Rediscover the original intention of running a blog: self-improvement and building a personal brand
This article author Wayne Fu, the most in-depth research topic is Blogger, and also delved into many application experiences related to the Internet and cloud. Thank you for the permission to reprint, hereby thank you.
Since the website I created before required extensive use of the Bootstrap tool, I wrote a lot of “Bootstrap Related articles”, among which this article “Bootstrap 3 & 4 Cheat sheet”, once introduced the traditional Chinese version of the instruction manual produced by kkbruce.tw (Editor’s note: This website has been discontinued).
One time when searching for relevant information, I jumped to kkbruce.tw. It can be seen that this website has used most of the Bootstrap keywords, but I was shocked to find that the author had removed the Chinese version of the content he translated!
After reading the author’s announcement, the reasons for the removal of the article are roughly as follows:
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The website provides a variety of message channels, but visitors do not leave messages.
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The content of the few emails I received were letters to complain and accuse.
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There is no encouragement for hard work, but only negative feedback.
Because the culture in Europe and the United States (Western) is “plus points education”, visitors are used to leaving messages of gratitude and praise; in Taiwan (Eastern), the culture is “minus (deduction) points education”, and most visitors leave messages when they have problems or complaints. kkbruce This incident is due to the general environment. If it is to be changed, it will probably take more than a generation.
As a webmaster, how should you treat guest messages better?
- Motivation for writing a website
Why can games make people addicted and motivated to keep playing without eating or drinking? Because good games are designed to provide positive [feedback mechanisms] very quickly (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%8D%E9%A6%88). For example, if you do the right thing, you can get gold coins, there will be crisp sounds, etc., inducing players to continuously generate motivation and continue to want to get feedback.
Facebook has a similar design. Facebook’s ever-increasing number of notifications and messages are feedback that can be addictive.
What kind of feedback might you get from writing a website?
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Browsing data increases every day.
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Increase in ad clicks and revenue.
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Visitor’s message interaction.
These feedbacks may become one of the motivations to support bloggers and webmasters to continue writing.
Sometimes I think about it, taking care of a website is a lot like taking care of a pet. The more interactions and feedback you give us, the more enthusiastic you will be in caring for us.
Until one day, the data slows down, the income decreases, and no one even leaves a message, or the comments are all negative, you may have the idea of stopping writing or closing the site.
- Which websites are easy to provide feedback?
Although the threshold for writing a blog is very low, and more and more people are joining now, I really feel that not everyone is suitable for blogging, or that not everyone can write well; or that not everyone can adapt to the feedback mechanism of running a website.
If you want to get good feedback when writing articles and have good interaction with comments, I think it is easier to achieve the standard if you have these three innate conditions:
*Expert.
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Good writing.
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Give up privacy.
Not all three are necessary, as long as one is enough to get ahead.
1. Expert
If you are an expert in a certain field, you must already be well-known, and the content you write must be highly receptive. Naturally, many readers will praise you, ask for help, etc. There is no need to dwell on this point.
2. Writing style
Writing a website is the use of words to impress people. I think people with good writing skills are most likely to succeed in writing blogs among the three conditions.
If you are studying in a liberal arts college, your writing ability is beyond that of ordinary bloggers, you can mass-produce articles in a short time, and the content is more powerful, it will be difficult for readers not to resonate with you.
A good example is Esor Huang, the webmaster of “Computer Playthings”. This is the background. I believe that among all digital information blogs, readers will most like to read Esor’s articles. At the same time, “Computer Playthings” must also be the website with the most comments and interactions among the same type of websites.
3. Give up privacy
I believe that webmasters who are willing to show their faces can shorten the distance with readers and increase trust. In addition to the popularity of the website, it is also easier to interact with fans.
- Which websites are difficult to communicate with?
If it weren’t for the three conditions mentioned above, you would really have to work very hard. And if the content of the website falls into the category of “textbook style” or “XX guide”, because the content is relatively rigid and there is little room for the use of writing skills, readers may not be loyal.
In fact, most websites that are classified as “information providers” will have the same situation. The main source of traffic for visitors is search engines. They will leave when they find the information, and they will not have any ideas for communication, so it is difficult for webmasters to get positive feedback.
Unless the amount of information you write is so huge that it becomes a database level, visitors will always come to your website no matter how they search. Only over time will the website name be remembered by visitors. Since I received a lot of help, I thought it would be possible to leave a message to the webmaster one day to say thank you.
- How to get feedback
Without these three essentials, it will be difficult for a website to become famous. Because there was not enough feedback, he lost his motivation and died in battle.
However, in order to obtain various forms of feedback, I have seen many webmasters looking in the wrong direction, such as:
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Want to increase traffic through SEO.
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Wanted to see an increase in ad revenue numbers and placed a lot of ads.
If you are a loyal reader, I believe you know that I constantly advise you to spend less time on SEO. For ideas, you can refer to “Can blog websites increase traffic by strengthening SEO?”. Because I suggest spending your time on more important things.
Too many ads will give readers a poor reading experience. It may increase revenue in the short term, but in the long run it will damage the website.
When it comes to getting feedback, my advice is: “Try to remove yourself from the website. The real feedback is not on the website.”
- Short-term goals
Most people may not meet the three requirements mentioned above at first, but is it possible for us to obtain these requirements?
Perhaps at the beginning we will all set the goal of growing our blog, so feedback is also found on the website. But if the goal is to set yourself, “pursue your own growth,” will you not get lost because of the blog?
Among the three essentials, only “giving up privacy” is not recommended as a goal, because this is a short-term quick profit, but it cannot go far in the long term.
1. Become an expert
Maybe at the beginning we were just interested in a certain field and started writing for fun.
But if you take “Become an expert” as your goal, you will naturally collect, research and analyze more topics in this field, and at the same time think about how to use simple and clear words so that readers can understand.
The more you write, the more you understand in this field. This sense of satisfaction and the entire growth process will be a good feedback.
2. Improve writing skills
This is a bit more difficult, and may even require some talent, but you can at least start by expressing your thoughts in an orderly manner, making the structure of the article organized and followable, and the content can be absorbed by readers.
In fact, these abilities do not need to be top-notch. They can reach a certain level through observation, training, and classes.
I believe that spending time on the above two things, that is, investing in yourself, will get far better than spending on the website itself.
- Long-term feedback
The advantage of investing in yourself is that after becoming an expert in a certain field, the blog becomes our brand.
The difference from physical store signs is that store signs can only be seen by people passing by, while online signs can be searched and visited by people 24 hours a day.
The friend website “Rock Lee in the Novel World” originally taught how to write novels in blogs, which was considered a very unpopular field, but [Rock Lee](https://plus.google. com/112206016496440528657)’s article content is definitely an expert in this field, plus the bonus of “writing skills” that is innate in “writing novels” (in fact, he has all three requirements), so he received an active invitation and job offer from a physical publishing house.
And “Computer Playthings” is also busy with various lecture invitations, classes and publishing books. This means that the greatest feedback the website gives us will be various opportunities in the physical world.
- Summary
As long as you take a long-term view and establish a long-term plan for yourself, you will not be limited by the short-term website feedback in front of you. At the end of the day, you’ll find that if you become the best in something, which is what blogging is all about, it becomes a powerful marketing tool rather than a pet that needs to be taken care of.
I have been writing blogs for many years. At the end of the year, I expressed my thoughts and provided a little experience so that novice webmasters can refer to it and find the motivation to continue.
Additional reading:
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The road from editor to chief editor: How to become the best blogger ★This article author Wayne Fu, the most in-depth research topic is Blogger, and he also delved into many application experiences related to the Internet and cloud. Thank you for the permission to reprint, hereby thank you.
★ Content Hacking Lecture Series (CHL4): Create a call to action for your content [Registration now open]
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★ Image source: Pixabay
Further reading
- “Vista’s Little Voice”: How to create a colorful blog
- Why run a blog?
- Want to build a personal brand? Please start by running a blog
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