What type of blog manager are you? Mr. Packrat? Miss Self-Contained? Your style of blog management can make your blog an SEO powerhouse, a great resource for visitors, or an intellectual property graveyard. Check out these management styles and comment on which one you think is best!
- PACK RAT:
Blogs at full speed ahead. Never checks to see if his links are dead. Never adds important developments to the topics posted. Probably has typos and bad grammar. - COMPULSIVE MAINTAINER:
Always links directly to the internal page of the website he is citing. Runs a check for dead links regularly, often goes back to old posts to add informational updates. Perfect spelling and grammar. - LOW MAINTENANCE GAL:
Hates messing with dead links so she always links directly to the homepage of the website she is citing. If there is a development on an old topic she writes a brand new post and links to her old posts on that topic. - THE PRUNER:
Runs occasional checks for dead links and deletes the post. Also deletes posts that have problems to due age or recent developments. - THE PLANNER:
Runs WordTracker before composing his title, decides how to present the post to place strategic keywords in the first and last sentence. Links to source documents with great anchor text. Has blog categories that cluster around the theme of his site. - THE FIXER:
Runs occasional checks for dead links and fixes them. If the link is dead it is fixed or a notation is made that the target document is not available. - THE ROLLOFF:
Keeps six months of posts on his blog. Lets the old ones drop off the bottom. - THE ARCHIVER:
Doesn't like out-of-date topics or dead links so he moves old posts to a special area of his site. - MISS SELF-CONTAINED:
She wants to have all parts of the story covered on her blog so she does extensive research before every post. This cuts the quantity of posts that she can make but each one is a stand-alone source document that presents all aspects of the story and answers all of the readers questions.
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Which one of these styles best describes you? Which is best for SEO? Best for users? I am sure that we will have some disagreement but here are my opinions. If you disagree that's great, but please tell us why you feel differently.
- Best for productivity defined as a lot of posts: Packrat and Low Maintenance
- Best for your visitors: Compulsive Maintainer followed by Self-Contained and Fixer
- Best for developing a reputation in your field: Compulsive Maintainer followed by Self-Contained
- Best for linkability: Self Contained (writes source documents that are authoritative and highly linkable) followed by Compulsive Maintainer (tidy, up-to-date blog makes him an authority)... Packrat is a little slobby and will not get many links
- Best for SEO: Planner followed by Compulsive Maintainer (no dead links, lots of content, links to authoritative sources, probably gets a few natural links) and Self-Contained (because she her thorough and authoritative posting style gets a nice number of links)
- Best for intellectual property management: Compulsive Maintainer and Self-Contained... Rolloff and Archiver are terrible because they ditch content but it is amazing at how many newspaper sites are run this way!
EGOL you're just so funny ;):D
You forgot one:
The RANDIZER: Can do all the positive aspects of the 9 types of bloggers without the disavantages, and still he has time to revamp its website 3 times in a few years while reinventing himself every time. This is a tough breed!
Ten Types of Blog Managers
Uh... I only see 9. I guess I'll add #10, which would be the one I fall under:
10. SET IT AND FORGET IT.
Doesn't have time to blog, but does it anyway because everybody else is doing it. Occasionally posts something worthwhile, but neglects it all together, more often than not.
I would be "The Lazy Bum" since I only post something new about once every two weeks, if that.
I'm this one too :)
Nice post! I submitted it to Netscape and it hit the front page. I'm wondering if you could post how many visitors being on the first page of netscape gave you for this article. Recently Netscape.com has took a tumble in the alexa data, hitting an all time low recently. I submitted this post to Netscape and it hit the front page. Would you mind sharing how many hits / links you recieved from that. I think that information would be very valuable.
Oh yeah.. Concerning your blog article, I tend to manage my blog like the pack rat, but I do go back and redit / add to my old entries every so often and change information / update links!.
Oh if you any of you use Netscape, feel free to add me as a friend and send me a message. I also use digg, reddit, and many others.
Thanks for submitting to Netscape. Looks like it got 24 votes over there so far. I can't tell how much traffic we get but maybe one of the mozzers can let us know.
What day did it make the front page? I checked our referrals for the past several days but didn't see any from netscape.
I submitted it 8 days ago and I think it made the home page for a brief period of time on the day I submitted it. Here is a link that may help.It shows up under "solomonrothman's Homepage Stories" underneath my participation tab on Netscape. I never actually saw it on the front page, but that's what I assume that tab is talking about. That would be pretty sad if it did make the front page, but only sent a negligible amount of traffic.
I checked our analytics and it looks like netscape sent around 100 unique visitors over the past 8 days. It's cool we made the homepage, although apparently netscape doesn't send much traffic. :(
Yeah, Netscape is really SEO friendly. All my SEO submissions did very well on there, much better then on other networks as far as votes. It's too bad the traffic levels seem pretty low.
Maybe i`am a PACK RAT because i`m a beginner in SEO but I believe after joining SEOMOZ and reading more experts tutorial i`ll be the one among those THE PLANNER or THE FIXER, Wish me a good luck
In the initial days I was Pack Rat
It is true that I have also pass through age of compulsive maintainer
I dont think that I ever practices like a low maintenance gal
It is also true that I never tried to delete my posts thinking it is irelevant like thr pruner
The planner was out of sylabus for me
Really now I performs like the fixer and checke the dead links and solve them
Never been like rolloff or archiever
I think need to find or put a new term to descrime my way of blogging than Miss self contained
I am a MISS SELF-CONTAINED, As I conduct research and analysis before writing any topic. But some times I feel lazy to update the past posts. Although I know its a important aspect but I do not find it interesting.
THE FIXER or THE PRUNER for me..
I guess I can co-relate myself to - COMPULSIVE MAINTAINER Blogger.
I feel this post brings up something that has frustrated me with SEOmoz.org. Basically, SEO is a constantly changing technology and some of the 2-3 year old blog entries are no longer relevant. They lack updates, and they have lots of dead links. I know this because I chose to read this blog starting from the oldest and working my way forward. I feel that someone needs to do some of the things you suggested in the "compulsive blogging maintenance" (#2 on the list). I feel SEOmoz.org could benefit from some housekeeping and deleting irrelevant old stuff as well...
Nice article, funny ! i ll probably be the #2
I think the idea of 'blogist' categorization is fun to prompt discussion, but the 'types' seem to perseverate on links. It would be entertaining to speak about the 'blogist' keeping more aspects in mind such as types of links, tone of voice, information vs. humor, participation in other blogs, etc. Don't get me wrong, I give it thumbs up overall- I am just saying one of us can expand on this. Like Todd's blog over at stuntdubl about link ninjas and bait pirates a couple of weeks ago was informative and really hilarious. A great number of people replied because it was relatable and jacose.
I like the idea of an article with a different slant - and what you suggest relates to the "personality" of the blogist, among other things. In the article above I was focused on how the blog is managed. It sounds like you have a lot of ideas. Have you thought of kicking off a post like that in the new YOUmoz area? If you give it a go, I'll chip in.
I don't believe that it really has to do with the type of blog manager you are but by the type of blog or blogs that you run. For example take a look at problogger and at the blogs that he runs. His gadget blogs are written and maintaned in a completely different way compared to his problogger.net. What I mean is that if you are in a niche where speed matters because speed (being the first that posts about it) is what will bring the high profile links you have to be a Pack Rat.
If I had to characterize myself as a blogger I would put me in the Planner category but mostly because I think of Optimizing my blog more than most bloggers (I have created a SE Friendly template, my categories and the post titles are based on keyword research, I am one of the few bloggers that use H tags within the blog post, I am optimizing for images etc ) but because my niche is fast paced I would fit the pack rat category sometimes.
Linkability - EGOL, I agree that sometimes these can be best for linkability, but I also see great numbers of links pointing to sites like Digg, Boing Boing, Search Engine Land, Lifehacker, etc. - these blogs are almost always short posts with links off to the original source.
Also - do you see significant SEO value in watching for dead outbounds on older posts? I recognize that it carries some value, but I never felt that it was as worthwhile to go through old posts and check for dead links as it is to create new content (unless those posts are attracting significant traffic).
Linkability... Yes, Digg, SEL, BB and others get lots of links. But they are best at generating links to the source documents that appear on the sites that they point to. If you build the source documents on your own site then you keep those links for yourself (but this takes tons of work). Then if you are a planner who has done the SEO on those posts from the start, your posts will be rockin' in the SERPS.
Dead Outbounds... I can't say that I know for sure that dead outbounds hurt you, much or at all from an SEO perspective. (can anybody confirm this for us??). But if I was the boss at Google, the algo would have a few points for pages that link to authoritative documents on other sites. If that is in the algo then a link hitting an error page or dead air would not be of much value.
I know it sucks to mention Matt, but he say that sites with dead links are valued less. Overall, it does follow common sense, so fixing links for either of the reasons is good.
P.S.I am definitely everything but a packrat and a planner - I check what I write, how I write, but I don't research keywords and check keyword placement (unless I do it automatically, of course).
I think there is value in watching for dead links. I also think that if a good percentage of a site is linking out to dead sites it can have a nasty effect on you. One reason I because I think Google partially uses the outbound links as well to value your site.
I also think that a large site with a few dead outbound links will not be effected. I think Google can understand this. At one time the site was worth citing but now it is gone. That happens. When half of the sites outbound are dead it gets fishy IMHO.
Thats just my take on it. BTW nice post EGOL. I always enjoy your articles and posts wherever they are. Keep it up.
I'm both #2 and #9.
Someone commented on my blog recently. He said I don't post enough. I answered him and realized for the first time I would rather hace extensive, original content over a heavily update, easy to find anywehre else content.
I would be 1) with some 9) and a bit of 6) once or twice a year :)
I am definitely a Planner and do a good job at it. I want to be the Compulsive Maintainer but sometimes fall into Packrat mode when busy with other things. When I have self contained content, I don't put it on my blog - I put it on the main site.
I would like to be defined as #2 if there was the time to devote to it. Unfortunately, like kid disco, sometimes I have to SET IT AND FORGET IT.
I think that most of this can be directly related to the reason for your blog in the first place.
The alexa data for netscape is low, but there should be at least some referrals. It recieved most of the votes in the first 12 hours after I submitted it, so I imagine the referrals from Netscape should all be around the same time.