Keith Goodrum

I saw this comment left on an earlier post titled The Shortest Survey You’ll Ever See.

Hi Keith, I couldn’t think of anything to say lol, but wanted to ask you if you have seen Skribit.

A very cool widget enabling you to get “consistent” feedback from readers as they type it in themselves…I just installed it yesterday, very cool.

Dennis Edell
6 May 08 at 12:56 pm

Hey Dennis,

I have heard of Skribit. In fact I 1st read about it from Darren Rowe when he wrote about it on his blog here Skribit – Find Out What Your Readers Want You to Write About. It seems like a great way to find out what information readers are really looking for. By using the widget in the sidebar you can answer the question asked. Then through voting readers can prioritize which topics they would like to see covered here.

To answer the question “Why Are You Using Skribit?” 

It looks like a powerful tool to gain feedback from readers. It can be a way to provide content

I noticed Darren did something that others didn’t do with their Skribit widget. Most people just popped up the widget, and it sat there with no answers to the question. Darren went to his Twitter account and asked people what they would like to see covered on his blog. He then took some of the answers and added them to the Skribit que. He put up the widget and it looked busy already.

This was a smart thing to do because it seems to be human nature to not use something that’s not busy. It seems like no one likes to be first. It’s almost like the mentality of not eating at a restaurant that has an empty parking lot… If no cars are there, then something must be wrong.

So, I followed Darren’s lead. I set up a quick survey here on the blog. I took the answers I got and added them to the Skribit widget. I did see answer several times like; how to get traffic, conversions and such. In that case I just took one of the answers and added it to the widget.

I invite you to look at the Skribit widget and answer the question, or vote on one of the answers.

Looked at the dashboard today and saw this was the 100th post. It’s a cool milestone, and a chance to look back at the short life of this blog. Here are a few of the numbers:

• In 117 days there has been 100 posts.
• The last 2 weeks of January there were 694 unique visitors, and through the 1st 8 days in May there has been 1072. (Knock on wood that the numbers keep growing)
• Unranked in Alexa in January, and today 148,868.
• Zero page rank in Google, and PR3 today.

These numbers are fun to watch because they are fast improving. This is a new blog, and the numbers will make big jumps. And that’s always fun to track. Eventually the numbers will level off, and at best will see incremental moves. This is just the normal course of action as a blog matures.

The big question is what’s the reason behind this growth?

The easiest answer is… action.

Pretty simple, and not overly complicated. I’ve worked hard to get up 100 posts in 117 days. I remember reading once that a new blog should get up a lot of good content fast. And I figured blogging 5-6 days a week should be a way to get that much content.

Publishing this many blog posts a week was not easy. There were many days I got up with no idea what to write about. But I wouldn’t let myself off the hook. I made myself sit down in front of the keyboard and write. I would write 2 maybe 3 paragraphs not like what I wrote, and start over again. Many of those early drafts I deleted.

Sometimes I would write a complete post, and decide not to publish it. I was not happy with the way it turned out. It either got way off point, didn’t read good or the timing didn’t feel right.

So, I would start all over again. I was not going to miss my personal commitment.

Another curious thing happened because of this hard work…

It put me in position to receive a little luck. A couple of big name bloggers linked to my blog… I was lucky to have them do that. But if I wasn’t adding content on a regular basis would they have linked to this blog? I don’t know, but probably not. I got to interview copywriter Stephen Dean. That interview has generate traffic, and back links. If I wasn’t actively involved in the blogsphere I would have missed this opportunity. I got asked to participate in a Marcus Hochstadt blog contest. Would I have been asked to participate if I wasn’t blogging on a regular basis? Probably not.

I guess it boils down to this… Luck and hard work go hand in hand.

Here’s how I’ve always felt about this. It seems like when you are working hard you tend to be in the right place at the right time. You find luck out on the playing field. You have to be in the game. When you are out there working hard, making the plays, you will find yourself standing in the right place at the right time. If you are standing on the sidelines when luck happens by, you will miss out, because luck will pass you by.

I think that Will Wheaton, and Sam Adams make great points about luck & hard work. They both write that you need to be working hard to be in position to have good things happen.

Will Wheaton sums up about hard work and luck in his post yet another post about writing… and stuff

Finally, an important note to all artists: nobody in the world will work as hard as you will to promote your work, nobody will care about promoting it as much as you do, and your work will be as successful as you work to make it. Hopefully, you’ll get lucky like I did and get some good word of mouth and connect with a passionate group of people who will tell their friends about you, but that’s never going to happen if you don’t work hard — really, really hard — to make it happen.

Here is what Sam Adams says in his post titled Luck and hard work go hand in hand:

Luck is about being there. Luck is about showing up. I tease my kids all the time that it might be true that it is better to be lucky than be good; but I also tell them that you can’t get lucky if you are not prepared to accept it.

Every champion, in sports or industry, can look back over the course of competition and see places where they were fortunate, opportunistic and sometimes just downright lucky.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, gets lucky. What we all want in life is a shot. What we do with that shot, that’s the story we want to tell.

What do you do with the luck that falls your way?

So, what are you going to do to make sure you are standing in the way when luck comes along?

“Anything you actually know about is fine…”, is one of the suggestions I received from my survey. It gave me a good laugh. Then I thought about it… How many people blog about stuff they don’t know anything about? How many are posers? They act like experts, and pass out advice about making huge bucks online, traffic strategies or marketing tactics and have no knowledge or experience using these tips.

I would like to think that most people who blog this way get found out. Probably not in a public way, but in a loss of readership. Most folks have a good ‘B.S. detector’ (aka common sense), and can sniff out junk a mile away.

There are 2 ways you can write about topics…

First you should write about what you know… yeah I know you hear this advice all the time. And there is a reason – It works. Writing about subjects you know comes through in your writing. You have a level of confidence, and comfort that surfaces. Credibility builds as you write about topics you know.

Do you have to be a screaming success to write about something you know? No… I think that many people believe this idea. You can write about your experience with a particular subject. Did you have some success? Moderate success? Or fell flat on your face? Then let everyone know about your experience. People can learn from your success, and your setbacks. You will also find that people gain valuable information from your experience… good or bad.

Writing about your experience is a great way to weave your knowledge into the story. Mohamed over at Internet Business Opportunities writes about how some bloggers do this…

Write About What You Know

Hi, When I first started this blog, I was in a bit of a dilemma. I mean, how would I write about something new everyday? I mean, I know full well how to do research and get ideas. I can sit down and push out articles pretty quick, …

You can write about something you don’t know if you do it this way…

Be up front and tell readers you don’t have any experience or knowledge when you started. Let them know you are not an expert. Then tell them what you did. Give the steps you took, and how you found the information.

Then tell the story… what happened, how it went, any hurdles you came across and how you overcame them. Then give the results… good or bad. Everyone knows that not all experiences are a success. Most people become suspicious if all you have are victories. When Babe Ruth retired in 1935 he held the career home run record of 714 dingers… he also held the career strikeout record of 1330.

Another great way to write about something you don’t know is to write a tutorial. Raj Dash over at Performancing gives a good tip on how to do tutorials..

Bloggers: How Do You Learn Something New?

You’ve probably heard/read the age-old advice to writers: write about what you know. Not to be contrarian, but there are ways to write about what you don’t know – or at least don’t know very well – and it’s a good way to learn a topic …

Transparency is a buzz word making the rounds lately. It’s a fancy word for honesty. Just be up front with your readers and I bet they will give you a lot of leeway.