I know I've already outlined the rules and goals of the blogging case study, but I've come up with a few more since writing that post that I'd like to add to the list. Don't want to leave anything out, or risk being called out for something that others might consider a blogging best practice, or something that wasn't mentioned. Here are a few more rules to the study:
A Great Blog Post Headline
Every blog post needs to have a great headline, one that is clear and concise and not vague. The point of a headline is to draw people into reading the article, since it is often times the one and only thing people will read. Of course, we will still abide by the rule of not focusing on SEO. A great blog post headline doesn't need to have a keyword in it or be search engine friendly. It's also kind of hard to do this when you don't have any specific keywords that you are trying to rank for in the first place.
Writing Posts in Advance
This is okay, and something that I will probably do this weekend and will probably do every weekend from here on out. Why not? I do it for the business blogs that I manage. Besides, there will always be a few days where I might have four great ideas for blog posts, so why not write about all four and then publish them on days like yesterday when I need something badly and I am out of ideas.
Content Amplification
Something that I haven't mentioned at all is content amplification i.e sharing my content on social media. I do have social sharing buttons on each of my posts, but besides that, I don't have much in the way of a content amplification strategy. I hoped to see what can be accomplished organically this year, but its hard to discount content amplification as organic growth. This is something I need to think about, since I don't think this blog yet merits its own Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I should look into making it easier for people to subscribe or at least doing a bit of shameless promotion.
Absolutely No Ads
One this I will not do is sign up for any sort of advertising program, such as selling ad space, or incorporating Amazon affiliate links or anything like that. The point of this case study isn't to try and to monetize the blog. It's to prove what consistent, daily, awesome blogging can accomplish. Perhaps after the one year, depending on the results of the case study, I will consider turning the blog into a business or find a good way to monetize it. But not anytime during 2013.
Topics that are Off Limits
I don't know if I addressed this in the first post, since I did explain somewhat some topics that could be found on the blog. But in case I didn't, here's a quick list of topics that I won't ever address in this case study:
- Sex
- Alcohol and Drug Use
- Violence and Weapons Use
- Libel i.e. I am not going to accuse people of child molestation or do spotty investigation work if I do get wrapped up in tracking down wrongdoing (you never know!)
- Profanity, as it is not my style and not a blogging best practice in my opinion
- The only exception to the above is if it's a discussion of public policy regarding the drug war or the second amendment or the pornography industry and other current events. No, I will not discuss how to make drinks or to use a gun or to perform a certain position.
Essentially, this is a PG blog. You may have noticed that gambling didn't make the list. This is because I play poker online regularly, which is technically gambling, and I may discuss that from time to time. Speaking of which, I have a tournament in an hour, and I still need to eat lunch.