How to get thousands of readers?

Ten thousand subscribers?

It’s easy.

Write quality, original stuff about things that people are interested in.

Want proof? Check out Maki’s latest post on gaining 10,000 RSS subscribers, and you can see how he did it. I have to offer my congratulations as I’ve been a long time reader (and all too infrequent commenter!) pretty much since the start and can vouch for the fact that there’s never been any gimmicks, competitions or fake controversy.

Just thoughtful, well researched  quality information, plain and simple.

There’s no doubt that you can make money or grab some fleeting fame by riding the coat-tails of a passing fad, courting controversy or hitting all the key words, but to lay down solid foundations you need to know what write about, care about it and get that to come across in your writing.

On the plus side, if posting less frequently is a key to success, I’m well on the way to fame & fortune

Nice one Maki, and here’s to the next 10,000.

Lisa runs the blog Intrinsic Life Design, which seems to be a blog about improving your writing (and therefore, your blogging) and the way you go about your life in general – in her own words:

I am the crazy glue on the soles of your sneakers that keeps you committed to your book, your project, your Big Idea. I’m the kick in the pants you wish you had nine months ago when you birthed that Big Idea in the first place. I’m equal parts left-brain, right-brain and I have three words for all you lurking, burning, idea-crazed writers, entrepreneurs and dreamers: Someday is now. 

I don’t know if Lisa likes the term, but ‘life coach’ is what springs to mind, and the blog is certainly very positive and forceful in it’s writing. It is also, not surprisingly, very well written and easy to read which is an essential factor in successful blogging, and one which is sadly too often overlooked.

First Impressions

While you should never judge a book or a blog by it’s cover, it is something we all do, and in this world of Stumble Upon and Speed linking, sometimes a potential reader will only give your blog a few seconds before moving on to the next one.  So as you can see, the layout is pretty simple, a two-column in easy on the eye colours and pretty much everything where you’d expect it. My first thought is that it was a Blogger blog, due to the template, but it is actually a Squarespace creation, a blogging platform I wasn’t previously aware of. It doesn’t perhaps come across as polished as most WordPress themes, but it loads fast, and does the job it needs to.

I always like to see a date based archive, to gauge how long a blog has been in operation, and ILD has been regularly updated since December 2006 which is good to see. An informative ‘About’ page introduces us to Lisa, and other fixed pages tell us about ILD and what it can offer you. The fact that the blog is listed as a separate page, and under a separate URL: ‘http://www.intrinsiclifedesign.com/scaffolding’ made me think that there may be more content under the main URL, but this doesn’t appear to be the case: The main page & the blog appear to be the same thing.

Strangely, about 7 posts down, all of the text turns to italics which makes things a little hard to read.  I think the formatting of a post must have ‘broken’ as this doesn’t seem to be the case on subsequent pages.

The Content

The content is a mixture of thoughts, reflections, challenges and writing exercises, all designed to get you thinking about your writing, or life direction, and assisting you in getting there.

We have the 10 signs of Work-Life balance blow out, which certainly has some valid signs in there for most of us, along with 10 more points for correcting your balance. If you’re having trouble with your writing direction, then these six exercises may get you back on track: I agree with the idea of title first, content second, and it’s something I’ve done from the start, as it helps me to retain direction within a post, and keep on topic. There’s nothing to stop you amending your title later of course, but thinking of one up front can get you going.

It’s not all questions and challenges though, as there’s plenty of food for thought and inspiration too, such as Emerson would have made a great blogger.

A Design For Life?

Being a cynical old brit, and not being much of a writer, I frequently don’t find much to offer from these kinds of site. Some of them can be a little happy-clappy and I can generally sum up my feelings toward them as ‘Yeah, right’. However, Lisa’s blog is full of her personality and that makes a crucial difference. The writing is involving, and as with the best blogs, it feels much more like a conversation than a lecture.

Lisa offers personal coaching, in addition to that which you can get from the blog, and it’s quite obvious that she loves what she does, and going by some of the comments is good at it too. If you feel like your blogging’s gone stale, or that your writing could be improved, Intrinsic Life Design is well worth checking out. Whatever you take from it is likely to be a positive step.

I always enjoy getting one of my sites stumbled, but gain far more from SU by using it as it was intended, to find interesting new sites to read, and sharing my discoveries with others. Whilst SU is fine to use in isolation, you will get far more from it by increasing your number of friends with similar interests, as you will receive their stumbles and discoveries, and as you build relationships you can send them things directly, using the ‘Send to’ function.

However, as Gary Conn recently explained, Stumble Upon links are ‘no followed’ meaning that none of the sites in your SU blog receive any link juice from the Search Engines. Gary has an excellent solution to this, which I’ll shortly be implementing on this blog, but how to reward your SU Friends who send you all this good stuff anyway?

Simple, shamelessly stealing the idea from Tad Chef who posted a list of 20 of his Stumble friends, here’s 20 of my 100 mutual SU friends. I have another 43 friends who haven’t added me back, so ya-boo-sucks to them

The first link is their Stumble profile, the second their personal website or blog: Check them out, and if they have interests similar to yours, why not add them as a friend? And if they have similar interests to you, it stands to reason that their blog’s worth visiting too….

1. AnitaBath – SayNotToCrack: Top stumbler, head honcho of the hugely successful random humour blog SNTC, Anita is also a top person, with a huge range of interesting stumbles.
2. Chris-garrett – chrisg.com: Eclectic range of interests on SU, Chris’ blog is more focused, on the use of blogging and new media, and is another essential read for aspiring bloggers.
3. garyconn – GarryConDotCom: Problogger, outside the box thinker, and persistent Stumbler!
4. Autorave – DoshDosh: Maki’s SU alter ego is a veritable Pandora’s Box of the expected blogging & internet related material, along with photography, graphic art, humour and much more…..
5. auer1816 – Epic Edits Weblog: I have been a fan of Brian’s excellent stumbles for a while now, usually noting his name against my favourites. Today is the first time I’ve visited his blog – why? An excellent photography resource, I can’t believe I’ve only just found it – I shall be back.

Well that’s a lesson learnt already – check out your favourite stumblers blogs, you never know what you may be missing! I am a photography fan, and I particularly enjoy the new photos SU brings me. Ok, on with the list.

1. RTCunningham – Untwisted Vortex: Regular readers of this blog should already be regular readers of UV. RT’s, Stumble persona is like his blog, eclectic, useful and always interesting.
2. Wackygoose – N/A: No personal website unfortunately, but a quality Stumbler of photography, internet & blogging, humour and more.
3. SomersetBob – Somerset Bob’s Place: Ex-radio DJ turned writer, and interesting and eclectic stumbler with a like-minded blog that I have also not seen before…. Another Flickr add too.
4. K-InTheHouse – ShanKri-La: Another long time Blog-Op supporter, K’s SU profile is again reflected in his excellent blog. Tech, internet, humour, science and lots of brilliant Open-Source stuff, it’s all here.
5. Onreact.com – SEO 2.0: Tad only joined SU last month, but I’m already liking his stumbles, and his blog. How did I find him? He very kindly gave a thumbs up on my Problogger ‘song’ and I followed the trail back. Proof of social networking in action……

Do take the time to check out these profiles, and if your interests match, to add them. The great thing about these people is that they will add you back. Finished? Cool, let’s carry on…..

1. crpitt – A Little Piece Of Me: A regular contributor to Blog-Op on all matters Blogger related, Claire also has an excellent and very busy personal blog, and comes up with some great Stumbles.
2. AndyBeard – Andy Beard: Andy states that his stumbles are related to the main themes of his blog, namely niche marketing, SEO, blogging and WordPress, and he certainly delivers with a wide range of interesting and useful stumbles. He’ll also occasionally stumble some rubbish song parodies – thanks Andy!
3. ffnstuff – Blog About Your Blog: Matthew runs the very successful BAYB which allows just about anyone to author a post and share their knowledge and tips with others, and is a must-do for any blogger who’d like a wider audience. His stumbles reflect this, and he’s a very selfless stumbler, always looking to promote other peoples work which is cool. It stands for ‘Fantasy Football and stuff’ IIRC…..
4. Problogger – Problogger: Oh come on! Surely I don’t need to explain this one? Is this the real Darren Rowse? Well, he seems to have a liking for Problogger and DPS, so it could be. Good stumbles regardless.
5. FrancescoMapelli – Mapelli.info: Excellent range of stumbles and articles on blogging, internet and web design.

You know, i’s probably been hard work going through all these links. Why not just grab my RSS feed and come back to it later?

1. JohnFTM – Finding the money: I wouldn’t ordinarily add a blogger who appears to have dropped off the radar since April, but the archive of stumbles & posts is too good to ignore. Add, read and hope he comes back.
2. AJMarques – Inspiration:Ambiguity: Beautiful photography, beautiful words, and an excellent stumbler.
3. Skedaddle – Daily Chronicles of the American Civil War: A long time Stumbler with a massive 13k pages stumbled over a wide variety of subjects from history and photography to hiking and web design.
4. Tharion – Bloggers Journey: The blog is all about helping you to build a better blog, and the stumbles are related, with lots of good stuff on web-design, open source and software, with a few random humour stumbles thrown in.
5. Brown Baron – Brown Thoughts: Another name that frequently pops up in my Stumble bar alongside an interesting stumble. Both the blog and the Stumbles are heavily into web, software, blogging and internet issues, with some great photography and humour stumbles mixed in.

OK, that’s 20 of my Stumble friends in no particular order. Adding anyone (or all!) of these people to your Stumble friends will only enrich your SU experience, as will checking out their blogs.

I’m always looking to add to my list of Stumble friends, and you can find me by clicking on the badge below – I’ll add you straight back, and look forward to what you send me.

The questions weren’t too taxing, but they asked you to try to give more than one word answers, so it certainly helped me to think a little deeper about what I’ve done and achieved over the last 9 months.

The Blog Interviewer site is relatively new I’d guess from it’s lack of page rank (although it has been a while since the Google Fairy last visited) but they already have a wide range of blogs interviewed, including some good ones I’m already aware of like Technospot, Skelliewag and Daily Blog Tips, plus a lot I’ve not seen before, but look interesting – following this site will be a good way to find new blogs, as well as to find out more about the bloggers themselves.

Why they selected me to appear I really don’t know, but you don’t need to wait for an invite – If you’d like to be interviewed, then just pay them a visit, submit your answers, and your interview will almost certainly be published, giving you some good free publicity and links. Not only this, but all blogs interviewed are subject to be voted on, and if your blog attracts enough votes you will win a cash prize. If you’d like to vote for me, please do, but as there’s only 1 more day left in August, it’s doubtful I’ll win….

All in all, a fun, fast and free way to get more exposure for your blog, and to find out some more about other bloggers. What’s not to like?

• Claire couldn’t decide which of her posts would be the best, so she chose all of them – so modest Claire….
• Cameron linked to his list of the top ten worst summer jobs, not all of which he has tried (or so he tells us), but then he admits to once being a telesales representative which is way worse than male prostitute, so perhaps he was telling the truth…..?
• Hin picked a post from both of his blogs (and why not?): Part 1 of an in-depth tutorial on using Picasa software, and a post from his photoblog, with two excellent photos.
• The Curmudgeon chose his his post on The Journey of the Shoes, one that will resonate with parents of children of any age – you will either nod with shared experience, or shake with fear at what’s to come. I’m in the latter camp.
• Linda also chose two posts, and excellent pieces of writing they were: In the midst of life... relates some personal experiences with death, and how we all seem to ignore the one definite event in our lives, and Do not squander time... will resonate with anyone who’s ever played with computer games (or any other diversion) when they should be getting on with life.

Who’s next?

Some excellent writing there, on a range of subjects, and what was really cool for me was how a lot of the above bloggers readers warmed to the idea and went with it themselves, as well as reading something from their favourite bloggers that they may not have read before. I’m glad they got a bit more exposure, and I also handed out a few ‘stumbles’, so hopefully there was some more traffic as well.

I’d love to read more of your ‘best shots’, basically just write a post on your blog about which post is your favourite and link back to me so I know, and I’ll come read it, and give you a link back in a post like this one. Full details in the original post.

If you’re at a loose end for something to read this weekend, why not have a read of the linked posts above, and drop them a comment while you’re there?

The site is the brainchild of Chris Garrett, and is a little over 6 weeks old, but has already got over four hundred users, and a variety of active threads. It’s a standard Vbulletin affair, and signup is quick and painless, with no restrictions on what new users can do, such as posting links etc. which is nice from the point of view of allowing you to promote yourself and others straightaway, but obviously there is the implicit responsibility to not be a spammer.

There are only four main sections, broken down into a further eight sub-sections which is great, as it allows the conversations to stay focussed – too many of these forums have 20+ sections, which leave you having no idea where to post first. The four sections are as follows:

1. Community Matters: Including sub-sections on suggestions for the site, a ‘Wants & Offers’ area for asking for, or offering jobs, design skills etc. and an ‘Introduce yourself’ section which speaks for itself.
2. Blogging Basics: This consists of a Blogging Q&A area where you can ask any question you like, without fear of getting shot down as a ‘n00b’, and where you can learn from the experience of others, along with a ‘Pimp My Blog’ section where you can request a critique of your site. Are you brave enough to submit? I’m not yet, but I will….
3. Blog Building Q&A: Anything about setting up, or tweaking an existing blog.
4. AB Cafe: Where you can submit links of interest (including your own, and the Chit-Chat section for anything off-topic.

All you need to chat about blogging, and get your questions answered.

As well as learning new things, and helping others, this kind of forum obviously offers a great platform for promotion, both through including your blog links in your signature, and also via the link submission section. You can of course go dropping links at the first opportunity, but I don’t think that’s going to get you very far, so the best way to promote your blog is to become a useful member of the community, help out where you can, contribute to discussion, and people will naturally come check out your blog.

I joined just recently, and have started to post there, under my own name unusually enough, so it would be cool if you come over and join the community. Chris G has a solid reputation, which will no doubt help to drive this forum further, and given time, it should prove to be an excellent resource for all bloggers.

• Michael Martine’s expanded 7 keys to better blogging, a series of 7 posts focusing on various aspects such as tools, content production, design and SEO. Excellent, thought provoking reading whether you’re a blogging newbie, or grizzled old veteran. I could take Tiger with rusty clubs Michael, no problem…..
• On the subject of grizzled old veterans, Darren Rowse advises us to conduct an ‘About page’ audit, and explains it’s importance to your blog. Excellent timing for me, as I’d noticed the cobwebs forming on mine, and this post is just one of a series on building a better blog.
• Chrisblogging, currently riding a high of being linked by John Chow amongst many others, is brought back to Earth with a link from me, picking up on his five ways to increase your traffic post. None of the ways are startlingly new, but it’s the kind of list to print out and stick to your monitor to keep you going through the long cold nights of 5 daily visitors. Too many bloggers give up too soon (and too many others don’t give up soon enough, but that’s another post…..)
• David would love to know whether you start, or end with, a headline when writing your blog posts. I start with an idea which becomes a headline, then I write the post before occasionally tweaking the headline. I don’t know why, but I try not to be a slave to the headline, even if it is unusually witty (I have a weakness for puns). Tell me what you do, and ‘ll let David know.
• Finally, a new blog for me this week, theme playground, asks What’s really necessary in your sidebar? Hands up who’s overpopulated their blog with too many widgets and gizmos in the past? That would be all of you I’m guessing…. Looks like a good blog, and one I’ve subscribed to.

Back to writing for me, and a lot of blog improvement as well I think.

One last thing, WordPress has upgraded again, don’t forget to check yours!

The premise is quite simple, sign up, add your blog and profile, and then install one of their widgets on your site – you can see mine in my right sidebar below the Alexa widget. Site Neighbors will then track how people arrive on your website, and where they go when they leave, and, by comparing this information to other sites in their system, build up a ‘neighborhood’ of sites similar to yours. You can then view your site’s neighborhood as a list, or in graphical form – here’s mine:

My blog is the one in green, and by mousing over adjacent lots, you can see what sites are in your neighborhood. Other sites are given a different category depending on how closely related to your site they are:

• • In Your Backyard: These neighbors are practically family. They share many interests and likely share friends. Not all websites are likely to ever have many neighbors in this category. After all, the backyard is a little to close for comfort for most.
  • Your Nextdoor Neighbor: This neighbor shares many interests and shares a similar audience with the focal website. You may already know your nextdoor neighbor, but if you don’t, you probably should.
  • On Your Block: In a well represented siteneighbors neighborhood, a majority of the neighbors should fall into this category. These neighbors share many interests but also have a number of divergent interests. This probably describes most blogs on a given blog’s blogroll.
  • Next Block Over: Something about these neighbors is causing similar visitors to visit their site as are visiting the focal website. However, for the most part, these neighbors may not have much in common with the focal website. These are the neighbors you meet on the street or at the occasional neighbor’s cookout. They seem like nice people but for some reason or another you never get around to inviting them over for dinner.
  • In Your Town : These neighbors can hardly be called neighbors. You may run into them while traveling and have a short conversation once you realize you are both from the same town. However, more often than not the relationship ends there since your connection is tenuous.
  • On the Same Planet: Well…you are both breathing, from the same species, and alive at the same time. Your connection with these neighbors is not much better than the general six degrees of separation kind of connection. If the neighborhood of a site is mostly On the Same Planet neighbors, it means that site’s audience does not match up well with any other sites in the siteneighbors database. It could also mean that siteneighbors does not have enough information about that site’s audience to find close neighbors.

The colour codes are also visible within your neighborhood.

If you don’t like the graphical approach, you can choose the list view instead, showing the 10 closest neighbors – here’s the one for Dosh Dosh:

It’s all very easy to navigate, and could be a good way to find new blogs in your niche. No stats are revealed, either to yourself or anyone else, the lists are all generated by their own algorithm, and no ranking is given, except by the relationships shown above.

Should You Move In?

Like all of these kind of sites, they’re not essential, but it’s yet another way to publicise your blog, and could lead you to some good reads. The installation of a widget on your site is not compulsory, but it will decrease the relevancy of the other sites in your neighborhood, as this is how the information is gathered.

One other plus point for Site Neighbors, is that you don’t have to have a blog to join – all sites are welcome, including adult sites, but these are filtered out of other neighborhoods by default, unless you choose to accept them.

Drop In

As I have only just set up my neighborhood, the sites within aren’t hugely relevant, but if you do join why not pop in and add it your favourites, and I’ll do the same for you.

PS: Apologies for the mixed spelling but as I am English, I have spelt everything correctly, except for ‘neighbors’ as this is the actual name of the site. It can get confusing sometimes…..

• Blog About your Blog: A community blog written by a large team of personal bloggers, who write to both promote their won sites and pass on tips and knowledge.  Expertly run by Matt, anyone may join and contribute. Taster article: Learn what is the title tag in your blog, and how you can edit it to your advantage.
• JohnTP: Tech tips, blogging and general computer related tutorials is what JohnTP is all about, and this blog has a large and deserved following. Taster article: How to optimize images to speed up your site.
• ShanKri-La: K’s blog likes to feature the latest technology and web apps that attempt to make our lives easier, and there’s always the latest news on the newest gadget or program to become available. Taster article: A review of a new online password manger-Clipperz.

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If you’re not already aware of Megite, then you need to check it out, as it’s a great source of information and blogging inspiration. Simply put, it’s a news aggregator pulling in thousands of feeds from blogs, websites, news agencies and more, and then compiling them into themed feeds under headings such as News, Technology, Sports etc.  Simply subscribe to a feed in the area of your choice, to receive a summary of article information with a link to the original source.

So it would be a good thing to get your blog to appear in one of these feeds, yes? Oh yes, and there’s a very easy way to do it, as Maki of the essential Dosh Dosh blog has created and compiled the Dosh Dosh community page on Megite, currently containing over 50 blogs (including this one) focusing on blogging, Social Media, internet marketing and making money online. If your blog covers one of those topics and you’d like to be included in the feed, you can review the requirement details and submit your blog at the community feed tracking section on DD.

Once part of the community, your blog feed will be compiled into the main community feed and available to all subscribers – they will be able to view your post title and the first paragraph or so of the post, and if they like what they see, they’ll come read the rest on your blog. This is a great chance to both expose your blog to a much wider audience, and to find some new blogs to read and become a part of. I’ve only been subscribed a couple of hours, and I’ve already visited several blogs I’d not seen before, and found some great posts.

Those who took part in the Technorati favorite experiment instigated by Maki will understand the potential this idea has to ‘go large’ across the web, and if nothing else comes of it you will obtain a chance to read and interact with a wide range of new blogs. Can you afford not to join?

It’s also worth remembering that if your blog does not cover the topics required for joining this community, you can always set up your own, and Maki gives comprehensive instruction on how to do this, and it isn’t hard.

Very little effort required to take part, potential exposure to lots more readers – I’d say that makes it pretty essential?

[ * Just taking my traffic figures and those of Dosh Dosh as the low/high I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the 52 blogs currently in the community each have at least an average 100 unique visitors a day. That makes over 5000 potential readers if all sign up to the feed. In reality, it's likely to be much higher, and if we all promote the feed on our blogs....]