I’ve really been in a writing funk lately.
Part of this has to do with my notorious tendency to juggle ten too many responsibilities at once, but part of it is that I just haven’t felt positive about my writing lately.
So what do you do when you’re down on yourself? When you feel like you don’t have anything worthwhile left to say?
Ah, the weekend is finally here, and while most of us want to sit back and relax, others are making the best use of the time available to them. One way to do this is by adding content to your site that will not take up too much of your time. This is where a recap of your content comes into play. Not only would you be be recycling older content, but you will also give readers who missed out the opportunity to catch up.
The fact of the matter is that it works. It gives you something to do over the weekend that is reasonably easy to complete while providing useful (even if recycled) content for your readers. There is no hidden science to this though, and this article doesn’t even require much explanation on how to get this done.
It could be simple — like a list — or complex — like a picture and a paragraph. Regardless, the point of this is to highlight your best content from the previous week, month, or even year (depending on how often you do this sort of thing).
However, there are even more creative ways to do a weekly or monthly recap. You might consider doing a podcast (similar to Perfcast) or a video blog for your site. You could take a different twist on a typical recap, and you could perhaps add updates to all your stories, inform readers of which content was most popular, or reflect on your stories to make your work even more worthy of a read. The more creativity, the more interesting your recaps can be.
Authors on other blogs like Read/Write Web and Complex (I really like how Complex does their recaps) do this on a regular basis. Perhaps, after reading this, you will have some creative ways to make use of your recent content as well.
If you happen to recap your work on a regular basis, why not post a link below in the comments section so that others can learn by example.
Alan Johnson lays down some hard truths about non-productivity, in a guest post at Daily Blog Tips. The fact is that some people haven’t found their calling and thus won’t find much productivity in their current work. That also applies to blogging, especially if you’re not working in your dream niche. (Though I should point out that in my experience, freelancers tend to be generalists and thus enjoy NOT focusing on a niche.)
This post triggered a thought I’d had recently, that many new bloggers seem to be relatively fresh out of college and some have never held a job offline post-college. Call me a pessimist, but I think it’s a bad idea not to work offline for at least a while before trying to become a full-time blogger. At least unless you’re absolutely certain you have a gift for entertaining through writing, and/or you’re an experienced entrepreneur, in case blogging doesn’t work out for you.
In a related vein, Daniel Scocco wrote at Daily Blog Tips recently, asking do you really need to go to university if you want to work on the Internet or be an entrepreneur? He listed later in the comments several successful, mostly American entrepreneurs who did not get a college degree. But some of these people came from money and others simply had entrepreneurial minds before entering college. Most at least attended college.
I know Daniel via online communication, and I know him to be very intelligent. Maybe he was that way before he entered university, maybe not. For me, going to university taught me very little that I didn’t already know, and having a degree has been a liability for me during past recessions, before the Internet offered career opportunities. It was hard being told, “You’re overqualified, and you’ll probably run when the recession is over, so I can’t give you a job.”
Nevertheless, despite the fact that I was brought up to be a critical thinker, and despite the fact that I’ve always known what I wanted to do careerwise (all of which I’ve done except one), if I had to do it all over again, I would still go to university/ college. However, most people go to college to “find themselves,” to determine what they’ll do with their lives. The question is, if you believe many top bloggers who say that most bloggers will not succeed (and I believe that), then what can you do and what skills will you need?
This is simply my belief, but I’m inclined to think that most of the online career opportunities will fall into a variety of non-blogging categories, some of which might be technical, all of which will require intelligence or the ability to acquire it. Which might or might not require a college degree. I’m still of the belief that having a degree will serve you well long-term, provided you study a subject that you’re interested in.
What do you think? Should aspiring web workers get college degrees? Should they work offline before going full-time online? Feel free to answer our poll question about how much work and education experience you have.
If you ever see a job opening for Chief Blogger, you might want to run far away. Kodak appointed a Chief Blogger position to a long-time employee, but the job description stinks of non-blogging tasks. Kodak is spindoctoring the announcement by saying that few companies have Chief Bloggers, and fewer still have female Chief Bloggers. So what? “Chief Blogger” hardly seems in the spirit of blogging, and ensures that I’ll NOT be visiting company blogs who have such positions.
This recalls to my mind numerous corporate jobs in the mid- to late 90s – when the Internet was the next big thing – that used to be titled Webmaster but were really just PR (Public Relations) jobs. Such jobs often involved immense amounts of company politics while the people doing the real work (the real Webmasters) were scapegoated by executives for anything that didn’t go right. (I happened to have been one, and have seen others go through it. It’s not a pretty thing.)
Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen to blogging. I fear, though, that it will. Things to fear: when that executive in the corner office comes asking, “Why isn’t the blogsite pulling in a million visitors a day yet? It launched a week ago. How long is it going to take, and how much money will we make from the blog?”
Am I overreacting? What do you think?
Some reading for the weekend:
The title of a blog post may or may not be as important as the content itself (depending on who’s being asked), but it certainly serves a distinct and important purpose — it draws people in. I’ve read and written on enough blogs to understand what does and does not work. There are no limits, no rules, but there are some basic things you can do to make your blog titles better
I previously wrote about how introductions serve the purpose of selling your article; however, the title of your article is what will grab the attention of the readers. It is the part of the article that should make them want to click to find out more. While I don’t place as much emphasis on titles as other bloggers, I will say that I have likely reached the front pages of several social sites from some crafty and creative titles.
Make Titles Relevant
You should always strive to make your titles relevant. As a matter of fact, there is no excuse for them not being so. Nothing annoys readers more than seeing a blog attempting to trick them into reading an article. Relevant titles help users get to the content that they wanted to read in the first place.
Make Use of Keywords
Not only do you want to appeal to your subscribers, but you should also appeal to search engines. Try to imagine what users would be searching for on a site like Google to find their way to your content. The more keywords, the more relevant the search result, the more hits from search engines. You could also try constructing your title in the form of a search result. For example, I would be likely to type in “How to upgrade my Apple MacBook memory” or something similar. If the title of your article closely resembles that, well, you get the idea.
Mix it Up
Predictability is something that can get boring after awhile. Make your titles unique and different. It will increase the chances of your subscribers taking notice, and that means more views. This is especially true if you are bold on linkbaiting content.
Get Cute
I’ve noticed a trend from bloggers that try to get far too creative with their titles. This is obviously an action taken to impress the users of social networks, and while it might succeed, it really is unproductive and inefficient. Most social networks allow the user to type in a title of their own, and many times they do. If it is that important to you, you should just submit the article to the social site in question (if allowed), and give it the title you want.
Make Things Complicated
For some reason, people like to make things more complicated than they should be. Titles should be simple. This could go in hand with being cute with the titles, but some bloggers just literally do not make sense. It is unprofessional, so keep things reasonable.
Be Annoying
Probably one of the best way to lose subscribers would be to annoy them. The best blogs rarely stoop to such levels to almost beg for reads from their subscribers, but many of the smaller bloggers do exactly that. Some great blogs I have managed to subscribe to in the early times become far too commercialized or needy. Don’t let this happen to you.
There are plenty more ways to make excellent titles. Be creative, but be reasonable as well. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments section.