Tag Archives: Blogging

Q&A with Leo from Zen Habits

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The other week Leo Babauta of Zen Habits fame did a live Q&A on his writing blog Write to Done. I was fortunate enough to get my question in and answered by Leo and it was great to be able to interact with a true blogging hero.

Here’s my question:

“I am a fairly new blogger. I don’t have a problem coming up with ideas for posts, defining post structure and writing the first draft, I do however struggle to finish, and edit my posts for publication.

Have you any tips for applying the finishing touches to posts, and editing to take them from a draft to publishable form. “

And here’s Leo’s answer:

“@Chris: Tips on taking a post from draft to published post … I generally follow the same structure and write my posts this way:

* I’m a list-maker, so I’ll often start with a list of tips or main points
* Then I’ll write an intro that shows the reader why he should care about the post. It might be anywhere from 3-7 paragraphs. Not too long.
* Then I’ll expand the list — it might turn out that each point in the list is a subsection of the post, or they could just be items on a list with a few sentences after the main point.
* To put on some finishing touches, I’ll often do some quotes from great people, maybe links to relevant articles (on my site or others), and definitely a great photo that attracts the eye.
* Of course, don’t forget a great headline!”

I’ve been following Leo’s blog for a long time now and it was one of the main inspirations for me to take up blogging myself. I do follow a similar posting pattern to above and it seems to work for me.

It was great to get an insight from such a great blogger and I recommend you check out the post to see all the other questions and answers if you are a blogger as well (as I know a lot of my readers are).

Incidentally if you are a new, or not so new blogger and haven’t read Yaro Starak’s Blog Profits Blueprint then I can highly recommend it (you can download as an audio book for free too – I listen to it in the car).

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Bits & Bobs:

  • Had a great time in NYC, thanks to all those staying in touch via Twitter.
  • I’m planning a series of competitions on my blog starting very soon. Make sure you are subscribed for more updates.
  • I made my first money online with an affiliate sale via my blog! It’s nice to get some money towards to costs of hosting etc.

Image Credit: by Oberazzi on Flickr via Creative Commons

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Time for Three:
Reading around the web:

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11 Things I’ve Learnt about Blogging (so far)

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Image by adactio on Flickr via Creative Commons

Image by adactio on Flickr via Creative Commons

“I blog, therefore I am” (by loads of people)

I’ve been blogging for six months now, albeit haphazardly. As I prepare to re-launch my blog and take it to the next level I am reflecting on what I have learned in the last 6 months.

  1. Your most popular post may surprise you
    My most popular post is “Top 10 ways to Implement GTD Simply”. I knew that GTD was a big topic of interest for my target audience but a stumble here and a back link there certainly made a big difference in my traffic volumes. As did being on the front of wordpress.com with it.
  2. Comments breed comments
    Your first comment is the hardest to get when you are new. I notice that once some has left the first comment other people will comment. This rule isn’t true for bigger blogs where people compete to be the first to leave comments.
  3. There are a lot of brilliant blogs out there
    There are so many well written, orientated and focused blogs out there that you can often find yourself quickly de-motivated about your own blogging skills. I have had a lot of ideas for blog posts which have been done before many times over. You have to see through this and just knuckle down to it and focus on generating your content.
  4. Writing good content isn’t easy
    Well for me it isn’t anyway. I have a short term personal goal to significantly improve my content generation. I would ideally like to posts 2-3 times per week. I think that posting everyday can prove to be information overload.
  5. Quality over quantity
    A well written short post is better than a rambling long post. Most people skim through the web anyway so you need to deliver the hard hitting messages in a concise way.
  6. Readers are nice
    The vast majority of people in the blogosphere are very nice. Most comments are positive and rather than being in competition with each other, bloggers are keen to go out of their way to help each other. This online community is something that is great to be a part of.
  7. There is a lot of information out there about blogging.
    I have spend a lot of time reading about how to blog, monetizing blogs, SEO, design and more. Then I realised that it would be far more beneficial for my blog if I stopped reading about blogging and actual took action and blogged. I now take a pull approach to getting information about “how to” blog. This means that I seek the information when I need it, rather than having it pushed at to me causing information overload and a never ending list of things to do with my blog. Really all you need is two action points: 1) Write good content 2) promote your blog.
  8. People like memes
    My “What’s your Lifestyle Project?” page has been very successful.  I really want to create a good meme with this, any ideas on how to achieve it?
  9. Hitting publish feels nice
    Too nice. Sometimes it is too easy to want to get something published and out there rather than spending those extra ten minutes re-reading and checking your writing flows correctly.
  10. Inspiration is everywhere
    I have ideas for posts all of the time and have a list longer than my arm of draft post titles. I could be driving in my car, reading a book, doing a particular task or reading another blog. If blogging was just about coming up with ideas for posts I think I’d have it made. I always make sure that I’ve got something to capture these ideas wherever I go.
  11. WordPress is great but…
    Sometimes editing the layout of your posts can get pretty frustrating!

There’s a starter for ten of what I’ve learned about blogging so far. I’m sure in six months the list will be rather different, and I hope I am keen to act on what I’ve learnt so far to grow my blog significantly over the coming months.

What are your perspectives on blogging (and how long have you been blogging if at all?). I’d love to know in the comments below. Thanks.

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I hope you enjoyed my post. I’d love to hear your comments below or get a Digg or Stumble!

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Thanks for taking the time to visit! Chris