Dopp Juice Archive

The BlogHer Geek Lab in Washington, DC was loaded with questions about how to improve a blog and increase its reach.  I ended up on my soapbox more times than I expected, ranting about misinformation and imploring bloggers to rethink their strategies.

I’m summarizing most of my rants below because I think they’ll be helpful to some people.  Please keep in mind that I’m coming at this from my own experience.  I’m not an “ad revenue” blogger, and there are plenty out there who can give you tips on what they’ve done to be successful. I encourage you to go talk to them, too.

The Goals Rant

If you ask me, “How can I make my blog better?” I’m going to ask you what “better” means.  What are your goals? If you don’t know, stop whatever you’re doing right now and figure them out.  Here are some common ones:

I want to…

• express myself in a creative, positive way.
• vent my frustrations in a safe and constructive way.
• work through some challenging issues.
• document a process or experience.
• create a space for myself that’s separate from my daily life.
• establish a certain kind of reputation.
• convey a certain tone and aesthetic.
• serve a certain community in a certain way.
• build a community that supports me.
• make money with ads and affiliate revenue.
• find new work/jobs/clients/customers.
• maintain my existing work/jobs/clients/customers.
• give friends and family a way to keep track of me.
• keep track of my thoughts and the interesting things I’ve found on the web.

If you have a lot of these goals (and hopefully some others I haven’t named yet), that’s great!  Now you need to prioritize them. Which ONE do you care about first and foremost? How about second? Third? Fourth? Lay them all out in order — NO TIES! It’s fine if your priorities change in the future, but you need to be honest with yourself about what they are right now.

Once you’ve got that, you’ll know what “better” means. And you’ll probably be able to brainstorm about 20 answers to your original question without any help from me now, too.

The Money Rant

So you want to make money from blogging, and you’ve heard that ad revenue is the way to go.  That’s great and I completely support you, but let’s talk about it for a minute.

First, in order to make money on ads, you need traffic. The levels will vary based on your blog type and your ad network, but here are some baseline numbers: if you’re getting 3,000 pageviews a month, you’ll start to receive income.  If you’re getting 10,000 pageviews a month, that income will start to feel significant. (To find out what your traffic numbers are, check your blog’s admin panel or set up Google Analytics and wait a month.)

Ads are a tradeoff. If you don’t already display them, adding them will change your blog’s personality. If your traffic numbers aren’t high enough to make that change worthwhile to you (a personal judgment call), then don’t do it. You can always add them later, once you’ve built more of a readership community.

Also consider this: your blog is an asset in many ways — not just through ad revenue.  You can make money from your blog indirectly, and it might even be easier, prettier, and more lucrative than displaying ads.  Consider leveraging your blog for job leads, client referrals, donations, and other kinds of support that can affect your livelihood.  Your blog is your presence in a community.  If you’re taking care of your community, your community is likely to take care of you.

The Traffic Rant

So you want more people to visit your blog. Before we get into this, make sure you’ve read the Goals and Money rants above. Are you clear with yourself on why you want more traffic and what you’d like to do with it once you have it? If not, trying to increase your traffic will be a waste of perfectly good blogging energy. Stop reading this rant and spend your time on things that matter to you.

… Still here? Okay, let’s talk about what kinds of traffic you’re looking for.  I’m going to oversimplify things for a minute and lump most traffic into two categories: organic and superficial.  These categories aren’t mutually exclusive — traffic can be one, both, or neither — but it still helps to think about it in these terms.

Organic traffic is the audience that finds you because your community thinks you’re worth reading. Do other bloggers link to your blog in a relevant and compelling way? Do your readers refer their friends to your blog? Do your posts naturally show up well in search engines because they’re great and people are linking to them? If yes, then you’re probably getting a lot of organic traffic. These are the readers who stay on your site longer, click on more of your links, listen to your suggestions, and market your blog for you. If you’re trying to build relationships and strengthen your community, then organic traffic is more valuable than gold. Building it requires consistency, integrity, generosity, presence, sincerity, and quality.

Superficial traffic is the audience you can buy, negotiate, and strategize.  These visitors might leave just as quickly as they arrived, but they’ll at least take a quick look at your site.  If your primary goal is to make money on ads, or if you’re trying to get more brand recognition across a broader audience, then it makes sense to focus on pulling in more of this kind of traffic. Building it takes analysis, awareness, creativity, connections, technical skill, and sometimes just plain old cash.

One suggestion that comes up a lot for building both kinds of traffic is leveraging social networking websites.  It’s true — if the community you’re trying to reach hangs out on [Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Pownce, Bebo, Kirtsy, Yelp, Tribe, LinkedIn, MySpace, Craigslist, BlogHer.com, etc], then your traffic will probably increase if you have good presence there, too.

Here’s the key: only use the services that actually make your life better. If you’re spending time on that website solely to promote yourself, you’ll start to resent the site and your presence will seem insincere. This stuff is supposed to be fun. Experiment, test sites out, and be willing to abandon your profile when it stops working for you.

On the Internet, your time is your biggest asset. You should only ever spend it on things that nourish you.

The Humanization Rant

If you’re not in your blog, no one else is gonna be there, either.

There are studies flying around left and right that we’ve had a cultural shift in trust.  We no longer trust faceless corporations, government, or experts in white lab coats. We trust people we can relate to.  We trust people who are like us.

Does your blog display your photo? Do you share multiple aspects of your life with your readers? Do you convey a sense of humility?  Do you show that you can be vulnerable? Do you speak in layman’s terms?  Do you let people see how and where you’re learning and growing?

Your blog may be a company blog, an organization blog, a topic blog, or a group blog.  And if so, you may be thinking that the questions I just asked don’t apply to you.

I challenge you to consider that they do. Yes, you have a responsibility to maintain a certain level of professionalism in your writing, but the definition of “professional” is shifting. It’s okay now to show people you’re a human being. They like that.

It makes them come back for more.