I’ve admired Seth Godin since I first launched my business. He’s a genius marketer as well as a fantastic writer. After all, the Seth Godin blog is one of the most sought-after blogs on the internet.
I’ve read several of Seth’s books, followed his ted talk, as well as seen him in many interviews over the years.
Though many consider him to be one of the greatest marketers, he has enough to teach us about blogging.
Let’s take a look at ten of them.
Lessons From The Seth Godin Marketing Blog
1. Write A Blog Post Every Day
Seth described his blogging ritual during an interview a few years back.
Seth writes a blog post every day, and every post throws some light into the world of entrepreneurship, productivity, and innovation.
It may be as short as a paragraph or as long as two pages. That’s so much content creation to keep up with, and it’s at a breakneck pace.
How does he manage to do this?
He writes every day…
However, he could create one or ten blog posts a day. He then adds these other posts to the queue or template. Queuing helps him to swap out posts he doesn’t care about for the ones he loves.
2. Write As If You’re Speaking To Someone
The trick to writing the way you speak is a strategy that Seth and I have in common, as do many popular bloggers.
There are some artists that say that they can compose only when the muse hits them. Since no one needs the inspiration to speak, you wouldn’t have to wait until the muse hits to write something.
As Seth says it – if you wake up in the morning and you are unable to speak, then you need to visit a doctor.
Writing as though you’re talking will make your writing conversational and easy to understand. You simply jot down whatever comes to your mind.
3. Using Blog As A Test Bed For New Ideas
One thing that is worth mentioning about KISS Investments is having the ability to share ideas in a controlled environment and see how my readers respond. If the response is positive, I will go ahead with the idea. Otherwise, I’ll adapt the idea or abandon it entirely.
This is the concept of blogging as a minimum viable product.
Blogging is a low-cost method to find out if a concept has legs. The same can be said of the Seth Godin blog, where he drops ideas and sees what resonates with his audience.
4. Blogging, Fine Tuning, Experimenting, And Repeating
For creating blog content, the traditional approach is to analyze patterns, look at what your competitors are up to, come up with hybrid concepts, and, most importantly, make sure that your readers get what they are looking for.
None of this applies to Seth Godin’s blog.
Instead, he’s built a presence that draws people in over the course of time. He’s taught himself to just keep writing, analyze what resonates with people, explore, prune, and repeat the work until something catches people’s attention.
He goes through the same process over and over again.
5. Not To Watch Television Or Attend Meetings
Seth has mentioned in his blog that he never watches television, which is a deliberate decision he has made in his life.
He doesn’t put any effort into it.
Instead, he works on his blog.
He also says that he is the worst at attending meetings. Some people hold meetings for five hours. If you cut it out, you’ve already added five hours of productivity.
It’s difficult to imagine a popular entrepreneur and speaker such as Seth never joining a meeting. Yet, he has a different take on this subject as seen in the book “Read This Before Our Next Meeting” that was released through his publishing company. He quotes that meetings are usually used by a group of people to discuss issues they need to tackle.
However, if you need something to be completed, you just need to speak with one person…and that isn’t a meeting but a conversation.
Seth admits to having a lot of conversations with people during the day, but he makes sure that each interaction achieves something specific.
6. You Won’t Succeed If You Don’t Ship Your Product
His attitude toward shipping products is another testament to his high productivity. This means releasing the product into the market as soon as possible.
In a fast-food joint, for example, you are compensated for preparing hamburgers. You will not be paid if you do not finish preparing hamburgers.
Plumbers work the same way. They are compensated for unclogging pipes. They are not paid until the pipes are unclogged.
Even bloggers, need to put out content. So, Seth advises you to get good at shipping it.
7. Figure Out What Excites You To Get Up In The Morning
As you would have expected, he does not believe in blogging full-time to make money. If that’s the case, you aren’t passionate about blogging; you just have another job.
As a result, you must ask yourself, “What motivates me to get out of bed? What do I enjoy doing the most?”
You must determine what motivates you in order to be a good blogger. According to Seth, another aspect to consider is: “Are you prepared to work hard and push yourself?”
The secret to being the best at anything you do is to start off on a smaller scale.
Becoming the best orthodontist is much easier than becoming the best dentist in the world.
The first is an example of a niche specialization that helps you to become extremely proficient at it through continuous practice. The other is too broad that it could take a whole lifetime to master even a small part of it… and there’s a good chance you won’t make it!
If you are striving to be the best SEO blogger in the world, you should concentrate on a specific aspect of SEO, such as link building.
To be the greatest entrepreneur in the world, you must choose a specific industry to master. This is what Henry Ford was able to do with automobiles.
His goal was not to be the greatest in transportation. Instead, he was trying to focus on automobiles and get really good at them.
That’s precisely what he was able to accomplish.
8. Stay Away From Twitter And Comments
If there’s one thing you can tell about Seth Godin, it’s that he’s productive.
What is the trick?
He doesn’t spend time on Twitter and he doesn’t allow others to comment on his blog.
He stays away from Twitter since he thinks he’d be terrible at it. Twitter’s power users devote quite a lot of time to building a following, finding good content to post, and promoting other people.
Seth claims he isn’t very good at it…or prefers not to do it.
He avoids comments since he doesn’t want to get into the rabbit hole that they can lead to. He doesn’t want to be disturbed or burdened by rants because he knows he can get easily distracted by them.
Seth does agree, however, that the comments can help in clarifying and sharpening the ideas. But it seems to be an improper use of time for Seth. He thinks that it is an excuse to be occupied while not really doing anything, which is not a good option.
9. Pay Attention To Detail
If you’ve ever wondered where all his thoughts and ideas come from, here’s something you need to know. He is perceptive and pays attention to detail.
For example, if he observes something unusual, he will try to reason and dig deep into it. This could lead to an insight that he might share through his blog.
This is applicable to everyone. If you’re going about your business and encounter a difficult problem, try to solve it.
If you don’t have time to fix it right away, jot down your thoughts and take a look at it later. When you don’t do something about the idea and it stays with you for a long time, you know you need to revisit it.
Then it’s worthwhile to work on the idea and implement it.
10. Create Content For Your Audience Rather Than For Making Money
You’d be mistaken if you assumed that Seth blogs for earning money or for increasing his net worth. He is opposed to the notion of selling products or attempting to monetize his blog.
He doesn’t mind if it makes money, such as through speaking engagements or book deals. But he insists on bloggers being passionate about their work rather than just doing it for the money.
Moreover, he believes that people can face problems when they consider their blog to be a sales funnel or a product that can be packaged and sold.
What is the reason for this?
It’s virtually impossible to create something unique and valuable in today’s digital era, where ideas abound. Put another way, the special report locked behind a paywall doesn’t make it any special.
He thinks that ubiquity, or appearing everywhere, is a better approach than creating scarcity.
Final Thoughts
The last point I’d like to make is that you’ll need a strategy. You have to plan for the things you want to achieve this year and during the coming years, even if it’s as easy as writing down 2 or 3 goals on a piece of paper.
The Seth Godin blog did not become popular overnight. Years of constant effort put into blogging paid off. You should be able to do it as well!