Happy birthday to me. Yes… just last week my humble little blog celebrated its second birthday. Huzzah! To commemorate my first birthday I published a post outlining the key lessons from my first year of blogging. It turned out to be quite popular. Who’d of thought? So second time round I thought I’d honour that tradition and share the key lessons from my second year in the game. So without further adieu, here they are…

Lesson 1 – Economies of scale emerge

I was semi-obsessed during my first year of blogging. Particularly with numbers… always the numbers. I often liken blogging to a video game. You have your current high score (traffic, subscribers, Alexa rank etc) and you constantly strive to beat it. Which typically translates into frantic blogging activity, particularly for newbies. I was no different, aiming to publish two posts a week, and eight posts a month. Often I did.

However, the need for life balance eventually begun to retain importance. In my second year my productivity dropped significantly. Heck, this is my first post in almost a month (but remember we’ve just come out of holiday season peeps… forgive me). I doubt I published more than four posts in a month in 2009. Yet my subscribers tripled in that same time period (despite Feedburner’s ongoing reporting inaccuracy). Significantly lower productivity, yet far superior results.

Which does makes sense. After a year, Google begins to trust you, and search engine rankings follow. I now receive a steady stream of organic traffic from relevant keywords such as “online marketing”, “marketing blog” and “Australian brands on Twitter”. Furthermore, with an established audience, my new posts spread far more efficiently via social channels (when they are good enough). These two factors in particular, help to deliver some economies of scale in building the blog.

Unfortunately, most new bloggers give up before they experience these benefits.

Lesson 2 – Choose a goal. Stick to it!

When I created this blog my core goal was related to long-term employment opportunities. I was already a digital marketer working within the agency environment, but I was no different to thousands of other digital nomads. I wanted a point of differentiation. A personal brand; to ensure the best possible long-term employment opportunities, whether they be within an agency, or working as a solo consultant (I still haven’t decided which I’d prefer). Establishing this blog was a primary strategy to securing that future.

However, in retrospect I lost sight of that goal during my first year. I got caught up in the ego-boost of the traffic spike and my subject matter strayed. Perhaps I was reading too much Problogger, or perhaps I was trying to produce too many posts. But my writing strayed from business oriented topics towards resource posts on building a blog.

It wasn’t until my second year that I realised I’d lost sight of my initial intent. While it may have brought in plenty of traffic, my content wasn’t building any cred as a serious marketer. Rather, I was beginning to position myself as a “pro-blogger”. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn’t going to contribute to the type of employment opportunities I wanted to create in the future.

So I refined my content to align with my original goal. I focused on positioning myself as a (mostly) serious industry commentator. In particular I aimed to produce content under the following two core categories:

1. Topical industry issues – Including iSnack 2.0, Toyota’s high profile social pitch and the viability of specialist social media agencies
2. Case studies – Including social media masterclass, Facebook marketing, sports marketing & not-for-profit marketing

The lesson was simple – never forget why you’re actually writing, and always ensure your content stays consistent to that purpose.

Lesson 3 – Think global. Play local

The Internet knows no boundaries, this much is true. And for my first year of blogging I saw no need to play locally. Why should I when there is a whole world (wide web) of possibilities? But again, I had lost sight of my original goal. While theoretically I could generate international employment opportunities in the future, the reality is that the vast majority of people prefer to work with local resources. Which meant that the smart move was to establish a stronger local presence.

In order to achieve this I gave my content a far stronger local flavour. Not only did I focus on topical issues, but issues related specifically to the Australian marketing industry. It drastically narrowed my audience! There’s no doubt I alienated many members of my existing audience by changing tack and discussing topics that had little relevance to them (my traffic went from 80% originating from international markets to an 80% Australian audience). But it was an important move in strengthening my local network. TodayI have an extended network of local industry punters who I’d call friends. Last year I didn’t.

And at the end of the day, that network is likely to serve me far better than any internationally driven traffic spikes ever could (especially given that I don’t run any advertising on this blog).

What are your key lessons?

So I’ve had my say. But I’m sure there are plenty of other lessons people have learned in their own travels over the last 12 months. If you’ve got any to share, feel free to chime in via the comments. And remember… sharing is caring

On January 11th my humble little blog celebrated its very first birthday. But rather than publish some lame/self congratulatory post, I’ve decided to follow in the footsteps of my buddy Tad, and use the occasion to embark upon a little reflection. Infants are sponges for information in their first few years of life, and as a blogging infant I’ve certainly learned A LOT. So today I thought I’d share the five most important lessons of the past 12 months…

Lesson 1 – Momentum disappears damn quickly

In the final quarter of 2008, my life was largely pre-occupied with personal matters such as my recent engagement and the all important end of year holidays. As a result my publishing frequency and external social media participation dropped dramatically. What surprised me was just how quickly my blog lost momentum. Momentum is perhaps one of the most underrated characteristics of blogging success. In my case, I had spent 9 months building momentum by:

1. Frequently publishing new material
2. Networking regularly in my preferred online communities – Sphinn & StumbleUpon
3. Commenting regularly on other blogs
4. Frequently contributing guest posts to prominent third party blogs
5. Participating in the occasional external interview

I suspected my efforts had bought me some well deserved time off. Apparently not! In the blogosphere it seems that out of sight means out of mind (even if it’s just for a few days…). Within weeks of reducing my participation I’d noticed dramatic drops in traffic, subscriber engagement, reader interaction (comments) and social media support. The loss of momentum was cumulative as the period of inactivity extended, to the point where it become a virtual ghost town in December.

Yeesh… can’t a guy take a break…?

Lesson 2 – It’s not all about the traffic

Like most bloggers I spent most of my first year obsessing over traffic levels. I’d check my stats every morning and eagerly anticipate the traffic spike after I published a new post. I even developed a split personality. But if my time off in late 2008 taught me nothing else, it was that traffic ain’t everything. With my publishing frequency at just 25% of my most active output, traffic plunged:

Eeep!! While it wasn’t unexpected, my heart broke and my ego was crushed. With reduced productivity and output, I expected my subscriber numbers to follow. But they didn’t. In fact, subscriber growth continued at almost exactly the same rate as when I was most at my most active:

Amazingly, the final quarter of 2008 saw the steepest growth in subscriber numbers of the year. I don’t really have a good explanation of how or why this occurred (aside from a backlog of good content…?), but it did make one thing abundantly clear. While traffic may be good for the ego, if visitors don’t convert to subscribers, it serves no great purpose .

Lesson 3 – Personal blogging doesn’t make you a social media expert

Earlier this year a smart young buck by the name of Julian Cole put together a list of the top 100 Australian marketing blogs. It replicates the Ad Age structure by using traffic ranking signals to rank Aussie blogs. I was fortunate enough to come in at number 11 on the list. Hooray for me. Some would say that makes me a social media expert. To that I say… “bah”!

Certainly I have an idea of how to build and promote a personal blog. And based on that knowledge the agency I work for began to involve me more heavily in client projects with an element of social media. But what I increasingly found was that very few of the tactics I used to build my blog were applicable to the corporate environment. Amongst other things issues such as time frames, ROI, resourcing, legalities and management hesitancy rendered many of the tactics I’d used redundant. My personal blogging experience still held some value, but its applicability was limited.

Rather than say any more, I recommend you watch what Brian Chappell has to say on the matter (not the highest quality vid but the message is poignant):

Lesson 4 – Networking is forever…

It wasn’t long into my blogging adventures that I realised I needed to develop a personal network. Indeed, I created my very own process to build a network of influential friends and peers. And what do you know… it worked. But having successfully created my personal network, I sat back and enjoyed the spoils (mainly in the form of social media support). I thought the job was done. It clearly wasn’t.

At the time that I published my post on how to build an influential network I came under criticism from people who thought the approach was akin to ass kissing.

“If you want to devote your life and time to kissing up, go right ahead. You might get a kiss or two back. But that kiss will be worthless in a little while when the ‘top dogs’ you kissed up to yesterday disappear tomorrow.”

I’ll never agree with the ass kissing argument, but boy did the crux of the comment turn out to be true. Months later, and for various reasons, many members of my posse have significantly reduced their participation in my chosen social networks. And as a result, the support I was generating slowly dwindled away. Rather than continuing to proactively play the networking game, I became lax. My bad…

Let 09 be the year of resourceful networking!

Lesson 5 – Guest blogging rocks

If you’ve read this blog for a while you’d know I’m a huge advocate of guest blogging. In the middle of last year I launched a guest blogging ‘world tour’, during which I contributed to a range of prominent industry blogs including SEO Scoop (twice), Huomah, Techipedia, SEO 2.0 (twice), TheVanBlog & Social Desire (twice).

Initially I was a little nervous about ‘giving my traffic away’. I hadn’t quite conquered the traffic obsession just yet. But I soon learned better. Throughout the year, my biggest subscriber jumps always came after a popular guest post was published. I was sacrificing traffic, but gaining subscribers. And what’s more important to the long term growth of your blog…? I think Tad summed it up perfectly below (aside from the whole ‘sought after’ bit…):

“You can’t really measure reputation. By now you are one of the most sought after writers in the industry. I doubt that a few more visitors to your blog would have the same effect.”

With that in mind I’m planning a second world tour starting as of February ’09. First cab off the rank will be Steven’s blog, because I’ve given him lame broken promises for guest posts over the past few months. Sorry buddy! For everyone else, if you want your blog to be part of the tour in 09, feel free to drop me a line.

What’s with all the negativity dude?

You may have noticed that 4 of the 5 lessons focus on things that I haven’t done particularly well. That’s not to say there haven’t been positives, because there have been plenty (many of which I have written about). Hell… if there weren’t any positives I doubt I’d still be going. But I think our greatest lessons come from our mistakes… and I know that has certainly been the case for me in my first year of blogging. Hopefully my mistakes will help others to learn.

The challenge now is to take decisive actions from those lessons in order to build a better blog in 09. Because as  Einstein would say – insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results…

Ok… so a few days ago I published a post poking fun at the dysfunctional nature of the Sphinn family. It was far from the most intellectual piece I’ve ever written. In fact, it’s probably one of the dumbest posts I’ve ever put my name to. So why publish it? Here’s the thing… I knew it was going to be a social media hit (particularly within Sphinn). The ranting nature combined with a touch of humour meant it was always likely to resonate with social media crowd, even a professional one such as Sphinn. It was a classic case of chasing eyeballs (ie. a traffic spike). Which ain’t such a bad thing every now and then…

You see, for the last few months I haven’t been chasing eyeballs. At all. In fact, I’ve spent most of my time sending eyeballs to fellow industry bloggers. During my guest blogging world tour, I have effectively donated traffic to my hosts. Almost all of my guest posts hit the front page Sphinn, which generally equates to at least a couple of hundred visitors. Combine that with a handful of Stumbles and I’d estimate most of my guest posts generated at least 500 pairs of eyeballs. Hell… I even helped Tad lift his subscriber count by 100 overnight.

And what did I get out of the whole exercise…? Not a hell of a lot. At least if you measure in terms of eyeballs… In each case I would have been lucky to generate one tenth the number of the eyeballs that my host received. But that’s cool. Because I wasn’t chasing eyeballs. I was chasing brains. Rather than targeting the generic social media user, I was targeting the readers of respected industry blogs (aka the brains). Quality over quantity. Because I suspected that they were far more likely to turn into loyal readers of my work.

And you know what? I was right. Even when traffic to my blog plateaued (due to reduced publishing frequency), my subscriber base continued to steadily grow… because I was targeting the right people… the brains.

But… losing traffic is never a good thing if you can avoid it. In particular, the social proof attached to my blog started to decline. Sure… people claim that that Alexa Rank, Compete Rank & Technorati Rank are a crock. But at the end of the day, if you’re not Darren Rowse or Seth Godin, people look for signals to judge the strength of your blog (and your authority). And one of the primary measures is your traffic rank. And as you can see… mine was nosediving.

So… I did what any normal online marketing blogger would do in this situation. I wrote some Sphinn bait. I got some eyeballs back. And I started to reinvigorate my traffic rankings and social proof. Because at the end of the day, it’s a fine balancing act. Getting yourself in front of the right audience is a great first step. But it doesn’t seal the deal. Just ask Miss South Carolina. There’s no point nailing the swimsuit competition if you botch up the judge’s question (if anyone can tell me what she’s trying to say I’d like to hear it by the way…).

So I went chasing some eyeballs. Because sometimes they come in handy too…

How many dead blogs do you think exist in the blogosphere today? Take a guess… A couple of million perhaps…? Try again. According to Technorati and PC Mag, in 2007 the number stood at 200 million! Yes, 200 million! Which means blogs are now officially abandoned more often than red headed step children. More research from Perseus on blogging abandonment behaviour found that 66% of blogs hadn’t been updated for two months. So why is it that the blogosphere represents a mass graveyard of unfulfilled intentions?

The low barrier of entry to the blogosphere is without question a key reason for the high abandonment rate. Anyone can create a free blog within minutes following the emergence of blogging platforms such as WordPress & Blogger. And I mean anyone… even Mr Mullet (I just love making fun of mullets!). As a result, there is very little consequence in the decision to abandon an unloved and unread blog. Easy come… easy go. Indeed, Steve Rubel even went as far to say that he trusted blogs created on paid platforms more because the author had shown a higher level of commitment to the medium.

The biggest reason for the abandonment behaviour however, dawned on me as I perused my blog stats for the year to date. And it was the amount of patience required to get a blog off the ground. Because despite what the ‘Make Money Online‘ and other get rich quick blogs may tell you, it’s not friggen easy to get people to read your blog!

The (very) gradual evolution of a blog readership

Mega successful blogs have two core ingredients that drive their continued growth (aside from great content):

1. A loyal base of devoted readers
2. Great search engine rankings

These two elements work together to drive the blog to greater heights. Loyal readers return, share and refer the blog to others. And search engines ensure a constant stream of new visitors discover the blog. The new blogger of course, has neither loyal readers nor rankings on his side. Both need to be built from the ground up by earning the trust of search engines and readers alike. And as you can see from the graph below, neither comes easily…

The graph illustrates the modest growth in both reader loyalty and search engine traffic over the 7 month lifespan of this blog. A few interesting points to note are:

• Search engines sent practically no traffic to my new blog in its first 3-4 months
• After 7 months, search engines still barely account for 10% of site traffic
• After 7 months, 80% of readers still don’t bother to return after their first visit

How many people have the determination and patience to work through the lean times? Evidently… not many… Naturally, each blog is unique and other newbies will undoubtedly have achieved drastically better results than what I’ve reported above (particularly if they post more regularly). But most wouldn’t. Which is why we’ve got 200 million quitters in the blogosphere.

Ironically, the emergence of social media has made it easier than ever for new bloggers to find an audience. StumbleUpon, Digg and Co. mean that with a little luck, good new authors can get the attention of hundreds/thousands of readers almost overnight. I had over a hundred visits to my blog on its second day thanks to StumbleUpon. Makes you respect the early blogging pioneers just that little bit more doesn’t it. Because there weren’t any short cuts in the early days…

Just a lot of patience and earned trust!

If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know that I have a propensity to talk crap. Call it verbal diarrhoea if you will… I don’t mind because there’s no doubt my articles are lengthy. In fact, most online marketers will tell you I consistently break one of the golden rules of writing for the web, which is to keep content short, punchy and concise. But to them I say – screw your rules! I’m writing content for my audience, so you can take your rules and shove them.

Who says short is good anyway?

Well… pretty much everyone. While the web has a short history, it didn’t take long for webmasters and marketers to discover that very few people took the time to read content online. As far back as 1997, respected user behaviour analyst Jakob Nielsen declared that people don’t read on the web. A range of findings to come from Jakob’s early research included:

• 79% of users scanned a page when they first came across it
• Only 16% read online content word-for-word
• Implementing a concise and scannable content structure improved usability by 124%

In a more contemporary research project (May 2008), Nielsen analysed data from an academic study on web usage to find that:

• Users dedicate 4.4 seconds to every 100 words on the web
• On average, dedicated users have time to read 28% of the words on a page
• Most users will read around 20% of the content on a page

Our friend Nielsen isn’t the only one to advocate content brevity on the web. Here’s just a small sample of articles from respected industry sources that concur:

• Michael Gray – Blogging in a sound bite world
• Search Engine Journal – Four surefire ways to write magnetic web content
• Problogger – Ten tips for writing a blog post

So who the hell am I to argue with them?

Well I’m not really arguing to be honest. I generally agree that short content is a good thing, particularly on consumer facing web sites that have average web users. My point is that the rule is far from universal. These studies are typically conducted with the average web consumer in mind. But what if your audience isn’t average…?

I wouldn’t consider my audience average. My audience is far from average in a number of ways:

1. They aren’t consumers… at least in a purchasing sense. The only thing they’re looking to consume is information.
2. I suspect many of them are professionals or at least people looking for professional advice/opinion and are therefore committed to reading lengthier content pieces if it benefits them.
3. Many are likely to be highly entrenched in the web and its technologies. I would expect them to be in the upper end of online capabilities (not to mention offline).

The point is that if my audeince have a higher capability level, why apply rules that are aimed to make content accessible for average Joe? As a professional blogger information is my product. If I reduce the amount of information I produce, I am in fact giving my audience less (presuming I am cutting out half decent content and not just drivel/waffle). How many companies do you know that are trying to get their customers to consume less of their product/service? Not many. Of course, content needs to remain high quality, relevant, engaging & informative to maintain value to the audience. But if it is meeting these requirements, why should it be diluted to adhere to ‘best practice in web copywriting’?

Industry leaders don’t mince words

I subscribe to a range of blogs as a professional content consumer. I subscribe because the authors are recognised thought leaders within the online marketing industry. And guess what… they’re not too concerned about the length of their work either. Here’s a sample of the average article length from some of the highest profile SEO blogs on the web (taken as an average of their last 5 articles):

If you run a google search for the query ‘ideal blog post length’ you’ll find a range of posts dedicated to the issue. Most recommend a length of somewhere between 200-500 words. As you can see, our SEO friends are well above that ‘ideal’ threshold. Yet some have subscriber bases of 25,000+. Content length hasn’t scared their readers away. Why? Because they’re writing for a professional audience. SEO is a professional field with huge financial benefits for businesses that are able to achieve top rankings. Is it any wonder people are willing to invest some time to read their (lengthier) content?

Shock… horror… study finds people really do read content online!

In 2007, the Poynter Institute released an eyetracking study with findings that directly contradict the belief that people do not read content online. Some of the key findings include:

1. Reading effort does decrease as the length of the article increases… BUT
2. Online participants read 77% of the content for stories they deliberately choose to read, which is significantly higher than offline publications
3. 63% of online participants read stories from start to finish

The key takeaway from this research for me is that people who choose to read a story typically read most, if not all of the content. The key word is choose. People will read an article if it interests or benefits them in some way. Length is irrelevant when the content is engaging, informative or valuable. If you’re dumbing down your content for the average Joe, you may well be dumbing down your audience.

Crikey… so which one is it then… short or long content…?

It depends. The point I’m trying to convey is that you need to think about your audience before making that decision. My audience is predominantly professional, so I have no hesitations in publishing lengthier articles. I let them decide whether they choose to read the article. If my content is valuable and engaging enough, they will. In the meantime, I do everything possible to make the content more consumable for them by implementing a clear structure, short paragraphs, sub headings, bullet points and lists.

On the other hand… if you’re trying to sell mullet wigs it’s probably best that you keep your content short and simple!

It’s been a while between drinks, but I’ve managed to get my backside into gear and write another guest post. I return to SEO 2.0 today to write a sequel to my sex, permission marketing & social media article. As luck would have it… that post was incredibly successful and helped Tad increase his subscriber base by 100 overnight. So I dissect the post and give my best guess at to why it was a subscriber magnet.

Read the 7 ingredients of a wildly successful blog post

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a guest blogging mission lately. My buddy Ken Jones has playfully dubbed it the ‘James Duthie world tour’. And while the frenzied tour hasn’t finished just yet, I thought I’d pause for a moment to explain the reasons why I’m intent on invading as many digital marketing blogs as possible. As it turns out, I couldn’t fit that explanation into a single post. So over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be publishing a series of posts outlining the benefits of guest blogging, including real data from my experiences. So… without further adieu, I interrupt my guest blogging schedule to discuss… guest blogging.

The motivations for launching into my guest blogging world tour were threefold:

1. To attract new readers
2. The improve organic rankings (SEO)
3. To enhance my personal network

Each motivation will form the subject of a post in this guest blogging series. Today, I’ll talk about the first motivation – to attract new readers to my blog.

The principle is simple really. My blog is relatively new and has a limited reach. Other digital marketing blogs have an established audience. By contributing to industry related blogs, I put my work in front of a new audience. I create an opportunity to impress that audience and entice them across to read more of my work. But more importantly, I’m reaching out directly to my target audience.

Established digital marketing blogs have hundreds/thousands of subscribers… and that’s my ultimate target market – people who already subscribe to digital marketing blogs. Sure… social media can get my work in front of plenty of eyeballs (and certainly serves a purpose for newbies), but are StumbleUpon users the type to subscribe to my blog? I’m not sure… but the visitor to subscriber conversion rate I’ve experienced wouldn’t suggest so.

If my blog is to grow, I need loyal readers. I need people who will contribute to discussions. I need people who will help promote my content. Guest blogging provides an opportunity to reach out to the type of people who already do these things on other digital marketing blogs. Jackpot!

Overcoming selfish & short sighted tendencies

Perhaps the greatest road block to conquer before committing to guest blogging is the selfish desire to ‘own’ your traffic. When you donate a post to another blog, you’re not only donating your written words/ideas, but also any traffic that it generates. If the article goes hot in the social media circles, your host will be the beneficiary of the traffic surge, not you. Sure… you’ll get credit as the author, but you won’t get the traffic. This is an extremely hard concept for some people to deal with!

Ultimately however, dwelling on lost traffic is an extremely short sighted view to take. Every day, companies around the world give away free product samples. Why? Because they’re targeting new customers. Next time you’re at a magazine stand, take a look at the magazines targeting females between the ages of 16-25. You’ll find all sorts of free giveaways including CD’s, cosmetics, perfume samples, hair brushes etc. These companies are sacrificing product costs with the long term view of increasing sales. The same mentality needs to be adopted with guest blogging. Your written work is your product. And when you’re new to the game, you need to give up something to attract customers. For retailer’s its free product. For bloggers it’s traffic. Deal with it.

The traffic effect during my guest blogging bonanza

When it came down to my own world tour, I was prepared to take a big traffic hit in order to reach new readers. I’m certainly not the most frequent of bloggers. I aim to publish two new posts a week. Sometimes I don’t even hit that mark. In the last month I have published eight new posts. Four of those were guest posts on industry blogs. I gave away exactly half of my work. So it’s reasonable to suspect that my traffic would take a big dive. Yet it didn’t. Here’s the monthly traffic for my blog this year:

Despite publishing only 4 articles on my own blog in June, my traffic dropped by just a couple of hundred visitors. Compare that to April, a month in which my productivity was affected by illness. I published five articles in April and you can see the subsequent dip.

It’s a little too early to determine if the effect is long-term, but my guest blogging bonanza has coincided with a boost in readership and social media support. I am getting far more readers for the posts that are hosted on my blog. I can only presume this is a result of my work reaching a wider audience (and the networking effect – which I will discuss in the third part of this series).

But what about subscribers…?

Ok. So the guest blogging seems to have been fairly successful so far in attracting new readers. But… the million dollar question is whether they converted to subscribers…? After all… the point of guest blogging was to target loyal readers. Let’s find out. My subscriber growth rate is shown below:

Hmmm… there seems to be a definite jump in the subscriber count to coincide with the guest blogging world tour throughout June. Again, it’s far too early to determine whether the new subscribers will actually turn out to be loyal readers. There does seem to be a dip shortly after each guest post induced spike. But the upward trend is encouraging. Perhaps I need to do another post in a couple of months time to analyse whether the momentum is maintained after the guest blogging slows down…

It probably is far too early to be drawing conclusions, despite the positive signs.

Choosing blogs to contribute to

As a final word, it would be remiss not to mention the importance of choosing the blogs to guest post on. Guest blogging should be a win-win situation. You should benefit by reaching a new audience, and your blogging host should benefit by being temporarily relieved of the ongoing burden of writing new posts. Your key criteria when selecting a blog should be:

1. A blog with a well established reader and traffic base
2. A blog with an audience that isn’t aware of your work. Remember your objective is to reach new readers.

I employed a targeted networking process to identify potential guest blogging partners and secure my guest post opportunities. This process worked well enough to land me gigs on respected industry blogs including SEO Scoop, Huomah, Social Desire & TheVanBlog. Darren Rowse also provides good advice on how to get guest blogging jobs. Regardless of the process you implement, my words of advice are simple – choose wisely. Your choice will affect your ability to find new readers for your blog. And for most of us, that is our primary objective!

Authority. We all want it. Authority is sexy. Practically every blogger is chasing it in some way, shape or form. Authority brings power, respect, visibility, opportunities and loyal followers.

But establishing authority isn’t easy. I’d know… because I don’t have any. As a newbie to the blogosphere, I’m like millions of others out there trying to be seen and heard. Echo…echo… echooo

So how do you create authority?

Authority is all about knowledge & networking. This post will concentrate on the networking side of the equation. If you want authority, you’ll need to create a network of followers. The most prominent bloggers and social media superstars have thousands of followers. Maki from Dosh Dosh has over 16,000 subscribers! Whoa.

Now… I’m clearly not the best person to advise on how to get to that point. I’m a newbie, and my own network is infinitely small compared to Maki’s. In fact, it’s pretty small compared to anyone. But I can provide some tips on how a targeted networking strategy can help you build authority quicker.

Targeted networking

In essence, targeted networking is an approach that focuses on identifying and targeting people that have already established some level of authority within your niche. For me targeted networking was a way of working smarter, not harder. We’re all busy, and finding time to commit to hundreds of digital relationships is difficult. So I made the decision to focus on the quality of each relationship, rather than sheer quantity.

The real benefit of targeted networking is leverage. Influential bloggers and social media stars have visibility and reach that newbies can only dream of. Imagine the impact when an influential blogger starts to submit your work within social media. Your work reaches infinitely more people based on their personal authority level, visibility and follower base.

While it is still early days, targeted networking has ensured that most of my new work gets submitted to the most prominent social media outlet in my niche (Sphinn). It has also helped me to secure guest posts on popular industry blogs such as Huomah and Social Desire (with more to come). And most importantly, it has helped me develop relationships with some influential people within my niche. I’ve outlined 7 key steps I have followed in my own targeted networking process.

The 7 steps to establishing a targeted networking process

Step 1 – Install the MyBlogLog recent viewer tool to your blog

MyBlogLog provide a great little widget for bloggers. The ‘Recent Viewers’ widget shows you who has visited your blog recently. Names and profile pictures appear within the widget which slots easily into your sidebar. Most influential bloggers use it. Install this widget to your blog to get the process started.

Once you’ve installed the widget on your blog, you’ll be in a position to recognise when an influential blogger visits your site.

Step 2 – Register and study your relevant social networks

Just about every influential blogger on the web is entrenched (if not obsessed) with social media. Social networks such as Digg & StumbleUpon have the ability to deliver traffic in spades. Experienced bloggers know this. So they dedicate significant portions of their time to maintaining active and credible accounts within their preferred social networks.

Your next step is to identify the social networks in which the most influential bloggers in your niche congregate. I write about digital marketing. So my most relevant social network was Sphinn. Maki has provided a list of 40+ social media networks, so this is a good place to start your search.

Once you nominate the most relevant communities you’ll need to study them. Visit the site regularly and observe who the key players are. Influential bloggers are fairly easy to spot. Their submissions will regularly make the front page, and they’ll be active in discussions/comments.

Step 3 – Begin contributing within your chosen social networks

Establishing your own social media presence takes time and persistence, which causes most people give up. They fail to see results within a few weeks, so write social media off as a waste of time. Social media success takes time and just like search engine optimisation, it can’t be achieved overnight. Managing your expectations is critical.

The kind of activities you need to focus on to create an initial level of visibility include:

1. Submitting articles to the network. Be aware that your submissions are unlikely to generate votes initially as the level of trust from the community is low. It takes time to create the type of momentum that will translate to votes.
2. Vote on articles that other members submit.
3. Comment on articles and blogs that other members submit. This is the most important exercise you can initially undertake. Contributing insightful and intelligent discussion to a topic will slowly attract interest from members of the community. Concentrate your comments on popular articles to maximise the visibility of your input.

Step 4 – Monitor the MyBlogLog widget carefully

Ongoing persistence within your chosen social network will eventually pay off. Monitor the names and faces within your MyBlogLog widget religiously. One by one, you’ll begin to see familiar faces popping on to your blog.

Step 5 – Make contact with influential bloggers

Once you see an influential blogger visit your site, make immediate contact. You can contact them via MyBlogLog, but is preferable to do so via another social network. I make contact via StumbleUpon as users receive an email notification when they receive a message. Personalise your message to the highest degree to avoid any perception of spam. I always include their name, along with the name of their blog and some sort of personal feedback (such as a comment about a recent post). Oh yeah… and don’t forget to thank them for stopping past your blog!

Step 6 – Monitor your responses

Keep a close eye on your inbox to monitor responses from fellow bloggers. Don’t expect everyone to respond, and don’t get offended by those who don’t. Power bloggers are extremely busy and receive hundreds of messages a day. Some people are simply untouchable. Focus instead on those people who do respond. They are your new friends.

Step 7 – Enhance the relationship

Now that you’ve made contact it’s your job to foster every new relationship that is derived from the process. You need to do everything in your power to maintain contact and interest with your new friends. Here’s what I do:

1. Subscribe to their blog
2. Visit their blog every couple of days to ensure your face regularly appears in their MyBlogLog visitors
3. Leave intelligent comments on their posts
4. Submit their articles to social media
5. Vote for their articles in social media
6. Befriend them in other social networks
7. Create additional touch points via email or messenger services and speak as often as possible without hassling them

Social media is all about sharing. Follow the steps above and most bloggers will reciprocate on some level. And as they do, your work will reach far wider audiences than you could ever imagine.

How targeted networking builds authority

The targeted networking process builds your personal level of authority in a number of ways:

1. Authority by association. If people see your work has been submitted by an influential blogger, they’re more likely to consider you an authority as well.
2. As traffic increases, so too do the metrics people use to measure your authority such as the subscriber count, Alexa rank, number of comments and inbound links.
3. Influential bloggers notice the work fellow pro bloggers submit. Others will become aware of your work, and if you’re lucky will also look to submit it to relevant social media sites. This can create a snowball effect of visibility and authority.
4. As your visibility and traffic increases, so to does your own personal network. People will begin to start contacting you!

Isn’t targeting networking elitist?

No. By no means does targeted networking exclude interaction with fellow newbies. I speak with fellow newbies as often as I do influential bloggers. But I choose to conduct my proactive networking in a targeted manner. It’s my way of maximising the ROI from the limited amount of time I have to network. And while traffic, subscribers and social media support continue to grow, I’m happy to say it’s helping to build my personal authority level.

I’ve tried a lot of traffic generation tactics since creating this blog. Some, like StumbleUpon, have been instant hits. Others have generated dismal results. Commenting on other digital marketing blogs was initially a tactic I’d discarded to the ‘dismal’ category. It was time consuming and rarely brought in more than the tiniest trickle of traffic. In order to comment, I needed to read a range of articles and develop intelligent thoughts to add to the conversation (not bad things really when you think about it…). I found I was spending up to an hour of my time in order to contribute just 5 or so comments to the blogosphere. It was so much easier to just press the magical ‘Thumbs Up’ button… Talk about lazy! It was only a couple of months later that I realised my attitude sucked and that commenting was one of the productive activities a blogger can partake in…

This epiphany arose at around the same time I finally cottoned on to the fact that relationships within the blogosphere were actually really important (Duh!). I’d been observing behaviour within my favourite social media networks for a while and noticed that those who were generating awesome results had legions of followers & friends. Hmmm…. time to get me some virtual friends I thought to myself. But how to go about it…

I didn’t want to try to start the relationship building process by social media spamming other bloggers I respected. Bad first impression! I was pretty sure they’d receive tonnes of emails a day. So email was likely to get caught in the clutter (especially when it’s just a social media inbox). At that point a little light bulb flashed up in my ming – blog commenting. I knew I read and respond to every comment I receive, and most other serious bloggers do as well. What better way to introduce myself than to join their conversation and add some productive thoughts…?

So after initially writing blog commenting off as a futile exercise I returned once more. The important difference however was that this time round my primary objective had evolved (matured you might even say…). I was no longer concerned with the quantity of traffic it generated. Sure… it would be nice if a few people clicked through as a result of a comment I’d left, but relationship building was now the key objective. I needed to build my personal network and blog commenting was the best option available (considering my longstanding boycott of Twitter).

Fast forward a couple of months and in the words of Borat… it’s been a great success. I’ve established relationships with a range of recognised bloggers in the industry. Regular commenting has opened a dialogue that often extends beyond their blog into email, my blog and other social media networks (and probably Twitter if you’re that way inclined). We’re not the best of buddies… but they know who I am and they tend to support my work within social media via submissions and votes, which was the objective after all. And they also tend to become subscribers and semi-regular commenters on my own blog, which helps the perception and social proof associated with Online Marketing Banter.

Ironically, it was only once I stopped caring about the traffic that I realised its true value. Analysis of my traffic stats revealed that visitors coming from blogs on which I commented were far more engaged with my work. I’ve spoken previously about the trade off between quantity and quality in a publishing frequency context. But the issue is of real relevance in traffic generation as well. It’s easy to become addicted to the StumbleUpon traffic spike. And that certainly has its benefits… but quantity isn’t everything. Who do you really want reading your blog… drive-by browsers or loyal subscribers? The figures below indicate that people coming from blogs I comment on are far more likely to convert into subscribers:

StumbleUpon visitor engagement

A little underwhelming you might say… StumbleUpon visitors stay for 13 seconds and almost 92% leave without visiting another page. This may well say something about my (in)ability to hook new readers with a punchy headline and opening paragraph. Food for thought… Now let’s look at the stats from three blogs I comment on regularly.

Visitor engagement from blogs I regularly comment on

Now that’s more like it! Visitors are viewing more pages & hanging around far longer. Which isn’t surprising I suppose. They’ve already had a sneak preview of my thoughts and decided to come looking for more. The three blogs listed above bring in about one tenth the traffic of StumbleUpon. But I’d be willing to bet a steak dinner that I’ve generated more subscribers from them than from StumbleUpon.

So what matters to you?

If you’re like me when I first starting blogging you may have already written blog commenting off based on the numbers (or lack thereof). But quantity isn’t everything. It’s important to remember what’s important in the long term… Drive-by visitors aren’t. A solid network of online friends and a loyal base of readers/subscribers are important. Start talking to your fellow bloggers today…

Blogging can be a tough gig. I generally summarise my blogging experiences in a couple of words – rewarding, inspiring, engrossing & addictive. But there are also days when ‘pain in the ass’ enters my mind (usually when I’m still in the office at 10pm). Blogging is an ongoing commitment and most of us will encounter days when motivation and inspiration is lacking. But what happens if/when the camel’s back finally breaks and you decide you’ve had enough? Could you sell your soul blog…? And more importantly… would anyone really be interested in buying it?

In the past week, I’ve had two friends contemplate blogging retirement. Sadly, one of them is Kim Bock who maintains the Learning SEO Basics blog. Kim has been a good friend of mine, and I sincerely hope she hangs in there as she is a great blogger and a fantastic person. She published her intentions a couple of days ago via her blog. One reader commented that she may consider selling the blog if her decision was final. It seemed an interesting concept to me. A blog is a uniquely personal platform, even in a professional/business context. How could you hand over the reigns for someone else to ruin manage, and more importantly… why would someone else want to buy it?

The benefits of buying a pre-existing blog

At face value, there seems to be a range of benefits to buying a pre-existing blog:

1. Established traffic/subscribers:

Buying a blog such as Kim’s would afford the purchaser the luxury of skipping the most challenging phase of blogging – the beginning. An established blog already has an audience. There would be no need to build the readership from the ground up. I’m not sure how many subscribers Kim has, but I would expect it’s in the hundreds. Subscribers equal loyal readers.

2. Established Google rankings & inbound links:

Natural search engine rankings and inbound links do not just appear out of thin air. Googlebot doesn’t take too kindly to newbies and it takes time to build authority within the eyes of the search engines (and other webmasters). This blog has been alive and kicking for 4 and a half months and still manages to pull in a paltry number of readers via organic rankings (although my utter SEO laziness has not helped the situation). In April, just 2.36% of site traffic came via Google… sigh. Buying an existing blog means that this waiting period can be fast tracked. Indeed some current organic rankings and inbound links are likely to exist for an established blog… particularly if it’s in the field of SEO.

3. Advertising revenue:

This one goes without saying. Established traffic = potential advertising revenue. Just ask Facebook. They managed to generate billions in funding despite the lack of an effective advertising model. Advertising revenue (or potential thereof) is the force driving every online acquisition.

4. Established social proof:

Traffic data & rankings from sources such as Alexa, Compete & Technorati may be scoffed at by industry experts, but the fact is that many people still use them as a barometer of a web site’s success. An established blog provides the buyer with a head start in the area of social proof and perceived authority. Aside from independent traffic rankings, the buyer will also benefit from historic comment activity, Google PageRank and social media submissions.

So… at this point it probably seems like buying an existing blog is a pretty sweet idea… Think again. There are some things money simply can’t buy, and unfortunately many of them are significant factors to success in the blogosphere.

Things that money can’t buy

1. Relationships:

It’s an old saying, but money can’t buy you love… or friendships as it would be. Networking and relationship development is a significant part of audience growth, particularly when it comes to social media. Someone like Kim would have spent hundreds of hours in online communities such as Sphinn & StumbleUpon submitting content, voting on content & contributing to conversations. An ongoing commitment to social media communities fosters relationships with other active community members. Indeed, that’s how I met Kim. These friends often become regular blog readers. No amount of money can buy these sort of relationships… which are likely to be lost as soon as the original author/producer sells the blog. The relationship is broken…

2. Loyalty:

Just as relationships can’t simply be transferred from one person to another, nor can loyalty. People develop loyalty based on similar interests, trust and mutual respect. If someone bought Kim’s blog I doubt I would continue to read or subscribe to it. I don’t know the new owner/author. They have not earned my trust, loyalty or respect. I am loyal to Kim and her work, not her blog. This may be harsh to the new owner, but I already have 100+ articles entering my RSS reader every day from trusted sources. Quite simply, the new owner isn’t a trusted source… The new owner has to start from scratch to earn my respect.

3. Authority:

There are millions and millions of bloggers trying to make a name for themselves on the web. Very few are actually heard. Those who’s voice is heard have managed to create authority within their chosen niche. People listen to them because they have provided expert knowledge & commentary over an extended period of time. Authority in the blogosphere typically takes years to develop. It can’t be bought or handed over to another person. The authority lies with the author, not with the platform (the blog).

4. Personality:

Personality is the X factor. Blogger’s that are able to portray a unique persona via their blog can differentiate themselves from the clutter. Seth Godin is a classic example. His ‘riffs’ are short, concise & often witty. Seth is also an avid story teller. His entries are unlike any other blogger I know. He cannot be copied. Seth has essentially branded his own blogging style. While others may not have quite such a unique approach, everyone is different. A key reason reason people subscribe to blogs is because they like the authors writing style, wit, thought process & knowledge base (aka their digital personality). Once that disappears, the appeal of the blog may well vanish with it…

So where’s the value in blogging?

Blogging will rarely lead to a substantial direct revenue stream. Sure… Darren Rowse earns hundreds of thousands of dollars through blog advertising, but he is the exception, not the rule. Most bloggers will pull in a couple of bucks a week via Adsense.

It’s even less likely that someone will ever buy your blog off you. Accept that fact now.

So what’s the point you may ask…? The real value of blogging is in the development of a personal brand. It is the establishment of credibility and authority that will lead to future opportunities. Opportunities such as:

1. Senior roles within large organisations
2. The potential to work as a consultant and start your own business
3. Speaking roles at industry conferences

The real value lies within longer term opportunities. That’s why the number of true blogging authorities/experts within any given field is limited. It takes talent, knowledge, vision and good ol’ fashioned hard work.

That’s a rare combination!