by: AskPat 195 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 195 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Before we get to today's question I just want to say this is so cool because we're only five episodes away. Just one more week from Episode 200 of AskPat. So amazing. I also want to thank everybody who met up with me in Columbus, Ohio. I was actually there to meet up with a number of my team members to plan out the rest of this year and all of 2015. And while there we did a meetup one morning at Stauf's in Columbus, Ohio, which is a coffee shop, and about 20 people came out to meet and talk and hang out, and it was a lot of fun. Thanks to all of you who came out, and I had an amazing time. I hope you did too.
Now let's get to today's question from Uzoma.
Uzoma: Hello? My name is Uzoma, and I would like to know … I'm sorry. First of all my name is Uzoma Izi. I'm sending greetings from South of Nigeria, and I would like to know what it takes to revive a dead blog and increase traffic to that blog. By dead blog, I mean a blog that has no blog on for over eight months. It is not even having traffic in those past eight months. And then you need to bring back the blog back to life. What would it take to bring it back to life, to have ranking on Alexa, and any other details would be appreciated. Thank you.
Pat Flynn: Uzoma, thank you so much for the question and really quick before I go on, please send us your email address. You can send it to [email protected], because you didn't leave it your Speakpipe message and so we can't send you a t-shirt. We'd love to send you one. But, anyway let's get to your question.
So the question is how do you bring back a blog that's sort of … You've walked away from for eight months, and like you said, is sort of a dead blog because that is quite a long time to leave your blog behind. And yes, if you leave your blog for a few weeks or even a couple months, it could still work for you. It could still be beneficial to you. You can still generate more traffic and grow, that's the cool thing about doing this stuff online especially if you write epic, evergreen content stuff that continually gets shared. Stuff that's ranking highly in Google. It can continue to work for you. But eight months is quite a while and that is a lot of time for Google to say “Okay, well this site's dead. It's not relevant anymore for these specific topics,” and it's a long time for your audiences to think about, “Well, why am I subscribed to this site,” or “Wow, they're not here anymore. I'm going to move on to something else.”
So if you want to bring back your dead blog, great. That's awesome. The first thing you have to do before anything is commit. You got to commit to it. You got to commit to yourself and say, “I'm going to be coming back, and I'm coming back for good.” Because the worst thing you could do is say you're going to come back, write a few posts, and then leave it again. I mean that is even worse because people are going to be excited, especially your old subscribers are going to be excited that you come back, and then all of sudden they're going to be let down again even more because you've promised them that you're back, you've gotten them excited and then you never come back again. That's just not good. So the first thing you want to do is commit. Commit to yourself and also think about why you left in the first place. What was it that made you leave? That made you stop blogging? You want to make sure that you don't get to that point again.
Maybe you weren't excited. Maybe you weren't writing about the right topics. Maybe there was something that happened that, in your life perhaps, that made you stop, which is obviously something that happens to us all the time. Well how can you incorporate the blog and the schedule of content creation in your current lifestyle? Make sure that that's possible, and make sure to commit like I said, because you want to give to your subscribers and the people who read and giving a little bit and then not giving any more is the worst thing you could do. But it's great that you want to come back. So that's the first thing is commit. And second thing is just figuring out and making sure you're not going to follow the same pattern again.
The next thing you want to do is just start writing again. I mean that's going to help you get back into the flow of things. Back into your rhythm. And I think the first post that you can write is a post about where you've been, and what you've been up to. Why have you gone missing? Because a lot of people are going to be subscribers that are going to see that post come in their RSS feed, perhaps you have an email list too, and you would definitely want to utilize that email list, and send an email out to your subscribers and say,”Hey, I'm back. Here's a post talking all about where I've been, what's been going through my head.”
And of course, the more honest and upfront you are, the more likely it is that you're subscribers are going to quote, “Forgive you.” And it's not like they hate you because you left. You know we all have things going on in our lives and we move on. But it takes a lot for people to commit back to you. To say “Okay, well I'm going to come back and read your blog because your stuff is good.” But I think if you're honest, and upfront about where you've been, why you left, even if it's just doesn't seem like it matters, it does. Talk about it. Be open. Start to get people engaged and talking about it again, and I think that's going to help you big time when you first start out. It's going to help you decide what it is that first post is going to be because I know a lot of people who have take sabbaticals, or haven't blogged for a while, and they try to start with that epic post. From day one when you come back they try to write the best post they can, just something completely mind-blowing and it's hard and then they give up, and then they don't post it.
Well when you write about where you've been, you know where you've been. Right? So you can just write about that stuff and it's really easy and it'll flow, and gets your creative juices going again. And then as you start writing more and more you can get into that epic content, and it's going to be a lot easier than just starting it on Day One. You want to talk about something you're familiar with, which is where you've been.
I think another thing you could do is reestablish and renew those old relationships that you had with others in your industry. So if there were a lot of people that you used to link to, or who used to link back to you, maybe they don't anymore because you're not there, reach out to them. Send them emails and say, “Hey, Uzomo's back, and I'm here to stay. This is what was going on. Hey, I saw you're still doing well. If there's anything I can do for you let me know. I'd love to guest post on your blog, or maybe you want to come guest post and help me revive the audience and content on my site. I know you've been doing some new things, so come back on my blog. I'll let you post. It'll be awesome, and I'll do something for you too.” Making sure there's a take-and-give type of situation.
So reestablishing those old relationships will go really well. I think if there are people who you were friends with when you were blogging, those people are going to be happy to see you back. There's always room for more bloggers in the blogosphere as long as, obviously, you come at it at your position and your unique selling proposition. What is it that you have to offer everybody else, that nobody else can? Make sure that that's always present in what you do.
I think another thing you want to do is think about, “Okay. You've been gone for a while, you're going to write where you've been, and sort of what's going on in your mind, but what are some of the big topics that perhaps you've noticed that people aren't writing about?” Or maybe big topics or trends that are happening that you've sorted just thought about, but obviously haven't written about yet. Now is the time to write those. Now is the time to create epic content. Not the first one, like I said; you want that just to be your where you've been, sort of get the creative juices flowing. But yes, you want to blow people's mind and reestablish those relationships, but have people can't help but share there's some new stuff that you have coming out, and you want them to say after they read your new post, “Wow. Uzoma's back, and he's back, and he's on fire, and let's just pay attention to him now.”
And I think those are things you can do. So commit. Just start writing again. Obviously making sure you don't do whatever it is you did before to make you stop writing, if that's possible. Email your subscribers, reestablish relationships with others in the industry, and think about those epic evergreen mind-blowing pieces of content that you can write and give to your audience, your future audience that will help show them that you're back.
So Uzoma I hope that question, or I hope that answers your question. I really appreciate it. For those of you listening if you have a question you'd like featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can get a t-shirt if you get your question featured here on the show which is awesome. We've been getting a lot of tweets, and emails of people wearing the shirts which is great. I always love those. Those make me smile big time. So if you've listened to the show and you've gotten featured before, and you haven't sent me your picture, please send it or tweet it out @PatFlynn. No sponsor in today's episode, but I want to thank you again for spending time with me today. If I could give you one call to action that would be head on over to iTunes and leave a review. That would be really awesome and very helpful.
And lastly, as always, I like to end with a quote. And this is a quote by my good friend Chris Brogan. Love this quote. He says, “Don't settle. Don't finish crappy books. If you don't like the menu, leave the restaurant. If you're not on the right path, get off it.” Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat.