Do you sometimes wonder what
the hell you are doing?
Do you read all sorts of How-to’s,
on getting traffic, information on copywriting,
How to set up a website?
Get a terrific domain name, they
say. You do it. You shop for website
templates—each with portions you like—like coding
which you may not know, but they do.
But there are
templates that can drive you crazy—like yesterday I tried to increase my
font size and the website published it in
all caps. Like I was yelling—which I wasn’t.
Generate a
list, get a tribe, get traffic.
Doesn’t it sometimes become
overwhelming?
But,
hey, you are serious about this mystique of
blogging, aren’t you?
Yes, I know I have been negligent in supporting this blog The Best Damn Writers Blog on the Block, while concentrating my effort on www.wishonwhitehorses.com, but I
want to be here for you.
I
want to hear your concerns, and perhaps together we can make a splash in the
noisy lake of the media world.
Let me hear from you.
Are you a writer of books?
“Are you a blogger?
Have you mastered the art, or are you
struggling?
Okay, you might be an author,
but you are probably a blogger too?
So, how’s it going?
I’ll admit to being all over
the place, while I know I need to be clear about what I am doing here. Perhaps by the end of this post I will
find out.
I named my first blog, Wish on White Horses,
because like wishing on birthday candles, and the first star of the evening. It’s fun and
anything that brings up awareness is a plus. My
friend told me about the phenomenon of wishing on white horses, and once that
suggestion was in my head, I had to do it. I love to drive down a country road,
and spot a white horse. They are rare like shooting stars.
Wishing, dreaming, focusing on an idea—that is
the first step in obtaining your goal. As the Disney Imagineers say “Dream,
Believe, Dare Do”
I’m here to encourage you to do
that.
Wayne Gretzky (Of Hockey hall of fame)
said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
And if you start wishing on white horses you will become aware of
white horses, and perhaps little miracles, like the horses that pop up, will
pop up too.
I had a little miracle last night that carried over to today. l am staying at a hotel, and last night as I did a
keystone cops routine of getting my suitcase, computer bag and a couple cloth
bags, out of the pickup, with Sweetpea (my dog) jumping around, pulling on the
leash, frightened by the noise of a steel bridge close by where trucks clanked
over a metal plate regularily every second.
It was driving her nuts. My
result was that the room key, (a plastic card), I thought I had
it in my hand was gone.
I looked under the seat,
doesn’t everything dropped go down the
crack between the seats? I didn’t find the key, but I found a small day-book
that I had ransacked the house looking
for and finally after a couple of months, gave up. I believed I had lost it forever.
Nope, there it was under the pickup truck’s
seat.
This morning my husband called
to ask for our home Wifi code as my eldest daughter was babysitting for me, so I could have this Writer’s Birthday
holiday.
I instantly whipped out my
little newly found book and read the code listed
on the first page.
Ta da.
Sometimes the angels just
smile.
(And the smiling man at the
front desk gave me another key.)
As though Wishing On white
Horses wasn’t enough, I began experimenting with
other blogs—the experts say to concentrate on one, but oh well, who listens to
the experts?
Make up your own mind! If you don’t, others will make it up for you.
Make up your own mind! If you don’t, others will make it up for you.
The more I thought
about blogging, the more I was drawn to travel blogs. What a dream, to travel
and write about it. I salivate when I read those blogs. I love the Ytravel blog.com
with Caz and Craig Makepeace who travel with their two little girls. And I found that many people choose traveling as a way of life—even with
children.
I don’t travel as much as I
once did. I’m not a full-time traveler.
Almost every time I say I don’t travel I
go someplace—like here. I did drive up I-5 from
Junction City to Portland, Oregon, a Birthday gift to myself, a Vision
Quest of sorts. Three days alone with my dog with no pressures of home and
hearth. Time to write until I’m rummy.
Back to blogging: (Angels smile
on me.) I’ve been using blogger.com and
decided to join Wordpress because the big guys said it is the best. Yes, I do
listen once in awhile. I joined Wordpress through SiteGround, again on advice, but I had a devil of a time navigating
it, and felt like the stupidest techno-person on the planet.
Last night
when I tried to increase the size of my fonts, upon publishing the site the
damn thing printed in all with capital letters. As though I was shouting at people. That was embarrassing.
When I first posted on that the
site, I got a few terrific comments; then
some smart-ass porn people spammed me, then traffic screeched to a crawl.
You
know sometimes having a small amount of traffic helps you hone your skills. With a small
readership only a few people notice that
you are making a fool of yourself.
Have you mastered this art of
blogging, or are you struggling?
Either way YOU ROCK!
You’re still at it.
You have the dogged will to
keep at it, in spite of slings and arrows.
Now, let’s look at what sort of
blogger we are.
Jeff Goins has five types.
A World view/The Journalist/The Prophet/The
Artist/The Star
For a
description visit Jeff Goins, https://goinswriter.com/blog/
I don’t want to copy his work.
I don’t want to copy his work.
Larry
Alton has four.
1.Nitch—target
audience
2.Rogue—opinion,
raw and real. This is contrary to biased,
sensational marketing. People love or hate these blogs.
3. Crash Test Dummy
--takes on new challenges and writes about his experiences.
4.Hobby—farming, raising chickens, reading, those sorts.
Adam Ruhland has ten.
.
1.
The Rogue—Rogues, quite simply,
attract attention — both good and bad. They’re cool like Indiana
Jones.
2. The Guest Host
The
benefits of guest posting have been touted ad
nauseam. But the benefits of hosting guest content have been
written about much less.
That’s
what the Guest Host is all about — regularly hosting top-notch guest content.
Did
you know that Neil Patel grew the KISSmetrics blog to over 400,000 visitors a month
publishing posts that mainly came from guest
authors? He also grew the Crazy Egg blog
to over 100,000 visitors a month using the same strategy.
.
3. The Crash-Test
Dummy—Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com. (www.smartpassiveincome.com/category/podcast/) coined the phrase Crash Test Dummy in blogging.
In this type of blog, writers test strategies, techniques and tools, sharing what works and what doesn't.
4. The Niche—Rather than
focusing on broad topics like leadership, marketing, or sales, niche blogs
get hyper-specific.
How
specific?
You
can narrow your focus to an ultra-specific topic. Ex Food Blog
5. The Giver—The Giver gives away
incredible free bonus content with every post.
“Content upgrades” — an
additional piece of content created for a specific blog post and given away in
exchange for an email address.
This
establishes deeply personal connections with your readers. As well as one’s own personal growth through writing.
6. Guide—help with personal lives.
7. The Tell-All—Have you
learned a lot of valuable information?
8. The Homer—bloggers who write posts of epic proportions — posts that take readers on a 2,500+ word journey every time.
According
to BuzzSumo’s
analysis of over 100 million articles, long content
gets shared more than short content.
Greater
word count gives you a better shot at attracting organic search traffic.
The
moral of the story? Shoot for 2,000-3,000 words, as the share payoff begins to
diminish after that threshold.
Long posts are a mystery to me. Maybe I have a short
attention span, or impatience, for I am often yelling, “Just tell me!” “Stop
establishing your credibility, telling me a sob
story, and trying to encourage me to have an open mind. My mind is open.
That the reason I began reading your post. Get with it!”
Most
importantly, remember to have something worth writing that many words about. Like Boost Blog Traffic says in
their guest posting length guidelines (they
require 2,000-3,000 words), “Don’t think of a 1,500-word post padded out. Think
of a 5,000-word post trimmed down to its essence.”
9. The Personal Brand--Are you the brand you’re trying to build?
Is
your name in the URL? Is your face all over the home page? Do you want to
be known as you, or as the person who writes Blog XYZ?
MarieForleo.com.(I
love her.) has one of the strongest personal brands at the
intersection of personal and professional development. Her’s is a Video blog called marieforleotv.com.
This
sort of blog allows visitors to see more of you. And it forces you to become
better at speaking and communicating in front of an audience.
Whether
you plan on utilizing video or not, Marie’s site offers a great template for Personal Brand blog builders:
High-Value
Content + Unique Viewpoint Backed by Experience + Personal Brand-Heavy Packaging
= An Ideal Personal Brand Blog
10. The Enterprise—The Enterprise is a blog built for a
company, not an individual. It’s the type of blog companies like Buffer,
HubSpot, and Coca-Cola feature on their websites.
I found me! I’m a Crash
Test Dummy Blogger. However I look at it this way: I am all over the place,
flopping, and banged up.
To see the Power of Words check
out this short Youtube: It’s incredible.
