It’s painfully easy to believe that there’s nothing new on the internet.
A vignette of adorable, striped clothing we can’t afford ? Seen it. 
A numbered list of ways you can improve something? I WRITE THOSE ALL THE TIME. 
Interviews? Dur. A bunch of curated links? Hell, I tell all my clients to do that (because those posts are incredibly effective.) 

But occasionally I stumble over something new and head-turning on the internet. Something that makes me think “Well, aren’t you clever?!  I think you might have just reinvented the wheel! Or at least framed something in a particularly awesome and new way.”

And then I add those blog posts to a folder titled ‘non-boring post inspiration.’

If you’re looking for a bit of motivation, or just some reassurance that blogging is more than product roundups and personal essays, look no further. Here are 7 I’ve-never-seen-that-before blog posts that might suit you and your blog, too.

1. Taking stock

Posted by: Pip of Meet Me At Mike’s
Why it’s innovative: It’s community-building and meme-worthy. Lots of bloggers create posts that consist of their Instagram accounts or occasionally tell us what books they’re reading, but Pip’s 36-item list gives her readers an easy to digest but close look into her life - which readers usually love! It’s short, easy to read, and oddly fascinating. It’s also totally meme-worthy and I could see lots of other bloggers using this template and linking back to her.

Your spin on it: If you write a topic-specific blog you could create a list like this for you and your readers! If you’re food blogger it could be things like: currently eating, new recipe I’m trying, seasonal food I can’t wait to stock up on, latest kitchen purchase, cookbook I’m currently obsessed with, super unhealthy thing I love. You get the idea!

2. Links visually arranged by theme

Posted by: Brittany of The House That Lars Built
Why it’s innovative: This is really just a link roundup (and you know how I feel about those) but it’s been framed in a fun, thematic way. Readers are much more likely to click on those links and showcasing other bloggers’ work in such a pretty, professional way is incredibly flattering.

Your spin on it: Wouldn’t this be a cute, click-catching way to arrange links for a topic-specific blog? If you’re a beauty blogger, you could round up DIY beauty treatments for hair, face, hands, and feet. If you’re a fashion blogger, you could round up accessories for head, ears, neck, wrists, and feet.

3. The world’s shortest, most engaging travel post

Posted by: Amber of Code for Something
Why it’s innovative: It’s a short, engaging way to catalog memories of a specific time + place and share your travels (without boring your readers). If you’ve ever returned from a long, exciting trip and tried to tell your friends about it, you know that people have a verrrrrrry short attention span for travel stories. They weren’t there. They don’t care about squat toilets. The same goes for blog readers. They probably just want to see your photos and read the extremely abridged, bullet-pointed version of the trip. This post communicates novels of insight in just a few words.

Your spin on it: Tune into your senses when you’re someplace new. And then (succinctly) tell your readers about it.

4. A visual link roundup for an imaginary event

Posted by: Kelly at Design Crush
Why it’s innovative: Again, it’s pretty much a link roundup, but it’s organized in a gorgeous way that’s helping readers accomplish something specific. Like, lots of readers probably saw this and thought “Oh, me too! I’ve been wanting to throw an appetizer party! And lo, now I have all the resources!”

Your spin on it: You could do this with just about anything - recipes, products, and resources that will help your readers plan an awesome camping trip. A roundup of useful things that would help someone with a cross-country move. A collection of things for new moms. Possibilities = endless.

5. 10-second video tour (using still photos) 

Posted by: Designsponge*
Why it’s innovative: We’ve all seen video tours of spaces or photo tours, but this is the first time I’ve seen still photos turned into a mini-video! It’s great for those of us with short attention spans and it’s a fantastic way to showcase something even if you’re not a super experienced videographer.

Your spin on it: The possibilities are endless: A tour of your space! Super simple DIYs! Recipes!

6. Audio-ified posts

Posted by: Esme Wang
Why it’s innovative: Everyone and their brother has a podcast, but what about blog posts? If you’re an aural learner, dyslexic, or you like to cook and clean while absorbing lovely content, the audio versions of blog posts are super useful. It would be particularly fun to listen to blog posts read by your favorite bloggers who have regional accents!

Your spin on it: I’m not sure there’s a way to spin this - just give it a try! Maybe go through your archives, make audio versions of your best stuff, and then tell your Twitter friends to check out your new and improved blog posts.

7. Glorious promotional Instagram photos

Posted by: Elise Blaha of Elise Joy
Why it’s innovative: Obviously, this isn’t so much a blog post as a way to promote blog posts - but it sure is clever, isn’t it? I’ve struggled to find ways to promote blog posts on Instagram, usually settling for one of the photos I use in the post. Which isn’t particularly engaging. This is so much more interesting!

Your take on it: Think about how you can use handwriting, actual photos, post its, tape, or even gift tags to create images that promote posts.

What are some of the most interesting, unusual blog posts you’ve seen lately? Leave links in the comments!

P.S. Did you know that when you sign up for my newsletter and send me your URL, I’ll give your site a once over and send you three, specific-to-you suggestions to make your online space more polished, trafficked, and money-making?

photo by death to stock photo

“Shut UP. What? I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. UGH. My online life will now be divided into Before I Figured That Out and After.”

These are the sorts of things that you want to say over a coffee with a fellow self-employed type. So let’s spend the next five minutes pretending we’re at Nina’s (in that weird little elevated section with the two chairs) nursing our lattes. Imagine me leaning in and telling you the little, surprisingly effective tweaks I’ve been using, with awesome results.

1. Adding P.S.’s to my blog posts
Like other things I suggest to clients, I realize this sounds like a copout. BUT IT TOTALLY ISN’T. Adding a P.S. is a proven copywriting strategy and it’s a great way to integrate internal links to related content. I know a lot of people use plugins that automate related posts but
a) those create more visual clutter than I’m interested in
b) they don’t show up in RSS feeds, where 90% of my readers are

And when you go a’ searching for those old related posts, use it as an opportunity to optimize, beautify, and re-promote ’em.

2. Relabeling every photo I download and use in a post
I have lots of sources for photos - YAY, Unsplash, Flickr Creative Commons (sorted by ‘most interesting’) - and when I download them, they’re frequently titled something like “177nadlid01.jpg.”  Which, shockingly enough, is not very SEO-friendly.  So if it’s a photo of a Florida tiki bar, I title it that way. That means my photos are much more likely to show up in Google image searches, which leads to more traffic, and (hopefully) more sales.

3. Using images in my Twitter feed
Every time I publish super visual blog posts (like my Real Life Style Icon interviews, Mini Travel Guides, or anything food-related) I take the time to create a Twitter-specific graphic to include in my tweet. It increases click through by a lot (super specific measurement) and helps your tweets stand out in a sea of mundane updates and hashtags.

As a head’s up, make sure you resize your photos to 440×220, or you could end up with an awkwardly auto-cropped photo.

What little things are you doing that are making a big difference? Share your insights in the comments!

P.S. Did you know that when you sign up for my newsletter and send me your URL, I’ll give your site a once over and send you three, specific-to-you suggestions to make your online space more polished, trafficked, and money-making?

Wouldn’t it be lovely to network with talented people, bond with your readers, and create content that people look forward to?

Well, dur. Do cats like treats served on chopsticks?

Last week we talked about the oddly powerful link roundup post (networks in a non-gross way! introduces your readers to helpful things! reinforces your brand!) This week we’re talking about some best practices to create link posts that your readers will really, really love.

1. Find good links
Obviously, right? If you read blogs in an RSS feed (which I so, so highly recommend) it’s super easy to create tags and star the posts you’ll link to. If you read blogs the old fashioned way, you can simply save good posts to your favorites folder.  If you blog about something incredibly specific (bikes, vegan food, toddlers) you can use a service like Curata to help you find and curate links that are helpful to your niche audience.

2. Use affiliate links carefully and judiciously
Link posts are a great place to use affiliate links in a non-hit-you-over-the-head-with-it manner. Of course, make sure you’re linking to products you actually stand behind and companies whose policies you support. You’re legally required to include a disclaimer that outgoing links may lead to commissions for you. My disclaimer is in the footer of my blog, next to my copyright info.

3. When you link to people, @mention them on social media
If you’re including someone in a link post, @mention them so they know you’re talking about them!  They’ll appreciate the publicity and it could be the first step in a great relationship. True story: I landed one of my biggest on-retainer clients by linking to her. Once.

4. @mention the writer, not the publication
If you’re linking to a post on a big website (Salon, HuffPo, etc) @mention the writer, rather than the site. Most big news sites have hundreds of thousands of followers and they won’t even notice your tweet. But if that writer has 500 followers, she’ll totally notice (and appreciate) that you linked to her and introduced her to your followers.

5. Personalize + individualize your tweets

See the difference?  The former is waaaaay better because
a) It shows the people you’re linking to which post you’re talking about
b) It gives a sneak peak into the content so your Twitter followers will want to click that link
c) It caters to the ego, showing the people you’re linking to that you think they’re special (Awwww!)

6. When necessary/possible include quotes
I pretty frequently link to ‘long reads’ on obtuse topics - like this post on TED’s slow deterioration. I could just type “Do you think TED is going down the tubes?” but for longer, more complex articles, I like to include a pull quote. Like this:
I was at a presentation that a friend, an astrophysicist, gave to a potential donor. I thought the presentation was lucid and compelling (and I’m a professor of visual arts here at UC San Diego so at the end of the day, I know really nothing about astrophysics). After the talk the sponsor said to him, “you know what, I’m gonna pass because I just don’t feel inspired …you should be more like Malcolm Gladwell.”
At this point I kind of lost it. Can you imagine?
Think about it: an actual scientist who produces actual knowledge should be more like a journalist who recycles fake insights! This is beyond popularisation.

7. Get all design-y (if you want to)
I keep my link posts quite spare but there are several bloggers who do pretty, design-y link posts. Particularly Design Crush and Coco + Kelley. 

8. Use this as an opportunity to link to some of your archived posts
I like to close out my link posts with ‘Some Yes and Yes posts you might have missed’ and link to three or four of my favorite old posts. This is also a great time to improve those old posts before you send them new traffic - swap in new, Creative Commons images, add text to the photo, SEO-ify the title, and format them to be more readable.

9. Link to your other social media accounts
I post my ‘fave read of the day’ each day on Twitter (handily organized under the #yandy hashtag) so I make sure to tell my readers that if they appreciate my taste in links, I share more every night on Twitter. It’s another way I can promote good content and befriend some fantastic writers.

Whew!  That was awkwardly exhaustive. Do you guys have any other questions about link posts? Or tips of your own to share?

Three years ago, while sitting on a bed in Malaysia, I inadvertently created one of my most popular post series.

I’d been traveling for six months and was working eight hours a day for one of Malaysia’s leading women’s magazines.  Between all that writing and my very busy schedule of drinking Pimm’s by the pool, I didn’t have much time or creative energy to devote to high-quality posts.  I was concerned that readers would leave my blog if I didn’t post regularly, so I assembled a post that consisted of links to cool things I found around the internet.

I cobbled it together, titled it ‘Web Time Wasters’, and posted it - expecting little traffic and not much response.

And the opposite happened.

Oddly, people loved it!  I could see that it got a lot of traffic and a surprising number of comments. Since I posted it on Sunday (a traditionally ‘slow’ day on the internet) my readers were thrilled to have an hour’s worth of fun, curated reads for their Sunday morning. And I’ve been posting ‘Web Time Wasters’ each Sunday since then.

Readers regularly tell me that my link roundups are their favorite on the internet (thanks?) and that those posts are their internet equivalent to reading the Sunday paper. Which is so nice! Occasionally, I find the whole thing a bit demoralizing. I write a post about working in a refugee camp that gets five comments, but a roundup of 15 links to funny cat videos and travel tips gets 12 comments.  Ah, well!

But it’s hard to argue with traffic and results. For me, these link posts have resulted in:
* Two big-deal on-retainer clients
* New sponsors
* Thousands of dollars in affiliate sales
* New internet friendships with heaps of cool people
* Introducing my readers to talented bloggers + helpful products I think they should know about

Why should you be creating link roundups?

1. They’re a great, non-sleazy way to network
I’m not particularly ‘strategic’ about who I link to.  When I find something I like, I link to it - regardless of the site’s size. But! If there’s a blogger or company you’d really like to partner with, including them in your link roundup is a great way to (begin to) get on their radar.

2. It’s good karma
If you’ve got traffic, it’s nice to send it someone’s way. It’s also a great way to ‘be the change you want to see in the internet’ (to paraphrase Gandhi.) When you link to and promote thoughtful, kind content you’re reinforcing what you think is important and the kind of content you want out in the world.

3. It’s a non-annoying way to incorporate affiliate links
I, like most bloggers, am part of an affiliate network - you can see the disclaimer in the footer on Yes and Yes. But because I don’t write much about fashion or beauty products (the items most commonly sold through affiliate links) there aren’t many opportunities for me to make money that way. My link roundups are a genuine, non-annoying way for me to link to cute dresses and good books in a way makes sense - and make an extra $150 a month.

4. Link roundups ‘reinforce your brand’
This is something I didn’t realize I was doing until a client pointed it out to me. “You like fun, silly things but you’re also interested in current events, literature, feminism, and cultural stuff - and that’s obvious from the links you choose.”  Well, thanks!  While it certainly wasn’t my intent to do this, I can see what she’s saying. Looking through the links I choose is an easy way to see what’s important to me - and if you’re someone who’s interested in those things too we’re better, closer internet friends.

5. It establishes you as an expert and a curator of awesome stuff
If you write about a specific topic (healthy living, homeschooling, living in small spaces) link roundups are a great way to introduce your readers to helpful, useful information. And every time you do that, they appreciate it and (maybe) think “Why, that Sheryl sure knows a thing or two about green juices!” or “Dana knows where all the good stuff is! If she’s this knowledgeable, I should probably hire her!”

Crazy, right? All benefits from a post full of stuff that YOU DIDN’T EVEN WRITE. Stay tuned next week for some link roundup best practices!

Do you ever do link posts? How do you feel about them?

P.S. if you’d like more of this type of instantly implementable, traffic-boosting advice you might like my Clever Sessions!

Want your own (free) copy of this book? Sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send it along as a thank you!

Remember how I wrote about why having a personality on the internet is good for business? Well, it was in support of an awesome ecourse and the creators were kind enough to gather all the related posts into a beautifully designed free ebook!  And if you’d like to sign up for my small business newsletter, I’d love to share a copy with you.

Some of the things covered in Inside Secrets For New Coaches + Creatives?

• How to jump into business even if you don’t feel ‘ready’
• 4 creative ways to stand out
• How to discover your passion and earn more than money
  
• 5 actions you can take today today to start having more fun and get more done
• Brand consistency lessons from the school of hard knocks
• How to stand by your rates

Also! I’ve been hoarding sooooo many good links for you guys.  As much as it pains me to admit it, there are people all over the internet who are just as (re: more) clever and helpful than I am.  Here are some of their posts.

I never thought I’d like a book that uses a boxing metaphor for a title, but here we are. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is an insanely helpful book and you can get lots of insight into the ideas behind it and its author in this podcast.

If you’re a maker/designer/crafter/etc, I’d be remiss in my duty as your internet friend if I didn’t tell you about Designed To Sell.  Of course, I love everything Chris Guillebeau does (who doesn’t?) and this course isn’t any different. It helps you figure out what products to create, how to connect with the right people, and how to sell your work and make it sustainable.  Good stuff!

What’s user-generated content?  It’s photos of customers using your products (which you should be putting in Facebook photo albums) USG will be hot this year - particularly on Instagram.

Why successful habits are about structure not habit:
The idea is to start with something really, really small and let it grow into a bigger habit or routine. You could write your goal as “go the the gym.” Not “stay at the gym for an hour,” but just “get to the gym.” Put on your workout clothes. It’s not that you have to run five miles; what matters is that you just get your running shoes on three times a week. In a month or two months, you’ll be running as far as you want to run. That consistency ends up trumping everything else that you can do with goal setting.
The structure matters. People put all of this effort into optimization and research, but honestly everything we see about success rate says that the most important thing is to structure your goals so you can be consistent.

Yessss!  The art of the email subject line. 

Not sure if you should post that thing to social media? Here are five questions to ask yourself before you do.

Well, this is fancy.  Slide.es is a beautifully designed alternative to Powerpoint.

I really appreciated Grace’s take on the changes in the blogging world in her State of the Blog Union post.
* With shorter reader attention spans, we can post smaller-scale updates that allow us to be more informal and operate in a more real-time world.
* Without the structure of planning content and ad campaigns a year ahead of time, we were now free to test out new columns, pursue content only when it interested us and try things out for short periods of time.
* With reader engagement spread across different platforms it means each of our team members can find a way to connect with our community in a way that suits them best.
* With all of these new makers and voices popping up left and right, we’re able to discover more inspiring people and content- and start new collaborations- on a daily basis.

This is a great pep talk to give yourself or a friend when you’re feeling tired, rundown, or about to flake out.

A very, very good reminder: 19 hard things you need to do to be successful.

What amazing things have you read recently?  Leave links in the comments!