Tracking Your Website and Blog Stats: What You Can Learn

Thursday, January Post a comment

“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect.
There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions.
So what. Get started now.
With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.”
—Mark Victor Hansen

I checked the NAIWE website stats for the first week in July, and member Noelle Barrick’s blog post, “Adventures in Freelance Teaching, or How to Use Cuss Words to Your Advantage” is the top post among the linked NAIWE blogs.

The second highest post in traffic is a NAIWE blog announcement, “Poem-a-Day Challenge,” and the third highest is my post on “What do you value most about the freedom to work independently?” Together, these posts have brought hundreds of eyes to the NAIWE site in the past seven days.

The numbers are interesting all by themselves, but why should you care? You should care because traffic means eyeballs. Noelle’s post has attracted 186 sets of eyeballs to her site in the past week. From the blog post, visitors get an idea of her writing style, and they can click right over to look at her professional profile. Noelle’s chances of being contacted to quote on a job increase every time someone visits her site. Every single time.

By taking the time to write an interesting and creative post, Noelle has accomplished far more than she’d ever achieve by a boring and static “brochure about me” post. Her post will be there for as long as she’s a NAIWE member, and it will continue to draw visitors. Those who enjoy it enough to bookmark it and return will build her traffic, and when they need a copywriter, who do you think they’ll think of?

The best part about traffic-attracting posts like the three mentioned above is that, ultimately, they bring visitors to all of us. A reader may first stop at Noelle’s post and profile, but from there, they may click on the NAIWE logo to visit the home page and the rest of the site, and perhaps browse through the searchable database to visit your profile and read your blog. The site is designed with search engine optimization in mind so that each post is quickly indexed in the search engines and can begin bringing in traffic within hours (occasionally even minutes).

Is your NAIWE site ready? Are you making the most of your biggest NAIWE benefit? Or will visitors to your site find the original welcome text that is designed to help you make your first posts? If you joined NAIWE just to have an association membership to enhance your professional credibility, having an empty site may be fine. However, if you’re hoping to build your professional reputation or attract new clients, you need to have something on the site to introduce yourself and your books or services. Posting to your NAIWE blog doesn’t take long — just log in to your blog today and get started!

Janice Campbell is the former executive director of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors. She has been a freelance writer, editor, coach, and speaker since the late 1980s.

Blog Strategically: How to Get it Done and Get it Read

Monday, December Post a comment

“What a waste of time,” grumbled a writer at a recent conference. He was responding to yet another speaker’s suggestion that a blog is one of the simplest and best marketing tools for an author or freelancer. I’ve gotten used to hearing complaints, excuses, and grumbling whenever blogs are mentioned, but I’ve also noticed how fast the whining dries up the first time a fan or client approaches and starts a dialogue by mentioning, “I read on your blog. . . .”

For every writer or editor who sees the blogosphere as the anonymous, overwhelming clacking of a billion voices, there’s another who is quietly and effectively using a blog to communicate with readers and clients or as a thought-catcher, catalog of ideas, or a place to judge interest in a possible article or book topic. A blog can be used in any way you choose, but the two most important things you need to do are to get it done and get it read.

Get It Done

Decide the purpose of your blog. Do you want to establish a rapport with readers? Sell books? Get new clients for your writing or editing services? Your decision will help you determine your tone and what you write about.
Decide when and how often you’ll post. I recommend no less than once a week, so that your readers will have something to look forward to. Try to post on the same day each week, and remember that mid-day Tuesday–Thursday is usually the best time to post. People are often too busy to read blogs on Monday, and on Friday, they’re looking forward to the weekend, and not ready to do anything extra.
Decide what to write about. If you’re going to post once a week, you’ll need 52 short articles. Get a calendar with all major holidays marked, and begin listing topics on your chosen blog day. You can use a holiday as a springboard for posts; offer news about your book sales or your business; review other books your readers might find interesting; share news from the publishing or freelance world; whine a bit about your current project (this is recommended only if you do so in a funny way); share a great quote or poem; and so much more. If you’re stuck for a topic, post something you wrote long ago, write a response to someone else’s blog, or just post an inspiring quote.

Get It Read

Feedburner: Your blog posts can be sent directly to subscriber mailboxes using Feedburner, a Google service. Add your blog feed, then click on its title to get to the screen where you can “Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize, and Troubleshootize” your feed. Take a little time to look at the options offered, and use these free tools to send your feed to where it can be read.
Blog Carnival: A blog carnival is a gathering of blog posts on a single topic such as writing, business, or organization. Search the blog carnival site for carnivals you’d like to contribute to, then click on “Submit a Post,” and fill out the brief form. Your post will be included (at the carnival owner’s discretion) in the next issue of the carnival. If you choose an active carnival that is posted regularly, this can bring your blog to the attention of many new readers who may in turn share it with others.
Incoming Links: Links are the lifeline of any website, and blogs are well-positioned to benefit from them. If you have a NAIWE blog, you already have a head start on incoming links, but you’ll want to gather more by announcing each of your blog posts on social media. Some of the simplest and most useful links come from sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious. You can use as service such as Hootsuite or Edgar to pre-schedule updates so that they’re optimally spaced. (To view the social media sites listed above, just type each name into your browser bar and add .com.)

There are other ways to get your blog read, including blog tours, guest blogging, webrings, and blogroll exchanges, but the first three options will get you started.

Great Blog Examples

It’s a good idea to study successful blogs to see what makes them work. Remember, though, that each of these blogs has been up for a long time, so there’s enough content to draw readers. You can’t start with a hundred posts, but you can start with one, and build from there. Little by little, bit by bit, you’ll create a site that connects you with readers and clients, and meets the objectives you set when you began planning. Here are four blogs that offer very different examples. Enjoy reading, then plan your own and get started.

Seth Godin writes a long-standing blog that supports his nonfiction writing career. He’s created a vast following for his interesting posts, and that’s translated to great sales for each of his books. Here’s a good sample post: When a stranger reads your blog.

Copyblogger is where blogger Brian Clark shares his expertise in frequent, information-packed posts. He also hosts guest bloggers, which a good way for a blogger to add fresh content without having to write it all.

QueryShark is the blog where agent Janet Reid shreds reader queries. It’s definitely blood-in-the-water writing, and it gives you a strong taste of Reid’s personality and working style. She does it all in a spirit of helpfulness, and you’ll learn a lot by reading it. For Reid, it’s not just an act of charity or wicked fun—it’s smart marketing that draws potential clients like flies to a sticky bun.

Rachelle Gardner, another literary agent, offers a kinder, gentler tone on her blog on all things related to publishing. Her site is professional, attractive, and consistent.

Beyond these examples, be sure to look at the blog feed of the NAIWE member blogs.

Janice Campbell is the former executive director of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors. She has been a freelance writer, editor, coach, and speaker since the late 1980s.

20 Secrets of Blogging Success

Saturday, December Post a comment

Ever wonder how successful bloggers got where they are? If you’d like to start or improve your own blog and turn it into a really useful tool for growing your business, below are 20 tips I’ve distilled from my own experience in growing a blog into a Top 10 Blog for Writers.

I recently did a free blog-review day and took a look at about 30 writers’ blogs. This gave me a good sense of some of the common mistakes new bloggers make.

The tips from 1 to 13 will help you use your blog as an audition piece to get freelance blogging gigs. Tips 14–20 concentrate on ways to turn your blog into a money-earning business of its own.

Your blog has a great name, tagline, and URL. Your URL matches your blog name, and between the name and tagline, it’s easy to understand what your blog is about.

You write great post headlines with key words. Work hard on your headlines. They are your hook for luring readers to your site. Learn how to write compelling ones by reading the Psychotactics report Why Do Some Headlines Fail?

You write strong opening paragraphs. Remember that many search engines will show the first few sentences of your post, so make them catchy and include key words.

You understand blog style. Blogging truly is its own format. It’s different from a magazine or newspaper article. Blogs need to be scannable, short, informal, and to the point. The posts contain links to other useful, related information, both within your blog site and on other credible sites. Good blog posts use short sentences and paragraphs. Using bulleted or numbered lists is also a great way to get your blog noticed.

You understand blog mechanics. There are some basics you should learn to make your blog posts appealing and useful to readers, including how to enliven links properly, add photographs, code images, and link to sales carts.

Your design is uncluttered and inviting. For instance, you don’t have a black background, tiny typefaces, a left-hand sidebar or multiple righthand sidebars.

You have a great About page. Typically, your About page will be the most-visited page on your site. Tell a compelling story there about who you are and why you’re blogging.

Your posts focus on what your blog’s readers need to know. Many bloggers just post about whatever’s on their minds. Great bloggers are constantly asking their audience what they need to know, through polls or contests, and then delivering exactly that.

You post consistently. Even if you only post once a week, you post on the same day of the week, at the same time of day. That way, readers can come to rely on you.

You stick to a niche. You pick one topic and blog exclusively about it. If you have multiple subject areas of interest, start multiple blogs. With the plethora of blogs out there today, the more focused your niche is, the better you’ll tend to do.

You have testimonials. Particularly if you’re looking to get hired off your blog, be sure to include raves from customers.

You have a Hire Me page. If you want gigs, don’t be shy. Let visitors know you do work for others. Have your clips well-organized on your blog site on a static page, and make sure clips are clickable links to your stories. If they’re not online, get your clips turned into PDFs and load them onto your site.

You engage your audience. Good bloggers aren’t know-it-alls; they ask readers for their point of view. You also ask readers to be guest posters, to give them the spotlight. Showing good engagement on your blog can help you get gigs moderating others’ blogs for pay.

Your content is easy to share. Your social-media share buttons for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. are easy to find and use. You also use them yourself, promoting your blog posts in social media.

You guest post and leave comments on popular blogs. Circulating on other blogs is a great way to draw new readers to your own blog.

You make it easy for visitors to subscribe. Ideally, your subscription form should be simple and visible “above the fold” — ideally, right at the top of your sidebar. Don’t make readers hunt for it.

You have a funnel of products to sell.Top-earning bloggers have a variety of products at price points from low to high. For instance, a $9 ebook, a $47 ebook, a $97 course, and a $500 bootcamp. The lower-priced products act as marketing tools that motivate readers to want to buy your higher-priced products.

You know how to affiliate sell. Once you attract an audience, you can sell products they would find useful. On this blog, I have taken the approach of only selling products and tools I personally use and recommend. It’s a way to sell with integrity that works for me and doesn’t feel sleazy.

You don’t clutter up your home page with too many ads. If your ads aren’t earning much, take them down. They may be a turnoff for viewers. An alternative is to group them on a separate Products I Love page.

You persist. It takes time to build a following, often a couple of years. Keep at it and don’t give up before it pays off.

Carol Tice is a freelance writer who focuses on writing and ghostwriting business books and e-books. She’s written for Delta Sky, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Seattle Magazine, Costco, American Express, Shopify, Freshbooks, and many others. Carol founded the award-winning Make a Living Writing blog in 2008, which has been repeatedly named to Writer’s Digest’s Top 101 Blogs for Writers list. It now offers over 1,000 free posts on how to break in and grow your writing income. Her Freelance Writers Den learning and support community was founded in 2011 and has over 1,000 members. Carol has taught over 20 online courses and self-published 10+ e-book titles for freelance writers. She’s also the author/coauthor of two traditionally published business books for entrepreneurs.

5 Characteristics of an Effective, Catchy Blog Post Title

Wednesday, January Post a comment

A blog post’s title has an important job: to get someone to read the post.

It holds that huge responsibility on the shoulders of about 60 to 70 characters—not a lot. That means you have to get creative to make sure every word, letter, space, and punctuation mark in your headline is totally necessary and carries its fair weight.

What makes a good blog headline depends largely on the context where a reader sees it—as they scroll through social media, search on Google, browse your email newsletter, or peruse your website, for example.

But some characteristics of good titles apply across platforms.

Regardless of the platform where you promote a blog post, the title should:

Be eye-catching: Your first hurdle is to catch a potential reader’s attention on the platform where you promote a blog post. Your article title competes with everything else the reader will encounter on the platform, so it has to stand out—what we call a “thumb stopper.”
Make a promise: What will a reader get out of reading your post? The title should tell them not just what you know a post is about but exactly how it’ll serve them.
Leave a curiosity gap: Now you have to get a click. If your headline gives away—or appears to give away—the main points of your post, readers have no reason to click through and learn more. Make the promise clear enough to pique interest, but leave enough questions in the reader’s head to get them to read more.
Be honest: Whatever promises you make and questions you raise in the headline, you must follow through in the blog post. Don’t be salacious just to get a click; it’ll cost you trust with the reader.
Encompass the post: Consider your blog post a hierarchy with the title at the top—it should be a comprehensive explanation of the post. If the title only teases a single detail from the post, you’ll likely exclude some readers and disappoint others.

Dana Sitar has been writing and editing for digital media since 2011, most recently as a copy editor for fintech and personal finance. She trains journalists, writers, and editors on writing for the web through sessions at the annual ACES editors’ conference, Utah Valley University, online courses, and private trainings. Dana has written about work and writing in digital media for publications including the New York Times, HuffPost, a column for Inc. Magazine, and dozens of writing and content marketing blogs. As a branded content editor for The Penny Hoarder, Dana managed a team of writers, editors, and social media experts to create multimedia branded content to help advertisers reach an audience of 12 million across platforms including social media, email, blog, and video.

20 Secrets to Blogging Success

Sunday, March Post a comment

I recently did a free blog-review day and took a look at about 30 different writers’ blogs. This gave me a good sense of some of the common mistakes new bloggers make.

Tips 1–13 will help you use your blog as an audition piece to get freelance blogging gigs. Tips 14–20 concentrate on ways to turn your blog into a money-earning business of its own.

Your blog has a great name, tagline, and URL. Your URL matches your blog name, and between the name and tagline, it’s easy to understand what your blog is about.

You write great post headlines with keywords. Work hard on your headlines; they are your hook for luring readers to your site.

You write strong opening paragraphs. Remember that many search engines will show the first few sentences of your post, so make them catchy and include keywords.

You understand blog style. Blogging truly is its own format. It’s different from a magazine or newspaper article. Blogs need to be scannable, short, informal, and to the point. The posts contain links to other useful, related information, both within your blog site and on other credible sites. Good blog posts use short sentences and paragraphs. Using bulleted or numbered lists is also a great way to get your blog noticed.

You understand blog mechanics. There are some basics you should learn to make your blog posts appealing and useful to readers, including how to enliven links properly, add photographs, code images, and link to sales carts.

Your design is uncluttered and inviting. For instance, you don’t have a black background, tiny typefaces, a left-hand sidebar, or multiple right-hand sidebars.

You have a great About page. Typically, your About page will be the most-visited page on your site. Tell a compelling story there about who you are and why you’re blogging.

Your posts focus on what your blog’s readers need to know. Many bloggers just post about whatever’s on their minds. Great bloggers are constantly asking their audience what they need to know, through polls or contests, and then delivering exactly that.

You post consistently. Even if you only post once a week, you post on the same day of the week, at the same time of day. That way, readers can come to rely on you.

You stick to a niche. You pick one topic and blog exclusively about it. If you have multiple subject areas of interest, start multiple blogs. With the plethora of blogs out there today, the more focused your niche is, the better you will do.

You have testimonials. Particularly if you’re looking to get hired off your blog, be sure to include raves from customers.

You have a Hire Me page. If you want gigs, don’t be shy; let visitors know you do work for others. Have your clips well-organized on your blog site on a static page, and make sure clips are clickable links to your stories. If they’re not online, get your clips turned into PDFs and load them onto your site.

You engage your audience. Good bloggers aren’t know-it-alls; they ask readers for their point of view. You also ask readers to be guest posters occasionally, to give them the spotlight. Showing good engagement on your blog can help you get gigs moderating others’ blogs for pay.

Your content is easy to share. Your social-media share buttons for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. are easy to find and use. You also use them yourself, promoting your blog posts in social media.

You guest post and leave comments on popular blogs. Circulating on other blogs is a great way to draw new readers to your own blog.

You make it easy for visitors to subscribe. Ideally, your subscription form should be simple and visible “above the fold”—ideally, right at the top of your sidebar. Don’t make readers hunt for it.

You have a funnel of products to sell. Top-earning bloggers have a variety of products at price points from low to high. For instance, a $9 e-book, a $47 e-book, a $97 course, and a $500 boot camp. The lower-priced products act as marketing tools that motivate readers to want to buy your higher-priced products.

You know how to affiliate sell. Once you attract an audience, you can sell products they would find useful. It’s a way to sell with integrity.

You don’t clutter up your home page with too many ads. If your ads aren’t earning much money, take them down. They’re a turnoff for viewers. An alternative is to group them on a separate Products I Love page.

You persist. It takes time to build a following, often a couple of years. Keep at it.

Tracking Your Website and Blog Stats: What You Can Learn

Blog Strategically: How to Get it Done and Get it Read

Get It Done

Get It Read

Great Blog Examples

20 Secrets of Blogging Success

5 Characteristics of an Effective, Catchy Blog Post Title

20 Secrets to Blogging Success

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