Have you ever been frustrated by your blog writing? By your inability (as you see it) to create compelling content? By the difficulty of coming up with ways to make your blog’s content more effective for your business or organization?

My friend, I have so been there.

Better Blog Content is a Matter of the Heart

I sang in choirs in high school.

At first I was shy and never wanted my voice to stick out and be heard, so I tried as hard as I could to blend in and disappear in the crowd. I wanted to become a really good singer, but I was always terrified that somebody might hear me practicing. Improvement was a painfully slow process.

Have you ever been in a situation like that?

How did I finally get up the courage to break out of my timid shell and improve my voice and my boldness? By clinging desperately to two things that no amount of fear could destroy: a deep and abiding love for singing, and an insatiable desire to get better at it. As I continued to hold on to those strengths, I was able to eventually earn the opportunity to sing a particularly significant solo in the last choir show of my senior year.

I’ll never forget that moment.

Improving Blog Content Takes Guts

Your blogging is like my singing.

You make a blog more successful by first feeling it, deep in your gut.

It’s that urge to do something bigger and better and different with it, that quiet fire that rattles your bones and won’t let you sleep until your blog finally does what you feel it was meant to do.

Diligence is impossible without desire.

Remember: That which you persist in doing becomes easier for you to do — not because the thing itself becomes easier, but because your ability to do it improves.

So grab your mic. It’s time to warm up.

What’s Your Worst Blog Content Challenge? 10-Second Poll

Please answer the question below.

[polldaddy poll=1712985]

Thanks so much for your response. If you want personal help with your blog content, please check out my consulting services or contact me personally.

The Best Method to Improve Your Blogging Content

I recently laid out these general blog improvement steps at the BlogCatalog blog:

• Step 1: Figure out where you are.
• Step 2: Decide where you want to go.
• Step 3: Decide how to go there.
• Step 4: Go there.
• Step 5: Repeat steps 1-4.

In my next post, I’ll explain how to follow each step to create more effective, more rewarding content on your blog.

For you, what’s the toughest thing about improving your blog’s content?

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Want to make your blog content better fast?

Here’s a carefully assembled checklist you can use every time you analyze the quality of the words, images and sounds that you publish at your blog.

Blog consultants, social media strategists and anyone who owns or manages a blog should find this useful.

29 Key Aspects of Blog Content

We’ve identified the nine blog improvement types. Now let’s break down blog content evaluation and improvement into 29 key areas:

1. Number of published articles (posts + pages)
2. Age of first published article
3. Age of latest published article
4. Posts published per month
5. Comments by blog visitors per month
6. Trackbacks/pingbacks per month
7. Words per article
8. Images/audio/videos per article
9. Internal links per article
10. External links per article
11. Compelling headlines
12. Descriptive headlines
13. Concise headlines
14. Appropriate writing style
15. Useful content
16. Remarkable content
17. Targeted content
18. Accurate content
19. Unique content
20. Viral content
21. Effective use of multiple media formats
22. Appropriate anchor text in hyperlinks
23. Appropriate number of hyperlinks
24. Relevant hyperlinks
25. Descriptive use of categories/tags
26. Concise use of categories/tags
27. Relevant use of categories/tags
28. Visible policies
29. Useful policies

How to Use the Blog Content Checklist

The list is sorted thematically, not by priority. It’s meant to help you move quickly and efficiently through the blog evaluation process. After you go through each element, you can use the Visionary Blogging method to form and execute a solid plan to actually make your blog posts, pages, photos, videos, etc. more effective.

Items 1-10 can be quantified directly; the rest cannot, but are best measured on a sliding qualitative scale.

Please refer to my complete Blog Improvement Checklist for a complete list of blog improvement aspects and advice on how to form a clear plan for improving your blog.

Improving Blogs: Remember These 4 Bits of Advice

• You can’t effectively improve what you don’t effectively evaluate.
• You can’t effectively evaluate what you don’t effectively measure.
• You can’t effectively measure what you don’t accurately see.
• Which is why you need to know and use the Visionary Blogging method.

Coming Soon at Visionary Blogging

An overview of blog content improvement (the big picture on how to do it right), plus free tips on how to improve your publishing rhythm.

I will cover each of the 29 aspects listed above right here at VisionaryBlogging.com in the weeks and months to come. Why they matter, how to evaluate and improve them, how they fit into the big picture of your path to online and offline success, etc.

Please subscribe now so you don’t miss the good stuff that’s coming.

Ask a Question on How to Improve Your Blog

Any questions about the 29 elements of blog content improvement? Stuck on a particular point with your own blog? I’m here to help. Leave a comment below or grab me.

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Emerging from the trunk are nine main branches:

1. Blog content improvement – Making your articles, photos, podcasts, videos, etc. better at grabbing your audience’s attention and leaving them constantly satisfied yet hungry for more
2. Blog design improvement – Making your blog look, feel and work better for the people who visit and engage with it
3. Blog community improvement - Building a more vibrant community around your blog
4. Blog traffic improvement – Getting more of the right kind of people to discover your blog, and helping them become its greatest supporters
5. Blog subscribers improvement – Increasing the number and fanaticism of folks who subscribe to your blog’s updates via feeds or email
6. Blog search engine optimization (SEO) improvement – Strengthening your search presence – that is, getting better rankings in major search engines and moving more people through Google/Yahoo!/Bing/etc. searches to your blog
7. Blog social media optimization (SMO) improvement – Working to improve your blog’s presence on various social media, social networking and URL sharing websites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
8. Blog conversion improvement – Moving more blog visitors through the process of becoming customers, ad clickers, or even just avid readers
9. Blog value / return on investment (ROI) improvement – Making your blog more worth the time, money, sweat, tears, etc. for yourself and for those who come to it

No matter what kind of blog it is, it’s got these nine areas to possibly improve. Trust me on that one.

Why You Should Care About the 9 Areas of Blog Improvement

When you take time on a regular basis to evaluate your blog and look for ways to make it more successful, I want these nine items to run automatically through your mind. Helps you focus, you know?

Whenever I take a close look at a client’s blog, one or two of these branches almost always stand out as needing immediate attention.

The more know about how blog improvement works and how to think about it, the faster you’ll be able to prevent problems and make positive changes to your blog and in your blogging.

You can learn more about the twigs and leaves growing on each branch by using my free Blog Improvement Checklist. I’ve also got an assortment of blog improvement tips.

Coming Soon: Blog Improvement Advice Galore

Tomorrow we’ll start look at the first (and foremost) branch: improving your blog’s content.

Over the next few months we’ll go through each branch in more detail here on the blog. Please subscribe to Visionary Blogging now if you haven’t taken the 15 seconds to do that yet. You’ll love it.

If you want really intense help with one or more aspects of your blog – whether it’s a personal blog, non-profit organization blog or some kind of business blog or professional blog – please let me know. I’d love to help.

Coming very soon, I’ll have a big update to my Iris blog consulting service, Visionary Blogging courses, events and guides. I’m staying busy, no doubt about that!

So … which of the nine branches of blog improvement is the most important? Which one are you struggling with most right now? I’d love to get a comment thread going on this topic.

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“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” – Alice
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” – Cheshire Cat
“I don’t much care where …” – Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” – Cheshire Cat

Is most of what you’re doing online pointless?

I had the incredible opportunity to join several of my close friends on a group phone call today. We talked about online marketing strategy and the difference between building a blog/website and building a business.

There was a special synergy that brought at least one of the participants to tears (in a good way).

That call got me thinking about the relative pointlessness or meaningfulness of each marketing activity I do online to promote my consulting business.

These three words were pounded into my brain.

What’s the point?

Do you always ask that question about every aspect of your Web marketing? I know I don’t. I should, but I’m as guilty as you probably are.

In other words, “Why am I doing this instead of not doing it? Why this and not something else? What is it about this activity that is meant to lead my business to success as quickly and efficiently as possible?”

If you can’t honestly think of a point to each marketing effort that clearly addresses your company’s long-term success, should you really keep doing that thing?

What’s the point of what you just spent the last minute/hour/day/week/month/year doing on the Web to promote your business/product/service/event/cause?

What’s the point of each link on your blog/website? What’s the point of your last blog post? What’s the point of all your Twittering?

If you don’t really know, then there’s not much point, is there?

How can you make sure that each online marketing activity you do has a point?

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It’s a new year. A fresh opportunity to ask yourself some serious blog improvement questions.

Speaking of questions, here’s one.

May I give you $200 cash?

I will if you help me find a new blog consulting customer in the next 14 days.

I’m blessed to be currently busy with several excellent clients, but I know that you know someone out there that I don’t, and they need to know that they need my help.

So, for each person or company that you refer to me who becomes a paying customer of mine by January 15, I’ll send you $200 USD via PayPal within 10 business days.

You can refer anybody to me. Even yourself. Just tell me you sent ‘em.

And if you want to become a customer, this is your chance to get $200 off.

Doesn’t matter to me what the work entails. Phone calls, one-on-one training, research, copywriting, design, search engine optimization (SEO) … anything. I’ll happily pay you a couple hundred bucks for giving me the opportunity to help someone you know get better results with their blog(s).

Here’s my blog consultant resume and over 40 endorsements of my work.

Questions? Please leave a comment below or feel free to contact me privately. I’m here for you.

Thank You for Your Support

I wish you great success in your blogging and in your blog improvement efforts.

May you become a more visionary blogger in 2009.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss my blog community improvement tips next Monday.

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Tinhk abuot it.

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So, if you blog for professional reasons, I invite you to practice giving selflessly in your blogging.

It’s counterintuitive.  It’s paradoxical.  But it’s also paramount.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I want you to remember this truth: As you sow, so shall you reap.

Yes, others may take of the same seed and do differently – and they will reap according to what they sow, just as you will.

As you sow selfishness, so shall you reap emptiness.

As you sow selflessness – thoughtful blog posts, appreciative comments, helpful suggestions, innovative ideas, personal invitations, high business standards and generous acts – so shall you reap friendships, lessons, experiences and habits that will benefit you and others far more than you can yet imagine.

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My goal is to provide you with nothing but the finest resources on blog improvement anywhere on earth. Please check out my Blog Improvement Checklist (complete) and Blog Improvement Resource List (work in progress) for examples of my work.

I’m actually just fixing up the last part of the commenting guide right now so don’t be surprised if you see a dangling participle or misshapen paragraph. I hope you don’t mind.

You can read it online or download a printer-friendly PDF version.

Thank you to everyone who helped me write it.

Please let me know if you find it useful and how I could make it better!

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Ever asked that question?

Welcome to Part 3 of a 24-part series on using the Visionary Blogging method to overcome business blogging challenges and develop successful business blogger attributes.

So far we’ve covered Enemy #1 (fear) and Ally #1 (courage). Now we’ll talk about doubt and how to overcome it so you can have more professional blogging success.

What is doubt?

Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty or a hesitation to believe. When you doubt, you still haven’t made up your mind. This can lead to procrastination, distraction, indecision, skepticism, self-defeating habits and failure.

4 Types of Doubt that Professionals with Blogs Face

1. Doubting yourself. Many professional bloggers doubt themselves. Maybe you do. I know I do (hey, I amen’t perfect!). Self-doubt is normal in blogging. You’re using a new medium with new tools to communicate with people in new ways. That’s sometimes scary. You may not yet have the knowledge or skills that you feel you need.

2. Doubting others. Doubting other people is also common in blogging. You may feel uncertain that your blog readers care about your blog or your business. You may not trust an individual who is supposed to assist you in your blogging efforts. Or maybe you have doubts about other bloggers in your niche.

3. Doubting ideas. Is that news item true? Is that blog improvement advice worth taking? Should you believe that x will happen?

4. Doubting consequences. Will this choice lead to that outcome? Is your blog going to suffer the same fate as the other guy’s because you made the same mistake? Is it going to succeed based on the plan you currently have in place?

Doubt can be a good thing, of course. You shouldn’t instantly believe everything people tell you, for example. But that’s not debilitating. It’s protective. You have to doubt some things in order to preserve yourself and your business. But you shouldn’t be content just to doubt. You should always seek the truth.

5 Ways Doubt Can Hurt Your Business Blog

1. You doubt that a certain tool will work on your blog. You never get around to testing it and eventually lose out on a lot of revenue it could have generated.

2. You doubt that your blog will prove to be worth the time and money and energy. This pretty easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3. You doubt that customers and visitors like your blog. It shows in your writing and your audience is quickly turned off.

4. You doubt that you can make your blog stand out in the crowd. So you wait to have a blog design guru look at it. Months pass and you lose dozens of potential business leads because of your bland look.

5. You doubt your ability as a blog writer/designer/mentor/marketer/etc. So you stop posting for a while and your blog loses momentum.

5 Steps to Overcome Business Blogging Doubts

Here’s a simple five-step process for overcoming doubt. Follow this method and you’ll become a stronger, more successful business blogger.

Step 1: Acknowledge your doubt. (See Awareness.) Think about it. Pinpoint it. Write it down. Pay attention to it. What’s stopping you?

Step 2: Analyze your doubt. (See Focus.) Spend some time on it. Chew on it. What’s the worst thing about it? The best thing? The easiest thing? The hardest thing? When does it flare up? How does it affect your performance? How important is it to resolve or eliminate?

Step 3: Decide how to resolve your doubt. (See Discernment.) Sit down and plan. Make decisions. This is the crux of the doubt-destroying process. Choose a path that you think will lead to crushing your doubt.

Step 4: Prepare to beat a doubt-squashing path. (See Imagination.) Get advice from blogging friends and your blog readers. Remember your strengths and blessings. Give it some creative thought. Anticipate your battles with doubt. No doubt that doubt will rear its ugly head again – so be ready to slice that head clean off.

Step 5: Follow through. (See Diligence.) Watch the bat hit the ball, as they say. Stick to your plan. If research is required, hit the books. If confronting someone is necessary, call ‘em out. If you’ve gotta take a blog reader survey, bust out the SurveyMonkey. Do it. Do it. Do it.

No Doubt: You Can Do It

Cut through the fog of fear by listening to your intuition and discover your true passions. Trust that by following your passions, people, places, things and circumstances will appear almost magically to supply you with what you need. - Stephen Hopson

Conquering doubt is the key to overcome negative thinking.

Until you overcome doubts about your blog, you can’t succeed. You may not even survive.

Doubt stops you from listening to your heart. Left unchecked, it can eventually kill your drive to succeed.

But doubt has one great weakness: It can only survive in the mind.

It’s all in your head. It’s up to you. No one else can make you doubt or stop doubting. Ultimately, you have to decide to stop being a doubter.

Decide to trust. Decide to doubt. Decide to believe. Believe something isn’t right, or believe it is, or believe you should remain on the fence until you get more information – but don’t just sit and doubt.

I promise that as you follow the advice in this article, you will vanquish your business blogging doubts and enjoy more success as a blogger and as a professional. Please take it to heart.

Piece of cake.

If you liked this article, why not subscribe?

In the next post in this series, we’ll discuss the opposite of doubt. Do you know what it is?

Let’s Talk About Doubt, Baby

What’s the biggest doubt you’re facing right now as a blogger? What methods have you found to be effective at erasing doubt? Got any tips for other bloggers?

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Vision polarizes. It has only allies and enemies. No fence-sitters.

Blogging too. You’re either improving your blog or making it worse. Never standing still.

But how can you improve your blog without a vision of its purpose, audience and future?

And how can you leverage your allies or combat your enemies without knowing who they are?

That’s why I’ve created a 24-part series called Visionary Blogging Allies and Enemies. It’s a 12-week look at the virtues and vices that professionals with blogs face every day.

We’ll analyze one enemy of visionary blogging every Tuesday and one ally every Wednesday, wrapping things up the week of September 2-3.

Tomorrow, we’ll kick things off with Enemy Number One.

Please subscribe now. Lock and load.

Part 1: How to Overcome Fear: A Guide for Blogging Professionals

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