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Our best three topics of 2011 – Jim Says

by JimRaffel on December 29, 2011

image of shelby Sapusek and Jim Raffel at SGIA

This is our last She Said, He Said blog post series for 2011. Yesterday, Shelby looked back through our posts and picked three topics that she thought brought the best discussions this year. Now it’s my turn! This week, our #shehechat on Twitter will be an open mic night. We’ll discuss anything and everything in this special year-end chat. Join us at 8 p.m. CST tonight!

Of course any list like this is subjective; but Shelby managed to get through the task yesterday so I figured if a girl can do it, so can I. Before you get all upset about that being a condescending comment, please remember this is the She Said, He Said project and we bill it as a modern day battle of the sexes. As long as we are on that topic, you might as well note that the “girl” managed to convince me this should be “She Said, He Said” and not the other way around. She does a darn good job of sticking up for herself.

In the beginning …

To put this list together, I went back to the beginning and skimmed all the posts we have written (this will be the 70th). When I read the very first two posts, I knew they had to be included in my list. After all, that’s how it all began. In the beginning, I wrote “Strategy to work with others” and Shelby responded with “Working with Jim is a full-time job, but one I like.”

At the time, Shelby had been providing contract marketing services to my company ColorMetrix for about a month. She’d also been editing posts on this site for about four months. After reading my post, she said, “I like it but I have a different perspective than you.” I said, “Fantastic. Write a post and we’ll run it as a guest post.” (Heck, it got me out of writing for a day, right?). While our working relationship and friendship have matured since early March, I could already see in these two posts that the framework was in place for both relationships to work well. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Most fun post (of all time) to write

As much as I love to write, it can – and is – a grind most days to get the words out in some semblance of order. So most days writing is work. We call it “work” … well, because it’s work. Every now and then, a post is easy to write and just flows from the fingertips. (This is not one of those posts.) Every once in awhile, a post is  easy to write also a lot of fun. Shelby and I wrote “Twitter Tennis – Jim and Shelby Volley” while on a late night flight from the east coast to Phoenix for a business meeting.

The flight occurred in the middle of a trip we dubbed “9 states in 5 days.” We should have been exhausted and just wanted to sleep on the flight. Instead, we passed the computer back and forth and crafted this little gem. I like it because it captures what it’s like to listen to us debate/argue face-to-face. We really do banter like this whenever we are in the same room.

The future according to a fanboy

For those of you that think Google+ is a passing fad or already dead, you can stop reading right now. I’m not one of those folks and Shelby has gone as far as to call me a “Google+ fanboy” multiple times in the last year. When Google released Brand Pages for its new social network, I knew it was going to be around for the long haul. I wrote “G+ Brand & Business Pages – Jim Says” knowing a year later Google+ would be alive and well. I guess only time will confirm that prediction so I’ll check back with you then.

Shelby doesn’t share quite the same enthusiasm as me for Google+, but she does agree that it’s preferable to Facebook in many ways. Covering social media topics from our two perspectives is how She Said, He Said has evolved. That’s our focus and where the majority of posts will go in the next year. Who knows? There could even be an eBook in the works …

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What to write so people read your blog

by JimRaffel on December 26, 2011

image of top posts of 2011

This post easily could have been entitled “The top 5 posts of 2011.” The problem is that some posts were skipped over depending upon your trust of WordPress Stats or Google Analytics for accurate rankings. Instead, I looked at the types of topics that were most viewed (read) out of the 254 posts we’ve published so far this year.

Topics that worked in 2011

The following proved to be the most successful topics: problems with a solution, small business ownership challenges, guidelines or tips and tricks, real stories that include results and sharing your platform with others.

Each of the posts below falls into one of the above categories but also includes at least one other technique to generate solid traffic numbers. The tricky part is to bring together all the aspects of quality writing, headline writing, meta data creation, and post promotion/sharing. When you do that, your posts will resonate with the audience and perform favorably with Google over the long haul and bring in residual traffic for months or even years.

Problems with a solution

How I doubled my htc EVO battery life (part 1, part 2, and part 3) – According to Google Analytics, these three posts combined to provide 24 percent of the 2011 traffic on this blog. Part 1 brought in a whopping 14 percent of that total and by part 3 the percentage was down to 1. Does that prove you can’t duplicate success? No, because the second and third installments ended up revitalizing the earlier installments in terms of Google search, which pushed the posts up in search results ranking and brought in yet more traffic.

These posts do well for three reasons. First, they explain the problem of battery life with the htc EVO 4G phone. Second, they provide solutions for that problem. Third, the posts, titles and meta data were optimized to rank well with Google search. Six months after the third installment in the series was written, these posts still generate hundreds of pages views a month.

Small business ownership challenges

10 reasons why you should start a business instead of be an employee – Based upon 254 posts written this year, an average post should generate about .4 percent of the annual traffic. This post brought in 2 percent, or 5 times the average. When you look at percentages, be sure to compare them to the annual average. This post is a winner in both raw numbers and percentages, but why?

The easy answer is that numbered lists always do well. However, to make it to the top of the most-read heap, the content has to resonate with your audience. A significant portion of the audience of this site either owns or is active in a small business. When you write about a topic your established audience cares about, they will come read you.

Guidelines or tips and tricks

Swearing, vocabulary and the pregnant pause – Let’s be honest. When you talk about dropping f-bombs, people are going to pay attention. Sure, link bait is part of why this post succeeded. The other primary reason for success was the offering of guidelines for when to swear and when to not.

Real stories that include results

The power of a social media audience – In this post, I shared the details of a story about how an influential re-tweet, like that from Brian Clark of CopyBlogger, can generate great success. In the case of this post, it was click-throughs to an Amazon affiliate link I had included in the tweet. Share the story and then share the results because that gives people something to sink their teeth into.

Sharing your platform with others

Obsolete social media networks – Shelby Says – Earlier this year, I began sharing this platform with Shelby Sapusek. Shelby provides editorial and critical guidance for this blog as well as being my partner in the She Said, He Said project. Most weeks, we write dueling posts about a social media topic. She’s a seasoned writer and brings both a different perspective and a whole new audience of followers to this site.

The verdict

While I’ve touched upon it briefly, each of the above posts has solid Google search results ranking. About two years ago, I decided to get serious about making sure Google would find this blog. The cool thing is I didn’t have to become an SEO expert to make that happen. I just trust Scribe SEO (affiliate link) to assist me in evaluating the Googlelishessness of each post before publication.

Pick your topics wisely, use link bait and valuable key words appropriately and, most importantly, write to the very best of your abilities each and every day. When you follow that formula, higher traffic numbers will follow.

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Let’s chat about the Google Reader changes

November 16, 2011
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This is another in our She Said, He Said series. Our #shehechat happens on Twitter at 8 p.m. CST Thursday. Be sure to return tomorrow for Shelby’s viewpoint on this issue and our topics for our chat! Google Reader is a powerful tool that lets you access the power of Really Simple Syndication or RSS. [...]

WordCamp Detroit Takeaways

November 14, 2011
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I find it useful to turn notes from attending conferences into a blog post of takeaways. This is not meant to be a roundup of the entire two-day conference. It’s just those things that caught my interest and that I plan to follow up on in the next week or so. I’ve tried to provide [...]

G+ Brand & Business Pages – Jim Says

November 10, 2011
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For someone who had only had about 48 hours to work with Google+ pages, Shelby covered this topic well yesterday. Today I’ll focus on thoughts about the potential benefits and pitfalls of a business or brand having a Google+ Page. I’ll also share some basic getting started steps that worked for me. Also, at the [...]

You know it’s working, keep doing it

October 18, 2011
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Five days a week I schedule the social sharing of the posts we write on this blog and some days it can be difficult to find the motivation necessary to do it. However, I know it’s working because the site traffic and subscribers continue to grow at a slow and steady pace. So each day [...]

What if I’m wrong

September 20, 2011
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My friend Chris Brogan is working furiously to finish his book, Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything (affiliate link), which you can already pre-order on Amazon. But what if he and his publisher are wrong and Google+ never takes off? Would that be the end of the world or would Chris find [...]

Will I follow you back?

August 26, 2011
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There is no rule, written or unwritten, that requires me to follow, friend or otherwise connect with you in social media just because you connected with me. Even though it takes a bit of time each week I choose to curate my social media networks. I know some folks who do follow everyone back and [...]

3 Favorite Blogging Tips and Tricks

August 9, 2011
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If you are a one-person “blog as a business,” then it’s likely the writing part of the blog is the easy half of the equation for you. For many, the technical side of running a blog can be far more challenging. I’ve got a tech background and often find this to be the case. My [...]

Blogging and SEO – Jim Says

August 4, 2011
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When I wrote I don’t want to turn work off, I discussed how your blog is one of the ways you can build a bigger megaphone to spread your message. Good search engine optimization (SEO) is just another one of the ways to expand your audience. It’s quite likely that those who find your blog [...]