How to Write for Subscribers: Rules of Advanced Blogging

Once this blog has reached a critical mass of over 1000+ subscribers it was time to change my writing and content creation strategy.

Indeed I already adapted how I blog before I consciously decided to change my approach. Did my readers notice? What is the difference between blogging for

the social media audience
the casual searchers
your subscribers and returning visitors?

Well, there are plenty. Thus I introduce you to 10 rules of blog writing for your subscriber base:

Do not start at zero each time, follow up!
Be less spectacular and more in depth
Be more niche oriented instead of too broad
Describe advanced techniques not basics
Stay away from topics covered everywhere
Add value to news and new developments
Write shorter posts, which are easier digestible
Spend more time writing, less promoting (you don’t need it anymore)
Be more choosy, 10 are better than 100 resources to sift through
Venture outside the box, surprise your regular readers

In fact regular readers, returning visitors and subscribers have read many of your blog postings already

Regulars know the area you cover and they know you so keep those things in mind in order not to bore your subscriber base.

9 Responses

James Duthie August 27, 2008 at 01:30 ·

Interesting piece Tad. I had noticed the change, particularly the shorter nature of posts. One question for you though – how can you write shorter posts and add more depth at the same time? :)

Perhaps it is possible to write in depth in a succinct manner… but I certainly haven’t mastered it!
onreact August 27, 2008 at 01:36 ·

Imagine the typical social media “huge list” post. My subscribers probably know 50 or 70 of the 100 ways to do sth. Why not focus in depth on the 10, 20 they don’t know? The goal is to keep the old subscribers now not to get more and more via social media success. You can’t by feeding people stuff they know already again and again.
Lid August 28, 2008 at 08:22 ·

Interesting. While I’ve been away for a little while, I’ve watched what you have been doing here and I think you’ve got it worked out – and you’re right – the time has passed for the bulky lengthy blog post daily, it just doesn’t quite fit anymore.

I wonder how long it will take others to realize.

As usual, I’m taking notes and learning tons.

Thanks for this post Tad, and congrats on the subscribers!
onreact August 28, 2008 at 12:28 ·

Thanks for the feedback Lid. The problem is you can’t produce a “bulky lengthy blog post daily”. In recent months I’ve become a a slave to higher, longer, more. While as we all know sometimes less is more.
MOin August 31, 2008 at 21:31 ·

first of all congratulations on breaking 1000 barrier of subscribers people usually say 1000 is the limit which is hard the rest of the increment is way faster than reaching 1k. and i agree with the points you mentioned about writing for subscribers, and what is your view about putting ads into feeds? my personal opinion is that putting ads in feed is really not a good idea your subscriber will get zich because nobody likes too much ads whats your opinion?
onreact September 1, 2008 at 10:43 ·

I’m not sure about that. Ads on blogs do not make much sense, feeds are basically the only place where they will be seen by many. If they fit the topic and fit in the post well they might be a good solution.
MOin September 1, 2008 at 13:25 ·

but for the people having not enough RSS readers ads on posts are the only way to earn i saw many blog (my friend’s) pr4 blogs having less than 200 readers but with the ads on blogs they are earning a good living out of them. so we can say its only good for blogs having more than 1k readers or so?
onreact September 1, 2008 at 18:30 ·

MOin: It depends where you live and what you blog about in which language :-)
blogging from India in english you cold earn a living for your whole family.
Jon September 13, 2008 at 12:53 ·

Thanks for the post, it’s a topic I’ve been thinking about recently. One idea I’ve been playing with is to put “Related articles” links at the bottom of posts. That way new visitors have a way to “catch up on the conversation” but you don’t need to repeat things that existing subscribers already know.

Cheers, Jon