9 Power Blogging Strategies from a Master Programmer
This is a guest post by Robert Plank, author of the Action Comments plug-in that I have recommended so highly to my readers.
Being a programmer, I have worked with a lot of smart programmers and a lot of stupid programmers. Many times I see site builders, especially bloggers, make the same mistakes with their web sites.
Strategy #1: Keep it Shippable.
In software there is always a tendency to get carried away and make the most detailed plan possible. You can get a blog post setup in under 7 minutes and can write a blog post in under 5 minutes if you stuck to the basics. Do the bare minimum effort and once that’s 100% ready to go, you can go back and edit your post content or blog theme… but the most important thing is having some content ready to go.
Strategy #2: Feature Creep.
After the rush to get to version 1.0 of a product, smart programmers add on one tiny feature at a time, then roll it out, take the bugs out… and repeat. Stupid programmers tack on feature after feature, push the finished product and cross their fingers hoping it will all work. In the same way, your blog is a work in progress. You might want a fancy theme and tons of cool plug-ins on your blog, but the content is what’s most important. You can spend a few minutes a day adding one more plug-in, but that’s a very low priority.
Strategy #3: Avoid Reinventing the Wheel.
In many programming projects, I have paid thousands of dollars for tools that were already done for me… simply because spending that money on a tool means I’ve saved a ton of time debugging and testing. If you want your blog to do something specific, chances are there’s a WordPress plug-in already out there that does 80% of what you want. The same goes for paying
for premium themes or paying for content and guest bloggers. Sometimes your time is more important than your money.
Strategy #4: Hallway Testing.
Could you literally pull someone from the hallway and expect them to understand what your blog posts are about? If not, can they easily find an “introductory page” where you offer your best posts? Is it easy to subscribe, leave a comment, and find related posts or is there a complicated signup process involved? Show someone your blog and watch what they click on or use a service
like ClickTale to see what people do when they visit your site.
Strategy #5: Debugging Mentality.
So few people will try to be scientific when it comes to web site building. If something on your
blog isn’t working correctly, you know what you do? Deactivate all plug-ins, switch to the default theme and slowly add items back in until you find the one thing that breaks your blog.
Strategy #6: Avoid Thrashing.
If you opened up a word processor, burned a CD, played a game and converted video at the same time on your computer, it would slow down. That’s because it’s spending a large chunk of its time switching back and forth between active programs. When you write a blog post, you might get tons of ideas such that the article becomes too complicated and you leave it in draft. Next thing you know you have 10 to 20 blog drafts you plan to finish “someday.” Finish every blog post you write and schedule it before you do anything else. Even if it has room for improvement, you can edit it before it goes live, but if you forget… you’ll still have some blog content. One post at a time!
Strategy #7: Eat Your Own Dog Food.
Gross! Actually, it only means you need to consume the thing you produce. Use the blog you write on. If people leave comments, login and respond to those comments. If you end up getting distracted before you can leave a comment, or it’s not easy to browse or leave comments, you need to fix it until your blog is a site you enjoy reading through.
Strategy #8: Underpromise and Overdeliver.
This sounds like a cliché, but it means be pessimistic about your shipping dates. In software that would mean a project might take me 2 weeks to complete, but I’d estimate it would take a month and a half because there might be a lot to debug and I might hit roadblocks when trying to reach my goal. In the same way, don’t promise your blog readers you’ll post every day until you have those posts scheduled. Promise once per week or 3 times per month, and actually deliver daily posts.
Strategy #9: Don’t Be An Architecture Astronaut.
When you write a lot, it’s tempting to coin new words and phrases to explain something that’s already been explained. The programming world is filled with buzzwords like peer-to-peer, personalization, messaging, and templates. Marketing and blogging niches are even worse with new words being invented every day. If someone uses the term “wagon wheel technique” when they’re talking about upsells, or the “needler technique” when they’re explaining YouTube affiliate marketing, it just makes the post more confusing. Don’t follow in their footsteps. Don’t invent new words. Explain ideas in plain English on your blog.
I hope those nine strategies get you on the right track to being a smart blogger with more common sense than the programmers I have to deal with on a regular basis.
Robert Plank is a 24 year old computer programmer and internet marketer from Turlock, California who made over $150K in 2008 from blogging, marketing, and creating products. Read his thoughts and leave him lots and lots of comments at RobertPlank.com.
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I am a pro-blogger and Internet entrepreneur who generates six figures online per year. This blog is a plain-English, pull-no-punches tale of my life as an Internet entrepreneur and problogger. 
