Thanks for the link — I missed that one!

And yes, it is hard to see things from the inside. One of the greatest things I learned in university is how to give and take criticism. By extension, I’ve gotten pretty good at editing/critiquing my own work.

But that is still one mind, one perspective. The outside viewpoint is extremely important — especially valuable if it is from those in your target market.

(I guess that’s why the big boys spend the big bucks on focus groups…)

~Graham

Janice Cartier’s last blog post…Snail Mail Art Stamps and Margaritas

Hello and welcome! Glad you liked the article. I’ve been doing it for quite a while now and I don’t seem to tire of it, so I don’t mind aiming ridiculously high. Slow and steady…

(By the way, folks, do click on over to Web Ink Now. I never tire of David’s wisdom. You’ll be glad you clicked.)

Alex,

No sneak-peeks!

I agree, the “Yes, I have what you’re looking for” website is the holy grail. Best practice: Ready, fire, aim! You’ve got a lot of information you can mine for the aiming now. That’s key.

Graham,

Thank you, thank you.

LOL about Peter Buck. The thought had crossed my mind.

Of course I was talking directly to you! You are my dear reader, yes?

About speaking directly to your devotees: I think the important point is that unless you’re selling a product that only blog readers need, then your potential clients/ devotees are not all… blog readers.

You can be selling to a very Pinpointed market (and I hope you are), but many stay-at-home-Dads who homeschool (to pick a random small market) are not bloggers, so you’ll have those who are, and become fans who spread the word (but likely buy less from you), and those who aren’t, and wander in from search because one post on your new foreign language DVDs for homeschoolers grabs them.

Do we really want to set up a HUGE barrier saying unless you can figure out how to navigate and understand a blog you can’t buy from us? Or have that article where you rant about last night’s 24 make them decide you’re not focused enough to help them raise their darlings?

Those intermediate steps can slow down and crush the sale. So of course, intense focus on the tribe. But unless you’re selling something to blog authors alone (as you say), think about simplifying and focusing the sales process. Redefine and adjust.

Heck, even if you are only writing to “people like you.” Who doesn’t appreciate clarity and less wasted time?

About the changing face of “blogging”: Darren wrote a neat post at ProBlogger on that subject early last year: Do You Call Yourself a Blogger? I’m convinced blogs (as a content management system) are here to stay, but I’d like to see business objectives treated more seriously (or at least considered in the “aiming” stage, whether that takes place beforehand as I did here, or afterward to get things up and running quickly).

Too many folks are saying “what’s wrong” with the answers right there in front of them. It is *awfully* hard to see those little problems when you love your stuff and you’re sitting in the middle of it, though.

*big grin* I love working with people like you—outside Perspective rocks. It was great being able to help you out on your new site.

Regards,

Kelly

Some random thoughts on the post:

Perhaps Peter Buck does read blogs, and just doesn’t know it.
Love the “neighbour” reference. It felt like you were talking directly to me!
In places, this post seems to lean away from your quest called tribe — I mean I don’t always know a banana from a 40-ft inflatable gorilla, but shamwow! to those who do. So perhaps tribal language can be intertwined in places? Depends on the goal of the blog?

An unrandom thought: one of my predictions for 2009 (at MwP, perhaps?) was that the face of blogging would change — mainly, that we would get away from the term “blogging”. Not altogether of course, but the essence of what a blog is would evolve. Those in it for community would likely drift more towards Twitter, and those in it for information would likely look at it more as a daily (or weekly or whatever) news article. Any comments would be more like a “letter to the editor”.

Now don’t get me wrong: I don’t see this happening all at once this year. And I think that there will always be pure web log writers. But my guess was that the trend would be away from “blogging” as we know it — and this post seems to be agreeing with that guess (which, of course, tickles me to no end!)

I’ve questioned the “usefulness” of a blog before, and like novel writing it very much seems like an all-or-nothing proposition. There are 1,000 novelists for every Stephen King, just as there are 1,000 bloggers for every Seth Godin. So it seems to me that the best the rest of us can hope for is to (a) have some fun with our blog and (b) get a little bit of business (if that is our goal) from blogging to justify all those hours per week of writing…

Blogging has been called a number of things, but you have said it as simply as possible: most blog readers are also blog writers. So I guess the conclusion is that either we have to write for them, or we have to redefine what our own blogs actually are and adjust our goals accordingly…

~Graham

PS – Ahem, actually I did take you up on your blog/website testing offer (though perhaps that was before your most recent offer…?). Best thing I’ve ever done to improve my website!

Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post…Help Me Cure Someday Syndrome: the Someday-Busting Affiliate Program

One thing I have noticed on my blog is the lack of stand-alone articles and I’m working on developing more of them.

Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post…Help Me Cure Someday Syndrome: the Someday-Busting Affiliate Program

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