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Titles that Grab Readers

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The best marketer I ever worked for swore by this rule:

Call it what it is. They can’t read your mind.

The following three titles all describe the same posting.
Which title would draw the most readers?
Which title would rise higher in search engine results?

  • Golden Snapshots
  • Short Posts that Draw Readers
  • Posts Made of Steel Not Wood

Easy to see. Hard to remember. If only I had a billboard in front of my desk instead of dead air. I need to go back to rename some postings so readers can easily tell what’s in them.

Creative writing is two blogs down and then to the left. Sometimes I’m too clever by half.

Do you have the same problem that I do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
What Is Content that Keeps Readers?
Turning Reluctant Readers into Loyal Fans
Audience is Your Destination

Done These Lately?

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This is Building Readership Week at Successful Blog. Have you done these three things lately?

  • Find a new blog in your niche to follow. New blogs offer fresh ideas and new points of view. They also offer new communities of readers you might get to know. Join their discussion by leaving meaningful comments and trackbacks. Bloggers who read your comments might follow you home.
  • Tweak your title tags and keywords. Blogging is flexible and adaptive. How much has your blog changed since you last checked your title tags? If you’re new to blogging, a post on title tags and templates will follow tomorrow.
  • Organize your archives as your readers would want them. Showing your readers where to find things is advertising. For more on how to think like your readers see Watch What You’re Doing.

This is going to be one fun week.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Building Readership Week

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This is Building Readership Week at Successful Blog–and next week too, if there’s still more to talk about. We’ll be looking at how we help readers find us and how we keep them engaged and participating when they do. We’ll also be packing the Survival Kit with readership-building tools.

This post comes early to give you a chance to think about two questions and leave your comments.

On Building Readership:

What works to get readers to stop by your blog?

What readership-building issues would you like to discuss?

Indie

Go on leave a comment. That’s how you make sure that this week’s conversation covers ideas you want to explore.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

1.6 Thanks again, Indie

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Syncornicity title image

THANKS INDIE, for sharing your blog and yourself with us this week. The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy has so much that makes it a successful blog, but I’d say the key is the care and tending of a man named Indie. . . .

These are three of my favorite story links from The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy for pleasure reading this weekend.

This Would Be an All-Nighter

Stop Treating Me Like a Baby

Evelyn Had Been Granted Three Wishes

Of course at Indie’s blog, there are hundreds more. If you have time, you might jump to the Index–it’s organized both by story and by week.

Made enough decisions this week? Try the Read Random button which will choose a story for you–one more cool detail about this memorable blog.

    synchronicity random read image

If you do get a chance to read a story or two, be sure to leave Indie a comment to let him know you were there.

Indie also suggests these sites for some other fun reads.

saddlesore review

Retarius
Retarius was saved by its fans the search archives when the writer had decided to delete it. Also upon the announcement that the writer was quitting one fan organized a memorial in which his fans all contribued a post. The follow post was Indie’s contribution to that memorial.

I’m Here with Professor Ernest

deep dark blue strip A
Thanks again, Indie. It was great having you around. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Watch What You’re Doing

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Quick Hit

I don’t expect I ever will be chosen for a focus group. For better or worse, my answers skew the curve . Even so, one skill that fast tracked me through publishing was my ability to watch myself. I don’t mean to behave. I mean literally to watch how I behave. I pay attention when I do things and analyze how I do them. I may not be focus group material, but I still do lots of things that normal people do.

Knowing how I do normal things is a cache of valuable data. I gather the data about how I do things. Then I talk to my friends. They help me sort what I find out into two sets–weird things (things that only Liz does) and everybody things. I use that second set to improve my readers’ experiences. Here is one very specific example of how I might go about this.

One thing I watched for: How do I use archives? Do I read them in a certain way or a certain order?

  • First, I realized that it depends. I prefer to browse archives from old to new. I stop to think about my reason–many times ideas build on each other over time. Other times I read for certain topics.
  • Next, I consider other ways to read. Some folks might want to read only the newest information. New readers might want to know about the best ones they missed.
  • At this point its time to get input from readers. I can write a post or have informal conversations. If the issue is small, I use what I already know.
  • Then, I devise a way to organize my archives to meet all of those needs–an index by date and by topic and a listing of Golden Oldies.

The day I did that my page views were three times higher.

When I watch myself as an unbiased observer and test what I see, I get a solid answer to What would my readers want me to do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

1.5 Indie’s Advice

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Interview with Indie
His Blog: The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy
URL: indeterminacy.blogspot.com
Thing to note when you visit: the interactivity; the connection between Indie and his readers; the quality of the content; the special features and unique ideas

1.5 Indie’s Advice

Indie

We all have bad days we remember, blogging blunders–little or big–mistakes we wished never happened. At the time, they seemed huge and over time they became history. Indie talked about his blogging experiences–his mistakes, what he hopes to do, advice he got, and the advice he would give.

What do you think was the biggest mistake that you made?

The biggest mistake I made was posting a photo which I didn’t think worked well. But I won’t tell which one that was. Maybe someday I’ll go in and quietly replace it.

What change made the greatest improvement? What was the best advice you got?

The greatest improvement I made was based on feedback I received from one of the bloggers who found and supported me in my first months: Robyn Moondancer. She has since stopped blogging and is seldom in the Internet. She was the one who thought it would work if I started the weekend stories in which the visitors write the stories to the photo I post. At first I was skeptical. I thought people wouldn’t want to contribute; they would feel that they were competing with me or I with them. But it went over quite well, and some of my readers say it’s one of the things they like best about the blog.

In general, whenever I want to change something, I write to one of the people who visit my blog regularly. I feel that I am doing the blog in part for them as well as for myself. I value the feedback I receive and usually do what it tells me.

What do you wish you could do for your blog?

I need to spend time organizing my links. Over the last year I’ve come across many blogs and websites that I’ve found were creative and interesting. They deserved to be known about. This resulted over time in a long list of links. In the future I want to organize these in thematic sections so that anyone following a whim of what he/she would like to read next can benefit from what I’ve found.

What advice would you give a beginner?

I started by reading the documentation at Blogspot about how to blog and how to promote one’s blog. At the time I don’t think there was a definitive blog like Successful Blog, devoted to the idea of how to blog successfully. It’s still probably a good idea to read through the documentation at Blogspot, but I would now recommend following successful-blog.com.

I’d also advise beginning bloggers not to be discouraged when they do not receive a lot of visitors right off. It takes a while to build an audience.

Last but not least, be yourself. Don’t try to be something at your blog that you are not. Believe in what you blog about. Do not blog what you think other people want to hear, when it’s not “you.” Blog what you would want to read yourself, if you were the one visiting.

Anything else you think all bloggers should know? [Read more…]