You should follow the leaders in your niche, even if you don’t like their writing style, content or topic.

There are several big blogs related to the Almost Frugal niche,some of which I follow, some of which I don’t. I follow them in order to be aware of what they are writing about, mostly so that I can NOT write about the same thing at the same time. It’s not a bad thing to write about the same topics, but, it’s better not to do so at the same time as somebody else. For example, I was contacted by somebody selling a product who wanted to offer it in a giveaway on one of my blogs. I agreed but then saw that there were multiple copies of it being offered on another, bigger blog. It would have overshadowed my giveaway completely to have it run at the same time as the other one, so I cancelled mine.

You should not follow the leaders in your niche, especially if you don’t like their writing style, content or topic.

Here’s where the ‘life is too short’ argument comes in. There are some blogs which, even though they are leaders in the niche, I don’t find interesting, compelling or relevant. So I don’t follow them- life’s too short!

What’s your position?

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When I started my quest to improve Almost Frugal’s search engine results, I only knew that most of my search engine traffic was coming from two search results, both unrelated to the content I wanted to rank highly in search engine results.

Why is this a bad thing, you might ask? After all, traffic is traffic… The problem is that the visitors coming to Almost Frugal via those searches would probably not be interested in Almost Frugal’s content, and be unlikely to return.

The first step that I took to actually improving Almost Frugal’s search engine results was to make my posts more keyword friendly. I use Wordpress, and there is a handy plug-in that helps with search engine optimization called called All in One SEO Pack. I went back through past posts and added descriptions and search terms to each post.

For posts that I was writing from that point on, I made sure to make my post URLs keyword friendly, by shortening them and using the keywords I wanted to target. Finally, I made sure to use my targeted keywords often in the post itself, without being obnoxious about it!

As I’ve said before, improving your search engine results is an inexact science. It also takes time, and work… like most other things blogging!

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1. It’s easy. After all, what could be harder that writing a couple of paragraphs a couple of times a week. Click publish, and then you’re done.

In fact, at least in my experience, blogging is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Setting and then meeting a publishing deadline, week after week, month after month, means doing a whole lot of staring at a white computer screen. Having something interesting to say does not always translate into being able to write it.

2. You can make lots of money. Slap a couple of ads on there, and you’re good to go.

This common misconception irks me no end, especially because I was guilty of it myself. And then people get discouraged when the dough doesn’t start rolling in. But if you analyze the figures, you should feel better.

Google Ads pay out after $100 earned. But that money is earned on CPM, or ‘clicks per thousand’. And each CPM earns about $.50. So you can see that you’re going to need a whole lot of clicks on your website to get to that payout.

On the other hand, that money is hard earned and largely deserved. And you didn’t have to actually do anything to get it!

3. People want to read what you write. As soon as you’ve clicked the publish button, hordes of visitors are going to flock to your blog, and then spread the word to all their friends.

When I first started blogging, I thought that my readers were going to hang onto my every word. And they did, that audience of two otherwise known as my mother and my best friend. Not even my husband read my blog in the beginning.

The few rare exceptions aside, faithful visitors to your blog are built little by little, contact by contact. I have made some good friends through blogging, people whom I will probably never meet in real life, but whose words I treasure just the same.

4. Blogging is about nothing much in particular. Just write a couple of words about your latest thought, the cute thing your toddler said, how much you’ve managed to save at the grocery store or the cool new application you just discovered.

Sure, there are a whole slew of blogs out there that talk a whole lot about nothing, and some of them do it very well. But most successful blogs find their niche and then stick to it, becoming experts in their fields, through hard work and targeted, careful blogging. If you want to be successful too, find your niche, become an expert and write about that, and only that, while networking with other community members.

5. Everybody reads blogs. Your neighbor, your mother, the check-out clerk at the grocery store.

Surprising, but true: there’s a whole world out there that not only doesn’t know about your blog, doesn’t know about the internet. Let’s try to join them from time to time, shall we?

Those were my top five lies about blogging. What do you think?

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Another thing you’ll probably have noticed on your travels around the blogosphere is the weekly round-ups or collections of links that many bloggers publish. These can be collections of their favorite articles from blogs they read, mentions of posts from other blogs within a network, etc. I don’t particularly want to do these sorts of roundups for several reasons.

First, because I don’t think that readers really read these round-ups, at least not all the articles that are linked to. I also don’t have a lot of time, and doing the round-ups does take time! I also don’t like that the round up post is the last to appear in any aggregated reader, instead of another, more content heavy post.

Another way of sharing links with readers is through the application designed specifically for that purpose: Delicious. I love the concept, the ease of use and being able to tag each link indefinitely, but the interface isn’t customizable, nor can you make it part of your blog.

Recently, I’ve started using another new tool, Tumblr. It’s a bit like a blog (in fact some people do use it that way) but you can also embed it into your site by using a custom domain. You can choose between several different themes, and endlessly customize the color combinations. And, saving the best for last, it will automatically import feeds from your blogs, Twitter, Delicious, Blogger and several other applications. So you can continue to use those other tools to share links, but have them all in one place, on your blog.

How do you share links?

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I made the New Year’s Resolution to begin using Twitter more effectively in order to help my blogs and my brands grow better and stronger in 2009. What do I mean by this?

To begin with, I’m going to be posting links to all of my blog posts. Unfortunately, at the moment Twitter is only set up to automatically post the feeds from one site. This means that those of us with multiple blogs, like myself, have to figure out another solution. Luckily I’ve been able to install TwitterBar which allows me to easily post a tweet from a site using the browser’s address bar. After my ’secondary’ blogs post new content, which they each do twice a week, I make sure to simply go to each of them and tweet each new post.

This nifty tool also allows me to easily pass on interesting links, with a small stub of commentary. What I wouldn’t necessarily find relevant enough to post to Delicious or interesting enough to post enough to StumbleUpon, but interesting all the same, I post to Twitter. A lot of these links I find through Google Alerts keyword searches, for things like ‘frugal’ or ‘blog design’. In doing so, I hope to develop a reputation for interesting content, which should also increase my follower numbers.

I am also only going to be tweeting quality tweets. What I hate about Twitter is the sense that you’re jumping into a conversation, with all of the ‘Me toos!’ and ‘I knows!’ I’ve discovered that if you answer a question with a complete answer, people who missed the original question will still understand, and find value in, the answer. This should also eventually lead to an increase in followers.

So what’s with all the fuss about followers? Isn’t it just another ego trip like RSS numbers? Not really (and neither are the RSS numbers). If you post your blog’s posts to Twitter, and they are retweeted and read by your followers, then retweeted and read by their followers, you’ve just increased your pool of potential readers.

I’m no Twitter expert. I just started seriously applying myself to this tool at the beginning of this year. But in the short time that I’ve been using these three techniques, my follower count has increased by about 50. Not too shabby!

Do you Twitter? What are your favorite and helpful hints?

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For example, what percentage of your visitors are coming to you via search engine results? How many arrive directly at your blog (from a bookmark on their computer, for example)? Who is linking to you and how much traffic are they sending your way?

I noticed some interesting things for Almost Frugal’s search engine results a few months ago. There was about 30% of traffic from search engine results, but visitors weren’t clicking on the results.

I took a look a Google Analytics and the results were illuminating. I was ranking highly in search engine results for two kinds of keywords only; nine of the ten top results were some variation of ‘describing yourself’ or ‘cutting a little boy’s hair’. Both fine posts, to be sure, but not exactly heavy on the keywords I want to drive Almost Frugal: frugal, frugality, saving money etc etc.

See for yourself:

Only one result relates to frugality, and that is the name of the blog itself, which implies that people aren’t using the search results to find out about the blog, only to find its address. Next I ran another (unofficial) experiment; I did a google search for frugal blog. And the result? Almost Frugal was on the 13th page of search results. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

Changing search engine results takes time, and is an uncertain science at best. Nobody is really 100% certain of what goes into the Google algorithym, although there are a lot of experts on the subject.

There are some basic things that can be done, however, to improve your search engine results. I’ll be blogging about the experience as I go along. But first, some homework: Install Google Analytics on your blog (it’s quite easy) and find out what percentage of your traffic is coming your way thanks to the mighty G giant, and what terms they’re using to find you. You could also take a look at Sitemeter, which will tell you how long each visitor stays on your site; I noticed that a lot of my visitors through search engines weren’t even visiting, or only staying for a few seconds.

Where are your visitors finding you from? Are you happy with your search engine results?

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First, I love your content and your writing. It’s very clear and original and you communicate your ideas effectively. I like the clean white design of your blog (I’m a big fan of white designs obviously), and you always choose good pictures to illustrate your posts. You also make good use of tags. You have a great picture on your about page and appropriate stuff in your amazon shop.

Now, on to the tweaking!

In your Amazon shop, you should be able to have a link going back to the site. Put it in- you don’t want readers to forget where they came from. I would also change the colors so that they are the same as your site.

She’s reworked her shop, and I think she’s done a great job at personalizing the shop and choosing items to stock it.

Combine your about pages into one: who you are, where you came from, why you moved to China, why you started the blog, what you hope to do in the future, what you want the blog to be, etc etc. You have an interesting story just by the fact of being in China- people will want to know more about it. I love your ‘Simplicity?’ page- it would be great to find a way to combine that with the ‘About’ page. The thing is that the ‘About’ page is one of the first that people click on when visiting a site for the first time, so you need to have it, but asking the question ‘Simplicity’ is good too.

You should have a widget in your sidebar with ‘categories’ or tags or ‘What I write about’. Try to keep it to fewer than 10 categories.

Not only did she rework her categories, she added nifty images as buttons!

You have this gorgeous, simple, calm, reposing site and a HUGE jarring Amazon ad is the first thing you see right above the header. Get rid of it! It sends the message that this site is about advertising, which is obviously not what you want to say. Put text ads in between posts, and at the foot of the page. One in the sidebar is OK too.

Lori had no idea that at the top of her lovely, calm, white blog on simplicity was a huge red banner ad- she had turned banners off in her computer! This serves as a lesson for us all. Make sure to periodically check your blog from other computers, in other browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, IE etc) to see what other people are seeing.

I think you should rethink your sidebar. What you WANT is to keep people on your blog. What you are DOING is sending them away, because you have links to a whole bunch of other stuff. Put your favorite blogs in a separate page in the nav bar. The Amazon ad in the sidebar is too big- use a smaller, text based button.

This is another hot button topic for all of us. It is hard enough making our blog’s content ’sticky’ enough to attract and keep new readers without sending them away from our blog to read someone else’s. Blogrolls are fine and good- I have them myself- but keep them on a separate page.

Lori’s content always shone, but the end result of this blog tweaking (and that’s all it really was) is that now her content doesn’t have to compete with her blog layout, her blog layout supports her content.

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I have one word of advice. Stop. Stop right now. Check the sites once a day, if you absolutely must. But paying too much attention to the numbers will only frustrate you needlessly, and take your attention away from where it should really be: writing your content.

How often do you check your stats? Hourly? Daily? Weekly? Do you know off the top of your head how many RSS subscribers you have?

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In my opinion there are two other components, just as important as writing good content, in making your blog successful. First, you have to participate in your blog’s niche community so that people know about your blog. Because after all, if nobody reads a blog, is it really successful? You also have to make your blog readable, because the quickest way to turn off new visitors is with an ugly design. So, with community participation, and a readable design (which is where I come in) you will get noticed.

And of course, you have to write good content.

What do you think? Is writing good content enough or do you need more?

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What is it: StumbleUpon is a site that lets you discover the web, by showing you sites that are in your categories of interest (chosen when you create your account). The sites shown to you have been given thumbs up, or recommendations, by like minded users. I have stumbled upon some strange sites (most recently, how to solve the Rubik’s cube in 56 moves) but also a lot of great ones.

Why I love it: The ability to send links to friends without having to go to my email account- I can do it directly from StumbleUpon in my web browser.

How it can help you improve your blog: Not only can you discover good sites, but, if others give a thumbs up to your site, it can bring a lot of traffic your way. Granted, a lot of the visitors will be drive-by, and not come back again, but some will. And gradually, your exposure and traffic will increase.

What you should do: Install StumbleUpon onto your computer, and add a StumbleUpon button to the bottom of each of your posts, making it easy for your readers to give you a thumbs up. You can even follow others’ stumbles: my account is AlmostFrugal.

Delicious

What is it: An online bookmarking service. Instead of keeping your bookmarks in one place, on your computer, you keep them in your account online. You can share them or keep them private.

Why I love it: I like being able to share my bookmarks with the world- the ones I choose at least. And doing it this way makes my weekly roundups so much easier. I also like being able to access my bookmarks chronologically, or by tags, and of course, from different computers. You can also use it to organize information- for example if I have to write a paper on pet turtles, I can save all the pages I find on pet turtles in Delicious, and tag them with ‘turtles’. That way I don’t have to keep a thousand pages open in my browser, and I can still access the information from other areas, or even share it with study partners and the like.

How it can help you improve your blog: As I mentioned above, this is a great way to improve a weekly link love edition if you do one. Just save the links you like in Delicious, and then link to your delicious page from your blog. Mine is Almost Frugal. Not to mention that the more people that bookmark your page or site, the higher it climbs in the rankings, thus driving traffic your way.

What you should do: If you do weekly roundups, use multiple computers or need to keep track of lots of web pages, I highly recommend Delicious. Otherwise, you probably won’t get a lot of use from it.

TwitterBar

What is it: A Firefox add-on that allows you to send links directly to Twitter, from your  account, with or without commentary. No need to leave the page you’re on, nor to sign in to Twitter on another page. No cutting or pasting. And it shortens URLs automatically.

Why I love it: This makes using Twitter one of the easiest things ever. It’s almost better than chocolate truffles. Almost.

How it can help you improve your blog: One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to start using Twitter more effectively, both as a networking tool and as a blog and brand builder. There are many theories on how to do this, which I will be discussing next week, but one of them involves sending links and information to your followers. This tool makes doing so easy.

What you should do: If you are a Twitter user, and a Firefox browser user, you should get this now. If you are not a Twitter user- think long and hard before signing up for an account- there are good things and bad things about Twitter, like with everything else! (And of course, you can follow me!)

Next week, I’ll be talking about Twitter and how you can (or even if you should) use it as a blogging tool. Until then, what are your favorite tools to make blogging easier?

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