Writings on web design and higher education from Missoula, MT

Today is
Annual CSS Naked Day. As I did last year, I have removed all my CSS files from the design so you can appreciate the pure bliss of simple HTML markup. The old, crappy, design will be back tomorrow. Maybe some day soon it will get updated, I hope.

Web 2.0, and my industry in general, has been nicely summarized in a single, short, video. If you only watch one video today on the web, let this be it.

The video is a response to the YouTube Web 2.0 video.

There are two kinds of users that probably read your blog: those that know what they are looking for, and those who don’t. Sure, this seems like a bit of an oversimplification, but it is probably more important than you know. Today, I would like to discuss how these two kinds of users are different, and how you can serve to cater to them while authoring your blog content.

The first—those who know what they are looking for—visit your blog either from direct traffic, a link from another website, or a search engine. These users probably don’t know who you are, nor do they care… they know what information they need, and have that goal alone in mind. These users are looking for very specific content, and targeting them is a great way to get your traffic up and maybe even convert them to the second group.

This second group is the kind of visitor that already knows they like your work, and are checking back up on you expecting to find more high quality writings. At some point they said, “this one is a keeper” and either bookmarked you, or subscribed to your RSS feed. For a blogger, this traffic is the most important. Keeping this second group of users interested is a great challenge for many bloggers, and here are a few tips to help out:

• Keep comments on. Comments build up a community, and add relevant content to your site for search engines to index. Try ending each post with a question for the readers to debate, or give feedback on to spur commenting.
• Write frequently. Every week is good, and every day is better. Once a month probably won’t be enough to keep people interested unless you are in a very small niche.
• Make it easy to subscribe to RSS. This means making an obvious link to your new post RSS feeds and perhaps your comments RSS feed as well. Everyone uses RSS these days, but many people don’t know it… be sure to tell them what RSS is some place on your site, or link to the wikipedia article on it.
• Clash a little. Everyone likes someone who agrees with them, but they love to get into a debate with someone who doesn’t. You will get all kinds of comments and links by roughing a few edges on your content every once and a while.

I hope these few tips have given you some ideas on how to increase your blog traffic and reader loyalty. Did I miss anything?