One speaker whose thoughts really stood out to me at SOBCon ’08 Masterminds & Models Saturday session was Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com. Some of my notes:
- “People ignore advertising, but look for content.”
- “The word blog will fade into the background”
- I don’t consider myself “a journalist, I’m an entrepreneur and marketer”
- It’s about the right product/service, to the right audience with the right price offer.
- No one will link to offer sites. Use your blog to create the authority site as the hub and build the niche of content that will attract the audience.
- Carve a tight niche out of a huge audience. His example: blogging and internet marketing has a huge audience. He has carved out copywriting from that audience. With a following of over 35,000 readers, he’s really developed it!
- Use your static pages for creating an offer. Use your live blog space for creating authority.
- Don’t sell banner ads on your site, banner ads don’t convert, but just gives the advertiser branding — make people pay to be in your sidebar.
I have to agree that I think content is what makes subscribing and coming back to a site worthwhile.
What do you think about his thoughts on the word “blog”? I find myself referring to blogs as an online newsletter to folks who don’t read or write blogs. Last year at SOBCon ’07 David Armano suggested that we NOT call ourselves bloggers so that our mindset focused more on the topic and less on the medium.
What do you think? Do you think the word “blog” is going to fade from use?
Flickr photo courtesy of Wendy Piersall from the SOBCon ’08 Photo Pool
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Brian Clark is a hero of mine. He definitely walks his talk, especially when he says you should strive to be an “authority site.” His is a blog I read often, and I always seem to find some new perspective.
I definitely think the word “blog” will fade over time, and hopefully the stigma of it will go as well. Authority sites will be called something different. And as for the journals and workbooks of professionals such as ourselves, who knows what they’ll be called? And who cares? They’re valuable conversations and daily tours through the “engine room” of a new digital economy.
There are some who are just jumping on the “blog” bandwagon. That particular group of people will one day still refer to a blog as a blog, while others who are very involved in Web 2.0 will move on and use another name. What that will be, I don’t know.
@ Jeff – I enjoy reading Brian’s concept of an “authority site” too.
@ Tiffany – those that jump on the “blog bandwagon” may find out that it is harder than it seems to keep going. The ones that stick with it may find that their blog evolves over time into something else. It’s hard to predict the future, isn’t it?
Hi Chris
Thanks for sharing this. As someone who wasn’t there, would you mind expanding on the context of – “The word blog will fade into the background†please.
I’d be interested to hear more about this. Is it just the word or the whole concept of blogging he is referring to?
Hi Yvonne:
There is some negative baggage associated with the word “blog”… Some people feel there is too much emphasis on the medium (newspaper article, magazine article, blog post) and not on the content in the article or post. Some people picture bloggers as a nerd sitting in front of a computer screen in their pj’s drinking a cup of something with caffeine.
Maybe the word blogger or blogging might just drop and change to writing… but I think the word blog is going to be with us for a while. I did notice that many of the folks (bloggers!) at SOBCon referred to their blog as a website rather than a blog. Since I have been back, I’ve noticed how many more websites are actually put up just on wordpress software for easy content management.
So maybe the word blog will switch to website and blogger/blogging to writer/writing. Who knows! Twitter and Twittering was mentioned a lot during the conference too, and I’m not sure how mainstream that is yet!!
Hope that clarifies!
Chris
Hi Chris
How kind of you to answer me in detail. I truly appreciate it. I’ve been caught up in the spirit of SOBCon even though I wasn’t there and everyone is so generous with sharing what they learned.
This clarifies things a lot… an interesting discussion.