seo for bloggers Archives | Ian M Rountree

No More Drafts

June 1, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

I deleted fifteen drafts from my blog this morning. Some of them, I’ve been keeping around for nearly six months. Clearly, I would never write them.

It’s liberating, every now and then, to ditch the expectational debt of having too many unfinished drafts and move on. I don’t think we give ourselves enough chances to do that.

Drafts have their place, certainly. Setting things in motion, marking down ideas – these are good practices. However, living perpetually from drafts seems to make reacting to live events hard. How can we talk about news, if our post for today is already in the queue, and we’re unwilling to shuffle the queue back because we have a schedule?

In doing the editorial and SEO work for Hard Refresh, I’m now finding that working a draft from start to finish effectively takes practice. Nic and I are getting a decent queue of articles there, but we do still have some drafts – they’re not bad things by nature, but they do suck up a lot of cycles unintentionally. Being able to call something finished shortly after starting it is important; letting your brain stew on a half-formed idea while at the same time trying to keep the original idea’s form is not.

When considering your editorial calendar, drafts can save your life. Or, they can make you completely bonkers because your half-finished ideas starve the rest of your creative process.

Some practices I’ve found to help when dealing with drafts:

Keep a list of topic ideas separate from your in-blog drafts.
Only create drafts when you have well-formed ideas, but don’t have time to write.
Write the finished article within a set period of time, or delete the draft itself.
Be willing to push the schedule of drafted posts for reactive blogging.
Mark posts in a series where appropriate, especially if you can title them as such.

Doing this for my project blogs has helped keep me significantly less stressed over publishing. While it’s led to less writing here, it’s certainly led to better writing there – and better writing is what the job’s all about.

How do you keep your sanity without completely ignoring the idea of a draft?

SEO for Bloggers – Simple Discovery Tricks

December 21, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

One of the things analytics nuts love to obsess over is the effectiveness of our posts.

Which ones have the most clout, where did they get it from? Is it better to have more comments, or more tweets? Does traffic help?

The answer is yes; all of this helps. Comments, traffic, tweets, inbound links – there are a lot of things that give pages weight. But, as our sites get more traffic and tweets and so on – how do we tell, in an ongoing way, which of our pages is doing better than the others over all?

Here’s a trick; do a google search for the headline of your blog. In my case, it’s my name.so I searched, no-caps, no-quotes. Here’s what I got;

Interesting, yes? A post about Google Buzz (which happens to be riddled with musical references) that got a sidelong mention on an industry podcast, followed by one about Facebook which has seen a decent amount of mentions, followed by the most spam-addled article on my site.

What’s missing; the most mentioned post I’ve ever had, the most commented post I’ve ever hard, and the most linked-to post in my archive.

Then, I tried something different. Because we’re looking specifically for my site, rather than the various higher-powered social media sites carrying my name through my profile, I searched for my name – and added my domain behind it.

Notable: the layout is much the same, but now carries some additions; namely, the Screwdriver article which is still my top search driving piece, my most recent non-throw-away post (this review of the awesome Standard Theme 2), and a very thoroughly-commented on post about Google and China. All of these have seen strong authority signals – but none of them have had the same mix of reaction.

By searching your way through your Google Analytics (you DO use an analytics program, right? Don’t make Uncle Avinash angry), and your blog’s admin interface, you should be able to pick out the weight and mix of things lending authority to the top pages these kinds of searches return.

Verdict? The mysterious ether powering your page ranks relies on a clearly diverse mix of authority signals.

The things we bloggers think of as clear indications of “victorious posts” are not the same as what search considers a winning mix of authority. Taking advantage of easy metrics and hacking your analytics are both important to figure out what’s working from more angles than just the social media connection.

Now – grain of salt time. A one-off experiment like this tells is very little, other than that some unexpected pages have high authority metrics. What will prove more interesting is, in 2 months, I plan to repeat the experiment with some better recorded metrics about the posts I’ve written between now and then. If the same unexpected results appear again, then we’ll really have something to think about.

Your assignment; replicate my experiment, report what you find. You’ll probably be surprised.

Notes from #blogchat – Blogging 201

November 14, 2010 by Ian 2 Comments

Back from the great beyond, it’s time for more Notes from #blogchat! Let’s go!

Tonight was a discussion of going beyond dipping your toes in the blogosphere, and moving from 101 hobby blogging, to Blog 201 and beyond.

Firstly, I asked if anyone was actively putting any of the advice they’ve had on #blogchat to good use on their blogs.

I think the question got lost in the rush of “This is how I blogchat” – ignore that part, and read Stan Smith’s rockstar-level #blogchat methodology.

To answer, however: we’ve had a lot of good advice. (sidebars, construction topicality, etc)

Mack asked how we decide the focus of our blogs – Margie Clayman, true to form, jumped in with a note about finding inspiration in tweets and other blog posts. I concur, however; when you’re working up to the 101 level (forget 201 for now), writing what you know can be a good start. Address your own concerns and interests, and those of like mind will jump in.

Of course, as @kateyoung28 mentioned, getting people to find you when you’re starting out can be hard unless you promote. My first step is always SEO – as I’ve written about before, that’s easier than most bloggers think.

Chase Adams mentioned getting inspiration from coffee shops and other public places – something we don’t do nearly often enough (paying attention when in public). Don’t ego map yourself; pull out the headphones once in a while.

As a sidenote, Chris Garrett mentioned editorial calendars to help keep yourself on track and not miss any opportunites to write. I agree. I’d also add that plugins such as Insights (for WordPress.org blogs) are essential to making sure you link your writing in an integrated fashion to your past thoughts.

@devacoach mentioned using her iPhone to take pictures as reminders – I agree! – I use Evernote when I’ve got my laptop or phone about.

@deswalsh mentioned using Google Analytics regularly to see which past posts are performing more persistently – a 201 trick if there ever was one – so he can write similar material in the future.

Halftime! There was a lot of tomfoolery about tools here, gratuitous mentions of Evernote and other organizational tools – see the transcript for more on this part.

I asked what else, other than higher quality content, clearly demarcates a 201-level blog from a 101-level blog. @be3d said “consistent content cadence” – a term you can bet I’ll be using in the future. Consistency definitely trumps frequency in blogs.

@Josepf mentioned developing series of posts – and that’s a great tip. Series may or may not get as many comments as single, heavy hitting pillar articles, but drawing out a concept into a few different articles is one of the marks of an accustomed writer, if not a professional one. Circling a topic for a few dozen posts is vastly different to writing a targeted series. No more of this ready fire aim business.

Now – back to that Ready, Fire, Aim thing.

It’s always been my thought that online business (and thus blogs) do better when they Beta extensively, and refine as they go, toward a moving, yet identified target. More on this later this week.

Power quote time:

@savvywordpress: always remember SEO get them there, good design gets their interest, great content keeps them there + makes conversion #blogchat

Awesome, yes? This encompasses a lot of what #blogchat has been saying for a while.Quality web-work has to cover all the bases.

And that’s when Mack started asking about subscribers. The first question? Who’s got a subscribe button on their blogs. I’d argue a subscribe button is minimum table stakes for blog design – anything less than at least a “Subscribe here” link, or an orange icon is doing it wrong.

A lot of people agreed that they’ve got subscribe buttons, and know what they’re for. This is a good thing.

@superdumb (who is most definitely NOT) dropped a note about starting conversations in comments on others’ blogs that you can take home to your own. 201-level tip, for sure.

And, mercy to the masses, Dan Perez and I actually agreed on something; there’s a massive gulf in skillsets between bloggers and writers (and, I added, authors). Not all writers can blog, and not every blogger should author a book or write a newspaper column. This is important, especially when considering the move from 101 blog (hobby, mandatory action, etc) to 201, full-on, professional blogging.

Above all else, making sure you’re not just covering the minimum bases, but filling out every field and making sure you have the commitment to find the right skills and get the right support is one of the key factors in moving into Blogging at the 201 Level. Anyone can write a blog. Not everyone needs, wants, or must become a highly skilled blogger.

What do you think? What else goes on the list of 201-level blogging tips that we missed?

Read the transcript for #blogchat, November 14th 2010 here. See the #blogchat stats on What the Hashtag.

A participants’ list will be up as soon as I can get one/generate one. If you’ve got one, please do share!

Photo by Scarleth White.

Notes From #blogchat – Guest Host Chris Brogan

August 15, 2010 by Ian 4 Comments

Tonight’s #blogchat had Chris Brogan on as guest host – and Mack Collier thankfully prefixed the chat with a post explaining the flow. Thanks for that, Mack – as you said, #blogchat certainly can get batshit-crazy-fast, and no one expected tonight to be any different.

For the uninitiated – here is Mack’s exegesis of #blogchat.

Stanford from Pushing Social also shared a video on how he sets up for #blogchat that’s worth a watch.

Self-promotion: People! My copy of trust Agents is still up for grabs! Share a Skip1.org related story and win the book (with a little thank you note from me!)

The Planned Topic: How to Use Other Social Sites/Presences to Grow Your Blog.

This is a big one. We’ve identified that it’s far easier to grow your audience in one place by being active somewhere else – growing your subscriber base by using Twitter, finding new LinkedIn connections on Facebook, and so on. But just how do we go about that? Chris Brogan cohosted #blogchat tonight, to talk about exactly that thing.

First: How do you decide which sites you should be active on in order to help your blog?

– Targeting helps – Chris shared FlowTown, a targeting tool I’ll be playing with this week. The base of Chris’ advice during this portion was that finding sites to become active on requires two things: defining the goal of your blog, and finding out where your customers are. If your customers are mostly toastmasters – go be a toastmaster. It makes sense.

The flow is fairly simple, really; identify your goal, and find a niche that goal serves. Look at places like AllTop.com for conversations already in motion. Once you’ve found one, involve yourself. Be the elbow, the helpful newcomer – and really get into the conversation. And please, please (Chris asks) “never shove your updates around the web. Be selective, be specific, be unique. Make each network its own beast.”

Second: How to decide whether to make one of the sites you’re involved in, into an Outpost for your community.

Once we’ve targeted properly, and begun to engage, we need to formalize our outposts and differentiate them from the street corners where we hold conversations. So, we pick outposts by relevance; converse, engage, be in th enetwork. Occasional “conversion forks” (Chris’ term) are the way to go.

Give others the tools to succeed. No matter what tyour goal is – thought leadership, building a channel or media property, or sales – your job on the web (and in life, right?) is to help others succeed at what they do. Your products should back this up, and so should your every action on the social web. Chris’ golden ratio for this is 12 actions for others for every 1 action promoting yourself.

Remember to pick your communication style discretely for each network. MySpace has a different accent than Facebook does, and a different one than Twitter does as well. As much as we don’t want to be shoving our updates around everywhere, we don’t want to duplicate everything either. this can be a deciding factor in whether or not you want to really engage in an arena. Cross-pollination is one thing – heck, even I use automation for some of my sharing – but we should remember to make clear distinctions when we’re using these tools to reduce our workload, rather than trying to appear ubiquitous.

A side note: We’re the special cases here, guys. You and me, the bloggers in the room, we know things other people don’t. We have arcana about conversational flow and reciprocation. All the talk in the world about outposts and goals, media properties and voice in communication style… It’s all arcana. We have two options: We can treat it as arcana and guard it like spies – or we can pull the veil and let everyone in on the wisdom. Which are you better at doing? Why?

The night’s transcript, from @MackCollier

The 250 top participants’ list from @KevinLyons

Drop any further questions for Chris Brogan on his blog – here, as per his request.

Join the #blogchat LinkedIn Group!

Conclusions? What else can we add to this?

UPDATE: @tsudo collected far more semantic details directly from Chris here: Insights into Social Media Marketing

Image borrowed from the awesome Guerilla Freelancing Blog.

The Full-Circle Approach – SEO for Bloggers Part 7

July 25, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

As much as we bloggers love to focus on it, SEO is really a small consideration for us – or should be.

The heck, you say! Getting found is the paragon of publishing success!

Yes. It is. But let me explain.

Search Engine Optimization, as a process, is fairly straightforward. It’s about giving a robot, like Google, a very precise, very clear view of what your content is, how it relates to the rest of the web, and why you deserve more points for quality and relevance on certain subjects than other websites do. It’s an almost religious-scale obsession for some web workers, because we know so little about how the robot works, and what really has an effect on the rankings.

Bloggers have it fairly easy. Where some sites struggle for rankings on their own business names, we have an opportunity to work both towards our readers’ benefits, and align our sites with the robots’ required signs of quality. How? Because we know the following;

The robot loves content. New, fresh, refreshed sites draw the robot back for more. If we’d just write our darn blogs, we can already have a head start over other classes of website.

The robot loves consistency. If we make sure our content is on purpose, rather than shooting off on tangents, we’re sending signs that we’re worth authority.

The robot LOVES consistency! Schedule, will you? Keeping on top of our internal calendars gives us yet another advantage.

People love taking action, and the robot loves seeing action taken. Bookmarking, revisiting – any actions the robot can tell are available to the visitors of a site send signals that interactivity is available. It’s good for the people, thus good for the robot.

People like to share – and when sharing happens (in certain ways) the robot takes notice. Having your pieces passed on, or passing on the work of others, sends yet more signals that your site is worth paying attention to – not just to the robot, but to the people who are looking for something to pay attention to!

We all love to talk, especially to each other. Content is relevance. Updated content is increased relevance. Discussion on, around, or about your site is a huge indicator that you may be engaging with people, and the robot loves signs of interactivity. So do people, by the way. don’t we?

Back up and thing about that for a second. Content is relevance.

Bloggers have unique opportunities. Where business, individuals, and all manner of website creators have to think about information architecture, content strategy, and minutiae of all kinds, for the blogger, the content IS the strategy. We can say whatever we like, sure, but building a set of guidelines for ourselves, encouraging people to get on board with what we’re saying, and over all making our blogs useful, puts us far ahead of the game.

How can you put this into action for yourself?

Like this? Get more! Subscribe by RSS and never miss a post.

Or, read the entire SEO for Bloggers series from the start to see where we’re coming from.

Just Write
On Purpose
The Editorial Calendar
Get More of This
Let’s Share!
Join the Conversation

I’d like you to join the conversation. What have we missed so far? What needs revisiting? What kind of opportunities can we take from developing our content intentionally?

Image by Frerieke.