Blogging & Social Media

How To Get More Blog Subscribers (And Why You Shouldn’t Bother)

by MomGrind

A reader of this blog recently wrote the following entry in their own blog:

I’ve always thought my posts were okay… but since I started this blog I’ve had a conversion rate of only about 0.24% when it comes to the number of unique visitors I get vs. the number of people who actually subscribe. 60% of visitors leave before even 5 seconds have passed. Maybe I need something more eye-catching… or maybe my blog is just a lot more boring than I think it is. It seems like typically, successful blogs became successful within the first two months, so perhaps this is just a waste of my time. I’m going to set a goal: I want to have 20 subscribers by the end of 2008. And if I don’t, I will stop blogging.

Since they closed comments to that post, I emailed them with my completely unasked-for advice, then decided to publish my thoughts here since it occurred to me that many new bloggers will find it useful.

The technical advice

1. Change your WordPress theme. Your current theme is not very appealing, visually. If you can, pay for customization. Customizing a theme is cheaper than building a new website.

2. For easier tracking of your subscribers, burn a feed with feedburner.com. Place the “subscribe” button at the top of the sidebar. Add a “subscribe by email” link as well.

3. Add images to your posts. Flickr.com has a great selection of free images – just search for “creative commons license” images in the search form and credit the photographer. Edited to add: using images has its risks. See Andre’s comment below and my response.

4. Create a community. Find 10-20 small and mid-size blogs in your niche (more on niches later). Start reading them and commenting regularly. This is a good way to build a community around your blog and get comments.

5. Join social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

6. Consider blogging non-anonymously. Anonymity and a lack of a photo make it harder to connect with you.

7. Learn some basic SEO techniques and install the Wordpres SEO plugin. While SEO shouldn’t take over your writing, it’s very important to optimize your posts for search engines. Search engine traffic is important, and you want the right kind of search engine traffic – the kind that sticks around and reads your material rather than the kind that immediately bounces off your site.

The stuff they should REALLY give some serious thought to

8. Decide on a general direction for your blog. What is it about? You don’t have to limit yourself to a very tight niche, but if you can have a general niche, that would help. One of my own challenges with this blog is that I refuse to limit myself to a niche. But anyone who can be happy blogging within a niche should do so, in my opinion. Once you know what your niche is, add a tagline to reflect it.

9. Be patient. It’s not true that blogs succeed after a couple of months. Darren Rowse of Problogger recently said in his interview for Blogging Without A Blog, “For a blog to reach its potential though, you need to give it considerable time. It takes a couple of years to get to its potential.”

10. Ask yourself: what am I trying to achieve with my blog? Remember: most of us will never become famous (how DO you define Interent-famous anyway?) or make serious money from our blogs. So we should have other motives. For some it’s showcasing their work as writers and possibly landing writing gigs or book deals. For others it’s an outlet for their creativity and a way to connect with other people. A blog can also help you attract new customers to your online or offline business.

For me, blogging is about expressing myself in ways, and having a reach and an audience, that would not be available to me without this blog. Making a few extra bucks doing something that I love is a nice bonus. I’m also thinking about this blog in terms of showcasing my work. While I have absolutely no desire to ever write a book, I do love to blog. I currently work part-time writing the UpToUs corporate blog and would like to do more paid writing. My personal blog is a great way to let people know what I’m capable of. One of the items on my to-do list is adding a “hire me” page to this blog.

11. Finally, remember that human nature will cause you to always want more. So when you’ll have 20 subscribers, you’ll want 50 and when you get to 50 you’ll want 100. Think you’ll be satisfied with 500? With 1000? No you won’t. It never ends, which is why setting these goals can lead to perpetual dissatisfaction.

What are YOU trying to achieve with your blog?
Image credit: Annie Mole

Should “A-List Bloggers” Close Comments?

by MomGrind

When Merlin Mann closed comments on his blog, he said:
“The quality and care of visitor contributions everywhere has hit what I truly hope is rock bottom. Stupid, venal, ignorant, self-linking comments from people who couldn’t be troubled to actually read the article… Nonsense tagging, meta-commenting, ass-kissing, trolling… Please. It’s nuts and it’s pointless and it’s really cynical on the part of almost every publisher that allows that crap to go on.”

Mann captured pretty well what goes on in the comments section of most top blogs.

Just a few examples from the blogs I’m following (needless to say, all these comments link back to the commenter’s own blog):

Zen Habits

“Very inspiring, I’ve been wondering about a few of the points for a while. Have a good day mate.”

“Thanks.” (Yes, this was the entire comment).

“Your articles are officially the best of their kind. Its good to see that there is actually a structure to something that reads so easily and provides so much content in such a short amount of words. Definitely something I can apply. Thanks.”

Problogger

“Hi Dareen [his name is Darren v.d.], Absolutely correct. This is very-very useful article. Thanks.”

“Excellent article Darren. All very true points.” [The article was not written by Darren. It was written by guest Tim Brownson v.d.]

“Such an incredibly helpful post. It was perfect timing for me. So much of it was exactly what I needed to hear and reflect on. Thanks!”

Blech.

Life coach Tim Brownson, who’s always refreshingly honest, recently said in a comment he left on Writer Dad’s blog: “I agree that some of the ‘A’ listers don’t have communities as such – it’s just a rush for people to get the link back to their own website up first. Anybody here indulge in that game from time to time? ”

Err yes. Especially in the early days.

I was curious to know what the “A-listers” thought about the comments on their blogs, so I emailed Leo and Darren to ask why they choose to leave comments open despite this ridiculousness.

Leo thinks that for the most part, the discussion on Zen Habits is a good one. He says:

I’ve been lucky at Zen Habits — I can’t speak for other blogs — in that I have a large and very wonderful group of commenters. Sure, I get the occasional spammer or “check out my site” comment, but for the most part I have a lot of thoughtful, smart, interesting people who are encouraging, supportive, and genuinely interested in the subject.

I believe allowing others to speak is invaluable at Zen Habits. Sure, everyone wants to read what I have to say, but often the most interesting advice, commentary, tips and information is found in the comment. I learn at least as much from my commenters as readers do from me. And that freedom of expression at Zen Habits — from the people who love my writing to the thoughtful dissenters — has opened up a whole range of thought that I never imagined possible.

Darren sounds a bit more disillusioned with the commenting scene on Problogger:

I am torn on the issue of comments on a blog.

At their best I love them and for me they encapsulate what blogging is all about – community, dialogue, shared learning and immediate communication.

At their worst they degenerate into pointless fights, point scoring, self promotion and downright spam.

Unfortunately over the six years that I’ve been blogging I’m seeing more and more of comments at the worst end of the spectrum. I’ve strongly considered switching them off or at least being more aggressive with what comments
are allowed to go live or even who is and isn’t allowed to comment.

To this point however, I’m unwilling to let my comments sections be closed – although I can see that there will come a time where I’ll need to take a different approach.

So now I’m asking you. What’s your take on A-list comments? Do you ever comment on top blogs? Do you sometimes engage in the “rush to comment first” game that Tim mentioned? How do you feel about the empty comments on these blogs? Do you think these bloggers should close comments – do you agree with Mann that “it’s really cynical on the part of almost every publisher that allows that crap to go on”?

Commenter’s Burnout

by MomGrind

“After 26 hours of deep reflection, I have decided what will change. Expect to see my blog die as a result, as I visit ONLY the 6 blogs that I enjoy – and not one more. I’ve never been happier about a decision in my life!”

Rita, who graciously allowed me to quote her email here, continues: “I am long out of High School. But since I started blogging, I feel like I have gone through a ‘time warp.’ ‘I commented on YOUR blog, so now it’s time for you to comment on MY blog.’ If I wanted to play ‘tag,’ I’d find some people who really know how to enjoy the game. Anybody who wishes to read my words is welcome to. Anybody who does not is not forced to. But I am an adult, and have lost sight of that fact. I’ve never cared about the numbers, I’ve never taken an ad, and the only thing that blogging has shown me is that this is NOT a ‘community.’ It is a competition.”

Commenting is important

Everywhere we turn, we are told that commenting on other blogs is one of the best ways to grow our own blog. Chris Brogan, for example, said recently in a post titled 25 Ways To Build Your Community, “Read at least 100 blogs regularly. Not every post, but a variety.” He also said “Comment the HELL out of other people’s blogs.”

Barbara Swafford is another big proponent of commenting. She said, in a post titled Commenting Vs. Social Media, “commenting helped to make my blog and its community grow, but more than that, blogging became more enjoyable for me when I got involved in commenting on other blogs. It was in that interaction with other bloggers that I found my ‘joy of blogging’.”

But the above email tells a different story. A story of a blogger who feels that the “commenting game” is childish. That it makes her read and comment on blogs that she doesn’t even enjoy reading.

Another friend recently wrote, in an email that they allowed me to publish here, “I stopped commenting on a lot of blogs and only dropped by friends’ blogs when I felt like it. Instead I used social media to promote their posts. But I felt guilty after reading posts that said how bad social media traffic is and how good it is to comment on other people’s blogs. Silly really – I was happy doing my own thing. And now I’m burned out.”

A striking example of the pressure to comment is the following comment that was recently left here by Linda Abbit of Tender Loving Eldercare. Linda, who gave me permission to include her comment in this post, writes: “I can barely keep up reading my favorite blogs, even without adding comments. Even if you don’t see me in the comment section, know I am reading! I’m trying to comment at least once a week, so you know I’m still here. I hate to let my blogger friends down, but life just gets in the way sometimes.”

Reading these words made me wonder: Is there such a thing as too much commenting? If you find yourself spending hours (even “just” a couple of hours) each day reading other blogs and commenting on them, aren’t you wasting your time? And more importantly, aren’t you risking getting burnt out?

Some bloggers believe that intense commenting is indeed a waste of time

When Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz closed comments on her blog (she has since reopened them for select posts), she said, “Getting involved in the drama of who commented where and who owes what comments and OHMYGOD! DidIrespond? ShouldIrespond? WhatifIhatethatperson? doesn’t make you money. It wastes your time.”

Hunter Nuttall recently said, in his post on becoming a problogger, “one trap I’m going to be sure to avoid is spending too much time blogging, meaning both reading and writing. I used to often have huge chunks of free time at work that I could spend reading blogs, sometimes the full eight hours. But now, I have to always be asking myself, “Is this the most important thing I could be doing?”

My own attempt at a solution

I like comments. I think I said it before: the discussion that follows many of my posts is often far better than the original post. I love interacting with my readers. I really truly enjoy the discussion. In addition, I have met amazing people through blogging – not going to name names, but there are around ten of you that I consider as friends, and at least ten more whose writing inspires me and challenges me. Why would I give that up?

However. As my blog grows, and as I get more readers and more comments, I do feel PRESSURE. One way of dealing with that pressure is to stop responding to comments individually, but I don’t want to go that route. I was highly amused when Monika Mundell, who blogs about freelance writing, said in a recent post “Most celebrity bloggers don’t give a rats arse about their readers anyway judging by their lack of comment interaction.”

Whether this is true or not, I do know that it’s very important to me to respond to comments individually, especially when the discussion becomes highly thoughtful and involved. When time permits, I also try to visit the blogs of my commenters. I can’t possibly have all of you in my feed reader – I limit my reader to 100 blogs – but when you comment here, I do try to visit you on your own blog once in a while.

My solution to this dilemma: close comments to SOME of my posts, but not to all of them. I plan to continue closing comments to many of my “lighter” posts while keeping comments to deeper discussions open.

Another aspect of my lowering-the-comment-pressure-plan is to visit the blogs in my Google Reader a little less often – maybe twice a week instead of every weekday (I stopped reading blogs on the weekend a long time ago). Better yet: maybe I’ll only comment when I actually have something meaningful to say. What a revolutionary idea.

Would this new arrangement result in fewer comments here on MomGrind? I’m sure it would. Would I take fewer comments on my site and save myself from burnout? Absolutely.

Do you think there’s such a thing as commenter’s burnout? Do you like my solution, or will it annoy you to click through to a post only to find out that you can’t leave a comment?

Photo credit: BrittneyBush

Anonymous Blogging

by MomGrind

Amanda Hill always assumed she was writing for strangers. But then her local newspaper mentioned her blog and she was outed as a blogger.

Amanda realized that anonymous blogging was no longer an option for her. What she had assumed was a fairly clear-cut separation between her real-life identity and her blogger identity, was not so clear after all. The two worlds can and do collide.

Amanda said, in a blog that no longer exists: “I’m not sure how I feel about this really. I feel as if it adds a filter to my writing. A filter I didn’t have before, because hell, it was mainly complete strangers reading. I don’t feel like I can post as freely about certain things. And I wonder who is reading and how long they have been. (And if my neighbor that mows the yard in nuthuggers is reading, totally sorry I mocked you on the world wide web. But dude, get some pants that are less revealing.)”

Amanda’s post made me realize that I never even considered anonymous blogging. It never occurred to me to try and separate my online identity from my real life one. Online and offline, I am the same. When I blog, I use my real name and post my photos. My real-life friends and acquaintances know that I blog. Some are supportive. Others find it strange that I am exposing myself like that. Most are not into blogging and social media and are just not that interested. But Amanda is right: I do filter what I say here, because I know that people from my real life might read it.

Several topics are strictly off limits for me:

I never complain about my neighbors or real-life friends and acquaintances.
I never complain about my parents or my in laws.
I never complain about my job, my boss or my colleagues.

When Amanda says, “It was mainly complete strangers reading,” I think she knows it was just an illusion. You never know who will read your blog. Yes, most of your readers are likely strangers. Some are close friends who will always support you. But a small percentage of them COULD be people you know and that are not necessarily supportive, and another small percentage are weirdos and off-the-chart crazies. You should keep that in mind too.

Photo credit: Pen Cap Chew