Montgomery Manifesto: Blogging Interview

I was dropped in for a podcast interview with Mick Montgomery (Known for his work with the Warcraft-related Starting Zone podcast). Our main focus on WoW though. For a nice change of pace, we sat down for a solid hour just talking about blogging and online content creation. Most of you won’t really care, but if you’re interested in the blogging side of things, you’ll learn a little more about me from a different angle. Though we did end up talking a little more about Mists of Pandaria at the end.

Listen here

Obviously, when you do a website that focuses on written articles, you have a great deal of writing to do. Has doing the site forced you to change your writing style in any way?

I’ve learned to compress my writing. I try to be more succinct. I want to get straight to the point. Forget the foreplay. It’s a busy world out there. People have stuff to do. Every time I finish a post, I scan it and I ask myself if I really need that word there. Every word, every sentence must have a purpose. If there’s no reason for it to be there, it’s gone. It’s not as ramble-y as it used to be.

What do you think about the recent reductions over the last two years in subscribers and how does it impact your site or any wow oriented content creators site?

I think we’re going to see a spike in subscriptions again with the expansion. You can’t look at WoW as having a constant or growing number of subscribers all the time. Content is produced in waves and subscriptions counts are going to fluctuate to reflect that. In terms of impact, I think we’ve seen a decrease in the number of viewers and content consumers across the board. People lose interest, they’re not going to read those blogs for that kind of information. At the same time, it also affects bloggers themselves. If they get bored with the game, they’re not going to maintain their blog.

Making Connections

You’ve figured out why you should blog.

You worked hard on naming conventions for your blog.

You learned the nuances when writing for the internet.

You’ve mastered Writer’s block.

And you learned to… just get off your ass and write.

But despite applying all the technical and promotional techniques that you learned, you’re still not quite getting the comments you’re looking for. The traffic isn’t reflecting the effort and work you’re putting in. No facebook likes, Google +1’s, and no retweets. In fact, you’re gradually contemplating throwing in the towel.

What gives?

It’s because you’re missing a crucial element. A few weeks ago, I signed up for a Webinar from John Morrow, associated editor from Copyblogger.com. It was a free, 2 hour session discussing elements of traffic and community building. I figured I’d share the notes I took.

What we’re taught

Content: Write awesome content. The logic is if you keep writing amazing and helpful stuff, you’ll get noticed and your viewership will start skyrocketing.
Promotion: At the same time, you need to promote your posts. Ask for links, retweets, shares, etc. If people don’t know you exist, they’re not going to read your or share your stuff. So you have to do what you can to get known.

You get jillions of readers if you can combine them effectively.

The equation

Content + Promotion = Readers

But, this equation is missing something.

It’s off slightly. Content and promotion are both important, but there’s a missing component of the formula. You can still write smashing hits and you can still get those mentions, but it might only work for the short term and it doesn’t help your overall strategy of your blog.

It’s about the Connections

This is what the actual equation is.

Content + Promotion + Connections = Readers in the bajillions

Jon used best selling authors as an example.

The easiest way to write a best seller is to already be a best selling author. Guys like Seth Godin and Stephen King don’t need to ask for agents, or be booked to TV shows. People just already know who they are. The reasons why new authors struggle is no one knows who you are. You have to fight to get an agent, a publisher, an interview and so forth. This works the same way for bloggers.

“If you deleted my blog and all my subscribers (I’d be sad for one), but it’s not the end of the world. Because over the past few years, I’ve built relationships with all the popular bloggers in the world. I could still do in a flash.”
-John

The real key to blogging isn’t who you know. The key to blogging is who knows you. No matter how good your content, or how awesome it is or how hard you work, it’s not going to matter.

If you don’t have any influential connections, it’s not going to matter.

Popular bloggers ignore you because they don’t know you. If you email a blogger asking for a link to your site, you’ll most likely be ignored.

If you think about it, we do the same thing.

You scan through your emails and look for the senders you recognize. Anyone you don’t know, you end up ignoring or skipping over. Popular bloggers get on average 100+ emails (some go to 500+) per day. The reality is, most bloggers don’t often respond via email (at least, not right away). We respond to people we know. You have to get lucky with them opening your email to help you out. That’s not a situation you really want to be in which is why why link building won’t work.

If they don’t know who you are, it’s impossible. They have to know you first in order to get you links.

Let’s talk about twitter

What’s supposed to happen is you share your link with your friends. They share it with their friends and then it goes viral and snowballs it.

Wrong. That’s not actually how it works.

The posts don’t start with people with few friends. It’s not actually consistent. It’s like winning the lottery online. The way viral posts usually happen is they go top down. They get other people with big followings on twitter to share it with their followers and to their friends on twitter. And then their followers. It starts with the top people and works down.

The 3 C’s

Your goal must be done in these 3 steps in this order.

Step 1 — Connections with list owners

Connections means that those bloggers know your name. They’ve read your work. They’ve had a conversation with you. They think you’re smart and they like you.

No, this doesn’t mean a connection on LinkedIn.

Now list owners means people who have a huge twitter following, high RSS counts, a large emailing list, etc. They’re all different types of lists. You need to get THOSE people to like you because they can help spread your content to their followers and readers.

Step 2 — Content creation

Create awesome content targeted specifically at their audience, point out how it’s relevant to their audience, and ask them to promote it. You can’t just write great content and “hope” someone stumbles upon it. You need to have a connection in mind.

Step 3 —  Convert visitors

Ideally, you’d be able to offer your readers something of value. Blogs in other niches hook up readers with like an EBook, a report, or something but unless you’re really intense about it, I wouldn’t stress about that.

When it comes to subscriptions, Jon advises that email is way better than RSS. The engagement level and retention of email over RSS is about 20 times more valuable.

But, you should offer both types anyway. Make sure they’re full feeds.

This is the wrong order

  1. Content
  2. Connections
  3. Convert

Instead, the actual order should be:

  1. Connections
  2. Content
  3. Convert

The problem is you start as nobody. How do you become a somebody?

The answer to this is guest blogging!

Jon discovered that this is the only strategy that consistently works for every topic, every blogger, every niche. Some strategies work for certain topics and bloggers, but guest blogging is good for everything. If you guest on a big blog, and you write a mindblowingly amazing post, readers are going to say that post is awesome and they want to read more.

Here’s another analogy he used.

Think of it like an opening act for a major concert.

You’re performing on stage for someone like The Rolling Stones and you’re the first act.

The act of writing a guest post for a popular blog, those bloggers will love you. These posts get you introduced to other popular bloggers and influencers as well. This does NOT mean commenting. This means an actual article to give away to big popular blogs. We’re talking like 1500+ words. You write a popular post for one of these blogs and they edit it for you and give you feedback.

As an aside, if you ever get a chance, take your original version and put it side by side by the edited version. Ask yourself what changed and why.
The smartest thing you can do is link directly to your page (If possible, link directly to a page that offers something cool, like a webinar, or a report, etc).

Make connections

I want to re-emphasize one more thing.

Network the hell out of everything.

Make friends.

Get contacts.

Know people.

Connect.

It is the universal skill of all universal skills. So many opportunities will be available to you. This is one of the lessons my dad instilled in me when I was younger (actually, this was second after knowing my 12 x 12 multiplication tables). While you’re never going to be best friends with everyone you meet, it doesn’t hurt to be on relatively good terms with everyone.

This isn’t even about blogging. Things like academic openings or even job postings? Amazes me how much of that stuff is behind closed doors. Who you know can make a way bigger impact on your life than what you know. You never know when a blogger’s brother’s wife is looking to hire someone for a specific position that happens to coincide with your goals.

You never know what doors will open from that one blogger who takes you under their wing, or from that one guy who retweets your post.

On the other hand, if there’s nothing wrong with burning bridges as long as it’s done for the right reasons. Alas, that’s beyond the scope of this post.

“More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.”
– Peter Drucker

Four Links for the New Guys

Someone on Twitter pointed this out to me the other day.

The same guy who’s selling me gems in Diablo 3 is the same guy who makes really awesome noodles and is the father of the Dragon Warrior!

Mind. Blown.

Progression wise in Diablo 3, my Wizard’s level 38 or so and is halfway through Act 2. Also, those sand wasps in act 2? You know, the ones that crap out 4 mini wasps that then proceed to take a dump and two shot my character?

Those bastards can die a horrible, fiery death.

Oh, and it’s a Saturday. The theme this week is tips for those who are new at something.

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Tips for the Middle Lane and Essentials: Last Hitting

I wrote two posts on how you can become a better player in the middle lane. Winning the center lane is a huge boost to your team because it’s the quickest access route between both bases. Also allows the middle player to roam to the top or bottom lanes and provide fire support. The second post on last hitting is a universal skill for almost any champion in any lane (supports being the exception). Excellent pointers for new players to League of Legends.

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Hey, Newbie! Stop writing!

Beej has a great piece for new, aspiring bloggers everywhere – Don’t be a writer. Writing shorter and simpler is the second longest skill for me to pick up since I had just left the academic world. There, you’re at the mercy of deadlines, word count minimums, and page limits. Your blog has the luxury of being limitless. The most common argument I see against writing shorter and simpler goes like this:

“But why are we trying to make our audience dumber? Why not sound smarter and help educate people?”

How do you plan on helping people get better if they don’t understand what you’re trying to say? If you can’t get your point across in a few sentences, then it’s time to find a new point. The job of the blogger is to get the message across. Using complex vocabulary and 6000 words you pulled from the thesaurus may look impressive to your English teacher but the cold reality is not many people will make it that far.

Why make your message harder to understand?

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Anxiety, the Scariest Raid Boss

I am not afraid of anxiety. I dominated public speaking throughout my years in school. Wasn’t afraid of standing in front of my peers. Raiding’s a little different. You’re playing with a group of players  and you don’t want to screw up. Some players get a little anxious when thrown into a guild tackling progression content. Being nervous about your first raid’s more common than you might think.

My biggest public speaking fear? Being thrown into a room with an amazingly hot woman and just screwing up talking. I’m at the point where I feel if I utter “Hi there” I get responded with “YOU MISOGYNST PIG” or something. Not that it’s ever happened, but well.  Give me the auditorium full of listeners instead.

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Four Reasons to Like Diablo 3

If you’re still on the fence about D3, check out Liore’s post on why she’s a fan of the game. She and I share the same feelings about bugs too, it seems.

Does Your Blog’s About Page Answer These 7 Questions?

Bloggers who are just starting out tend to either write one of these About Pages hastily or outright forget them entirely. Some of the reasons I’ve seen include this type of thinking:

“Readers are smart! They can figure out what kind of person I am by reading all of my posts if they want to.”

The problem with that line of logic? You run the risk of readers not caring or not interested in you long enough to read your posts in the first place. Having an informative about page can go a long way. It gives you a chance to be transparent about your intentions and let your players know a little more about you.

Who are you?

Include the online handle you’d like to be addressed by. Unless your name is actually admin, you’ll want to reflect an identity that you wish to use. Some people like to use their real names. If you’re a gamer (and I bet you are), add a little information on the games you play and the classes or roles that you stick with. If you’re a part of a guild, tell us a little bit about them.

What’s your gender?

Now before you pounce on me, I’m not saying that it’s significant. Being a dude or a woman isn’t going to affect your blogging skill. But, I’ve been burned before in the past because I used the wrong noun when I’ve linked to or wrote about other bloggers. You can ask Cynwise and Lilpeanut. Otherwise, you may end up being referred to as an it!

Have any social media pages?

If you use Twitter or have a Facebook page for your blog, consider including those. Other solid choices could be your Pinterest, Google+, or your stream page (Own3d or Twitch, for example).

What is your blog about?

Lay out your primary focus. It’s not a problem to deviate once in a while and add a personal post or two that isn’t related to your main niche. But if you have a home and garden blog, I expect to see more posts about that instead of fashion related topics. You don’t necessarily have to restrict yourself. But if your best friend asks you what your blog is about and you can’t explain to them in 10 seconds, then you might want to refine that some.

Why should we read it?

It’s a similar thought process to the above question. You can say you write for entertainment. You can say you write to teach others. It can be as something simple as offering your personal insight or perspective about a game or something structured like full guides and tutorials on accomplishing a specific goal.

What are your interests?

Add a bit of personality! If you’re comfortable with it, share a few interesting things about yourself. It’s cool to find out that both you and a blogger share an interest and a similar past time. Do you play Magic? Do you watch Community? Own a Mac? You get the idea.

Do you have a picture?

For privacy reasons, I don’t suggest sharing your own photo unless you’re really comfortable with the idea. But since you’re on this blog with an interest in blogging, I’m going to make the presumption that you’re interested in some form of gaming. Consider using a digital avatar of your main character in your game in a wicked pose. It’s not a necessity, but don’t underestimate the little things.

Going to cap off the post with a few examples of excellent About pages.

Examples

forthelore

 

healbot

 

bossypally

 

pon-about

 

about-jared

New Blogger Initiative

Welcome to a special edition of this week’s The Herald.

The New Blogger Initiative, run by one Sypster of Biobreak, aims to help teach and cultivate bloggers looking to improve their craft. Looks like it’s been picking up some steam as there’s a large number of sponsors (veterans) and new guys. Poking around, you can find some quality tutorial links on best practices and ideas when working with your blog.

You can find all of the published articles in one thread here (Personally, I would’ve suggested making each reply it’s own post for easier scannability or condensing similar topics into it’s own thread).

If you’re not sure where to start, let me pick out the ones you should begin with.

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Screenshots Make Your Blog Interesting

Eva’s post has excellent tips on laying out your screenshots and maximizing the art of in game photography. If you’re in an area where you’re not able to snag a screenshot, then any visual appeal helps. If you’re stuck at work and want to publish a post, see if you can generate a graph or a pie chart. Worse case scenario, you can snag some stock images from a large image service that allows it (I recommend Stock Exchange). I’m amazed at what kind of impact a 48 point white text on a black image background can make on a blog that’s predominantly light colored.

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Figure out why you want to blog

Paeroka asks you to dig deep down inside and figure out why you want to blog. Once you get that part squared away, you can move on from there. Think of blogging as a type of sub-gaming activity (Raiding, PvPing, etc). If you can figure out what you want to do within the game, you’ll have a stress-free time mapping out your activities.

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So you Wanna Be a Blogger

Similar to Paeroka, Windsoar expands further on Paeroka’s topic about getting started. You have to factor in time. You don’t need to cram your blogging on the bus or train on the way to work but how much time you set aside is going to dictate your quality and quantity. There’s no real wrong answer on things to write about. You can review different aspects of a game. Help players by writing guides. Lay down your experiences and comment on your own activities.

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Pros and Cons of Self Hosting

If you’re looking to compare the pros and cons of self hosting, Stropp has you covered. By aiming for self-hosting, you are making a commitment to yourself. It’s like signing up for a club membership at the gym. You’ve already pre-paid that one year and you don’t want to lose on that investment, so you keep going. That being said, if you’re unsure about handling the demands of blogging, you should start with a free one first. Get your feet wet. If all you care about is getting your words and thoughts out there, you can do some practice runs on the WordPress hosted plan. If you want to see how you would react to the opinions of readers, find a blogger you admire, and email them to see if they’re willing to publish your piece.

If you’re only going to listen to one piece of advice, then listen to this one:

Writers who don’t write aren’t writers.

That’s advice from my old English 12 teacher. Kindly old man. Passed away a few years ago. Always thought of him as Gandalf with glasses who used a pen instead of a wand.

I miss him.

As an aside, I’m looking to take on a blogging padawan. Any takers?