Optimizing Your Blog for Success

More often than not, people jump into blogging with a get-rich-quick mentality. Unfortunately, that is not the way it works. A blog takes a lot of time and work, and according to Duane Forrester of Microsoft, the one critical component is passion.
Without passion, a blog cannot become established as an authority or sustain readers. Forrester believes a lack of passion is the “biggest killer for most blogs out there.” He goes on to say that if a blog does not have passion, it will run out of steam before it can reach success.

Passion results in value, which leads to loyal readers. When businesses and people enforce these practices, the readers will go on to share this valuable information socially and produce links, which will establish the blog as a resource.

“This is a business like any other, and it requires time and investment,” said Forrester.

Incidentally, these are challenges that everyone faces including Microsoft and MSN. Due to their size, however, they also have scale to deal with. Forrester pointed out that social media helps, since it aggregates users’ sentiment and provides a means to communicate with them.

Microsoft recently put this into practice with Xbox when it addressed customer service issues through Twitter. It actually broke a Guinness World record for being the most responsive brand on Twitter. Apart from the record, this move additionally resulted in more links and a stronger brand.

In this interview, Forrester also offered up tips for conversion optimization that are addressed in his book, Turn Clicks into Customers.

“If you’re running an e-commerce-style business, it is critical that you optimize for conversions,” he said.

He further mentioned BeanCast, which is a marketing podcast that addresses some very specific issues such as the Twitter Tax and advertising in Captchas.

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• Posted on Sunday, December 12th, 2010

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