Want More Page Views? Blog for an Audience

During the nearly three years I've spent writing for AC, I've learned a lot about my writing style and how I feel most comfortable pursuing a career as a writer. I've had some great opportunities, and been able to work with amazing people who I likely never would have met otherwise. And somewhere along the road, I started receiving contacts from fellow Content Producers who want advice.

The other day, I received a contact that mentioned numbers. I know that some people will scoff and say, "Yeah right" when I tell you that I'd never done the numbers before ... but I hadn't. This Content Producer (in totally great, high-energy wording), basically asked how I've managed to accumulate almost 4700 views per article.

4700?!

I did the math. He was right, and it freaked me out a little bit. I did write him one of the most detailed descriptions of how I've gone about promoting my work that I've ever given in private message format, and then spent some time really considering what it means to promote your work through the Internet.

Beyond Quality to Branding

A well-crafted article is a thing of beauty. You know when you've hit it; that moment when you sit back and your eyes scan over the sentences while a smile spreads widely across your face. It's a form of creation that we labor over, and it's an art that too-often goes unappreciated.

Writing well is essential. No one who isn't trying to sell you something will say otherwise. Writing has been summed up as a half-and-half recipe: part art, part craft. What doesn't figure into the recipe is what comes after - the publishing aspects that freelancers working on the web have to handle themselves.

Publishing isn't about quality. It's business. Big business corporations spend millions on creating, researching, and developing a brand. They do it because it's their business to do so, and doing so equals more money. A successful brand earns automatic purchases - just think about some of the top fashion designers and what lengths people will go to in order to wear their clothing.

As a writer, you become your own brand name. Traditional authors who are published in books and magazines are given the same advice, but when your entire freelance career begins in or centers around the Internet, this advice is even more important: You must utilize the Internet to develop your own "brand identity".

This can feel - and even become - a type of pigeon-holing. Some authors are good at sticking to a topic and expanding on it infinitely. The rest of us (myself definitely included) bounce back and forth between a few topics that we obsess on for a while before going back to one of our other topics.

This article will work best if you narrow your writing down to a single topic. Write about sports, health, natural beauty, crafting, or technology ... but don't try to mix fifty topics into your recipe or you'll never be able to gain the following you're after. If you're a writer like I am who refuses (or is completely unable) to work themselves into a hole that is filled with one single topic, narrow it down to three that you're passionate about. For myself, those loves are writing, technology, and crafting. From there, you'll need to apply this guide to each topic that you're focusing on. It means more work, I won't lie to you, but it's the best option some of us have.

Your Successful Blog

Once upon a time, this entire section would be about "Your Website". Just two years ago, the idea of a blog or a podcast was alien to the masses. Today, the popularity of websites like Blogger and Wordpress have changed all that.

The beauty of a blog is that it makes publishing to your website easy. What that allows you to do is communicate in a more one-on-one way with your audience, allowing them to get to know you - and hopefully to like you. In turn, an audience that likes you is more likely to read your work in whatever format you choose to publish it ... good news for those of us depending on Page Views.

Another great thing about working in blog format is that you're not tied in to creating a series of pages with lengthy content. Your blog posts can be short, long, or filled with pictures. They offer busy writers a way to share without having to carve out chunks of the day just to do it.

Here are the three keys to making your blog successful:

1. Post Every Day - Sure, this can seem like a hassle. If you find that you have a lot of time one day a week and barely any time the rest of your week, try creating a week's worth of posts and saving them as a document to your computer. Then, throughout the week, you're only committed to copy-pasting what you've already written.

2. Focus on a Specific Topic - Blog readers don't want to be inundated with an eclectic mixture of posts. They're there to read all about your adventures in kayaking, or chuckle over your political views.

3. Link in Every Post - Whether you decide to go the route of shamelessly plugging one of your latest articles published on Associated Content or just link to your Content Producer page in your byline, include a link in every post you make. Not only will it receive clicks, but search engines like Google will follow those links.

Remember when I said you'd have to do this for each of the topics you're focused on? Blogs are definitely one place where you don't want to try and combine things with such distant relationships as "technology" and "bath & beauty". Someone, somewhere, may some day be able to devise a way of doing just that and it will probably be so cool that it'll blow my advice out of the water. But let's face it ... it's not likely.

On Blog Content

Beyond posting to your blog every day, you'll need to tailor your content so that it flows nicely from one post to the next. What this usually means is to keep the style or tone running along the same vein. Keep it professional, or make it totally "chatty" and informal, but persist in one style or the other.

Right back to posting every day, most authors freak out thinking they'll never be able to do it. You can, though. A blog is only successful if it's visited frequently, and that's only going to happen if you keep content fresh. Being unable to do that is why most blogs fail.

Here are a few ideas to keep you blogging:

1. Share and Share Alike: No one is ever going to be able to find everything interesting that's on the Internet. It's too vast a realm. So why not share the readership wealth? When you find something so interesting that no one in their right mind should miss it (and it falls right into your blog's topic, of course), write up a quick introduction to the page and share a link. You can keep a document running that's filled with these, ready to be copy-pasted any time you need them.

2. Provide Excerpts: Much like the previous idea, except this one just highlights something you've found in a book, magazine, or online. Excerpts are great when you post a thumbnail preview of whatever you got the excerpt from (and as long as you're not just copying the whole thing, it's legal), it provides another author a chance to shine, and gives your readers what they wanted: something new.

3. Teamwork!: Who says you have to blog alone? Group or multi-author blogs have a lot of power because they offer a couple points of view and have more posts coming in daily. Consider getting an author who writes on the same topic as you to go into the blogging effort with you.

4. Dig up the Past: Need a super-quick post and not sure where to get it? Hit your Content Producer page and look for one of your earliest articles. Copy-paste the entire summary with links right into your post. Voila!

5. Theme Things: One really successful way of keeping yourself motivated and getting readers to return week-after-week is to theme days of the week. If your blog were on the craft of writing, you might try something like this: Monday - Inside Publishing, Tuesday - Tips from Pros, Wednesday - Market Listings, Thursday - Writing Prompts, Friday - Grammar and Style, Saturday - Best of the Web, Sunday - Try a New Technique.

A Final Word ...

It's a simple truth that if someone is looking for you online, they can find you. Everything you've ever done online - and a lot of things you've done in the "real" world - are right there for the Internet searching. The key as a freelance writer is to use this in your favor.

Every time that you post on a blog, comment in a forum, exchange links with other authors, promote your articles, set up a profile, or simply add content to Associated Content, you're creating a way for readers to find you. These little paths last for years to come, and the more roads you create leading to your content, the more likely you are to see a huge boost in page views.

It only takes thirty minutes a day, if even that, to maintain a blog and use it to promote your work. And your writing is worth at least that much ... right?