Yesterday, one of the luminaries of digital marketing, Avinash Kaushik tweeted:

In his Google+ post Avinash shared that his blogging strategy has been to follow these 4 principles:

1. Staying focused
2. Publishing only original stuff
3. Sticking to publishing only what’s “incredible, relevant, of value” to your audience
4. Obsess about discovery

The above made me recall a post he wrote on the 5th anniversary of his blog where among other things he shared how he went from publishing 10 posts a month and just a few thousand people reading them in early 2006 to writing just 2 posts a month in late 2010, and having some 90,000 loyal blog readers. Now his “secret sauce” is out [source], and it makes complete sense to me.

I myself made it my 2009 New Year’s resolution to publish at least one blog post a day [it wasn't clear from the wording here, but that was exactly what my plan was]. During the first year I haven’t missed a day. In 2010 I missed only a couple. In 2011 I started having weekends… Yet, regardless of pacing myself, I too kept increasing my readership, as well as business opportunities (consulting, training, speaking, program management, etc) coming from my blogging.

Based on the things that I’ve learned in the course of 1,001 days of my blogging, I’d like to add a few points to Avinash’s above-quoted four; and these would be:

5. Be concise
6. Be practical/actionable
7. Be authentic
8. Don’t pretend you know things you don’t
9. If you aren’t solving a problem, at least entertain [lesson learned from Jim Kukral]
10. Stay open to learning from your readers (from their comments, emails, etc)

I hope you are blogging too. It is extremely rewarding.

Yesterday, after I tweeted out one of the links I’ve found of interest, I received the following question back:

After verifying that Eric is asking about the stuff I microblog it occurred to me that this would make a very nice blog post topic. After all, in the ocean of information many of us are struggling to narrow things down just to the most relevant, useful, and actionable stuff.

Here are the 10 methods that I recommend (and use myself):

1. Stay focused in who you follow — This applies to the people you follow on Twitter and in your Facebook live feed, as well as the blog feeds and newsletters you’re subscribed to. “The more” is not always “the better”.
2. Utilize Twitter lists — I use them daily; and I’ve shared a good number of candidates for topical digital marketing lists here.
3. Subscribe to Paper.li newspapers — One of my personal favorites (which also a good example to use here) is a weekly Better Marketing Through Science by Jennifer Williams.
4. Read industry magazines — I have a list of some good ones (some of which are free) for digital marketers here. Most of them have both hard-copy and online versions available.
5. Interact!! — You can do all the reading and following you can, but unless you engage in conversations (through blog comments, asking questions on Facebook, and tweeting back to people on Facebook, etc) it’ll be hard for you to truly grow.

The above five help me personally (a) stay up-to-date on the news and developments in my industry, (b) always have topics to blog and microblog about, and (c) constantly expand my Rolodex of contacts. I am certain they can help you too, regardless of your niche/industry.

Have I missed the method(s) that help you? If so,  please do add through the “Comments” area below.

With the fairly recent Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Update multiple bloggers (affiliates in particular) became concerned (subject also brought up by Joe Sousa in his recent post here), and started wondering if they (as content producers) may be affected by it.

The short answer is: “No, as long as what you produce is unique and quality content.”

For more detailed explanations/commentary, I’ve contacted four established SEO experts and book authors, and would like to bring you their opinions in what follows:

Quality content that’s keyword rich, but written with users rather than search engines in mind will always triumph. Sure, search algorithms change, and will continue to do so. Rankings will change. But articles and blog entries will continue to be found and spidered. Following the basic guidelines always helps: frequent updates, links, tags, a decent CMS. Content is what powers the web, and that’s not gong to change any time soon.
– Rebecca Lieb, Author of The Truth About Search Engine Optimization

If your blog can be viewed as featuring duplicate content, or mostly non-unique content, you should be worried. As that’s not the case for your average blogger, and is more relevant to spammy sites, I wouldn’t worry about it.
– Gab Goldenberg, Author of The 7 Curiously Obvious Rules Advanced SEOs Rely On

What’ll happen to article based content search? In general, Google’s latest “content farm” algorithm change was manual (versus automated) and intended to penalize sites with what Google perceives as low quality content. I imagine, another way of looking at what Google is attempting to reduce or penalize is content that was solely created to rank in search-engines for purposes of some form of arbitrage. Either way I’d say that any content that is likely to be perceived as low quality is at risk of being pushed out of the SERP’s. For instance, if articles are poorly written and written specifically to rank on search-engines they are at risk. In addition, Google has always had specific rules about duplicate content – in this way, using article distribution as a primary strategy for building links was always shortsighted. So the moral of the story is to make sure that you are writing high quality, unique content and that it fits into a larger strategy to rank well on search-engines and ultimately provide the end user with value.

Is it just the article sites or are keyword content blogs in danger? As mentioned above, any content that is likely to be perceived as low quality is at risk of being pushed out of the SERP’s — this includes blogs that exist solely for the purpose of ranking well on search engines. I’d strongly advise to build a site around the content, encourage user generated content, interact with readers, hold contests, open social media accounts, leverage word of mouth and buzz marketing strategies, and build links as naturally as possible.
– Kris Jones, Author of Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing

I personally don’t think blogs are in danger from the Google Panda/Farmer update if they have established a credible brand that engages its audience well. We know from Google that this is an algorithmic change and they are looking to de-emphasise “sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content”

SEOs have naturally speculated about the signals which would enable Google to identify this type of site. For example a high proportion of ads above the fold. But Google have said this isn’t a signal. Instead I think its useful to turn it on its head and think about how Google can identify a site with quality content that engages its audience. Obvious signals of a quality engaging blog are a higher proportion of:

• Original content (many Article sites posts are reposts from blogs and press releases
• New backlinks compared to new articles
• Comments
• Social mentions via Twitter of Facebook
• Bookmarking via Google Bookmarks/Toolbar
• Brand name searches

All of these signals are features of an engaging brand, that’s what successful SEO is about in 2011, so if your blog has these features there’s not too much to worry about. But these features aren’t natural features of a retail site for instance, so it’s not clear how Google differentiates these type of sites — perhaps there is also some on-page analysis of the semantic markup and use of images.
– Dave Chaffey, Author of E-Business and E-Commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice

Being a blogger myself I don’t view this Google’s update as any kind of immediate or even precedent type threat. If you have something to add to the above, I would, of course, love to hear your thoughts as well (please use the “Comments” area below for it).

As the year draws to a close, and I’m looking into ways of improving my readers’ experience with my blog, I see that the numbers of those who access it via mobile devices has greatly increased since 2009 (as many of you probably know, I started blogging daily on 1/1/2009; so it is good/right to compare 2010 to 2009 now).

Here’s a vivid example: comparing the period of 10/27-12/26/2010 to the same period in 2009 we see a 746.15% increase in traffic this year:

However, as it is obvious from the above data, the considerable traffic increase hasn’t been coupled with significant improvements in the ways this traffic used/read the blog:

• Number of pages viewed per visit has gone up only by 7.23% (from 1.21 to 1.30)
• Average time on site increased just by about 17% (from 56 sec to 1 min 6 sec)
• Bounce rate has dropped only by about 11% (from 89.35% to 79.65%)

The lack of serious improvements is easy to explain: due to a fairly low traffic volume from mobile devices in 2009 nothing has been done to improve the mobile user’s experience with the blog in 2010 — nothing whatsoever.

However, now that I have already had over 4,100 visitors access my blog via their mobile devices in 2010 [see graph below], it is time to change something!

Yesterday morning I have installed WordPress PDA & iPhone plugin, and I’m already registering some improvement. The time on site of iPhone users (the most popular device people use to access my blog) has already more than doubled increasing from 00:38 to 01:29. Of course, it is too preliminary to make any conclusions, and I still have to see if there are better WordPress plugins available out there (WPtouch looks promising), but it is always good to register a quick improvement.

Is your blog mobile-friendly yet? If so, please share your tips on how you’ve achieved it (in the “Comments” area blow). I am certain that many people (myself in the first row!) will benefit from any additional tips.

It’s Friday again, and today my who-to-follow-on-Twitter focus is on the people that, at one point or another, have helped me improve my blogging (and content writing) skills.

I am certain you will find their tweets and posts of help too, and it is with this desire that I am happy to bring you my list of blogging-related accounts to follow on Twitter.

I’ve narrowed them down to the following five:

1. Darren Rowse — aka ProBlogger. Blogs about twitter and tweets about blogging. Check out also the @ProBloggerCom account.
2. Brian Clark — aka CopyBlogger. Writer/producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Copyblogger Media. Featuried in multiple books by Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, David M. Scott, and other marketing authorities.
3. Michael Martine — aka Remarkablogger. Blog consultant and coach.
4. BloggingTips.com — Twitter stream of updates from BloggingTips.com, one of the most popular blogging advice blogs on the net.
5. Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen — Full-time writer, creator of 5 Quips & Tips blogs, including Quips & Tips for Successful Writers. Author of two ebooks: Fire up the Muse, and Q & T for Successful Bloggers.

I know, I have most likely missed some of the people that inspire you to blog. Please do mention them below.

Also, you may find my following blogging-related articles of help:

• For Successful Blogging Remember CCCP
• 11 Essential Components of Blogging Strategy
• 3 Social Media Engagement Mistakes Committed by Bloggers
• 5 Types of Popular Blog Posts (with Examples)

I know the title of the post may sound banal and obvious, but it wasn’t such to me when after 500+ days of daily blogging I decided to take a break, and write only Mondays through Fridays. I had heard some old-time bloggers argue that regularity is no longer the key, and I decided to test things on my own blog.

Saturdays and Sundays have historically been the worst traffic days for my blog. Well… They’ve become even worse when I took the brief break from my a-post-a-day blogging pattern, and started having weekends.

Two weeks ago I resumed my daily blogging, and reaped immediate results.

We’ve already had 4 weekends this month. I did not blog on 07/03-04 and 07/10-11, and did write on 07/17-18 and 07/24-25. Let’s now compare the changes.

Traffic Impact

Looking at the traffic stats from my Google Analytics report, I see the following picture (weekends highlighted, and arrow added to show how weekend traffic increased on the 07/17 when I posted on Saturday):

I’ve registered some 14% traffic increase the weekend I resumed daily blogging (on 07/17-18), and a further increase of over 53% during the weekend that followed (or 07/24-25).

Social Engagement Impact

Looking at the blog’s social engagement — or the resonance that a blog’s content has across multiple social platforms (starting from comments on your own blog, and going beyond them: to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Google Buzz, etc) — we see a picture that is even more encouraging.

Here’s a chart from my PostRank report:

Regularity is obviously extremely important. So, after a few weeks of rest, I’m back to my daily blogging.

Social media engagement can be defined as getting people involved in a thoughtful interaction within a social medium, as well as an encouragement and support of such interaction.

As a blogger myself, and a frequent commentator on blog posts of others, today I’d like to focus on social media engagement within the framework of blogging.

There are 3 mistakes that I see being repeated by bloggers (large and small, new and seasoned) on a literally daily basis. These are:

1. Having a “no comments” policy
   C’mon, blogging isn’t broadcasting! No matter how bright your thoughts may be, they can always be enriched through an interaction with other thinkers (and critics too).
2. Taking too long to approve comments (or forgetting about them altogether)
   As tweeted a couple of days ago, I believe that no blog comment should sit in moderation queue for longer than 24 hours. Over 48 hours = disrespect.
3. Ignoring people’s comments
   Allowing your readers’ comments (i.e. approving them to show on your blog) isn’t enough. You gotta interact. Some of the most valuable thoughts are born in conversations.

If you don’t want interaction, you shouldn’t blog. Period.

As always, your comments on the topic would be much appreciated.

I know, CCCP may not bring up good memories in most minds, but today I’d like to give the old abbreviation a new meaning — one that comes from my personal experience and understanding of what makes a good blog post, and a good blogger.

There are 4 adjectives to remember:

C – Consistent (a-post-a-day keeps search engines awake)
C – Concise (most blog readers appreciate eloquence)
C – Clear (most blog readers don’t want rocket science)
P – Practical (and, of course, be as pragmatic as possible)

Most of my blog posts that have become popular reflected all of the above.

PS: The image chosen to go with this post carries an important meaning. It portrays an egg and a ping pong ball — both stamped with what used to be the USSR’s most famous logo. We called it “государственный знак качества” (literally the “state quality sign”), and it appeared on products which went through a state system of attestation meant to endorse products of superior (or high class) quality.

Having put together over 500 blog posts since 1 January 2009, I’ve found it especially interesting to monitor which of my posts get most of readers’ attention.

It appears that certain types of blog posts are destined to become more popular than others, even though the content in those “others” can at times be significantly more profound and original. I’ve arrived at 5 types of blog posts that consistently get a lot more attention than others:

1. Lists — This, in my opinion, is by far the most popular type. The main reason for this is that lists are easy to follow and digest. This is precisely why this very post comes in a form of a list as well.
   Examples: 7 Market Research Twitter Accounts to Follow || 20 Affiliate Plugins for WordPress
2. How-Tos — How-tos have always been popular, and blogging (be it text-, video-, or both types of blogging together) is an excellent way to explain how things work, or how to do something.
   Example: Online Guide to Affiliate Marketing
3. Breaking News — These get especially popular when in your blog post you’re not merely bringing the news to your readership, but draw fresh conclusions, providing new perspectives.
   Example: 6pm.com Loses $1.6 Million in 6 Hours, Handling it Gorgeously
4. Contests — These always draw a lot of attention, and some bloggers make a living off contests. I do them for the fun of it, and always get a lot of response.
   Example: 400th Day Contest: Computer & Internet Jokes
5. Interviews — They are great, and provide value to all three parties involved: the interviewee, the interviewer, and the readers.
   Example: Interview with John Ferber, Founder of Video Affiliate Network

Have I missed any of the ones that have been working especially well for you? Feel free to post about them in the “Comments” below.

If I were asked which WordPress plugins I would recommend to bloggers that use this popular platform, and want to enhance the usability component, I would list the following five:

1. Akismet [plugin's site] by Matt Mullenweg – Checks comments posted in your blog against their own database and places suspicious ones into a Spam folder. It does a great job, filtering all of the spam in your blog (hence, making it look much cleaner that it would’ve looked without this plugin), as well as makes your job of comment moderation much easier. Keep in mind though that occasionally (as often is the case with email spam filters too) a totally kosher comment may land in that Spam folder. So you want to look through the comments stored in this folder every once in a while (to whitelist the good readers).

2. Subscribe To Comments [plugin's site] by Mark Jaquith – Adds a check box that a commenting reader may tick if they want to be notified of replies to their comment(s). A must have if you want to really engage your audience, which is important not only for your blog’s popularity to grow, but also because some of the most important thoughts and conclusions are born in discussions.

3. WordPress Popular Posts [plugin's site] by Héctor Cabrera – Excellent plugin that sorts your previous blog posts by popularity. Popularity is defined by you. It can either mean “most comments” or “most views”. Regardless of the determinant that you choose, each post can still show both the number of views, and the number of comments (it is all easily customizable). I chose to use this plugin in combination with the Most Popular Posts plugin (which ranks posts by the number of comments one), and have one display posts in order of most views (giving a “Most Viewed Posts” header to this ranking), and the other – by most comments.

4. SexyBookmarks [plugin's site] by Josh Jones and Norman Yung – One really sexy plugin that allows for an array of social bookmarking options to be placed under each of your posts. See it in action right under this post.

5. Seesmic WordPress [plugin's site] by Seesmic Inc – Great plugin for adding video comments (recording them right within your own blog using Seesmic’s platform). Truly adds a new dimension of online communication and brings a blog alive. Even if your readers never use it, use it yourself!

I have arranged the above plugins in order of priority (you can live without video comments, but can’t without filtering those spam comments effectively). I use all of the above.

If I haven’t listed a plugin that in your opinion can greatly improve a WordPress blog’s usability, and enhance user engagement, please write about it in the comments area below. I am open to suggestions, ideas, and always eager to learn from the experience of others.