What is Your Most Pressing Question about Blogging?

by Michael Martine on September 2, 2008 · 13 comments

If you can’t see the poll questions below in your reader or email, please click through to visit the blog. I’d love to hear what your toughest blogging challenge is!

[poll id="2"]

Think about what your most pressing question is about blogging. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just ask someone and get an answer?

Well, now you can.

When I took my previous services off the market, I said something new would be coming. :)

Of course, your comments on this are welcome, as well. What’s buggin’ you about blogging? Tell me!

{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Glen Allsopp September 2, 2008 at 11:06 am

They all kind of interlink, but definitely how to get more subscribers :)

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2 Sal September 2, 2008 at 11:40 am

I would have to say that the thing that buggs me most, is how traffic can be busy one day and non-existant the next. I would imagine that somewhere in between the flood gates open and drought lies not only my answer, but also my voice.

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3 Ultimate Blogging Experiment September 2, 2008 at 11:56 am

Most people ask me how to drive traffic to their blog. It is simple, comment on other blogs.

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4 Koka Sexton September 2, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Increasing comments is always one of my hang ups. Getting viewers isn’t very difficult with marketing techniques and subscribers can come along the same lines. I’ve liked your posts about how to do both of these and they help. Getting comments seems to be an issue. Even by asking for them it doesn’t always seem to work.

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5 Chris Garrett September 2, 2008 at 12:30 pm

I seem to get more SEO advice than anything, I used to refer everyone to Aarons SEO book but I only refer the most serious leads to his training because for some people they don’t have the time or inclination to get value out of all his materials. There is a HUGE market out there for blog SEO advice

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6 Lid September 2, 2008 at 1:29 pm

I have to agree with Chris – blog SEO – specifically link building. That seems to be the most common question – how to get more links

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7 Michael Martine, Blog Consultant September 2, 2008 at 10:34 pm

@Everyone, thanks for the comments! I’d love as many people as possible to take this poll so the results are more representative. Please link to it and encourage people to participate if you can.

Thanks! :)

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8 Kathie Thomas, A Claytons Secretary September 3, 2008 at 1:46 am

Comments and subscribers for me. I want more!

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9 Baz September 4, 2008 at 8:54 am

Even though I voted for increasing readership (subscribers), I agree with Chris about SEO. For a lot of bloggers SEO concepts are threatening. Some sources give give the impression that we need to take a sabbatical in order to devote the necessary time to SEO processes. SEO gets my (revised) vote. :)

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10 Elaine September 8, 2008 at 1:29 pm

What’s the best way to use WordPress to set up a small, password protected blog to use as an easy-to-use and free website for a small volunteer group?

And how to I add people as “subscribers,” I want to add the volunteers for them, but it’s not working.

In the larger world of public blogging:

What’s the best way to have a contact form? A plug in? Which one? Something else?

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11 Rich Hill September 12, 2008 at 10:03 am

Who to believe?

I just keep testing and trying more and more. One expert will tell you to do things one way and the next will say Oh no, don’t do that!

For instance, last week someone posted that if you posted comments in flickr image comment boxes that you would get a BackLink. I did a dozen or so, and that does not seem to work.

Here is what I think we all need and I have asked some programmers and no one ever answers so maybe it is the proverbial dumb question. I want a WP plugin that will allow you to say hover over a comment box on someones Blog and to be able to tell if they have the no-follow feature turned off. In other words how can I tell if the Blog I am reading is a do-follow comments Blog?

Clear as mud right?

Rich Hill

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12 Michael Martine, Blog Consultant September 12, 2008 at 10:13 am

@Rich – I can cut through that bullshit right now: do not concern yourself with choosing do-follow vs. no-follow in the first place. Quality PageRank-giving backlinks come from in-post links where blogs are concerned. Most individual blog post pages never achieve a high PageRank.

The way to get frequent high-quality backlinks is to create link-worthy content and network like crazy. :)

You are much better off focusing on leaving comments that add value to the discussion and impress others so that they click through to visit you. This drives traffic, which actually will do more to increase backlinks in the long run.

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13 Rich Hill September 12, 2008 at 4:02 pm

That is way cool and definitely excellent advise as usual.

So I think I’ll name this the no-bs/mm plugin.

Thanks Michael

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