Mid-Year Blog Review Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:00 AM PDT The post 7 Areas to Focus on During Your Mid-Year Blog Review appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 131 of the ProBlogger podcast. A lot of bloggers do an end-of-year-review, where they analyze how everything went in the previous year and set goals for the new one. But when you set such long-term goals, it's worth checking in occasionally to see how you're doing and make sure you're still on track. And that's where the mid-review comes in. But what exactly should you be checking? How can you tell whether you're doing well? And what are the warning signs that you might need to make some changes? Over the years I've come up with seven areas that I focus on whenever I'm reviewing my blogs. And today I want to share those seven areas, and the questions you might ask yourself when analyzing each one. Starting with… 1. Your content. Looking at your posts, what topics, categories and formats have worked well over the past six months? Did your list posts do particularly well? Are you still getting responses to that rant you posted three months ago? Is your audience crying out for more interviews? You might also want to analyze whether some mediums worked better than others. Did posts with infographics do better than those with just text? How did your audience react to your videos and live feeds? Is the audience you're attracting with your podcast worth the time it takes to record and produce it? Don't forget to look at the length of your more popular posts. I recently looked at my Google Analytics and saw that some of our longer posts have done really well over the past six months, which means I should probably write more long-form posts in the future. Finally, look at how frequently you posted fresh content. Did you meet the deadlines you set for yourself at the beginning of the year? How did your audience react when you posted more or less often than they expected? This is a good time to take another look at your editorial plan (or create it if you don't have one). Do you have enough ideas to keep you going for the rest of the year? Do you need to re-think some of your topics, categories or formats to better suit what your audience? This is the perfect time to make those adjustments to you have a clear roadmap that will take you where you want to go. 2. Your traffic Take a look at your blog traffic for the past six months. Were there any spikes? If so, try to find out what may have caused them. About a week or so ago we had a big spike in traffic on Digital Photography School. And nearly all of it was driven by one post: How to Photograph Fireworks. And that makes perfect sense, as the 4th of July is when America celebrates Independence Day. That same post has been spiking around this time for years (as well as on New Year's Eve). And so we now promote it heavily on occasions such as these when everyone wants to photograph fireworks. We've also written more content about it to capture more traffic and readers. On the flipside, were there any troughs in your traffic? Is there a pattern that might help you pinpoint what's causing them? We often see a dip in traffic the day after Independence Day, presumably because everyone's recovering from the celebrations. You may also see dips on weekends, or on particular dates. What can you do to make those dips less frequent or less severe? What's the overall trend with your traffic? Is it going up steadily, or has it plateaued or even dropped? What about over the past month or so? If your traffic is dropping, you need to analyze it and see if there's any way you can reverse the trend. At one point we noticed our mobile traffic on both Digital Photography School and ProBlogger dropping, which was a wake-up call for us to optimize the design of both sites so they'd work better on mobile devices. Have you been doing anything specific (e.g. writing guest posts, posting more updates on social media, creating more shareable content) to bring more traffic to your site? If you have, was it a good use of your time? And if you haven't, is it something you could try to bring those traffic numbers back up? 3. Your reader engagement What do your readers think of you and your blog? Are they engaging with you? Think about the number of comments and emails you've been getting, and whether that number has been going up or down over the past six months. You should also look at your bounce rate and how often people share your content. This will help you determine how your readers feel about your content, and how open they are to receiving more. What are your open rates like on the emails and newsletters you send out? What kind of engagement are you getting on social media? What's the most frequent complaint of praise you hear from your readers? Hearing the same message (good or bad) regularly from different readers can help you understand how they feel about you and your blog. Occasionally I get an email saying "You're doing too much promoting" or "You're always trying to sell us something". I'm sure every blogger gets an email like this once in a while. But if I hear the same thing multiple times from multiple readers, it's a sign I may need to readdress how much content I charge for and how I give away. Ultimately, what you're trying to work out is whether or not you've delivered value to your readers. Has their reaction been positive, or do they feel you've taken more than you've given? One way to find out how your readers feel about you and your blog is to create a survey and encourage them to take part. This can help you find out not only how they feel, but also what you can do to change how they feel for the better. You might also want to come up with a community project or challenge your readers can take part in to increase engagement. 4. Your monetization For those of you who have monetized your blog (or are trying to), you should analyze your income streams and how well they've been working over the past six months. (I'm sure you check how much money you're earning far more frequently.) Start by looking at the overall trend. Has it increased, decreased, or remained steady? Are some income streams (e.g. advertising, affiliate promotions, selling products or services) doing or better or worse than the others? Are there any that you've been thinking about trying but still haven't implemented? You may need to look at the figures over a full year (or even several years if you have them) to spot any trends you may need to consider. If you're selling a product or service, does most of your revenue come from launches or long-tail sales? Some bloggers fall into the trap of focusing too much on the launch of their product. The sales come in quickly at first, but then they quickly die down. The product then sits there until they either discount it or do another launch. If that sounds like your sales curve, you may need to come up with a way to increase those long-tail sales. Perhaps you could use an autoresponder that sends your newsletter subscribers on offer a month or so after they subscribe. You might also think about making the products more prominent on your website. After all, how can people buy something if they don't even know about it? If you're monetizing your blog with sponsors rather than products or services, you may need to think about approaching new sponsors. Have you seen businesses advertising on other blogs in your niche that could be potential advertisers on yours? Maybe you need to review your media kit as well. You could even create a promotional calendar in the same way you created your editorial calendar, especially if you plan on launching new products or services. This will help you plan not only the development and launch of your product, but also when to start talking about it to build excitement and anticipation. 5. Your technology How has your blog been running from a technology perspective? Have you or your readers experienced any outages or downtime? If so, you might want to think about switching to a better hosting provider. Are you running the latest version of your blogging platform? What about your plugins? Do you need to update them, or perhaps even replace them if they're no longer supported? Now if the time to get everything up to date so your blog is secure. Is your blog's design still working? Could it do with an update, or even a complete overhaul? Is it mobile responsive? (If not , then it needs to be.) Are there things that simply don't work anymore, either from a technology or a reader perspective? The last thing you want is for readers to be leaving your blog because they're annoyed or confused. Now is also a good time to look at the tools and services you're using for emails, landing pages and the like. First of all, are you still using them? If not, you can save yourself some money by cancelling your subscription. And if you are using them, are they worth the money you're paying for them? Is there something out there at a similar price point that could do a better job? (Remember to factor in the effort it will take to make the switch.) 6. Your productivity How productive have you been over the past six months? What aspects of blogging did you spend most of your time on, and was it worth it? And if you took the time to set up some workflows, how effective have they been? Sometimes it's hard to know just where all that time has gone. A while back I installed a product called Rescue Time, which tracks how you use the time you spend on your computer. It's a pretty confronting tool to use, but it helped me realize where I was wasting time. It even helped me pinpoint where I was spending time on things that felt productive even though they weren't. How can you make better use of your time from now on? 7. Your wellbeing Finally, it's time to check the most vital component of your blog – you. How are you going with your blogging, and with life in general? It's an important question to ask, because your blog's health depends a lot on your own health – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. And so you should spend as much time (if not more) on looking after yourself as you do on looking after your blog. A major aspect of our wellbeing is the relationships we have with family, friends, acquaintances and so on. But you should also take the time to think about the relationship you have with your blog. How do you feel about it? Are you still passionate about the topic? Does the thought of writing a new post excite you? Or does it feel more like a burden you have to bear? If your passion or energy for your blog is waning (or missing completely), you may need to take a break. You may need a holiday. You may need to get some help. Or you may just need to change the direction of your blog in some way. You may also need to 'fill your cup'. Employees in traditional businesses often attend training courses, seminars and conferences as part of their professional development. But as bloggers we don't have a human resources department booking training courses and seminars for us to attend. And so we need to manage our own professional development. Is there a book you could buy that would help you with your blogging? Is there a seminar on new research in your niche you could attend? Is there an event coming up where you could meet other bloggers? As bloggers we need to keep learning and developing ourselves and our knowledge. Because we can only put into our blogs what we put into ourselves. Planning for the future How much time should you spend reviewing your blog? That's up to you. You could spend days researching and answering all of these questions. But I encourage you to answer at least one question from each of the seven areas. And then come up with an action plan to address them all. No matter where your blog is now, I hope your mid-year blog review will help you create a plan to put it in an even better position by the end of the year. So what area will you focus on first? And what questions will you be trying to answer? Let us know in the comments.   Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash The post 7 Areas to Focus on During Your Mid-Year Blog Review appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: Movie or Miniseries: What’s the Best Way to Share Information with Your Readers?

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Movie or Miniseries: What’s the Best Way to Share Information with Your Readers? Posted: 02 Jul 2020 05:30 AM PDT The post Movie or Miniseries: What’s the Best Way to Share Information with Your Readers? appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 149 of the ProBlogger podcast. So you've come up with a great idea for a blog post. It's a great topic, has plenty of depth, and will boost your reputation as an authority in your niche. But do it justice you need to cover a lot of ground, which means you'll be writing a lot of content. Which begs the question: What's the best way to share that information with your readers? Should you write one long and detailed post that includes every aspect? Or should you create a series of posts that deals with each one in turn? And the answer is… it depends. The benefits of writing one long post (the movie)… The beauty of posting everything at once is your readers get the information they want without any interruptions or delays. They don't need to keep coming back for the next instalment, or follow the links from one post to the next to get all the information. Remember how you felt last time you watched a TV episode and read the words "To be continued…"? Well, that's how your readers will might feel when they have to wait for your next post to continue their learning. And while those reading after they're all done won't have to wait, they still might not like opening post after post just to get to the end – especially if they decide to print it out so they can read it offline. Another advantage to having everything in a single post is it comes across as being quite comprehensive and authoritative. In the same way a published has an authoritative 'weight', having a 5,000-word blog post that covers every aspect of the topic will make what you're saying seem more credible. And people like sharing posts that are meaty and comprehensive. They seem to appreciate the fact you've made the effort to provide them with lots of solid information, and want others to benefit from your effort as well. Google seems to appreciate it, too. I've noticed that our longer posts tend to rank really well in Google, possibly because they get linked to and shared more than our shorter posts. Some SEO experts also believe longer posts can rank better than shorter ones. … and the drawbacks However, there are some downsides to putting that information in a single post. One of them is the effort it takes to research and write them. Some of the longer pieces I've written have taken several days (and a lot of effort) to complete. And if you struggle with motivation, that could be a problem. Another downside is that unless you're a gifted and engaging writer, not all of your readers will make it to the end. Some people prefer to scan rather than read. Some people don't have the time to read long pieces (or at least not in one hit). And some people will be reading your post on a mobile device and not want to be continually swiping. And finally, putting so much information into one post can quickly drain your pool of ideas. I know of one blogger whose first post was 9,000 words on everything he knew about his niche. It was a great post, full of useful, actionable content. But when he tried to brainstorm ideas for future posts, he couldn't think of anything he hadn't already covered in that first post. In retrospect, he would have preferred to have broken up that information into a series of posts and released them over a series of weeks. Which brings me to… The benefits of writing a series of shorter posts (the miniseries) Obviously, breaking up a long post into shorter posts will give you more gives you more posts to publish. So instead of having one week's worth of content for your site, you could have three, four or even more. And each of those posts can be more focused, which can help with SEO. While long posts might rank well for broad, overarching keywords, they may not rank as well for the more focused keywords of your niche. Smaller posts have a better chance of ranking for those more focused keywords, which might help you rank for more of them over time. Search engines also tend to like links, and so having more posts on your site for other sites to link to can help Google rank your site. Writing a series of blog posts can also build momentum on your blog. Readers will be anticipating your next post, which can help you get more subscribers. (They don't want to risk missing out on the next post in the series.) It's also good to have a series of posts on your website if you're planning on monetizing your websites using ad networks such as AdSense. And if you struggle to write long posts because of the time and effort involved, shorter posts will feel like a breath of fresh air. Knowing you can write and publish a blog post relatively quickly can motivate you to keep going. Writing a series has downsides, too But your blog post series won't suit everyone. As I mentioned earlier, some people will prefer to have all the information available in a single post so they can get it all in one go. Another negative aspect of writing a series of posts is being locked into a particular topic. If your readers aren’t interested in what your series is about, and the series goes for a number of weeks, they may get frustrated enough to unsubscribe and stop visiting your blog. But that being said, I still think you should consider writing a series of blog posts. I try and do two or three series every year, because so far they’ve all worked really well.  Of course, you can always do both Ultimately, the decision of whether you write a movie of a miniseries is entirely up to you. And the the good news is you don’t have to choose one over the other. You can write a series of posts to build momentum when you want to, but also write the occasional long-form post  to build authority. And you can always turn that series of blog posts into a something bigger. The posts I wrote for 31 Days to Build a Better Blog were combined, and eventually became a PDF that people could buy. I wasn’t sure anyone would be interested, but thousands of our readers bought a copy. They obviously wanted something they could read and work through time and time again. So what’s your preference? Will you be writing a movie or a miniseries? Let us know in the comments.   Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash     The post Movie or Miniseries: What’s the Best Way to Share Information with Your Readers? appeared first on ProBlogger.

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