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Ryan Paugh graduated from Penn State in 2006 with a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business. After working in corporate communications, freelance writing and reporting, he co-founded 
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Looking back over the last 6-8 months, I could’ve never predicted that my life would become so consumed by the world of blogging. Back in college I wanted nothing to do with them, yet here I am, roughly a year and a half out of school and I’ve collaborated to build a company founded in the world of online social media.
I’ve been blogging a lot lately. Not just writing, but scouring the Internet for young professionals who are passionately sharing their experiences through their blog. I’ve come across some great blogs, but some could be a lot better.
Here’s a reality check for new bloggers: It’s not always the writing that makes a blog suck. Functionality (or lack thereof) can kill it too.
Here are a few essential options for new bloggers that are easy to incorporate and enhance the power of your blog more than you know:
Optimize your RSS
Believe it or not, some great writers who have blogs don’t publish their RSS feeds. What a waste. There’s no better way to generate a consistent audience. And other than incorporating the standard feed icon on your sidebar, there are other ways you can use RSS to optimize your site.
A lot of readers are more interested in comments than your actual posts. Employee Evolution has a few readers that only show up when a heated debate is in our midst. Create subscription to your comments section and you’ll get these people’s attention whenever new discussions begin.
Also, there’s nothing worse than having to play “Where’s Waldo” to find your feed. Your RSS icon should be one of the most prominent clickable items on your page. If I can’t see your feed, it’s useless.
Implement a search tool
I love to link to other bloggers in my posts. And people love to be linked to.
The only problem is, sometimes I can’t find a relevant topic with in a blogger’s recent posts. To find what I’m looking for, I do a keyword search on their site to find exactly what it is I’m looking for. That is, as long as they have a search tool.
Archiving your posts and categorizing are only the first steps in making your old posts searchable. If a reader knows exactly what they’re looking for, they don’t want to comb through months of archived posts. They want to type in what they’re looking for and get it on demand.
Every once in awhile, a media source will contact Employee Evolution about a post we wrote a long time ago. They didn’t find that post through exploring our entire archive; reporters don’t have time for that. They were either referred to it or found it through our search tool.
Contact info that’s easy to find and easy to use
Unless you’re playing the anonymity game, which is pointless, you should incorporate a way for people to contact you that’s friendly and easy to use.
A lot of people incorporate contact forms to try and minimize spam. It’s reasonable, as long as you’re being responsive.
When I send an email via a contact form, I worry that I’m sending my message into a black hole. And when I don’t get a response for days, it confirms my suspicions. The best and easiest way to get people to contact you is to just provide an email address.
And a little side note: the “yourname (at) yourblog (dot) com” thing is cute and I get that it cuts down on spam, but it does nothing for the person who is trying to contact you. If you’re like me, you copy and paste people’s emails straight from their blog right into an email. Call it laziness, but c’mon. If I don’t like it, I’m sure there’s someone a lot more professional than me having a serious hissy fit.
Popularity: 5%
In building my blog (which I did because I geeked out and built a server), I went through the rigors of setting up both Google’s hosting and my own using Movable Type (Windows IIS hates Wordpress). Most of the things you mention (archives, RSS feeds, search, etc) were built into the most basic of platforms. It’s almost as though someone would HAVE to exclude that info. Heck, FireFox gives an RSS feed subscription button in the address bar!
As for the email address, I agree. Just use a spam filter like everyone else. It isn’t as though that email address isn’t posted 50 other places on-line anyway.
Norcross:
I think the majority of new bloggers out there don’t know as much as you do about the Internet’s functionality. They just set up a basic WordPress template and start writing.
And it’s funny, you’d think setting up feeds goes without saying, but some people don’t get it, or don’t think it’s important. I can remember when I started blogging in March. Admittedly, I had no clue what a RSS feed even was and I didn’t think we needed it to grow our blog. It was stupid, and I think a lot of people who aren’t as tech-savvy make the same mistake.
If you have any other good tips for startup bloggers please share them. I have a lot of friends who just started blogging who could really use the professional help.
Thanks.
-RP
You know what’s funny? I just switched to a different theme and forgot to add the RSS link! Back to work for me! I can’t let those 4 subscribers sit there by themselves!
Ah, the pains of a new blog. It’s heartbreaking, really.
Erik:
Stick to it and just have patience. It’s a frustrating process, but once you learn all of the tricks, things will start to pick up.
I’d also suggest Googling some SEO tips for bloggers.
Best of luck.
-RP
Great post! I only have a year of blogging under my belt, but I’ve learned a lot as well. I think one of the things that keeps me subscribed to an RSS feed is having the full post show up in the feed reader. I know many times people want to direct traffic to their site and only allow for partial posts in feeds, but unless it’s a REALLY awesome blog, I will get annoyed with a mini-teaser when I am trying to go through a bunch of feeds in one sitting. I end up unsubscribing rather than click to their site every time a post comes up. I know there are school of thought for both sides, but that’s my 2 cents.
Jana - full posts in the RSS feed, amen! I was just headed over here to comment about that myself.
Personally I end up reading the majority of my blog posts through my RSS reader, and if something isn’t fully in my reader, I rarely (if ever) click through to read the whole article. I scan through enough stuff, that it’s just extra time I’m not prepared to invest in any single blog.
Ryan, I know what you speak of, because until your email reminder a week or so ago, I was one of those bloggers withouta prominently displayed RSS button! I know, shame on me (but in my defense, I’ve always had a search button). It’s not that I don’t know what it is or understand the value of RSS, but some of us would rather focus on the writing and forget the technical side of blogging. The nice thing is that for the most part, once you get your blog up and running, you can focus on generating content.
I’m really annoyed by contact forms, too, because it puts an extra barrier between the blogger (or web master) and the reader. If you want people (including the media) to contact you, you should position yourself as someone who is approachable. But I have no problem with using (at) instead of @ or some other variation, because I understand how annoying spam is and it doesn’t take that much extra work to type in a few characters manually. Now, graphic email addresses that you can’t copy and paste at all are another story…
Totally agree with the first two points. For RSS, I recommend setting up FeedBurner and moving your rss icons (and if you don’t have any, adding them) to an easy to find location.
Also, I would recommend claiming your blog on Technorati and setting up keywords, etc.
For the comment on posting an email address… even with antispam, I’ve done a very good job of not getting my email address posted, though I have made it pretty easy for folks to get in touch with me.
Granted, I could probably make it easier (even while still hiding my email address from spambots) and *should*. But using a contact form (without a captcha, though I’m considering adding reCAPTCHA — recaptcha.net/ — because it provides an additional service that everyone can benefit from) has already helped save my sanity. =)
My 2 cents,
Bron
Good tips Ryan.
Wish i had known them back when i was starting out, so to speak. ^_^
My next big goal when it comes to blogging is figuring out how stumbleupon, delicious and Digg work. I hear they really help with a blog’s traffic too. Now if I can only squeeze in the time… My professor in Commercial Law isn’t very forgiving, time-wise.
Kelvin
Kelvin… if you host your own WordPress, check out this plug-in…
wordpress.org/extend/plugins/slashdigglicious/
Hey Ryan
I’m not sure from your post (or the email you sent me when you were looking for my RSS feed!) whether you’re clear on the difference between publishing a blog’s RSS, and prominently displaying a “Subscribe to me/ my RSS feed/ etc.” button on a blog. This matters because they are two different things, and there’s no reason to play Where’s Waldo OR include a bleedin’ RSS icon! I think publishing your RSS feed is important to facilitate the reader experience (in fact, it’s pretty much a given), but I don’t get why it’s so crucial to have a “Subscribe” button unless your main aim is to generate revenue from your blog through advertising or pay-per-click or whatever. Mine isn’t, and I’ve already made a conscious decision not to include it on my blog - and this is not because I’m so dumb I don’t know what one is, or that I haven’t thought about it.
I’ve used a couple of different feedreaders, from the usual bog standard Google to some open source and more specifically tailored apps and they’ve all offered me the option to search for a site’s feed, usually at the click of a small button integrated into my browser window. This is the most frequently used feature of my reader and I consider it a key one. So assuming a feed is being published for a blog, then it doesn’t matter whether that person has included a “subscribe” button or not. An RSS icon to me screams “superfluous” - I’ve always thought it was there to capture readers who were too lazy and/or green to know how to use their feedreader apps properly.
But I can’t imagine the oh-so-tech savvy EE readers fall into either of these two categories - so, seriously, am I missing something??! Is this some really obvious aspect of RSS that has just gone over my head?! Or have you just had a little rant about something you’ve over-estimated your knowledge of and confused the issue? (fair enough if so - we’ve all done it). Finally, if your feedreader doesn’t have a “discover feed” function, which reader are you using and why the hell are you still using it, when there are so many more advanced readers out there??!
Hey thanks bronwyn,
But i think I’m using the “simple” wordpress, the one in .com? The .org one is the one where you build everything from scratch right? That is way beyond me I think haha… Plus there hasn’t been much time on my plate. But i will definitely consider the.org option now. So many bloggers seem to prefer wordpress.org! Thanks so much!
Kelvin
Sarah:
I’m not quite sure what you’re upset about…
But it seems like what you’re saying is if you’re not trying to make money, make a name for yourself or reach a large audience, than an RSS widget / link / or whatever is stupid and unnecessary. And you’re absolutely right. I guess I made a bad assumption if that is the case.
However, I think you’re over-estimating people’s understand of the world of Web. 2.0. All our readers aren’t as tech-savvy as you. But when they see the RSS widget they immediately know what’s up.
Granted, some of our readers are pretty tech-savvy. Speaking of, thanks to some of them for adding other great tips. I was hoping that would happen.
I disagree with Jana on the full feeds. I actually prefer a partial feed, because it makes it easier for me to scroll through all of my feeds and choose the things I want to read in full. Skimming the headline and the first few sentences, I can easily say “no, not interested, not applicable, or Ooo, I bet that has some good tips.” All the more reason to make the headline and opening sentences really enticing.
Hey, sorry Ryan, I didn’t mean to come off as upset, just confused!! I genuinely didn’t know whether I was being dumb and missing something, or what! I guess the authoritative tone of the blog and comments has worked, I’ve always had the impression that people around here *are* pretty clued up on web 2.0
Anyway, I don’t consider myself to be especially tech-savvy so I guess *I* was making the bad assumption that if I knew something that I feel is pretty basic, then most other people would too…
I guess I was also at pains to point out that, in the case of the RSS widget, at least, mine was a conscious choice and I had my reasons for it - some of the ones you mention, but others too (I might have to write a post on that myself someday!) It can sometimes seem like EE has a tendency to attack people for their choices (e.g. they create situations which suck, are a waste, there’s nothing worse, they cause hissy fits in important people, etc etc! but there are other bloggers who do this too) and it doesn’t feel very nice to be on the receiving end of that without at least understanding the reasoning behind it. The assumption seems to be that these decisions have been made because the blogger/ manager/ employee etc. doesn’t know any better, never because there might be a very valid reason that other people might also learn from.
Not to worry, that’s taught me to have more confidence in what I do know
Keep up the good work.
Kelvin… actually, the plug-ins are for if you have your own domain and pay for hosting service. For example, I have Dreamhost (which came with a one-click install of wordpress). I’m not sure about the online wordpress functionality, using plug-ins, etc…. sorry!
Also, for everyone, I just saw this 11 Tips to Get Your Blog Noticed from FastCompany:
www.fastcompany.com/multimedia/slideshows/content/11tips-blog-noticed_pagen_7.html
Captchas and stuff like them aren’t worth the time if you’re not going to use a contact form. If you absolutely need the email address in its full form why not hide it behind some javascript (really easy using this form: javascript.about.com/library/blemail1.htm ) or use encrypted html: javascript.about.com/library/blenc.htm