By Glen Allsopp

I am under no illusions regarding my writing ability; I’m aware that I still have a long way to go in terms of honing my skills in this area. And, despite the fact that I took my English A-Levels one year early, writing is something that definitely doesn’t come naturally for me.

Yet, while I’m aware of my flaws (which are slowly decreasing) it has never put me off attempting to be a writer and wanting to motivate, inspire and awaken people with my words. I have managed to build quite a decent following on my site, but I recently decided I wanted to take things to the next level. Basically, I want to join the ranks of the “big boys.”

In order to try to work out what the extra ingredient successful blogs seem to have was, I decided to look for what they all have in common. It wasn’t the subjects they write about, it wasn’t their post length and it certainly wasn’t their post count. Instead, what I have come to realise about the majority of popular blogs is this: the author makes it easy for you to feel like you know them on a personal level.

It is as if they are writing for one (you), even if their message is written for many.

To solidify this idea, let’s look at a few examples…

Practical Examples

I have been blogging for almost four years now on various websites, and in that time I’ve came across a number of successful bloggers both in terms of subscribers and financial income in numerous industries. It has became very clear to me that the blogs I enjoy reading the most, are authored by people who seem very “real.” Some examples of this include:

• Alvin Phang - Alvin, in all fairness, really struggles with the English language. If you look at his post titles or the intro to his blog posts, they’re full of spelling and grammatical errors. In spite of this, Alvin’s blog has over 5,000 subscribers and he recently recorded earning $20,000 from it in one month. The thing about Alvin is that he’s very personal; he shares his income stats, photos of his family and his stories of financial struggle. The language barrier has not hindered his success.
• Leo Babauta - Leo is also a great example. He’s not only one to watch in terms of great content, but he’s one to watch because of the great community he has managed to build. Just off the top of my head I can name lots of things about Leo like how he lives in Guam, has 6 six kids, quit smoking and became a marathon runner. It is no coincidence that he has both a thriving audience and a very genuine demeanour.
• Steve Pavlina - Most bloggers are able to keep a high level of traffic from regular Digg homepages, search engine traffic and surges from StumbleUpon. Not Steve; his site hasn’t been featured on Digg for over 2 years, yet he currently boasts and impressive 7 million pageviews per month. Sure, he writes great content, but in the early days he grew purely from word of mouth, mostly because of the stories he shares and the honesty he portrays.
• Elizabeth Gilbert - Elizabeth is not a blogger, she’s actually an author. A very successful one at that. Her book, Eat Pray Love, is one of the most personal, funny and naked accounts of travelling you will ever read. It has earned her praise from the likes of Julia Roberts and Demi Moore for how easily people can relate to her. That must be a lot of people, seeing as her book has sold over 5 million copies to date.
• JD Roth - JD writes in the highly crowded space of personal finance, yet has managed to build his audience to a very impressive 65,000 readers and counting. How? He’s personal, he’s honest, and after just 5 minutes on his blog, you’ll already feel like you know him. He often does this by relating his life stories to his topic like how he spent $530 in one day at Disney World (which, of course, includes pictures).

With all blogging advice, there will be exceptions to the rule. Looking at the Technorati Top 100 blogs, a vast majority have a very clear head figure behind them. Most exceptions to this ‘personal rule’ include news sites but it is no surprise that one of the biggest news blogs, TechCrunch, has an owner who is well known and very open.

Getting Personal

There are numerous ways to add more personality and a bit of you into your blog, the following items being some of the most effective.

• Tell Stories - Even at the start of this blog post I told you all how I took my English A-levels a year early. It is only one sentence, but it fit snugly with what I was talking about and you got to know me just a little better. See how you can incorporate personal stories into your blog posts from time to time, something every type of blog topic caters for.
• Use Your Real Name - I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the number of people who leave comments on my blog with their site name. First of all, I have to use it in my response because I have no other way of referring to them, and secondly it feels as if they are putting a barrier up to get to know them. Even if you only want to use your first name, at least choose something that people can call and remember you by.
• Have a Picture - To my knowledge, there are only 2-3 blogs in the Technorati Top 100 where no picture is shown for the author. Adding a picture is a little too much for some people who prefer to hide their identity, but again having a face to put to a name really helps people connect with you. In all of the examples I featured above, every writer has a picture of them on their website and regularly include them in blog posts.
• Be Genuine - It is far easier to connect with someone who is being ‘real’ rather than someone who is putting on a front. I used to have a friend in high school who had lots of money, but you just couldn’t have a conversation with him without it being brought up. The only friends he had were those looking for financial benefits. If you’re personal finance blogger and in debt, be open about it. If you write about personal development yet have relationship or addiction troubles, don’t be afraid to say it. You’ll find that a lot of your audience can really relate to what you say.

Even if you can only implement a few of these, you’ll quickly see the benefits.

It Works

Being personal really does work. I urge you to go and check the blogs you subscribe to and see how well you know the authors. I guarantee for the majority of sites, you’ll know the authors name, what they look like and more about them than an average joe from the street.

I may ‘only’ have 3,000 subscribers, but just being personal means I always get lots of thank you emails from my readers and lots of comments. In fact, a blog post I wrote a couple of days ago has over 110 comments which is more than blogs 10 times the size of mine usually receive.

At the end of the day, being personal with your readers (where necessary) is far easier than putting on a front, and you’ll find that they can open up and relate to you so much more. I’ve even been personal in blog posts on other sites (much larger than mine) and received some very obvious comments about it.

A comment on my first guest post at WritetoDone showing appreciation of being genuine

A comment on my guest post for DumbLittleMan showing how people relate to your stories in their own way

P.S. I came up with most of the ideas for this post while I was having a nice soak in the bath. OK, maybe that’s a little too personal ;)

Glen Allsopp really hopes you enjoyed the article that you’ve just read. He also hopes that if you really did enjoy it, you’ll check out his blog which covers topics like Personality Development and perhaps subscribe to the feed.

Photo courtesy of B Rosen

By Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind.

Viral is one of the biggest buzzwords these days in blogging world. Everyone wants to create something viral, so their blog or product will “market itself.”

Despite all the buzz about creating “viral content” and a “viral blog,” not many people really understand how this is done. I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure I’ve got it all figured out. There aren’t really any secrets. But, there are a lot of little tactics that can add up to creating something contagious.

The trick with content

A lot of people will tell you that you can’t write a “killer post” every time. You’ll burn out, they say. Or they’ll say something about it not being healthy to be such a perfectionist.

I completely disagree. While I think it’s not healthy to aim for perfection, I’ve built a highly viral blog doing exactly the opposite of conventional advice.

Usually, part of the strategy for publishing more content that is “OK” and not great is following the law of averages. The more content you put out, the more chances you have of getting linked, the more chances you’ll get indexed in search engines and rank for those search terms. I understand the strategy, but I think it’s severely flawed if you’re trying to create something extremely viral.

My aim with every post I write is to create content that has a high probability of becoming viral. But I do this not by writing more, but by writing less.

If I can’t find something worth writing about, I don’t write. If it’s just a “good idea,” I don’t write about it.

It really comes down to this: If I don’t care about what I’m doing, why should I expect other people to care?

The contagion tactics

There are a bunch of different tactics and methods you can employ to increase your chances of contagion. None of these are magic bullets, but if you add up enough of them, you will have a extremely high probability of going viral.

1. Write only when you have something worth saying. I mentioned this already, but it’s worth repeating. If you don’t have something to say, don’t say anything. Don’t contribute to the noise. If you don’t have something to say, the best thing you can do is not add to the static. This is solely based on the fact that you don’t want to create a reputation of only sometimes creating amazing content. You want to create the belief in other’s minds that every time you post, it will be unmissable content.
2. Throw away lots of ideas. In the same way that you only publish your best stuff, you have to develop a habit of throwing most things away. If it’s not worth saying, resist the urge to word vomit. If you have an idea that you think is great, but you’re not sure, sit on it. Let it stew for a little bit. Most of the time, the reason for your indecisiveness is because your idea is not quite ripe. Let it ripen on the vine, resist the urge to pick it before it’s ready, which would leave you with something sour and ruined. Just as an example, I currently have over 30 drafts in my blog admin area. Less than 3 of those will see the light of day. The more you practice this, the more skilled you will become at filtering great ideas. You will begin to develop a remarkable ability to know immediately when something will be extremely well-received, or when it will flop.
3. Have a vested interest in what you’re writing about. Passion spreads through words. If you are passionate about what you’re writing about, you’ll naturally write something far more compelling than if you could care less. Only write about things you really care about.
4. Learn the principles of stickiness. Be simple, be straight to the point. Get to the core message. Tell a story, and surprise your readers with a twist they wouldn’t have expected. Give them a reason to listen by being highly engaging. Telling a story is one of the best ways to make your writing memorable. It gives the mind concrete details and images to associate with. If at all possible, find a way you can turn your message into a story, but only if you can do so authentically. Don’t make up a lackluster story just for the sake of having one. For more on this, pick up the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.
5. If you’re not writing, read or rewrite. If you don’t have something worth saying, practice rewriting and honing your skills. Or read as much as you can, but do so actively. While you’re reading, think about what makes the piece engaging or boring. What keeps you turning the page? What makes you want to fall asleep? In the same way you study reading, study what goes viral online in social media venues and what makes bestsellers in bookstores. Learn from them, but only mimic them when you can do so authentically.
6. Hone your craft. Whatever your field is, if you don’t have a desire to master it, you’re not likely to have a high chance of becoming viral. People will talk about what you’re doing, because you’re so ridiculously passionate about it, and your enthusiasm is contagious.
7. Walk the edges. See where you can find interesting intersections of seemingly disparate ideas. How can you relate sex to ice cream? Why is non-conformity really another flavor of conformity? What can politicians and lawyers tell you about smart career moves? Try to find ways to shed a different shade of light to something that has been stuck on repeat. Take a contrarian viewpoint (but only if it’s authentic). Whatever you do, don’t be another echo.
8. Start a revolution. If you have a passion for something that could be improved or could be organized as a collective movement, zero in on that. The most viral ideas are those that a large group of people care deeply about, where there was formerly no leadership. Step up and lead your own revolution.
9. Connect with influencers. In order to spread ideas effectively, the influencers in your field will need to know about it. It’s your job to find who they are and cultivate relationships with these people. Google alerts and conversation tracking on twitter are the best way to tap into whose having the conversations about your topic.
10. Give people what they want. This may sound obvious, but how much do you really know about your readers? Get to know them better; find out what they feel is missing in your field. Conduct a short 5-6 question survey with a few open and closed questions. Ask them how they feel and what they’d like to see.
11. Be insane. Be insanely useful, insanely creative, insanely helpful, or insanely controversial. Whatever you do, make it extremely remarkable. Kind of insane, or pretty good is not enough. You have to be insanely something.

This is, by no means, a bible on creating a viral blog. It’s simply a starting point for creating a blog with more buzz. The best thing to do is experiment. Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone and say something different.

Rethink the limits you’ve arbitrarily placed on your blog. You’ll often find they were simply imaginary lines.

This article was written by Jonathan Mead; revolutionary, raw foodist, dream coach, and prolific blogger. He is interested in unconventional paths to personal growth and advocates strange things like killing your goals. In his spare time he studies Jeet Kune Do and other ass-kicking strategies. He also wrote a pretty cool book, called Reclaim Your Dreams - An Uncommon Guide to Living on Your Own Terms.

A guest post by Jamie Harrop of Blogging Zest

For most bloggers, building a base of active, engaging subscribers is what blogging is about. Sure, we may (eventually) want to make money from our blogs. Or we may just like to write. But at the core, what most of us want is subscribers. People who regularly read our content. People who want to engage and interact with us. And people who share our work. That’s what good subscribers are. Readers. Engagers. Conversationalists. Sharers.

People who comment on your blog posts tick the first three of those four boxes. They read. They engage. And they start conversation in the comments. It’s worrying, then, that 60% of commenters on my blogs are not subscribers.

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By Marko Saric of  How to Make My Blog

Twitter is a growing platform where bloggers can increase their site traffic and exposure by finding, getting in touch and providing value to people interested in their content and services. Twitter helps establish a link between you and your audience and should be a very important part of your online branding and marketing strategy.

Build a followers base

Concentrate on building a large number of followers. The more people that follow you and know what you are about, the more clicks and visits you will get to your site.

Track down twitterers that are interested in your field by using Twellow. Search for relevant keywords or go into the relevant directory and get a list of interested twitterers. Rank according to “followers count” to see the power users in your field.

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I’ll write that post … after I climb this mountain of paperwork.

By Leo Babauta

Not everyone has the luxury of a full-time blogger — you know, that lazy sonofagun who lays around on the couch all day, absent-mindedly pecking away at his keyboard while eating Cheetohs and watching reruns of Lost and The Office, writing his blog posts as the muse whispers to him in tidbits throughout the day.

No, not everyone is that lucky.

Some bloggers actually have — gasp! — day jobs! And all the pressures and time constraints that that entails: working late hours, no time for loved ones or exercise or outside goals as it is.

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