7* Writing for Subscriber Heaven: More of the Same but Better

A stirway leading seeminly to nowhere as if to heaven.

After realizing once again that I don’t like writing for social media as much as I do right now I focused on ways of writing for subscribers and other regular visitors.

In order to fulfill the needs of your regular readers you have to know their main motivation for coming back:

Regular readers want more of the same but better.

This “better” can mean a few things:

  • deeper
  • newer
  • broader
  • easier
  • smarter

There are at least 7 modes of writing for subscribers that propels them to heaven (without killing them):

  1. update
  2. revisit
  3. follow up
  4. collection of similar items
  5. series
  6. column
  7. future outlook

An update is basically taking an old post and either fixing and rewriting it or tackling the same subject matter with the same purpose again after a while.

A revisit is very similar to the update but it’s purpose is more to verify whether what you wrote once still holds true.

A headline like “SEO 2.0 revisited” suggest a return after a while and a reassessment or at least added new insights.

A follow up is simply elaborating on a subject you already covered but which could yield more. Anything that hasn’t been covered completely yet. Also

new developments can make a follow up possible after everything was said before.

A collection of similar items is just a repackaging of a few similar posts in a manner that allows an overview.

When you notice that you cover a particular topic a few times each time adding something you can recontextualize these items in a list post.

A series is made up a 3 or more posts planned in advance. Often one post in a series offers just a part of the whole story. Sometimes each post works for itself but each new one adds more value.

A column is a regular post following a common thread. I write a column for SEOptimise called “Twitter Friday”.

My role model here was one of my favorite green blogs, Inhabitat’s “Prefab Friday”. It’s long gone by now but it worked when prefabs were all the rage.

A future outlook might be one of few things: It might be a preview of upcoming posts. It might cover future trends in your area of expertise.

It might also deal with the overall direction you and your blog is taking. Anything that offer an additional perspective for waht’s coming up might work.

 

All of these modes of writing for subscribers both provide regular readers with more of the same but better and offers positive incentives for coming back to your blog.