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Today I'm delighted to welcome back a regular guest poster on My Writing Blog, UK-based thriller writer and self-publisher David W. Robinson.
David is also a regular blogger in his own right at www.dwrob.com. In his post below, he reflects on how bloggers (and blogging writers in particular) can boost their traffic by paying more attention to their post titles. * * * I don't take a huge number of hits on my blog. Although it's not particularly specialised, it attracts interest mainly from fellow writers and readers of my books. Occasionally I slot in a general post, usually under the category "fun", and I put one up last week. The local children had built a "snow teddy" on the green opposite. I took a couple of pictures, one medium range, the other a close up [see above]. On the distance shot the teddy looked like an alien, so I put them on my blog under the title Aliens Amongst Us, which I then networked to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon, and so on. In the space of two days, that post took over 300 hits. And it was obvious why. The title pulled in the UFO/alien researchers and conspiracy theorists. I imagine a good many of them went away disappointed (although no one left any comments) and I can only apologise. There was no intention to mislead anyone. It was a fun post. But it did set my mind on the track of titles as a means of pulling in readers, and I came across some interesting statistics. "Aliens Amongst Us" was my most read post of the last year. The second was another fun post titled "The Strictly Come Dancing Calendar Mystery", and third was a post titled "E-Book Pricing Rules? What Rules?" Omitting the first two, which have links to popular themes, why should E-book Pricing come so high on the list? Thousands of people have blogged on the subject and they're divided roughly into two camps: the "free and dirt cheap" gang and the "don't price yourself too cheaply" mob. So I carried out a short but telling experiment. I put up another post. Its original title was something like, "Here's How I write Whodunits" but I changed it to "Rules for Writing Whodunits?" The question mark at the end is vital. It validates the content of the post in much the same way that the middle-distance photograph validated Aliens Amongst Us. In this instance, I'm asking a question, which should read, "Are there rules for writing a whodunit?" The results surprised me, but they probably won't surprise anyone else. The post took something like three times my usual hits, and in a matter of days that post ranked 4th on my all-time most popular posts. Why? My blog tends to be quite light-hearted. It's a publicity vehicle. I do offer advice to writers, primarily in the field of constructing works of fiction like whodunits, sci-fi, thrillers, even humour, but the main purpose of the blog is to entertain my readers while publicising my books. For this reason, I don't place any great importance on SEO. I write fiction and unlike those writing, say, marketing guides, branding is more important than SEO. And yet, I believe the answer to this popularity business lies in one of the founding principles of SEO: keywords. Or in this instance a single keyword: Rules. If I eliminate Aliens Amongst Us and the Strictly Come Dancing Calendar post from my equations, it seems significant to me that the two most popular posts both contain the word "Rules". There are millions of wannabes out there, eager to learn the ins and outs of writing and publishing fiction, and they home in on keywords like "Rules". If you think this is deceptive, I disagree. The advice I give is, as far as I'm concerned, valid. Other writers set out rules for writing this, guidelines for writing that, 10 best methods of achieving X, and the 5 things to avoid when trying to do Y. I write from the seat of my pants. I get an idea, it becomes a plot, I hit the keyboard and go. I don't worry about rules, I just write. I may write the last chapter first, I may write the middle chapter next, I may then write the beginning. There is no system, there are no rules. It's the same with e-book pricing. I've tried high, I've tried low, both worked and in other cases, both failed. There are no rules. So from that point of view, these two titles are perfectly valid and deceive no one. But it's something for us all to think about. You should never give a post a title that is deliberately deceptive. The title should be honest and reflect the content of the post. But whether you're turning out fiction, fact, internet marketing ideas, lifestyle guides, or whatever, we're playing a numbers game and the more people who visit, the greater your chances of selling your wares. Byline: David Robinson is an independent freelance writer and novelist with 15 titles available through the Kindle and Smashwords. Visit his website at http://www.dwrob.com. * * * Thank you to David for another interesting post. I would like to add a few thoughts of my own. One is that David's article clearly demonstrates the value and importance of having analytics (stats) on your blog and checking them often.
That is really the only way you will know which of your posts are attracting most traffic and how people are arriving at the posts concerned (e.g. via search engines, links in other blog posts, social media sites, and so on). Armed with this info, you can then fine-tune your blogging to take advantage of those methods and traffic sources that are working well for you. And second, as David says, think long and hard about your post titles, as these are the one single thing that is likely to have the most effect on driving traffic to the post concerned.
In particular, I like David's idea of using "Rules" as part of the post title. As he says, many people online are searching for rules or guidance, so if your post title suggests that you are offering this, there is every chance that it will attract visitors. Watch out too for my new course Blogging for Writers - coming soon from The WCCL Network! Photo of snowman/alien by David W. Robinson - used by permission.
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Learn more about Nick Daws online at
www.mywritingblog.com.
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I'm
Trent
Steele,
and
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:)
