Sometimes we like to complicate the answer to that question. When we look at our blogs and our traffic, we mystify the relationship between blog writer and blog reader.
But the answer to why people don’t read your blog is actually pretty simple. And it’s a question your readers would ask, if you gave them the opportunity. Here it is:
Every blog has an unwritten social contract between the author and the readers.
If you have a blog, you have one.
You got one the minute you got your first reader.
And the challenge is that it’s invisible. It’s built based on every blog post you write, every comment you reply to, every link you share. It’s your unstated, but powerfully communicated, commitment to meet the expectations your actions promise.
Here’s what an excerpt of what mine might look like for my blog Stuff Christians Like:
Last week, we had an influential musician over to our house for dinner. We’d never met before, but had bumped into each other on Twitter a few times and have a lot of mutual friends.
After he went home and my wife and I were getting ready to go to bed, I wrote a tweet that said, “Great day with @__________, an artist who inspires me to be a better me.”
Then I asked myself a three letter word that has the power to radically improve every blog and tweet you ever write:
This is a spoiler alert.
If you haven’t seen the episode of the Office where Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) leaves the show, you’re about to learn the ending. But, there was a tremendous blogging tip hidden in that episode that I don’t want any of us to miss.
What’s the biggest thing every blogger on the planet struggles with? What’s the one thing that kills more blogs than any other and how do we all make sure our blogs don’t fall victim to it. In this 3:44 video that’s exactly what I talk about. Check out the video after the jump:
When I help small businesses and individuals with social media, one of the first things they tell me is, “Our web traffic is horrible.”
And sometimes it is. Sometimes, something is broken and needs to be fixed. But more often than not, they’re just looking at the wrong number.
The problem is that we hear big web numbers like “Facebook has 300 million users,” and then we get depressed or overwhelmed at how small the traffic to our thing is. “I’m only having a 1,000 people visit my HVAC company website every month.” Or “I’ve only had 50 people on my personal blog this month. There are hundreds of millions of people online and I’ve got 50 visiting me each month.”
For the last few years, that’s been a question I’ve wrestled with. When someone said something rude or mean that comment became like a lighthouse for me. I’d regularly reply to comments that attacked me and ignore a lot of kind, very interesting conversations with other people.
Until my wife punched me in the stomach with a prediction of what was going to happen if I kept going down that path. Here’s what she said:
There are two parts to the things we write.
The islands and the bridges.
The islands are the core ideas. They are the central insights, the heart of what you’re writing. They are the main points in your story or your blog post or your email.
I didn’t want to write this blog post.
After spending almost three years writing a different blog, I was terrified about starting this one. Why? Because I wanted my first post on my new blog to be amazing.
I wanted to start things with a bang. To come out of the gates strong. To quickly establish a degree of awesomeness.
In other words, I wanted this post to be perfect.