Content is No Longer Enough
The saying that “Content is King” has been passed around online for as long as I can remember. But the simple truth of the matter is that in this day and age, good blog content just isn’t enough. You need to use effective optimization and promotion techniques in order to attract a large number of readers. To that end, here are 4 practical tips that tell you how to drive traffic to your site and how you can retain reader loyalty once they visited your blog:
Create Title Tags for Two Audiences –
You need to write title tags for people who visit your page or those who have subscription to your feed. Title tags should be short, on-topic, and catch the reader’s attention. But you should also consider writing title tags for search engines because this can help direct traffic to your blog. You can use WordTracker, KeywordDiscovery, or Overture to identify certain phrasings that are popular among searchers.
Participate in Blogs and Forums –
This may seem like an obvious thing to do but a lot of bloggers fail to continually implement this strategy usually because they are too busy with other things. It is important for you to realize that online communities can be a great help in online promotion.
Launch your Site with Disabled Comments –
When you first introduce your blog, you should expect that most of your posts will have 0 comments. That is not a problem in itself but the issue is that readers will think that your blog is unpopular and empty when no one’s commenting on it. So if you don’t have enough RSS feed subscribers or if you don’t have large enough number of visitors per day, consider disabling comments until later. Obviously there’s a bit of a trade off in the lost comments, but it will also look like you don’t have comments not because your blog is a ghost town (see rule #6 from the 10 Mistakes that Will Kill Your Blog) but because you simply don’t allow them. I wouldn’t suggest using this tactic for too long, you risk killing off any sense of community, but it can be quite effective in the early going.
Don’t Immediately Join the Bandwagon –
Or, as Max says, Stop Playing Follow the Leader. Sometimes, there are certain industry news that almost every blogger seem to talk about. But don’t immediately jump into the bandwagon especially if your blog is not established in its niche yet. A good alternative would be providing blog readers with content that is unique, informative, and unavailable elsewhere. I know I’ve beaten this point into the ground here, but I really can not emphasize this enough. BE UNIQUE!
Perfect,i must say we have a similar thinking!
Good post. I like the title tag part. Some people don’t realize how important that title (and the first couple sentences) really is on the post.
Nice advice Ben. I leave comments on before my blog has established itself so it could be a mistake.
Also I don’t tend to post unless I have something new to say. I am glad you recommend not following the leader.
p.s. I hope your back is improving, I lost count of how many people (myself included) injured their backs.
content is king and promotion is queen 😉
yeah content and promotion goes hand in hand… btw, i dont really disabling the comments is of a good choice even for new blogs…
i have to agree. i know of a blog with blah/useless/pathetic content and yet the hits were amazing. hehe. im bitter. 😛
I would actually have to disagree with your thoughts on disabling comments when you are receiving few to none. Why is this a bad idea? I wouldn’t add a blog to my feed if I can’t every comment on it. How would I know that comments would be added in the near future? I wouldn’t.
Not to mention the fact that, at least I personally, go for blogs that have around 300-400 subscribers and publish daily. These bloggers are successful enough to know what they are talking about, yet have enough time to personally respond to each and every comment. Then you have the big blogs where the readers aren’t even sure if the publisher reads their comments.
Just my thoughts on it. Considering you blog to my feed though
@Jared some of us don’t care to display a subscriber count on our blogs, also we don’t feel the need to publish daily. It’s because we are aiming to be successful in online business and it is of secondary importance to blog.
Blogging is like journalism for some people, so they like to blog daily, for others it is a tool for SEO and to market products and services.
Whatever, I think you will miss out on many good blog posts if you filter blogs by feedburner subscribers and post frequency.
I don’t feel there is really a need to disable comments. People will eventually comment if they feel the need. Of course everyone is free to run their blog as they see fit. I also don’t pay attention to RSS suscribers at all when I go to a blog. If I like what I see and read that’s all that matters.
~Terry
Jeff Paul says it best…”you’re not in the business you’re in, you’re in the marketing of that business”.
Once you realize that, you’ll see sales and profits.
You’re not a “content provider” (blogger), you are a marketer of that content.
Kenney
I’m not sure if content was really ever enough … at least not since Google shook up the Internet with the popularity thing. To be honest, I only focus 10% of my time on content. I find it is more profitable to build links, build relationships, write guest posts and other stuff. Maybe that’s just me.