I read this post about struggling to make blogging make money with great interest. It raises some really great discussion points some of which I’d like to pick up on in this post.
The first area for discussion is which Seeds are getting Buzzed. Looking down the list we have a mix which I have categorized as:
Like Minded Friends
Here’s a link to a popular Seed called The Top and Bottom 3 worries of this parent It has been Buzzed 3 Times because:
1) It’s got an audience – we have a growing number of parenting bloggers
2) It’s a good Seed – It asks a question, appropriate to nearly everyone and set-up further debate
It’s therefore no surprise that other parenting Seeds have also attracted Buzz.
This then begs the question – what are we doing about populating every category with sufficient members to get all good Seeds Buzzed?
The good news is there is a great plan, the question is when, and we could do with your help to help us finalize our thinking.
We’ve been impressed with Seed numbers and had hoped for more Buzz. The question that remains unanswered is why aren’t members Buzzing more? To help us we have created a Poll. Would you take 30 seconds to answer the questions.
Whilst waiting for the answers to the Poll we’re also creating email alerts to tell members when Seeds worth Buzzing have been planted. We hope everyone finds this useful.
When we’ve made the Buzzing process as efficient as we can we’ll throw everything we have at finding as many members as we can to make this the best blog marketing community around.
At the moment we have a few hundred bloggers kicking the tyres of our new community. Imagine 20,000 + bloggers taking part and you can see how great Seeds may be able to attract serious amounts of Buzz.
Please click here to view the Poll.
It’s All About Timing
Another Seed type that appears to work well is the date sensitive Seed. Here’s some examples:
How to make her Valentines unforgettable and What’s the point of the iPad
Contentious
Then there are Seeds written on subjects best described as contentious like Censorship? It just so easy to carry on conversations that incite opinions like this.
Interesting
Then there’s Seeds that ask genuinely interesting questions like ‘Can internet friends ever be as good as real-life friends?‘ Once again, this is a Seed that has been written to inspire further debate and be written about.
The next area of discussion is how to make money blogging. I don’t intend to go through all of the possible ways here, but am happy to link to sites like Probogger, that offer great advice on revenue generation. Instead I’d like to focus on the ingredient that makes all potential blog revenue streams possible – traffic!
I have reviewed over 1,000 blogs in order to select the first few hundred founding members. What made me chose one blog over another were the same ingredients that enable blogs to grow their traffic. They were:
Great content
If you don’t invest in great editorial, people won’t come back – you can learn a lot about the styles and subjects that make one blog more popular than another by checking out the top blogs on Technorati. You’ll also learn a lot about what makes successful blog posts from discovering the formula to writing popular Seeds. I strongly believe they are the same.
SEO
Google provides all top blogs with a massive amount of free traffic. It does this because in Google’s eyes the blog is influential and relevant to the keyword being searched for.
You become influential by having other blogger link to you – Buzz! You acquire relevant traffic by doing keyword research and writing about topics that get searched for – check out this post to see what I mean.
Together the ingredients can be a recipe for huge increases in traffic.
Sociable
Part of the DNA of a great blog is it’s desire not to just talk at people, but to talk about people and be inclusive. To be sociable. Blogs that just publish posts at people and aren’t making friends by linking to other website aren’t really behaving like blogs and aren’t likely to be very successful. So if you’re not Buzzing and making friends, I hope you’re being Sociable with other bloggers in other ways.
Finally, by writing a great Seed that asked a great question, you made me sit at my desk for an hour and write a Buzz post. You have a new fan and have earned a link to your blog that Google will take notice of, and the bonus is I am promoting this Blog as well, proving it works! So well done and thank you!
Thanks Matt – I have my very first BUZZ! As you pointed out, there is so much more to blogging than just sitting down and writing. A lot of thought and planning goes into this, as well as an equal amount of trial and error. Blogging is a learning process and therefore, I thank you and everyone else at SeededBuzz for giving me this opportunity to learn!
There is some great content here at SeededBuzz and quite a few very good writers. It is exciting to see myself progressing while I’m learning and sharing, and I’m looking forward to seeing where I’ll be in a year!
Thanks again SeededBuzz Community!
Admittedly, my first thought (and outloud statement), as I read the blog entry, was “Oh crap, that’s my post!”
I had no idea that it had been buzzed 3 times, which leads me to another idea. It would be useful to see what we’ve seeded and what we’ve buzzed on our profile page so we can see what we’ve done that’s popular and what might need rethinking.
Hi Kitten, you’ve done really well. There’s a new button in the left nav to view your Seeds that will help you. This was added because of other user comments, and was something we had totally missed.
Hi Kitten – we are emailing users when their posts have been buzzed, but we are finding some of our emails are getting stuck in the evil spam filters. We are moving to a different email system shortly so they should start coming through correctly.
If you look at my blog, you will see that I write to entertain, not to market any ideas or products. For bloggers like me, exposure is what we want. Having a person buzz me is of questionable value. At least I think so. What will be of benefit to me is having folks read my seeds, and then visit my blog. I don’t attempt to stir up controversy or discussion. I am simply a writer looking for an audience. This site might be valuable to me, or not. But I congratulate you all for starting it, and providing this forum. Good luck, and I will continue to learn more about it.
Some great advice here as I’m sure so many are trying to get to grips with using Seeded Buzz to it’s full potential. So far, I’ve found it very straightforward and managed to plant a few seeds and buzz a bit. Of course this will all get easier the more users you get and the more seeds are planted, but you are so right about the need to also buzz.
I have been very excited to take part in the beta and really feel this has already benefited my blog a huge amount. I’ve already seen an increase in traffic from here, as well as networked with a few bloggers I would have otherwise missed out on! Great job, it can only get better. And hey, thanks for mentioning my Valentine’s post!
Hi, I’m finding that my problem is that there are few seeds that are relevent to my blog. My blog is based on make-up, skin care, etc and I’ve only found 1 seed that fits with it. I’d love to buzz more but can’t really write about parenting, etc in the middle of skincare tips
I would love to buzz more as I think the whole SeededBuzz thing is definately a good idea!
I’ll just keep roaming for new Seeds and relevent bloggers
I’m loving the concept behind Seeded Buzz, and I’ve discovered some great new to me blogs through this site. However, it seems like exactly how Seeded Buzz is supposed to work is still lost on some users. I’ve seen multiple seeds that are links to the main blog page, rather than a permalink to an individual post. That’s not quite how this works, correct? I’m not sure how to explain the ins and outs more clearly to folks, but I even had another user email me to say she found my blog and liked it but wasn’t sure how to buzz me back. I think there needs to be a more detailed step by step “this is how you buzz & plant seeds” FAQ.
I think most people, including me, are still confused as to how a ‘Buzz’ works and how to do it. I would like to Buzz an article but I’m not sure how it would help me, and how I would go about doing it.