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It’s like I tell my kids. Please be helpful. Don’t just think about yourself. No, your not anyone’s servant but that doesn’t mean that you can’t help. It’s true for little kids and it’s true for blogs and writing content.
My approach is that if you are helpful. If you help someone with a problem they are facing. If can provide a clue, or even better a solution to a problem that someone is facing the more likely they will be to search out your help!
My experiance is that people type into Google their questions and Google tries to match the question to the answer.
Just recently I was trying to install the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 software on a new Windows 7 Laptop. Boy did I have trouble! It really frustrated me because it told me that I was missing critical software to make everything work.
I searched all over the internet and while there were references I had a hard
time finding the answers to what I was looking for. The most helpful information was from blogs. I was so grateful for the bloggers who had documented and expressed the same questions and answers that I was looking for.
The Lego site on the other hand wasn’t really helpful to my needs. I’m sure that they want to be helpful but they don’t seem to understand the online culture.
It’s great that they have support people 7 days a week. I think that it must cost a pretty penny for that type of support. However a re
ally good FAQ section would have reduced my frustration and probably incite me to buy more. Knowing that there were easy answers to my problems would make me more confident in my buying.
So my big suggestion to Lego is… Be more helpful. (Lego, please feel free to contact me to hear my other suggestions. I’d love to be a big help to you).
What I’m saying is…
figure out a problem that other people are experiencing. In your blog ask the question in a way that you think the public will be searching for in Google and then answer it. It’s that simple!
You may think its a short term solution to attracting site traffic but my experience tells me that people will return to your website because they think of you as a proven authority on whatever topic you write about. Even if they don’t have a problem that needs to be addressed they will be interested in learning more about your writing because they want to learn. Chances are that whatever the topic is that they will be interested in your thoughts,your solutions and your writings and they will
Image via Wikipediacome back.
People coming back to your site is what we want . All because you solved a problem and you were helpful!
