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- You Need to Be (Better Than) a Jerk
This guest post is by Joe Bunting of The Write Practice.
You’ve been told that controversy sells. You’ve heard you need to use hyperbole in your headlines. You’ve tried to create polarizing content that gets comments rolling in like crazy. You’ve heard that being a jerk is the key to effectively drawing people to interact with your blog.
But I’m here to tell you there is a better way.
A way to generate more traffic. A method to write more meaningful content. A secret to building a more passionate community.
I’m here to teach you how to be a better jerk.
We’ll call it Jerk +.
Three secrets to starting controversy
Image licensed under Creative Commons, Copyright Douglas Witt
Before you can be a Jerk +, you have to learn how to be a jerk. You can’t transcend jerkdom without first understanding it. You can’t break the rules before knowing what they are.
Here are three effective ways to be a jerk and create controversy:
1. Use satire
Remember, Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal? During Ireland’s potato famine of the 1720s, Swift argued that starving parents should eat their children. Of course, he wasn’t serious, but by satirizing the heartless rich, he helped convince them to take better care of their poor countrymen.
Satire is simple. Satire is like saying the opposite of what you believe as offensively as possible. You write a blog about social media? Write a post about three ways to piss off your twitter followers. Or for your photography blog? Write a post called the 5 Best Ways To Take a Terrible Picture.
2. Question dogma
What recent author wrote a book about heaven and hell was so controversial that one leader basically excommunicated him and many others called him a heretic? Ann Coulter? No! Rob Bell and his book Love Wins took a commonly held belief and said, simply, "Is this really true?"
What’s a widespread assumption in your field? Something everyone subscribes to? Start asking questions. Is this really true? What if it isn’t? What if the opposite is true? The best thing is, you don’t necessarily have to disagree with the dogma. You just have to raise a few doubts.
3. Be irreverent
Note: Do this at your own risk.
In April 2011, four young men walked into an art museum in France. They threatened the security guards with a hammer (one of them had hidden it in their sock). Then, they used the hammer to pry the plexiglass case off Andres Serrano’s photograph "Piss Christ," and slashed it with an ice-pick.
Serrano’s picture is considered by many—including those who defaced it—to be one of the most irreverent photographs of all time. It is also one of the most popular. Or, rather, it was.
It’s easy to be irreverent. Do the equivalent of drawing a mustache on a picture of a dead president. Channel Eminem. What are the values of your field? Who are the leaders and celebrities? Make fun of them. It’s as simple as that.
How to be better than a jerk
Acting like a jerk will bring you traffic. There’s no doubt about that. There are consequences though. The traffic is shallow. They’ll visit your blog, but will they come back again and again? You also run the risk of annoying everyone who could help you. Do you want to get attention at the cost of being hated?
Several years ago, I wrote the ultimate jerk post. It combined satire, iconoclasm, and irreverence like a giant middle finger. Before posting it I sent it to a friend and mentor who teaches art. She told me something that changed my life, not just in my writing, but everything I do.
Don’t settle for cynicism. Always strive to create meaning.
It’s easy to tear people, ideas, even whole communities down. Creating meaning, building something that is beautiful, starting a revolution, these require more effort. They also offer greater relational, financial, and personal rewards.
To be a Jerk + you have to find a way to build meaning with your controversy. Cheap hits are easy, but tomorrow those page views will be gone and you’ll have to start over. Instead, create controversy around something that’s bigger than yourself, something inspiring, something that could change the world.
Get beyond cynicism. Don’t stop at criticism. Build something new that will last for years.
What do you think? Do girls (and blog readers) only fall for jerks? Is it okay to be a jerk if you’re able to create meaning? Or is it better to just play nice?
Joe Bunting is the head Jerk + over at The Write Practice, where he is questioning the dogma of the written word, satirizing his old English professors, and drawing mustaches on Edgar Allen Poe. Don’t you want to subscribe?
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
You Need to Be (Better Than) a Jerk
Переслать - Develop Your Link Bait Repertoire
This guest post is by Jacob of BlogRevolter.com.
One of the most basic things that we can do to understand how Google functions is to understand how they determine which pages are considered strong and which are not. At the very core of its algorithm is the reliance on linksóthe connection from one website to the other.
In Google’s eyes, if website A is linking to website B, that must mean that website A trusts website B. That trusts passes what is known as authority. The more authority that a website and a page have, the more power that it is going to have in the SERPs. And, the stronger the link is from website A to website B, the more authority you’re going to get.
It’s because of this that those “Get 5,000 links in directory submission” offers that are seen on webmaster forums are pretty useless. Google looks at these links and determines that, in reality, very few of them have authority. However, getting a link from a blog that is updated often and has grown its authority will, without a doubt, help you greatly in developing your own authority.
The only problem with getting links is that it is dry. You could always email people for the links, but the success rate for that is low. I used to have to do that at a job. We’d email websites and nearly beg for links… It didn’t work.
All SEOs that are worth their salt will tell you that the best links are those that come naturally. This makes sense because Google is looking to see if you’re willingly passing that authority to someone else. So, if you get a link naturally, that must be great.
The best way to get a natural link is through what is known as link bait. In other words, you’re baiting people into giving you links. Most people will automatically go to ìList postsî as the best type of link bait, but I want to present you with a series of other methods of link bait that are equal to, if not better, than list posts.
Types of link bait
As I mentioned above, there are numerous different types of link bait that are really quite effective at giving your site the links it needs to rise in the search rankings. And as I said above, the common one is the list post, so, I felt it might be prudent to get that one out of the way so we could focus on the good stuff.
List articles
People love numbers. A list article is something like “Top 10 Ways in Which Lindsey Lohan Snorts…” and just leave it blank. People will link to that article like it’s the last thing they can do. Why? Because it’s funny. It’s got numbers. People want to see the top ten ways someone can do something like that.
Darren writes these often. 5 Ways I’m Using LinkedIn and 3 Reasons Why I Don’t Worry About the Competition are two examples of list posts that naturally get linked to. They provide value in list form rather than just long, bulky paragraphs. So, it’s easy to understand and therefore, easy to link to.
Okay. Now that weíre done with this one, let’s move on to some lesser known methods.
Infographics
An infographic is a graphic that contains a slew of information. For example, SearchEngineLand.com released a Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors. This infographic is a period table of elements, except instead of having C, O and H, it has Cq, Ht, and V—content quality, title tags, and keyword stuffing, which is a violation.
What the infographic does is take all of this information that you might write and put it into a nice, simple graphic that looks really nice. And it’s because it looks so nice that people begin to write about it and mention it on their sites. Naturally, when someone mentions something, they usually link back to you.
Another great thing about infographics is people print them out. I’ve got the above-mentioned infographic on my wall. Every time I look at it, I see that it was “Written by SearchEngineLand.com” and that makes me want to go back and check the site out. It’s a great way to start getting people to come back even after you’ve gotten that link.
Controversy
What’s better than hearing controversy such as “Kim Kardashian Might Have Butt Implants?” You hear something controversial like that and you just want to read it. Why not? It’s Kim K. She’s like so cool.
But, all of that aside, controversy gets linked to. The reason is because so many people disagree with it that they have to write a blog post about how wrong that person is and, naturally, they link back to it so their readers can see how wrong that person is.
My favorite example of all of these is the link bait that says “SEO is garbage.” The funniest part is that it’s link bait. That person is baiting you so much, trying to convince you to link to them by saying something outlandish. And it works. People write about how wrong that person is, and they link to them.
It’s so wrong, actually, that they are using SEO to back up their claim that SEO is garbage!
Spin the news
When something is trending in the news, people tend to link to it more because itís very fashionable. Unfortunately, unless you’re in the political or entertainment niche, most news is specific to niches and it’s hard to get any sort of movement. There’s a way around that.
Let’s talk about American debt for a second. You’ve got a situation where the American government almost defaulted—whether that’s true or not can be saved for another article—and that would’ve meant borrowing money would have been more difficult.
How could a blogger like Darren or myself ever cover something like that and get some of the juicy “debt news” traffic?
Well, the best way to do it might be like this: because it will be more expensive to borrow money, short-term funds that would normally be allocated to advertising are now going to have to go to paying employees because companies can’t afford to get short term loans.
Because of a drop in advertising, bloggers are now finding that they are making less money on their websites, which demonstrates the spread of the economic woes to the Internet. In other words, we can’t default because if we default, bloggers will hurt too. There—you’ve put a spin on the news.
Expert post
This is probably the sleaziest way of getting links, but it still works. Create what is known as an “expert post.” This is a post where you suck up to every big blog in the niche.
If I was making this type of post, I’d probably link to Darren and Glen from Viper Chill and the nameless dude from Blog Tyrant, because they’re experts. The hope then would be for them to link back to me because I touched their egos.
The only problem with this is that you’re sucking up and almost begging. It’s not really all that creative. However, if you can find the right people, you might get mentioned for it.
Great content
The best link bait content really is just well-written content. If you are helping people with your content and providing a service, people are going to link to it.
I know this is sort of avoiding the overall purpose of this post, but it’s true. So many bloggers focus entirely on creating a ton of content rather than creating great content. All of that content won’t get linked to if it isn’t great, so it makes more sense to create great content.
Give people something they want to link to and they will.
Conclusion
Link bait is one of the best ways to get links. People naturally decide to link to you, which, in the eyes of Google, is great. And, more importantly, you’re not wasting time trying to build links in any way considered “black hat.” Google loves natural links and link bait is content that gets natural links.
Have you ever used link bait? What methods have you used to encourage people to link to you? I’d love to hear your opinions below.
Jacob is the owner of BlogRevolter.com where he talks about topics such as building your social empire and WordPress SEO. Be sure to check him out on Twitter and Facebook.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Develop Your Link Bait Repertoire
Переслать - Find Out What Readers Think (and Feel) About Your Blog
Yesterday I shared a little exercise to help bloggers gain clarity around the branding of their blogs. The idea was to simply list what you want your readers to think and say about your blog.
Today I thought I’d share a followup exercise—one that I also do on my own blogs from time to time.
The idea of yesterday’s exercise was really to crystallize in your mind the type of brand you want to build. Doing this exercise can be powerful in framing how you move forward as a blogger, however the reality is that in most cases what you want your brand to be, and what it actually is, can be quite different.
So what is the reality, and how do you find out how people actually see your brand?
Copyright Yuri Arcurs - Fotolia.com
The simplest way to find out is to ask people—and that’s what we’re going to do today.
There are a variety of ways to do this. Let me suggest a few:
- Start a survey: One simple way to do this if your blog has regular readers already is to set up a simple survey using a tool like SurveyMonkey, and invite readers to fill it out. Design the survey to test the brand that you’re trying to build. Surveys can be particularly good because they offer participants anonymity, which can increase the likelihood of real and raw responses (just be ready for some honest and sometimes confronting answers).
- Email trusted readers: If your blog is smaller and you’re not confident of getting many survey responses, perhaps another method would be to email a few trusted readers—those that you do know read your blog. Even just a handful of responses from readers could give you valuable insights.
- Run a focus group: One blogger that I know recently held a small focus group with a group of local readers. She had them all meet at a cafe here in Melbourne and shouted the group morning tea in return for their insights into how she could improve her blog. The face-to-face interactions were not only great for getting feedback, but also building relationships with a few readers.
- Ask a friend: If your blog is really new, or you don’t know any of your readers to ask for feedback, why not ask a real-life friend to test your blog for you? Ask them to sit down at your blog, read over it for 15 minutes, and then give you feedback on what they think about it. Another thing you can do in this situation is actually watch your friend surf over your blog—don’t interrupt them, just watch how they use it. What navigation links do they click? What problems do they have leaving comments? This can be an illuminating experience.
However you do it, the key with this research is to try to get inside your readers heads, and learn about how they see your blog—particularly what lasting impressions they have of it.
Also keep in mind that brands have a lot to do with the feelings and emotions people have about your blog. So make sure you ask about those, too.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Find Out What Readers Think (and Feel) About Your Blog
Переслать - How Tim Ferriss Busted the Biggest Myth About Blog Success
This guest post is by Amy Porterfield of AmyPorterfield.com.
When it came to building my business with social media, I lived by the motto, “More is better.” I applied every social media strategy I learned, stacking plan after plan and idea after idea.
Then I read Tim Ferriss' new book. And everything changed.
With Tim's 4-Hour Body, I realized I was a sucker to yet another myth in my head just like I was when I was little and my mom used to tell me I couldn't swim for an hour after I ate or I would lose my lunch.
In his book, Tim talks about a concept called the minimum effective dose. He says the minimum effective dose is the smallest dose (a.k.a. activity) that will produce your desired outcome. In real-life terms, it's that sweet spot that is exactly enough, no more, no less, that gets the results you're after. It's that place where you can achieve the most dramatic results in the least amount of time possible. Anything beyond that point is a waste of your time.
Tim uses the example of boiled water. Boiled water is boiled water. There's no such thing as "more boiled." Make sense? Or if you go to the beach and you spend 15 minutes in the sun, you get a tan. But anything beyond those 15 minutes and maybe you start to burn. Once you pass a certain point, you actually can create setbacks. Essentially, doing too much can trip you up.
Then it hits me: with social media marketing, more is not better. In fact, more is worse.
Whether you are using social media to gain greater exposure for your blog, build awareness for a product or sell your services, it’s natural to want to do all you can to get results. But did you know that when you do too much, you could actually halt real progress? In fact, when you try to do too much, it can mess up your momentum and cost you profits and valuable relationships in your business.
How does this relate to your success?
To apply the minimum effective dose to your social media efforts, you first have to realize what may be a dirty truth: you're trying to do too much.
At some point, we’ve all been there—we try to be everything to everyone and make promises we can’t keep, schedule meetings on top of meetings and start new projects that never get finished. It’s human nature. The challenge is that when we take on too much, there’s no time to think things out—and you begin executing in a bubble, ignoring your intuition and making decisions that lack creativity and strategy.
The problem scenario: the social media junkie
One of my most recent clients was a self-proclaimed social media junkie. When it came to online networking, she did anything and everything to boost her online exposure. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, YouTube, FriendFeed, shiny new social apps, networking gadgets, widgets and tools, you name it, she was all over it. And if a new social media strategy was discovered, she was ready to implement at any time.
Not only was she overwhelmed, confused and stressed, but also she was not seeing results. After a few coaching sessions we discovered that her audience was not using Twitter, and rarely checked into their LinkedIn accounts. She instantly quit wasting her time on these networks.
Also, although she loved making videos, and hated writing blog posts, she was producing several written blogs posts a week because she thought the "hard work" would pay off. Since she was not confident with her writing, each post would take her three to five hours. The misconception that she needed to post multiple times a week was costing her time and money. After monitoring her blog we learned that her audience responded better to video blogs vs. written blogs. She stopped the written blog posts immediately and now posts videos multiple times a week, each taking her about 30 minutes to record, edit, and post.
She was doing too much and was completely sabotaging her success. When she took a step back and stopped "doing," she was able to see what was working and what was a waste of time. This insight was not clear until she finally stopped "doing" and stepped back to assess the situation.
The solution: create more white space
Harvard Business Review recently published an article called, This Space Intentionally Left White. To get an edge on the competition, the author suggests we “slow down to see more.” She goes on to say that we need to “radically alter a small moment of time each week—to schedule a time for doing nothing but thinking—and pay attention to what emerges in the absence of the noise of our normal activity.”
When you slow down and think about your next steps, things get a lot clearer. You are able to see the pockets of opportunity—and that is where your sweet spot, that minimum effective dose, starts to become more apparent. Setting time for the white space allows you to uncover the areas where you are doing too much and wasting your time—and easier, more strategic opportunities come to the surface.
Spacing out
Are you mired in too much? Make it a habit to find two hours a week where you do nothing but think, not do. No multi-tasking, no emails, no cell phones, no journaling. Just you and your thoughts. Think about where you come up with your best ideas—in the shower, or listening to music in the car—it's when you're likely doing an automated activity that allows you to just think.
And next time you get that overwhelming urge to take on yet another project, remember this myth buster: more is not better, it's just more. Choose your best dose instead—the minimum effective one.
Amy is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies and a social media strategist for entrepreneurs and small business owners. You can read her weekly blog here and check out her latest program, The Simple Social Media Formula, here.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
How Tim Ferriss Busted the Biggest Myth About Blog Success
Переслать - What Do You Want People to Say About Your Blog? A Blog Branding Exercise
“A brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”—Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder.
This quote gets pulled out a lot by bloggers (I’ve used it three times in the last week myself) but I wonder if it might be time to give it a little more intentional pondering as we think about the brands we are trying to build around our blogs.
Copyright Faber Visum - Fotolia.com
The brand of your blog is that lasting impression that people have of your blog. It’s the things people go away from your blog thinking—and, more importantly, talking about to others.
If this is the case, an important question to ask yourself as a blogger considering your brand is:
What do you want people to say about your blog?
Here’s a quick exercise that I’ve done recently that gave me a lot more clarity about what I’m building.
- Grab a sheet of paper, open a text document or mindmap, or go to a whiteboard.
- At the top write “What do I want people to say about my blog?”
- Spend ten to 15 minutes brainstorming answers to this question.
As you work on your answers think broadly about your blog. What do you want people to say about your content, the style you write in, your voice, the community and interaction on the blog, your approachability, etc.
Perhaps another way to ask the question is, “What words do you want people to use to describe my blog?”
Also pay attention to the feelings and emotions you want people to have while they’re on your blog. My suspicion is that feelings and emotions are a big part of a brand. Do you want people to feel:
- a sense of belonging
- content and happy
- intellectually stimulated
- that they’re not alone
- informed
- …or something else?
When I recently did this exercise for myself (I did it for my main two blogs), it gave me a lot more clarity about the types of brands I’m attempting to build. I hope that this, in turn, will help me communicate that to others, and actually make those goals a reality.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
What Do You Want People to Say About Your Blog? A Blog Branding Exercise
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