Successful Blog

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…]

Thanks to Week 2 SOBs

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Now, now, you know what that means . . . Successful and Outstanding Bloggers.

muddy teal strip A

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

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arloo logo

Blogcruiser logo

bloggersblog logo

digbusiness logo

ericsetiawan logo

johansundkvist logo

kmarblogsome logo

pixelscribbles logo

snapup logo

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this badge’s validity, send him or her directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

deep purple strip

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame. Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–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

1.3 Audience Synchroncity

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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

1.3 Audience Synchronicity

1.3 Audience

Indie has two English-language blogs and a Polish-language blog. Click the screen shot to see his satellite blog–Indeterminacies of Synchronicity. It’s this second blog that provides the venue for the feature that engages his audience in writing their own flash fiction stories each week. Each story posted there is rewarded with a link. The Polish-language blog offers translations of selected stories for a smaller segment of his audience.

Indie’s respect for his readers shows whenever he talks to or about them.

Indie, who is your audience?

I’ve been greatly surprised by the type of people reading my blog. In a nutshell I think of them as the blogging elite. I’ve received feedback from artists, musicians, authors, editors, stand-up comics, company CEO’s, psychotherapists, lawyers, professors and other high level professionals, many of them authors of intelligent blogs themselves. This is, for me, another sign of success. Not too long ago I noticed I had some referrals from an online university class in which the professor asked the students to analyze a flash fiction story of their choosing. He had included my URL as an example of flash fiction, a genre which I incidentally knew nothing about until long into the existence of my blog.

All this attention has been especially gratifying, but also intimidating. I hope I am able to keep up whatever it is that caught their interest.

How do your readers find out about you?

People have found me by accident, through links, random referrals, by word of mouth, using search engines and probably other ways I can’t imagine. I followed all the instructions for promoting one’s blog. I entered myself in all the directories and search engines, I use several traffic exchange programs, I comment at other blogs I find interesting (though these days I have hardly any time left for reading other blogs), I have a description and keywords list included in my blog template, which probably helps improve my search rank for various terms. Lately I’ve been presenting my blog at Blog Explosion’s blog battles. Also, many visitors seem to show up through image searches, which probably goes with the territory of having so many photo posts.

What do they like best about your site?

According to the feedback I receive, people like the idea of what I’m doing (pairing found photos with stories), even if they do not enjoy my writing. Others seem enthusiastic about the pace at which I post stories (five a week at the moment), as well as enjoying the stories. Others enjoy the interactivity or the fact that I try to answer all my comments. On weekends I post a photo without a story and invite my visitors to contribute their own story. I then post my take on the photo the Monday after. Those stories have all been collected at the companion blog indeterminacies.blogspot.com, including links to their respective authors. A few bloggers have been kind enough to write reviews about my project. I’ve linked to them on my front page, and would refer you to these for a feeling about what other people see in my blog.

Indie’s audience is made up of blogger readers from all walks of life. They could be the same people who read our blogs. It’s hard to miss Indie’s connection with his readers. I suspect that even with the great photos, stories, interactivity, and sense of community that the biggest attraction for readers is Indie.

What brings readers to your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss