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This week we decided to dedicate the entire show to helping you bootstrap your blog! Just because something is free doesn’t mean people are going to want it, so we delve into some of the top tactics and tools for drawing in those readers, and get to the bottom of what really matters.
The big issues:
- How to boost subscribers to your blog
- How to increase the number of comments on your posts
- How to turn your blog into a real community
- Who do we recognise as subscribers? There is a huge array of subscribers, from those that use RSS feeds, to newsletter subscribers, commenters, regular site visitors, and not least those who ‘like’ your Facebook fan page or follow your brand profile.
- Two vital ways of pulling return visitors to your site: RSS and email
- In terms of cultivating subscribers and followers to your content, what are the key steps you need to go through?
- We talk about how your blog post could act like as forum for great discussions by making the most of threaded comments.
- Facebook plugins: The pros and cons of using plugins such as Disqus, Intense Debate & Facebook Comments. We analyse the SEO issues they come with and debate their value in terms of providing leverage for your blog.
- So, what are the high profile bloggers doing? We debate the increasingly popular Lightbox popups, and plugins such as Popup Domination. Do they add value?
- To grow your reach and subscribers you should be commenting elsewhere too. We talk through how, where and why you should be doing so.
- Create evergreen content with great comments! We get to the bottom of how to master producing content like this and reap all the benefits.
- If you are not so hot with creating great content, there are some useful tools you can use to pull in the subscribers
- Once you have built momentum and amassed a handful of subscribers, what are the next steps and how can you make money?
- WordPress 3.1 is around the corner, but what should you be looking out for? Check out all the updates on codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.1
We want to hear your ideas on what topics you would like us to talk about, and which guests you would love to hear from! Leave a comment with your suggestions below.
Useful links:
- Great blog post by Rand Fishkin on seomoz.org – Recommendations For Blog Commenting As A Marketing strategy
- Yoast.com – Joost de Valk’s WordPress SEO post
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar – an interesting read if you have some time to kill
- This is a true example of evergreen content. A top notch post written by Avinash Kaushik – Blog Metrics, 6 Recommendations For Measuring Your Success.
- Check out W3 Total Cache by Frederick Townes
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Ok this was a great episode guys.
I liked a lot the whole Suscribers tips wich I’m gona try in my blogs.
And yeah that’s what I would like to see more here in the podcast, blogging tips like that. How you guys and other top bloggers do things to make a blog grow.
Thanks
I don’t know this is a podcast topic, but I’d love a how to, or a good plugin, to make it easier to do things like:
- make a new commenter’s page so they subscribe (Yoast mentioned this tip in a lecture recently)
- how to make a thank you page for people who subscribe
- how to automatically send a thank you note to people who donate
- how to put a subscribe checkbox on comments
Hey Katinka,
Good to see you stop by :)
Answers to your questions:
- you can make a new commenters page using comment redirect;
- a thank you page for subscriptions is just a static page you define in your email subscription system, ie. Mailchimp
- a thank you note for donations, again, is just a static page you define in f.i. your PayPal donation workflow.
- the subscribe checkbox on comments is something I’ve done on my own blog and I indeed need to write an article on :)
Cheers
Joost
This is what I was looking for after visiting your site. The whole subscription process is done in a very “polite” succession of steps.
Great post Yoast! (dat rijmt…)
Now, is your advice to use or not use Popup Domination? I been seeing it more and more, and was thinking to use it.
Another question off topic: What platform to use for building a community site, BuddyPress? and MU…? Do you have any experience with this?
Great work you’re doing!
Gr, Rob
You guys should try and get Justin Tadlock on your show regarding the release of his new book WordPress Plugin Development and is theme framework: ThemeHybrid
Keep up the good work guys.
Simon.
Thanks for the great podcast guys! I just launched my burger review blog today and I was SO going back and forth about using popup domination for the big launch day.
I like the idea of the subscribe reminder right below the post when you’ve just delivered some great content.
I just discovered this blog/podcast today and I am astounded by the great informational conversation. I’m currently on the fence about Disqus. I believe in federated identity as a convenience and a promotion to get comments, but I see the drawbacks as well such as SEO and performance.
Federated identity Plugins(Oauth based, etc) , and portable profile management are terms we see in the enterprise, but these concepts in the public areas add real value. My blog is a more technical audience (aka Nerdy/Geeky) so maybe I am making too big of an assumption that the general (aka non-nerds) are comfortable with such things.
I also think these sort of FIPs also have the added benefit of reputation management, in that quality commentators may avoid low quality comments because of their persistent comment stream. Though I’m not sure if this prevents people from commenting because of it being associated with them as well.
I really would like to see a show about cultivating the attention through high quality link building. When you are just starting out on a blog, going out and engaging sites of common interest seems to be key, but what is the fine line between advertising and spamming your brand? Posting to twitter seems valuable, but because of the constant updating stream, should you periodically tweet your recent post over a span of days to get in the sight of potential readers?
Maybe a series on “From Day 0 to Day 30, what you should do to begin your blog” kind of thing.
Great Podcast guys.
A quick correction on comments not being shown to Google if you make use of 3rd party commenting systems. While I can’t speak to the others, Intense Debate syncs comments between your local install and intense debate. In cases where a user can not render javascript, such as a Google bot, the local commenting system is used thus retaining your SEO.
Another benefit to using an external commenting system is the reduction in server resources required. You can essentially build a cached version of your page once (using w3TC or WP SuperCache) and it never needs to be refreshed. For busy sites posts/pages are expired frequently as new comments are left (especially during peak times) which can slow things down. The same logic applies to the reduction of resources on your mail server required to sent out the subscription emails.
Thanks again for the Podcast and another vote for getting Justin Tadlock on to discuss his new book WordPress Plugin Development as well as the other efforts he has going.
Frank
Thanks Frank. Great points. Do keep in mind that sites that use BuddyPress or don’t use 3rd Party commenting system benefit from W3 Total Cache’s opcode caching support of the object cache, which keeps those dynamic sites running quickly.
Great help and ideas. I am thinking about beginning a phpBB3 forum as an addendum to the WordPress site. Mainly because I want to incorporate a store and I think the forums will be a closer knit group where they can ask questions about the products, get help if need be, express wishes on what they would like to see there to purchase, and just become a tighter group. (wishful thinking) but not out of the question. :-) I know that the link between the two is not the best from what I have heard, so I may have to put a link to the forum in WordPress and a link back on phpBB3.
And they could sign up at both with the same username and password. Thoughts?
Kath
Maybe an idea for a futher podcast.. Talk with one of the core developers behind BuddyPress and BBpress plugins. I would love to hear more about there vision on BuddyPress, BBpress and WordPress.
I second that.. BuddyPress is not getting near enough attention it deserves.
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Hi Joost, Frederick,
Recently I spend a lot of time travelling and found listening to your podcasts on WordPress useful.
I like the variety of topics, depth of coverage and the guests you get. I feel the show is more lively with a guest when compared to you alone talking.
Regarding ideas for next show, can you do a coverage on premium theme markets? Especially on the basis of SEO, user friendliness and speed performance?
Thanks.
Something I would be interested hearing your opinion about and have you guys might do a show about is commercial themes now on WordPress.com and what the real benefit of using a framework is for a regular or/and developer.
Love the show. Thanks!
Again thanks for this informative post, but still wondering how to increase twitter and facebook followers ?
Thanks
Just started listening to your podcasts, don’t know how I had missed it before now. I am going forward while moving backwards through the older ones also. Thanks for the great resources, and I may post some ideas after listening and making sure you haven’t covered them already!