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Sugar, Spice and Vitamins: Three Types of Posts that Will Grow Your Blogs Traffic

Posted: 16 Jan 2009 06:01 AM PST

What type of content helps to build a popular blog? Today Jurgen Appelo from Noop.nl shares three types of posts to help you grow your blog.

There are many ways to build a popular blog, and each blog author has his own ideas on topics and style of writing. In this post I will tell you about my personal recipe for blogs. I call it sugar, spice & vitamins.

Vitamins

The vitamins are the blog posts that are important for regular readers. They are about becoming a better manager, making life more joyful, having a less stressful job, or learning all there is to know about guinea pigs, motorcycles, Britney Spears, or miniature villages made of toothpicks. In short, the vitamin posts are the essential ingredients for your blog to build and grow around a certain theme or niche. My own blog is aimed at software development managers (probably a smaller niche than miniature villages made of toothpicks). So my “vitamin posts” have topics like How to Select a Fine Technical Manager and To Motivate People… Balance Your Practices.

But how do I get people to consume vitamins?

Well, just imagine that you’re trying to interest consumers in eating savory pies. Waving at people with healthy carrots and sticks of celery will probably not be received with much enthusiasm. People might care about vitamins, but what really gets them motivated is usually something else…

Sugar

People might say they are interested in your important blog posts, but it’s easier to get their attention with sugar posts. Your blog should have just the right amount of sugar to get people interested. The sugar in your blog are the posts that make people’s mouths water from pure delight. You write these posts with the sole purpose of making your blog easier to consume. Some of my “sugar posts” were Top 100 Best Books for Managers, Leaders & Humans and Top 100 Blogs for Developers.

But why always the number 100 in these posts?

Because 100 is bigger than 25. And bigger than 50. And it’s the first number to require no less than three digits. The posts I mentioned here have been huge traffic generators for my blog. I believe that list size and traffic volume have a non-linear relationship. A top 100 list doesn’t give you four times as much traffic as a top 25 list. It gives you ten times as much! (I even created an article called How to Create a Top Blog List, so that you can enjoy similar results for your blog.)

You can think of other and better ways of attracting new readers. But remember! We’re talking about sugar posts here. They only exist to attract new consumers and to make them digest the vitamins as well. Go easy on the sugar! You don’t want your blog to turn into a cotton candy machine.

Spice

You may notice that vitamins and sugar will not be sufficient to keep people interested for long. You need a finishing touch. Something to spruce up your endless stream of healthy and sweet content. I call this last ingredient the spice posts. The spices give your blog flavor and personality. These are the blog posts that can trigger heated debates. Everyone likes sugar, and nobody dislikes vitamins. But it’s the spices that will have people talking about you. Some of my “spiced posts” were Thank You, Stupid Americans and Professionalism = Knowledge First, Experience Last.

But won’t these posts scare away my readers?

Yes, some of them perhaps. I’ve written posts that made people laugh, scream and cry. Figuratively speaking of course. (And some of their replies made me laugh, scream and cry.) It’s the spices that will divide your readers. Some people will hate them. But many will come back for more, because they won’t find those particular flavors anywhere else.

Sugar, Spice & Vitamins

Exactly one year after I started, my blog now has 2,500 feed subscribers, and 1,000 visits per day. That’s not bad for a blog about an extremely boring topic like software development management. And I attribute the success to my sugar, spice & vitamins recipe. The sugar attracts new readers, the vitamins keep everyone healthy, and the spices make it all the more interesting.

So… have you figured out what kind of post this is?

Images by Fred Armitage, Darwin Bell and Riv.

Tags: Writing Content

How has the response been to the release of Online Profits?

The response was good. It was above my expectations, especially because I opted for a very clean and fact-based sales page.

We had close to 50 registered members at the end of the first day. My initial aim was to get 100 members on the site within the first week, because that is a good number of people to work with. I am sure we will cross that mark by Friday.

Getting mentioned on Problogger was paramount to that success though. In fact after reading your post I was twice as motivated to put a lot of hard work into the training program, making it worth for all the people that will follow your recommendation.

What’s been the #1 (or 2) question or concern that people have expressed about it and what’s your answer been?

The main question that people had was: “Why should I join the training program if there is so many freely available information around the web?”

I won’t deny that there is a lot of good and free information on the Internet. Problogger is perhaps the best example around. I started reading it back in 2006, and it certainly made a big difference on my “blogging career.”

Sometimes, however, people don’t have the time or the skills to find, organize and interpret all that free information and to transform it into a structured learning environment and into action plans.

That is where ebooks, books and training programs come into play. For example, back in 2006 when I started learning about SEO, instead of going around looking for bits of information here and there, I purchased the SEO Book from Aaron wall and read through it. The time that it saved me was well worth the money I spent for it, and I was also secure that the information was reliable.

Secondly, when you purchase an educational product or join a training program, you will be more motivated to act instead of just learn. You paid for the information after all, so you better do something with it! You will also be in a situation where you are encouraged to take action, both from the fellow members and from the mentors.

Another question that was asked frequently was: “Will I have access immediately to all the training modules?”

The answer is no. For this first launch we opted to make the training modules available gradually, so you will inevitably need to wait to access the advanced ones. The reason for this structure is to not overload the members with all the information at the same time (which is a recipe for making people not apply the knowledge that they will gain).

Over the last year there have been quite a few courses released that have had similar subjects to Online Profits - what’s different about this one?

Yes there are many eBooks and courses that teach Internet marketing. Most people that write about Internet marketing or “making money online,” however, do not earn that much. That is why I made an effort to bring credible names to this project.

I wanted the lessons to be written by people that have experience with real projects.

Additionally, I also think that Online Profits is unique in terms of content broadness. There are good training programs out there if you just want to learn SEO (SEO Book), if you want to learn how to make money blogging (Blog Mastermind) and so on.

For the people that want to get a complete understanding of Internet marketing (e.g., from setting up a website to optizing WordPress, from PPC to affiliate and email marketing), however, Online Profits could be more suitable.

The thing that I love about what you’ve pulled together is that you’ve managed to draw together a fairly amazing group of people. How did you get them all to agree to participate?

First of all I only approached people whose work I respect, and I explained my plan to them: to create an Internet Marketing training program that will be credible and worth for the members.

In other words, I wanted to create something that would add value to the Internet, and not simply to generate some quick bucks for the rest of us.

I believe that was the main motivator for them to join, even because most of those guys already make some killer money online, and financial benefits don’t speak to them.

What you’ve done with Online Profits is to leverage your current blog and profile to launch this course. Many bloggers aspire to do this - what advice do you have for them?

First of all you need to give before you ask. Before launching the training program I worked on my blog for 2 years, published over 1,000 posts, and attracted over 16,000 RSS readers (over 30,000 if you count all my blogs).

Secondly, I have also done all that with a genuine interest in helping other people, not expecting anything in return. When I started Daily Blog Tips, my only goal was to share the tips and tricks that I learned with previous blogs and websites. Period.

I guess if I had started my projects with the sole goal of making money people would have noticed it, and perhaps they would be less inclined to read what I had to share with them.

What’s your best tip for bloggers starting out today?

Let me try to summarize it in one sentence: create something you will be proud of.

Practically speaking, create value for other people, publish unique and useful content, network with fellow bloggers, give before you ask, and have fun along the way!

Check out the Online Profits course - it’s 50% off until the end of the week!

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Why Video IS Worth Experimenting with On Your Blog

Posted: 15 Jan 2009 06:03 AM PST

Earlier in the week I wrote a post arguing that Text is King in the online space which caused some interesting discussion (both in the comments and on Twitter).

While I did try to qualify the post by saying that I do think video has its place and that it’ll continue to grow as a medium, particularly in some demographics, some people saw my post as me ‘writing off’ video.

So today I wanted to write a short post giving three reasons why I do believe in video and will continue to use it on my blogs. I won’t do it exclusively (ie I’ll primarily be investing my time into text) but I do believe that it’s a great compliment to the written form of communication that I focus upon.

Video Gives You a Voice and Face - perhaps the biggest thing that I noticed when I started posting videos here at ProBlogger was that I noticed readers interacting with me in a different way. Suddenly the emails I received had a more personal edge. Strangers started emailing me using a tone and language that was more familiar - as if they knew me. At first I didn’t realize what was happening - but after a while I realized that people felt like they ‘knew’ me. This happens with text as well - but video has a way of showing your personality. It shows your face and lets people hear your voice as it really is. This ‘personal’ aspect is powerful.
Video Connects with Different Personalities and Learning Styles - another thing that I noticed when I started using video was that I started getting comments on video posts from people I’d never heard of before. I started getting comments that would start with - ‘I’ve been reading your blog for 12 months but never commented before but just wanted to say…..’. We all have different learning styles and personalities - some of us learn better by hearing and seeing - while others by reading. Video appeals to a different crowd and can potentially widen your audience.
Video Opens Up Opportunities to Illustrate Certain Principles in Creative Ways - some things are very difficult to communicate in the written word. There are just some times when you need a tone of voice or body language to be able to ’show’ people what you mean. Video allows you to do this. It also opens up different ways of illustrating the principles you’re talking about. For example in my last video on First Impressions I started the video with a little sequence that illustrated what I went on to talk about - that sequence was commented upon by many and wouldn’t have been achievable with text (or at least not in the way I did it).

Should you write off video? No way! It is definitely a medium that I feel is worth experimenting with (and so far it seems 67% of you have been doing just that if our latest poll is anything to go by).

I guess all I was trying to say with my last post is that just because video is on the rise doesn’t mean that Text is dead. I think it is here to stay and will remain ‘king’ for quite some time yet!

Text, Video, Audio and other forms of communication online all have their place and can all be powerful. I find them especially powerful when you combine them rather than focus upon one - (but that’s partly just my style). Choosing your mediums and working out how much to focus upon them will probably come down to weighing up a number of factors including: