The Problogger Training Day exploded in Melbourne, Australia and I was one of the lucky bloggers who secured a ticket.
While I heard quite a few things that didn’t surprise me it was fantastic to hear them again because, well sometimes we forget the basics like being authentic and passionate. But here are a few things that did surprise me …..
Remove the timestamp from your blog posts (Chris Garrett)
This ties back to the idea of making your content “evergreen” (also mentioned by Tim Ferris). An evergreen post is one that is still relevant 2 years from now and anything that dates your ideas can date your relevancy.
You don’t need to tell people their details are safe (Chris Garrett)
This surprised me as a lot of subscription windows have a short note about privacy. Chris Garrett suggested that just mentioning that you don’t do anything dodgy gets people thinking and it might just scare them out of subscribing. If you do want to mention it, put it in your opt-in confirmation message.
If you are serious about monetizing your blog, you need a media kit (Pheobe Montague)
Not just any media kit you need a professionally formatted media kit that tells potential advertisers that you know what your doing and their money will be well spent.
If you are thinking about an ebook topic, start with your regular subscribers (Darren Rowse)
Rather than starting with a topic and then finding readers, look at what your own tribe wants to learn. Review your most popular blog posts and think about ways to repurpose them into a longer format.
Engage with your ebook audience as you are writing the ebook (Darren Rowse)
Don’t worry about ruining the big launch. Start to engage with your audience and get them excited about what’s to come. Don’t just sell them the idea; make them part of the process by asking questions.
Don’t give away too much content for FREE (Chris Garrett)
While “free stuff” can help you build an audience you can also devalue your brand if you give too much away. You can strike a balance by offering a free webinar that introduces your specialist topic, leading into paid training or consulting for more detail.
Don’t be afraid to challenge people during webinar engagement (Chris Garrett)
While many of our online directives make it as easy as possible for the audience, more challenging interaction on a webinar will actually help you engage at a more meaningful level. You can use polls, quizzes and question boxes or step it up with challenges and homework.
If you are building a membership site, Don’t sell the community aspect (Sonia Simone)
While being part of a community is one of the key benefits of a membership site, that’s not enough to get people onboard. Focus on the other aspects of what you’re offering.
Networking is a lot easier than you think when you relax (Me)
There were a lot of people I wanted to meet at this event so I did have my networking hat on. But everyone was there to meet people so I just relaxed, smiled and said hi. It got me more than I could have hoped for.
So now it’s over to you. Were you surprised by anything in this post?
If you attended the event, were you surprised by other gems from the day? Let me know!
The Copy Detective
PS You might have noticed there are actually 8 things in this list. It turns out the last one wasn’t such a surprise when I really thought about it but I thought it was worth including none the less!
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20 Responses
Disagree with the time stamp issue. I think blog posts do date and it’s hard to go back and keep updating them to make them relevant. I wrote one about wireframes about 2 years ago which is very popular but since then technology has moved on so my advice is a little old school. The date stamp helps prove I knew what I was talking about WHEN I said it!
Otherwise all good and useful, thanks for sharing…
Hmm you make a good point Kate. The advice certainly lifted my eyebrow in surprise and you’re comment makes me realise it’s worth considering before blindly applying.
I’d be interested to hear what others think as well…
I agree with Kate. I think there are plenty of topics out there that can stay ‘evergreen’, but there’s plenty of topics that have a shelf life. Technology is a big one, constantly evolving and time sensitive. Concepts are a bit different, they can stay current for a lot longer.
In addition, I personally quite often use the search filters on Google to find NEWER content. I’d be interested to see how removing a timestamp affects Googles index in that regard.
I think you are right Chris – the idea of everygreen will really depend on your content but you raise an excellent point about the Google indexing…. I might throw that out to the Twitter-verse and see if anyone can clarify.
From what I have seen, Google does not trust your date stamp, especially when they have the date indexed to refer to.
Good point Kate.
I wish I went to the Chris Garrett session! Everyone was raving about it.
It was great to meet you and I was surprised when you pulled out a glass of champers you had preparaed earlier!
What can I say Christina…. I was a brownie and I’m always prepared! 😉
Thanks for sharing Belinda.
Interesting point about not telling people their details are safe. It’s something I do and hadn’t really thought about it putting doubt into someone’s mind. It reminds me of some sales training I had years and years ago, we were told never to say “no problem” to a customer as all they would hear was “problem” and it would sow some seeds of doubt.
Thanks Bridie. I hadn’t really considered it before and I’m not sure it would have a massive impact … but it all adds up!
What a great post Belinda! I agree, I wish I’d sat in on the Chris Garrett session, I’ve seen plenty of great tweets and post come from his presentation.
Agree with the masses on the time-stamping part. Particularly for our corporate blog in the tech and software industry, it’s essential that visitors to our site can see exactly how current a post is – and seeing how fast the industry moves it’s next to impossible to keep updating old content.
What a great post Belinda! I agree, I wish I’d sat in on the Chris
Garrett session, I’ve seen plenty of great tweets and post come from his
presentation.
Agree with the masses on the time-stamping part.
Particularly for our corporate blog in the tech and software industry,
it’s essential that visitors to our site can see exactly how current a
post is – and seeing how fast the industry moves it’s next to impossible
to keep updating old content.
The tip about the timestamp was part of a blog review session which I actually skipped as I was listening to Sonia Simone. When the lucky blog owner was talking me through the review, it was the tip that made me go “really??”.
I’ve tweeted Chris (as the source of the tip) to see if he can elaborate on what he meant and why!
I didn’t suggest it as a hard and fast rule – each of us has our own style, niche and audience – always with blogging you need to test and tweak 🙂
What I suggested was, if
1) Your content is evergreen
2) You do not blog frequently
… THEN you should consider removing dates.
Why?
Because what happens when people see dates is they judge its freshness rather than its relevance to their needs, or they think “this person is leaving their site go stale” or they think “This looks like good advice but can I trust it now it is a year old”.
In a field such copywriting, where advice from 100 years ago is still mostly sound, you wouldn’t want someone brushing off your post because it was written last december, right?
But if you are breaking news, or were in a fast moving field where days old stuff is invalidated, like Techcrunch or Gizmodo then obviously dates are essential.
What I have seen in my own sites and in clients who have made this change is often the bounce rate goes down, meaning people are more likely to give your content a chance rather than dismiss it as “old news”.
Does that make sense?
That does make sense Chris. Thanks for stopping in and clarifying. It seems I’ve been caught by the chinese whispers effect of session updates over champagne!
I know some of the commenters so far are in the “technical” category which can become quite dated. Like many of the guidelines we all use, their successful application really depend on your topic, your style and your audience so it’s important to find the right fit.
I’ve removed my timestamps and I’ll be very interested in any impact to my bounce rate. Watch this space!
I took the date off my blog posts about 3 weeks ago and actually, it makes perfect sense now I’ve done it! It works really well, particularly now I’ve started using Tweet Old Post again (the only automation I allow myself!). Thanks Chris.
I’ve just started using Tweet Old Post and it’s a fabbo plugin to get your old content out there without having to schedule it yourself (which is what I was going).
I should have known there would be a WP plugin!