Rory Sullivan has written a great companion post to one that Leo Babauta wrote here at ProBlogger (4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs).
The main point of Rory’s post is to point out that to build a great blog it takes more than just writing great content – to put it in his words, you need to ‘work the system’. By working the system, I don’t think Rory is talking about manipulating anyone – but rather he’s saying that it’s more than just writing. He gives 4 great pillars for growing exceptional blogs:
- Visit and Comment on Popular Sites
- Point Visitors to Your Site
- Strike Diggers Gold
- Be Prolific, Be Everywhere
To be fair to Leo – the brief for writing his post was on ‘writing exceptional content’ and not meant to be an all encompassing guide to successful blogging and having observed his style and chatted to him I think he’d be the first to agree with Rory’s suggestions. Perhaps he slightly over stated his case in his previous post when he wrote – ‘Content is king, as they say, and that should be the focus of all your efforts.’ I think he’d admit that he’s put his efforts into other activities also.
The reason I think Rory and Leo’s posts are great companion posts is because they do give a more holistic guide to building a great blog.
Leo is right because without great content a blogger doing all the things to attract attention and get visitors will be working on a pointless quest because the visitors might come once but once they see a poorly written blog they’re not likely to return. Rory is right because you can write great content until you’re blue in the face but if you never work at getting your blog into the spotlight you’ll never build a readership. Both are vital aspects of blogging.
Of course there’s probably another 10 or so potential companion posts that could be written as writing great content and finding readers are just two parts of creating an exceptional blog.
Perhaps add to the mix:
- Pillars of Exceptional Blog Design
- Pillars of Creating a Blog Community
- Pillars of Great SEO
- Pillars of Converting First time Readers into Loyal Readers
- Pillars of Monetizing Blogs…. etc etc
Ultimately – blogging is a task that needs a variety of skills, techniques and strategies coming together in a holistic way – something I’ve written about numerous times before (for starters at – There’s a Hole in My Blog – Holistic Blogging and 18 Lessons I’ve Learnt about Blogging).
What other ‘pillars’ would you add to the lists?
