Is a picture really worth 1,000 words on your blog?
Quite possibly and you’ll have to decide for yourself. Take a look at this picture and see if it conveys to you the fact that this blog post is about blogging secrets. Yes? No? Maybe? While you’re pondering the issue, I’m going to continue with some more “rubber meets the road” experiences from using Chris Brogan’s 27 Blogging Secrets to Power Your Community. This is day two of my series (see the end of this post for the results of applying secrets on day one) and today I apply secrets 2, 3, and 7 to my home business blog.
These three secrets suggest using pictures and questions in blog posts, and writing “unfinished” posts to create an online discussion. Applying these three secrets to my home business blog turned out to be a lot easier than the secrets from day one. They will probably be a lot easier for most bloggers as well since they don’t require very much technical expertise or research.
Secret #2: Include a Picture in Your Blog Post
Chris Brogan says that he has been adding a picture to each of his blog posts for a while and that it seems to draw readers in. Being a visual person myself, I can understand how this kind of “eye candy” would be appealing.
As you can see, I’ve included a picture here at the top of my blog post. It’s one of five I originally picked out for the concept of “secrets.” I took a quickie straw poll among my mentors and colleagues to find the best picture. The result was a tie between the two little kids and the office spy guy. I picked the office spy guy because I felt he better expressed the concept of blogging secrets, being both dressed secretively and having a laptop.
The other four pictures are at the bottom of this post. I got all of these pictures through one of my photo subscription services. There are thousands on the web, some free and some that require a fee. An inexpensive solution is Big Stock Photos. They have a huge selection and prices are flea-market cheap. All in all, this blogging secret was a cinch, and lots of fun as well. You’ll be seeing a lot more photos in this home business blog.
Time Spent: 20 minutes
Dinero Spent: $0 (I already had a pre-existing subscription to a photo service)
Secret # 3: Open Your Blog Post with a Question
Now this secret was even easier than the photo blogging secret. Notice how I stuck that question about a picture being worth 1,000 words right up at the top of this blog? It’s easy. I’ve looked through Chris Brogan’s posts and, as he says in his list of 27 blogging secrets, he does indeed start a lot of his posts with questions. Many of his questions are the exact questions that his readers are probably asking themselves, and some are just humorous and quirky. I use a lot of questions on my home business blog, too.
If it hasn’t already become obvious, opening a blog post with a question is a great way to hit a topic hard or to let your personality show through. Plus, it keeps you from scratching your head and wondering how to dive into your blog post topic. This secret is simple, easy, and priceless.
Time Spent: 5 seconds
Dinero Spent: $0 (It’s priceless, remember?)
Secret # 7: Write Unfinished Posts
This one is easy. The translation of this blogging secret is, “Let others do some of the work for you.” Let’s face it. Writing interesting, informative, useful, addictive, funny, lovable blog posts day in and day out is pretty impossible. So this secret comes in handy on days where you are stumped for a topic, the writing won’t flow, or you are just too plain hung over to write intelligently. This secret also applies to any area you are currently exploring or researching. Chris suggests asking readers for ideas and experiences, or having people add to or improve your posts.
So here is where the rubber meets the road on applying this blogging secret to my home business blog. I’m running this experiment, “The 9 Days of Chris Brogan Blogging Secrets.” Here are the results of day one, where I applied secrets 1, 10, and 14 about titles, themes, and other people reposting your material: traffic increased 328% on the day of this post over the average daily number of unique visitors.
I’m pretty happy with that. Now, to apply Chris Brogan’s blogging secret #7: how do you feel?
I’d love to hear from you about this series of blog posts. If you feel moved to do so, leave me some comments and let me know what you like and don’t like about this series, whether it helps, or anything else on your mind!
Time Spent: 10 minutes (calculating traffic stats)
Dinero Spent: $0
The Other Four Pictures
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