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Mastering Content in Your Niche

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Guest Writer: Gary Fugere

Gary Fugere of Earn a living without a job took me up on my call for posts by sending in his How to become the “Go To” in your niche.

This post, originally written as a submission to Darren Rowse’s 31-day challenge, offers head-on advice for getting in control of the information grapevine in your blogging niche. Main points that Gary covers include

  • Be a reporter, not a writer. Readers are looking for answers.
  • Get plugged in with a news aggregator such as Bloglines.
  • Learn to find compelling content nuggets. He offers several strategies, including how to master the nuances of Bloglines search, Google Alerts, Yahoo Buzz, and Google Zeitgeist. I was impressed that everything you need to know is there and complete.

To finish off the document there are eighteen additional links to resources you might explore. This post is well worth checking out.

Here’s a taste of the resources Gary has to offer.

Look Smart Search for Articles

Thanks Gary for sharing what you know with us. This is what a community blog is all about. 😛

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO–Five Traits of Relevant Content

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Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Five Traits of Relevant Content

Relevant is the keyword. Content without “relevant” is less than content. Who would want to post something irrelevant? Here are five traits of relevant content.

Relevant content is text.
Search Engines love quality relevant content. They love quality content because readers do. Content here means text, not graphics or photos. That’s where search engines and readers see pages differently. Readers “read” photos and graphics; search engine spiders crawl right past them. So under that photo or graphic include a caption explaining what’s in it.

Relevant content is fresh and free-flowing.
Search engine spiders are demanding creatures. They want original, relevant content to list for their readers–and lots of it. Provide original content with accuracy and frequency about topics readers search for, and your posts will be born relevant.

Relevant content is formatted.
When your document follows a structured format, a search engine can follow how topics relate. Relationships between topics establish that keywords aren’t just mentioned–they are connected and relevant.

  • title
  • h1–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)
  • h2–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)

Relevant content is linked–Links in, links out, and links to yourself are relevant.
Spiders crawl the web by following links. Links draw spiders to related pages from blog to blog and within your blog. Connections in content are inherently relevant.

Relevant content is error free and accessible.
Open HTML tags, gross errors in spelling, and unnecessary plugins trip spiders. Enough said.

Relevant content is what readers are searching for, what spiders are crawling for, what bloggers are blogging for–right?

I’d rather not blog than be irrelevant.

I think there’s a t-shirt in that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Directory Listings as Blog Promotion

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The blog looks great. You’ve been through the Blog Review Checklist. You’ve got several posts with great titles and compelling content–to let readers know you’ll be around, when they come back. Now it’s time to let people know that you exist.

List your blog in the Blog Directories. Which ones? All of them–every one that you can find the smallest reason to. Listing is a slightly longer and more involved task than changing phone companies. However if you take the time, your work will last for the life of your blog.

Prepare a document with the following information before you start. Keep this document. It’s your blog’s biography. You’ll have reason to use it as your blog makes friends and influences people.

  • Your username Pick one with no spaces. Many directories and forums require that, and no one needs too many usernames.
  • Your email address This email address will get directory updates and be used for verifications. You may want it separate from your personal email address. You’ll need a system to keep track of directory correspondence. Much of the login/password email that you want to keep will have subject lines that start with blog-something.
  • Your password I’m sure you know the cautions and rules about passwords.
  • The name of your blog Be sure that you have the spelling, spacing, and everything about the name exactly as you want it. Some directories make it difficult to go back to change it later.
  • The URL This is http:// (nameofmyblog) .com
  • The feed Some directories will ask for your RSS or XML feed. You should be able to find that address within your blogware documentation. It will look like your URL with an extension.
  • The description Though you’re probably anxious to get done, don’t hurry through this one. This is your advertising, and it will be out there a long time. Again, in some places you may not be able to change it later. Make two versions one under 150 words and one under 300 words. Some directories have stricter length limits.
  • Keywords Choose keywords that readers would use to look for a blog like yours. Review them to make certain that they’re not so broad that they apply to every blog, or so narrow that only you would know them.

Then start with one of the lists below. Approach the task as suits your nature. I did a few every day until I was done. That way I could work on writing and do things on other parts of my blog too.

Here are three blog directory lists to get you started. As with all things on the Internet, Directories may have changed since these lists were compiled.

Google’s Blog Directory List

Robin Good’s RSS Top55 – Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

Free Web Directory List From Smiley Cat

–“ME “Liz” Strauss

Steve Rubel’s Technorati Hacks

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THIS JUST IN:

You may have heard about this already from Darren at Problogger or directly from Steve Rubel himself. Still it’s the hot topic of our day, and it belongs in the Survival Kit.

Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion is sharing Ten Technorati Hacks geared for the “digitally inclined” who want to get more mileage out of the Link King. This post is one in Steve’s series of hack postings. It’s complete with visuals and plenty of things that you can’t do in a Blogger template. However, even the newest blogger will find some useful information in a quick read.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Blog Promotion Basics [for Everyone]

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If you look up–under the logo for Successful Blog–you’ll see the words content that is organized, thorough, and relevant. That means I plan to capture and present the basics for everything. I also plan to make sure that those posts–like this one–offer information for everyone, not just new bloggers. Oh and, my other plan is that these posts won’t be boring. 🙂

Well, it used to say that. Now, we just live it.

I’ve hidden a posting Easter egg of sorts in this one. Hope most of you don’t have it already.

This post is based on Duncan Riley’s Building blog traffic for newbies. If you already know the basics, read the 31 comments that follow the post.

Duncan lays out six main points he pulled together when he realized that people seemed to know little about promoting blogs. I’ll list them here [with my notes], and you can get the detail from the post.

  • Don’t use blogrolling for your site links. It stuffs up search engines.
  • Pinging is good, but trackbacks and comments are better.
  • Offer to exchange links in your links section [in the sidebar].
  • Link to small sites without exchange through sidebar or a post.
  • Submit your blog to all search engines [and directories].

And what we both agree is the most important one:

  • Post regularly, [consistently], and often.

I’d also like to add two if I might.

  • Join a forum in your niche. It offers natural opportunities to talk about your blog.
  • Find websites in your niche that would like to list your link.

Of course, the best promotion is quality content when the traffic gets there.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

PS. Do we have to use the word “newbies”? Has anyone got a better one?

Related articles:
Turning Reluctant Readers into Loyal Fans
Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal
Why Doesn’t Pete Townshend Need to Do Promotion?
GAWKER Design: Curb Appeal as Customer-Centered Promotion

10 + 1 Qualities of Bloggers and Our Readers

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First there were bulletin boards. Over time they became forums and then chat rooms. Web sites were born and were gathered into portals. Each of them uses the magic of the Internet in a slightly different way. None of them quite captures the personality and creativity of so many individuals as blogging.

What is it about blogging that makes it so addictive both to bloggers and our readers? What am I talking about? Pete Blackshaw of Intelliseek explains it in his ClickZ article Ten Simple Rules for Dating a Blogger. I’ve used his rules to derive ten blogger descriptions. Do you see yourself in them?

  • Bloggers are always clicking. We see and report everything with amazing clarity.
  • Bloggers are never one. We are part of a social network. We love sharing information.
  • Bloggers are almost chameleons. The world of blogging is flexible and agile. Great bloggers are too. That’s how we’re creeping into all kinds of online publishing.
  • Bloggers love to disrupt the status quo. We live by doing things better, faster, cheaper. We have WAY MORE personality than our webmaster counterparts. It shows up in how we write and in what we like to read.
  • Not all bloggers are on the up and up. In fact spam and advertorial content is what some slimy bloggers are really about. Successful bloggers don’t need them.
  • Bloggers have their addictions and temptations. We are involved with Search Engine Optimization. We can’t quit checking ad program words. We are crazy copy generators. We are constantly checking links and statistics. . . . Excuse me for a minute. (If you don’t know what those things are, that’s why we’re putting together a Blogger’s Survival Kit.)
  • Bloggers live for our bloggy “big breaks.” It might take time, but our position changes. The first notice by a big search engine, the first trend search that shows up on Blog Pulse, the first page ranking at Google–these are our academy awards. We know not to expect our nonblogging friends to understand it.
  • Bloggers don’t tolerate imposters. If someone we trust has steered us wrong, you can bet we’re long gone. . . . and possibly blogging about it.
  • Bloggers think in lists. We list early and often. We know that lists are key to keeping information moving fast and furiously.
  • Bloggers like to have our say or we wouldn’t be blogging.

and I added this one

  • Successful bloggers know what we’re blogging about and who we’re blogging for.

So there they are 10+1 Qualities of Bloggers and Our Readers. Know any others I should add to the list? How do we use this information to make our blogs more enticing to our blogger-readers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss