SEOenthusiast

Today we’ve got a guest post from a good friend of mine, Dr. Erika Pryor. Erika and I met a couple months ago through Twitter and our respective blogs, and have since become fast friends. I’ve had the pleasure of guest hosting on her radio show, and now I’m trying to return the favor (although a guest post isn’t nearly as cool as radio).

Erika is an Independent Digital Communication consultant who works with a variety of business professionals and small businesses on digital identity, social media, blogging, content development and more. She blogs at “Erika Pryor At Large.” She is also host and content director of Internet radio show, Digital 411 — heard exclusively on TalktainmentRadio.com, recorded live 10am EST, Saturday mornings. It’s a “soft tech” radio show exploring what’s happening on the social web from the user’s perspective.

And now, I give up the floor to Erika…

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I’m pretty stoked to be guest posting on the Agent SEO blog. Since I know enough to be dangerous when it comes to SEO — but I’m lethal when it comes to the social media side of things I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share my love of social media with Jake’s readers. So, thanks Jake for the invite. (And I figured you wouldn’t mind having one less blog article to think about while starting your new “suit and tie” gig!)

So, let’s get to it. Why opinion blogging has to be more than just attitude on paper? I’m not sure what lingo you prefer, opinion or personality bloggers, but whichever they are I don’t much care for them — that is until recently. In a rare admission I declare here that I was a bit of a blogger snob. (This won’t surprise people who actually know me IRL!) I still am. I’m typically interested in reading blogs to learn something new, and frequently the content I found on personality blogger sties was a little contrived. I felt as though they were just spitting out some attitude on paper to incite throngs of readers to react in disparate opposition to one another.

BORING!

I mean really, isn’t that what traditional media already does? As bloggers — we have to continue to be a little outside the mainstream in order to keep mainstream media on their toes. Right? We’ll I wasn’t exactly sure.

So, like a good blogger, I experimented with on my platform. I wrote a few pieces relatively close together less on the informative side, and more on the sharp opinion side. Here are some of the titles to titillate you “Now we’re concerned about mediocrity: My response to Why Rebecca Black is Every one’s Fault,” and “Why Face time is essential to your niche community.” As the top rated posts on my blog during the month of March, I realized why opinion bloggers are making inroads with readers.

First, the ones that are doing well are doing so because they are honest. For example, a personality blogger that did help change my opinion on things. Sarah Storer of The Naked Red Head. She’s all about some honesty. What I appreciate about her work is that she’s brutally honest. She has this whole theory of soul puking which you have to check out. None the less, opinion can function well when it’s an authentic or honest take on something.

Next, I think personality blogging can really work well to expand the voice of a blog. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been writing on the same topics for a while and have gotten a little bored. In thinking about how to expand the range of topics I write about with alienating my readers, I’ve found some success with including more sharp opinion pieces. This can be a way to expand your topic family without going off the deep end.

Finally, to be a good personality blogger, you need to have more than one platform. Okay, this might seem a little strange, but consider each social media and traditional media channel has it’s own personality with audiences that have expectations. This is really another great way to expand your audience and reach because you’re revealing different aspects of your personality and using the medium to help shape that growth. That seems like a pretty smart way to operate.

So, what do you think about personality bloggers? Any good or horrific sites you’d like to share?

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Thanks for the post Erika! It came at a time of great need, with my wedding coming up, school, job change, etc. However, the job is going well so far, although I may never be able to get used to the suit and tie.

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Starting a blog has been one of the single-smartest things I’ve ever done in my life. However, when I started it I had no clue that it would ever be worth anything whatsoever – let alone a place that has helped me along with a lot of my career goals.

Then – and even now to some extent – its inherent value was only as an “idea” or a representation of who I am personally and professionally. That “idea” is something that nobody can take away from me, and the personal and professional representation of myself is something that I truly consider to be a long-term investment.

I don’t make any money off my blog, and I don’t really intend to right now. However, I perceive its value to be priceless, and many of the positive things that have happened as a result of my blogging are things that can’t be measured right away or by money.

Full disclosure:

In one instance, a business entity (who will go nameless) tried to have me shut my blog down as they perceived it as threatening and undermining. I adamantly refused to shut it down and would have rather been fired or quit.In other instances, I’ve had prospective employers express concern over my blog as they feared it would detract from my dedication to them. I would have flat turned them down for job offers in order to keep my blog up and running. Luckily it never came to that, and lucky for me that my current employer has a very progressive mindset about my blogging.

Photo Credit: www.pinartarhan.com

So without further adieu, here are the 21 major benefits to blogging according to me (in no particular order):

Helps you build a trusted following.Affords you the opportunity to connect with others whom you may not have connected with otherwise.Helps you grow your following (ex: RSS, Email Subscriptions, and especially word-of-mouth).Over time, your subscriber-base will begin to read and share most of what you write.Gives you the opportunity to create a brand around your personality.Gives you an opportunity to show off your personality and what sets you apart from others.Helps to build brand trust around you or your company.Helps to establish or solidify your expertise in your industry.Build and manage your reputation within your industry.Over time, it can become your personal portfolio.Gives you an opportunity to help or teach others.Gives you a chance to promote others and their content (links, guest posts, positive mentions, etc).Can help you build and solidify online (and potentially offline) relationships with your following.Builds long-term SEO equity within search engines.Allows you to target keywords that you may not normally be able to target with your website.Allows your “expertise” to live on forever in search engines (ex: I wrote some posts 2 years ago that still pull significant traffic).Build SEO equity through inbound links back to your root domain (if your blog resides in a subdirectory off that root).Gives you the opportunity to scratch creative itches (for me it’s my web design itch).Allows you to leverage cross-promotional opportunities (ex: social media, promotional posts, etc).Interact with your readers through blog comments.If you’re good enough, eventually you may begin to be included in discussions mentioning and involving your top industry peers (in my case, being mentioned in the same breath as a Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan, or Aaron Wall would be a goal that I strive for).

I’m sure there are more, but this is my list. Feel free to add to it below in the comments section.

I started blogging 5 years ago – and started the Agent SEO blog almost 3 years ago. I have never made any money off of it, but for me (due to many of the reasons above) it has been far more valuable than anything a job or money can give me.

And I realize that is kind of odd that I say that in a post that talks about how these things could get you money eventually.

The way I see it, my blog has helped me build respect among my peers (which I am absolutely grateful for), as well as many new friendships. Those are things that are priceless, but in the long-run through the connections you’ll be sure to develop, the respect you may stand to gain, and the experiences blogging will help you build are sure to lead to a better job, a nice contract, or other things that involve money.

The key is getting in there and being real, which is what really matters – the money can come later. So start a blog today. I highly recommend it!

My related posts plugin has broken. I am currently searching for a replacement. Hold tight until then and use the search box in the siebar.

Why not subscribe to receive updates right to your inbox? If you're looking to learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, or Wordpress then I promise it will be worth your time! I won't share your email or use it to send you spam. That's just not my style...

View the original article here