Introduction

When I say the word “blogging,” what’s the first emotion you feel?

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, it’s probably stress, mixed with a little bit of guilt.

Even if you truly love writing, keeping up a blog for your business can be one of the hardest things to get done…if you even get it done at all. Your business might be running full steam ahead, but your blog is lagging months behind!

Today’s episode is all about getting your blog back in gear, minus the stress. I’m talking to one of my favorite people in the online marketing world, Darren Rowse, the founder of ProBlogger.net and one of the first people to recognize the potential of blogging for entrepreneurs.

He’s going to walk us through the bare necessities of blogging, and show you how to streamline your process so that you gain traffic, convert leads and build community with every post you write.

Despite having written an encyclopedia's worth of information about blogging over the past few years, Darren is no stranger to the stress around blogging:

“It’s pretty easy to get to a stage where your blog is running you instead of you running your blog.”

So why keep blogging at all?

Simple—your blog is the cornerstone of your branding foundation. It's the best way to get your name out there, and to help people get to know you.

Reinvent the SWOT Test

Would you believe that when Darren started ProBlogger, he’d only been an actual pro blogger for less than a year? With so little experience under his belt, he was fearful of being called out for not being a seasoned expert. (I’m sure we can all relate to that!)

But rather than let his inexperience hold him back, Darren used this “weakness” to his advantage. He was transparent in his posts about aspects of blogging that he didn’t understand yet or was just learning about.

As it turned out, the transparency was a big hit with his audience, and earned him even more followers.

“To position myself as someone who was on the journey, maybe a few steps ahead of you but I still haven’t gotten it all together, really resonated well with my audience.”

Once you’ve run a SWOT test (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) on your blog, go back and reconsider the weaknesses and threats you found. They can actually be the ideal ways to differentiate yourself in your field. So many people out there position themselves as bulletproof experts, that your audience may find your “inexperience” very refreshing.

Become a Title Master

Darren leaves no uncertainty about the importance of titles:

"The title of your post changes the destiny of your post. …can be the difference between somebody reading it and sharing it and it just sitting in the archives and never being read again."

How to Find Readers (Without Google’s Help)

The constant changes in how Google ranking works mean that SEO tags and hyperlinks don’t work as well anymore for getting your blog to show up in a keyword search.

According to Darren, that doesn’t matter as much as knowing who you’re trying to reach with your blog, and showing up where those readers hang out online.

"I am a big believer in adding readers one by one. I don’t think you need to be attracting thousands of readers everyday to your blog. For me it’s really about building a presence in the places that my potential readers are and being useful in those places."

Try watching on Twitter for people who use your keywords and respond to them. Be helpful in forums. Join Facebook groups that are on your particular topic and add value to the conversation. What you’re looking for is the opportunity to bring a new reader on who will love your blog and bring their whole network along with them.

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