We all know I’m not the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to tech talk jargon. I would cry if you asked me what plugins are. Nonetheless I bravely faced the geek fest yesterday at the Problogger Conference in Melbourne. It was, in a word, awesome. I had far too much percolated coffee and jelly beans so I had the mega jitters at the end of the day but I managed to take some fairly serious and surprisingly coherent notes. I’ve made them a little bit smaggley for those of you who, at the end of the day, had to ask their boyfriends what an affiliate is. In other words this is the dumb-arse version of the main rad points –
1. The Key is to Implement the Behaviour – Not just hear it.
You can read every book, ebook, blog and site and be armed with all the information you need to make a million dollar blog, but if you don’t action the advice it’s as good as useless.
2. You Are Only As Good As Your Last Post. Make it One Worth Remembering.
Don’t pad out your blog with filler content because you’ve committed to posting four times a day. Your readers would rather have nothing than an article that wastes their time.
3. You Need to Constantly Grow. A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss.
Stand still for a whole five minutes and see how bored you get. Apply that to your blog. Now go mix it up a little.
4. Positive Attention = Good. Negative Attention = Bad.
Don’t stir up trouble for the hits. It’s not worth it. You’ll get a one day spike in traffic and then everyone will abandon you. No one has a lasting relationship with a bully.
5. Write Posts That People Will Want to Share with Their Friends.
Be concise, make your point, make it readable, make it accessable but most importantly make it sharable. No one will search for your Twitter, Facebook or Stumbleupon buttons. You need to make them visible.
6. Be a Good Person and be a Person.
Do you buy your coffee from the same place every morning because you love the cafe? Or do you love the cutie behind the counter who reads you your horoscope? Don’t have a faceless blog. Let people know who you are and be kind, polite and mind your manners. Pretend everyone is your grandmother.
7. Be Remarkable.
Leave an impression. Give people something to talk about.
8. Contribute.
You are never too cool to stop communicating with your peers and despite what you think you are never too busy either. It’s all about the karma. Don’t expect love if you ain’t handing it out.
9. Be Humorous. Let Your Readers Have a Giggle.
There’s no need to be so serious all the time. Tell your readers stories, engage them, acknowledge your mistakes and write about your solutions. Failing that, everyone loves a good poo joke.
As you can tell from my child-like enthusiasm I was rather inspired by the conference. Darren is an amazingly lovely guy who you just want to stand near to soak up his goodness, Chris was hilarious and provided most (if not all) of the tips that really stuck with me and I think Mr Smaggle developed a crush on Collis. Understandably.
And if you are interested I was asked to contribute my thoughts on blogging over at Frock and Roll alongside the magnificent Sally from Already Pretty and my gorgeous friend Sarah Von from Yes and Yes.
Please let me know if you found these tips useful and if you have anything to add please feel free to comment. If you attended the conference please comment and leave a link to your blog – I barely got the chance to mingle with the guests.
Oh and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and become a fan of Smaggle on Facebook!
Love Lady Smaggle
xxx