Blogging, before being a tool of expression and communication is a tool of desire, especially these days when thousands of people start a new blog each day, hoping to become successful.
It doesn’t matter how each and every one of them defines success. It can be a big readership, new relationships, business leads, money making or whatever, in the end, it starts out from the desire of doing better for yourself.
Unfortunately, that’s the point where most bloggers get stuck. Success is a two-way street, a give and receive relationship between the blogger and its community, and a blogger that cannot see his work from the readers’ perspective is bound to fail.
Have a clear and easy to digest message
As bloggers, you are the experts, your ideas make sense to you and probably a lot of your readers too, but don’t expect everyone to be able to understand and follow your thoughts as easy as if they were of your level.
In order to attract and maintain a good readership you need to appeal to the novice and the expert both. You need to be able to explain things in such way that novices could understand, but interesting enough so that you engage the advanced ones too.
A good way to reach that is to avoid a vocabulary consisting mostly in technical or complex words. Rather than using such a vocabulary, add references to each of your articles, encouraging the novice to find out more about the topic. The experts can still be engaged by leaving enough room for conversation or second opinions, but don’t expect them to come by their own. Ask for opinions. Different people handle the same situation in different ways and those people might be willing, if encouraged, to share their experiences and results.
Let readers build the story
No matter how good an article is to you, it’s the readers who decide if it’s appealing or not. Use an engaging writing style to attract readers and give them the tools to build the story upon.
Without your readers’ engagement, your article is nothing more than a series of materials and words put together in a logical sentence, and that proves nothing about you. The second you publish that story, everyone reading it will have the chance to appreciate it, comment it or criticize it. Once it goes live, it’s not about how you wrote it anymore, but rather about how it’s read.
Accept feedback, but don’t let it drive your actions
No matter how good the quality, critics will come. It’s the human nature and the internet has its share of trolls, so don’t worry about them. Instead, focus on the real reactions to your work.
Satisfied readers will most likely go unnoticed or simply leave an appreciative comment. It is up to you to determine how many of these appreciative comments come from people that are really captivated by your work, and how many simply go with the positive flow.
To best determine the reaction to your work, look closely at those leaving truly meaningful comments. If their comments are mostly dissecting your theories, then you need to reconsider your views. That doesn’t mean you need to change them, just try and look through another perspective too.
If most of the comments take your theories further, complementing them with new ideas and experiences, then you article had a positive impact, turned out valuable and managed to engage the community. This is the case you need to find yourself in.
You and I both
We are both the ones deciding my fate, it’s up to me to give you my best, and it’s up to you to react naturally to what I give you. No matter how I choose to define success, I can only take the first step alone, because writing it’s a song to dance to in couples. One gets to lead as long as someone else follows.
And since it all starts out with your action, here’s a nice quote from Beth Mende Conny, recognized and appreciated writer, speaker andd trainer, the mastermind behind the “Art of Schmooze” series of books:
No one is asking, let alone demanding, that you write. The world is not waiting with bated breath for your article or book. Whether or not you get a single word on paper, the sun will rise, the earth will spin, the universe will expand. Writing is forever and always a choice – your choice.
Photo credits to Vinícius Sgarbe