Steve Rubel writes about the ‘secret sauce‘ for getting corporate blogs noticed in the midst of the millions of other blogs and corporate sites out there. His advice is:
‘The short answer is, your blog won’t get noticed unless you nurture it. This means – in an ideal situation – weekly or even daily someone is pumping the weblog with fresh compelling content. But any old content won’t do. Corporations interested in blogging need to add value to people’s lives. That’s the biggest key to a successful corporate blog that keeps people coming back.’
I think his advice could be applied to all types of blogs.
Add value to people’s lives and your blog has a significantly better chance of succeeding. Add no value and why would anyone bother reading it?
So here’s the question to be asking – ‘what value does your blog add to your reader’s life?’
It’s a worthwhile question that is worth pondering for each blog you we run.
mine is about architecture, art and design and advertisement. i wonder is my blog too complicated, should i just concentrate on archtecture instead or go ahead and mix them up. after all, they are all under the art and design category. Is my blog theme too diversify? should i just concentrate on architecture?
what i think is that we should just do what we do best, and when there is a will, the gods join in.
Like ngan said, I think that what we should write about is something that we are interested in. My blog is about Classical Music which I love. It doesn’t seem to be that popular of a topic in the blogosphere, but, you know what, that doesn’t matter, because I think that blogging about my favorite music has added value to my life, and surely will add value to at least one other person’s.
Your blog should most definitely be about a topic you enjoy to write about. My own site The Parental Olympian started about swimming and my journey through making an Olympic Team, yada-yada, but now as my life enolves it is more about raising my daughter and tips on parenting. These are things that are important to me, and is of interest to some people and our family.
Sure, I would love to make some extra cash from my blog, but it is more about writing and telling my stories. If income comes next, then that is a added bonus because with or without income, I am still going to write.
ngan – I would recommend, taking on all three of these topics, but not necessarily on the same blog. I can see the architecture, art, and design co-existing because the subjects can be interrelated, but the advertising does not mesh with the other three. In this case I would set up another blog just for advertising (and maybe art and design that relate to it), but keeping your blog focused is important. A reader wants to read about a certain topic, and not have to wade through other topics and thoughts just to find what they are looking for. They may become disinterested and leave your site. As an example, I was posting about web design on my personal blog, but no one that was reading it for swimming or parenting really cared about web design and I was losing readers. So, I stuck with what people wanted on my personal site and started blogging on Bloggers For Hire to satisfy that urge without annoying the readers of my site.
I think Chad is right. Not only should you blog about what is useful to others, but also what adds value to your personal goals.
I blog about search engines, science, and SEO. I found blogging to be a very effective way of staying on top of current events (I need it especially for my job).
So sure, be useful to others, but don’t forget about yourself. After all, you will produce good content if you are interested in your own topic.
Mine offers well-written, entertaining political analysis with counterpoints.
It took a solid year of writing before I found a style that suited me and made my blog stand out.
My blog is about my favourite brand of cars: Saab. I was doing a general news-based personal/political blog and got bored with it in 6 months. I love blogging again now. I thought about extending it to blogs about other makes aswell (even booked a new domain) but the passion isn’t there.
You’ve GOT to enjoy what you write (unless you’re making buckets of cash – I’d write about watching paint dry if it paid well enough).
I agree where someone has an interest and passion for a topic, they’re much more likely to be able to add value. This also applies to product blogs, too. Adding some kind of value, interest or something different that the visitor hasn’t seen elsewhere helps increase the liklihood that they will return and/or support the problogger through a purchase!
Ngan, the only thing that seems out of place on your blog is the tab “blogging for money.” Otherwise it’s a very interesting site and the various design topics seem to fit well together.
you are right sandra, its a blog/site of my friend. he wanted hits, so i promise to add him, put his link somewhere noticeable for few weeks. time to take it down i guess and put it somewhere not so obvious.
Absolutely. And the secret to valued content is “relevancy.” Has to be why else would people take time to read or listen – if a podcast or view – if a vlog? And the secret to determining “relevancy?” Shhh…don’t tell anyone … this is only for Darren’s readers… it’s talking and listening to your readers. But you knew that because you’re bloggers!
[…] Value Added Blogging. “Steve Rubel writes about the ’secret sauce‘ for getting corporate blogs noticed in the midst of the millions of other blogs and corporate sites out there.” […]
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[…] der angelsächsischen Blogosphäre ist dem einen oder anderen der Terminus Adding Value to your Blog geläufig. Gemeint ist mit dieser Phrase, daß guten Content eben der […]