Confessions of a Web Niche Blogger
Since Sam and I started this blog eight months ago, we’ve received quite a few emails and comments asking about some of the “behind the scene” stuff. Many of them ask for insight as to what goes into Build Internet to make it the slice of internet you’re looking at today.
Now I can’t pretend to be great at giving universal advice, but then again, who is? So instead I’ve decided to share with a series of habits and observations of web niche blog life so far. This isn’t advice — just a candid summary. So without further delay, here are my confessions of a web niche blogger:
10 Confessions from the Web Niche
- I still obsessively check the blog’s stats. Who knows when a social media site could pick up an article? Don’t even get me started on Google Analytics.
- I don’t think the phrase “Nice list, but you forgot…” is a good way to get your site included in a post showcasing other sites or designs. Is my memory already on its way out? Oh my. Good effort though!
- I’m beginning to think that all the blog SEO experts are located overseas. My inbox would tend to agree.
- Certain things will never get old. Seeing the results from one of our tutorials in use on a live site is one of them.
- I’ll never stop appreciating people who contribute solid comments to a post’s discussion. Even better? When readers in start troubleshooting each others problems. How’s that for community support?
- I’ve debated having our next WordPress theme automatically include a comment on each tutorial saying “I can’t get this to work right in IE6″ just to save others time. There will also be a follow up comment saying “Move on” to save us time.
- If you’re going to pretend like the semi-related-but-not-really site you’re recommending for further reading isn’t your own, please remember to leave the “website” field blank when filling out your comment.
- I appreciate the offer for a link swap with your blog on farm animal art (fictional example), but I don’t see the same “great opportunity for readers” as you’ve suggested.
- Phrasing your comment as a flaw in the tutorial will not get us to build your custom project for you. “This is ok, but would be much better if it included a full slideshow with the following images…”
- Sometimes I read lengthy comments and then mentally assign an accent to the commenter. The more negative the comment, the closer to this guy you get.
Group Discussion
Fellow web design/development niche bloggers, let’s turn the spotlight on you for a moment. Do you have any insight that you’d like to share? Habits formed over the years? Candid observation or commentary? This is your chance to sound off in the comments below.
To clarify, I’m not encouraging overwhelming negative gripes, just some personal observations on the state and habits within the web niche of blogs. If we get some good ones, I may even make a full post out of it in the future. I’ll leave it to you now. Take the stage!
