When it comes to blogging it’s easy to slip into the linearity trap. It’s easy to think about your story as the writer and not a reading or consumption mindset.
Blog post series are not for you. They are for other bloggers and your customers.
Let me explain…
Think about the link economy.
As a writer you are thinking about your story. Stories are linear, with beginnings, middles and ends.
That was certainly the case before hyperlinking. Today I’d argue people follow their interests, over following a story.
There’s a blogger value to having your content linked to. Ariana Huffington was one of the first to coin the term “Link Economy”.
Charlie Rose summarized.
“We have seen the future and it is here. It is a linked economy. It is search engines. It is online advertising. That’s where the future is. And if you can’t find your way to that, then you can’t find your way.”
Links = content currency.
Linking and serializing your story don’t just improve the experience for the readers they also make it easier for bloggers to link to your content at a more granular level. That linking brings currency to your content.
You learn more about which parts of your story really connect.
Be share-worthy.
With the rise of the “Share Economy” in 2013 you need to think about your share-worthyness. Sharing is on the rise.
We share partly as a coping mechanism.
We share to collaborate.
We share to learn, to help and be helped.
Blog post series improve your share-worthiness.
When I read a post that I like and I discover it’s part of a series I feel a sense of joy. I think about curating the content into a blog post, but I also think how when and why to share it. I think about who will derive value from a specific collection of content.
When I find something great and it’s in a series I know there’s more to explore for me and more to share with others.
Think about Netflix. Series provide a better return on your discovery effort. Series are easy to recommend.
We live in a world where “series” carry cultural value. We all know the power of sequels.
The discovery of great content brings you social currency.
There are people who produce content to share – the discoverers of great content and there are consumers. There are those who give and those who take. Sharing is a gift economy.
Plan your story ark.
Blog post series are a great way to explore your domain and get focused. They also offer your readers non-linear consumption, thereby by-passing the linearity trap. The series promotes non-linear discovery.
You should plan to write multiple posts as a series instead of one long post. Think about how to structure your information delivery to maximize link-ability and share-ability
Split your ideas up in to manageable chunks.
Let your ideas evolve.
Give your ideas space to grow.
You can start high level and then drill deeper and deeper into more posts, depending on the complexity and options available in your topic.
This guest blog post is part of one of my blog post series.
Precise posts improve your organic SEO rankings and chances of being found.
- Blog post series make your content more accessible to your audience.
- You offer multiple entry points (and exit points)
- You become easier to link to and easier to share. You can share and link at the point of interest.
- Links to your posts can be more precise.
- It’s more practical to write a number of shorter posts
- You get several bites at the SEO cherry – multiple headlines to test.
- 16% of all Google searches are new searches – even to Google. That’s a lot of unanswered questions
Your blog post series enables you to create awesome content marketing and it will help you get found.
Good luck.
About Nick Kellet
Great post, Nick! Lots for me to consider and think about here. One thing that comes to mind, that I’ve been playing with as a “newish” blogger, is how do your key benefits listed above change with use of?
Debbie, I deleted your “email signature lines.” Please keep that in mind for future commenting on blogs as blog owners frown on contact info in comments. And, looks like you’re missing the end of your question.
Thanks Debbie. Glad we managed to carry on the conversation on another post in the series.
I agree with the concept that there is a link economy in place on the web… not sure I agree with it being an appropriate mechanism to evaluate quality though. Many webmasters are now over-conscious of linking out from their sites in fear of losing ‘link juice’ which kind of defeats the purpose of the web.
I guess in the absence of any other quality measure, links are a good enough proxy.
I think I’d argue earned links are a sign of quality.
If links exist because they were ask for, then not so much.
Hi Nick,
This is a great idea of creating a series of posts and linking them together. I have read many posts but never thought seriously about their linking. The funda of starting at a higher level and digging down deep has given me a fair idea of how to start. Thanks for sharing. Its awesome.
Thanks. So when’s your next blog post series
Thank you for sharing this with us. What I like most about this post is where you have said that it’s advisable to write multiple posts as a series instead of one long post. This is because you can be able to fully argue all your points with clarity because writing them in one long post forces you to leave half statements that do not clearly bring out what you wish to explain.
Yes, I think posts get longer for the wrong reasons. It’s a hard balance, but if you speak to one person it sure helps.
Interesting post Nick, I am intrigued by your view… I do like posting a series, I feel it allows you to greater explore a topic than you can in a single post. That said, you can go the other way, and stretch a very long post out into more articles than it should be.
Something I am curious about was this line “Blog post series are not for you. They are for other bloggers and your customers.”
I am a member of the admin team for a community blog called Technology Bloggers – pay us a visit if you like http://www.technologybloggers.org. We don’t have any customers, so who are we writing for?
Also, the most important part of blogging (for me) is to blog for yourself. If you don’t like/enjoy the content, why will anyone else? If I don’t like something I improve it or scrap it.
Why are you writing if you are not writing for yourself? If someone sees what I write it is a bonus, and if it is good content, people are likely to find it.
I am interested in your views/opinion on my view – and your reply
Christopher
I normally would argue that you write for you, so I agree with your comment.
I think in the case of a single post that’s the case. I know I write for me and my own problem solving. Once I’ve solved something it then becomes easier to share and to explain the idea and it’s value to others.
I think series are a little different, because you are breaking down your idea(s) and targeting a specific niche – or that’s how I was thinking about it for this post.
If you have no customers, you are your own customer. I think that’s a great notion. You are writing for the community, for the purpose of creating community and forging connection.
You have a lot of writers. Impressive. Congrats.
Nick
Thanks for the reply Nick, I see your point that if you are writing a series you probably have readers in mind. Ultimately, you should be wiring for yourself, however choice of writing via a series is probably for your readers benefit.
Thanks for the ‘praise’ regarding the community blog – would you consider joining us?
http://www.technologybloggers.org/write-for-us/
(@Ari – sorry for the blatant plug, but when you see a good author, you don’t want to miss an opportunity!)
I like the idea of the several small posts instead of a long one. A long post always turns off the people who doesn’t want to spend much time on a single post.
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