The One Question Every Blogger Should Ask Themselves

At my 9-5 I have routine strategy meetings with my boss. We discuss things like productivity and effectiveness of our staffs.  Last month we had a very interesting conversation. That conversation crossed over into my blogging venture and made me realize there is absolutely one question every blogger should ask themselves when working on their blogs. Let me share this story with you first.

My Strategy Meeting

I met with my boss to discuss the usual metrics. Productivity seemed to be down a bit. First let me say that numbers are a big factor in my profession. I am a Certified Forensic Interviewer and the number of  interrogations/interviews I do on a monthly basis directly correlates to closing investigations.

Not homicide or robberies, but private sector retail theft. Embezzlement, credit card fraud, counterfeit money…etc. To say that 4500 people in our respective market are not stealing is naive and is NEVER an acceptable answer. There is always somebody stealing..something. So the assumption, rather the requirement is that an investigation is being conducted somewhere across the country at all times.

Last month, I closed out a significant number of investigations, so I was pretty confident in my productivity. And then it came, my boss asks me…” Lisa, yes you are productive but what I consider of greater importance is, are you effective? Tell me how you have been effective throughout the district.”

Obviously, I sat back for a moment to consider this. It was a perfectly relevant question and has since made me take a different approach to most things I do. Oh, and I did give him an answer…I explained that I assisted several investigators in closing their cases and taught them some new methods of investigating. Obviously there was more to it, but I didn’t want you to think I had no comeback for him!

Effectiveness And Productivity

So, in your blogging venture, are you productive or effective? While we need to be both to attain success, we need to be sure that what we are producing or working on, is effective. For example, we talk about link building. Are you building effective links to your blog?

Are you seeking out like minded blogs and commenting? Guest posting? Writing articles and submitting to the proper sites? Engaging in social media? See, you can comment on 100 different blogs, but if your niche is car mufflers and you are commenting on candle blogs, you are not being effective in your campaign. Yes I know for natural link building you probably should have some links scattered around different sites, but I think you get my drift.

We are productive everyday on our blogs. We write content, we optimize, we submit, we tweak…all of it. When I first stated out, I wrote everyday. I considered myself productive and was pleased with myself.

When the reality of building a successful blog set in, I realized that what I was doing was not an effective strategy. I was not getting results. And now that big boss man asked me that question, I know even more so that what I produce, what I do for my blog needs to bring forth the desired results by being effective.

Tips For Effectiveness

Remember, you do all these things everyday, now tweak what you need to as to ensure maximum ROI. I found a great resource outlining 10 steps to effective marketing online. Originally a full white paper, the above link will give you a condensed version of these tips.  You can apply every one of these tips to your blog.

One tip I can give you right now is this: if you do all this hard work and hide behind your computer without interacting with the community, you are ineffective in your venture. You will not achieve the results you are looking for. Engage your blog community and interact daily with them, either through Twitter, comments, Facebook, Serpd…whatever you choose.

Increasing your blogs productivity and effectiveness will have a positive impact on your business and you should be asking yourself that question..am I productive or effective? Do I have a balance between both?

What are your tips on effectiveness? Let me know in the comments and as always, please share this if you like love or gasp! hate it.