“Take a New Road with Your Blog” plus 1 more

Posted: 12 May 2012 01:06 PM PDT

This guest post is by Lars Holdgaard of Gode Karakterer.

So you have a blog which has some kind of self-defined success. You are maybe making a good portion of money and you can see the visitors numbers rising. Your position in Google is also doing better and better every month, and everything is progressing.

But maybe it doesn't feel right. You can see the results, but it still doesn't feel right. Writing every blog post feels like a pain, and you postpone it as much as possible. Actually, you would much rather just write about something else. But your current audience are used to your current way of doing things—so, what to do?

Let's take a case

Let's take a look at Timothy Ferris as he is a good case for this subject. I bet most of you know who he is, but for those who don't, you should really consider buying his book The 4-Hour Work Week.

He wrote that book in 2007. It’s a book about building a lifestyle earning money from passive income, so you can spend the time just the way you want it. Back when the book became popular, his blog became massively popular too. Every new blog post got between 50 and 100 comments within days. Tim primary posted about business ventures, productivity and tips to outsource.

However, some months before the release of his second book, The 4-Hour Body, the blog changed slightly. There were several blog posts about training, the body, and sport. Now, there could be many reasons for making this change, and of course, one of them being marketing and building up the hype for the book. But the other reason, which Tim also have revealed in interviews, is that The 4-Hour Work Week made it possible to write the book he was really passionate about—The 4-Hour Body. His biggest passion is the body.

I personally stopped following the blog at this time, because the focus was different from when I signed up and followed the blog. I know quite a lot people stopped following the blog because of this change, but at the same time, its popularity grew. So when he changed his style, more people actually came and followed Tim.

Why change style?

Why is this case interesting? I am a firm believer that you have to follow your passion. When we follow our deepest passion, we as human beings, have so much more power. We will find solutions we wouldn't have found otherwise.

And let's be honest: if you have been blogging on the same subject for several years, your current biggest passion has probably changed. Changing your style of blogging allows you to come closer to your current life situation. If you have been blogging about growing orchids for two years, maybe it is time to expand to sunflowers or ranunculus. As our interests change from time to time, it is very wise to question how we can change our blog’s style regularly, too.

Changing style has its consequences

However, when we change our style, it has consequences. It doesn't matter what you do—if you change your theme, change subjects, change writing style, or anything else—it will have consequences.

Some people will definitely not like your changes. Some will most likely even hate it. If you have a fair amount of followers, some people will mail you and tell the change is the worst thing ever you've done in your whole life. Just look at the global rage each time Facebook makes some kind of update—everyone has to give their opinion and share it with the world.

When you change style, you will lose followers. If ProBlogger suddenly started to blog about Java programming, a fair chunk of the regular followers would most likely be upset and stop following, as the new style is not what they signed up for. This is what happened with a lot of people with Timothy Ferris.

But when you change, there is a very positive side too. You will attract new followers. As any change you make hopefully will make come closer to your passion, it will shine through. People can feel your energy and passion in your words. So something you will probably experience during change of style is a decrease in visitors for a short time span, and then it will rise again.

Case example: Maj Wismann

I’d like to show you a real life example. Maj Wismann runs the Danish sex and relationships website www.websexolog.dk. She teaches people to focus on love and the relationship before focusing on the sex.

Now, when you write about sex, there are two obvious styles you can choose. First, you can choose the boring and factual way. However, you can also choose a more subtle angle by being very direct and naughty in your communication.

When Maj started her website, she took the first approach. This attracted quite lot followers who bought her products. Maj actually made quite a lot of money from doing this, and changing her approach was really risky. But she wanted to change her tone to become more direct, to write about subjects which are taboo in a very open way—and even to write her articles using profanity!

Even though she was extremely scared about making the change, she adopted it 100%. After her old website had run for three months, she changed the style overnight. Her new style of writing was what was "real" to hear. However, she feared correctly—some of her readers did not like the new style, and she actually lost quite a lot of followers.

But a funny thing happened—the new style let her connect better with the rest of her readers. Those readers started to recommend her website, and today she has many times more subscribers than before. Now, nine months later, she has eight times more subscribers than before.

Why did this change work? It's hard to say, but I would guess it's because Danes are open towards sex. An open attitude towards sex and being direct, and even a bit naughty, wasn’t a problem. Doing the same trick in USA or Asia wouldn't necessarily be a good idea.

Ways to change your style

Let's now look at how you can change your style of blogging. Not everyone will do it the same way as Maj did, so let's look at the options.

1. Doing nothing

The first and easiest solution is to do nothing. You can ignore your decreasing passion, and keeping on hating writing each and every blog post.

But truth is that you will most likely burn out. Even if you live from the income you earn through the blog, it won't be suitable in the long run. Hopefully you don't see this as an option.

2. Slow and steady change

The easiest and probably most common way is to make a slow change. Give your audience an appetizer of what you really want to write about, and move slowly toward that new position over time.

If it is a new writing style, try that. If you want to write more about cats and your current blog is about dogs, try to make some posts about cats—and make sure they are high-quality posts.

By looking at the response from your audience, you can estimate how well a radical change will be perceived. This was what Timothy Ferris did—since the launch of his blog, he had few posts about the body and health. People responded really well to these articles, and since it was his passion, he knew it would be a success.

3. A complete change

Instead of making a series of small changes over time, you can do it will a full heart. Change your style overnight, and let the followers live with it.

This will, of course, have bigger consequences than making the change slowly. This way, you can risk losing a large number of followers within a very short time span.

However, if you do it, it has its positive sides too. Yes, it is a big change—but it lets you come closer to what you really want to be doing, in a much shorter timeframe. Therefore the quality of what you do will most likely be much higher.

4. A new blog

Another option is to create a completely new blog. By making a new blog, you can keep the old audience. This is a totally risk-free option, as your old audience need not know about your new project.

However, you will have to start over. Getting visitors for a new blog can be a huge amount of work—especially because you can't rely on the search engines for quite a while.

You have to be unique

Remember that today, more than anything, blogging success is about being unique. Just look at the comments on all these blog posts on ProBlogger—there are so many people trying to compete on the Internet. And if we are being honest, how many blogs do each of us really follow? It is primary the best ones.

Those we follow are the ones that are really exceptional and unique. Mediocrity isn’t interesting anymore, as we can go to another blog right away. As so many people have written before me, today it's about being the best, as the competition online is fierce.

If you currently don't love what you blog about, change. You can either change slowly, fully, or take on a new project—the most important thing is that you do change. You will lose followers, and you will hear from people telling you that you are making a mistake, but believe in yourself. Your passion will shine through, which is exactly what we need and want today.

This article was written by Lars Holdgaard. He owns two websites which both have active blogs: Gode Karakterer which helps Danish students with everything regarding to school and Mulius which is a Danish toys webshop.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Take a New Road with Your Blog

9 Steps to Take When You Loathe Your Own Blog

Posted: 12 May 2012 07:09 AM PDT

This guest post is by Ryan Barton, author of Smart Marketing.

You’ve got an editorial calendar, you’ve scheduled blog posts weeks in advance. Look how professional you are. Well done. You’re an inspiration.

You press Publish and bask in retweets, praise, and a flood of comments. You’re “resonating” with your “tribe.” You’re prolific. You’re a cocky so-and-so.

Then it hits: the loathing.

You're exhausted. You’re ignoring your calendar. You can’t be bothered to think about new topics. Your writer’s well is bone-dry. You’ve met the resistance and it has won.

Your writing becomes programmed (verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus). It’s no longer art, and no longer an exercise in intellect. It lacks moxy. You’re phoning it in.

This is a low point. Have you been there?

If you bore yourself, how do you expect your readers to read, let alone share, your content?

What do you do when you loathe your own blog?

Find a way to restart, tabula rasa. And you’re the only one who can make it happen.

1. Do a design refresh

You buy new running shoes, and suddenly you want—need—to run. I must satisfy the shoes, it is their reason for existence. You buy a new car and instantly you cease dreading your hour-long commute.

It's the same with your blog. Launch a new theme and you’ll feel the need to create new content that mirrors the sophistication of your new design. It pulls you back in and urges you forward. Clearly, your own boredom isn’t reason enough for a design overhaul, but it’ll certainly reignite your fire.

2. Narrow your focus

When I launched The Smart Marketing Blog in 2007, my posts were eclectic random. Readers didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what to expect. One day, a post about bus stop ads, the next day, how to set-up PDFs to open at screen height, and another day, musings on a new social network. There was no focus.

But now, when I focus only on smart marketing for small business success, my readers know what to expect. I have focus—a roadmap.

3. Take off the chains

Darren publishes daily. Sort of. Somebody on the collective ProBlogger team publishes daily. But I think he'd agree that expecting you, by yourself, to generate mind-blowing content daily is expecting too much.

At one point, I followed an editorial calendar that scheduled posts twice a week. But even those posts were rubbish. They weren’t inspired, they were the result of a self-imposed guideline. Sure, publishing more frequently drives more traffic, but also yields disappointed readers who are trying to digest your traffic-driven rubbish.

Write because you can’t help it, not because there’s a blank post to fill. Today, I write only when I can imagine giving a speech on my topic. The topic is that good. So good, I can visualize myself preaching from a soapbox. And you know what, my traffic has remained the same, despite publishing much less frequently.

4. Ship something

I don’t advocate shipping something simply for the sake of shipping; that only yields mediocrity. But shipping evokes pride and passion and a fierce sense of taking names. Last year I published my book on smart marketing for small businesses, this year I launched my newsletter, and in the months ahead I have two other books in the works. Each functions to inspire and refill my writer's well.

Aside from your blog—because your blog is not your product, your blog supports your product—what can you create to inject that same inspiration?

5. Change your routine

Want to find new inspiration? Approach your trivial, mundane tasks in a new way. When you break your habits, you force yourself to problem-solve, expand your thinking, and consider other solutions. It’s that same thinking that yanks you out of your writer’s rut. Purposefully take the longer route to the office, travel to a foreign country, run instead of lifting weights, read a different genre book to stretch your mind, expand your palette with a new coffee brewing method, keep your phone off when it’s normally on, watch a documentary instead of that sitcom—or better yet, read a book … with pages, not a screen.

6. Change how and where you write

Last week, I sat in a dark parking lot waiting for takeout from a local eatery. I was isolated, undisturbed, and focused. So much so, I made great progress on a blog post in the matter of minutes. Just me, a journal, and a soft dome light. Working out of coffee grinder-dominated cafes doesn’t foster the same productivity. Neither does sitting in front of a television or high-traffic public venues. Sure, use the excuse that people-watching inspires you. Rubbish.

Take yourself seriously, hide yourself, sever ties to notifications, reminders, and the urge to make sure you’re always in-the-know. Your writing—your art—deserves nothing less than your undivided attention.

7. Read new, not more

How many blogs do you subscribe to? Right now, how many blog posts sit unread? If you’re no longer challenged—if you’re glazing over posts out of habit, if you’re no longer being inspired and challenged—unsubscribe and find new ways to be stimulated. Stop wondering if you’re missing out on anything, cut ties, and stretch yourself. You may be out of school, but that’s no excuse for not remaining a student.

8. Who’s your muse?

Who do you work for? Wake up for? Breathe for? Write for them. Is it your wife, your lover, your most loyal subscriber, or your unborn child? Use them as your motivation to keep driving when you’re not strong enough to persist yourself. Keep this person’s photo nearby as a reminder. Don’t get so busy that you forget why or for whom you’re working so hard.

9. Declare victory or failure

When starting a new project, name your goal. How else will you measure success? Seth said it best, “Declare one or the other, but declare.” Maybe it’s time for self-evaluation. Maybe it’s time to reflect and determine what you did right (to do it again) and what you’ll avoid the next time. Because there will be a next time. “Failure” isn’t never blogging again. No, failure is taking valuable lessons and proactively applying what you’ve learned to the next iteration of your blog.

We’re artists. We all feel the urge to tweak our logos and change our avatars. We see the same “us” every day, and we're bored. But what we find repetitive and boring and loathe-worthy, our tribe views as consistency and resonation.

The real artists find a way to push through, put their shoulders back and chin up, and reignite their own passion.

Talk back

Have you hit the blogging loathe-wall before? How did you bust through it? Leave a comment below so others might be inspired to do the same. And stick around—later today we’ll take a look at a case example of a blogger who changed their blog’s writing style overnight—and reaped the rewards.

Ryan Barton is a small business marketing, social media, and design consultant. He is the author of Smart Marketing, blogs at The Smart Marketing Blog, tweets at www.twitter.com/RyanBarton, and lives in Los Angeles.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

9 Steps to Take When You Loathe Your Own Blog

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