Rand Fishkin, at SEOmoz, recently published a blog post about the fact that he feels blogs that are more passionate or authentic seem to appear high in the search results even without having many backlinks or any strong SEO signals at all.
As a search engine optimizer, this is both frustrating and intriguing. How do seemingly random sites, that simply appear to be passionate about their subject matter, beat out other sites that are just as good (theoretically) and have more links pointing toward them?
Well, no one has an answer for this yet, other than the fact that Google is taking “quality” into account much more heavily now than they were in the past. But if that is the case, then blogs that have a lot of “passion” in them will generally do better than those without. So if you are trying to make money on your blog, how do you create passion? Here are a few tips you might want to try.
1) Find a subject you are passionate about
This may come as a no-brainer, but if you want to have a passionate blog, blog about something you are passionate about. There are tons of blogs out there about “hot” subjects written by people who don’t care a lick for the subject—those who are only out to make a buck off the high traffic that comes from a popular subject. And it comes across in the writing and site design. If you are naturally enthusiastic about something, it will come across naturally in your writing.
2) Be a fanatic
Have you ever visited the BlendTec website and its Will it Blend? web series? It’s a company that makes blenders, but they love it. And you can tell by the writing and enthusiasm they put into their website content. Whatever it is you are blogging about, be a fanatic about it. Your enthusiasm will be infectious.
3) Be sincere
Site visitors can sense insincerity before they even click on your link. If you are naturally interested in a topic and enjoy writing about it, your sincerity will come across. But if you are only blogging to blog, or creating thin linkbait simply as a means to drive traffic to your site, readers will sense that you don’t really care about your subject and click the Back button as quickly as possible.
4) Be vigorous
Passionate bloggers write and research vigorously. They know their subject matter and aren’t afraid to question conventional wisdom or meticulously dive into a controversy. They are confident about what they know and how to present it to others. Follow their example, and you’ll appear passionate to your readers as well.
5) Be regular
Do you want to appear more passionate about your subject? Blog about it on a regular basis. Passionate bloggers take every chance they get to write about their subject matter and publish regularly. On the other hand, have you ever visited a blog only to discover their latest post is six months old? That blogger, is obviously not passionate about their subject.
6) Become a resource
Passionate bloggers are less concerned about incoming/outgoing link ratios than they are about providing their readers with the resources and information they need to stay informed on a certain topic. If your blog is a resource for people who want to know more, with plenty of links to other good web sites, PDFs, and graphics, people will get the feeling you care more about your subject than your traffic, and they’ll respect you more for it. And Google may even recognize your passion and push you further north in the SERPs.
Be Passionate
All-in-all, Google is taking into account many more factors today than they were even a year ago. And many of these newer factors are hard to quantify, factors like “passion” or “quality.” The simple fact is, if you can come across as passionate and enthusiastic about your subject matter, not only will your readers trust you more, but so will Google.
This is a guest post by James Ged, you can check out the guidelines to guest post here.
Image Credit: Annie Mole
16 comments
The lack something to write about if you can, this can stop people from coming by and engaging in your community.
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
Nice post for do to something extraordinary and this is very true thing which you mentioned in this post, Find a subject you are passionate about
we should know himself and set our goal on right time of the life other wise it could be very costly for whole life.
From point of the perfect blogger a blogger should show activeness about blog post and maintain quality in that and he should keep in touch with other blog post.
Passion, interest and knowledge are the keys of success in blogging and yes you are right in the first point or key should “Find a subject you are passionate about” because if you don’t have passion about any topic you can’t write about it . .
Doing what we love is always important for our life. So the blogging, but be careful, too much passion will kill you, no no, just kidding bro.
Thanks for your suggestion.
I think anyone who is writing online needs to have a passion for their topic, otherwise the overall content will fall flat. Even a small business should be able to talk about what they do, and their industry with a real passion, so even a business site can put your tips in to practice.
Exactly, people can sense when you are being insincere. So, even if you aren’t super-jazzed about a subject, start acting like you are and you’ll begin to get into it. I can’t tell you the number of blog posts I’ve written on subjects that I had no interest in when I started. by by the end, I was really passionate about.
well this is definitely very important to deliver a right information. I personally think that this is very right to rank for those delivering a quality content.
Because they are struggling to help people, and they must rank good so that people can get help from this information.
Interesting post. I think if you are passionate about the subject, then a lot of these things like being a fanatic or being regular will come naturally. Like the old writer’s saying, “Write what you know.” Writing about what you are passionate about is the next logical step.
The best advice I received about blogging, and website creation in general is to simply “choose a topic you can’t shut up about.” It’s true because you’ll always have something to write about since you enjoy the subject so much more. It’s hard to fake passion and excitement.
Blogging is just about your passion and interest . You should choose the topic about which yore are passionate to make a success blog otherwise it will be boring for you in near future
Now a days blogging is not only an income source but also a medium to share our thought with the reader.Readers come here to read a blog that is full of information and helpful to them.So it is necessary to write some blogs those will fulfill the demands of readers and give them information on single or more specific topics.They must be attracted by the content of the blogs and for that the blogger needs to maintain some important factor those will help him to popularize his blogs.In this post the writer mentioned six factor like as choosing right subject,fanaticism,regularity,sincerity, vigorous, and resourceful content .I think to be a successful blogger it is necessary to follow this six tips and above all the blogger must be passionate on the topic.If anyone maintain these factors or tips accordingly then it is not hard for him to be a successful blogger.I believe all the famous blogger follows these tips and it is the key of his success.
Being passionate about your blogging topic is definately important! I’m thinking about creating another blog soon about my real passion, which is folk music! Interesting post.
Unique content and regular posting does help a lot to gain traffic from search engines. I’ve myself experienced and noticed it from close quarters.
When you have a passion for something it never leaves you, which means you can stay devoted to your blogging for many years.
You make a very interesting suggestion about Google taking into account things like “passion” in writing – less quantifiable measures.
I guess the first thing you need to do is find a topic that you’re passionate about. In this way, whenever you blog it doesn’t feel like work. You can write articles easily and enjoy them as well. You will highly be motivated since the topic interests you and you will definitely come up with high quality articles.