You have to remain flexible with social media. What works six months ago, may not work today. What works today, may not work six months from now. I believe this principle even applies to blogging frequency.
In my book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, I said “there is a direct correlation between frequency and traffic” (see p. 99). I then suggest that the more you post, the greater your traffic.
Since posting my screencast on How to Install WordPress in 20 Minutes or Less, numerous people have written to ask, “What WordPress plugins should I install?”
That depends on what you are trying to accomplish. However, I thought I would post my current list in order to stimulate your thinking plus getting a few ideas from you.
I get asked every week about the various resources I am using. Last week, a blogger asked about my podcast equipment. Another asked about the productivity apps I am using on my Mac. Still another, asked if I could recommend some leadership resources.
So, I thought I’d write a series of posts on these resources, devoting one post to each category. When I get done, I plan to collect these into a permanent page on my blog. In this post, I want to share my blogging tools.
Here are my fifteen go-to resources:
In this episode, I talk about how to write killer blog posts. I define what constitutes a killer blog post and then share seven keys for writing one.
In Episode 13, I shared how my blog traffic has grown from a few hundred unique visitors a month when I first started in 2004 to about 300,000 unique visitors a month now.
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Bloggers often ask me what metrics they should be tracking. Google Analytics and other tools provide an enormous amount of data. However, you can quickly get overwhelmed if you aren’t careful.
In reaction, some bloggers overreact and get too focused on one metric. This is the other extreme.
Last week, I spoke at the Catalyst Conference in Irvine, California on the topic of my new book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Thomas Nelson, May 22). As part of my introduction, I shared how my audience has grown since I started blogging in April of 2004.
Note that these numbers reflect my average monthly unique visitors. I simply took the total number of unique visitors for the year and divided by twelve months (or in the case of 2004, eight months). With the exception of the first few years, this data came from my Google Analytics account.
I started blogging eight years ago. Since that time, I have written 1,115 posts. At an average of 750 words per post, that is 836,250 total words—the equivalent of about fourteen full-length books.
During that time, I have learned a great deal about blogging:
Welcome to my new podcast, This Is Your Life. Like my blog, it is dedicated to the theme of intentional leadership. My goal is to help you live with more passion, work with greater focus, and lead with extraordinary influence.
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I plan to talk about the same topics I discuss here on my blog, namely:
Whenever I speak on the topic of platform-building, someone always asks, “How can I generate more traffic for my blog?” Most are hoping I have a silver bullet, something that will instantly get them the recognition they deserve.
The bad news is that it’s not quite that simple. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a platform. It takes doing several things right—and doing them over a long period of time.
I admit, when I hear someone suggest that you can take your blog posts and turn them into a book, I am skeptical. But when I really thought about it, for all my skepticism, and as much as it pains me to admit it, my first book, To Love Is Christ, came about just that way. Let me explain.
On August 1, 2002 I made a vow to God. He and I weren’t on the best of terms at the time, and when I finally got fed up hearing myself complain, or filling my journal with more whine, I decided to do something dramatic. My strategy was both simple and logical. That morning I decided since the Scripture tells me that God is love, I would write every day for one year on that one subject, love. That was it. That was my strategy.
This post is a 20-minute guide to Twitter for non-techies. If you don’t know what Twitter is, start with my first post on the topic, Twitter-dee, Twitter-dum. If you still aren’t convinced it’s worth your time, then read my 12 Reasons to Start Twittering.
Over the last few years, I have helped several friends and a few family members get setup on Twitter. I found myself explaining the basics over and over again, so I decided to write a simple, step-by-step guide.
