I won’t lie, there’s no place I’d rather have been last weekend other than SXSW. For me, conferences are like huge idea factories. I go with pen and notebook in hand ready to absorb all I can, take notes on ideas that come as I listen and meet awesome new people.
But alas, I wasn’t there and rather than cry about it, here are 8 things I learned anyway.
1.) We all have our moments of Genius, the only question is how often we have them and what we do with those moments when they come.
Over the last several months I’ve read a great succession of books that have literally changed various elements my life. I’ve been forced to look at the world a different way and I’ve learned more about myself and how I operate than I ever have before in such a short period of time. My latest read, Linchpin by Seth Godin (Amazon affiliate link), has explained things about myself that I never before could put to words. And I’ve learned that those moments when I seem to pull everything together just right are my moments of genius.
2.) Mapping out your posts is the most productive way to publish structured and well organized content.
Reading an post on ProBlogger, Ali Hale wrote a post titled Navigating the Middle of Your Post – Without Getting Lost. This was a great post in that it explained in order to improve efficiency and create content that is dynamic and enjoyable to read, we should map out where we are going with our posts before we actual put pen to paper (figuratively, of course).
Hale explains that before we begin, we should determine exactly what direction we are wanting to go. Part of this mapping process includes determining the varying elements of what you are wanting to talk about and breaking the post up into sections. And, breaking up the content by adding visual elements such as header tags, bold keywords at the beginning of a paragraph and ordered/unordered lists, the content is easier for the reader to consume.
As a side note, I purchased two of Hale’s e-books and am greatly looking forward to reading them!
3.) Need inspiration? Try talking to a human.
Probably one of the most underutilized overlooked ways to come up with new ideas is plain ‘ol conversation. Have you ever noticed how good you feel after a stimulating in-person chat session with one of your buddies? You feel great because we, as humans, love the personal social interaction. This interaction gets our minds working, increases blood flow to the brain and energizes our creativity.
Friday I had a curb-side conversation with a friend and our conversation alone stimulated 2 new ideas for how I could grow a venture that I’ve been noodling for a time. Sometimes the ideas may not even be directly related to what we are talking about, but once the mind is pricked a little, it will start pouring ideas. So, call a friend, send a message to them on Facebook, schedule a lunch and get thinking!
4.) If you are looking for new blog material, check your archives.
Reading Christopher S Penn’s blog (he’s with Blue Sky Factory and Marketing Over Coffee), he brought up an interesting point. Why not use some old content to touch on some relevancy for today? He suggested hitting up your analytics and seeing what of your old content is still popular today and rehashing an old post. Now, this isn’t to say that you’ll have old content that is as popular as some new content, but rather look at some content from a year, two year, three years ago and see what of your old content is getting the most reads today – that’s your old content that is still getting some attention.
Why is it getting attention you ask? More than likely people are landing on that post from a search engine search. So, if people are searching for something that that post provides, then there is still some relevancy.
Here’s what you do. Write a new post that summarizes the old post. Be sure you use some of the same keywords that are delivering people to that article. You can do some copy and pasting, but you want to keep that at a minimum to keep the search engines from thinking it is duplicate content. And, you want to add new information that would be pertinent to today and add new links to newer content, etc.
I used to do this on PCBDaily from time to time. One of the cool things about blogging about Panama City Beach for three years was that I had tons of content over a long period of time. This was a great opportunity to go back and discuss some of the things that people were still interested in. Plus republishing old content gives the search engines more meat to chew on when people type in those performing keywords.
5.) Buying Information Products – Is it an investment or a gamble? That depends. . . on you!
I buy TONS of information products. And, I’ll be frank, I’ll recomend you buy some of them too, sometimes. Information products are often a great way to learn and add tools to your social media tool kit that you didn’t have before. Information products are often times like the new how-to guides and can give you another perspective on how to get things done.
Many times the information found in a $30 e-book can be found for free. It’s not that the information would be difficult to gather, but it would take time. And, without experience, you may not get the “formula” right. Buying an e-book or information product often allows you to get a glimpse into someone else’s genius (remember our convo above). You are paying for the fact that someone else has already done this and written a road map for how you can do it too!
Now, I should be clear. Just because someone writes an information product on the Secrets of doing Whatever, doesn’t mean that it’s a magic bullet. This is information and should be treated as a learning tool. Everything I read I pick up tons of stuff that would have taken me weeks or even months to learn/collect, and every time I walk away smarter and more experienced.
6.) Using brand names in post titles helps.
Think about it, makes sense right? Big brand names are not only instantly recognizable by your readers, they are also well indexed keywords in search engines. By using brand names, you are exposing yourself to a potentially large audience and opening up the opportunity for a great amount of link juice. In a post by HubSpot, they discussed that with 100 articles published, 20% of them had brand names in the titles. Those 20% generated 60% more pageviews than the articles that did not have brand names in the titles. Sounds pretty convincing.
7.) Want to start a blog? Here’s how to choose a niche.
We talk about blogging for business here a lot. In fact, consistent blogging about what you do is a great way to increase product awareness, build relationships with your customers and get new customers with your increased web site traffic. But, what if you are wanting to blog about something else, maybe something that isn’t directly related to what you are doing. What if you want to start a blog like PCBDaily or Too Creative?
One of the most important decisions for you to make is what niche you’ll be blogging about. This needs to have a lot of thought put into it. I knew, for example, that I was going to start another blog once I sold PCBDaily. I knew it. But, what I didn’t know is what the heck I was going to blog about. I read e-book after e-book and blog after blog clawing for inspiration on what I should choose as my niche. Nothing came. I had idea after idea fail the sands of time while I pondered all the durability tests Darren Rowse suggests.
It was important for me that above all else, I had to be passionate about what I was blogging about. Some people can endure blogging about any topic, but I wanted something that I would enjoy, not only now, but for years to come. Without this passion, I knew the blog could not be successful. I had to have a great interest in the topic.
Other very important considerations included:
- I needed unlimited content – I couldn’t risk getting 3 months, 1 year, 3 years down the road and “running out of content.” I had to pick a topic that I could talk about forever, that would lend itself well to creating new content.
- I needed a way to monetize it – I can’t lie here folks, I do this because I enjoy it, but if I can’t sustain it by making money, then it’s not worth me taking precious time away from my family.
- The popularity of the topic – When you pick a topic, it is important that you weigh in how popular it is. If there is tons of high-quality competition, then it may be likely that you won’t be able to compete. This may not matter for you, you may have a niche audience already, but it should be seriously considered.
I know, I know what you’re thinking. “But Jason, you’re blogging about Social Media. Everyone and their mother is blogging about Social Media.” Trust me, I know. But, I couldn’t help it. I know I have some phenomenal competition that I learn from everyday. I understand that I’ll probably never measure up, but social media is what I’m passionate about. And, I do know what I’m doing and I know tons of people can benefit from my knowledge. I don’t need to educate the masses, I just need to help a few people to make it all worth while. I love learning new things, new ways to market, and I love to share that knowledge.
8.) Some amazing tips on how to search engine optimize your site.
Probably one of the most inciteful articles I’ve read in a while on SEO taught me some new things and provided a new perspective on how to grow traffic and increase search engine rankings. The very first tip was called Get People Googling Your Brand. The whole point was to write and publish something that didn’t have a direct link back to your site, but referenced it and referenced it often. The idea was to get people to think about your brand and Google it to find out more. The author described that this moved mountains when it came to building search engine credibility for your site.
Conclusions
All of the articles mentioned were featured in my daily reading diary I like to call #tcreads. Every day I spend as much time reading as I can, and I share that knowledge with you by tweeting it with the hashtag “tcreads”. The point is to educate you as I educate myself. I love learning new things and if we want to grow professionally and otherwise, we need to keep learning. Be sure to follow me each day and don’t hesitate to retweet articles you find fascinating and tweet your own #tcreads!
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What a fantastic post – just shows how much you can learn when NOT at conferences. (Though, hope to see you at SXSW next year?
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Glad you enjoyed the ProBlogger piece, and hope you find the ebooks just as useful — thanks for buying!