Successful Blog

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

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

1.4 Synchronicity in Statistics

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Interview with Indie
His Blog: The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy
URL: indeterminacy.blogspot.com
His audience: persons from all walks of life who like to read quality fiction–bloggers, high school and college students, people in the creative arts, and people who work with language in their jobs–his blogroll reflects his audience
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

1.4 Synchronicity in Numbers

Indeterminacy stats

Indie approaches his blog as a business as well as an art. He keeps track, as much as one can, of who’s coming and how they get there. In the world of writer’s blogs his numbers are high. His blog carries a Google Page Rank of 5. A generous spirit, Indie was willing to share his stats with us and generated a stat graph to go with them.

Indie, how do you keep track of the visitors who come by the blog?

I use a stat counter to gain an idea of how many people read my blog, but unfortunately I have no way of knowing how relevant these results are. My blog is syndicated which means it is possible for people to see the photograph and read the content without coming directly to the site. These are readers I know nothing about. Because blog-installed stat counters only count hits, there’s no way to tell how many people actually read it and how much they are interested in the content.

Sometimes a person will drift in via a Google search, and then spend a half an hour or longer clicking through the archives. I like to think they are reading the stories, although it’s quite possible that they’re merely glancing through the photos.

What do you do, and how much time do you spend on building up readership? Do you use traffic exchange services? How do you expand your own blog reading?

I don’t have as much time these days to visit all the blogs I like, so my chances to read and comment are sporadic. To let people know I’m out there, I occasionally enter my blog in the Blog Battles at Blog Explosion. But in general, I think that exchange services offer only superficial traffic. Lately BE has been heavy-handed about expelling blogs that discuss/evaluate other exchange programs. I’m beginning to wonder about them. (See the censorship of Sarahtampa .)

I sometimes come across wonderful blogs that quickly come into my favorites list. Two recent examples include shtikl.com and soulkin.com.

How many visitors stop by each day?

The stat counter I have currently registers roughly 150 to 250 page loads a day. Checking the last 100 page references I see that a third of these are referrals through search results. Another third come from links at other blogs or sites, and the remainder just show up somehow.

What percent do you think are repeat visitors each day?

My stat counter uses a cookie to record regular visitors, but I know that the system is not entirely accurate. Often I’ll check my statistics and notice a friend’s visit, but he/she doesn’t show up as a repeat visitor. My stats for last week fluctuated from 20-40 repeat visitors per day.

What is your most visited day of the week? Does readership change through the year?

Tuesday through Friday are about the same. Weekends and Mondays drop off slightly. I don’t know about changes specific to time of year. Traffic has increased slowly but surely since the time I began blogging. Daily readership drops off when I’m on vacation (not posting).

The most heavily visited days were March 4th (1521 unique visitors / 1973 page loads), followed by March 3rd (1161 unique visitors / 1637 page loads).

Inide Stats

Someone had mentioned my blog at a portal– metafilter.com. The two posts of March 3rd received two comments from new visitors, one positive, one negative. And there was one guestbook entry. It’s interesting to note that out of over 2600 visitors only three left comments. Shows how hard it is to get people to comment? Or is it a general tendancy to lurk?

Can you point us to your most visited stories?

March 4th: Karla Had Just Been Kissed

March 3rd: Vance and Vera Invited an Inflatable Man

Indie knows the numbers and he knows that they’re not an exact reflection of what’s happening. The numbers are simply one more piece to the puzzle. They help us sort out the anamolies and focus in on the patterns over time., leading closer to a picture of who our readers might be.

What patterns do you see in your blog’s numbers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Creating Reader Evangelists

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From Book to Reality

Last year, I read Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell’s book, Creating Customer Evangelists–a business bestseller. The concept, touted as a breakthrough, was really common sense. It seemed like a breakthrough because most businesses weren’t doing what it said–taking advantage of the fact that some customers are plain crazy about them. What Huba and McConnell explained was how to capture that enthusiasm and channel it for the company’s benefit.

We have our blog fans, our daily readers–the folks who think we hung the moon. They are the part of our audience closest to us. They are influencers–people who can change minds and influence others to see our blog the way they do. They’re a natural bridge to get the word out to other readers. How can we tap into the way they feel about us? How can we make it easy for them to share their excitement with others?

At his site, Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel has thoroughly covered this subject for us. He’s taken Huba and McConnell’s thinking and translated it for use in the blogging world. I’ve brought you a taste.

Steve offers six blogging points that echo the six points in the book. Since Rubel writes for a marketing/business audience, I’ve slightly edited his words and added my comments in italics after each.

    1. Use your blog to solicit feedback from your readers and then act on it. It makes total sense. If you want to engage your evangelists you have to be engaged yourself.

    2. Blog your best ideas. The thought here is not to hoard your best ideas. Get them out there. Let your evangelists use them too. They’ll come back to you ten-fold.

    3. Find, listen, engage, and empower your blogging influencers. Everyone wants to feel a part of something bigger than they are. Let your influencers be a part of what you do in every way that you can. Encourage participation. The more they feel they belong, the more they will bring friends along.

    4. Blog with a higher, holy calling. If you have a passion about what you’re doing, other’s will at least pay attention. Many will become passionate too.

    5. Blog away trinkets, credit, and links. Be generous of mind and of spirit. People remember and respect generosity. It’s a statement of character. It also gets their attention.

    6. Show your readers that you’re their greatest fan. Anything I add would be redundant.

Steve also provides links for more articles he recommends. This button will take you to Steve’s article, “Creating Customer Evangelists” from October 20, 2005.

This is one of the best I’ve seen on the web. Read it. Print it. Keep it. But before you go . . . leave me a comment too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss