LOST IN THE DARK RIDE

In this post Glen Allsopp from Pluginid.com takes a look at passion and how to choose what to write about. I’ve included a few links to other posts on this topic below also. Image by Dario.

“Don’t do it for the money, do it because you love it!”

Sound familiar? It should do, because almost every blog about blogging has said something along the same lines. No disrespect to them though, I completely agree with the point that bloggers should write about what they love, not just what is making money for others.

Sounds great, right? Well, I’ve actually begun to understand that not everybody knows what their passion is. Not everybody knows what it is they should be blogging about. That is why we see 100 John Chow clones and niche saturation where it is clear bloggers are writing for the money.

Why Money is a Bad Goal

You can be as spiritual or as “un-materialistic” as you want, but in a practical world we all need money to survive. So then why is it bad to blog in a niche where there is a lot of money to be made, just because you have no interest? That’s easy:

• You don’t have the value or expertise to offer others
• It’s likely you don’t have relevant personal experiences that readers can relate to
• You will struggle to find the motivation to write and to come up with post ideas

You can hear the following quote time and time again, but 99 out of 100 people who read it won’t believe it until they experience it themselves.

“It took me 5 brand new cars to realise they weren’t making me happy, as soon as I parked them for the first time I thought ‘what now?’”

- Russell Simmons (Def Jam Records & Phat Farm Clothing)

If there is large financial potential in the niche you are passionate about then that is great. Or, if you are interested in learning to make money online and want to write about your journey then that is fine too. However, don’t get sucked into writing about something because people are making money doing so.

They say that money can’t buy you happiness, but I believe sharing your knowledge on a subject you love certainly can. Just imagine the feeling of helping the world through your expertise, writing about something you love and making money in the process…you get the point.

Finding your Passion

I wrote about a similar topic on my own blog recently so I’m not going to copy that here. What I am going to show you is some quick questions you can ask yourself to reveal what it is you love.

Before I do that, I want to make clear that your passion may change, but don’t wait till you think you know what it is. What I mean is that if you are really passionate about poker right now, your interests may change in the future and you might turn to digital photography. Don’t wait until you are certain you are going to stay passionate about something, the joy of life is our ever-changing interests. The worst case scenario is that you can pay others to keep the blog going if your passion does change or simply sell it and start a new one; not a bad worst case scenario ;).

Note: Read the following questions and actually write down your answers. That way you can get the most out of this exercise.

1. If you could make the same amount of money blogging about any subject, what would it be?

2. Which subjects are you most knowledgeable about?

3. For the subjects in Question 2, would you blog about any of them even for no financial gain?

That is it, those are the three main questions you need to ask yourself, any more and you may miss the point of this exercise. If there was a level playing-field and no income potential yet you still wanted to blog…what would it be about? Your responses to the above questions should help you discover that answer.

Of course, they aren’t really true as any blogging niche has money making potential, but what you have to see is that it is a bonus. If you aren’t writing on a topic you are truly passionate about then despite the potential of financial gain, you still won’t be happy or enjoy it.

Benefits of Blogging Your Passion

If enjoying the topic and sharing your expertise aren’t enough to show you the benefits of blogging about your passion, what else is there to gain? That’s simple. Just the exact opposites of the earlier bullet points:

• You have value and expertise you can offer to others
• You can share personal experiences that will help people relate to your content and connect with your words
• You will be excited to share new thoughts and discoveries with your readers

What you’ll also start to notice is that you become an authority in your niche, and this is highly valuable. With this authority you can release products, offer coaching or set-up a popular paid membership site depending on your industry. This is so much harder to do in saturated markets where there is a lot of competition.

Need more proof there is potential in any niche?

Here are the top 10 blogs in the world according to Technorati:

1. Huffington Post (General & Politics)
2. TechCrunch (Web & Startup News)
3. Gizmodo (Gadgets)
4. Engadget (Gadgets)
5. BoingBoing (Random / Weird News)
6. Lifehacker (Productivity)
7. Ars Technica (Technology News)
8. ICanHasCheezburger (LOLCat Pictures)
9. ReadWriteWeb (Web News & Trends)
10. Mashable (Social Networking news)

Nothing about marketing, blogging or SEO which are all highly saturated due to people thinking they can make a lot of easy money. All of the websites have some authority status in their niche, whilst making a lot of money in the process. Michael Arrington has worked till 4am for years in order to get news out before anyone else and ensure that TechCrunch is the best source there is. Do you think he could do that if he generally didn’t have a passion for internet and startup related news?

So, what are YOU going to be writing about?

Glen Allsopp writes about finding the real you and expressing it through personal development at PluginID, a site that helps you ‘Plugin to your Identity’. You can help me help you by subscribing to the feed here.

Further Reading from the ProBlogger Archives on Choosing What to Blog About

• How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog
• Make Money Online Blogs - Should You Start One and How to Choose a Profitable Topic [VIDEO]
• What are YOU About? Choosing a Topic for your Blog

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“How do I increase the chances of getting a blog post to the front page of Digg?”

I’ve had questions about getting to the front page of Digg many times in the last few weeks so thought I’d put together a guide with a process for doing it. By no means is this something that will guarantee you success on Digg - but from my experience it’ll increase your chances to follow some of this advice.

1. The Content

If there’s one factor that can influence the success of a post on Digg it is the actual content that is submitted. This should go without saying but I chat to bloggers all the time who tell me they have no success with Digg and when I look at the posts they’re submitting - they’re just all wrong.

Digg users like a certain type of story and it can be well worth your time doing a little research into what works and doesn’t work by spending some time on Digg:

• Topics - a large range of topics work on Digg but some are more likely to work than others. For example Tech, Offbeat, some Entertainment stories can work really well - but if you have a craft blog or are blogging about cats you might need to work a little harder. It’s not impossible to do well on digg with some of these less popular topics - but you’ll need to think carefully about how you present it (read on)
• Voice - one way to rank well for a more obscure topic is to write your post in a style that grabs attention and appeals to the Digg crowd. They’re a bunch that likes humor, irreverence and quirky stuff - so if you’re writing on cats you would do better to do something off the wall like strap a camera to one than to write about something more serious.
• Titles - sadly, some stories get voted up and down on Digg simply based up their title. Take time to get it right.
• Page Layout - make sure your blog’s design is well laid out, not stuffed withe ads, professional looking and not cheap and nasty. Pictures can work well.
• Format - some people say that the best way to get on the front page of Digg is to write ‘list’ posts. I agree - but also find that when you write a more comprehensive and in depth article that this can also appeal.

For more on the type of content that works on Digg I’d highly recommend that you read Maki’s post on how to create Digg-Friendly Content.

2. The Submitter

The person who submits your post to Digg can be a very important factor in how well it does.

From talking to hardcore Diggers there are two theories going around in how to approach who should submit your Diggs (and these theories change depending upon what Digg is doing with their Algorithm:

• Power Diggers - one approach is to find a power Digger to submit your posts for you. What happens when you have one of these Diggers submits a story is that it gets seen by their friends on Digg and voted up quite quickly. You can expect to see 100 or so Diggs within a few hours of them submitting it. Once the initial rush dies off things tend to slow with Power Diggers - although just having their name on your post can create buzz and additional diggs.
• Small Time Diggers - another approach is to have posts submitted by lesser known Diggers. The theory here is that it can take these Diggers less votes to get to the front page while a Power Digger can take a lot more.

Whichever method of submission - in the majority of cases on Digg it’s not enough. As a result you might also want to consider some of the following.

3. On Page Digg Cues

One important factor in drumming up some more organic Diggs to go with those that your submitter naturally brings is to add visual cues on your posts inviting people to Digg the story.

• Digg offers a variety of Digg Badges for you to use
• The ‘Digg This’ button is also fairly influential
• Also check out the Digg Widget - this is particularly good because you can get it to show any recent posts from your blog that have been submitted to Digg. Put it in your sidebar and it means people who are on any page on your blog know there’s something climbing up the ranks in Digg (not just those who are on the post itself).

Don’t feel you have to use these buttons on every post. I actually will use them more when there’s a post climbing up Digg.

Lastly - add a text link to an upcoming post inviting readers to submit it. Again - I wouldn’t do this on every post but it can be effective when you’ve got something on the rise.

4. Giving it a ‘Nudge’

So you’ve got some great content that’s been submitted to Digg, you’ve got visual cues in place that will make it easy for readers to Digg it - now it’s time to give your post a nudge.

There are a number of ways to do this. Some are more blatant than others.

• Ask for Diggs - lets start with the obvious, one way to get Diggs is to ask for them. You can do this in any number of ways and using any number of tools. Some will shoot quick requests to people that they know using instant messaging, others ask on social messaging services like Twitter, others have email lists that they utilize. The key with asking for Diggs is to think about who you ask and how often. Work out who is open to invitations and work with them, but only on your best stuff. If you ask for Diggs on every single post you write you might annoy people more than anything else.
• Shout It - Digg has a tool on each digg page that enables you to ’share’ the story - it’s there to help promote stories on Digg so use it. This enables you to email people, blog it or ’shout’ it with your friends on Digg. Shouting can be a great way to get a story in front of other active Digg users. Once again - don’t shout too often - pick your best stories for this type of thing. Also know that the more you digg your friend’s stories when they shout them to you the more chance there is that they’ll reciprocate. If you’re looking for Digg friends - start with this list.
• Drive Traffic to Your Post - another technique that is less blatant that asking for Diggs is to work instead (or as well) at driving traffic to the post you’re working to get on the front page of Digg. Here’s the thing - if you have a post with ‘digg this’ buttons and you’re able to get another popular blog or site to link to it you’ll increase the chance for organic diggs. You’ve got 24 hours once a story is submitted to Digg, so if you think you’ve got something that other sites would be interested in make sure you send them links at the start of the 24 hours (or even before it’s submitted).
• Other Social Bookmarking Sites Help - I quite often notice that the posts that do well for me on Digg will often do well for me on Delicious or StumbleUpon first (although sometimes it happens the other way around). What happens is that when you get on the popular page of Delicious users of that service who also use Digg will bookmark your story in both places. As a result it can be worth working on ‘nudging’ votes in multiple places.

You’ll notice that on this point I said to give your post a ‘nudge’ rather than spam every person you know asking them to vote. Subtle promotion of your posts on Digg is recommended for two reasons - firstly you’ll annoy everyone you know if you’re constantly asking for Diggs and secondly, Digg has measures in place to track people who are manipulating their system and too many people voting up your stories too quickly or from the one source could send warning bells ringing and get your story buried.

5. Educating Readers

Lastly I want to talk about something that has less of an immediate impact upon a specific Digg campaign - but which over time can help.

Educate your readers about social bookmarking.

Many blog readers have never heard of Digg so finding ways to show them what the service is and how they can use it can have a real impact. The more of them who know what it is the more likely it is that they’ll use it - something that will benefit you as you begin to create a Digg Culture on your blog.

6. Organic Diggs

There comes a point in every story’s rise (and fall) on Digg where you have to stand back and let things happen.

What you’ll find is that at some point most successful Digg stories enter the ‘upcoming’ and ‘recommended’ lists and a certain amount of natural and organic digging begins to happen by people who you don’t know. This is where you see if your story has the legs to go all the way or whether it’ll be buried by people.

This is where you realize that it’s not about how many people you can get to Digg a story from your network that matters but whether you’ve actually written something that appeals to Diggers - because if you’ve written something bad you’ll find the story gets buried and all your hard work has gone to waste.

One more thing….

Let me finish with one more piece of advice. Don’t become obsessed with Digg.

I see a lot of bloggers obsessing over climbing the rankings on Digg and while it can bring a lot of traffic to your blog and be worth the effort to promote some of your posts on it when you become obsessed you can fall into these traps:

1. Only ever writing for Digg - I wrote about this earlier in the week but if all you ever write is content aimed at the Digg audience blogging can end up being a bit of an empty experience.

2. Spending All Day on Digg and Not on Your Blog - I’ve come across a lot of people on Digg that could benefit from spending a little less time trying to game Digg and a little more time investing into building a quality blog. The funny thing is that if they actually built a better blog they’d probably end up doing better at succeeding on Digg.

3. Submitting every post to Digg - not every post that you make will be ‘diggable’ - and that’s ok. IF you’re going to use some of the above techniques I would recommend that you only do it with your very very best content. Choose that content that people would want to naturally pass on to a friend or bookmark for later - this is the type of content that will do well on Digg - concentrate on promoting these ones, not your day to day posting.

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Stuck for something to write about on your blog? Here are a few suggestions of things that might help get the creative juices flowing.

1. Use Mind Mapping

I’ve previously talked about how Mind Mapping can be used to generate hundreds of ideas for blog posts. It can be used both to come up with fresh ideas for posts but also in extending previous posts that you’ve already written.

2. Change Your Blogging Environment

Sometimes simply writing in a different place can release a little creativity in you. If you’re fortunate enough to have a mobile device or laptop - hit a cafe, park, try a different room in your house, go to the beach…. You might be surprised what will come.

3. Answer a Question

The best posts are often those which answer specific questions. Questions tap into people’s needs or problems and can often be greatly appreciated by readers (this adds to reader loyalty).

There are lots of ways of getting relevant questions to answer:

• Answer one of your own questions
• Ask your readers to submit a question
• Ask another blogger for a question
• Ask your Twitter followers for questions
• Check your comment section to find questions from readers
• Visit other blogs and forums to search for questions from their readers
• Put yourself in the shoes of a beginner in your topic and imagine what their questions might be
• Look at your blog’s search engine referral statistics to see what people are asking to find your blog

Once you’ve got a question - answer it.

Tip: Start a ‘question journal’ of your own that you note any questions that you come across. Add any reader questions to it as they ask them - this way you’ll always have a question on hand to tackle.

4. Start with a Title

Most bloggers start writing their post first and add a headline later - however sometimes doing it the other way around can be fun. You might not end up using the headline that you start with - but it might be enough to spark a little creativity and get the ball rolling on a blog post.

5. Take a Break

One of the best things that I do to come up with ideas for blog posts is simply to go for a walk. Not a walk to think about blogging, just a walk, usually with my son. It is amazing what a little exercise and a little time thinking about something else can do for your creativity and ability to think clearly.

6. Give Yourself a Deadline

I have an unwritten deadline in my mind that I have to publish a post every night at midnight on both of my blogs (the timing varies a little from day to day but I have to at least have one ready to go by that time). I find that having this deadline in mind motivates me to come up with something. While there’s no one there to enforce the deadline it still seems to work for me.

7. Rid Yourself of Distractions

One of the biggest barriers for me in writing posts is getting distracted. Emails, instant messages, phone calls, family noise, online games, researching my next gadget purchase….. I could go on but even as I’m writing this I’m feeling the urge to do something else!

While there’s nothing wrong with any of these things - clearing time to write and putting barriers in place to keep the distractions at bay is important. For me one of the best ways to stop a lot of the distractions that tempt me away from writing is simply to get offline. Other tips include maximizing your screen so all you see is the document at hand, switching off email and instant messaging clients, using a tool like Writeroom (a mac tool that leaves you with nothing to look at on your screen except what you’re writing) etc.

8. Introduce ‘Random Challenges’

This is a little ‘odd’ thing that I sometimes challenge myself with - but on occasion I’ll challenge myself with writing tasks that are a little left of centre. I think I got this from Edward De Bono who in one of his books has a brainstorming exercise that challenges you to think of 10 ways that XXXX is like a XXXX. The exercise is designed to free up your mind and while most of what you’ll come up with is going to be rubbish it sometimes helps you to come up with new ways of looking at problems.

A recent example of this in my own blogging was a post on what the Mona Lisa Can Teach Portrait Photographers. While the Mona Lisa and portrait photography might not be too random - I actually started out to write a post that was about what Leonardo Da Vinci could teach us about blogging! The thought process that I went on led me to a much better topic.

9. Revisit a Previous Post

Once you’ve been blogging for a while it is easy to feel like you’ve said everything you want to say on a given topic. While you don’t want to be saying the same things every day - it’s OK to revisit previous topics.

The key is to find new ways to say those things you’ve said before, keep information up to date and relevant and to show that you’re developing and growing in your understanding of a topic.

• What have you written about previously in your archives that is now dated and in need of revisiting?
• What have you learned about since you first started your blog that you could write a new post on?
• What have new readers to your blog missed out on in your archives?

10. Speak the Post Out Loud

Sometimes I don’t get stuck with the initial idea of what to post - but the next step of refining it into an actual topic that I can write about.

When you’ve got the start of your topic it can be helpful to actually start talking about it - get it out of your head and explain it (even if it’s just to yourself). Sometimes the act of verbalizing ideas can crystalize them in your mind.

11. Free Writing

Similarly to verbalizing it - sometimes just sitting down and writing can release creativity. Many writers use this technique simply as a ‘warm up’ exercise - they sit down with their writing tool (pen and paper, computer etc) and simply write…. they write anything that comes into their mind. It might be total rubbish - but the exercise is not designed necessarily to come up with any ideas (although you might) but simply to get your brain into gear.

12. Switch ‘Voices’

Most of us as bloggers write the majority of our posts in the one ‘voice’ or ‘personality’. Sometimes forcing yourself to write as someone else would write can be helpful. The best fun I ever had writing a blog post was when I wrote 5 Things You Should Know about My Dad the ProBlogger - in the voice of my 1 year old son (I know - most of you thought it was really him…. but it was me!).

The experience of writing about my topic through the eyes of a family member was not only a lot of fun but it also brought a new perspective to a topic I’d covered many times - it also connected with readers in a different way.

13. Switch Styles

In a similar way - sometimes switching the style of writing can be helpful. By style I mean switching from writing ‘list posts’ to writing ‘rants’ or from writing ‘reviews’ to writing ‘case studies’. I’ve put together 20 types of blog posts here that might help you find a new one to experiment with.

14. Repurpose Other Communications

Many of the tasks that we do in the day to day of life can make excellent blog posts if only we’re on the look out to capture and repurpose them.

In my post 5 Ideas to Come up with Blog Content from Your Daily Life I examine these techniques for coming up with post ideas:

1. using answers to reader questions
2. using email communications as blog posts
3. documenting how you complete tasks
4. videoing yourself doing things
5. recording conversations

Sometimes your next blog post is in what you’re doing right now.

15. Achieve Something Else

Sometimes it’s not the coming up with an idea that stops you writing - it’s that you need to be doing something else. There’s a pile of dishes in the sink, your dog needs a walk, the lawn needs mowing and an assignment at work or school is over due…

I find that when other jobs are clouding my mind and stopping me from writing well that if I pick one of them and knock it off that the sense of achieving something can roll over into my writing. So put your writing aside for 15 minutes and go and do those dishes and get it off your mind before sitting down to write.

16. Go Surfing

I don’t mean to grab a surf board and actually go surfing (although that would tap into a few of the ideas I’ve already written about and could work) - but go surfing online for ideas. There are a number of places to head:

• Other blogs in your niche - what are they writing about? How could you extend what they’ve written? What have they missed? What are their readers asking? DON’T steal their ideas and DO give credit when they stimulate something that you write - but don’t be afraid to bounce off another blogger - that’s what blogging is all about!
• Forums - one of the richest places that I find for idea generation is forums. It’s actually one of the reasons that I started a photography forum - because every day there is a treasure trove of ideas created in it.
• Social Media - what is popular on Digg, Delicious or StumbleUpon today? What type of articles go viral and how could you apply the principles you see in posts that do to your own topic?
• Social Messaging - ask your Twitter and Plurk followers questions, interact with them around their answers - you’ll find that quite often as you interact in these messaging services that ideas will flow.

17. Go Surfing for Ideas Offline

One of my favorite places to go trawling for ideas is a local news stand. Almost every time I go there I come away for ideas for topics after 10-15 minutes of looking through magazines there. Sometimes it’ll be a topic that a magazine writes about that I can adapt for my blog and other times it’s just the titles that I find inspire my writing.

Similarly - libraries or bookshops can also be good sources for inspiration.

18. Play Devil’s Advocate

One of the best ways to come up with a fresh post is to take something that you’ve written about previously where you’ve argued strongly FOR a particular way of thinking - and then write an article taking the opposite view.

You might not completely agree with the post - but can present it in a way that makes this clear. For example - I once wrote a post on why people should consider joining a blog network and then did a followup post looking at why they shouldn’t. While I personally resonated more with the first article the second one actually was well received as it brought balance to the topic.

19. Involve Someone Else

If you’re completely frazzled and incapable of coming up with any ideas for yourself - it might be worth involving someone else.

• Ask someone to write a guest post for you.
• Invite someone to come on and be interviewed by you.
• Swap blogs with another blogger for a day.
• Ask another blogger if they have any ideas for posts.

Sometimes an outsider’s perspective can give you the lift you need.

20. Identify Your Golden Hours for Writing

My best time of day for writing is mid morning. I regularly block out this time purely for writing.

For other bloggers that I know the evenings or afternoons are best. The key is to identify the time that you work best and then block out time in that window for writing. Don’t let it be crowded by less important tasks but diarize the time for what is most important - content creation.

Having said that - don’t feel you can’t mix it up. Some days when I just can’t get going in the morning I’ll throw in the towel and go do something else until later in the day.

21. Big Picture vs Small Picture Posts

One problem that I see many bloggers struggling with is being overwhelmed by the hugeness of their niche and the topics within it and feeling the need to cover it all in each post. As a result they write these mega posts with 40 points and then find themselves with not much else to say because they’ve just covered their whole topic in one post.

What I encourage them to do is to think about writing a combination of ‘big picture’ posts and ’smaller picture posts’.

For example - this very post is what I’d consider to be bigger picture. While it is all on one topic it’s covering a fair bit of ground (20+ points). However over the coming months I could follow up some (or all) of the points in this post with more in depth expansions upon each one.

Alternatively I could have chosen to break this actual post down into 20 or so smaller posts - a series.

22. Ask Your Readers a Question

You don’t need to be the one with all the answers on you blog. Come up with a question to ask your readers that relates to your blog’s topic. You could run it as a poll or simply as a discussion starter.

When you ask readers questions there often will arise possibilities for followup posts including:

• answering the question for yourself
• compiling reader answers
• compiling a list of resources on the topic you’ve asked about

Asking questions also gives readers a sense of involvement and develops community on your blog.

23. Set up News Alerts

If your blog has a ‘news’ focus you’ll definitely want to set up alerts using tools like Google Alerts or Technorati’s watch lists. These alerts will email you or notify you via RSS when a news service or blog posts about the keywords that you identify to be ‘watched’.

Such alerts are also useful for non newsy blogs also as they will let you know how other blogs and news sources cover the topics that you’re writing about. It’s often through these sorts of alerts that ideas for new posts will come.

24. Summarize what Others are Writing

One of the most popular posts that I’ve written on my Photography blog lately was 25 Great Photography Tutorials and Links from Around the Web.

The post was simply a compilation post of posts that other bloggers in my niche had written, plus a few from my archives and a few videos.

While the post is simple (it does take some work to pull together but it’s a different kind of work to writing your own tips) it was very popular with readers and did quite well on social media sites.

What I also found as a bonus is that in compiling the list I ended up with quite a few ideas for future posts of my own!

What Do You Do When You’re Stuck for Ideas to Write About

All of us struggle to find things to write about on our blogs from time to time - I’ve shared a few strategies of what I do - but what about you? I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on how you break though those dry patches too - share your thoughts in commetns below.

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If you’re looking for a job as a blogger then the ProBlogger Blog Job Boards have seen 8 new jobs advertised in just the last 3 days. Actually there’s more than that - because some of the ads are for more than one blogger and one has already been filled.

Here’s the latest batch:

• Editor and cross-blog promoter for Spanish blog
• Food blogger/writer
• Fundraising Blogger
• Web Hosting, Golf, Education and DMV Writers Needed
• Business & Technology Bloggers Wanted
• Online personal tech publication seeks freelance writers
• Tech Blogger/Journalist (contract)
• Link Bloggers

There are also quote a few other jobs still open from the last few weeks here. Jobs like these are being filled very fast so to get notified of them within minutes of them being posted subscribe to the blogger job board RSS feed.

If you’re looking for bloggers….

If you’re looking to hire a blogger for your blog the job board is a wonderful place to find them. The RSS feed is subscribed to by thousands of bloggers, jobs appear in the ProBlogger Twitter feed (subscribed to by over 9000 people) as well as appearing on the front page of ProBlogger.net (seen by hundreds of thousands of people every month). Jobs also get picked up on a number of other job sites that track and aggregate our jobs! That’s pretty amazing exposure for your job considering it only costs $50 for 30 days.

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It’s time for a new poll here on Problogger - this time the question is:

Do you Run RSS Ads on Your Main Blog?

RSS advertising has been around for a couple of years now and I see quite a few RSS ads appearing in my own RSS reading - but I’d be interested to know just how far it extends into the blogosphere - so lets see shall we?

Looking forward to seeing the results of this poll.

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Today I want to tell you the story of a blogger whose problem that he was too good at getting on the front page of Digg. But first - I want to share a quote from Michael Gray who said something last week that hit the mark for me:

“One way to make sure your linkbait is successful is to pick a subject that you believe in, are passionate about, and that will bring out an emotional response from members of your target audience.

Or you could play it safe and write the 5 ways Twitter is helping web 2.0 businesses.

The first is memorable the second is utterly forgettable. ”

I wish I’d said that.

A Blogger With a Problem

I spoke with a blogger (we’ll call him Buddy) last week who presented me with a problem. Buddy’s problem was this:

He had been blogging for a year or so and had worked out how to write the kind of content that did well on Digg. In fact he’d perfected the art of writing Diggable content to such a degree that he hit the front page most weeks. As a result he had a blog with a lot of monthly traffic.

This doesn’t sound like that much of a problem… well not yet….

Buddy’s frustration was that he had no (or very few) loyal readers.

His reflection to me was this:

‘I’m writing fluff. It’s good fluff because it can draw a crowd, but I think they quickly leave because it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone, including me.’

Buddy asked me if he should stop writing the ‘Diggable Posts’ (the fluff)? My response to him was to try a couple of things:

1. Bring the Digg formula to topics that matter - what if he applied the principles to topics he was actually passionate about?

2. Mix in posts that go deeper - not every post needs to be ‘fluffy’ - in fact I find that a good mix of styles of posts can work well on a blog. A ‘Top 10 ways to…’ ‘how to’ list post one day, a ‘review’ post the next day, a question for your readers the next, a ‘rant’ the following day, followed up by a case study the next day….. etc (you can see 20 types of posts here).

What I find is that the ‘fluffy’ posts draw the crowd but the other types of posts actually engage them and keep them coming back. In effect this is what I’ve been doing on DPS and it’s worked well for me.

There’s nothing wrong with writing the type of post that could go viral on social media sites - however like Michael says - it’s posts that mean something to you, that are written with passion and that bring out some kind of emotional response in your readers that will make an impact upon people.

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One of my favorite blog designers is Chris Pearson - the designer behind the newly released Thesis premium WordPress theme (which I reviewed here).

Chris has consistently produced great blog designs over the last few years so after the launch of Thesis I thought it would be worthwhile to do a short interview with him here at ProBlogger to talk about Thesis and blog design. I hope you enjoy this interview.

1. There are a lot of WP themes out there - why did you create Thesis?

After selling Cutline in March of 2007, I began to realize that I really missed fostering and interacting with a community of users. Running a theme and being immersed in the development, use, and feedback cycle is a uniquely fulfilling experience, and I suppose I finally came to terms with the idea that maybe this is what I ought to be doing.

Also, I spent the latter half of 2007 learning how to create dynamic sites with PHP, and in doing so, I began to realize some of the untapped potential of the WordPress theme market. The platform is set up in such a way that you can literally build just about anything you want, and I’m convinced that idea has legs. Because of this, I decided it was time to build Thesis and get movin’!

2. What part of Thesis most excited you as you were designing it? What is exciting those who are using it most?

For me, the most exciting thing about Thesis (and developing themes in general) is the idea that I can give users more functionality and more control over their sites than they’ve ever had. When a user who has little or no knowledge of HTML and CSS can use an options panel to accomplish tasks that would normally require coding, that’s a big deal. The sky is really the limit here, so as a developer, I find that to be a huge source of motivation.

I think my users are keen on the idea that I want them to be able to control even the finest details of their site, and that’s probably the thing that excites them the most. They want to know what elements of control they’re going to have next, and I’m just as excited to produce those elements as they are to receive them.

3. How much development can we expect to see on Thesis as a theme? Or will you be spending more time developing other themes?

I’ve still got tons of ideas for Thesis, so I fully expect to be developing it for quite some time. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’m not even 40% finished with the functionality that I eventually want to achieve. In spite of this, I’m going to begin introducing new frameworks in August, and eventually, DIYthemes will offer an outfit of code platforms that should be adequate for just about any type of Website.

4. Where do you see blog design going in the next 12 months?

Blog design as we know it is going to change entirely, and this is probably the most compelling (and controversial) aspect of the philosophy behind DIYthemes. At this point, everyone is familiar with the notion of a “custom blog design,” but with each passing day, paying for a fully customized design (which includes code) is becoming a far less intelligent choice for bloggers and Webmasters alike. Not only is custom design prohibitively expensive for all but the most successful bloggers, but also, the odds of any designer/developer nailing a functional, flexible, easy-to-modify codebase from scratch on the first iteration are a zillion to one. In other words, it’s not going to happen.

Essentially, this means that people who have fully customized designs end up with far less functionality than people whose designs are “skins” of a battled-tested framework like Thesis. Because of this, the future of blog design is a complete abstraction of design and code. In this type of environment, designers can stick to pure design, which is something they’re way more qualified to do. In addition, savvy designers can develop a working knowledge of a few quality WordPress frameworks, thereby allowing them to focus on the art of skinning them for clients.

When people are able to focus on the things they do best, you end up with more efficient, cost-effective solutions all around. My goal with DIYthemes is to help push Web design (and Webmastering, for that matter) in this direction.

5 . What 3 blogs using Thesis do you think are using it best?

Lisa Firke (pictured top right) is a really talented designer who quickly grasped the concept of abstracted customization, which is something I’ve tried to push to the forefront with Thesis. Her site is a perfect example of how you can leverage a working knowledge of CSS to produce a unique design that is simply a “skin” of a solid WordPress framework.

Jennae Petersen (picture middle right) runs an awesome site about green (eco-friendly) home decor, and she has really taken to the art of creating a unified design “brand” with Thesis. She makes liberal use of in-post styling elements and images to help shore up her brand, and as a result, her site looks to be far removed from the humble framework it rests upon.

Finally, I’d like to point out Eric Scouten (pictured right), a photographer and developer who works on Adobe’s Lightroom software. He’s used Thesis in a pretty unique way on his site, modifying it to power his portfolio, photoblog, and blog sections. On top of that, the site just looks fantastic, and I think it deserves a mention on that basis alone.

Check out the Thesis Theme Here

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One of my favorite blog designers is Chris Pearson - the designer behind the newly released Thesis premium WordPress theme (which I reviewed here).

Chris has consistently produced great blog designs over the last few years so after the launch of Thesis I thought it would be worthwhile to do a short interview with him here at ProBlogger to talk about Thesis and blog design. I hope you enjoy this interview.

1. There are a lot of WP themes out there - why did you create Thesis?

After selling Cutline in March of 2007, I began to realize that I really missed fostering and interacting with a community of users. Running a theme and being immersed in the development, use, and feedback cycle is a uniquely fulfilling experience, and I suppose I finally came to terms with the idea that maybe this is what I ought to be doing.

Also, I spent the latter half of 2007 learning how to create dynamic sites with PHP, and in doing so, I began to realize some of the untapped potential of the WordPress theme market. The platform is set up in such a way that you can literally build just about anything you want, and I’m convinced that idea has legs. Because of this, I decided it was time to build Thesis and get movin’!

2. What part of Thesis most excited you as you were designing it? What is exciting those who are using it most?

For me, the most exciting thing about Thesis (and developing themes in general) is the idea that I can give users more functionality and more control over their sites than they’ve ever had. When a user who has little or no knowledge of HTML and CSS can use an options panel to accomplish tasks that would normally require coding, that’s a big deal. The sky is really the limit here, so as a developer, I find that to be a huge source of motivation.

I think my users are keen on the idea that I want them to be able to control even the finest details of their site, and that’s probably the thing that excites them the most. They want to know what elements of control they’re going to have next, and I’m just as excited to produce those elements as they are to receive them.

3. How much development can we expect to see on Thesis as a theme? Or will you be spending more time developing other themes?

I’ve still got tons of ideas for Thesis, so I fully expect to be developing it for quite some time. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’m not even 40% finished with the functionality that I eventually want to achieve. In spite of this, I’m going to begin introducing new frameworks in August, and eventually, DIYthemes will offer an outfit of code platforms that should be adequate for just about any type of Website.

4. Where do you see blog design going in the next 12 months?

Blog design as we know it is going to change entirely, and this is probably the most compelling (and controversial) aspect of the philosophy behind DIYthemes. At this point, everyone is familiar with the notion of a “custom blog design,” but with each passing day, paying for a fully customized design (which includes code) is becoming a far less intelligent choice for bloggers and Webmasters alike. Not only is custom design prohibitively expensive for all but the most successful bloggers, but also, the odds of any designer/developer nailing a functional, flexible, easy-to-modify codebase from scratch on the first iteration are a zillion to one. In other words, it’s not going to happen.

Essentially, this means that people who have fully customized designs end up with far less functionality than people whose designs are “skins” of a battled-tested framework like Thesis. Because of this, the future of blog design is a complete abstraction of design and code. In this type of environment, designers can stick to pure design, which is something they’re way more qualified to do. In addition, savvy designers can develop a working knowledge of a few quality WordPress frameworks, thereby allowing them to focus on the art of skinning them for clients.

When people are able to focus on the things they do best, you end up with more efficient, cost-effective solutions all around. My goal with DIYthemes is to help push Web design (and Webmastering, for that matter) in this direction.

5 . What 3 blogs using Thesis do you think are using it best?

Lisa Firke (pictured top right) is a really talented designer who quickly grasped the concept of abstracted customization, which is something I’ve tried to push to the forefront with Thesis. Her site is a perfect example of how you can leverage a working knowledge of CSS to produce a unique design that is simply a “skin” of a solid WordPress framework.

Jennae Petersen (picture middle right) runs an awesome site about green (eco-friendly) home decor, and she has really taken to the art of creating a unified design “brand” with Thesis. She makes liberal use of in-post styling elements and images to help shore up her brand, and as a result, her site looks to be far removed from the humble framework it rests upon.

Finally, I’d like to point out Eric Scouten (pictured right), a photographer and developer who works on Adobe’s Lightroom software. He’s used Thesis in a pretty unique way on his site, modifying it to power his portfolio, photoblog, and blog sections. On top of that, the site just looks fantastic, and I think it deserves a mention on that basis alone.

Check out the Thesis Theme Here

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One of my favorite blog designers is Chris Pearson - the designer behind the newly released Thesis premium WordPress theme (which I reviewed here).

Chris has consistently produced great blog designs over the last few years so after the launch of Thesis I thought it would be worthwhile to do a short interview with him here at ProBlogger to talk about Thesis and blog design. I hope you enjoy this interview.

1. There are a lot of WP themes out there - why did you create Thesis?

After selling Cutline in March of 2007, I began to realize that I really missed fostering and interacting with a community of users. Running a theme and being immersed in the development, use, and feedback cycle is a uniquely fulfilling experience, and I suppose I finally came to terms with the idea that maybe this is what I ought to be doing.

Also, I spent the latter half of 2007 learning how to create dynamic sites with PHP, and in doing so, I began to realize some of the untapped potential of the WordPress theme market. The platform is set up in such a way that you can literally build just about anything you want, and I’m convinced that idea has legs. Because of this, I decided it was time to build Thesis and get movin’!

2. What part of Thesis most excited you as you were designing it? What is exciting those who are using it most?

For me, the most exciting thing about Thesis (and developing themes in general) is the idea that I can give users more functionality and more control over their sites than they’ve ever had. When a user who has little or no knowledge of HTML and CSS can use an options panel to accomplish tasks that would normally require coding, that’s a big deal. The sky is really the limit here, so as a developer, I find that to be a huge source of motivation.

I think my users are keen on the idea that I want them to be able to control even the finest details of their site, and that’s probably the thing that excites them the most. They want to know what elements of control they’re going to have next, and I’m just as excited to produce those elements as they are to receive them.

3. How much development can we expect to see on Thesis as a theme? Or will you be spending more time developing other themes?

I’ve still got tons of ideas for Thesis, so I fully expect to be developing it for quite some time. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I’m not even 40% finished with the functionality that I eventually want to achieve. In spite of this, I’m going to begin introducing new frameworks in August, and eventually, DIYthemes will offer an outfit of code platforms that should be adequate for just about any type of Website.

4. Where do you see blog design going in the next 12 months?

Blog design as we know it is going to change entirely, and this is probably the most compelling (and controversial) aspect of the philosophy behind DIYthemes. At this point, everyone is familiar with the notion of a “custom blog design,” but with each passing day, paying for a fully customized design (which includes code) is becoming a far less intelligent choice for bloggers and Webmasters alike. Not only is custom design prohibitively expensive for all but the most successful bloggers, but also, the odds of any designer/developer nailing a functional, flexible, easy-to-modify codebase from scratch on the first iteration are a zillion to one. In other words, it’s not going to happen.

Essentially, this means that people who have fully customized designs end up with far less functionality than people whose designs are “skins” of a battled-tested framework like Thesis. Because of this, the future of blog design is a complete abstraction of design and code. In this type of environment, designers can stick to pure design, which is something they’re way more qualified to do. In addition, savvy designers can develop a working knowledge of a few quality WordPress frameworks, thereby allowing them to focus on the art of skinning them for clients.

When people are able to focus on the things they do best, you end up with more efficient, cost-effective solutions all around. My goal with DIYthemes is to help push Web design (and Webmastering, for that matter) in this direction.

5 . What 3 blogs using Thesis do you think are using it best?

Lisa Firke (pictured top right) is a really talented designer who quickly grasped the concept of abstracted customization, which is something I’ve tried to push to the forefront with Thesis. Her site is a perfect example of how you can leverage a working knowledge of CSS to produce a unique design that is simply a “skin” of a solid WordPress framework.

Jennae Petersen (picture middle right) runs an awesome site about green (eco-friendly) home decor, and she has really taken to the art of creating a unified design “brand” with Thesis. She makes liberal use of in-post styling elements and images to help shore up her brand, and as a result, her site looks to be far removed from the humble framework it rests upon.

Finally, I’d like to point out Eric Scouten (pictured right), a photographer and developer who works on Adobe’s Lightroom software. He’s used Thesis in a pretty unique way on his site, modifying it to power his portfolio, photoblog, and blog sections. On top of that, the site just looks fantastic, and I think it deserves a mention on that basis alone.

Check out the Thesis Theme Here

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Every 2nd blog about blogging today seems to be writing about a video showing how to get 2500 subscribers overnight using a Netvibes accounts and an OPML file with thousands of copies of your own feed in it.

I’ve had a lot of people email me to ask what I think about the technique. My response:

1. It’s not surprising to see that it’s Possible - I’ve seen a few bloggers play with this type of technique over the years.

2. It’s an empty Achievement - so your feedburner button is a few thousand more tomorrow than it is today - but ultimately all it means is that you hacked it - no one new is reading your blog.

3. Do something that Matters - Expend the energy doing something that draws in real new readers. Network with other bloggers, write some quality content, write a guest post for another blog, make your blog stickier…. do something that matters

4. Social Proof? - Yes, having more numbers in your feedburner counter might convince a few extra people to subscribe (social proof) but what happens next week when feedburner closes the loophole and suddenly your regular readers see that you’ve just lost a couple of thousand readers? Is there such a thing as reverse social proof?

5. Risk? - I’ve never really been into ‘evil’ tactics - partly because I just don’t get into them but partly because when you deliberately do something to abuse a service that is provided to you by a company - sometimes things come back to bite you. I’m not sure if Feedburner (owned by Google) would take action against people trying to inflate their numbers - but do you really want to find out?

Want to know how to really build the number of subscribers to your blog?

• 11 Ways to Find New RSS Subscribers for your Blog
• A Secret to Finding New Subscribers for Your Blog (the start of a 3 part series)

OK - lets get back to blogging shall we?

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