How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself
Tim Ferriss has built an incredible blog. High traffic, high quality content, high engagement from the community. And it’s not simply because he is a best-selling author. In fact, in this video Tim talks about how the blog has actually helped the book rather than vice versa.
Tim covers a lot of ground in this video about what makes his blog successful; but some of my favorite takeaways are:
- Don’t chase the news. Write on your schedule and in the form that works best for you. Don’t feel pressure to crank out quick takes on the news. Take a concept, research, synthesize and develop your post.
- Don’t write if you’re not enjoying it or aren’t passionate about it. A blog can become a living hell if you let it (I know what he means, it’s true.)
- Don’t paint yourself in to a corner with a very specific topic - he uses his name which lets him cover any subject he wants without breaking people’s expectations of what to find.
- Don’t push people away with prominent links to Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. Welcome them in and encourage them to stay awhile.
For me much of this rings true. My first blog, a very successful mortgage site www.blownmortgage.com has gone from a passion to a distracting ball-and-chain which requires attention because of its level of success. It is the ultimate case study in what not to do with a blog. I am now trying to recapture the joy of writing and blogging by using tools such as Posterous to write short-form entries such as this one and then a new site, (not live) modeled after Tim’s (www.fourhourblog.com) that will allow me to expound on subjects that are important to me in a slower, more in-depth approach than the rapid-fire news-covering manner I’ve been accustomed to in the last 2.5 years on blownmortgage.com.
