Starting a blog has been on my to do list for way too long. Every time I got close to starting one, I managed to find a dozens reasons to talk myself out of it. I simply pushed it off until one day I decided to reach out to Barry Schwartz, probably the most respected blogger in the Search Engine industry and founder of Rusty Brick, the one development firm I always recommend to others. I’ve always had the deepest respect for Barry, and feel honored that I was able to pick his brain about the single most important advice he has for a new blogger. His advice might shock you, and I will get to it in a minute, but first some general blogging advice he shared with me.
One of my biggest concerns was the overlap of my interests within the marketing and technology world, and how to label, tag and categorize my content, so I asked Barry how he managed to categorize his content properly on Search Engine Roundtable.
Barry Responded, ” When you start, it will be all over the place. About 3-6 months in, you are going to need to revamp your category structure. I did at least 3 times. After you write a hundred or so stories, you will know what categories you should set up.”
He continued to quip that he should probably revamp his categories again.
I guess what I am taking out of that advice is that a blog is a living organism that evolves, but the one constant is to keep on writing and creating content you are knowledgeable and passionate about, and along the way things will fall into place. Getting held up by these details, especially those that can be changed in the future are distractions from the single biggest advice for a blogger according to Barry Schwartz…. to be consistent.
Consistent in how and when you post. Barry carves out a couple hours every morning and researches, writes, and posts 4-7 stories a day on his blog.
I have not decided when and how often I will post yet, but I am not taking Barry Schwartz’s advice lightly. After all, he not only has one of the most popular blogs in the Search Engine industry, but he also edits the single greatest asset to a Search Engine Marketer; SearchCAP, the daily email from Search Engine Land that delivers right in your inbox all the breaking news you need to know to stay ahead of the game in the SEO and PPC worlds. In an industry that must track, analyze and react to over 400 algorithm updates a year by Google, staying on top of breaking news is a MUST. SearchCAP is my secret weapon…Of course though, if I miss a story or two, I can always depend on the Weekly Video Recap on Search Engine Roundtable to catch me up and keep my finger on the pulse of the search community.
In Summary, carving out a dedicated time to blogging each day, developing a consistent formula for posting styles, and posting in consistent intervals will help your users become familiar and comfortable with your blog and your brand, and will keep them coming back because they know exactly what to expect.
Moving forward for myself, I plan on rolling out around 30 posts over the next month, as I get a feel for some story styles I hope to focus on, at which point I will carve out a dedicated portion of my day to posting fresh content, and probably updating 5 or so main topics on a weekly basis.
I am also developing tools to help small businesses market smarter, with a focus on free and easy strategies to boost sales and attract customers.
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I love that he mentioned re-vamping the category structure. It’s great for a high profile blogger to affirm that things don’t actually have to be perfect the first time around. Sure, I do know that, but sometimes it helps to hear it from someone else just to prod you in the right direction when you’re second guessing everything from the picture of yourself to upload to exactly how you’ll layout your homepage menus to the point where you end up making little to no progress, of which I am guilty as charged. I’m just wondering, is this the kind of advice you would give to someone just starting out now that you’ve been going for a while? Or what else you would say in addition to these things?