A funny thing happened tonight. As I sat here contemplating my next move within the blogosphere, I suddenly found my light. My light to follow to lead me to success. To lead me to great things. To lead me to what I want in life.

But before that light appeared, as I sat here contemplating my next move, I realised within myself there was actually no move for me to make. At least not until I knew where I was going. I realised, very suddenly as though a light had been shone inside, that I didn’t know where I was going. I was lost on a road, with a map in front of me, but no idea where to turn. A map can only lead you where you want to be if you know where that place is.

Finding a Purpose to Your Blog

You’ve heard it all before. “Your blog needs a goal”. “You must know what you want to achieve”. “You must set yourself milestones and targets and blah blah blah blah blah…”. You’ve heard it all before. But the problem is, most people don’t listen. I didn’t listen. I’m a man. I wouldn’t be a man if I listened (Don’t go there ladies. ). So I’m here today to make you listen. I’m going to ram it down your throats so hard it’ll bounce back up and hit your brain. I do that not to be clever, I do that because it’s the only way your blog will succeed. Because you can’t possibly ’succeed’ if you haven’t defined your own ’success’.

I ask people all the time what their goal for their blog is. I just asked it again on Twitter, and not one person responded to tell me they have a specific, measurable, achievable, life-changing, ultimate goal for their blog. There are always plenty of people who tell me they have goals for the next week or next month or next year. But it’s rare I come across somebody who has a final goal. A goal, that once achieved, will be ultimate and final.

Far too often when discussing goals for blogs I hear the phrase “I’m working on it.” That phrase makes me cringe. Don’t work on it. Do it! Step back from your Twitter account. Step back from your latest article or seminar in the latest ‘Cool-If-You’re-Part-Of-It’ Internet marketing course. Step back from the cyber world and in to reality for just a minute. I promise your Twitter buddies and seminars and info-products and ebooks will all still be there when you return. Just for a minute, step back in to reality, and contemplate your goal. Not your goals for 2010. Not your goals for February. But the one goal, that once achieved, allows you to slouch in your chair, breath out a long, hard, sigh of contempt, and speak the words “My blog is now a success.”

“I want to make a living from blogging…”

When I pose the question of final goals to bloggers, most of them have no answer. The thought of something ‘final’ related to their blog is scary for them. But some people do have an answer. Unfortunately, the answer is usually this…. “I want to make a living from blogging”.

(Bare with me while I walk out of the room, bang my head against a wall, scream, and then calmly walk back to my desk. Arrrrrgh!)

Goals must be measurable. I can’t stress this enough. ‘Making a living’ is not measurable. How much money a month is ‘making a living’? It’s only be defining this that you start to get a meaningful, measurable goal. And at what point in time do you want to achieve this so called ‘goal’ by? Are you prepared to work until two days before you die to achieve this goal? Apparently you are, because you haven’t set any timescale. You’ll be happy to work for 50 years to achieve this goal, then pass away peacefully as an old man, knowing in your heart you did achieve what you set out to achieve, if only two days before old age crept up behind you.

Should a Blog Ever End?

I lot of the difficulty in setting a ‘final, ultimate goal’ lies in that word ‘final’. A final, ultimate goal suggests there has to be an end to your blog. A day, a time, a place when your blog comes to a close. And in some ways, I think that is true. There does have to be a time when it comes to a close. Maybe it will be as simple as when you hit X subscribers and you decide to sell your blog. Or maybe it will be something more complicated, like when you pass away, or when you decide to hand it over to your children. Whatever the method, there will be a day when your blog isn’t your blog anymore. A frightening thought, isn’t it?!

So What’s Your Goal?

So I’d like to pose a question to you, and I want you to think long and hard about your answer. What is your ultimate goal for your blog? What do you want to achieve that will ultimately allow you to say “My blog is a success”? What is it that is going to provide you with the motivation to blog and interact with your community of readers and friends when you’re having a bad day? What’s the one thing that is going to provide a sense of focus to your blogging efforts?

Step back from the cyber world and in to reality. Your Twitter buddies and seminars and info-products and ebooks will all still be there when you return. Because remember, a blog without a purpose, without a measurable, achievable goal, is like a map in the hands of somebody with no destination. You can walk forever, but you’ll never get where you want to be unless you know where that place lies.

Do you have an ultimate goal for your blog? How do you know when you’re blog will be a success? Let us know in the comments!

This is my second post in a series discussing my cornerstones of blogging. Previous posts in this series include Kids, Girls, Zip Wires, Soldiers & Self Belief! The Story that Will Transform Your Blog…. Look out for more posts in this series later this week. I’ll slowly progress up the scale, until we hit what I believe to be a cornerstone so important, you can’t build a successful blog without it. Subscribe today if you haven’t already done so.

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July 1998. I was 10 years old. It was a hot Summer day, and the whole town was out at the annual charity gala. People were on the fairground rides. Others were eating ice cream. And even more were watching the display of acrobats, gymnasts and pampered pooches in the main arena. Me? I was watching with intent as person after person fell over the edge of the 100 foot drop and flew down the zip line, only to be quickly stopped at the bottom by two British Army soldiers.

One by one, they would climb the scaffold tower to reach the top. One by one, the soldier at the top would secure their hands in the pulley system, and one by one, they would drop over the edge, scream, and seemingly fly to the bottom. With a sharp bang of ropes colliding, two soldiers at the bottom would bring them to a stop, and the persons face would light up with a smile. They had just taken on the official UK Army zip wire, and lived to tell the tale.

Taking On The Zip Wire… At 10 years old!

I wasn’t leaving the gala that day without proving to myself I could do it. Without showing The Army what this 10 year old was made of!

As I walked up to the desk to pay my turn, I wasn’t the least bit nervous. My parents watched as I handed over my £1 to the Army fitness instructor in his skin-tight white vest. He joked that I would be the youngest person to take on the wire that day.

As I handed over my pound, he gave me the pulley system that you hang from and attaches to the rope when you get to the top, and I set off to climb the stairs. The stairs were steep, and made only of scaffolding so as you climbed higher you could easily see the ground below.

It seemed like an eternity as I climbed step after step, occasionally glancing up to see how close I was to the top, but more often glancing down so I knew how far from the ground I was. At 10 years old, I wasn’t built like a soldier like the zip wire was designed for. The pulley I was carrying with me to the top was getting very heavy. I remember two teenage girls behind me could see I was struggling, and without a moments hesitation they offered to carry my pulley for me.

As I reached the top, I was a nervous wreck. It looked much higher from up there. The girls handed my pulley to the soldier so he could get it setup on the rope. I remember looking down at the ground and seeing my parents. They looked like spots a million miles below. I could feel the tower swaying and shaking as people flew down the rope ahead of me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this anymore.

Stepping Up to the Edge

I moved forward, ever closer to the edge of the small platform. The soldier stood behind, and slowly put my arms threw the hoops of the pulley. Apparently these stop you falling from the rope to a very timely death if you let go of the pulley handles, but they didn’t feel the least bit secure or capable of stopping me falling.

The soldier could see I was nervous. I didn’t want to do this. Tears were starting to flood my eyes. I was way outside my comfort zone, and I didn’t like it one bit.

Rather than giving up and letting me walk back down the steps, the soldier did something I’ll never forget. Something I’ll take with me through life and to my grave.

“Would you like me to go down the wire with you?”

The soldier looked at me and asked, “Would you like me to go down the wire with you?”. As he asked me this, he took hold of the pulley as though to join me. In a quiet, teary voice, I said “Yes”. And with that, we were away. We were over the edge. My feet were touching nothing. 100 feet above the ground. The soldier holding on behind me, making sure I was safe. My parents below, smiling and waiting for me to reach the bottom.

I held tight. As tight as I could. I closed my eyes only for a brief second before opening them and enjoying the flight. As I came towards the bottom, I began to run with my legs in midair to ensure I would stay upright once I touched the ground. BANG! I hit the rope held by the two soldiers to bring me to a stop.

Confused Parents & The Best Soldier in the World!

I instantly ran to my parents with a huge smile on my face. I told them how scared I was at the top, and how glad I was that the soldier had come down the wire with me.

My parents looked at me with a confused face. “There was no soldier.” they said. “You came down all by yourself.”

I looked back up at the tower, and there was the soldier. Standing there at the top, a big smile on his face, waving and giving a relaxed, informal salute in my direction. If he hadn’t been so high up, I would have sworn he gave me a wink as well.

I came down the zip wire by myself. At 10 years old, I had conquered the wire, and lived to tell the tale.

Self Belief – A Key Cornerstone to a Successful Blog

This post is the first in a series of four that I’ll be publishing over the next week, discussing what I believe to be the four key cornerstones to creating a successful blog. Today, I want to talk about self belief.

So many people walk in to the blogosphere with no plan. They just start writing and hope the visitors will arrive. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. With 175,000 new blogs created every day (that’s two new blogs every second of every day), you can’t afford to write with no plan. There are far too many people starting blogs on the same topic as you who have a plan, so you can’t afford to not have one.

Planning is key to your self belief. Most blogs fade away in to the distance less than 12 months after they were launched. Without a plan, you have no goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure your success. Without a measurement for success, you have no way to tell how well your blog is doing. Without this, you can’t believe in yourself. In order to believe in yourself, you must setup goals you can achieve. Without goals, you lose your aim and your focus, and with it you lose your self belief.

Finding Self Belief From Those Around You

Blogging can quite often become a lonely world. You toil all day, writing post after post. Quite often, for new startups, there are no comments to be read and no relationships with other bloggers to call upon. It’s at this point you need to start building relationships.

I wouldn’t have gone down that zip wire without the soldier giving me some self belief. I wouldn’t have gone down that path without feeling safe, secure and without somebody figuratively and indeed physically behind me. You must find a circle of people to keep you accountable and to keep you going even when things are hard, because believe me, that first six months will be the hardest six months of your blogging career.

Twitter is a fantastic place to build your circle, but as is often the case in the blogosphere, times are changing. Forums are now becoming an integral part of the lives of many bloggers. Many of the forums charge a small monthly fee which some people like and some don’t. Personally, I find paid forums to be the best, because they ensure everybody within them are people who take their blog and their marketing efforts seriously. There are several paid for forums and courses that include forum membership, including Chris Garrett’s Authority Blogger and The Third Tribe (a culmination of several high profile bloggers), both of which I’m a member and huge advocate of. I don’t often recommend membership sites like these, but they are both proving to be an invaluable asset to me and my blog. I certainly wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t think they were worth the money.

Another paid for site, which I admit I haven’t used but does have an excellent reputation, is Darren Rowse’s own ProBlogger Community.

Of course, I’m sure there will be some of you who prefer a free way to interact with others and build your circle, so for that there is the Blogging Tips Forums.

All of these forums allow you to bounce ideas off other like-minded bloggers. All of them allow you to be kept accountable to your goals, and keep others accountable. And all of them contain real success stories that will motivate you, not from A-List bloggers with thousands of subscribers, but from people just like us who are achieving realistic goals week after week. There’s nothing quite like a realistic success story to keep you believing in yourself.

Belief in yourself is key to achieving success with your blog. Set yourself goals on a regular basis, and interact with a circle of like-minded people. Rather than being the kid stood at the top of the zip wire who doesn’t interact and decides to walk back down the steps, be the kid that talks with others around him and uses them to achieve his goals.

Do you struggle to believe in your blogging abilities? Do you have your own circle of like-minded people to bounce ideas off and take advice from? Do you set yourself goals, and if so, how often? Let us know in the comments!

PS. Look out for three more posts this week discussing my other cornerstones of blogging. I’ll slowly progress up the scale, until we hit what I believe to be a cornerstone so important, you can’t build a successful blog without it. Subscribe today if you haven’t already done so.

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As our blogs progress, we often hit a plateau where we become comfortable. Traffic graphs start to flatten, and our blog posts become a consistent 600 words of mediocre text.

While getting in to a cycle and a routine of blogging is a very powerful and positive thing, it can also mean we forget to step outside our writing comfort zone. We find ourselves in a zone where our articles become nothing but words, and forget to add excitement, flare, creativity and zest.

The WOW Factor

I’m sure you’ve all experienced it. A normal day. RSS feeds full of new blog posts. You’re excited to read and learn new things. You’re looking forward to lots of exciting, thought-provoking, engaging blog posts from a wide variety of diverse people. But as the early sun rises outside your window, you read the blog posts with your coffee in your hand, and you realise something:

Every single blog post in your reader this morning is boring.

Sure, all the blog posts talk about topics you’re interested in; commenting strategies, online relationship building and social media promotion, but while the title of the posts and the potential they have excite you, the content is nothing more than mediocre. Nothing more than boring opinion, with long and winding sentences of text that almost make you wish you were reading a dictionary.

But then comes a glimmer of hope. Right at the end of your list, you come across a post with a witty, interesting title that immediately grabs your attention. You begin reading, and soon realise the post is a guest post from somebody you have never heard of before. The content is incredible. It’s funny. It’s eye-catching. It’s engaging. It makes you want to jump from your seat and shout “YES! I know exactly what you mean! I feel that way too!”. You nod your head as you read the article. This guest poster talks so much sense it’s unreal, and she does it in a way that entertains you. As you get further in to the article, you find yourself leaning forward towards your monitor. A smile creeps upon your face. As you reach the end of the article, you begin to wonder how this amazing writer is going to finish. Surely the post won’t just fizzle out. It MUST have a bombshell. It must have a splash and a bang at the end. You continue reading and wait for the splash. There! There it is! Bam! It’s controversial, it’s challenging, it’s exciting. It’s the biggest splash you’ve seen in a long time. It’s the best article you’ve read in months.

The post you just read was far more than mediocre. It was pure entertainment. It provoked thought, and provided lessons. It made you laugh and smile, and resonated with your current position. It made a connection with you, and now, because of that one single post, you feel you need to make a connection too.

It may sound simple and stupid, but a blog post that is more than mediocre, that exceeds expectations, forces readers to connect by commenting and subscribing.

The very fact that so many bloggers publish posts that are nothing more than mediocre suggests falling in to a writing comfort zone is a very easy thing to do. I’ve been there myself, and for the most part I didn’t realise I was there until I was out of it and looking back. To avoid falling in to this comfort zone again, there are four questions I ask myself before I publish every single blog post. By answering these questions, I’m confident every post I publish will be something more than mediocre. It may not be the best post you have read in months like the example earlier, but I’m confident it will provide entertainment and provoke thought, and most important of all, stand out from the mass of mediocre text that enters our RSS readers each day.

Ultimately, all four of these questions fall back in to the grasp of just one question:

Before I publish this article, how can I make it something more than mediocre?

I break that question down in to my four bite-sized questions that help improve every blog post I write.

Question #1. Can I add screenshots to this article?

It’s one thing talking about and giving opinion on a subject, but it’s a whole other ball game when you’re showing screenshots to back up your opinion. Does your article talk about a piece of software? Show screenshots. Maybe your article discusses common things that bloggers do wrong. Show examples via screenshots. I used this method more than ever before when I wrote the case study ‘How to find the perfect blog for guest blogging‘.

Use screenshots to put pictures to words. It’s common knowledge that pictures say more than words, so be sure to use them!

What’s the Best Way to Take Screenshots?

Jing (Windows & Mac)

I hadn’t heard of Jing until earlier this evening when I asked my Twitter followers what they use to take screenshots. Mike and Lindsay both recommended Jing to me, and after spending a little time playing with the program, it looks fantastic. Not only can it take still screenshots, but also record videos of your onscreen actions (perfect for screencasts). View Jing

Little Snapper (Mac only)

Little Snapper, a Mac only program, was recommend by Christine. Unlike Jing, this program can’t capture video, but seems to be a fantastic choice for taking still shots on a Mac. View Little Snapper

Fireshot Firefox Extension (Windows & Firefox Only)

Fireshot, recommended by Rhys, is a browser extension for Firefox, making it very easy for Firefox users on Windows to grab a screenshot of a Web page they are viewing. View Fireshot

Print Screen Or CMD+Shift+3

Of course, if you don’t like to use a program, you can use the built in screenshot functions that come with Windows (Print Screen button on your keyboard) and Mac (cmd+shift+3).

Question #2. Can I research this topic and find facts?

Facts present authority. They reinforce the point you’re trying to make, and most of all, they show your readers you’re willing to put in the time and effort to research the topic you’re writing about.

Everybody loves the opinion of a writer, and ultimately blogging is about giving opinions. But with that opinion, there must also be facts. You must give your readers a reason to listen and believe what you’re saying.

A reader is far more likely to recommend an article to a friend if they truly believe what was written in the article. Facts and research make people believe, so use them!

Where do I find facts?

The best places I’ve found to do my research and find facts is on other blogs discussing the same subject, and Twitter.

Other Blogs

Before publishing a blog post, I’ll often Google for blog posts which discuss similar things to the one I’m about to publish. Sometimes I’m just looking for similar posts to share with my readers at the end of my post, but other times I’ll use the opinion, research and facts in my own post that other bloggers have shared in theirs.

Other times, it’s just good to hear the opinion of somebody else. It often lets me see things from a new perspective, and gives me new ideas to write about in my post.

Twitter

One of the great advantages of having a decent following on Twitter is I can ask just about any question I want, and I’ll get a load of responses. It proves to be a fantastic way to gather my own research and facts.

Take tonight as an example. I asked my followers what programs they use to grab screenshots. I got a bunch of responses, and they helped me put together this blog post.

Question #3. Can I add any links to this post?

There are three types of link I try to get in to every post:

Internal Links – I always try to link relevant phrases in my post to articles I have written in the past. The more information you can give a reader, the more authority they assume you have.

External Links – If I see a phrase in my post that I feel needs linking, and I haven’t wrote about the relevant subject in the past, I’ll Google for a blogger who has wrote about it, and then link to that article. Again, the more information you can provide a reader with, the more authority you’ll be perceived to have. Linking to other blogs is also a fantastic way to build connections with new bloggers.

Further Reading Links – At the bottom of each article, I always try to provide three or four links to similar articles. These are usually a mixture of posts I have wrote, and posts others have wrote. The more info you give, the better it is for your readers, remember!

Question #4. Can I Add the ‘How’ to the ‘Why’?

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point giving your opinion on why your readers should do something and providing facts to backup your opinion, unless you’re going to tell your reader how to do it too. Before I publish every post, I ask myself if I’ve clearly explained how to do what I have recommended in my post. If I’ve only explained the ‘why’ and not given the ‘how’, I go back to rework that particular section of the article.

As a prime example, earlier in this article I wrote about using screenshots. For a minute, I left it as that. I gave the reasons for why you should use them, but there was no ‘how’ you use them. I went back and reworked that section to include screenshot software recommendations, based on the research I did via Twitter. Are you just telling the ‘why’, or do you discuss the ‘how’ too?

Let’s Recap!

Mediocre blog articles are what most people publish. You don’t want to be ‘most people’, do you? Go that extra mile to provoke emotion, provide entertainment, and assert your authority.

Write – Write your article
Ask – Ask yourself the questions to improve your article
Publish – Publish your blog post, and feel contempt that you’re no longer a part of the masses

The W.A.P. theory, provided to create the WOW factor!

How do you go the extra mile in your blog posts? Are you happy to just write and publish, or do you seek ways to always make improvements? What methods do you use to research the topics you’re writing on? Let us know in the comments.

P.S. Yes, folks. After a 10 month break, I’m back. It was good to get away, but I can assure you, it’s so much better to be back.

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There’s not many blogging niche’s that are free from overcrowding. Everywhere you look in the blogosphere, somebody, somewhere (plus 99 others) are blogging about every, and indeed any, topic.

So in an industry that often resembles the scenes of ‘Rua 25 de Março’ (seen in the photo above), how do we stand out from the crowd? How do we draw attention to ourselves? How do we build a relationship with a reader who, undoubtedly, is reading 25 other blogs in the same niche as us? These were the questions I asked myself as I was preparing to launch Blogging Zest 10 days ago. Below are my answers.

Your ‘About’ Page Should Create a Connection

There’s no debate that, after your home page, your ‘About’ page is the most important page on your blog. 60% of new visitors to my blogs click straight to my about page after hitting the home page. It’s a natural reaction for humans to want to know about the person behind the creation (be it a blog, art or something entirely different). For example, while Banksy’s art is good, it’s the constant quest to find out more about the shy and hidden artist that consumes the time of most people interested in his work. It’s the same with blogging. For some reason, no matter how good our writing or art is, it’s the person beyond the creative that continues to inspire and draw in others.

For readers to become subscribers, the reader has to feel a connection. They must feel drawn to you. They must find something you have in common with each other. And that’s why they head to your about page. At that point, when they click that mouse button and search for the connection, they want to subscribe. All you have to do is give them a reason.

So when I came to writing my about page, I had ‘connection and emotion’ in mind. I wanted to build a connection. And I wanted to provoke emotion. I wanted readers to leave my about page feeling ’something’. Quite what that ’something’ should be, I wasn’t sure. It could have been laughter, sadness, feel-good-happiness, surprise, anticipation or any number of other emotions we humans are capable of expressing.

All my previous about pages have been nothing more than a self-obsessed-alpha-male-ego-trip. They went something like this, albeit in many hundreds of words, rather than one paragraph:

“Hi! I’m Jamie. I have green eyes. I’ve achieved this, this, and this in my seven year career, and I’ve appeared on X radio and in Y newspaper.“

So while I could have gone the same route this time, listing links to radio and newspaper interviews, boring everyone with my business history, telling you about what I hope to achieve with Blogging Zest, and (because I don’t have a wife of 14 years and two lovely kids) tell everyone I have two brothers and no pets, I knew that wasn’t going to build a connection.

So What Did I do?

There’s no better way to build a connection and evoke emotion than to tell a story. With three of my most popular blog posts being stories, experience has shown me they work well.

Naturally, the only story I could tell on my about page was the story of my life. Or the story of my childhood.

Childhood, specifically, evokes great emotion. And unlike adults where we all move on to doing our own things, for many of us our times as children were very similar, allowing us to make connections.

Just 10 days after launching this blog and publishing the about page, which tells stories of sleep overs, squashed hamsters, business plans at nine years old, smashed windows, childhood graffiti and girlfriends, I’ve received countless messages from readers. Most say they couldn’t stop laughing. One said she was crying with laughter. Another took the time to (quite rightly, might I add!) tell me how cute I am in the photo as a seven year old. And another? Well, he took it upon himself to post a link to my about page on Twitter, treating it like a creative blog post. After he recommended my about page to his friends, I knew there and then that my effort to build a connection and evoke emotion had worked.

Don’t slip in to the sea of boring about pages. Stand out from the crowd. Be different. Ensure it’s interesting for your readers, and not just another self-centred ego-trip.

Create a Mini-Bio in Your Blog Sidebar

Blogging Zest is the first blog where I’ve used a mini biography in the sidebar, and the results are amazing. The “Find Out More” link that goes to my about page receives five times more clicks than the “About” link in the main menu at the top of the blog. The image to the left shows the heat map of the area of the site where the mini-bio is located. I guess that quick, one-paragraph introduction does a great job of enticing people to read more about the person behind the blog.

Display Testimonials from Current Readers

Whether via blog comments, emails or social networking, at some point, somebody will express their gratitude for your writing and the community you build around your blog, so why not bring those positive comments together in one list and turn them in to a list of testimonials? There’s very few better incentives to subscribe than recommendations from real people.

Create a ‘Welcome’ Post for New Subscribers

One of the best ways I use to help Blogging Zest stand out above the masses is making use of a ‘Welcome’ post for new subscribers.

Readers who subscribe in their RSS reader will see a post titled “Welcome New Subscriber! Get Your Free Ebook!”.

The welcome post gives a personal message from me, and also a link to the free blogger interviews ebook that all subscribers are entitled to. The post is a ’sticky’ post and only displays in RSS readers (it doesn’t display publicly on the blog). The ’sticky’ feature ensures that no matter how many posts I publish at Blogging Zest, the welcome post will always display when a reader subscribes.

How Do You Create a Sticky Welcome Post?

The post actually makes use of two WordPress plugins. Here are the steps to create your own sticky, RSS only welcome post.

1. Create a WordPress category called “Subscriber Only”
2. Download and install the Advanced Category Excluder plugin.
3. Once installed, go to the plugin settings and change the checkbox settings for the “Subscriber Only” category to correspond with this screen shot (click to enlarge):

4. Download and install the WP-Sticky plugin. Unfortunately, the Advanced Category Excluder doesn’t work with WordPress’ built in sticky post functionality, so downloading the WP-Sticky plugin is required.
5. Write your blog post. Assign it to the “Subscriber Only” category. Check “Sticky” in the “Post Sticky Status” box on the right side of the “Write” page.

6. Publish! There you have it. A sticky post that is visible only to your RSS subscribers.

Create a Survey for Your Subscribers

This is a relatively new area for me, but one that has already proved its worth.

Included in the ‘Welcome’ post is a link to a “30 second subscriber survey”. The survey asks just one question: “How did you find Blogging Zest?”. It really does take just 30 seconds to answer. The result gives me a good idea of where most of my subscribers are finding Blogging Zest (Mostly Twitter, so far, by the way), and also gives me a good chance to get my subscribers interacting with me and the blog.

In an ideal world I would have the survey post setup as an RSS only sticky too, but it seems the WP-Sticky plugin combined with the Advanced Category Excluder only likes one sticky post. While the amount of surveys I was receiving during the launch when the survey was a sticky were very high, I decided to replace the survey sticky with the ‘Welcome’ sticky and link to the survey from the welcome post. The percentage of subscribers who complete the survey is still significant and enough to let me see and analyse trends.

To setup your own subscriber survey, create your survey form, insert it in to a post and assign that post to your ‘Subscriber Only’ category.

Try to keep the survey short. You should be looking to build the interaction between you, your subscriber and your blog as much as you are looking to collect survey results and find trends.

In this ever growing blogosphere, it’s becoming increasingly important to stand out from the crowd. Hopefully by employing some (or all) of these tactics, you’ll be able to get the edge over the other bloggers in your niche.

If you’re a subscriber here at Blogging Zest, what effect did the welcome post and survey have on you? How do you try and ensure your blog stands out? Is your about page just a long ego-trip about your qualifications, or is it interesting that is full of the same amount of energy that you put in to your best blog posts? Let us know in the comments!

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It’s January 28th, 2034. You’re 25 years older and your kids are all grown up. The Internet is a far cry from the one we knew in 2009. The iPhone is a thing of the past. Terrorism and war has taken an e-turn, and the economic collapse of 2008 has been and gone.

You’re happy to be in your new job. The 2008 economy meant you had to look for a new position, but you’re also now looking forward to retirement.

In the blogging world, John Chow is still around. As is his daughter, Sally Chow, who is now a regular guest blogger on her fathers blog.

Where Will Your Blog Be?

In 2034, what is your blog? Where is your blog? How many subscribers do you have? Do you offer an ebook? Do ebooks still exist? Are you making any money from your blog? Are you even still blogging?

Growth Rate

John Chow had a subscriber growth rate of 4,000 between the end of October 2008 and middle of November 2008. 300 months from now, in January 2034, the numbers indicate John Chow will be seeing subscriber numbers of over 1,200,000 (one million, two hundred thousand).

So I want to seriously ask you. Where do you think your blog will be in 25 years? Will you still be blogging, or will you quit like the masses?

Have you ever truly considered where your blog will be in one year, let alone 25 years from now?

If you’re not sure where you’ll be, where do you want your blog to be? What are your 25 year goals?

I’ll be the first to answer this question by writing my thoughts as the initial comment.

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