GeekLimit

Deconstructing Scoble III: Personalization

Posted by The Technocrat | Filed under Geeky

Continuing in this series, I have been dissecting the suggestions given to me by Robert Scoble on his blog, and seeing what works and what doesn’t.

To recap, I had a lot of good content, but the blog itself looked a little drab [screenshot], and I wasn’t advertising my content as well as I could have.

I’ve already gone over the first suggestion, and added a few common-sense suggestions of my own. (then again, it took a second look for me to realize it, so maybe not that common)

Here I’ll take a second look at what can be done about another powerful promotional tool: personalization. To quote Scoble,

Another thing? Dan’s title tag is boring. You need some personality! Look at Darren Barefoot’s title tag. Lots of personality and gives me some sense of who Darren is. Oh, and his blog’s design sticks out too. Different. Clean. Personal. Who wouldn’t fall in love with that smile? Yeah, WordPress.com makes it hard to change the template right now (Matt Mullenweg promises that’s changing soon, but in the meantime you can get ready by doing the other things — come up with a better title tag, write better headlines, work on finding interesting content that’ll help you stick out of the crowd on search engines and memetrackers.

An unlevel playing field

Darren’s site is pretty customized, and after looking high and low for ways to customize a WordPress blog, I don’t think there is one. It’s not ‘pretty hard’ like Scoble says, it’s ‘pretty impossible’. Right now, you’re limited to using one of a very few templates that have customization in their control panels, and that’s it. I agree that customization would be ideal, but for those of us who don’t have an in with wordpress.com, you’re out of luck. Coincidentally, a quick look at the source code for Scoble’s blog shows that his WordPress customization is definitely some sort of special arrangement. Score one for Blogger.com. I like WordPress’ tagging feature, though, so we can make do for now…

In the meantime, compare the current site to the screenshot. I added a little human element on the ‘what is a technocrat?’ page and in the ‘Hall of Fame’ and ‘Links’ sidebars. It gives it a little more flavor as to who I really am, and how much it means to me that people read my stuff. (explained on the ‘what is a technocrat?’ page)

‘In the meantime’

come up with a better title tag

Gotcha. And I agree on that one. My Blog’s title was boring. I just hadn’t been able to think up a better one. Then I was called a technocrat by a co-worker. Wasn’t sure if they meant that in a derogatory way, (later they admitted that they meant it as a compliment) but after looking it up, I liked it! (I hadn’t heard the term beofre, which I guess is surprising since it’s supposedly common…?)

So I got the new name. I’m definitely a technocrat by the definition of a person who “…supports the control of technology for the benefit of humanity.” I also try to post at least one meaningful article per day. So, ‘The Daily Technocrat’. Appropriate and different.

write better headlines

…like ‘Deconstructing Scoble’? I realize it probably is a little inflammatory, and might seem like I’m going to be breaking down Scoble in these articles. In a way, I am, and the title is describing exactly what I’m doing. I also am aware that it might imply controversy, which there is a small amount, I suppose. My past headlines were (for the most part) pretty dry, but accurate. I guess I do need to spice up the title, if I want them to get to the actual content.
The main point is that it gets people in the door. If they read the article, who cares if it wasn’t exactly what they thought it might be. The title is accurate, and if they get past the first paragraph, they’re interested in improving thir blog, and I’m happy to offer my own insight, extrapolated from Scoble’s suggestions. In the end, they might not get what they thought, but probably something that will provide quite a bit more value, hopefully. If it was the dual-meaning title that got them in the door, then so be it, I’m glad they read it for the possible benefit to them.

work on finding interesting content that’ll help you stick out of the crowd on search engines and memetrackers

I’m thinking this was a general suggestion (albeit a valid one) since I try very hard to come up with original, interesting content. The reason I try so hard is because I’m sick to death of every blog being a mirror of Slashdot, Wired and CNN! If I want CNN, I’ll go to CNN, I’m coming to your blog for you. If you don’t have anything to contribute, wait until you do. You’re much more likely to capture an audience posting a great post every 3 days or so than posting 10 times a day on something that a million other bloggers are posting on. You have great ideas, don’t bury them in a pile of filler posts.

Eventually, I might run out of things to post seriously about, but the worst thing I could do is to compensate by filling in the spot with a goofy post. I already have enough of those…

In a way, you should find this encouraging. By coming up with original content twice a week, you’re probably in the top third of all bloggers, quality-wise. The bottom two-thirds are the ones doing the me-too latest-news posts, or the play-by-play-of-my-adolescent-life blogs. Congratulate yourself with a trip down to the corner.

Speaking of which, have a great weekend everyone!

Comments (0) | February 17th, 2006