This guest post is by Martyn Chamberlin of Two Hour Blogger.
What separates your blog from thousands of others in your niche? What are you doing that’s different? Why would people prefer your blog over others?
Like most writers, that question may make you freeze for a minute. You can feel your insides going numb. Your face starts turning green.
What’s different about you? Man. You can’t think of anything right off the bat. You’ve lived with yourself for a long time, and you’re used to it. You can’t imagine what makes you different from everyone else. You’re just an average guy.
After thinking for a bit, you come up with this answer:
The only thing that distinguishes you from everyone else is your personality. It’s your most valuable asset. There’s nobody else quite like you. If you write with personality, people will listen to what you have to say.
This makes sense. You begin feeling better. All you have to do is relax and be you, and everything will be okay.
But there’s a problem: nobody cares about who you are.
Everybody’s unique
There are millions of bloggers, and every one of them has a personality. Sure, your personality will separate you from other people, but that’s not enough. Everybody’s unique. So if you want people to read your blog, you’re going to have to have more than just personality.
This is a huge blow to the ego. It’s very hard to accept. By nature, you imagine that people value what you have to say. You’re more important than they are, and they recognize that.
I see this happen all the time in the visual arts. An amateur artist thinks their self-taught, self-expressive painting is every bit the masterpiece of a Rembrandt or Bierstadt. The artist refuses to study formal technique because he or she is afraid it’ll ruin his or her “touch”—the artistic personality.
Teach, or die
There’s one thing your blog can’t live without. And that’s teaching.
Nobody cares who you are, but they love to surf the Internet and learn things. If you’re giving away useful content that creates value for others, they’ll start showing interest in you.
People care about you in as much as you help them.
It’s tough to learn, but it’s true. People have the same ego problem you have. Learn to harness that, and you’ll start getting attention. The main purpose of blogging is to give your audience information they didn’t know. If your blog doesn’t teach, it won’t survive.
- Decide what your blog is all about.
- Choose very specific topics within that niche
- Write thorough, two-hour posts that explore these topics, one at a time.
- Publish consistently. Don’t publish something unless it’s the best thing you’ve ever written. This means you’ll either be deleting a lot of drafts, or you’ll be spending entire days revising your content.
As you do this, don’t worry about how you come across to others. Don’t put on a front. Just teach. And teach with passion. If you have a personality, it’ll start showing naturally.
Picture that starving artist. After a few years’ frustration, he or she decides they need formal training after all. They take workshops from today’s masters. Eventually, their technique improves and they paint professionally. Does the artist still have a unique, personal style? Sure. But this time, it’s professional.
True, some of the artist’s original “touch” is gone. But looking back, he or she realizes that they’ve mistaken “touch” for awkward unprofessionalism. Now, the artist’s glad he or she lost that touch. It was horrible.
If your blog is going to live, you’re going to have to teach. If all you ever do is be personable, it’s going to die. Teach or die. It’s your choice. Your blog can live without you, but it can’t live without teaching.
Do you teach on your blog? How important is learning for your readers?
Martyn Chamberlin is an entrepreneur who blogs about copywriting and digital marketing at Two Hour Blogger. You can catch more on Twitter.
Hi Martyn! What you share is very special, everyone is a unique entity, I think new bloggers should think about it, create something unique to maintain the blog, otherwise it will go into the past, thanks for share
Good words to live buy in blogging. I think for this to be complete though you need to have more than just excellent content. Your blog has to be visually appealing to make people stay in the first place.
Visually appealing is a good bonus. But I often find myself surfing unattractive websites because the things they teach are well worded and have excellent how-to pictorials. Looks aren’t everything, but they help if your blog is only about personality.
One word “value”, I have an old belief that the value you are getting is proportionate to the value you are giving. The universe have great ways to balance things. Same with blogging, give more value and youll get more value and people will see your blog as more valuable.
“Nobody cares who you are, but they love to surf the Internet and learn things. If you’re giving away useful content that creates value for others, they’ll start showing interest in you.’
A sign of our collective narcissism. Why spend time giving stuff away just so people would be interested in you? If you have to do that, then you’re probably not too interesting, and all they want is your free stuff. Doesn’t sound too healthy to me.
I’ve often wondered about that. On a lot of smaller, personal blogs (and even some of the more popular blogs), I hear people talking about how free giveaways draw visitors. There’s some truth to that, free stuff does draw people, but it’s not what keeps people.
Yes you are true Without quality content a blog can not survice in the ocean of world. So it would run better if we have fresh content all time.
Really good stuff. Sometimes I’ll spend hours trying to write that perfect post. I think most of us do our best to write useful content in hopes of getting more viewers or subscribers. Good consistent posts is something I have to work at.
Paul
Hey Chuck,
We surf the web because we’re looking for stuff that’s relevant to us. You don’t spend time on sites you don’t find helpful, do you?
From a blogging standpoint, if you give away stuff and people get interested in you, they’ll start following you. As you build a tribe that’s passionate about what you’re giving away for free, you can start launching premium products. I’ll offer Darren Rowse as exhibit A. :)
Great post. Thanks for the reminder and for teaching that we should teach or die.
Yes my blog is pretty much all about teaching. I help others get to understand different things they can fo with their Kindle device.
I find the more I give away freely, the more I earn back in both donations (had some truly generous donations which is awesome) and affiliate links. So teaching freely is definitely becoming a winner for me.
If you’re not prepared to give anything, don’t be surprised if you dont receive anything. Even Darren didn’t become a success overnight. It took him time to build his blog and brand. And he gives away tons of free info, just like 99% of all the successful bloggers I read.
Every blog is somewhere nearby around teaching. Look at any marketing blog, any recipe blog or no matter any topic, say personal development. Blogs are collections of information on a niche or by a particular person on a couple of niches. So, you are already teaching them what you know by marketing. The point is, are you being the authority in your teaching…
I’ve recently started a think called ‘healthy living in 30 days’ challenge. That way I can research on a topic, help people and teach them (while I learn a lot) how to live healthy, quickly. That too counts as teaching. All I need is some more authority in it.
@Martyn
“From a blogging standpoint, if you give away stuff and people get interested in you, they’ll start following you. As you build a tribe that’s passionate about what you’re giving away for free, you can start launching premium products.”
How long does that take? How much stuff do you have to give away for free? Why not just rank for good search terms for things people are looking for? My experience with people who are trying to become pro-bloggers is that they only come to your site when you give stuff away and hardly ever buy anything. I don’t make a living online by constantly giving things away. For the most part I stay away from the “What do you have for ME, what do you have for FREE?” crowd. I’m more into mutually beneficial exchanges rather than sacrificial offerings.
I started political blogging back in 2002 because I love philosophy and politics. Today I also have a local web development business and many affiliate sites. I’ve been on places like BlogEngage that are a total waste of time in the end. You can crank out video after video, article after article, podcast after podcast – people love it! – and they all come to your blog, leave comments, ask questions… and never drop a dime. Whereas my affiliate sites make me good money and I never even know who purchased what. With my web development business, I build relationships that are mutually beneficial – the client gets better rankings, and I get money.
Truth! Blogs are meant to teach everyday!
The only ‘…or die.’ threats I listen to come from Puff Daddy. No Diddy, no listeny.
Good post. I would just like to add that you should always put a video blog post on your “about us” page to get the reader to know who you are and they will feel like they know you after a while!
An excellent post again. I blog to a limited audience and know that my posts will not reach a large number of readers. I strive to publish content that does indeed teach. I blog because I want to share my experiences and lessons. I appreciate these tips that get me thinking harder how I can best meet my readers needs and help me write better.
Great words for me today. Thank you. I have noticed that when I blog “advertising” posts for other bloggers, when I try to be cute or funny, when I post random junk that appeals to me, my readership plummets. When I post a unique insight I’ve had that others can learn from, my readership jumps. So this post is absolutely true. Thanks for the confirmation.
Great post telling it as it should be, I agree you have to taech on your blog giving plenty of value to the people that come back time and time agian looking for it. As you’ve already said if you fail to give that, then you might as well give up.
So yip, it’s either Teach or Die, it’s as simple as that.
This is spot on, mate. I used to just say things I enjoyed… that failed. I persevered and altered to writing advice. That went well… but then the best integration was to allow people to ask questions and have me answer them through posts. That way of teaching was the best thing I could’ve done. And even though I don’t get as many comment as I’d like, I make up for them in questions. In fact, so many questions that I had to put a block because I am backed up. I feel like a psychiatrist sometimes, to be honest, which isn’t all that bad.
aNyhow, teaching is the way to go… unless of course you’re a celebrity, then merely saying something about yourself seems to do the trick.
Cheers.
Nice Robby!
Yep, celebrities get to cheat a little bit, don’t they? For the rest of us mortals, we have to work at it a little bit. :-)
This headline is what I was talking about on my post two days ago. Lolcatz doesn’t teach crap, but it is one of the most successful blogs of all time.
I´ve just come into comfortable ground with my own blog and I´m not so much I teach as so much as inspire or maybe they go hand in hand.
I think inspiring and teaching can go hand in hand. My blog is more of an inspiration blog because I feel like I am still learning and very much enjoy sharing my learning experiences with others. Maybe I should focus on teaching more, but I think my readers enjoy the author being on the same level as them.
Need to close an italics tag somewhere! ;)
Haha tell me about it. They wrote out the tag, but not correctly. Funny how one incorrect hit of the spacebar can make a whole page look drunk.
But thanks for the post, Darren. :)
I love this. As I am just starting out, this is totally helpful in understanding what makes me unique and how I can improve my writing.
Thanks!
Hi Martyn,
I must concur. My articles that get the most traffic and comments are the tutorials.
They are so successful that I plan on in-depth teaching as a core element of my site.
Thanks for sharing.
Rick
If blog is not having enough information to add value to the person who is interested in the niche that blog will loose it value. People looking around for information around all blogs and forums.
I agree. Your blog will show your level of expertise by how much you’re able to inform/teach the reader. Not sure if death will be the result of not teaching via your blog, but your blog will certainly get a long term illness if you’re not offering a needed service or new information.
Absolutely wonderful advice: To be relevant, I must focus on serving others with my blog.
It ain’t about me.
Teach uniquely and teach unique content. Very wise words indeed, Martyn.
Very true. Teach. In other words provide solution.
Good simple advice, it’s hard to get google hits without telling answering the long tail search q they’re asking
Unless you’re Seth Godin, in which case you should consistently publish two-sentence posts that are the best thing you’ve ever written.
One thing about teaching is that the teacher often learns more than the student. IF you are teaching through your blog, no matter what it might be, then sureley you are learning too.
In order to be a good teacher, you have to know your subject. In order to know your subject you would need to learn a lot.
This very true. People will not keep reading if you don’t keep teaching. Learning is our very nature as human beings and when we feel limited we will stop reading and find what we are looking for else where. There are too many bloggers out there today that just write to have a full blog but not to engage their readers and create a relationship that is beneficial for both parties.
This is good stuff we can all learn from.
Exactly as soon bloggers provide unique and interesting content, visitors are interested in their blog…
The writing style does matter when it comes to successfully sharing information. Some authors have special capabilities to grab attention to influence people. The subject needs to be handled clearly with some creative juice to establish a point.
showing uniqueness and difference are quite different tasks but we can achieve them by implementing them in our daily lives.
Totally agree. I started blogging after talking to young graphic designers who were leaving design colleges but had NO design business experience.
They got loads of creative development at college, but were not taught how to run a graphic design business.
I’m blogging to teach them how to run a profitable graphic design business. I’m hoping they can learn from my successes & failures.
My latest post summaries everything I’ve written so far that a graphic designer needs to know about running a profitable graphic design business. http://bit.ly/emkvKm I’ve still more to write. But I hope they can learn!
Well said Marilyn. I am always feeling guilty that it takes me hours and hours to write a blog post. But, my writing goal is to “teach with passion.”
I do not have the ability to make short brilliant posts like a Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, James Chartrand, or the Copybloggers or Probloggers….. But maybe over time, if I study and practice I’ll get better. And then the “magic’ will happen.
No matter how good you become at writing, composing a solid article takes hours. Just ask Brian Clark. Creating art is time-consuming regardless of skill level. No need to feel guilty about it. :)
I teach on 2 blogs (the first two I have listed here) the other is my mom blog.
Blogging Biz Mom
Workingathomeadvice.com
Come on home
I agree with you to a point, but I will have to say, Mom blogs are BIG!
There are 1,000’s of mom’s out there everyday participating in blog carnivals and blog hops. I feel everyone could use a personal blog where people can get to know YOU, then you can have links on each blog to the other.
I find that blog hopping with my mom blog brings in a lot more visitors to all of my blogs.
Just my thoughts……
Have a great day!
I agree, but I think it goes beyond just posting a “how to” or “top tips” article. Creating interest for your blog is a combination of meaningful articles (the ones that “teach” the reader something of value), written in your unique voice-one that shows you are a “real” person who gets it.
I read too many blogs that have zero personality. They regurgitate information found on the web in a news-y format that doesn’t unveil anything about the blogger’s personal brand. When I read a blog, I want it to feel like it’s a conversation, even if I’m learning something.
I say, teach, BUT show your personality.
This is sage advice Martyn.
We often hear terms like “content is king,” or “contribute value to the community” in social media circles, but I think some people may get stumped here.
As you point out, we are all unique and have learned many things along our personal journey. The reality is, we are experts at things we’ve learned from first hand life experience — and more often than not, others can learn from us concerning those things — and desire to.
Great insight in this post.
Great post Martyn,
absolutely right and to the point! There’s no need for the ordinary visitor to come back to your blog if he or she doesn’t learn anything new every time.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Togrul
I teach on my blog! :)
I’m not fond of family albums or what I ate for breakfast blogs, but even they can teach if the content is presented in a unique and entertaining fashion. Just plain dry teaching doesn’t usually turn me on much, but something that stimulates thought and creates discussion can make me linger on a post and keep returning to that blog. I find that asking questions and eliciting reader reponses is good not only for learning and teaching, but also for establishing a better reader relationship.
Lee
the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge 2011
Not really, it depends on perspective.
If you live by blogging, sure.
I know sites by world renown JavaScript developers (the creator of JQuery comes to mind) and he only writes a few posts per year, yet I bet those few posts have a good number of hits. I’m majoring in CS, definitely don’t have time to be doing it every day (few times a month most likely). :)
But maybe I’m not a good person for what they article was targeting.
I am a newbie blogger and my first blog is all about what your post says. Thanks for your effort. :)
I teach in my profession and on my blog. Unfortunately, public school teachers in my state (Wisconsin, USA)are under attack; our governor wants to strip us of all bargaining rights. His budget cuts will be challenging, but to destroy our contracts forever, that’s too much. I may have to quit teaching as a career and focus on teaching through my blog.
Yup! I teach folks how to use coupons and sales! It makes me feel soooo good when I get an email saying how my blog has helped a family save a couple hundred or more a month!! I do this through posts, vlogs, and webcasts – all of which is free.
I think a good blogger should always ask themselves – how HELPFUL are they being to their readers? A good blog should try to solve a problem for readers (e.g., teach as you’ve said). Do this well, and your blog will grow. Some of my traffic just comes from folks sharing my site with others because it’s been helpful to them. (This is the best sort of growth IMHO.)
GREAT article, and you’ve caused me to reflect more on how I can amp up the meatiness of the content I provide. Thank you!
I’ve noticed that once I figured the exact focus I wanted for my pet blog, it started to gain a few followers. I was able to combine 3 things about which I’m passionate, photography, dog training and animal rescue.
Gaging from the comments I’m on the right track.
I hear you. I try to teach and entertain. My blog is about flash fiction. I’m a Vietnam War veteran and I got my MFA in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. To the readers of my blog, I’m the Old Soldier. So far this month the blog has gotten over 17,000 hits.
Nice post Martyn. They say that one way to drive traffic to a blog is to build it up as an authority site. To do this, you have to educate your readers.
An interesting side note is that I teach classes on blogging and websites at a small non-profit about once every 2 months. I started as a way of building brand awareness of my business. What has happened is that several students have hired me and I picked up a few clients who could not attend a class but also hired me for a 1-on-1 phone conversation on the class subject. It’s a strategy that is working well for me.
I agree with what you state in the article. If you provide info that is helpful to others or go more in depth with some type of news, that helps them is a great thing. I try to research as much information as I can about what I am going to post so they don’t have to go anywhere else. I find with my NYC blog, when I get a compliment from someone who lives in the city by telling me I showed them something they didn’t know…I figure I am doing it right. I just need to continue it and it will grow….and it is growing daily pretty nicely.