Do You Spoil Your Readers?

Blogging is fun, especially if you are getting paid for it. But a lot of new bloggers keep thinking about themselves as the center of the universe. They right their posts thinking how they can earn more money, how they can push more affiliate products, or what keywords they can use to earn the most money. There is nothing wrong in making money from your blog, especially if it keeps you from going back to your 9-5 job, but focusing only on money can seriously hurt your blog and its prospects. Today, readers are very smart and sophisticated when it comes to figuring out who’s looking out for them. It’s not really about what you can get from your readers, but rather what you can provide to your users.

I’d like to think of my readers as someone who needs to be spoiled (in a good way). Folks come to your website to get some value out of it. They don’t come in to read what you had for dinner the previous night (not counting online stalkers as readers). Your blog should not only provide value to your audience on a daily basis, but you should also focus on creating a timeless resource for your readers to come back to time and time again.

Let me give you an example here. A few months ago, I was trying to figure out how to set up my Apache server in order to get some software to work with it. There are many technical blogs and sites out there, but not all of them are worth reading. I was lucky to find a golden Apache resource, and to this day I go back to it for my issues. Why? Because I get what I am looking for from it all the time. The site has ads on it. There are affiliate products on the site. But that doesn’t take away anything from the value that I have gotten from that site time and time again. Not only that, I am willing to trust those guys and buy using their affiliate link, knowing that they wouldn’t promote a mediocre product.

There are many ways to spoil your users. You can always provide them with:

• free tools that makes life easier for them.
• free reports that helps them accomplish a task fast (e.g. SEO).
• free case studies to help them get things done.
• free website themes for your readers to use on their own sites.
• free ebooks on topics your audience is interested in.
• coupons your readers can use to get discount on conferences, software tools, and …
• articles your readers can use on their own sites.
• plug-ins your readers can use to enhance their own blogs
• macros that can help your audience accomplish things faster with Microsoft Office or other products (e.g. Firefox extensions).

There are many other ways to spoil your readers. Just get creative and try to put yourself in their position. What are their needs and wants? If you can answer that question, you are golden.