ProBlogger: One Activity You Should Do On Your Blog Every Day

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One Activity You Should Do On Your Blog Every Day Posted: 29 Oct 2013 08:37 AM PDT What’s the one thing that you should do on your blog every day (or at least regularly)? “Create new content!” Good answer! Without regular new content your blog isn’t really a blog is it? Another Great Daily Exercise for Your Blog But other than creating new content – what else should you be paying attention to every day? I want to suggest a simple activity that I think can be almost as important as creating new content for your blog. It’s still content related but it’s about paying some attention to OLD posts. Lately, I’ve been paying as much attention to my archives as I have to writing new content. And it’s paying off driving more traffic to old posts, finding new readers and importantly, improving the quality of content on the blog as a whole. Here’s what I do: 1. Select a Post I choose a post each day that is at least a year old. I usually choose one that is 2-3 years old and one that could do with some attention. My criteria for selection is that it is a post with one or more of the following criteria: It has performed well in the past, in terms of traffic or comment numbers It has dated and needs updating to make it relevant for today It was a good post but for one reason or another didn’t perform to its potential I usually am looking for a ‘tutorial’ rather than a ‘news’ or ‘review’ type post – because I find these posts don’t date as fast. 2. Update It By updating the post I mean numerous things, depending upon the post itself. These might include: Update Content This can be anything from a proof read through to a larger ‘rewrite’ of the post (or sections of it). I might add updates to make the post relevant to today or even add images/diagrams etc. Ultimately, it is about improving the content to make it more useful for readers. Search Engine Optimisation I don’t spend a heap of time on SEO but as I read back through the post, I will tweak it to better optimise for search engines. I use Yoast’s plugin for this and it helps by suggesting areas the post can be improved (heading, titles, alt tags, meta descriptions etc). I also add links to other relevant posts on the blog. This is not only good for SEO, it’s good for readers too. Social Optimisation Posts published 3 or more years ago were published into a very different internet. Since then we’ve seen people sharing different types of content through new social media sites like Pinterest and G+. One update I like to make is to make posts more shareable. For example adding a good visual or a collage of images can make a post more shareable on Pinterest. Also adding calls to action to share can be beneficial. Calls to Action In the same way that the web has changed over the last 3 years, so too have my own blogging goals and monetisation model. As a result, I take a critical look at old posts and what ‘calls to action‘ I’m giving to readers. For example, 3 years ago I didn’t have any eBooks to sell, today on dPS we have 14. If a post I’m updating is relevant to one of these eBooks I’ll add a call to action to buy it. Other new calls to action might be to share a post on social media, to subscribe to our newsletter, to read another post, to join our forum etc. 3. Share and/or Republish With the post updated, I then consider how it might be appropriate to give it some more exposure. Again – there are a range of options available here including: Republish I don’t republish every updated post but 1-2 times per week, I will. I usually choose posts that have a proven track record of being well received and the type of content that has been shared in the past on social. These posts go up on the blog as new posts simply by changing the publishing date to a recent one (note: on dPS I can do this easily as our link structure does not have dates in it). Social I also share every updated post on social media, in some way or another. I will tweet links to it but also add it into our Facebook and Pinterest sharing schedule. Newsletter At times I’ll also link to these updated posts in our weekly newsletter. I don’t do this for every post but often will add them with a note saying that they’re a hot post in the archives. New/Followup Posts The last thing I occasionally do with updated posts is to write new followup posts. This usually happens when I’m doing an update of an old post and realise that there is now scope to extend the idea considerably with a second part to the series. This new post will link back to the old – driving traffic back into the archives. The Benefits of Paying Attention to Your Archives The archives of your blog are in many ways just as important as the new posts on your blog. On dPS we have over 4000 posts in the archives and it’s on these posts that the majority of our readers land thanks to search engine referrals. Updating those posts, in the way I’ve described above, not only helps their search rankings but makes the posts more useful , which means you’re more likely to see the posts shared by readers and more likely to create a good first impression on the readers who find them. The result is more traffic, more subscribers and followers and hopefully more revenue as a consequence. Do you update old posts on your blog? What other ‘updates’ would you add to my list above? Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger One Activity You Should Do On Your Blog Every Day

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Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

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Pubcon Sessions are a Deserted Ghost Town Posted: 29 Oct 2013 06:59 AM PDT Last week was yet another round of Pubcon Vegas, the party trip of the year that can be written off as a business expense.  And this year was no different, but things are definitely a-changing at Pubcon  I have commented before about the sheer number of speakers (not sure on the numbers, but it has to be about 100) at Pubcon , but having 50 different tracks (okay, it is 10, but it feels like 50) is sheer stupidity.  Yes, there was an astronomical 10 different tracks going on at once.  TEN.  And you know what that means?   Speakers were stuck feeling like losers when they were presenting in a room with maybe 5 or 6 people in the audience if they didn’t happen to be slotted in the “cool kids” session in each time slot.  Because nothing makes a speaker feel like shit more than the fact no one wants to hear what they have to say. When I wrote about Pubcon earlier this year, there were 7 tracks from the previous Pubcon, and the deserted conference sessions weren't nearly as problematic as what speakers were reporting this year.  Because some of those rooms where like a ghost town.  And it wasn’t just an occasional session, here or there, it was multiple session during every single time slot, with usually one or two rooms that drew the crowds. Now, having 10 tracks is fine if every room – or even half of the rooms – had a decent number of people in it.  But the reality is, speakers were complaining about working on an entire presentation yet only speaking to 4 or 5 people sitting in the room. Not a great ROI when you consider the work put in the presentation, and expense of traveling to Pubcon and then speaking for 20-30 minutes to those four or five people, and chances are pretty good at least half of them you had some association with them previously, and they were interested in anything he had to say.  And only if you were super lucky, you might've had one of the few standing room only sessions. But from a speaker perspective, it must suck when there is competition from 9 different tracks meaning that you have put a ton of work and effort into creating a fabulous presentation while there are about 6 people in the room watching.  And I can't imagine how it was for the speakers who had to speak first thing in the morning in Vegas, unless perhaps they scored a spot after the Matt Cutts keynote. There is also a huge overlap with sessions.  There were multiple Facebook sessions, which essentially presented the same thing and could have easily been consolidated into one session with the best of the best speakers.  Seriously, "Content Strategy" and "Strategies for Content Marketing" (really?) could be consolidated easily.   Same with "Brand and Reputation Management Strategies" and "Online Brand Management Strategies".  And "The Intersection of Social Media and Search" with "The Convergence of Social Media and Search".  And those are just the ones I noticed. What should Pubcon do?  Pubcon should really have used a system where badges get scanned, so they would have a clue which sessions are popular and see just how many sessions had only a half dozen people in it.  Some speakers might complain about the lack of bodies in their room, but more won't for the sole reason that they don't want Brett to think they suck as a speaker and they don't want to lose a potentially juicier speaking spot for the next Pubcon.    Next six, scale back the tracks to 7, because that was clearly where the tipping point was.  zThen consolidate some of the sessions, so people are missing out on less and Pubcon could pick and choose the best speakers. Then take the sponsored sessions out of its own room and stick it in a section of the expo hall, similar to what Search Engine Strategies (SES) does.  Sponsors get more traffic from people wandering through the expo hall from people who wander by and notice a presentation going on, and you lose less people from attending actual sessions.   And charge a premium amount for the half hour during lunch each day. It is a good thing PubCon has always been about the networking. Looking for an SEO service that won’t get you banned?

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