I’ve decided to post a few more ‘SharePoint in the community’ articles. These will focus less on SharePoint, and more on the community itself. Various topics will be covered, todays is about blogs. Specifically ’Why blog?’. Why do I run a SharePoint blog and what is involved?
The SharePoint Blog: A potted history
This blog has always been known by this (slighltly unimagnative) name, which itself was really given because of the domain name. I always thought the domain would be a useful SEO tool, but more on that subject later. I started blogging back in March 2010, so the site (in one form or another) has now been going over three years. We started off on Google’s Blogger platform, before moving to our current home on WordPress. Along the way we took on a brand new look (from a basic Blogger theme to a custom developed WordPress one), which was tweaked ever so slightly this week.
I’d like to give readers, and the wider SharePoint community, an insight into what it takes to run a blog, and why I do it. So I’ll cover the following areas:
- 1. The practical side: Getting a blog up and running
- 2. Day to day: It’s all about the content
- 3. SEO: Helping people find your stuff
- 4. Why I do it: The community and the rewards
- 5. My future plans: Where this blog could be in 12 months
1. The practical side: Getting a blog up and running
Before we answer the question ‘Why blog?’ let’s look at how. If you are new to blogging and want to set one up it is generally quite easy. A very large number of blogs are run on the WordPress platform. You can get a hosted account at wordpress.com or download the software to run on your own server from wordpress.org. I won’t go into the details of either here, there are much better guides out there on the web than I could write.
This blog started on Blogger, Googles blogging platform. But it started to feel a bit dated (the blog and the platform), and Blogger isn’t anywhere near as customisable as WordPress, so we moved. I wanted to redesign the look and feel and WordPress makes this quite easy (using themes, PHP, HTML and CSS). I have to say it was amazing going from a basic Blogger theme to what we have now. The site just looks and feels more professional, and we certainly attract (and maintain) a better readership because of it.
So this blog consists of our domain name, a WordPress environment, and a custom theme. Day to day (well month by month) we have to pay for that domain (which is pretty cheap), hosting costs to for the WordPress environment, and our time (more on that later). The site doesn’t cost a huge amount in total to run, but if you ever want to do something similar then you will need to at least consider the money side.
2.Day to day: It’s all about the content
It won’t be a huge surprise to you but a blog is all about the content. Good content equals a good blog. If you write pieces people want to read then they will come back for more and you blog will thrive.
I started off writing this blog on my own. A post a month, then one a week. I generally focused on my experiences of SharePoint (over the years I’ve worked for various Microsoft Gold Partners, as a SharePoint business analyst/consultant) and interactions on projects. I kept this up for a year or two, before I decided to open up the blog to other writers. I wanted to expand the type of content available here, specifically developer and very technically focused articles which I just couldn’t write.
Now there are roughly fifteen other writers on the site. The vast majority submit content they have written for there own sites first, and it is republished here. A couple submit unique content, which is great. I write the rest, not as much as I want to but it goes in fits and starts. I still focus on business analysis stuff, and sometimes more general SharePoint 2013 features.
Once you have a bit of content you need to get people to read it. Starting off any blog, this is hardest bit. When I started I use to send links around my workplace, and post to LinkedIn. But generally I just let it grow organically, which it did. But it took a while.
3. SEO: Helping people find your stuff
Which brings me onto SEO (search engine optimisation). Never has so much rubbish been written about one topic on the Internet by so many, bar possibly 9/11 and aliens. Personally I’ve never spent too much time worrying about SEO. I should have spent more, I just never really did for some reason. But clearly Google (Bing brings in almost zero traffic in comparison) is the best way to help people find your content. A few things I’ve picked up over the years:
Having content republished from other sites isn’t great for SEO. Google will basically downgrade your site in its rankings. The flipside of this is having good orginal content is exactly what Google is looking for. I try to have a mix. I don’t have the time, or writers, to have just unique content. But I create as much as I can.
As for SEO on particular posts, I now try to focus on well written posts and pay some attention to keywords. This involves picking some keywords, keywords that you think people will use to search for the piece, and work them naturally into content. For all the ‘quick win’ articles out there I don’t think there is any better method than well written interesting content.
Social media, to some people the ‘new SEO’, is something I probably spend a lot more time on. I tweet under the name @scribbleagency (a SharePoint copywriting agency I run). I tweet out links to every post on here, sometimes more than once. These go to my 1000+ followers, which has taken a good while to build up (again better people than me can talk about good Twitter strategies). I also post articles to Yammer (the SPYam group), LinkedIn, sometimes Facebook (though I don’t use this much for work related things).
Does social media help? Yes it does. I see them all as supporting the blog, part of a wider network. Sometimes I get into conversations on Twitter about posts here, sometimes I get retweeted. It all helps. But don’t expect to tweet a post of yours and get 10,000 hits. This just doesn’t happen (well not to me anyway).
Overall though Google is still by far the biggest driver of traffic here. Roughly 70% of my traffic is from search engines (99% being Google), 10% from Twitter, and 10% returning visitors. These is a mish mash of other sources. I guess I should be trying to increase that 10% of returning visitors. I don’t monitor people who read via my RSS feed. This is bad and something I should really look at more.
As for hits. Well that is what everyone is in this game for isn’t it? Ha.. maybe. It’s always nice to see a post get more hits than you thought. It’s always nice to see a good week, or month. Personally I’m kind of over focusing on daily/weekly/monthly hits. They are an interesting measure, but don’t get into this game with a hits obsession. Well maybe when you first start, but it will fade. As does a desire to get lots of comments. A very small number of people comment on posts generally, which is fine by me.
Why I do it: The community and the rewards
So why blog? Why do I run a blog like this? Why spend the time and effort? Lots of reasons really. When I first started I wanted to record my thoughts on the SharePoint world, the product, and my career. I tend to write quite a bit anyway (for a few magazines, CMSWire, and a few other places), so this blog was a natural extension of that at first. I thought others might find my musing helpful.
As time went on this blog seems to have found a bit readership and my main reason for continuing is because it provides a somewhat useful service. The SharePoint industry and community is quite a tight knit one, and it is nice to help out and contribute a little. The blog helps a few people every now and then, which makes it worthwhile for me.
There are of course a few benefits for me. The chief one is a bit of ‘standing‘ in the community. Not anything particularly exciting or dramatic, but running this site looks good on my CV. This occasionally helps when I change roles, and at the very least is a talking point. I’ve even had the odd client point out posts on here, which is nice. It all helps with my ‘professional reputation’ (those quotes are intentional!). Maybe 10 years ago it was all about qualifications and exams. I’m not saying running a blog replaces a degree, but there is an interesting shift of sorts in this area.
And then there is the money. I’m kidding. Some people might have retired as a result of their blogging income, but that isn’t my experience. Far from it! I think SharePoint is potentially a little niche (I doubt a post is going to hit 100,000 views in a single day anytime soon) and I don’t really try to monitise it in any case. I do run the odd advert, you can see a few on the site now, but these are normally link exchanges with interesting organisations. In return I get links back, a bit of promotion, maybe a little tweet or blog mention here and there.
My future plans: Where this blog could be in 12 months
I’ll wrap things up (blog posts are best kept shortish, maybe 400-700 words, and I’m well over that). I have a few future plans for this site. I’d like to focus more orignal content. That means me writing more, but also attracting new writers (quick advert.. if you can write about SharePoint and would like to join the shout then get in touch). I’m also going to write more content like this piece, looking with a wider lens at the SharePoint industry and community (rather than just “here is a new feature” or “here is how to code better” – good as these posts are).
I hope this piece has been useful. It seems to have become a bit of a ‘day in the life’ of this blog, with a few tips thrown in. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
