In the current blogging landscape of lowest-common-denominator marketing and recycled "top 10" lists, there's something incredibly simple you can do to dominate your topic and stand above your competitors as a leader.
In the current blogging landscape of lowest-common-denominator marketing and recycled "top 10" lists, there's something incredibly simple you can do to dominate your topic and stand above your competitors as a leader.
If you want to build a thriving online audience of fans and customers who will push you to unthinkable heights, there's one thing you have to get right first, above all else. Have a vision for your followers.
There is a time for basic information. Everyone needs to know what an RSS feed is, how commenting works on blogs, that guest posting is sometimes a viable strategy for gaining visitors and that WordPress is probably your best choice of content management system. You should also know when Twitter is important and that you can use a Facebook page to spread your message.
Chances are, when you think of blogging, you also think of commenting. Comments have been a unique and tightly integrated feature of blogging since the beginning of blogs. But several high-profile blogs have decided to turn comments off in recent years. Zen Habits is one of the biggest examples. Seth Godin doesn't allow comments on his blog either and never has. These two blogs are among the biggest in the world.
A reader asked me on Twitter the other day if I would start writing more traffic-building tips here. The implication was that I haven't been publishing content that will directly help you build a bigger online audience.