blogging tip

Bloggers, Its Time To Forget those Metrics

by Melvin · Jun 3, 2010

Each and every blogger who is just getting started is usually being taught about the different metrics and how each of those play a certain role on their blog. The metrics I’m pertaining to are: the Google Pagerank, the Alexa rank, the Technorati authority, the feed subscriber count, and even being included in those top 100 lists. From a hindsight, isn’t it exciting to witness each metric of your blog improve and attribute it to your blog’s growth?

Well, we cannot dismiss the fact that these metrics change as our blog’s popularity change but we should always not be too concerned with that or else we are going to harm our blog. I remember when my blog was just getting started. In 2 months I received a pr2 ranking and was like jumping up and down with excitement. I was really really ecstatic back then and thought I was hardcore.

Not too long after that, the blog was slapped back to pr0. I remember I even did a rant post claiming that Google was making a mistake of slapping my rankings. Funny enough the reasoning behind that was simple. I was selling links, doing black hat type of stuffs and just being bad. In short, I was not complying with Google”s guidelines.

Today I no longer care with Metrics

I bet that even people tell they don’t care that much with those ranking stuffs, they are still baffled. That was what I was like back then. I mean I was puzzled why these blogs have good Alexa rank yet they receive very few to no comments at all. Why is mine just in the 200k?

The main reason I actually stopped caring about those things is that its not helping me and my blog at all! I mean instead of focusing on producing good content to my readers, I would instead search ways on how to game Alexa or instead of marketing my blog more, I would research on why my blog is pr0.

Eventually I said “buggy this, I would stop being concerned with all these stuffs, instead I would just do what I would need to do”. And that was like the turning point for me from being an overly-conscious metric guy to being a real blogger.

If you’re still unaware, it’s about building relationships.

I always like to tell newcomers in blogging that its about connecting to your readers, building that relationship. It doesn’t happen overnight but instead on focusing on useless things, we as bloggers have to focus more on making that bond with other bloggers.

The thing about blogging is that it is such a friendly atmosphere. In fact we treat other bloggers as peers when in fact they are our competitors. That doesn’t happen in real world businesses.

So that’s the main point of this post. the metrics are good, sure it can feed our ego well, we can boast it in forums claiming ‘hey I have a better pr than you” or whatever. But at the end of the day, blogging is a person-to person relationship, not technology and script driven activity.

Can you sell your own product just because you have a high Alexa and pagerank? Does it mean you’re credible just because you’re in the top 500 list of some random guy? Naah! But when you build those relationships with your readers w/c are your potential customers, you don’t even need a thousand of people a day. All you need is a fraction of that. Believe me.

Don’t Wait to be Perfect in Blogging

by Melvin · Apr 6, 2010

We all want to be perfect. We want to look perfect while going to any party, we want to be perfect while playing video games, and we want to be perfect if we are cooking something. We just want to be perfect in whatever we do, so that we can prove how much superior and efficient we are than our peers. And, the same rule applies to the blogging. Time and time again, I see bloggers who got struck in the vicious cycle of creating a perfect blog and eventually lose focus from their real objectives. So, in this article I’ll try to convince you that you shouldn’t wait to be perfect in blogging.

1. Improvement is more important

Don’t expect too much, too quickly because it will just increase your frustration. I’ve seen many bloggers who wants to be perfect from the first day. And due to this, they put so much pressure on themselves that they completely ignore the improvement that occurred in them over the period of time. Perfection is a never ending process, so don’t think a lot about it and focus on improving your skills.

2. Success depends on efforts

You can’t control the perfection but you can control your efforts. The more efforts you are ready to put into your blog, the more successful you’ll be. It is a myth, that to be successful you need to be perfect. How many successful guys are completely perfect in their jobs? How many successful guys know everything about their niche? I don’t think even one of them knows everything about his field. What makes them successful is the huge amount of efforts they put in to their job.

3. Criticism is good

Criticism or rejection helps you to identify your weak points which you were not aware of and provide you with an opportunity to make yourself much better. So if you just want to be perfect before you are afraid of criticism then think again. Don’t wait for your content to be perfect, go out with what you’ve and learn to take all kind of criticism.

4. Just Do It

It’s a Nike slogan, but really a great advice. Don’t hesitate to execute your plans even if they are not perfect. I’ve seen many persons having great ideas about product, website but they never execute it because they feel their plan/product still needs some more tweaks. As the result, most of those plans never get executed. Execution is more important than perfection. Don’t wait for your plan to be perfect because you don’t know how people are going to react in reality. The greatest example of this is Microsoft; they never waited for a perfect operating system. They came out with the basic version of windows in 1985 and are still trying to improving their product without sacrificing their sales.

5. Sometimes it’s better not to be perfect

When you are perfect (popular) in your niche, then you start attracting lot of unwanted attention towards yourself. People start having huge expectations from you, your failures get more criticized, you’ve more enemies etc. So, in a way your decisions start getting influenced by the opinions of others. But when you are not perfect, you are free to do whatever you want to do and how you want to do.

So these are the five points due to which I think that why you shouldn’t wait to be perfect. As I know that I’m not a perfect and there is lot that I’ve to learn. So, please share your opinions in the comments below.

Gagandeep Singh is a Freelance writer working for conversion rate optimization company Invesp.

Do You Know You’re a Boring Blogger?

by Melvin · Jan 5, 2010

The number 1 advice people always say to you to succeed in blogging is that you need to create good and high quality content. So there ya go! Because of it you’re forced to write articles like a freelancer, you’re fed into acting like you need to be like Darren Rowse and stuffs. The end result, you become a boring blogger.

Most people get it wrong by thinking that writing top-notch content is all about the perfectness of the grammar, the formality of how words are written and just sounding absolutely professional. Believe me it’s not! The problem with most bloggers is that they try to be perfect and because of that, they sound like a robot. It’s just like reading an article in a monotonous tone. Try reading books in your school library and you’ll know what I mean.

Ironically sometimes, you don’t realize that you’re starting to bore your readers to death. Results? A decline from just about everything (readers, subscribers, traffic , etc). Anyways here I compiled a list why you might be or starting to become a boring blogger:

You sound like a lawyer – and you don’t need to. I don’t know but professional blogging for me is not really about being professional words-wise or with the proper grammar and stuffs. Pro Blogging is about treating blogging as a serious business. So if you’re a 15 year old kid who’s trying to sound like your teacher, then you’re not helping your blog.
Generic Articles – generic articles is a really big NO NO. Or at least minimize it. Generic articles is like the ones that has been tackled 300 million of times and you still tackled it and talked it in a none unique way. Articles like “how to earn money from blogging” or “Make Money By starting a blog”. You see, it’s hard not to regurgitate a topic. But you make it unique from the rest by adding something unique and breaking it down to more specific topics.
Transformed into a news site – Blogs like TechCrunch can certainly do this considering the audience that they have right now but smaller bloggers SHOULD NOT. I see a lot of bloggers just writing the same news on their blogs w/c really adds 0 value. Just because Dennis Yu is popular, does it mean you have to write about him too?
All Promotional stuffs – I guess we can blame a guy named John Chow for this? lols. It turns me off so much when I see someone promotes a product for the obvious sake of just earning a commission. How many times do you see someone make a clickbank product writeup and then recommend it to people w/o even him knowing what the product is really all about? Booooring stuff!

There’s nothing wrong in being quirky and putting some humor in your posts. At least in this way, you don’t get to have them have the impression that you’re a lame, boring blogger that makes “robot-ish” sounding articles. By not being that, you are easily separating yourself away from 70% of the bloggers. What do you think? Does this article make any sense to you?