I want to pose a question to you, today, in order to make you think a little about your online efforts regarding your blog, business and efforts in defining yourself as a content authority …
Q: What if there was a limit on content?
What if you weren’t allowed to post more than, say, 10, 25, maybe 100 blog posts on a single blog?
Think about it for a second …
The idea that there would be a limited amount of space for your content doesn’t make much sense because we’re working in a virtual environment.
Hell, Amazon has millions of products on their digital shelves; there are many other websites with thousands upon thousands of web pages – even Murlu is starting to push it and the blog was only started in 2010.
But … but … I was always told that I need to write thousands of blog post in order to become a content authority.
It still begs for the question to be asked – and answered.
A: You develop a streamline workflow and strategy
When I was working heavily on a new website redesign and structure for my old work, one of the main concepts we worked around was crafting the eCommerce site into a ‘silo’ website with great authority within the niche.
Rather than focus on the thousands of pages the site was built upon – we focused on the top-tier levels and their effects on the entirety of the site.
In many ways, being forced to examine the top-tier of a website really puts you into the mindset that the long-tail has less value than what many would have you believe. That’s not to say that long-tail traffic and keywords don’t matter but when you’re running a blog, by yourself, you can only stretch your time, resources and knowledge so far.
When you’re confined to a set number of digital real estate spaces, you start to get into the mindset that everything needs to be streamlined, simplified and the best in your authority.
Imagine this scenario for a second
Let’s suppose we have two bloggers:
- Blogger A
- Blogger B
Both of these bloggers write within the same niche but each have taken a wildly different approach to building an authority website.
Blogger A takes a traditional route where they quickly put together a website and begin pounding away at content. In time, their blog has hundreds of posts. However, they begin to feel the strain on content creation and marketing which leads Blogger A into an eventual burn out – or – a more likely scenario is that there is simply so much content on the site that visitors have problems with navigating through the information – the blogger has become part of the information overload.
Blogger B sets out a goal to only write 100 blog posts, ever, for their blog. They spend an entire month planning out the content structure and strategy that will take a person from the very basics to the advanced topics within the niche. Blogger B, knowing they will have a definitive end to content creation, decides to spend additional time on each of the blog posts to create them into ‘essential resources’ rather than topical blog posts for the day/week/year. They structure their blog in the fashion of a resource hub; it looks identical to a website but still has all the features of WordPress (or whatever platform they’ve chosen).
I guess what I’m trying to convey here is that people that land on our blogs are lost; they don’t have much direction as to where to start and the fact that a blog is constantly updated means that information published a year ago, which rarely gets updated because of the nature of blogging, really doesn’t matter all that much to the person.
The effects of information on the human mind
There are two things I want you to think of, for a second:
- The human mind can only process and retain a limited amount of information before it starts to forget (on purpose) or subliminally stores away information into its memory banks.
- A person, in time, will outgrow the information on your blog.
This is a very, very interesting dilemma (read Catch 22) for bloggers around the web. You see it happening already; there is a shift in the type of people that comment on the blogs – there was a shift in the community over time. Likewise, bloggers are trying to turn a blogging platform into a resource hub but the nature of how the blog was setup (i.e. like a blog) prevents it from being able to conveniently display information without a lot of effort and tweaking.
Consider that a business website may have just six to ten pages on their site; this is often all the business needs in order to share information with their customers.
Now think about a highly resourceful, authority website (not blog). Imagine a person landing on a website and consuming every bit of information and then naturally moving on because they have learned everything they have about the topic – like a book, in a lot of ways.
The inherent problem with blogging is that we’ve created a mindset that we must constantly produce new information to entertain – not teach, despite what people try to convey. Our blogs have become a never ending educational TV show where the reader never quite understands the entire spectrum of a topic.
What if college was like a blog?
Imagine that for a second, no really. Imagine if a college course was always on-going because the teacher constantly added new information – often irrelevant and off-topic – because they wanted to introduce a new topic on a regular basis.
College would be chaos!
Schools, textbooks and training course are structured in a way that a person can start at the beginning, reach the end and have everything they need to understand the topic. The rest of the information and knowledge comes from real world experience.
However, what we’re doing with blogs is putting people into a never ending trap where we bombard them with new information to the point that they are hooked and feel afraid that if they miss out on learning the latest information than they’re not going to be successful.
What I’m trying to say
What I’m trying to say, by poising these questions, is whether you have some method to your madness.
Go ahead, look back at some of the first blog posts that you’ve created – imagine if you’ve just landed on the blog – the first introduction to what you have to offer – is it anywhere up to par with what you’re offering now? Probably not.
We bloggers evolve as we get better at writing, marketing, SEO and other elements of the skill. The content we produce today is infinitely better than when we started but since that information is always out there – people are going to find it and it may give people the wrong impression.
Large, structured authority websites that are restricted in their overall information and content has the time and resources to constantly update their older pieces – they become up-to-date resources that continue to grow in search engine authority; evergreen content, if you will.
I know what I’m going to do
No real reason why I'm using this - it's me in Thailand. I like the picture ... don't hate.
To be honest, I’m going to continue to write new blog posts to Murlu because I don’t just write to build up my content authority but I have this inherent need to write (it’s hard to explain) however I’m also going to take my time to go back through and ensure that the information from earlier times reflect what I have to offer today.
I suggest you follow suit even if it takes you weeks on end. Why? Well, if the idea that “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” is true than you could be hemorrhaging a massive amount of potential community members.
Strive to do less short, one-off articles just to ‘entertain’ and aim to create something evergreen such as a handful of blog series. Create content that will stand the test of time, be worth of revisions and can hold its own in representing your brand and what you bring to the table. You can always do some small posts in between but strive to be known for a handful of spectacular posts.
Imagine if you could only write a limited amount of blog posts – how would you make the best of what you’ve got?
Are you being ironic?
You talk about limiting posts and have two in one day! LOL
Anyhow, just messin’ with ya. I do get your point.
I think perfect examples of this are viperchill and blogtyrant. Where they may not update frequently but the posts are always chocked full of good stuff.
I would consider both of those authority sites even though the total posts are likely under that magical 100 mark.
I could make an argument for the other side of the debate too. (just because I like to argue)
You know I am personally a fan of the long in-depth post. But not everyone is that way. Some people want to find a narrow topic, read 400 words on it and be done.
(Heck, for some people reading a tweet is strenuous, but I should avoid getting into my disgust at the lack of “readers” around these days.)
So there is something to be said about both sides.
The great takeaway was what you said in the end about reworking old content. This is actually something I have begun to do on a small scale. Sometimes it is simply keyword optimizing these articles. Sometimes it means radical changes. And sometimes it means just deleting an article that was chatty and breezy fluff.
No matter what style works for people an occasional edit can only be for the good.
I can’t help when I’m on a roll; gotta love those days when you wanna push hard on content and that was certainly a day to do so
What I’m going to be focusing on, in 2012, is a lot more horizontal growth rather than vertical. One of the main reasons why I put this post up was to kick up a few ideas about learning when to say “okay, I’ve got a lot out there – how do I make it work for me”. Like you said, some of us love the long-form but a lot of people have short attention spans. The good thing is that when we build these long-form posts, we’re really making it as if it were a complete product in their own – it’s pillar, it’s valuable and it’s there to stick.
What I’d like to kick up is this idea that you blog as if it were a website where its less about fresh content and more about major growth through the use of optimization. Rather than 1,000 posts doing the leg work, you have 100 that does just as well. You keep your message refined and don’t need people skipping around, constantly, to find information – it becomes a hub.
Not sure where all I’m going with this but I think you understand. More or less: make your assets work for you rather than duct taping them with new content, constantly. I suppose
Actually this is a very interesting idea! I may consider somewhat of a hybrid of this (both A and B bloggers) for my new site….
Yeah man!
What I’ve been thinking, lately, is to more or less build sites around the idea of having about 100 super strong articles that stand their own and then merely use the smaller updates (the more MWF posts) as a way to reference them and to remind people that the information is out there. It keeps people stuck on the blog but it also alerts them about content they may not have yet discovered.
Love this. So glad your back.
Great question. Every blog is different. I have heard some affiliate blogs succeed with a handful of pages. Many of the bloggers I follow post every day, others thrive with one long post each month; neither style is wrong if it suits the blogger’s purpose.
I agree you should go through your inventory and shine up your older posts, particularly those that pull traffic from the search engines. You can “forward link” them to current posts, mine them for product creation, and ensure they have a clear call-to-action.
I am looking at one of my blogs now with an eye to creating a “start here” page that points to posts that will bring a new subscriber up to speed.
The ‘start here’ is a great idea Tammi.
I did this for one of my larger blogs because I noticed, after looking at heatmaps, that people were going all over the place and missing out on some really great content because blogs, by default, are a little difficult to navigate because of the way they are setup. Of course, you need to have enough content to put together one of these pages but I can tell you, through analytics, that the ‘start here’ page on the blog gets bout 30% of the initial clicks and gets people deep into the website to explore.