by Skellie
Photo by Frabuleuse
Each weekend for the next five weeks I’ll be posting about one of the 5 barriers to success. If your blog is growing too slowly, if you’re rarely receiving comments or blogging feels like shouting into an empty valley, I hope this series will help you identify what isn’t working — and change it for the better.
Barrier 1: Lack of Significance
For readers to link, comment or vote for your content it needs to invoke a strong reaction in readers — in other words, it needs to be significant to them.
You can be significant while being short (just look at Lifehacker). Even if you’re just sharing a link, it will be significant if it’s truly useful to your readers. If it’s not very useful, if you’re not adding value, or if they’ve seen it before, you’re running the risk of creating insignificant content.
Creating long articles doesn’t necessarily guarantee significance. It can be easy to pad out one good point with lots of insignificant ones, or to take too long expressing yourself (to the point where readers lose patience).
Other bloggers create content with hidden value. It could be truly useful, but if the headline or introduction meanders, your readers won’t know. New visitors will rarely stick with a long post unless they’re crystal clear on what they stand to gain for their time.
Some signs your content needs to be more significant to your target audience:
- You get a decent amount of traffic, but your subscriber count increases very slowly.
- Your visitors aren’t often moved to comment.
- Your traffic is reasonable, but you receive very few inbound links.
- Your content is rarely submitted to StumbleUpon.
If your blog displays any of these symptoms, I’d suggest revising your content strategy to aim for significance in every post you write. Ask yourself: “Will my readers care about this?”
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30 Comments, Comment or Ping
Ron Dean
Great post. I love the idea of this series, look forward to the next 4 weeks.
Ron
Jan 20th, 2008
Pat
Wow….I literally pulled up my chair and was ready to dig into another long article, and then it was so short! But of course it is value-packed as usual, and also gives me the idea of breaking longer posts into a series like this one. That is a whole topic in itself: using a long post versus a series based on what your goals are for a particular website. Certainly a website such as this can maximize both comments and pageviews by posting a series rather than a single long post, no?
On the other hand, I think you could make a strong argument that a single long post will ultimately encourage more links, because any links would represent a stronger concentration of value than if they linked to the start of a series. Perhaps a viable strategy is to space out your value and content more and more with higher traffic and greater readership, but if you are starting out, then putting it all into one page will pay greater dividends.
Jan 20th, 2008
Lilja
I am looking forward to follow this series of articles from you. First one is full of good advise already!
Jan 20th, 2008
Read Scott
This is my exact situation. I started blogging seriously about two months ago and recently found my own blogging identity about three weeks ago. I still feel like it’s growing slowly though. Looking forward to the other four posts in this series.
Jan 20th, 2008
Conrad Hees
Great post, Skellie.
I try to live this principle as much as possible in my writing. I think that learning not to write on anything unless you feel absolutely passionate about it is one of the keys to being and sounding significant. Also, so often I come across blogs with list posts that are absolutley filled to the brim with filler. This is most prevalent in the personal development realm. “34 Ways to Be Happy”….plant a tree…hug someone…take a deep breath….AAH! Not significant.
Looking forward to the next part in the series, and thanks for continuing to hold a standard for great content.
Jan 20th, 2008
shoban
Great post!!! Looking forward for the four posts
Jan 20th, 2008
Alfa King
Innovative as always. That’s good hook up.
Jan 20th, 2008
Beth
This is a great post, and I’m looking forward to the next posts too. I’m just starting out with my blog, but I’m trying to come up with original ideas all the time.
Jan 20th, 2008
Albert | UrbanMonk.Net
Very relevant, Skellie! One quick question, if you don’t mind: “Your traffic is reasonable, but you receive very few inbound links.”
What is about standard for this? I’m doing okay / well in the other criteria, but not too sure about this one.
Jan 21st, 2008
Hersh Bhardwaj
Hey Skellie,
Great post. Very simple straighforward points but brilliantly put int perspective. I felt as if you were talking to me straight! I think thats the key. If most readers feel that your post directly apply to them than thats it.JOb done.
I noticed how you do it:
1) You mention right in the start who should be the intended readers.
2) You lay out the problems the post would be dealing with.
3) You suggest solutions and their desired effects.
Hats off!
Jan 21st, 2008
Nez
Thanks so much for posting this, Skellie. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the series as well, and hope to apply your principles.
Jan 21st, 2008
plonkee
I think this is one of the areas that I struggle with. I’m good at picking out significant content on other people’s blogs, but not so much on my own.
I’m sure most people are used to that thing where you spend loads of effort on a post and it doesn’t really work out, but one that you just threw together does really well. For me, the ones that do surprisingly well are sort of short “why do I do things like this, am I a bit weird?” posts. But I can’t write those all the time, it would do my head in.
Maybe I haven’t quite found my audience yet, for all my (hopefully) value packed British personal finance posts. *Sigh*.
Jan 21st, 2008
Chris
Thanks, Skellie. As I continue to work on finding my identity this post proves very useful.
Jan 21st, 2008
Anthony
This is another great article. I’ve been really struggling with finding my blog’s voice so this article hits home. This post has definitely made me want to rethink things. Thanks for the inspiration.
Jan 21st, 2008
Ruchir
“Your content is rarely submitted to StumbleUpon.”
I wouldn’t really agree on that one. That really depends on how loyal your readership is…
Jan 21st, 2008
Arachne Jericho
Ruchir,
But reader base loyalty will depend on whether your readers think your content is worthy of their time or not.
Skellie, great post as always. I can’t wait for the others in this series to come along—like
Jan 22nd, 2008
Arachne Jericho
ack, got cut off.
and forgot what I was going to say.
But it was probably along the lines of “your site has helped me make my little site better, and I really appreciate your advice” or something like that.
Jan 22nd, 2008
CFA Exam
Looking forward to reading through this series. Thanks.
Jan 25th, 2008
Nubloo
It’s a good topic. Finding your readers in the first place is just the thing. Hypes come and go, but to avoid being dependent on social media traffic, you’ve got to find your niche, ‘claim it’ and promote it in the according areas.
Jan 30th, 2008
blueprint
I too was expecting a long post but this too, was satisfying. I for one am interested in this series as I’m just starting my own blog. I think content will be one of the biggest keys. Coming from a Marketing background I know you have to know your audience- the challenge will be to get them to the site in the beginning and once they’re there to get them to want to return. This is life on the nets.
Feb 1st, 2008
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