Over time, the focus shifted to blog design, general tips, that kind of thing, but I still have a passion for helping experts (and would-be experts!) learn to blog. As a result, I’m going to go back to the basics with this site and turn it into a community site for the consultants and authors.

However, I’ve also learned a few other things while running this blog. One is that most of you are obsessed with getting more traffic to your blogs. Not that I blame you; I want traffic as much as the next person.

Another thing I learned is how much the quality of your theme code affects how much traffic you’ll get. The more I’ve tested this concept, the more convinced I am that it’s one of the most valuable-yet-undervalued things you can do for traffic.

Those two lessons combined with the fact that I’m never going to stop blogging (and designing themes, and testing theories) led me to open up shop at Findable Blogs. There we’ll offer the same design services we have offered here, plus a few more (like blog promotion), and blog about topics (like traffic!) that are of particular interest to individual and small business bloggers.

Once I’ve published this post, I’ll switch the RSS feed to pull from Findable Blogs, and it will be there that I’ll announce the new version of Blogging Expertise when it’s ready. In the meantime, I’d love to have you join us at Findable Blogs and continue the blogging journey together.

Based on the response from Wendy Piersall’s Problogger post, I realized that many bloggers want to use a search engine optimized theme but don’t know how to evaluate the code. I also got many requests to review specific themes. Instead of writing “Best themes for SEO” posts forever, it seemed like a better idea to create a site for this, and that’s the basis of WordPress Theme Review.

The site offers thumbnail images of the theme in use, as well as info on whether or not it supports tags and widgets, if there’s a cost, etc., but the main feature is that each theme is assigned an SEO score (out of 100) that helps the average user know how optimized the theme is.

Bottom line, if you’re interested in getting an off-the-shelf theme (which are usually free or inexpensive), you can easily browse the best WordPress themes for SEO purposes and find one that fits your style and will help you in the search engines.

I’ve had many requests for this feature over the last year or so, and hope you enjoy it!

• Write more “case study” posts. I don’t do this anywhere near often enough, but these posts can be gold for both you and your readers. That’s because a good case study not only answers the question, “Is this for real?” but more importantly, helps the reader answer for himself, “That’s great, but is this something I could do?” Case studies help your readers visualize themselves using your solution.
• Make your readers feel less alone. Ask someone (anyone) what their biggest fears are and chances are “being alone” ranks right up there. By writing about your experience, or writing about your customers’ experiences, or sharing a common fear or concern or joy or question, you help your readers find a connection that they are craving.
• Back up your claims with proof. What kind of proof will vary by what business you’re in; it could be screenshots, or statistics, or quotes, or photos. The ideas is simply to give people a reason to believe what you’re telling them, beyond “because I said so.”
• Be yourself and be honest. It’s more important to get people to care about what you’re saying than to get them to agree. You’re never going to get everyone to agree, anyway. And honesty? Seems like a “duh” suggestion, but there’s always the temptation there to stretch the truth (to look better, to make more money, whatever your motivation is). In the long run, though, your mother was right. Honesty really is the best policy.
• Give your readers a forum to brag. First you give them the information they need to be successful, and then you set up a place for them to talk about how they’re succeeding based on that information. You can use anything from comments to a full blown forum to a membership site to make this happen. Your readers look good because they’re succeeding, and you look good because you helped them get there. It’s a win-win.
• Use anticipation to create demand. People generally have boring lives (I’m sure you’d find my life pretty boring!). Think like a serial novelist or 24 writer and give your readers something to look forward to! Anticipation builds excitement and interest.
• Get your readers invested in your blog by featuring their questions. There’s nothing like being “a contributer” to make someone read and tell their friends.

I hope you find this little summary useful. There were many other thought-provoking ideas–I just focused on the ones that are specifically relevant to blogging–so if you have the time, I highly recommend you read the whole transcript.

Here are three sources of inspiration that I’ve been using recently.

Magazines

The original inspiration for this post came from Copyblogger’s entertaining post about using Cosmopolitan Magazine as a source of headline inspiration. Well, it’s a great technique for headlines, but it also works for whole topics.

I’m not talking about using the headlines verbatim, of course, but they’re good reminders that people like “secrets,” “tricks,” “shortcuts,” surveys, and all of the other checkstand-line standbys. Mentally rework the headlines to talk about your industry, and you’ll be surprised at how much of a framework it creates for your post.

Now, you can spend your days in the supermarket, but for the homebodies, you should take a look at Magazines.com; they have current covers for a huge variety of magazines. That means you can probably find some magazines that have headlines you can use as is, but I think you’re better off finding magazines in totally different industries to use for your inspiration. That’s because most industries tend to develop a certain style, and breaking out of it (just slightly!) can really set you apart.

Helium

Looking for concrete suggestions? What better source than a list of “most wanted” articles? Helium regularly runs contests where they give specific titles, and entrants write the articles. When you consider that Helium’s business model is featuring good content on topics that will bring visitors to their site, it’s clear that they’re going to pick titles that they think will be “search-worthy.” Helium also gives publishers the opportunity to solicit specific articles, and again, this is a great way to come up with market-ready content.

When you’ve written your post, you also have the option to submit it to Helium if you want; just be aware that this might backfire in the long run if Helium’s version of your post comes up before your version in search engine results.

Another similar resource is Associated Content, which operates in much the same way as Helium.

eBay and Amazon

Both eBay and Amazon are organized in very categorical structures. Like the other sources, they’re also market-driven; it’s in their best interest to focus on what people are looking for, so that’s how they organize things and also how they decide what to include or exclude. This means that they’ve done a lot of work for you!

I’ve found the easiest way to use these sites for topic ideas is simply to browse through the categories and drill down to the areas that are most relevant. Whether eBay or Amazon is more useful to you will probably depend on your general topic and style, but in either case, what you’re looking for is the level(s) of categories that fall below your main topic. Use those as jumping-off points and you’ll fill a genuine need in your niche.

What resources do you use to combat blogger’s block?

Because I’m testing, I obviously can’t promise any specific results, and I’ll also be testing one strategy at a time (rather than putting them all together as I will when I’m selling the service) so the impact might vary somewhat. Regardless, you won’t have to change anything you’re currently doing, and you’ll probably get some extra visitors out of the deal.

To qualify, you just need:

• a blog that you’re writing regularly (three or more posts per week, average)
• a specific topic or audience
• willingness to add me to your Google Analytics account (if you have one) or set one up (if you don’t); this is how I’m going to track the results

Interested? Send me an email with the subject line “Blog promotion guinea pig” and a little info about your blog.

The webinar covered a fair amount of ground and was targeted at business and marketing folks (as opposed to techies or bloggers). If you fall in the afore-mentioned categories and are wondering whether to start a blog, the webinar recording would be a very good information-gathering effort. Similarly, if you’re blogging (or want to blog) but need to make a business case to your boss, this is a pretty effective presentation.

Then I couldn’t get into a client blog I was working on. Then I couldn’t get into another of my blogs. In each case, I manually “whitelisted” my IP address in order to get into the admin panel and disable the plugin. Not the end of the world but not very convenient, either.

Naturally, I checked the plugin’s homepage. Nothing. Fortunately, I checked it again this morning and found that a fixed version of the plugin has been released. The cause of the problem was a simple mistake, the kind any developer can make (and the kind we all pray we’ll somehow miraculously avoid!), and the solution is simply to upgrade your plugin.

If you are currently locked out of your admin panel, just upgrade the plugin via FTP (or have your web developer do it) and you should be back in business.

The post is worth reading for its instructive value, but more than that, if you write a post using a variation of a headline he mentioned, he’ll link back to the post. Sounds like a winner of an idea: not only will he help inspire you, but you can get a little extra traffic out of the deal, too.

I’m monitoring the comments there, so if you want me to expand on anything in the interview, just leave a comment there and I’ll answer.