Brick and Mortar As a Model

Ever think of your blog as a brick and mortar business? Blogs and 3-D stores have more in common than you might think. Fine bloggers have figured that out and use it to their advantage.

Think of your favorite bloggers. Great bloggers run a place where readers come to visit. They come because a blog meets a need to — be informed, be entertained, make friends, find work, learn, or interact with like-minded people.

8 Brick and Mortar Ideas that Make Great Blogs

1. Have a vision. Know what your blog will do and who will want to be part of it. If you’re not clear why folks come to your blog, why guess when you can ask them? Write a post, a poll, or a few select emails to regular readers. If you know your readers’ needs and desires, you can find ways that you can serve them in a unique and personal way.
2. Put out the Welcome Mat. Look around your blog. Imagine that you’ve arrived for the first time. Is it welcoming? How’s the curb appeal? Has the paint in your sidebar started chipping? Are your popular posts where folks can explore and share them with their readers?
3. Open the doors as wide as you can. Talk in a human voice that takes folks as they are. Allow for their choices — screen resolution, browsers, and connection speed. Make their lives easier. Listen to them. Let them know you’re there.
4. Hold your steady customers dear. Pay attention to readers who love what you do — the kind that you want more of — the intelligent, loyal, enthusiastic influencers. who will tell the world about you. Never forget the folks who gave you what you’ve got.
5. Be a generous host with everyone. Be happy to see them. Do what you do in service. Take care that no one misbehaves in a way that hurts someone else. Be gracious and help the way you might in your a guest in your home.
6. Don’t stay in the backroom Answer comments with thoughtful responses that reflect that you know a visitor has invested time to say something. Enjoy their responses to your ideas. Tell stories, but mostly listen to theirs. Be there in case someone takes the conversation astray and folks look to you to deal with it.
7. Be personally invested, but don’t take things perssonally. Have a strong sense of empathy. Know that quality beats quantity. Keep your head and heart together in every part of your interaction from the blog post to the last comment. Understand that ideas and words are not who are as a person. Separate your self-respect from things that don’t require defending.
8. Value everyone who visits. Make every visit remarkable by letting the reader feel as if he or she is a unique individual, the only one on the planet. Call people by name. Put a smile in between the words you write.

We don’t need old house bricks. Mortar is unnecessary and bad SEO. What we need is the spirit of a time and space. We can build a blog is as content strong as a brick, with the mortar of a blogger who gives every reader a can’t-wait-to-get-back experience.

Think about that fabulous store you went to once. You know it. It was the one where you felt like you belonged, things were just what you needed, and the people who worked there smiled when they saw you walk in the door.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.