Blogging Lessons Learned and Best Practices - One Year Anniversary

It's been exactly one year since I first started blogging. My first post entitled "Why Content Marketing?" still contains the same concept we've been evangelizing from the start - that businesses have a huge opportunity to grow business by creating their own valuable, relevant and compelling content.

Since I left the real world of business and launched Junta42 last year, the concept of blogging on a consistent, continual basis may be the most rewarding part of what I do.

As 365 days pass, I thought it may be useful to those considering blogging about what has personally happened to my professional and online life, and to what is actually possible. I'm showing this information not to gloat in any way (the statistics aren't nearly Copyblogger worthy) - only to show that you can start from absolute zero and still do amazing things through a consistent and compelling message.

A Few Statistics

• According to Technorati, the Junta42 blog is ranked 38,892 of around the 5,137,428 blogs they measure. There have been 507 blog reactions about the Junta42 blog.
• According to the AdAge Power 150, which ranks the top media and marketing blogs, the Junta42 blog is ranked 221 of 608.
• Alexa, which ranks all the websites in the world, has us ranked as the 102,583rd most popular site in the world (by traffic rankings).
• 190 total posts, 16 trackbacks and 201 total comments.
• LinkedIn connections went from 40 to 499. Much of the additional came through blogging connections.

Beginning bloggers PLEASE NOTE: Even after two to three months of consistent blogging, I would regularly get only five to 10 visitors per day (probably none outside of my family). Today, on an average day, we'll get more than 200. We've had a couple days of over 1,000. It could definitely be better, but the blog has come along way.

Many Surprises

• The biggest surprise, by far, is the number of friends and business relationships I have made directly because of blogging. I've been blessed to communicate with some of the best marketing and publishing minds in the world, including the likes of David Meerman Scott, Rohit Barghava, Newt Barrett, Paul Dunay, Paul Conley, Brian Clark, Lee Odden, Ardath Albee, Patsi Krakoff, Greg Verdino, Hans De Keulenaer and too many others to mention. Many of these relationships have led to business partnerships and projects.  Truly, I never would have expected this to happen just by typing a post into TypePad every other day.
• Because of the blog and its following, it was much easier to launch Junta42 as a business. Would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to do it without one.
• I've been asked to present at a number of in-person events, as well interviewed on podcasts and internet radio shows, which came directly from exposure to the blog.
• Requests for consistent writing assignments came directly from what I was doing on the blog, including About.com, Direct magazine, DMNews and multiple guest blogging posts.
• Content marketing, which as a phrase was pretty much nonexistent when I started the blog, is now gaining and growing in popularity.  The first proof of this is that content marketing now has its place as a definition in Wikipedia. Even more proof is that many bloggers have made content marketing their focus, including Newt Barrett, Patsi Krakoff, w00tonomy, and Relevant and Valued.

Lessons Learned

Below are five lessons that I originally posted about on my 100 post anniversary. The copy in red below is my commentary on each one, now six months+ later.

1. Focus on great content. Before launching the blog, most bloggers I talked with pressed the importance of frequency in blogging.  "Post as much as you can," they said. So, when I started, my goal was to post at least once a day or more. I averaged about four posts per week. Although I still believe in the importance of frequency, I now believe that "less posting, more substance" is a much more effective way to build traffic and loyalty. Make sure what you are writing is something important and not just random musings. This may seem like common sense, but a lot of bloggers I've read just ramble on, making no point on certain days between great posts (let me stop here before I ramble). This "more content substance" strategy is something I've noticed from Scott Karp on the Publishing2 blog and Brian Clark over at Copyblogger.
   
   I believe this now more than ever. Three quality posts per week seems to do the trick. Even three can be a challenge for me depending on the week.  I've seen some bloggers such as Bernie at Find and Convert do a great job with one quality post per week.
   
   
2. Leverage social media sites. After a few weeks/months, traffic starts to come in from the search engines. SEO is extremely important, but just as or more important is leveraging the social media sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Sphinn, etc. Also look into niche social media sites like Small Business Brief that are specific to your area of expertise. Depending on the content of the day, social media sites can and will drive more traffic to your sites.
   
   Most of my time is now spent uploading relevant sites to Junta42. I don't spend as much time on the other social media sites. I've recently started noting relevant posts at Twitter, which brings in some traffic depending on the article. I also upload to Facebook and Plaxo as well automatically through TypePad. Altogether, this strategy works. My advice would be to use the most relevant sites where your core audience hangs out, and focus on those. The more active you are in the community (not just posting your own articles), the more impact you will have.
   
   
3. Promote a call to action - Getting Names! Whenever possible, be sure you promote your RSS feed or email feed in and around your blog. Some users may come to your site for the first time, enjoy your post, but then leave. Your goal is to keep talking with them. Make sure they see your feeds! Getting readers through RSS and email is MUCH MORE important in the long-run than search engine traffic. Look at it this way...if you completely focus all your attention on search engine traffic or social media sites, and then one day all that dried up or they changed their algorithms, you'd be dead. If you have a loyal following of readers that willingly receive your material every day, you never have to depend on outside traffic alone.
   
   As of today I have 360 readers signed up through RSS feeds. Not outstanding, but the list of people getting my email RSS feeds through email contain an impressive collection of marketers and publishers. Key here is to make sure they can easily get regular access to your content if they want it. It's not the most traffic that counts, it's the right kind of traffic.
   
   
4. Write at least one "pillar" article per week.  A pillar article is a piece of evergreen content that is timeless, and also works to teach your readers something about a product or industry. They tend to be longer, and if written correctly, tend to generate a lot of links to your post. I worked for 2-3 days on 42 Content Building Ways to Attract and Retain Customers. It was designed as a key pillar article.  I have about 15 now that generate the majority of my traffic. If I made the time, I'd write two pillar articles per week.
   
   This is incredibly important, and still holds true six months later. Pillar posts still account for the majority of my traffic. When you focus on actionable articles that people can use immediately, you'll see traction.
   
   
5. Identify the top 20 blogs in your space and get active. Once you identify the sites, begin to comment on posts, as well as use TrackBacks when you talk about their post in your blog. This is something I've done a bit of, but haven't dedicated as much time as I should have. That said, the little I have done has created great relationships with other bloggers, as well as a good amount of traffic to my site. I'm now working with two other bloggers on projects that resulted from my posting comments on their site. This will be a key effort of mine over the next six months.
   
   I still follow the upper tier of blogs from the Junta42 Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs. I don't comment as much as I like, but commenting does more than bring traffic. It helps to create long-term relationships with like-minded professionals.  Find the ones that make sense and become part of their community. If someone posts about you, make sure you comment. It makes a difference.

All in all, blogging is just a tool, but it can be a very effective one for distributing consistent and valuable content to your target audience. When done correctly, there may not be a better way to grow your business or professional career. But it takes time, energy and commitment.

It's hard to think about where we'd be now without the blog. It will be interesting to see how things progress one, two or three years down the road.

If you are considering blogging, I can't stress how important blogging could be for you if you can make the time, and if you have something important to say.  Good luck!

Here's to many more years of blogging to come.

RSS Feed  I   Subscribe to the Junta42 Blog  I  Junta42  I  Junta42 Match

Comments

[Rohit Bhargava]

Thanks for the link and congrats on hitting one year! Love your idea about the pillar post ... and I struggle (but aim) for the same target of 3 quality posts per week as well. Looking forward to reading more on the blog and also to the book!

[Joe Pulizzi]

Thanks Rohit...and congrats on the successful book launch!

[Ardath Albee]

Hi Joe,

Congrats on the anniversary! You've accomplished a whole lot in a quick amount of time, and I enjoy participating in what you're building with Junta 42!

Ardath

[Joe Pulizzi]

Hi Ardath:

Thanks...and a big thanks for all the support this past year. It has been more than a pleasure watching the content marketing industry along side experts like yourself.

Best
Joe