How Does Your Blogging Persona Affect Traffic?
20 January 2008
14 Comments(This is a guest author article.)
Nowadays everyone has a blog, which means there are many, many blogs out there. But who are the bloggers? Safe behind the computer screen, bloggers make choices about the image, or persona, they’re casting outward, and these choices can affect traffic just as much as the content.
A big component in what sets your blog apart from others’ is your voice. Your voice is the overall manner in which you present your blog’s content. Are you confessional? Or are you authoritative? Do you open up the floor for comments by asking your readers questions, or do you tell it straight up without much room for debate? How is this affecting your traffic? Do your readers visit once and then vanish, or do they return regularly and comment freely? Do newcomers often comment, or does it take them a few visits until they feel comfortable to contribute?
Your persona can also be formed through more indirect ways, such as your profile picture and your “About” section or page. Is your picture a casual, accessible photo of yourself? Or is it slick, posed and professional? Do you even have a photo? And then there’s the About area: do you list off your accomplishments or your pets names?
Depending on the style of your blog (confessional, authoritative, how-to, etc.), you’ll want to consider how you’re coming across to visitors. A quick exercise in this would be to take a look at blogs you visit often and ask yourself what it is about the blog that makes you keep coming back. Chances are it has something to do with the person, or persona, behind it.
Do you make a conscious effort to project a certain persona through your blog? Or do you wing it? How do you find this affects your traffic?
PS: I realize I don’t have a photo of myself up here yet, I’m workin’ on it…
[...] How Does Your Blogging Persona Affect Traffic? [...]
Good questions Amanda. Personally I think a blog’s character changes as our own moods and tendencies move around. I also think the subject matter tends to develop it’s own persona at times. For example, a discussion about numbers or stocks may have an entirely different feel than a confessional type discussion on what ever it is I’m doing at the time. These things factor as well. In the end however, I think most bloggers do tend to put themselves out there a bit. The big time types just don’t have to do it as often and I think work hard on not doing it. Alas I drone on….see ya….Peace……..T
Amanda, what you’ve wrote is a wake up call for me who always sign in as annonymous. I finally relized how odd it was, when my blog readers started to call my name with my blog title
I will working on it though..
@Audee – I’m glad I could help! I just put up a profile picture on my blogs, and they all look a bit more approachable now.
@Tommy – I agree, blogs do tend to form their own persona as they develop. And there are lots of confessional, personal type blogs out there where bloggers tend to think hanging out their dirty laundry, as I like to call it, is material for interesting content. There’s definitely a fine line between personal insights and personal blather. Thanks for your input!
“Your personality reflects in your blog” words impressed me a lot….Gr8 get going!!!! i have added u in my blog roll
@Aravindhan – Glad I could help!
For me, I present my honest and truthful self on my blogs. No pretending to be someone else. And I make friends.:)
@ Sherxr – Good point. Making friends and contacts is key in spreading great word-of-mouth about your blog. I bet you get regular visitors and commenters because of it!
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Thanks for the link, Aravindhan!
That is what gives meaning to the word “Social” in Social Marketing and Social Networking…
Haha, exactly! And lookit the community evolving here…
Blogging personality is the way you write, you share, and post all of the things
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