Bloggers: Watch and Learn
Photo by digitalART2.
Learning to blog well is no different to learning any skill, from painting to playing football.
When learning about blogging, we spend much of our time reading lessons on how to blog well, much like an aspiring painter will read books and attend lessons on various types of painting. However, a crucial aspect of learning any skill effectively is to study those who are already highly accomplished in the skill you’re trying to learn. Painters may study the work of Van Gogh, and aspiring footballers might study videos of Ronaldinho or Messi. But who, or what, do bloggers study?
One of the most valuable sources of blogging knowledge is to study and observe those who do it well: bloggers who write posts that get Dugg all the time, bloggers who have tripled their RSS count in the last six months, bloggers with a kick-butt personal brand, bloggers who produce top-quality content like some kind of content producing automaton, and so on.
You should be studying these bloggers even if the things they blog about are of no interest to you. Learn from bloggers who have already achieved, or are on track to achieve, the goals you’ve set for yourself, even if you are not part of their target audience.
Learning by watching
I’m an avid subscriber of three blogs that I’m not interested in. At least, not in the same way that I’m interested in most of the blogs in my feed reader. I subscribe to Get Rich Slowly, but I consciously do not practice frugality in my own life, don’t live in the U.S.A. (much of the information is US-centric) and I’m not in debt… yet. And still, I’m still excited when a GRS post hits my feed reader. Let me explain why:
- The blog has close to 60,000 subscribers and employs roughly the same content model I use–long and in-depth posts, albeit much more frequently. I study the blog to observe how J.D., the blogger behind GRS, makes this content model work so effectively to grow the blog’s subscriber base.
- I observe the way the content unfolds over time. How does the blogger balance frequent posting with the production of fresh ideas?
- I admire J.D.’s writing style, and consider how I can bring that clarity to my own posts.
- I try to observe the way J.D. has created a community of active commenters at the blog.
- I look at GRS posts that have done will on social media and ask, what made this work? What can I learn from this?
Despite being disinterested in this type of personal finance, each post is a lesson for me. It’s not a problem that I don’t read the blog for the financial tips and advice, as I’m not part of the target audience. The impressive subscriber count shows that the blog is exceptionally good at catering to its target audience.
Another blog I’m subscribed to for similar reasons is Zen Habits. I think Leo Babauta is to blogging what Van Gogh is to painting–a true master! However, I don’t generally enjoy reading personal development blogs, and don’t use the blog’s content in the way it was intended to be used. Instead, I track the blog for the following reasons:
- To observe how Leo’s content strategy has influenced the growth of Zen Habits’ subscriber base.
- To learn how a super-strong personal brand is built.
- To examine how the blog has been able to have phenomenal success on Digg, in particular.
- To learn how a passionate readership and comment-culture is constructed.
The story is similar with Coding Horror, a software programming blog I greatly admire despite having next to no knowledge of the subject matter! I read the blog to observe the way posts are given beautiful texture with the use of formatting and images–a method I’ve observed to be very effective when it comes to maintaining reader interest throughout a long post, and also in the realm of social media.
Immerse yourself
The practice of learning can be loosely divided into three areas: listening (or reading), practicing, and studying. Many bloggers do not actively practice this third aspect of learning. You might listen to the recommendations of blogging experts and practice blogging regularly, but do you actively study other blogs and bloggers that have achieved the kinds of goals you’ve set for yourself? This kind of learning is as practical as it gets: it deals in real-life action and examples rather than abstract lessons.
Get started as soon as possible, in the following ways:
- Familiarize yourself with the most successful blogs in the world, even when their subject matter is of no interest to you. Start here: even though its accuracy is questionable, it includes many of the key players. Think about the following: content strategy (what kind of posts, how often), target audience (who it’s for, who it’s not for), branding (what do you know about it?), what aspects of its success would you like to emulate?
- Familiarize yourself with blogs that have already achieved goals you aspire to (i.e. 50,000 subscribers), with a roughly similar content style. How did they do it? Once again, it’s not important that you be part of the blog’s target audience. In fact, this can often help you gain objective distance and study the blogger’s strategy with fewer distractions and biases.
Immersion is an essential aspect of skilful blogging, just as it is essential when learning any skill. If you want to master the art of writing content that is optimized for social media, you need to immerse yourself in this kind of content. If you want to become a world-class blogger, immerse yourself in the work of world-class bloggers. Never stop watching and learning.
I used this same strategy for headlines - I studied Copyblogger posts and studied top Digg stories to see how their headlines worked. It paid off as I’ve front-paged Digg multiple times :-)
Going to check Coding Horror & the other blogs now …
@ Dave: And I studied your headlines… :).
Great article!
@Skellie -
Now that’s just AWESOME.
Now I just need to follow YOU to push my RSS subscriptions up …
Definitely a sound advice.
Guess whose blog I’m going to study and learn next? :-)
However, content is certainly not the only thing that leads to success. Any tips on modeling others for blog promotion and traffic?
Very thoughtful and compelling post, and spot on. I’ve been doing this a lot actually. There is simply so much to learn by reading other blogs, and seeing what methods they employ to do well on social media and to garner large amounts of subscribers.
I read both ZenHabits and Get Rich Slowly and I think both have amazing writers. They don’t overthink their content, and they are passionate and knowledgeable.
Thats the most important things - blogging on something you have extreme passion and knowledge on.
Skellie, you lost my interest right about here:
“I think Leo Babauta is to blogging what Van Gogh is to painting–a true master!”
I think there are far, far better examples than Leo (sorry, dude). Write to Done is limping and forgotten, Zen Habits has had some pretty odd stuff go up… I think the guy was in the right place at the right time and that there’s a lot of groupthink going on with his subscriber rate.
Sheep follow. Wolves lead.
Brian Clark and Copyblogger is a far, far better example of a master blogger. Van Gogh? Not likely, but neither is Leo (sorry, dude). But Brian is a true leader and he wields his scepter well.
So true but so time consuming. Will be watching and learning from you in the future.
You make a great point, Skellie, about studying. This is something I really have “not” done. And, reading here, I realize the importance of this third step.
Nice post Skellie.
Everywhere we look we should learn.
I am aiming for a mixture of your writing style and JD’s when I launch my personal finance blog - for young aussie women :)
I prefer the long, in depth posts provided by both of you. Plus as a photographer, I have a tonne of photos of my own to go through before going through flickr :D
I may have be hasty however in culling my RSS feeds. Your blogs are still in there but many great bloggers are not. I removed them from the reader because i wasn’t learning anything from them. Perhaps I was just looking at the wrong information.
This is a very important post, Skellie!
I spent some time yesterday studying Steve Pavlina’s blog at http://www.stevepavlina.com. It’s in my field of personal development AND a phenomenally successful blog so there is rich learning for me.
I’m especially interested in the ‘voice’ of the blogger. How does he or she have a unique way of communicating? A related point that I realised when looking at Steve Paulina’s blog is that the overall ‘tone’ of a blog is hugely important. The ‘tone’ of Steve’s blog is very upbeat. Every article suggests ways of making life better.
It may be a useful exercise to look at a blog (including one’s own) and describe the tone in one sentence. Steve’s tone is something like, “Hey, let’s really crank up our life!” Mine’s more like, “Let’s sit down together and talk about fascinating aspects of life.” When I compare the two, I can immediately see how to tweak my blog content!
In my experience, learning from an analysis by an expert is also hugely valuable. I quadrupled my page views in the two weeks following an in-depth report done by Skellie :-)
I really recommend that you give her a try!
After study comes the next step: application. This is where we need to look at our blog dispassionately. What ingredient is missing? How could I change that?
It’s important to be patient. There is a lot to learn. As Steve Paulina said in an interview, it takes 6 months or more to find your way about the blogosphere. When that apprenticeship period is over and we have found our feet - that’s when we need to turn on the heat and study hard.
Hello fellow Australian. :)
You are right about learning from others. I can’t exactly say I’ve succeeded in anything, but I sure have learnt a lot by simply reading others’ blogs, especially the famous, successful ones and why they have such a status.
For example, your blog has taught me the importance of the KISS (”Keep It Simple, Stupid”) principle.
@ Hendry Lee: I think you can learn from other bloggers about things like promotion and so on, but the difficulty with that is that you can’t always see what they do behind the scenes. Sometimes, though, you can join the dots with what you *do* see :).
@ James: And your employer, right? Unless he had you working for free, in which case he’s not worth emulating at all ;-).
@ Jade: Sometimes you need to do that, I know! I think you should only study a few successful blogs very closely, and perhaps just familiarize yourself with others. If you follow too many, the depth with which you can study them must, by necessity, decrease. We can only do so much.
@ Mary: Some fantastic points, and a great example of the ‘watch and learn’ principle in action. I love the idea of the ‘Apprenticeship’ period. I’ll have to find that interview :).
@ Kym: Thank you :)
@ Skellie - Nicely done. No matter how I answer that question, I come out looking like an idiot. Considering it’s wrong on all accounts, that’s interestingly ironic.
Dirty pool, Auzzie ;) Payback is fair play?
Personally I found the premise of this post a little misguided.
Certainly listening/reading, practicing and studying is objectively the best approach to mastering anything, be it beekeeping, biking or blogging. But I suspect that like myself, most bloggers simply lack the time to invest in studying other blogs, particulary those in fields that the blogger is not interested in personally.
That is why I read this blog, and others like it: I expect Skellie to do the studying of those blogs for me, and disseminating what’s she’s learned. Which is not to say that she doesn’t do a stirling job too, but I personally couldn’t really use any of the advice in this particular post.
@Skellie
Steve Pavlina’s article about what I call the ‘apprenticeship’ of blogging is here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/skill/
Well reading & learning from blogs is one thing. But reading too many of them can be time consuming.
Can you perhaps give some tips on how to do this ?
Gitto
My new approach is to choose 5 bloggers in a niche I want to write them. I base the choice on how much I like the writing, rather than how successful they are.
I then analyze the posts for elements of ‘best practice’ and work on how I can adapt certain elements for my blog.
I found that it is easier to list the qualities you want in certain posts. Its also worth looking at the intended audience. Do you want a post that appeals to social media or goes viral? That influenced my choices.
Ironically, all the people I plan to now study are already in my reader. I’m just looking at their posts in a new light.
I’ve started writing on personal finance. I use the skills I’ve learnt from Pavlina regarding detailed posts. I’m copying skellies method of providing visually interesting posts.
To Mary@GoodlifeZen
I’m glad you’ve had a good experience. I personally intend to get a blog report but fear I’ll be saving for a while, as I also want to get a customized social media package at the same time. Have you had any other benefits like increased income earnt? I
Hi Skellie - Thanks - it’s so easy to focus on the blogs that you’re interested in and forget about reading other topics. I really like Get Rich Slowly and I haven’t dropped by there for a while.
I like some of the posts on Zen Habits, but others just seem too much like stuff I’ve read already. But as you pointed out, it’s worth learning from blogs that get Dugg a lot to see how they do it.
There’s so many great blogs out there we can learn from - this one definitely, Men With Pens, Successful Blog etc etc.
Steve Pavlina would definitely be on my list too. He already made the Amazon top 100 and his book isn’t out yet. That’s pretty impressive considering it’s his first book, so his blog must reach a wide audience.
Really good post..let me find some more blogs to follow. thanks.
Hehe, Skellie, that little duel between yourself and James was worth reading the comments section for.
I’m subscribed to the first two blogs because my work at Lifehack requires that I keep up on productivity, personal development, tech and money blogs.
I think with any skill that is more art than science, watching and learning—and subsequent doing, a step frequently skipped—is certainly the best way to master it.
@ Joel - What’s even more amusing is how often Skellie herself commends Copyblogger in older posts and emulates his style frequently.
But hey. She doesn’t write for him, so I suppose that’s all cool.
Thank you for the kind words, Skellie. I put a lot of time and effort into GRS, but much of the value comes from the readers. I’m fortunate to have so many great, active voices contributing to the site.
Adam Singer wrote: They don’t overthink their content… This makes me smile. Thank you, Adam. I’m pleased if it seems this way. But trust me: I overanalyze my content and in a big way. Actually, I’ve learned that it’s when I do overthink that the blog suffers. When I just go with the flow, things seem more fluid…
[...] authority in the niche? Use search engines to pull out top 10 or 20 of blogs and sites and really watch and learn what they are [...]
@ James - The first time I found Skellie’s site was actually through a post she wrote… on Copyblogger. :)
I’m still at sea as how Copyblogger and Zen Habits can garner such big followings.
I don’t actually learn a lot about writing from Brian and his team of guest writers. I find many of the articles are more for reading pleasure. I agree with Cath Lawson’s view about Leo Babauta’s blog. One thing I notice is he sounds and appears to be honest and congenial. He doesn’t even take a stand against his critics.
[...] was reading this post by Skellie and I was surprised to find myself admitting that although some of the posts on Zen Habits were [...]
Wow. Really good and impressive. Not sure I agree with you about Leo Babauta and the Van Gogh bit. I don’t know if you are aware of Tibi Puiu over at http://www.lostartofblogging.com/ but some great stuff over at the blog there. You should check out the blog and pass on the link to your readers too as I am sure they will love it and benefit from it. Another blog I frequent is http://www.stevepavlina.com/ but I am sure this is a blog that needs no introduction.
My list of bloggers that I follow before starting the blog that I’m on now are:
1. Skelliewag - Hey that’s you!
2. ZenHabits - I liked the simplicity design and he has his unique voice on the web and in the personal development niche
3. ProBlogger - I can’t even remember how I got there
4. CopyBlogger - The “how to” create great headlines post was the first that drawn me there
5. WakeUpLater - This guy has a nice design for his blog too
Haha. That’s it. I’m most likely to be attracted to a site with the design and the content. And its really amazing how those sites can gather subscribers over 1k in a short period, before hitting over 20k+.
Alrite. Back to more watching and learning. Have a great day ahead ppl! :)
Daniel
http://winningeveryone.com
Before discovering ZenHabits, I wasn’t one to read personal development blogs. I went to ZenHabits the first time simply because so many of the bloggers I do read talked about it. And you’re right, he’s an artist.
Skellie,
I can’t help but tell you how pleased I am you posted this article. I have been blogging now for about a year or so and I use this principle all the time.
I study blogs I like, to see where I can improve all the time. I get inspiration from your site as you can plainly see. But in more ways than using the same theme. You hit on this most important aspect of “watching and learning” and that is: content and writing style.
My site does not need to be as long and in depth as your (2) sites because it’s more of a personal/focused blog that aims to reach a specific niche audience. Yet, still I’ve learned from your site to give people simple and clear content. Something they can use.
For instance, I still use your site to upload photos from flickr because you have the easy to use links for using creative commons work. Just another example of giving people content-filled posts.
P.S. Another great minimalist site that I love to read is http://www.bleikamp.com/. Great site as well. http://www.hihopgolfer.net is my newest blog so there’s not much content yet but I hope it can create the audience you’ve assembled.
Question though, DO YOU THINK BY LOOKING AT TOO MANY SITES AS A REFERENCE… CAN CAUSE ONE TO CHANGE HIS/HER OWN BLOG SO MANY TIMES THAT IN THE PROCESS HE LOSES HIS OWN UNIQUE VOICE OR DESIGN?
[...] has another twist, Bloggers: Watch and Learn. She writes that a crucial aspect of learning any skill effectively is to study those who are [...]
I just wanted to thank you for this post. I already did this, but I was only scrapping the surface. After this article I started really taking the time to Digg around here, GRS, and DoshDosh. I think that it helped open my eyes to some of the details I was missing.
Thanks again.
The photo sums it up.
I’m in it for the long haul and constantly watch. Just like a predator. Or a mouse who is about to be eaten.
I like the immersion analogy. But you must digest it and make it your own.
Tasty
Just like a few of the commentors. hehe
Excuse moi, commentators.
Excuse moi, commentators.
My mistake.
Excuse moi, commentators.
My mistake.
The verbiage is not good enough for my dismissal. Ah, me. Let me go and all will be well. Gracias. E
Fooled it. heheheheHA!
I’d never really considered the concept of “studying” blogging but i can see how it will really improve my posts. I’ll definitely be adding those blogs to my RSS reader, and a couple that other commentators have mentioned too. Thanks for the advice Skellie!
[...] Bloggers: Watch and Learn [...]
[...] minute. But first, I need to overcome what I’m lacking and right now I’m reading a very good article regarding [...]
Ok, I’m going to start studying stronglifts.com. I don’t really like any of his posts, nor do I enjoy the program, but he has 20,000 subscribers.
Hi Skellie - Thanks for the link love - it’s really appreciated.
I have subscribed to 2 out of the 3 you mentioned above (not Coding Horrors) and have to admit ti not always reading them because they didn’t seem relevant to me. Looking at them from the angle of why was this post/blog so successful should definitely give me a few tips that I most definitely need.
Excellent post. Very well written, I will start reading your posts from now on! Currently I only have time to read Problogger!
[...] Blogger’s Watch and Learn (Skelliewag) [...]
Yeah, your post looks very nice. Thanks