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What Content Attracts You to Read a Blog?
I am seeing an increase in blogs that are focused on self-promotion or being used as a sales engine to sell a particular service offering or product. Is this the preferred content over a thought leadership blog that is non-sales focused?
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8 Answers
Hi Carlos,
You ask what content attracts me to a blog. Some of this is personal preference. For example, I do not like a blog that is too long, less than 1000 words. Also, I like highly pragmatic blogs that provide advice/tools/templates/examples etc. on whatever topic is being discussed.
Relevance: Of course, I'm only going to read blogs that are relevant to my information needs. Its my job to finds these blogs but its the blogger job to stay on topic.
Lastly, and this may seem a bit anal, but I find blogs with headings, sub-headings, frequent paragraph breaks, SOME bolded text and bullet points to be easier (and more inviting) to read. That's not a content thing but why not make a blog visually inviting to read in addition to intellectually satisfying.
I will tolerate some "self promotion" in a blog, but not more than 10% to 15% of the content.
All the best
Geoff Vincent
CEO
http://www.bizcompare.com
No way. Thought leadership instills trust and a following. Anything salesy is an immediate turn off.
My take? It's a fine line ... and it depends. If it's a business-related blog, there must be purpose to the blog, and typically that purpose ends in some sort of ROI. Said another way, business people usually do not do things that don't have some potential benefit to the doer. That said, self-promotion should be an underlying current, not the main focus, IMHO. So if we're not doing a little self-promotion, we're doing ourselves a disservice. But if we flip the table and do too much promoting of self, then we are out of balance and will suffer the consequence, as Gay Bitter points out. In general, the over-riding purpose of a professional blog should be to communicate and educate, to add value in a searchable, share-able, and engaging way, understanding that reader comments are often more interesting and useful than the original post.
People, myself included, are craving and consuming good, thought-proving content on subjects we are interested in. IMHO, a blog worth commenting on is a blog worth following, just like an ad-hoc discussion at an industry conference is worth joining in on, in contrast with a self-promoting rant or sales pitch where you wander by, listen in for a few minutes, catch the drift, and then move on.
It's all common sense. Here's my blog if you want to give me some feedback on how I'm doing on this topic... http://www.webwisedom.com
Golden rule: "Content is the King". People look for quality content. Find a way to monitor traffic of various blogs on the same site - you'll see there high correlation.... but, also make sure you compare blogs falling into the same category. e.g. cloud computing, sports cars, mobile phones, etc.
After having written almost 1000 blog posts and been recognized for blogging, I can assure that quality content is always important. If you want credibility for yourself or company, don't fall into the temptation of selling on your blog. Use the blog as an outlet to express thought leadership.
Blogs that use excessive self-promotion quickly become uninteresting to readers. On the other hand, quality content takes hard work and attracts serious readers. Writing good content on a consistent basis is hard, which is why so few blogs actually do it well.
First things first, find a target market of people who are interested in your subject. If you're in health and wellness, find people that are interested in that subject. Social Media sites like facebook and tritter are great places to start.
Once you find that, you have to have some type of subject that everyone in that target market is talking about. Once you do that, you want to have an attractive subject line. You can use a headline analyzer for that. Here is a free website you can use http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm
For sure, it's the headline. I see a headline I like and read it.
Yes the headline is key.
Then provide the unanticipated solution to a common business problem.
Keep each post short 300 to 500 words max. Few readers will plow through more. Yet the self important waffle in many blogs indicates that most bloggers just don't get it.
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