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Flawless Stupidity - your next best friend!
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Morning!
YAWN, I’m juuuuuust a wee bit tired today. You see, after actually (get this!) enjoying more than 2.8 hours of sleep (uninterrupted, I might add, by children who wanted to verify if I actually WAS asleep or merely imitating a hibernating bear), I tackled my latest and greatest project that is securely under 34 layers of steel-tensiled bubblewrap.
And you thought I had no life. HAH! (well, this evening I might have no life, as today is adult karate sparring where yours truly will tackle guys who are in 7 times better condition, a foot or so taller and about 7 belt ranks higher, but hey…what’s life without sheer insanity?).
As always…. I digress. 
Today I read the rather insightful posting over at one of my favorite blogs, Men With Pens. The title is Guest Posting: Throwing It All Away, and contains the following gem:
Oh, by the way? Blog owners are going to check out your site. If they visit your site and find a sloppy blog, uninteresting posts, erratic posting, rehashed content, a poor product or a negligible service, you’ve blown all your chances. They certainly don’t want to promote anyone that brings down their reputation.
Of course, my immediate reaction was,
Okay, I’ll admit I’m a weeee bit confused here.
Do you mean to say folks would request to guest post WITHOUT doing the above?
To me, that is utterly far beyond the world of comprehension! Perhaps I’m naive (which is, I suppose, akin to saying, perhaps I like coffee) but it would never occur to me to offer to guest post without ensuring my blog was in top notch shape.
Is it really that common? My gosh, I really do have to get out more.
Barbara “It doesn’t LOOK like Kansas
If you get a chance, do swing over to MwP - it’s a super blog and a great read as well.
Anywhos, let me return to the main point of this post.
If YOU knew your competitors were behaving with such breathtaking flawless stupidity that they’d try to garner attention by offer blogs worthy of dust bunnies…what should be the first thing that stands out in YOUR mind?
Exactly! Take advantage of that fact, of course.
One of the easiest ways to shine is to stand out and APART from the thundering herd.
And how do you do that?
Simple! You just:
Put yourself in the role of the customer.
Stay with me here, the following is critical. You’re a blogger, right? You want readers, right? If you’re selling on your blog, you want customers, right?
RIGHT?
Well, did it ever occur to you that not only are you a BLOGGER, but you’re also a READER as well?
You know what smacks you over the head and screams out, OMIGOSH THIS IS A HIGH-QUALITY BLOG!
Put on that particular brand of glasses and now:
Look at your OWN blog.
What do you see?
And don’t tell me, I see a work of art worthy of the Illiad and the Odyssey and my oh my, if Homer were alive today, my gosh, I’d be immortalized!
Seriously. What DO you see?
Let’s go over:
Point #1.) Can you tell the purpose of your blog by looking at the header?
Does your blog say, Just Another Wordpress Blog, or is your tagline there? Is it obvious at a glance just what your blog is about? You don’t want to confuse your readers - you want to draw them in.
Point #2.) Do you have easy-to-follow navigation?
Can visitors find your About You page or your Contact Page easily without any hassle? If not, are you desperate to be left alone?
Point #3.) Do your graphics enhance or detract?
It’s always tempting to have the latest and greatest spinniest and flippiest thingees around…. but they can also be the sure sign of a rank beginners (just look at your typical Myspace page). Graphics should intrigue and not scare away visitors like a hyperactive pirahna.
Point #4.) Is your newsletter and RSS feed subscription obvious?
As a blogger, you want readers…and to get readers, you need to make it plainer than a black bear in a white convertible as to where to click to sign up. Else they go byebye.
Point #5.) Is your eMail for RSS visible?
Not everyone depends upon feed readers - many folks like receiving updates via email. Feedburner has a very nice way of simplifying this over at their Feedburner Email Overview.
Point #6.) Does your blog load slower than molasses going uphill on a cold winter morning?
The more super-coolio plugins you have, the chances are…the slower your blog is going to run. Gomez.com offers a neat tool to help determine where your blog is slowing down.
and perhaps most importantly:
Point #7.) Does your blog thoroughly answer the WIIFM question?
Of course I mean "What’s in it for me?".
In other words, what’s in it for readers to come back and bring their friends?
Hmmm?
Readers enjoy:
- Being entertained (like Nicky510)
- Getting the edge (like my blog)
- Getting cool discounts (like Coupon Mountain)
and that’s only touching the tip of the iceberg!
Does your blog answer a deep need within YOUR readers? If not, why not? And what can you do to make your blog even more enticing?
I’ll be answering that in a later series! But for the moment, the point remains - in today’s blogosphere, there are a bazillion bloggers begging for attention. Make your own blog stand out by ensuring it you don’t goof like a huge sector of that audience does….and your readership will grow.
And that, of course, is a Very Good Thing Indeed.
Enjoy!
Barbara Ling
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What a great, informative post. Going through your questions, I am pretty much OK with everything there, so I guess MomGrind is in pretty good shape.
Vered’s last blog post..Powerful Men, Half-Naked Women (Best Shot Monday)
Your blog certainly is in good shape - I’d agree with that!
Thanks for stopping by, Barbara
Nice informative article. Thinking like a customer can be a great way to find out what works and what doesn’t.
MarketingDeviant’s last blog post..Commitment, I Commit, You Commit
So very true. Best wishes, Barbara