I used to think that SEO was just so much hokum. It was voodoo online, made up by gatekeepers and more or less a crap shoot. Google either liked you… or they didn’t.
But I have learned that this just plain is not true.
How Does SEO Work, Really?
The God’s honest truth is that good search engine optimization comes from good website writing and design.
A website where there are few duplicates (if any), the writing is clear and concise, and delivers on its promises, will often have good search engine optimization.
But a website with keyword stuffing, where the title of a post or page says one thing, but the actual body of the post or page says something else? That one does not do so well in the SEO game.
Now, of course, there are any number of nuances to search engine optimization. For one thing, there is some finesse involved in deciding between two rather similar keyword phrases.
One of the most important considerations is user intent. For example, a post on How Do I Write a Book? will probably reflect a different intent versus a post that is all about creating a writer website.
The former might be for more dilettantish readers who think everyone has a book in them (They do! It’s just not necessarily a terribly good book. Sorry, sports fans!). But the latter may be more for people who have some time under their belts and are more serious about the business if not the craft itself.
A website with good SEO will find out how to serve them both.
Job Seeking. Sigh. In 2024, I am back on this bandwagon, so here I go again with this top 10.
Adventures in Career Changing means job applications.
Beyond networking, education and research, there are just sometimes some forms to fill out. I have filled out – I have no idea how many. And while there are problems with many of these forms, there is also some good out there, along with other aspects of looking for a job these days.
#10 – Following X or Bluesky for Job Seeking
There are all sorts of Twitter X or Bluesky streams which showcase any number of openings. Company streams, in particular, can be a good source of leads. Make sure to watch for perhaps a week or so in order to determine whether the content is being updated frequently.
#9 – LinkedIn, Land of Job Seeking Opportunity
For power users of LinkedIn, there are numerous ways to look for work. One good way is to check their job listings, and apply through the site. Some openings allow you to apply directly via your LinkedIn profile. Others send you to a company’s website.
But make no mistake; companies (or at least they should) check the traffic sources for the job applications they receive. And so by going to a job application directly from LinkedIn, you show that, at least in some small way, the biggest online networking site in the world matters.
But instead, you should apply directly on the site if you can. Why? Because applying through LinkedIn is often just a means of showing an interest only. Sometimes, it can’t be helped. But if you have a choice, apply on the company website every single time.
#8 – LinkedIn Skills and Endorsements
If you’ve got an account on LinkedIn, surely you have seen these by now. So fill in your skills profile! And make sure to endorse other people as well. A lot of them will reciprocate.
#7 – Scannable Resumes
Gone are the days when most resumes were eyeballed, at least to start. Because your resume is far more likely to be read by a machine before a human. So get your resume loaded up with relevant keywords! Why? Because you’ll make the first cut, that’s why.
However, much like with regular old search, keyword stuffing is a lousy idea. If you’re job seeking for a career in marketing, then larding up terms like marketer, marketing, market research, etc. can often be too much. Yes, you want to match well. But you also don’t want to turn your resume into an obnoxious laundry list of terminology.
#6 – Personal Websites
The good, the bad and the ugly are out there. My own, for instance. I leave it to you to decide which category it falls under.
At least this site is completely functional and current. And it comes up quickly, plus you can readily find everything on it. Finally, Google ranks it fairly well. I know I can improve it. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
#5 – Clarity
Job descriptions can become very precise these days, as employers can (in part, in some instances) select software and versions from drop-downs to better communicate their needs to the job seeking public.
One special form of clarity is now the law in a lot of states—salary transparency. May it become the law of every single state, and soon!
I truly love salary transparency, and a lot of people do, too. In fact, there are plenty of people who will not apply to a job that does not list a salary range. I love this idea, although in all candor, I don’t always practice it.
But salary transparency, bottom line, saves time.
#4 – LinkedIn Recommendations
Unlike endorsements, these require a bit of prose. But they can be rather powerful. At the very least, you don’t want to be a job seeker who doesn’t have any. So ask! And not just your boss or former boss. Ask your coworkers as well, and offer to reciprocate.
If the person you ask doesn’t think they’re good at writing, offer to write the recommendation for them and have them, of course, adapt it as they like and post it or not if they wish. And the same in reverse. If you’re uncomfortable, ask the person to write a rec for you and then you can enhance it or take out bits as you see fit.
#3 – Blog
Just like this one, a candidate can use a blog to provide more information or get across personality without having to overload a resume. Savvy employers will look candidates up on social media. Why not give them something good to find?
Something better than Facebook rants, voter rolls, etc.
#2 – LinkedIn Functionality
For jobs advertised on LinkedIn, for some of them, you can apply by connecting them directly to your profile. What could be easier? But beware, as that’s not too specific to jobs, and hiring managers don’t like that.
And functionality changes over time. One thing you can do is inform a company that you’re interested in them (via LinkedIn). You can also, although I believe you currently need to have the paid version of LI, tell them if theirs is one of your top choice jobs/companies.
#1 – Being Able to do Job Seeking Online
Finally, of course, a lot of the job search still must happen in an old-fashioned manner. Interviews will, for the most part (except, perhaps, for quickie phone screens, particularly where relocation is at issue), be conducted on screen. Some may still have to be done in person.
A lot of networking will still happen at events and not on LinkedIn. But a ton of it can happen in cyberspace. It makes the search far easier and faster than it ever has been.
And God bless the developers of Zoom. An initial interview pulls maybe an hour out of your day—instead of a good four or more.
No one will know about your awesome writer website if you don’t start to pay attention to writer SEO.
And without all the connections on your website you could be making, guess what happens? You miss will out on sales. And you may also miss out on places where you can appear and promote your book. Or libraries where you can have your book.
Note: this is an overview and not the details of any form of SEO, even writer SEO. That would take up a few hundred blog posts at least.
Why Does Writer SEO Matter?
Have you ever wondered how and why the results you get in a search are in the order they’re in? Yes, some of this has to do with paid advertising. But budgets are not infinite. Or, at least, they aren’t for most of us.
But SEO is, in a way, a form of free advertising. Optimizing for search means your post gets placed further up on search results. And that’s good. But is it good enough?
So, while positive changes in position are nothing to sneeze at, they do not truly matter unless you’re on page 1 of results.
If that seems unfair, odd, and maybe even a reason why the human race is doomed, well, I’m with ya on that.
Yet our preferences do not matter.
Ads Are Outta Control!
But… there’s one problem with writer SEO or really any kind of SEO. We’re all gunning for page 1. And that means that the competition is fierce.
There’s you, me, and large corporations with insanely big budgets. There are people who’ve been doing SEO since before it had a name (or at least it feels that way). So, how do you compete?
I Got an Itch for a Niche
Exxon is enormous! Their annual ad budget may very well be more than everything I have ever made in my life. And probably ever will.
But they’re not competing in the writing space. Even if their CEO decided to write a book, they would not be my competition. And they might not even really be my competition if their CEO decides to try their hand at writing something in the exact same genre as me.
Is James Patterson my competition? Well, not exactly. Yes, we are both writers. But that’s where the comparison stops. Now, Patterson does write science fiction. But are we really in direct competition? For one thing, a lot of his sci fi stuff is aimed at teens. Mine … is not.
So, maybe I don’t have to worry about him, or at least not too much. Same with JK Rowling and Stephen King, particularly as they don’t really write in my genre.
I’ve Got a Niche to Scratch
Amazon is great about having separate categories which match a ton of niches. Consider horror. Even if vampires, werewolves, wendigos, mummies, and serial killers were all in the same novel or film, so what? They all still have their own sub-niches (if you will) within horror.
Science fiction has a number of well-known niches:
Space opera – this is like Star Trek. My novel The Enigman Cave fits this niche, as it’s also following people on a spaceship.
Dystopian – this is like Ready Player One. My novels Mettle and Untrustworthy both fit this niche, even though they’re set in different places.
Science fiction noir – this is like Blade Runner or I, Robot, where cops and science fiction mix. My Obolonk and Time Addicts trilogies both fit. This is not a large genre and Amazon does not have it as a filter. But the good news is that there might not be a lot of competition…
Time travel – this is like the old TV show, The Time Tunnel. Time Addicts fits this niche.
Historical science fiction – now, this one’s tricky.
Issues with Historical Science Fiction
Science fiction isn’t normally set too far in the past. Even Stranger Things just goes back to the 1980s.
Without getting into Steampunk, one of the only examples I can think of are the films Time After Time (where HG Wells himself has to chase Jack the Ripper in the modern era) and Somewhere in Time (1970s playwright Richard Collier goes to the turn of the 20th century via hypnosis and falls in love with actress Elise McKenna).
In both stories, someone in the present is writing about the past. It makes sense that it would be a vehicle for a time travel story.
My Real Hub of the Universe trilogy fits this niche of a niche, which is so small that Amazon doesn’t list it as a genre (although at least GoodReads does!). And looking it up often means you find science fiction books written earlier in history, such as The Island of Dr. Moreau.
As a result, when you put that kind of work onto Amazon or the like, your tags and keywords had better be pitch-perfect and utterly on point.
Your Writer Website and Your Niche(s)
I’m not the only author who writes in more than one niche. In fact, many authors who do so will use a pen name or even several pen names.
So, for someone like me, writer SEO means looking at competition in all of these niches. And it means looking at the keywords which the more successful posts (the ones at the top of search, which don’t necessarily belong to bestselling authors) are using.
Keyword Research for Writer SEO
People who do SEO for a living are researching keywords pretty much all the time. It’s a fancy way of trying to determine what people are looking for. If you can give it to them, then you want them to be able to find you. The closer what’s on your website matches their search, the higher up (usually) your content will be in search engine results.
Google’s mission is to match seeker and website owner as closely as possible. Because if a person has a good experience with Google, they’re more likely to use Google than, say, Bing. As a result, Google can charge more for its advertising (and yes, unfortunately, paid ads are dominating the first page of search results. So page 2 can get some love after all—but never settle for anything lower).
Synonyms and Intent
To use an example a different form of art, consider film. Or cinema. AKA movies. Or pictures. AKA Hollywood or Bollywood or the Oscars or BAFTA awards, etc.
What is the difference in intent between these two searches:
movie for kids not Disney
classic cinema for children
Now, they both pull up lists of movies for the younger set. But the first is more likely to pull up articles about The Land Before Time, whereas the latter might pull up blog posts about The Red Balloon. Between the two searches, the first is more likely to pull up animation, too.
Now consider your books. I’ll use the Time Addicts trilogy as an example.
time travel with robots
science fiction noir in the far future
Both searches would fit this trilogy. The first gets a lot more hits. But the latter pulls up much more closely-related stuff. And if I change the first one to time travel with aliens (which would also fit Time Addicts), it gets me TV programs about ancient aliens.
What’s a better set of keyword phrases (kwps) to target? Probably some mix of these:
science fiction noir
sci fi noir
science fiction set in the far future
time travel noir (although currently there are two kinds of returns on this search which are coming up a lot)
Writer SEO, Searches, and Your Buyer Persona
Who’s your ideal reader? Your ideal customer? You have got to market directly to them. And you will need to write your blog and pages, etc. with that person in mind. If your ideal reader didn’t finish high school, then a term like movies is more likely to work than cinema. And if your ideal reader is female, you may want to toss in terms like feminism or strong female character.
If your ideal reader is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, then you will need to use terms which will apply—but I would caution you to be careful here. Terms evolve quickly. What was acceptable in 1999 is not necessarily going to fly in 2023. And for God’s sake, don’t try to reclaim a slur unless you would be a subject of said slur.
Writer SEO: Takeaways
Like I said above, this barely scratches the surface. Try tools like Keywordtool.io, answerthepublic.com, and MarketMuse (or Surfer SEO, Ubersuggest, or AhRefs) for more advanced ways to better target your ideal reader.
Want More of Writer Website Development?
If my post on website speed resonates with you, then be sure to check out my other articles about how to create a writer website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Discontents and SEO?
A look at SEO and its Discontents
Now, I am no expert by any means. But these days, I understand it a hell of a lot better than I did back in the day.But I know it’s important and so I’m going to take my shot at trying to optimize things as best as I can. The fact that the site and this blog are already on Google (and I already pretty much own jespah as a keyword – I’m #2 on Google already) is encouraging.
An Early Hint
In 2010 I met Kevin Palmer for a networking meeting, and told him I was interested in creating a new site for myself. And he told me — it’s like three legs of a stool: Content, Design and SEO.
Content I’ve got. I’ve got content coming out of my ears. I’ve got stuff to write like, like Carter’s got Liver Pills as my Dad would say.
As for design, I use WordPress. It is far, far simpler to just use their templates. They have an excellent understanding of how to put together a sweet-looking website and give it some style. And it’s mine and I made it and I am not only fully responsible for the content, I am also responsible in every way for its design and usability. With the help of WordPress, it’s prettier and more usable than ever.
SEO
But then there’s SEO. My friend, Robert Gentel, who runs Able2know, which we both manage (he’s the owner, I’m the Community Manager/Project Manager/Chief Cook, etc.), had been an SEO whiz (although his methods are a bit out of date). I have talked to him about it a little bit.
As I spread my own wings, I also learn from classes at Quinnipiac and from looking at Google’s own tools and, frankly, from my own experimentation.
I’ll either fly or fall onto the pavement. The first option is more attractive, so SEO it is.
Discontents Can End—Just be Sure to Replace Them With Knowledge
Oh and the title? It’s a play on Freud’s book. I’m not a big Freudian but I do love the title.
Sometimes a title is only a title.
Pulling it Into the Present Time
As I have learned more and more about SEO, I have also found that, much like Plato, I feel like I know less and less. But for me, the easiest way to look at it is to look at Google and how it does SEO.
What I mean is, Google knows that Bing will eat its lunch if it does not give users a good experience. And so, its mission in life is to make sure that people are served up as search results the sites that they really want. And need.
If I search for bunny, then it’s my own damned fault if I get both rabbits and Playboy models.
But when I search for bunny chow, my intent is rather clear. I’m most likely to be either an owner or a prospective owner, or I work with rabbits in some manner. That could be anything from a veterinary clinic to a wildlife preserve.
The chances of me really wanting to know, say, Barbi Benton’s diet are virtually zero.
What Can a Search Engine Really Do?
Search engines can only know what we tell them. A blog about tractors is highly unlikely to have any information on bunny chow. And if it does, then the owner of that blog will have to make it abundantly clear that they’ve got a post or a page on food for rabbits.
Search engines do a lot of counting, weighing, and measuring. If your page on rabbit food only mentions the food one time, and otherwise blathers on and on about tractors, then search engines will rightfully assume that food for bunnies is not top of mind for you.
And if it’s not top of mind for you the writer, but it is for the searcher, then the searcher won’t see your page.
Or at least your page will be so buried that it’ll be as if it does not exist. This is a far better experience for the searcher. So if you want the searcher to come look at your bunny food page, then you had best rewrite your post to cover the topic a lot more closely.
Google is not a fan of either haphazard sites or haphazard blog posts and landing pages. Find a point and find a topic and stick with them. A lot of the rest is just details.
Is that everything for SEO? Of course not. But I think it’s a framework to start from.
About a thousand (er, twenty) years ago, I used to practice law. And, of course, things were far different then as opposed to now. But I have retained some of my old interests and connections, and would get the paper version of the ABA Journal for years after I had hung up my shingle.
Once a lot of that started to go online, I renewed my interest in any number of facets of law practice, in particular how it collides and dovetails with the Internet and, these days, Social Media.
Viral Marketing Gone Wrong
And I have seen enough tone-deaf Social Media campaigns (Able2know is rife with laughably bad viral marketing attempts, for example) to see the need for a publication like Law Practice Today to try to clear up some misconceptions and get lawyers going in a good — or at least non-harmful — online direction.
What is great about this article is that it doesn’t just apply to attorneys.
Get Your Own Domain Name
The first point made in the article is: You need your own internet domain name. Well, yes. And it continues to surprise me when companies and individuals who are attempting to make a splash (or at least not appear to be totally out of it) online don’t do this.
C’mon, people, domain names are cheap! Go to GoDaddy or HostGator and buy one! You can direct WordPress to be posting through a domain name that has naught to do with WordPress. This is not too tough (hell, that’s what I’m doing with my blog), or you can hire someone to do this. It’s a lot, to me, like buying business cards with your actual name on them versus cards that just say “Lawyer”.
Rejuvenate Your Website
The next point is: Rejuvenate Your Website. No argument here. Stale websites are as appealing as stale bread. I am not saying that you need to update every minute or every day or even every week but I see an awful lot of abandoned blogs and websites out there — or at least they appear to be, as their most recent changes occurred in 2010.
That means it’s been at least nearly two months since anyone changed them. Surely there is news, or at least even cosmetic changes would give one’s readership/potential clients a feeling that someone was minding the store.
Use a Good Profile Picture
Point number three is: Your picture is worth a thousand words. A good picture is, well, good. You might not be able to afford to hire a professional as the article suggests. That’s okay if you at least get a decent photographer friend to take a lot of pictures. How many? How’s one hundred? Lighting varies. You might not smile perfectly the first time. Your tie might be crooked. Your hair might be flying in your face.
You might not be looking directly at the camera. There are any number of reasons why a photo can go wrong. And get your pal to snap photos of you in various places, doing various things, so long as they are germane to the site. For a lawyer, that could be in the office, or in front of a courthouse or in front of the office building or with colleagues or alone.
After all, with a good hundred photos, you might end up with several usable ones. If there are choices in different locations, you can use them to make different points on your site.
Fill Out All About Me and Profile Pages
Point number four is: It’s All About Me. That is, create an “About Me” page. There’s a place to put a photograph or two, eh? It doesn’t have to be long, but give it a little personality. Be sensible, of course. This is probably not the place (assuming you’re a lawyer) to tout your ninja skills.
But if you play tennis or have two kids or are from Omaha, by all means, those things are perfectly fine here. Otherwise, you’re just nameless, faceless Joe or Jane Lawyer — and I, as your prospective client, can find a million of them.
Give Visitors Takeaways
The next point is: Give visitors something to “take away” from your blog. Me, I write articles and I allow the reprint rights. So if my experiences can help you, then by all means reprint my articles, and I wish you well, so long as you respect my rights in the matter.
Work on SEO
The next point is: get on Google+ as it gives you a boost in rankings. For an SEO beginner, or someone with a limited budget, this is easy and free and it takes nearly no time.
Here’s another point: Make Sure You Advertise on Google Local. I felt no need to do this, but I’m not trying to push ecommerce directly through my site and blog. Your mileage will, undoubtedly, vary.
LinkedIn
Next point: Be LinkedIn. Hell yeah. Here’s my LinkedIn profile. Yes, I will link to you – just send me a request. Also, I have found that LinkedIn is an excellent way to get to know people attending an event with you. If you can get a hold of the guest list in advance (and with Eventbrite, evite and others, you can), look those people up on LinkedIn.
Hey, you might have something in common with them, their photo might be up so that you can recognize them and they might be someone you’d like to know, either personally or professionally.
Gather Business Intelligence
Then there’s the penultimate point: Use Social Networks To Gather Business Intelligence. People share all sorts of stuff these days. Want to know if someone is moving? Going on vacation? Selling their business? Changing jobs? A lot of that information is out there, free for the taking. And other things are out there, if you know how to dig.
I’m not suggesting that you turn yourself into a creepy stalker but if a possible client is tweeting about buying land, and you’ve got a real estate practice, well, do I really have to connect the dots for you?
Tell People the News (About You or Anything Else of Interest)
Here’s the last point: Be the Evening News. The idea is, broadcast Youtube-type stuff, either your own or pass along others’. Agreed, but I wouldn’t overdo this, particularly not at the expense of other types of content, which are generally easier for Google to index (and for you to get an SEO bounce from).
But by all means, if it adds value (there’s a big if right there. I adore the Old Spice Guy but he does not help me on my site), add it.
The bottom line, I think is: don’t be afraid. Yes, the Internet can bite you. But it can also be quite a good friend to you. So start supercharging.
Mental energy is a mood, but can also be defined as ability or willingness to engage in cognitive work.
So, essentially, what I am talking about is the cerebral labor of writing. That is, as opposed to writing about it.
It’s Like Pie
Pumpkin pie slice representing mental energy. Image is for reference purposes only.
Wait, what?
So, hear me out.
The thing about pie is, of course, that it is finite. Never mind that you can always buy either a ready-made one or the ingredients for same. That is not what I am talking about.
Rather, what I mean is the concept of—this is it, it’s all I’ve got. That’s all there is, and there ain’t no more, if you will.
We Live in a Finite Universe
We have finite days and finite lives. Also, we have finite capacity. No matter how young you are, or your physical condition, you’ve got to sleep, right? At the same time, no matter how smart you are, inevitably you have to study at times. Even if that just means opening a book, memorizing it, and calling that “studying”.
Er, that’s not studying.
But I digress.
No matter what, we are talking about something that is excruciatingly finite. So, until we develop time travel, or some way to stretch time, then guess what? We have all got the same 24 hour mix to play with.
Why am I Talking About This Right Now?
When I first wrote this blog post, I was looking at Wattpad, and came across a passage in a work about NaNoWriMo. The passage essentially said that there’s always going to be someone or other who claims they wrote 100,000 words on the first day of November and is sitting pretty and essentially laughing at the rest of us poor peasants.
It’s a form of trash talking. I ignore it, and I urge everyone else to ignore it as well.
But, why?
Well, for one thing, it’s not likely to be the whole truth. Evidently, the fastest anyone has ever typed is 216 words per minute. Voice recognition isn’t necessarily any quicker, because you have to say the punctuation, formatting, and line breaks.
So, let’s do some math.
Only a little. I’m not insane. 😀
Math Time
So, 216 wpm * 60 minutes = 12,960 words/hour. And 100,000 ÷ 12,960 = just under 7.72 hours. So, it’s technically possible. But is it likely? Probably not, as this is assuming a person is typing at blazing speeds every second. No breaks, no fatigue, no distractions, no editing, and no writer’s block.
Even people with exceptionally detailed outlines will have a moment or two or twelve in there where they aren’t certain of where to go next. They will also get up to visit the facilities or pet their dogs, kiss their children, or make themselves a sandwich.
Why am I Talking About This Braggadocio?
It’s because of this. I have little doubt that those 100,000 words need a ton of editing. That’s the part which I think some folks want the rest of us to forget when they make such claims.
Writing takes time and serious mental energy.
You spend it…
Getting inspired
Planning
Writing
Editing
Packaging (i.e. marrying your manuscript to a cover, or to a title, or putting together a series, that sort of thing)
Querying
Marketing
Thinking up your next great thing
This is the finite piece. And now we go back to the pie example.
The Finite World We Live In
You can’t make the pie any bigger. Something’s got to give.
Banging out 100,000 words in a little under a full work day, without going over it, means typos. It means inconsistencies. And it means the last parts in particular are dominated by labor from a person who is exhausted. You cannot drink coffee or take speed, etc. your way out of it forever.
If you don’t spend time planning, you’ll spend it writing. And if you don’t spend time writing, you’ll spend it editing. If you don’t spend time editing, then packaging becomes enormous and takes longer. If you don’t work on packaging and spend time on it, then querying will take longer, because you’ll be faced with more rejections.
And finally, if you don’t spend time querying, and just take what you can get (and that includes self-publishing—no slam on it, but it is something we do without spending any time on querying), then you will spend that time on marketing.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The energy will have to be used, and it will have to go somewhere. You will not be able to get away without doing the labor.
Shrinking That Finite World Down Even More
I’ve got a full-time job. I didn’t when I wrote Untrustworthy. But I do now. And that means eight (usually nine) hours are spent working. And I don’t even commute!
Unless you count walking from the bedroom to the office.
Hence let’s pull a third of a day out and toss it. I can’t spend it on writing this way. And neither can most people who have full-time employment.
Sleep? Cut another third of the day right off the top and 86 it. Even if you don’t sleep the full eight hours, it will catch up to you eventually. Not getting enough sleep means you’re not performing at peak efficiency. Plus, that can make you sick, so you would be out of commission for that reason, if nothing else.
So, even if you’ve got, say, an extra two hours, it’s likely that you’re not able to produce within those extra two hours (or several other hours, for that matter) if you don’t get enough rest.
What’s Left?
Personal hygiene, fitness, and meals tend to lop off at least another two hours, maybe as many as four. Household stuff like cooking, washing up, paying bills, cleaning, etc. can average out to around one-half to one hour per day. Even if you’re independently wealthy (or really lazy) and have someone else to do those things for you, you still need to eat, and you still need to clean yourself.
Again, it’s a matter of health. Any time you’re saving by not showering (eek!), you’ll most likely end up spending going to a doctor to get rid of a rash or an infection or worse. Do not do such things to yourself!
And this doesn’t even get into spending time with family or pets, or other forms of socializing, whether in person or online. Don’t put that stuff off forever, or your mental health will suffer, big time.
So, Where Do You Find the Time and the Mental Energy?
Most of the above isn’t just a drain on time. It’s also a drain on—you guessed it—mental energy. A long day spent, say, preparing tax returns, can wipe you out.
But I’ve got the weekend, you say.
Sure you do. And you may be spending it on writing. But there are likely other activities where you’re spending your time.
If you don’t spend time or mental energy on one, then you will spend it elsewhere. Maybe it’s dates or chauffeuring kids around or food shopping. It could be catching up on your sleep, too. Or maybe you’re binge watching something or other. Candy Crush may be calling your name.
Or, you just kind of zone out and suddenly it’s 8:43 PM when you thought it was only 6:43. Not that I’ve ever done that… Heh.
You could be a weekend warrior for fitness or maybe that’s when you clean your house. You do you. But at least there’s a little bit of time in there.
Here are a few places to slip it all in. And no, I am not suggesting that you go nonstop and work yourself to death. Don’t be silly.
The Shower
We all do this. It’s something to do with the relaxation and the rhythm of water. Our minds wander, and we can come up with ideas. This is, of course, not the time to edit. But remember all the stuff I mentioned above, about needing to market, etc.? Some of your shower time can be spent on that.
You can’t write anything down, so it’s not a good place for the specifics. It’s more for the big picture. It’s for the lightbulb moments of, hey, I could advertise on TikTok.
The Commute
Mine is nonexistent these days, but it didn’t used to be. You’ve got your phone with you, right? Then if you think of something on the bus or train, why not email it to yourself? Or put it in a document on a drive you can access from both work and home. The details are yours to figure out.
If you drive, then you can get more creative. Maybe you can essentially dictate while driving, and send the documentary product of voice recognition to yourself. But keep in mind—voice recognition often requires a lot of massaging. The tech is great but imperfect.
So, look around you. In particular, people watching can be extraordinarily inspiring. Why do people make the fashion choices they do, or wear their hair a certain way? And why do they take their kids to a restaurant, say—maybe you can do something with that. Or, why do they use smaller words, or speak a different language when it’s just them?
There are countless ways to consider the human condition, and they can mainly come from observation. Find your person to watch. And then think of a character who could be like that. Or, come up with a scenario to throw that person into. For example, what happens when the guy running a food truck has to go to war?
Exercise and Mental Energy
Now, this won’t work for fitness classes. But if you’re busy riding a stationary bike or chugging along on a treadmill, or walking in the woods, again, you’ve got your phone, yes? Working with your phone also means taking photos if need be.
This is another occasion to watch people.
First Thing in the Morning
This is something I will often do. I get up, do my ablutions and exercise. Then, I hit the laptop and write for a while. How much? Probably somewhere between 85 and 385 words on average. Then I turn off the home laptop, turn on the work laptop, and go downstairs to get breakfast. By the time I am back upstairs I’m in work mode.
During November of 2021, 2022, and 2023, I was getting up 30 minutes early. Not much, but it was something. Since you need to write at least 1,667 words per day on average to hit 50k by the 30th, it was helpful to have 200 – 250 or so words banged out already. 250 words is just under 15% of the absolute bare minimum. Not bad for something like 15 – 35 minutes.
It is highly likely that I will continue with this sort of a November schedule, as it’s a proven winner.
Right Before Bed
Don’t use your phone for this, as you’ll diminish the quality of your sleep. So, get a small pad of paper and a pen and scribble. Ideas, sentences, titles, character names, whatever. And keep that pad and pen next to your bed, for the next slot.
Middle of the Night Mental Energy
Have you ever had this happen to you, where you’re sleeping away and you wake up at maybe 3 AM with some sort of amazing idea? Or that dream had some narrative you feel you can harness.
Write that stuff down. In particular, this may help with insomnia. You won’t be laying there, trying to keep from forgetting something or other.
However, I do want to point out that sometimes your amazing middle of the night revelation is something like:
The Cold War on Toast
Well, they can’t all be gems.
Distribute Your Time and Mental Energy the Best Way Possible
This is reality, folks. You cannot be 100% on, all the time. Your body naturally cycles through peaks and troughs.
Know yourself. If you’re a morning person (I mainly am), then getting up early is for you. But if you do better at tea time, then take a work break if you can for 30 minutes, and do your thing. And then make up the time, of course.
And if you are truly terrible at some of the writing tasks, then there’s no shame in outsourcing them and paying someone to do them for you. As in—editing, marketing, and packaging. You may be able to hire someone to write your query for you or at least to help you polish yours.
And ghost writing has a long and semi-noble tradition. But where’s the fun in that?
Some Last Bits of My Own Mental Energy, Beamed Straight from My Brain to Yours
Insert weird sci-fi sound effect here.
This entire post is essentially about setting your priorities, when you get right down to it. Decide what you value in your life. And if that’s spending time with your child to the exclusion of a lot of other things, then hey, that’s fab. You do you. But also recognize that this means it’ll take longer for you to write and get to whatever you feel is your own personal finish line.
After all, you can always put your slice of pie in the freezer, to have another day.
Your writing mental energy is finite. Use it wisely.
Liberty, Justice (?), … And Facebook for All – Company Pages
Company pages have become spots you put together on Facebook to support a business (not the same as a fan page).
However, like everything else on Facebook, these pages and their settings do evolve, and they’ve gotten simpler these days. Currently, the following features are available:
Change Background Image/Avatar
Edit Page
Promote with an Ad
Add to my Page’s Favorites
Suggest to Friends
Information
Insights
Friends Who Like the Page
People Who Like the Page
Favorite Pages
Photos
Links
Events
Wall
Info
Photos
This Week
Notes
Videos
Post Scheduling
Various Apps
Company Pages and Details: Change Background Image/Avatar
This one is rather self-explanatory. Furthermore, a good, bright background image is good, as it shows up when you share the page. In addition, you might want to change these on occasion as that generates an update.
Edit Page
Manage permissions, add an address or business hours, etc. here.
Promote with an Ad
This is fairly self-explanatory. Note that Buffer has said that Facebook ads are a mixed bag.
Add to my Page’s Favorites
So here’s where another company you can link your page to your event pages.
Suggest to Friends
Fairly self-explanatory.
Information
This is basic information such as the company’s location.
Insights
First of all, this provides basic click information, including the number of Likes and Views. In addition, you can also see information on age and gender demographics and, most importantly, when people are online.
Friends Who Like the Page
Fairly self-explanatory.
People Who Like the Page
Fairly self-explanatory, except this includes people you are not, personally, friends with.
Favorite Pages
This goes back to adding a page as a favorite. And it shows which company pages your company has favorited.
Photos
Fairly self-explanatory.
Links
Fairly self-explanatory.
Events
I’ve found adding events to be hit or miss. First of all, not everyone RSVPs, and not everyone shows up even if they’ve said yes. However, it provides more exposure and it will bring your page up to people as the event date rolls around. Because even people who are clicking “No” are still looking, at least a little bit. So use with discretion and don’t overdo this. Because not every activity is an event, and not everyone should be invited to everything. Since that’s just plain annoying.
Wall
Fairly self-explanatory. In addition, you can control who can add to your wall. However, keep in mind that if you are free and easy with this, you’ll get more posts but you might also get spam. Although if you shut this down, you end up with Posts to Page. And it’s easy to miss these!
Company Pages Info
Here you add more detailed information. Hence this includes the company’s address and its business hours.
Photos
Fairly self-explanatory. Posts with images nearly always do better than those without, so upload an image if the link you’re sharing doesn’t have one. Make sure you have permission to use the image!
Notes
Fairly self-explanatory. Hence add notes like you would on your own personal page. E. g. these are almost discussions. However, the responses are relegated to subordinate comments versus the kind of back and forth that comes from the wall or the discussions page. And this is, admittedly, a nitpicky distinction without much of a real difference. I would, though, suggest that you not use the Notes section for blogging. Instead, get a blog through WordPress (yay!) or the like and do it that way. Because the Notes section ends up a rather poor substitute for that.
Videos
Fairly self-explanatory. Hence if you’ve got videos uploaded, they can show up here. However, this is not the same as linking to a video hosted online elsewhere.
Company Pages: Post Scheduling
Fairly self-explanatory. So just post to your wall but pull down on the post button and select Schedule Post. In addition, if you’ve been looking at your Insights, you should know when people are online. And of course you want to try to post when people will see your posts.
Various Apps
Finally, go to Edit Profile and there is an option for Applications. However, these days, the only ones are Notes and Events.
Want More About Facebook?
If this article resonates with you, then check out my other articles about the largest social media platform on the planet.
Welcome to the Absolute Worst Acronym, EVER: CLUMPS of SEO
Huh? CLUMPS is an ugly acronym and I apologize profusely for that. But if you want to build and promote a website and improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you should think in CLUMPS.
What are CLUMPS?
I will explain.
Content
C stands for Content, and Content is King. Don’t believe me? Try looking at a site – any site – and picture it instead as a framework with lorem ipsum written all over it. Kinda silly, eh?
So, people need something to read. Or listen to. Or download. Maybe to play. Or discuss. Or purchase. And it could be any other of a number of things that they would want to do with a website. And they need it from you! So make up your mind as to what you want. Plan your content and work on it.
Brainstorm what you want to cover, and keep records of that. This helps when the rubber really meets the road and you get writer’s block.
For Instance
For example, let’s say you want to create an episode guide for the old television show, Quantum Leap. The show aired 97 episodes. If you post a new episode every single day, you run out out of content in less than three and a half months. If you instead post twice per week, that covers 48 and a half weeks – almost a full year. Good, but what do you do after that?
So there are a few options. One is to post less frequently. Another is to churn up the content and repost it. However, what you could also do is branch out.
Therefore, post about the actors’ work before and since the show aired. And cover convention appearances. Add photographs. Post or critique fan fiction. Open up the floor for discussions of the show’s philosophy.
Maybe you can find a related show to write about, and compare it to the original. It doesn’t matter. Just, recognize that your content might have a finite end to it, so you’ll need to work on extending that.
And More
Furthermore, it can also help to look around the online world. What do others say about your topic? Make a Google Alert for your topic or, better yet, make several, with variations. Follow the news and see what you can comment on. Don’t copy others’ work outright, but commenting on it, linking to it, and expanding on it are all fair game. Always, always, always link back! Speaking of links ….
Links
L stands for Links. You’ve got to get your link out there, and have it linked back to by other sites. Now is not the time to keep it to yourself.
This does not mean spamming! Rather, you need to launch a bit of a campaign. Find like-minded individuals and ask for them to link to you. Now, it’s better if you’re linked to by pages with good, large followings. How do you find these sites? One way is to do a search on the backlinks for your closest competition. Who’s linking to them? And target those sites.
Reciprocal linking is also pretty damned natural. When sites link to us, we often wish to return the favor. So, the bottom line is, trading for the sake of trading is no good. But reciprocation can just plain be a byproduct of webmasters working together.
And be patient! Rising in search results takes some time, although you can promote yourself by using paid search, if you like, by using Google AdWords. But if you don’t have a budget to buy listings, don’t worry. You can still have good external visibility. What matters is not being number one.
What does matter is getting onto somewhere in the top three search results and then working from there. Of course, the higher the better. But the difference between page 100 and page 1000 of search results is a moot one.
The U in CLUMPS is Usability
U stands for Usability. If people cannot find what they are looking for, if your site is slow and unresponsive, or you’re just missing too many vital things, people may come, but they will not stay.
Case in point. I spent some time a few years ago investigating linking certain nursing job sites to various places where backlinks would be welcome. I did research, and of course nursing schools are a prime potential source of backlinks.
However, for some colleges, finding the link to either their nursing school or their placement office was akin to searching a hay field for sewing implements. I had, more than once, to resort to searching on Google rather than inside a particular school’s own pages, in order to find what I wanted.
Sometimes, the pages were poorly named or written (e. g. placement office pages which didn’t have the word “jobs” anywhere in sight). Others had too many unrelated or poorly related or obscure keywords. E. g. referring to such an office as the painfully generic “Student Services”.
It would have been far better to make sure that these pages were dense with correct words that people would use when searching, such as jobs, placement, careers, employment or internships.
Search Issues
Other sites had what I wanted but were painfully slow (that was often a server issue). Or the web developer was so in love with flash that the site has pretty scrolling pictures but it was hard to find where I was actually supposed to be clicking.
So look over your site. Or, better yet, have others do so. And find out from them what works, and what doesn’t. It’s not an occasion for them to tear you down or give you unstinting praise. Rather, it’s an occasion for you to learn what works, and what doesn’t.
Formal Checks
And for formal investigations, try using A/B testing methodologies. A/B testing means essentially serving up one version of a site to one person, and another version to another. And then you check their click behaviors. If these are people you know, talk to them.
The difference between the “A” and the “B” versions of a page can be as small as a new color for the background or a different location for the logo versus a complete site overhaul. But it’s the smallest changes that are the easiest to process. Make small changes before you commit to larger ones.
This also goes into the idea of keywords. Keyword stuffing is, of course, a black hat strategy, and it’s the last thing you want to do. But white hat strategy isn’t just setting up a site for the benefit of search engines – it’s also setting it up for the benefit of people.
The M in CLUMPS is Metrics
M is for Metrics. If you’re going to do A/B testing, or if you care about whether anyone is visiting your site, you need to start looking at all of that. The best and easiest to use such analytical site is Google Analytics 4. Google Analytics provides all sorts of data, everything from which is the most popular page on your site to how long users are hanging around.
Like many other things, take a little time and get to know the program but also allow it to gather some data. You aren’t going to get a terribly good picture of your site in a month. You need to let this percolate for a while.
Promotions
P is for Promotions. Again, I never advocate spamming. However, I do suggest that you put your link out there via your own Twitter stream, your own Facebook account, via Reddit, etc. For this hypothetical Quantum Leap site, you might want to find like-minded tweeters using a service like Triberr. Clumps of tweeters, if you will.
You could look up science fiction, or television nostalgia, etc. and join tribes (groups of tweeters) with similar interests who would be likely to retweet your content. Use HootSuite or a Google Alert to run regular keyword searches on Twitter for various related terms. For people who are using those terms, they might have an affinity for what you’re doing.
Perhaps you can follow them, and see if they will follow you back. And if they are reading your tweets, they are seeing your links. Look for reasonable hashtags and follow them, and start using them.
Check Your Metrics
But check Google Analytics after a while, and budget your time accordingly. If most of your time and effort are going into Twitter, but you get most of your readers from Facebook, you may need to rethink your Twitter strategy. Or, you could even try dropping it for a while, and only concentrating on Facebook.
Again, this is an exercise in patience. These things do take time, particularly if you have a shoestring budget and are essentially only using free services. For not paying, you will need to, instead, invest time.
The S in CLUMPS Stands for Shiny New Stuff
S is for Shiny New Stuff. What I mean is, sites that stay the same, year in, year out, are just not that interesting. Plus, things change. Development proceeds at a far rapider pace than most of us know. Take a look at what’s out there, and see if making some changes will help.
For me, I started off creating a site completely from scratch, using HTML. I wanted to learn the language as well as possible, on my own. However, one area where I certainly needed help was in aesthetics. This went on for a couple of years as I had a site with good content, I was working on promotions and garnering linkbacks, and I was keeping it usable and was checking metrics.
I eventually moved the site to WordPress, and used their templates (the content, of course, is wholly my own). The site looks better and functions better. It also gives it a newer look. Plus WordPress fixes a lot of issues with key words. So long as your post is on point and mentions the keywords you want to tout, those key words will be in the page, and will be searchable by Google’s spiders.
CLUMPS: Takeaways
CLUMPS is still a lousy acronym. But I hope you’ll find it continues to hold true. The way to get your site out there, noticed and loved, is to make it as good a site as possible. Consider the sites you love. What they look like, how they work, what content they deliver and how they keep things fresh and interesting.
Follow the metrics for your own site but take a leaf from those other sites’ pages. Not to out and out copy, of course, but rather to be inspired. And you can make your own quantum leap to better SEO.
Nail That Jell-O on the Wall: Social Media Perfection is Fleeting
Is social media perfection out there?
Maybe.
Every few months or so, a new study comes out which provides what are purportedly the perfect times to post on various platforms.
Or it might outline the perfect number of words or characters or images. All of this relentless pursuit of social media perfection is, of course, is for the Holy Grail of social media, the conversion.
I don’t argue with the idea. Certainly everyone wants to minimize time spent and maximize conversions which, presumably, lead to profit or fame or some other personal or corporate milestone or achievement.
What amuses me, though, is that sometimes the advice is a bit conflicting.
Social Media Today posts a lot of articles like this, and here’s an example.
Articles
So back in May of 2014, four great and interesting (certainly helpful) articles appeared on that site. Let’s look at how they stack up.
This figure put it into more or less direct opposition to Yoast’s Social Media Plugin for WordPress, which, if all other conditions are ideal, starts to mark blog posts are having good SEO at 300 or more words in length.
Now, the Social Media Today article was more about engagement, so I understand that this isn’t exactly apples to apples. But regardless of how ‘ideal’ in length a post is, it’s still … something. Fortunately, these aren’t mutually exclusive conditions.
In addition, that article listed perfect tweet length as 71 – 100 characters. But now we have more character space!
Social Media Perfection on Twitter (X)
The Perfect Tweet – speaking of perfect tweets, this article, posted four days after the first one listed above. And it spelled out that tweets with images are ideal. Again, it’s not a true contradiction, but it is a bit of an inconsistency, particularly as this article didn’t talk about tweet length at all.
Yet isn’t ideal length a part of tweeterrific perfection? It seems like it should be.
However, they didn’t include time blogging. And perhaps they shouldn’t have. Because if you prepare a 1,600-word blog post (or even a Yoast-approved 300 word wonder), you most likely won’t write it in less than 34 minutes.
At least, you won’t be doing so if you want to (a) include images, tags, and other extras and formatting touches and (b) credit your sources properly. Furthermore, you don’t want to even inadvertently commit plagiarism. And, of course, you need to be thinking about SEO with everything that you write. Ever.
The idea of using HootSuite, Buffer, and/or Facebook’s own post scheduler is, of course, a smart one.
I wish I knew how to do that in 34 minutes or less.
Let’s Update That Research
Ideal post lengths change.
Social Media Perfection on Facebook
According to a 2020 article from Sprout Social, the ideal length for a Facebook post is 40 – 80 characters. And the ideal length of a Facebook ad headline is 5 words.
Hmm, maybe I should change the titles of some of these blog posts?
Twitter
For Twitter (per the same article), the ideal length is 71 – 100 characters. This makes sense as it adds space to comment when replying. But make no mistake about it—having to go under 100 characters would force you to be concise.
Instagram
Caption length should be 138 – 150 characters. Not as concise as Twitter, but you’re still not writing a Russian novel.
Interestingly enough, the article also says that the number of hashtags can be 5 – 10. There’s nothing on Facebook or Twitter hashtags, but usually in those instances, less is more.
LinkedIn
The ideal number of characters in a LinkedIn status update is supposed to be 50 – 100. So in this case, Twitter comes off as looking more like The Lord of the Rings or any other long novels you may prefer.
However, the reason for this is that usually a LinkedIn update is a caption/status and then a link. And… that’s it.
But there are posts on LinkedIn. This length does not take them into consideration.
YouTube
Per the article, there doesn’t seem to be a bit of social media perfection when it comes to the length of YouTube titles or the like. Instead, these things are evidently defined by the software itself. If the limit on video titles is 70 characters, then your ideal YouTube video title is going to be 70 characters or fewer.
Not even in that article! But according to Later, while you have up to 10 minutes for TikTok videos, don’t go down to the wire. But they aren’t any more precise than that. In fact, some places say 15 seconds! But then again, that was the limit originally. So, who knows?
Social Media Perfection: Takeaways
Be that as it may, we are all pressed for time these days, and it’s only going to get worse. Undoubtedly, a new study will come out soon enough with new standards and ideals and concepts that are touted as social media perfection. Will they be? Maybe, but probably not forever.
In the meantime, don’t beat yourself up if your stuff is imperfect. Hey, it happens. And you may find that your character lengths are on the bleeding edge of the next ideas of social media perfection.
We’ve all seen it done well, and we’ve all seen it done not so well, and even downright poorly. Now let’s look at applying it to your extant community.
A poorly executed marketing strategy cannot only turn off your preexisting users; it can also get your site marked as a Spammer. And the scarlet S can get your site unceremoniously dumped from Google. And that means, essentially, the equivalent of the death of the site.
Long Story Short: Don’t Spam
In order to effectively market your community, you need to cover three kinds of SEO/Marketing. Those are onsite, offsite and offline. Onsite will be covered later in this series, and that information will not be repeated herein. Plus, it may seem a tad counter-intuitive, but onsite SEO is not that big of a deal.*
Yes, you need good keywords and you need good content. But after that, your optimization and marketing efforts need to move offsite.
Offsite Marketing
Offsite can be (mainly) divided into three areas:
Directories and Search Engines
Social Bookmarking and Networking Sites and
Linkbacks.
Directories and Search Engines
Let’s start with directories and search engines. You must submit your site to Google. However, don’t submit to any other search engines. Why? Because others’ share of the market is virtually nonexistent. Hence this is a waste of your time, and they will likely pick up your site from Google anyway. So don’t use a blasting service. Heavens, no. You don’t need it and it is absolutely not worth it.
Directories are even easier. For general interest sites, you can just skip ’em. Seriously. They’re really not meaningful any more.
But there are other directories you can submit to (depending upon your site’s overall purpose). So, these include places like Google My Business, CitySearch and Yelp.
It can be best to do well locally and rise to the top of the search engine rankings for specific search terms like, say, Indiana Relationship Forums, than to attempt to break into the top rankings for a more general terms, such as Relationship Forums. Consider directories in other languages, too!
Social Bookmarking and Networking
Social Bookmarking and Networking are different animals. Much like for search engines, there is a huge panoply out there, plus it’s tempting to just blast out information. Don’t. You don’t need to.
Only submit your site (and your blog, if you have one) to the following social bookmarking sites:
Reddit (although be aware they want you to engage more than just dropping a link and bailing)
Forget the dozens of others unless there is a very specific and perfect match between your site and what they bookmark. Because they are mostly tiny, they can be spam factories and they are generally just not worth your time and effort.
Look at These Social Networks
Social networking implies more interactivity, and not just voting links up or down, perhaps laced with the occasional comment.
While there are international ones (and if you’ve got a perfect match between your content and their focus, then by all means establish a presence thereat), you really only care about the following:
Facebook – an official fan page helps for any number of reasons. First of all, it can make your site known to friends, family members, business colleagues and any other connections to your site’s currently existing users. And you can use it to post photographs and links directly back to your site. Furthermore, you can use it as a rallying point during both expected (and unexpected) site outages.
Twitter – even if your users are not, generally, on Twitter, it is still a useful marketing tool. Try feeding in a slice of the site via RSS. Just like with Facebook, this can expand the network of persons who know about your site.
LinkedIn (if applicable) – if your site is attached to a going concern, then at minimum make sure the company listing on LinkedIn is correct. And make sure all of the company’s employees directly linking their profiles to it. Furthermore, make sure your site’s blog and Twitter stream are configured to feed it updates.
Look at More Social Networks
Pinterest – demographics tend to skew heavily female and over thirty-five. Got a restaurant? A shoe store? Wedding products or services? A women’s health collective? A feminist bookstore? Go to Pinterest – but only if you’ve got excellent images.
Got great images but less of a female-centric slant? Consider Instagram instead.
Tumblr – demographics skew heavily under thirty-five and even under twenty-five. Got a video game? An indie film? Go to Tumblr.
Snapchat – demographics skew toward teens and tweens? Consider this fast-moving site for everything from soft drinks to acne cream to fashion.
YouTube – longer form video content is a great way to get a message across.
TikTok – 100% content-centric. Show this slice of the world what you’re made of.
BackLinking
Backlinking is where you get others to add your site link to their own websites. Back-links help a great deal as Google gives them weight when determining your site’s importance. And that is directly linked to search placement. You always do better when more trusted sites link back to you. Don’t get spammers to link to you.
Blogs
For your blog, you can add a blogroll of other sites you admire. Just as importantly, post comments on those sites. This provides value to those other people, so they are more likely to spontaneously wish to link back to you. In addition, don’t leave it all to happenstance. Put a link on your site and approach the webmaster of that site and politely ask for a back link.
Some people are happy to oblige. Others are not, so remove their links from your site after a reasonable amount of time. Some may simply think about it, so give them a little time.
And be reasonable, but also be reasonable with yourself. If you’re not getting link backs, try to figure out why. Are your requests too aggressive? Or do you ask people with wholly unrelated sites? Do you, perhaps, have no content (or no meaningful content) for them to associate with? Look at your site with a critical eye before throwing in the towel.
Offline Marketing and Optimization
Offline marketing and optimization means going back to techniques used before – shudder – there even was an Internet. Before computers even existed.
Depending upon your budget and your site’s overall purpose, offline marketing can range from something as simple as business cards or baseball caps or tee shirts with the site’s logo to a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. It can even be completely free. After all, any time you mention your site to someone else, didn’t you just market it?
Look, sitting back and waiting for your site to take off will almost never work. You need to market it, particularly in the beginning. Get your name out there!
*Of course, onsite SEO is vital for a blog like this one. But for a forums site? Er, not quite so much…
Let’s Look at Freshening Up a Stale, Tired Community
Freshening up is something you may have to do. But why?
Communities go through any number of cycles, so it is inevitable – the forum becomes stale.
There are a few things you can do. First off, try to see it coming before it happens.
Say what?
Yes, it’s possible, although it’s not necessarily reliable. How? Check your site metrics. Now, there are natural variations all the time. A bad day or two is not necessarily an indicator of trouble, even if those days come in the same week, or even one right after the other.
Time the Avenger
The real issue is a decline over time. The two main metrics you care about are time on site and the percentage of new users versus returning ones. There is nothing wrong with having a lot of returning users. It’s a forum, and people get comfortable and will to want to keep coming back if the comradery is good. However, you do need to get a relatively constant stream of new users. As for time on site, check the average, and see if it has been declining over time. This is over a significant period of time as in: over the course of about a quarter of a year.
Follow the Bouncing User
Hand in hand with both of these metrics is a third: bounce rate. Bounce rate is defined as a visitor coming to only one page prior to exiting the site. You’re a lot more likely to see a higher bounce rate if you attract a lot of new users (e. g. they see what they want immediately – or don’t – and then depart). A lower bounce rate is generally a more positive metric. Hence, as you can see, in this instance, the converse may be true.
Therefore you should have some notice when things stagnate. Even if you don’t track your metrics too closely, you should follow your users. Are they not making too many new topics of any sort? Or are they complaining? Are they leaving?
But once you know, and it doesn’t matter how you determine that the community is stagnating, what do you do?
Don’t Panic
Don’t panic. This is relatively normal. One thing you should do, though, is determine whether it is a seasonal issue. As the weather improves in the time zone(s) where most of your users live and work, they will go outside and – gasp! – go offline. In that instance, don’t worry, the users will come around again. But there’s no reason why you can’t practice a few of these techniques anyway, in order to be proactive.
Fortunately, if that’s what’s going on, it’s far less dire.
So let’s assume that the weather and the season are not factors. Your percentage of new users is down and has been declining. Your users’ time on the site is tanking. They’re leaving. And the ones who are staying are bored, angry and restless. Worse still, they’ve taken to causing trouble in order to entertain themselves.
Some Freshening Techniques
Here are a few techniques for freshening:
Improve your SEO – attracting more users will help to replace the departing ones.
While you’re at it, target your SEO better. E. g. let’s say you have a forum about relationships, but not a lot of gay and lesbian users? Try adding keywords about, getting link-backs from sites that feature, and get listed on directories that cater to: gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
Purchasing Another Forum
Consider purchasing a smaller forum that caters to the new users you hope to add. There are plenty of small forums out there for sale. Look for not only a targeted forum at a good price, but also an active one. Prepare the forums by telling your original forum that new people are coming. You can even tell them which kind of community they come from. Ask your extant members to be welcoming.
As for the board you are absorbing, diplomatically tell them about the transfer. Do this in as many places as possible so that as many people as possible see it. If that forum has a blog or a newsletter, use it to communicate this. Expect consternation, and expect some people to leave without giving the other forum even a chance.
Avoid Duplicate Accounts
Check your database, to be sure that you do not bring in what the database will think of as duplicate records. Whether your primary key is username or email address, or something else, compare the extant member list to the member list of the community you’ve purchased.
For any duplicates, give the members of the board you’re absorbing the chance to rectify the situation by asking them to select a new username or email account (or whatever else you may be using as your database’s primary key) in advance by sending them a private message.
Do not tell them where they are going as you can end up with even more duplicate records if the absorbed users create new accounts at your currently existing forum.
So keep it on the QT. And, to make it easier on yourself,
have a contingency plan for any records that are still duplicate (e. g. you tell the absorbed user and they fail to timely help you to fix the problem, and,
keep the lead time short, as in less than a month.
Freshening Up With New Features
Add new features for more freshening. What kinds of features? Blogs, skins and groups are all great features to add if you don’t already have them. Spread them around and only offer one at any given time so that you have reserve magic rabbits you can pull out of your hat, or
Ask your users! Really? Yes. Send out a survey or conduct a poll, or just open up a topic or a blog post, asking: what would you like to see on the site? Some users will be flippant, but many more will take you seriously.
And, most importantly, listen to your users! If you can implement any of the changes they request, see if you can do so over time. And if you can implement more than one, do so in stages (with the more important or more requested one being done first) so that the new features can keep coming. If you cannot, explain why. Your users will (mostly) understand.
Some of them may even be able to assist you with implementation.
Freshening Up: The Upshot
Communities, like anything else, can become a little flat and need freshening. It’s like any other party. If a party gets dull, and it’s not yet time for everyone to go home, you bring out different foods, change up the music or even break out the board games or call other friends to come over. You start freshening up the snack bowl. It’s not much different with an online party. You’ve got to keep it lively.
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