What’s Your Point? — Thoughts on My RESNET Conference Talk

Because of this blog, I’ve sharpened my powers of observation by several orders of magnitude. I thought I was a pretty good observer before, with my background in physics, but writing as much as I have these past two years has changed me. I’m always looking at the things around me, stuff I see online, everything people say, dreams, soup cans, potholes, a memory from something that happened ages ago—in other words, everything that comes into my mind—and trying to fit pieces together and see how it might turn into something new for the blog or for my teaching.

I’ve been doing a lot of preparing for the RESNET conference this week. I’m giving only one talk this year, Internet Marketing 101, which I have the honor of co-presenting with my great friend Peter Troast of Energy Circle. I’ll be showing how I created website traffic with our blog and social media and turned that traffic into leads and name recognition for Energy Vanguard. He’ll be focusing on some of the other aspects, especially Google Places.

Here’s a little preview of what I’ll say about blogging.

Blogging Rule #1: Learn to observe.

I write a lot. I’ve published over 300 articles in the past two years, most of them written by me, but just having lots of content online isn’t the key. It’s getting content that people want to read on your website that matters. When I say that observing is rule #1 for blogging, I’m referring to more than just observing the world around you and writing about it. I’m talking about observing how peope to react to it as well. I’m obsessive about watching traffic for our articles, but I also look at how many comments they get and the links they get from other websites.

Blogging Rule #2: Be proactive.

I promote our articles a lot on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I try not to overdo it, but the social media link has been indispensable in expanding our reach. I’ve also learned a lot and made a lot of great contacts, some of whom I consider friends even though we’ve never met IRL (in real life).

Blogging Rule #3: Be responsive.

I also try to respond to as many comments as I can here. Sometimes I get too busy and don’t respond, but I think that the discussions I’ve had with readers in the comment section has been one of the most important, and unanticipated, benefits of writing the blog.

Blogging Rule #4: Drop expectations.

Every blogger I’ve talked with about this says the same thing: There’s just no way to predict consistently which articles will do well and which won’t. I’ve written plenty of articles that I expected would get lots of traffic or lots of comments or lots of links or all of the above, and I’ve been proven wrong a great many times. I’ve also written articles that I just dashed off to get something out there and received the pleasant surprise of seeing them take off. If I knew exactly what it takes to write winners, that’s all I’d write.

Blogging Rule #5: Just write!

It’s OK to publish articles that aren’t perfect. In fact, if it weren’t no one would be blogging. Yes, you have to be careful what you say when you’re offering criticism or whose products you show in your photos. It’s also good to get things right or some of the tough guys from Building Science Fight Club might come after you.

Sometimes I fight with articles. I also usually revise them a lot, even after they’re published. Occasionally I have a great idea, the article just pours out of my fingers, and it’s a big hit. Other times, I’ll start an article not knowing what I want to write about. I try to keep asking the question, What’s the point? That helps me get unstuck sometimes and make the article useful for readers. I don’t like to publish ramblings with no point to them.

As they say, though, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I think seeing our traffic, especially from organic search, go from almost nothing to through the roof in less than two years has made this whole experiment a success, despite the terrible case of monkeymind I have now.

Now, I wonder how I might work Downton Abbey into a building science article. The Dowager Countess and the building science aristrocracy? How to ventilate a 50 bedroom mansion? Hmmmm. Let me think about that.

If you’re going to be at the RESNET conference next week, come hear our talk and learn a lot more about this. It’s on Tuesday, 28 February at 1:30 pm. If not, we’ll make the presentation available afterwards.