SkelliewagSkelliewagOn creating content your readers will fall in love with. Articles
The Pocket-sized Guide to Blogging
2008-05-21 05:08:00 Photo by place-light. (A bit out of practice, but stick with me.) If you’re like me, you’ve probably read the equivalent of a few books worth of material on how to run a successful blog. You’ve read about getting more traffic, getting more subscribers, getting more links, more comments, social media votes and so on. If triggered, ... More About: Blogging , Guide , Pocket
(Not on hiatus).
2008-05-01 18:14:00 In light of some of the concerned emails I?ve been receiving, I thought it worth stating that all is very well with me. I?m not sick, or disenchanted, or uninspired ? just a full-time final year university student with three big papers due in as many weeks. I?m almost over the hill and will do my ... More About: General , Hiatus
How to Get Piles of Links, Subscribers and Comments
2008-04-14 17:11:00 Photo by Iydurg. It’s easy to get caught up discussing high-level Digg strategies and complicated metaphors, but it’s important not to lose sight of the things that make the advanced stuff worthwhile. Without the ability to gather links, subscribers and comments, your blog can’t grow. These three basic things are the lifeblood of your blog. It’s essential ... More About: Blogging , Links , Comments , Piles
10 Bloggers Share Their Best Post Ever
2008-04-10 14:21:00 Photo by Thiru Murugan. On the 12th of March I proposed that one way to create a remarkable blog post is to write like you’re never going to be able to write again, and, in doing so, produce a trump card post. After reading the post, ten Skelliewag readers decided to give it a go. The ... More About: Blogging , Post , Bloggers , Share
The Top 5 Ways to Generate Traffic With Less Work
2008-04-09 05:49:00 Photo by Andrew Eglington. Effective use of time is the main ingredient in creating a thriving blog or website. In this post, I want to explain some high-impact traffic generating techniques you can use that minimize time and effort without minimizing results. 1. Don’t write guest-posts — exchange them. Generally, a guest-post on another blog means one ... More About: Traffic , Work
25 Paths to an Insanely Popular Blog
2008-03-25 14:00:00 Photo by Brett L. 1. The social media runaway train. Perhaps the most sought after (and least frequently attained) route to a popular blog is rapid ‘growth from above’ resulting from huge traffic spikes, most frequently originating from Digg. This route was traveled by blogs like Zen Habits (did you know Zen Habits has been on ... More About: Blog , Popular
Why You?ve Got to Dig Digg to Get Dugg
2008-03-22 04:16:00 The thought of making the front page of Digg is something that divides most content-creators into three camps: those who want it and strive for it, those who want it but feel they don’t have a chance, and those who don’t want it at all. The latter group usually believes (from experience) that Digg traffic is ... More About: Dugg
On Writing and You
2008-03-21 13:59:00 Photo by Paul Worthington I thought I’d take a little time out from our regular content flow to write some follow-up thoughts on the post ‘Why Great Writing Doesn’t Matter Online‘. It’s something that many of you had mixed feelings about and I seem not to have made myself as clear as I would have liked. ... More About: On Writing
Nomadic Growth: Moving to Greener Pastures
2008-03-19 13:40:00 Photo by Tengis This post is a lesson borne out of a challenge I’ve been facing at the moment: a growth plateau. It started at around the time I began to experiment with an inward growth strategy without external promotion: I would write good posts, new audiences would find them through links and social media, and ... More About: Moving , Growth
Free eBook! The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want
2008-03-16 12:21:00 This is the free 27-page eBook version of a post series that appeared on Skelliewag in 2007. It’s completely open-source, so do whatever you want with it: offer it as a download on your blog or website, share it with friends, or sell it and make a million! About the book: Most hard questions have simple ... More About: Philosophy , Free , Ebook , Simple
Your Trump Card Post Idea
2008-03-12 13:21:00 Photo by Helico I want to share a post idea anyone can use. It’s almost guaranteed to produce one of the best blog posts you’ve ever written. It’s an idea with limited uses, so I’d suggest that you use it wisely. It will also take some time to do it justice. The perfect scenario would be one where ... More About: Card , Post , Idea , Trump
Why Great Writing Doesn?t Matter Online
2008-03-09 01:07:00 When I studied journalism last year I learned that your ability to write is largely irrelevant when it comes to producing hard news stories (e.g. a young male driver was killed last night when he collided with a passenger bus… those kinds of stories). The words you use are just a vehicle for what’s really ... More About: Writing , Great , Online , Matter
Creating Sidebars That Work
2008-03-05 14:00:00 Photo by pingnews The humble sidebar is almost as old as the web itself, but its true importance is often underestimated. And, let’s face it, it’s very easy to do badly. In an effort to create a sidebar that does everything at once, many people end up creating sidebars that are hardly usable. Too much information ... More About: Work , Creating , Simplicity
My #1 Tip for Creating Better Content: Write in Advance
2008-03-01 22:00:00 Photo by Libertinus As I write this, it’s a Friday, and I don’t expect anyone to see this post until roughly six days from now. I have another post to write after this one, but if I don’t finish it tonight, I have plenty of time to do so. I can take as much time as ... More About: Write , Creating , Content , Write-in
The One True Cause of Rapidfire Growth
2008-02-28 22:00:00 Photo by millicent_bystander Repeated and huge torrents of social media traffic over many months. That’s it. Think about the blogs you’ve observed grow from zero to many thousands of subscribers in a relatively short period of time. Zen Habits has been on the front page of Digg 82 times. Freelance Switch, 18 times. Copyblogger, 22 times (but is now on the ... More About: Blogging , Growth , True
Surviving and Thriving in an Under-served Niche
2008-02-26 22:00:00 Photo by Indy Charlie While I’ve already discussed the benefits of trying to grow a blog in a competitive, crowded niche, I want to devote some attention to how you can best grow a blog in an empty or under-served niche. The best aspects of this method are an undivided market. If you’re the first quality blog ... More About: Blogging , Niche
What?s it Like to Run a Popular Blog?
2008-02-22 04:31:00 Photo by eschipul As Skelliewag approaches 3,500 subscribers (barring huge Feedburner errors…) I’ve started to accept that the blog has grown into something that many people would class as popular, successful and so on. One thing that strikes me as strange is how little talk there is about the ways in which running a well-established blog ... More About: Blogging , Blog , Popular
Comfort Food Blogging
2008-02-19 22:00:00 Photo by roland I spent some of today listening to a talk by Mac productivity leader Merlin Mann. One quote in particular won’t seem to work its way out of my mind. It went something like this: “It’s amazing how many people will read a blog about productivity that updates twenty-four times a day.” While funny, it’s also ... More About: Food , Blogging , Comfort food , Comfort
The 5 Barriers to Success Series ? Part 5: Blogging Without Examination
2008-02-16 22:00:00 Photo by tasteful_tn If you?ve been wondering why your blog or website hasn?t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I?ve covered four parts: Content with a lack of significance for its target audience. A lack of diverse entry points to ... More About: Series , Blogging , Success , Part , Examination
9 Things That Drive a Blogger Crazy
2008-02-14 22:00:00 Photo by Violator3 I like blogging, but there are a few things about it that drive me a little crazy. Maybe you can relate? 1. Your daily traffic plummets Links and social media votes dry up and so does your incoming traffic. It will rarely disappear completely, but if you’re like me and don’t get a lot of search ... More About: Blogger , Drive , Blogging , Crazy , Things
Cream of the Crop: Six Cutting-Edge, Minimalist Wordpress Themes
2008-02-12 22:00:00 Photo by feaverish These six themes are at the forefront of modern, minimalist, typographically interesting Wordpress theme design. I’ve moonlighted as a blog designer, a design consultant and write design reviews every week at ProBlogger. I write on usability, simplicity and minimalism in design. This stuff is important to me, and my criteria for good blog design ... More About: Wordpress Themes , Blogging , Cutting Edge , Themes
The 5 Barriers to Success Series ? Part 4: Perception is Everything
2008-02-09 22:00:00 Photo by froodmat If you?ve been wondering why your blog or website hasn?t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I?ve covered three parts: Content with a lack of significance for its target audience. A lack of diverse entry points to ... More About: Series , Blogging , Success , Part , Perception
Are Subscribers Over-rated?
2008-02-07 22:00:00 Photo by guano Subscribers are widely regarded as the most valuable indicators of a blog or website’s success. When it comes to selling a blog, some pundits have valued 1 subscriber at around $35. That’s incredible. Whether they’re truly worth that much is a mystery, but it holds true that most of us look to our ... More About: General
The Butterfly Growth Model
2008-02-04 22:00:00 Photo by Unhindered by Talent With the benefit of hindsight, I feel confident making a statement that you don’t hear often. There is no one-size fits all strategy to grow your blog or website. More specifically, the kind of work you do must depend on how far your blog or website has already grown to be ... More About: Model , Growth , Butterfly
The 5 Barriers to Success Series ? Part 3: The Absence of Definition
2008-02-01 23:51:00 Photo by Jekkyl If you?ve been wondering why your blog or website hasn?t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I?ve covered two parts: Content with a lack of significance for its target audience. A lack of diverse entry points to ... More About: Series , Success , Definition , Part , Part 3
Spinning Plates: How to Succeed With Multiple Projects
2008-02-01 04:26:00 Photo by Aidan Jones It’s been almost a month since I launched blog #2, Anywired. Having never maintained two blogs at once before, the last month taught me a lot about managing multiple commitments: more than one blog, freelancing and the negotiation of even more projects. In this post, I want to share everything I’ve learned about ... More About: Projects , Organization , Simplicity , Spinning
The 5 Barriers to Success Series ? Part 2: Lack of Entry Points
2008-01-28 02:11:00 Photo by *L*u*z*a* If you’ve been wondering why your blog hasn’t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I’ve covered part one: content with a lack of significance for its target audience. In this post, I’ll be discussing the second ... More About: Series , Blogging , Success , Part , Points
Help Skellie Out
2008-01-25 03:45:00 Skelliewag.org is among the five finalists for the Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog at the 2008 Bloggies. It’s the second category from the top, so there’s not too much scrolling required to take a look. The other nominees have about a billion raving fans, so a vote from you will really help me out ... More About: General
Productivity by Elimination
2008-01-24 01:03:00 Photo by (Bill & Mavis) B&M Photography True productivity is not about doing more in less time. It’s about doing less in less time. It’s about defining what is truly worth doing and sticking to that alone. Bloggers often tell me that there’s not enough time available to do everything they truly want to do: to start ... More About: Organization , Productivity , Elimination
Top 5 Tips For Success in a Crowded Niche
More articles from this author:2008-01-22 01:55:00 Photo by a4gpa Unless you’re blogging about Mexican Walking Fish (who’ve been trained to fight in the Greco-Roman Wrestling style) you can bet that your niche is pretty crowded. If you’re blogging about personal finance, technology, blogging or making money online, the sheer number of peers and competitors can make standing out seem impossible. While many have ... More About: Tips , Success , Niche 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
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