I’ve read a lot about list posting in the past.  What I mean by a blog list post  is to use bullets or numbers to organize your writing.

Some bloggers talk about not liking this style of writing.  They avoid it like the plague.  I don’t get that.  It is a very good way to organize your thoughts and get your message across.  Plus it is easier for the reader to follow.

In the spirit of this post though, I will not write with a list.  Why?  I don’t know, just to be a little obnoxious I guess.

Advantages of a Blog List Post

By writing a blog list post, you’ll find that you can organize your thoughts quickly and easily.

If you’re like me and jot down an outline before you write a post, your blog list post is basically written.  This saves you time and lets you churn out more posts, faster.

Sadly, most folks are not very good writers either.  I don’t claim to be the best writer, but my day job as a teacher tells me that a lot of folks (particularly 16 year olds) do not have well developed writing skills.  One would guess that the majority of bloggers are college educated and do have good writing skills, but it isn’t always the case.

People like when you blog a list post, too.  Again, they’re usually short or chopped up in to parts that don’t require you to sit at your computer without interruption for 30 minutes.

The epic post that has 5000 words is always impressive and usually some of the best work that a blogger does.  But a blog list post will garner more attention from search engines and be read by more eyes.

Disadvantages of a Blog List Post

The disadvantage of these types of posts is that you may lose your readers who are more interested in well-written posts than lists.

And more so than losing readers, you will see a lot of traffic that doesn’t stick.  People may “stumble” your post, they may check it in a google search, and then scan the list and quickly “stumble” on or back out to the next thing on google.

We want lots of traffic, but we want quality traffic.  I’m not convinced that a blog list post is what’s going to get you that quality traffic.

These posts do not really create a ton of quality followers for your blog.  They aren’t the people who are going to buy your products or comment on your work.

But they will be eyes.  They will get your name out there.  They will rank your blog higher up in the search engines for something.

I would recommend using a mix.  If you look at your list of recent posts and see:  “8 Things…”, “10 ways…”, and “100 reasons…” then you may want to back off of the list posts for a little while.

But if you are just completely avoiding list posts, I don’t know why.  Use them.  Just use them sparingly!

I have used a mixture of postings at my blog at The Football-Defense Report if you’re looking for some ideas!

How do you handle blogging in a seasonal niche?  With my main blog being about American Football, I’m obviously in a pretty seasonal niche.  It requires a different approach than other blogs that are less dependent on time of year.

My blog is mainly aimed at football coaches, but searches about football by fans go up a great deal in August, fall off around January, and then have a last gasp peak in the week or so before the Super Bowl. 

(In a strange twist, my target audience is coaches, not fans, and they are more active from December to August, since during the season they’re working all the time)

When to Post

Once upon a time, I thought I needed to increase my posting frequency during the peak season.  But as we enter into my second year with a seasonal blog, I realize that isn’t exactly correct.

Most of my new traffic is coming from search engines.  Old posts, topics that I wrote about months ago.  Even years ago.  Google may have indexed the post I wrote yesterday, but it probably isn’t on the top of the first page.  The top of the first page is occupied by a post I wrote over a year ago (which isn’t nearly as good as the new one, but that’s my fault). 

What’s important in order to get that seasonal traffic coming in is to have posts that have indexed well in the search engines.  That’ll get them in the door.  Now how do you really benefit from seasonal influxes of traffic?

Capturing Search Engine Traffic

So someone comes across a post you wrote back in March of 2009, lets say its about Pursuit Drills.  I’m using this example because I checked back on this post – it was getting lots of search engine traffic – and was shocked at what I found.

The diagram at the bottom was a broken link.  That was the whole draw of the post!  Plus, the writing style was completely different from the way I write now.  There was also not much emphasis on SEO, so even though the post was doing well enough in search engines to get looks, it was not doing as well as it could be! 

Finally, there were no links in the post to more recent articles.  I do have a Related Posts plugin that helps with that, but nothing embedded in the post.  If I want the folks interested in my niche to stick around during the off-season, they need to know I have more content! 

Updating the Article

The first thing is to check for SEO.  Are you bringing in as many people as you can?  What is the search term that is linking people to this post? 

You can find out by using your Google Analytics.  Do a search and see where you rank, if you’re at the top of the first page, then there’s no need to change much.  If not, make sure you update the article.

Next, check to see that all links are working, and add links where necessary.  Make the article timeless.  It shouldn’t seem like this was a post made 6 months or 2 years ago, but instead integrate it into your current blog.  Broken links make your blog seem unattended to, and people will leave assuming this is a dead site (as so many are).  Links to more current articles make your blog seem alive and dynamic!

Its always good to just rewrite parts of your posts any time, anyway.  Sometimes you’ll find you can write it better, but even more important is how search engines view the article.  If you want rank high for your seasonal niche blog, you’ll want search engines to find lots of up-to-date, new content.  By changing up the wording of a few sentences, the big search engines find your blog to be up to date.

Keep writing year-round, but keep up with the old posts as well.  Make sure your entire blog looks fresh and professional, so that no matter how someone gets there, no matter what season they find your blog, they’ll become a loyal and long time reader!

I remember learning for the first time about being “above the fold” on my web page.  It was eye-opening.  But I don’t know that I really grasped the importance at that time.

A few weeks ago I found out what it could really mean for a blog.  Previously I had set up an advertising deal, but the ads didn’t fit my flashy new theme I was trying out.  Not at all.  As a result, most of what you could see above the fold was these two big ads.  I’m not sure that the first headline of an article made it above the fold.

Content Above the Fold

So a few weeks ago I set aside some time to really work on it.  I found the simplest, plainest theme I could find.  I’m not educated in adjusting themes too much myself, so I figured if I just had a blank slate I could probably make adaptations more easily.

The end result is a site where the reader sees content, not ads, at first glance.  And the most important thing for my blog right now, is for readers to see good content that they will come back to.

If your site looks like the only thing there are ads, potential readers will leave.  Even though my content has not really improved much, the look and feel of the site has changed.

The Results

Keep in mind that the vast majority of visitors to my football coaching site come from Google.  I get the impression that they aren’t always sure what they’re looking for.

And the unfortunate thing about that niche, is that there is not a ton of information available, and it is not usually well organized.  But there are plenty of people trying to make money off of coaches, so lots of sites are riddled with ads and little content.

So the statistical change that came with my new site, featuring more content above the fold, was the change in Bounce Rate.  I Edit Postsview the bounce rate on my Google Analytics pretty closely.  To me, it is important that if I do all of the SEO to get a post ranking well in Google searches, that the people stay when they get there.

My bounce rate plummeted.

Just by changing my theme to get all of the crap out, and getting my content about the fold, my bounce rate plummeted.  At first I thought it was some sort of glitch from Analytics (I’m still not completely convinced it isn’t), but the fact is you can see it in the average pages viewed per visit as well.

And sure enough, over the last few weeks, I have seen increases in repeat visitors and total visitors.

Such a simple change, to just make sure that visitors to the site can see my content.  There’s no question that my theme is basic, and bland.  But it has helped to accomplish what I want right now – people are reading my content.

My issue with procrastination and my blogging is not content.  Sometimes I’ll hit a block, but usually I’ll have a list of 10-20 topics I could write about next.

There are days and weeks when life just happens.  You don’t have the time necessary to produce quality posts.  This is especially true if you are like me, and have a full time job.  My blogging is part-time, and I’m not dependent on the income.

A lack of motivation has also contributed to my procrastination.  Again, I am not dependent on my blogging income, so it is easy to just decide not to work on it that day.  I may get distracted by other activities, or just choose to do nothing.  Its not good, that’s for sure.

Here are 8 Tips I’ve worked with to fight procrastination in my writing…

1.  Set a time to write.  Early in the morning or late at night when nothing else is going on is best.  Just set aside a few hours.

I’m cautious about writing late at night because by nature I’m a night owl.  If I get into writing an article I may just see the sun come up, and I have a job to go to!

2.  Have a set schedule with your writing.  I’m gunning for a Monday-Wednesday-Friday type schedule on this blog, but it hasn’t been easy.  That may need to be adapted, or I may need to adapt.

3.  Group your material. Select a topic and write multiple blog posts on it.  Write them over a period of time.  You don’t have to think about what’s coming next, and hopefully you have readers that are anxious to read the next edition.

An example of this is 31 Days to Building a Better Blog.  Now you have a set time frame, and 31 topics to write.  I’m guessing he had these planned out well in advance, but in either case you have the idea and just need to research the content.

4.  Write as if you have millions of fans.  Or as if you risk being canceled.  For a small-time blogger like myself, I can write or not write, and no one is going to take it away from me.

I may lose some readers, or the opportunity to make some new readers, but it isn’t life or death if I skip a day.  But act like it is.  Think of if your favorite TV show just didn’t come on one week.  What would the response be like?

5.  Write something.  Write in stream of consciousness, just put it out there on paper.  Whatever you’re thinking.

You may get a legitimate post out of it – just edit the crap out of it.  More likely, you’ll get an idea or two to base posts on.  Just don’t judge your writing as you do this, knowing that you’ll have to edit or rewrite later.

6.  Unplug the Internet.  Just unplug your router.  The problem with writing on the net is that there are so many other fun things to do.  We need to be able to do research, add links, etc.  But do it later.

I’ve started writing at least a detailed outline in a notebook (yes, PAPER).  No distractions there, other than the occasional doodle.  I can also scribble other thoughts as they come to me in the margins.

7.  Get plenty of rest.  Many of us are tinkerers.  We’ll stay up all night messing with themes, plug-ins, social media and the like.  We’ll read other blogs.  We’ll write and rewrite and look for pictures and anything else.

Don’t stay up all night doing this stuff.  Get enough sleep so that your brain is not foggy.

8.  Exercise.  Get out, go for a jog, hit the gym.  You have time to think, time to reflect, time to relax.  Unwind with a long walk or an hour in the weight room.  Take care of yourself!

After over a year of blogging, I’ve learned a lot of what not to do, and a couple of items of useful information.  This is my year in review, in one liners.

1. No one cares what you did today, especially if you are not already well known.
2. People don’t like to read big words.
3. Be confident, pretend to be an expert, even if you are not.
4. Willfully admit you are wrong if a reader points it out.
5. Advertise, but do it in the right places.
6. Don’t pay for advertisements – Unless you have exhausted all of the free possibilities.
7. Share a little of your personal life, just enough so you seem human.
8. Affiliate marketing seems like a get rich quick scheme, but it only works if the product really fits.
9. Earn your reader’s trust before you try to seriously earn their money.
10. Patience.  Patience.  Patience.
11. No matter how interested folks are in your subject, they don’t want to sit and read about it for 30 minutes.
12. Don’t be offended when your friends don’t want to read your blog.  They’ve heard it before.
13. People will buy you as an expert if you act like it.
14. Desperately seek out people who will be honest with you about your blog.
15. Your parents will not be honest with you about your blog.
16. Adsense is not evil.  It is easy.
17. There’s no way to get rich quickly in blogging.  Maybe it happens, but you can’t plan for it.
18. Pick something you like to talk about.
19. Type it up and post it.  Better to make 300 posts this year and have 20 that are good, than make 20 posts with 5 that are good.
20. Play with lots of different plugins.
21. Delete plugins quickly if they suck.
22. Keep track of what helps and what hurts.
23. Read other blogs.  Get ideas from them.
24. Read other blogs, and comment on them.
25. Read other blogs, and steal plugins and theme tweaks that work from them.
26. Get a list.
27. Make sure your list includes people who actually care about your niche.
28. Ask for help from your readers.
29. Don’t ask your readers to do a lot.
30. Be grateful for e-mails from readers.
31. Be more grateful for comments from readers.
32. Increasing traffic is much less important than increasing true readers.
33. No one wants to tell you your blog sucks when it does.
34. Don’t quit your day job.
35. Prevent yourself from refreshing adsense or checking e-mail when you should be writing posts.
36. Get your own domain.  Blogger and WordPress.com are nice and all, but you have no freedom.
37. Use pictures and photos.
38. When you can include video clips, do it.
39. Edit your posts ruthlessly.  Delete whole sentences and whole paragraphs that aren’t necessary.
40. Split long posts into two or three posts, or more.  Create a series.  Then link them together.
41. Create your own product.
42. Make sure there’s a market for whatever products you create.
43. Pay attention to what your readers are actually reading, and cater to it.

As for the next year, you can follow my RSS Feed or check me out on Twitter.