Buy your readers flowers – Tuesday Tips #7
If you’re a die hard blogger, this post is not for you. Ok, well maybe it could be. Have a read and find out.
If you’ve been reading the past few editions of the Tuesday Tips series, then you may have noticed that most of the posts have been about you. There was the one about what you should read, the one about which tools you should use to get traffic, the one about linking and of course, the one about how you can make your blog just be cooler.
This one, however, is about your readers. The people you write your posts for and the ones who keep coming back for more. These are a few things that you can do to keep us, your faithful readers happy, which of course means we’ll tell all our friends just how wonderful you are and buy you cake.
Promote your old posts
I like your blog, I come here all the time, but I haven’t been around since day one. So, this means there is probably plenty of good stuff that I don’t know about and haven’t had the time to find. This is why I like your related posts plugin that you installed. What’s even cooler is when you tell me about the things you’ve written before, it makes it easier for me to find your cool content. Here – let me show you how as I shamelessly link to this post about how to add related posts on your blogger blog.
Clean up your categories
Categories make getting around your blog a little easier. It lets me know what you write about and if I find something interesting, I can go read a few of your posts about it. This, however, all goes out of the window when you have a squillion (read: a helluva lot) categories. It just becomes too much to sift through and feels like I’m being textually assaulted. Stop it. Keep things nice and simple for me. Create specific categories for the things you write about often and wide categories for the other stuff. Like Life or Music. Don’t have My Kids, My Kids and the Dog, My Dog and the Ball. Just stop it. Please.
Reply to comments with a post
Sometimes I feel like you never listen any more. You talk and talk and talk but when I say something, all you do is drop an off hand comment. I wish you would take the time to respond to me properly. Like in a post. As your reader, I’m telling you what I want to read, and if you keep ignoring me, well, I’ll just stop reading because this relationship doesn’t have a future.
Creating a post in reply to a comment a reader has left on your site is great for a number of reasons: a) It gives you content, so there’s less worrying about what you should write. b) It helps create a sense of community – if someone writes a post in response to my question, I feel quite special. And I tell my friends. c) It shows that you’re paying attention. We see loads of blogs where the authors simply write, but never engage. In my opinion, you should jump at any chance you get to interact with your readers.
Make your point right up front
I um, was going to say that you should, well, sort of start writing and like, kind of just say things near to the top of your erm post. You see what I did there? I bored you for an entire sentence. Make your point up front when you write. Don’t feel pressured to fill pages and pages with text. If I agree with your point, you have me hooked right away. If I disagree, I’ll keep reading to get more ammo for My point in the comments section. But I’ll never make it to the comments if you take too long to spit it out
Ask me a question at the end of your post.
This is probably the easiest one to understand. I ask a question, you give an answer in the comments. I get comments, you get to voice your opinion. I can’t spot the down side here
So with all this in mind, I hope you’ll start treating your users like reader, and not just some two-bit page impression on the side. Do a few of these things and it’ll be like you’re buying them flowers.
Now, I have a question for you – was this post too cheesy? My cheesy radar went crazy when I read it back. Either that or I have sinus problems. What do you think?
Till next time, keep on blogging.
Lester
Greg said,
Wrote on July 14, 2009 @ 12:39
Cheesy? I don’t think so.
Being a recent convert to blogging (using self-hosted WP) I’ve been through all of your Tuesday Tips, and implemented many of your recommendations that I either wasn’t aware of, or wasn’t implementing very well.
The same is true with this set of tips – I especially like the suggestion of replying to a comment with a post, and am going to hunt through comments on the blog to see if there is anything there that I can build into a decent post-response. Would I be out of line in mailing a link to the person who made the comment, if they aren’t subscribed to the blog or to the comments?
If it’s cheese, I must be a rat because I for one am eating it up
Lester Hein said,
Wrote on July 14, 2009 @ 13:02
Hi Greg,
I’m glad that my waffling is proving to be helpful, I’ll keep posting
Personally, I think that you need to be a little cautious with email. People get very sticky about their inboxes, so treat them with respect. If you do fire of an email, be sire to let them know that you haven’t subscribed them to your blog against their will, but also do give them the option to do so.
Your email might read like this:
—
Hi there #Commenter with a dashing name#
It’s Greg here from #Your Awesome Bog# and this mail is in reply to a comment you left on my blog (#link to post with original comment#). I thought that your comment was great and have since done a follow up post based on what you said. I thought I’d drop you an email to say thanks for the comment. You can read the post here: #new post link#. If you’d like to get future blog posts, please click on over here (#link#) and subscribe via email or RSS feed.
Thanks again for the comment!
Greg
Blogger Extraordinaire
—–
or something like that
Lester