Whenever a blogger reaches the peek of blogging and starts writing a bunch of articles everyday it may suddenly backfire. You may think I am crazy now, but when your done reading this article you will know I’m not.
What many bloggers miss when writing their articles is that they shouldn’t write what they want to write, they should write what their readers want to read! Remember, readers are your key to success; no readers, no success and at the same time; the more readers you have the most likely you will succeed. Successful Pro Bloggers do this thing, for example Darren Rowse gets inspired by his blog’s comments and from the threads and questions of his new forum. Another great example, Daniel Scocco from DailyBlogTips dedicates every Friday to answer a question received from his readers.
Every blogger should place his readers as his #1 priority. Why would you spend the time and effort in writing articles which at the end of the day nobody will read? Please don’t tell me that you are writing according to keywords weighting and studies and you are taking SEO into consideration. Because in my opinion the first rule of SEO is just forget Google and other search engines, just write for your readers!
How would you know what your readers want to read about?
1- Engage: You should engage with your readers and get to know them. Read their tweets and their comments and reply back to them. E-mail 2 or 3 of your readers every now and then and chat with them about your content and what they would like to find on your blog. Dedicate a day of the week to answer a question that you receive from your readers on your blog.
2- Analyze: Keep an eye on your blog. Look at articles which your readers are viewing the most, ones they are commenting on the most, ones that are being RTed the most and which are being shared over social bookmarking sites the most. All of these factors will help you indicate what your readers are interested in. One nice thing you can do, is to write a “Part 2” article of a previous one that you found out that your readers liked.
3- Open The Door: Open the door for guest posting to your readers, give them the chance to share their knowledge through your blog (for suitable articles of course). Opening the door for guest posts will turn your blog into a more public blog that people like, it will be from the readers to the readers. You might reach a certain level of knowledge and would never realize that some points, which are clear for you, are difficult and not clear at all to some of your readers.
So make sure that you know very well what your readers are looking for and want to read, try not to miss the train. Always remember to Engage, Analyze and Open the door.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
@lifenotion
November 23, 2009 at 4:24 pmSteit,
The points you make for listening and connecting with your blog readers are great! I personally gained insight from this article and plan on writing posts that are related to the most popular ones (by comments) on my blog.
I will say though that you do not want to solely write for your readers. Yes, you will be providing great content for your readers, but a blog is also about the content you want to publish (with in reason, of course, to your purpose and niche).
I like how you gave can example with Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips. I personally, have not read any posts from Daniel, but it sounds like he writes a post only one day of a whole week to connect with his readers. I believe what he does is the smartest move and a move I have put into consideration.
Thanks again for great content, you know how I love great content and meaningful posts. :D
Best Regards,
Derek
@steitiyeh
November 23, 2009 at 4:28 pmDerek, you’re one very loyal reader of SteitBlog, and I thank you for being so! And I am glad that you benefit from the content available over here.
And you should be reading Daniel’s DailyBlogTips, it’s one amazing blog!
Best,
Steit