Baby Steps to Blogging Superstardom
In a recent post at his blog, Seth Godin explains how you can use a blogger's sensibility to improve your other writing—from ad copy to thank-you notes. But the post also serves up some solid ideas for improving your blog itself. Here are a few of his key points:
A blog post is not a PhD dissertation. "Bloggers don't have to say everything at once," says Godin. "We can add a new idea every day, piling on a thesis over time." Take a look at his blog's archive and you'll see what he means. Entries range from brief notations to lengthy discussions, but—taken as a whole—each continues to develop his central themes.
People like lists. How often do you see magazine cover lines and online headlines trumpeting, say, The Top 25 Reasons You Need to [Fill In the Blank]? They're fun, and almost certain to drive traffic to your blog.
No one likes an online dead-end. Go ahead and link to other sites, even if it's a hyperlink in the middle of a paragraph. If you have interesting content, you haven't lost your readers forever—they'll come back for more.
Social media is about conversation. Writes Godin, "Your readers care about someone's opinion even more than yours…their own. So reading your email or your comments or your trackbacks (your choice) makes it easy to stay relevant."
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