One of the things I’ve loved about blogging is getting to see the growth of comments on my blog over the years.  I’m always incredibly thankful for those that actually take the time to leave their thoughts on my blog posts, and it makes it that much more inspiring for me to continue to write here.  I make practically no money off of my blog, so my efforts here are strictly authentic in being helpful, entertaining and to connect with as many people as I can.

However with more comments comes more questionable responses.  I’ve gotten my fair share, and it got me thinking about comment etiquette.  I suppose there are no hard fast rules per say when it comes to commenting on blogs, but I do believe there are at least some unwritten ones that I believe in.

My blog often stresses me out. As much as I enjoy writing and actually having a decent audience that actually reads what I write, it’s definitely become part of my regular routine.  What was once just an occasional hobby has grown into more of a responsibility now that I have established a bit of an audience.  I’m always looking to grow my readership through creating helpful, informative and entertaining content, marketing such content, and engaging with like minded readers.  But it can take quite a bit of time to manage all of this, especially with a full time job.

It’s gotten me thinking about how I personally define blogging success as it pertains to me.  It’s obviously a question that can be answered quite differently for people depending on their particular situation.  Whether it’s impressions, page views, rss subscribers, or affiliate conversions, everyone is different.

My blog isn’t really a source of income for me directly, but it has opened up quite a few doors for me in my career, so indirectly it does.  For me I’ve measured success through my blog traffic, subscribers and engagement.  Lately I’ve been working hard to improve my link back strategy.  While I’ve been able to grow my audience and blog traffic, my engagement and back links are a little less then to be desired.  It doesn’t surprise me though as this is a direct result of a lack of time.  To improve my engagement I simply need to comment more on other like minded blogs.  As much as I enjoy doing this, it’s a time thing.  There’s only so much in the day that I can devote having a full time gig.

Back links are a whole ‘nother animal.  I haven’t quite figured out my lack of success their as much, but it probably has to do with the types of articles I choose to write.  I don’t often jump on topics that are timely or popular.  I typically roll with ones that relate to what I experience at any given time, and I feel could be helpful or stir conversation.

It can be easy to get caught up with the numbers and try to stray away from what comes natural to you as a writer.  My own desire to crack the AdAge 150 often has me banging my head on blog topic choices and how to drive my Alexa, Yahoo Backlinks, and PostRank ratings higher.  Unfortunately I think for me, I will always be fairly limited as long as my blog is just a small part of what I do, and not a major time investment.

I’d love to hear from you how you define blogging success and what has and has not worked for you.

I’ve written on my blog for quite some time, and I’ve had a mild amount of success with it depending on how you define success.  I’m fairly happy with the level of engagement I get, and I get a nice size audience somewhat regularly when I actually find the time to post on a regular basis.  My Google Page Rank was hovering quite nicely at 6 for quite some time, but dropped to 4 in the past few weeks.  My Alex rank continues to climb a bit as I’m dancing in the 300,000 range.  But where I’ve been terrible at and continue to be is with my back links on pretty much all the engines.

For whatever reason, I have a hell of a time getting my articles linked to more often.  I feel that I write fairly useful and/or entertaining blog posts that most seem to find interesting or helpful.  But somewhere I’m missing the boat on getting those blog posts referenced more often.  I’ve never claimed to be that much of an expert when it comes to SEO strategy and backlinks, but I’ve started to really pay attention to this and ask around on how to best improve this.  These are some of the steps I’m initially taking to hopefully improve my situation.

Content Syndication – I’ve got my content currently being syndicated on sites such as Social Media Today & Business2Community.  What I didn’t realize is that the automated process which both use to grab your content do not properly format the author footer in a way that attributes your site that the search engines “like”.  Big props to my colleague Garth O’Brien who pointed this out to me.  Once I realized this, I asked the folks at B2C to switch over to a manual submission process, and I went and updated my profile box on Social Media Today so that my articles get the right attributions so I score that link juice.

Ask And You Shall Receive – I know this is pretty much a no brainer, but I just figured it was time to find quality bloggers and ask for link exchanges.  The key here is to not just blindly find folks with strong blogs and ask for an exchange, but really spend some time to read and engage with like minded folks, and then politely ask.  I find simply linking to them first and pointing this out makes it more likely they will reciprocate.

Actively Commenting – It’s hard enough to find the time to actually write on my blog let alone find time to engage on others, but it’s really an important part of the whole process if you’re serious about building out your own blog.  I never just comment just to comment, but I definitely try to ensure I leave a few comments per day on articles I find interesting.  I’m not entirely sure it’s a huge deal as it pertains to contributing to increasing my back links, but I’m told it’s a contributing factor.

I would love for those of you that have had success with this to share in the comments section so that I could potentially write a follow up post on some additional strategies that are effective.

That was a line I used in my recent presentation at Search Engine Strategies in New York and was one of the more tweeted excerpts.  I really didn’t plan to say it, but the idea was definitely one I firmly believe in.  Blogging has single handedly opened up so many doors for me, that I don’t know I’d ever be where I am today without having made the commitment to doing it somewhat regularly over the past few years.

The fact is, most people are very knowledgeable about something.  Whether it’s our profession, or a personal hobby, everyone has something valuable to share.  And for those that have an entrepreneurial spirit, there is no better way to build the foundation for an endeavor, then jumping in and building your credibility and influence through a blog.  The barrier to entry has become so small that anyone can have a decent looking blog up in minutes.

Of course this has its drawbacks as well as their are plenty of blogs out there that either are a borefest, don’t provide any real value, or simply wither and die before they even start.  If you’re serious about wanting to build a successful blog, just consider these initial simple steps and you’ll find yourself well on your way.

1. Keep it simple. Don’t overwhelm yourself with all the options out there.  Get a free WordPress.com account and start there.  If you find yourself building momentum and sticking with it, graduate to a self-hosted blog for more bells and whistles.
2. Topic Lists. Coming up with blog entries can be a challenge, but they are all around you.  Create a list that is easily accessible that you add your ideas as they come to you.  Then use that list as sort of an editorial calendar so that you have plenty of ideas to choose from.  Also check out this great list from Chris Brogan to inspire some ideas.
3. Engage & Promote. It goes without saying that you should leverage social media channels to promote your blog posts, and make sure you absolutely engage with anyone that takes the time to comment on them.  Take it one step further and visit other blogs and engage.

While there’s much more to the formula to successful blogging, I believe these are 3 key areas to focus on out of the gate.  Just get out there and start writing and you’ll find your way.  And if you do, leave a comment and let me know so I can check it out!

In an effort to spark more ideas to blog about, I thought it was time I started a blogging “series” and the idea that came to mind was sharing my experiences (successes and failures) around how my blog has matured over the years and what I’ve learned.

In Part 1 of this series I thought I would talk about the often overlooked art of factoring in search when you write your blog posts.  I spent quite a bit of time in SEO & SEM in my earlier years, and I’ve definitely utilized that experience when it comes to my blogging.  There are a variety of ways to drive traffic to your blog that include social media, community engagement and link building.  But another area you should consider paying close attention to is keywords.

In most of my blog posts, I am always doing a bit of keyword research to see what phrases are searched for the most frequently, and have less competition in terms of results.  Typically I can find a handful of terms that relate to what I want to write about that hit that sweet spot of being searched for quite often, yet not too crazy on the number of results.  By properly identifying a strong term like this, and using it in your blog title and post, you can often find your blog article working it’s way up very quickly in search results.  Let’s take a look at an example of mine.

On December 28th of last year, I decided to write an article about my experience with replacing my Macbook Pro with a Macbook Air.  I had a feeling that this information would be very useful to lots of people, so I wanted to be sure to title effectively.  I used Google’s Keyword Tool to help me identify the right term to use and I landed on “MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro”.  The term was extremely relevant to my post & had a decent amount of global monthly searches. 

The net result?  That post is currently the #3 result for that term on Google simply by ensuring I used a term based on some pretty simply keyword research.  That article has also accounted for roughly 18% of all traffic to my site since being published.

To recap:

1. When crafting a blog post, be sure to use the Google Keyword Tool to identify a search term that will potentially increase search visibility to your article based on search frequency, relevancy and competition.
2. Ensure you use that exact term as part of your post title and if possible, in your blog entry.

Have you had any similar experiences?  If so, leave a comment as I’d love to hear what has worked for you.  More to come on this series!