It's only fun when it goes wrong, right?! I think so...
[This is part of the Developing Great Blog Content Series.]
Last night I had something that happens quite often: In an obviously-hurried email, one of our community members emailed me asking for some assistance since he had “messed” up some code on his theme which resulted in a nuclear meltdown of the blog itself.
The blog wouldn’t load and all it produced was one line of scary code that told him where the problem was. Not exactly the best thing to happen before you go to bed, right?
I asked him for his FTP access, let him know that I’d charge for my time, and quickly fixed it in less than 15 seconds. Problem solved and disaster averted!
He was safe and sound (although a bit burnt) and said this explicitly:
Like I said. I’m not touching anything else again!
To which I quickly replied:
I think it’s good to experiment… I think the lesson here is to always make a backup before you make any change… simply copying the file is the first step!
I can't tell you how many of these I've done!
And it quickly inspired this blog post to share with you that one of the key ingredients to success is simply this: Experimentation.
Here are 5 reasons why this is both a powerful and necessary part of a successful blog from not only a content perspective but also one of design and development:
- It’ll challenge you to try new things, many of which could vastly increase the value and engagement with your readers. You would never have known if it could “work” if you hadn’t tried! Trial and error is extremely valuable with your blog and without making mistakes (and then learning from them) you will never reach your full potential as a blogger.
- It teaches you to blog better since it’ll stretch your thinking about the what, the why, and the how of blogging. It’ll challenge you to think differently about the methods, which are constantly changing. It’ll keep your content fresh, exciting, and on the “edge” of where you need to be.
- It’ll help you decide on the absolutely necessary parts of your blog (design, features, content) and the ones that are truly superficial and unnecessary. Experimentation can provide justification for elements in simple terms: Value.
- Experimentation is one of the best ways to know if you’re even being successful! By doing something different you provide a comparative perspective on your existing goals and metrics. For example, if you’re getting 200 views a day and you’ve met your goal and you think you’re doing well, what happens if you try something different, experiment perhaps, and you double your traffic in one day? You thought you were killing it when you were holding yourself back!
- It’ll make you a leader and authority within the space and niche that you’re targeting. Everyone’s doing this thing called “blogging” but what apparently separates those that make it “big” and those that live in the land of mediocrity are those that experiment the most. I see this time and time again.
Those are just 5 that I thought of within moments of crafting this post and I’ve already thought of 3 more, but I’ll save them for later!
But, I want to hear from you! How have you seen the element of experimentation help you become more successful? What’s stopping you?
[This is part of the Developing Great Blog Content Series.]
A great idea John, I plan on trying new things out as I go along. Including being challenge to do Video Blogs.
If you try something new, what would you say is the time frame to try it out before quitting if you see no fruit from it?
That is a great question, GfH! Curious to see John’s response.
who are you mr. candy? just curious.
that depends on your metrics for success, which need to be researched and then executed on.
For example. Let’s say your goal is to increase the time on your blog by 30 seconds. You then begin to release 3 times a week a 90 second video clip that produces high-value insight into X niche.
After a month (and 12 posts) you then review and see that you have, indeed, increased the amount of time per visitor. you win.
So, as you can see, it depends on your metrics.
Finally, it also depends on your interest in the new experiment. maybe you really like it…! then keep doing it.
I’ve some ideas that I’m wanting to try. Like Greek just mentioned, video blogs would be pretty cool. That’s in the plan. But along with that, I’m working on several different ways to put my music and press kit on my blog in a way that is very easy to find and navigate to. But without taking it to the point of junking up my site like advertisements that people plaster on their pages without thought.
That’s my experiment for now.
sweet! show us a before and after!
FTW, John!
I’ve seen that white screen with one line of code many of times while playing with code.
Breaking things is a great teacher.
breaking things is what i do! did it today… again with my server….
We call that ‘tinkerin’ in these parts…
both! i love to tinker.
I’m curious how much 15 seconds of your time costs
Probably a gajillion dollars.
I also love this post. Tinkering and experimenting is how I pretty much learned everything useful or practical about technology and blogging.
I’m a serial rip-off artist. I see something implemented on another blog and immediately try to see if I can incorporate it into one of my own platforms. Half the time I don’t like the result, but every time it’s a useful learning experience.
Learning experience = #WIN
definitely! my time is costly, but i tell people up front about it. they either say yes or no.
but… i do love to help people. that’s my passion!
Experimentation is a great way to learn for sure. The more traffic I generate, the more I don’t really like down time and broken things on my main site though. So I started a “junk” domain and set it up with the same theme, plugin configuration, CSS and stuff as my primary site. When I want to try a new change that I’m not sure will work technically (‘cuz I’m no developer), I test it out over on the dummy site first so I’m not breaking my main site. It gives me the opportunity to trouble shoot and stay relaxed instead of the cold sweat of trying to trouble shoot while my main site is down.
that, my friend, is a great and healthy idea. love it. i hope others read this comment!
Read it. Loved it! Great idea!
Wow….cool idea. Never thought of that one.
Can be a lot of extra time and effort, but it’s definitely worth it to keep your site from going down. And, always backup always!
;0 yup!
I very much agree with you – I got this “sandbox” idea from our salesforce development “sandbox” – a way to test new apps before we mess up our production line. Now I have “sandbox” replicas of all our sites and blogs for the same reason – to tinker!!
i love tinkering. this is one of my strategies! … same difference as experimentation!
This story is about me!! yaaaay!! hahahah……Well last night I wasn’t quite so happy, of course. It was a serious nuclear meltdown of my blog. Here’s one question I have for John and/or anyone else. How can I safeguard myself against a future meltdown? What are some strategies to protect my blog when I’m “tinkering”? Perhaps a future blog post on the topic?
By the way, what in the world happened with all the subscribers? I think last time I looked it was in the 700′s and now “boom” it’s in the 1700′s. Crazy. And cool.
If constant uptime is critical for your site, it’s a good idea to have a local version (only on your computer, not online) where you can test updates first. Then, once you have all the kinks worked out, make the same changes on the live server. If nothing else, peace of mind goes a long way!
Also, learning as much as you can about your server, or having very responsive tech support from your host, can help when the unthinkable happens.
hah! not sure there could have been any more “quickness” with which rodlie got a hold of me. that was lucky… i was in between projects.
thanks rodlie for letting me use this great example and inspiration for a post!
John,
Keep pushing man! Sharing your knowledge and strategies is more helpful than you know.
Blessings!
sure thing dewitt! what are you experimenting on these days?
Currently….GOOD Everyday. Since October 1 I have donated $1 to an individual or organization. The goal is to share the story about how much good can be done with little resources.
I’ll be doing a virtual tour of every state and jurisdiction alphabetically starting tomorrow. The focus is organizations serving the next generation. Need referrals for Alaska.
wow. that’s… insane!
Yep! I’m a obsessive experimenter when I take the time. I learn best by trial and error. I also usually see things, blog included, as an unending, ongoing process of development. I’m never completely satisfied.
that, my friend, is a good and bad thing!
You got that right! :-\
I would like to see you do a post on backing up your blog and restoring it when you do have a meltdown.
trevor,
now i use vaultpress for backup, but i could do a series of posts on backing up.
Interesting. I just went to the site and applied for “one of the golden tickets”!
sweet!
I love to experiment. To me it’s the best form of education. It’s one thing to read about it and something totally different to attempt to do it. Sometimes you fail, sometimes you win but regardless you ALWAYS learn.
couldn’t agree more. i document a lot, which helps with the learning process.