FRACAT - Free Resume And Career Toolbox Blog

For a long time, I’ve been sitting on a story that I’ve saved, wondering if I should really post it.

You see, John Chow is running a contest of sorts where if you link to him (like I just did), he’ll link back to you.

That, in general, is good news because John Chow has really good traffic (something to remember if you have a blog that you’d like to increase the visibility of).

The downside is that John Chow is a very unpleasant person. Or, at least, that’s his “Blog Persona”. I don’t mean that he’s not a “nice guy” - I’m accused of that all the time. I mean that he is genuinely, intentionally unpleasant.

However, Donald Trump is another pretty unpleasant guy with a lack of morals, but we can learn a lot about the construction business from him.

So, I’ve been checking back with John regularly to see if he has any information that isn’t self-serving or focused on “Get Rich on the Internet” - his favorite topics. And I’ve found bubkis that would be of interest to you.

Until today! Today, we’re going to talk about blogs and linkbaiting, important topics for a modern-day job search. How appropriate that we’ll learn from a worm like John Chow.

CANDIDATE BLOGS, THE “BIO-BLOG”, AND TRAFFIC

By now, you’ve probably heard about putting together a blog if you’re looking for a job. Hopefully, you’re going to be putting together a blog before you’re looking for a job, otherwise it won’t do you much good.

A lot of people have asked me about “Bio-Blogs”, which are basically blogs set up to tell employers about the candidate. The posts hopefully tell about the work characteristics of that candidate so that an employer can get a more well-rounded picture.

Let me just say that the purpose of a blog is to “participate in a community” (yeah - I hate that phrase, too, but it’s applicable here). To talk and discuss issues that are relevant to whatever industry- or job-specific community that you’re a part of.

Talking about yourself just doesn’t cut it.

So, if you’re going to blog, make it about things that are happening in your industry. It will show employers that you’re knowledgeable and attract more traffic.

Because, if you want an effective blog, you’re going to need traffic.


WHY YOU NEED TRAFFIC FOR A CANDIDATE BLOG

You need the traffic to your candidate blog so that you can be found when an employer types in “Jimmy Podunk”, or whatever name you’re using now.

The more traffic your blog has, the more likely you (and your blog proving what an expert you are in the industry) are to be found easily.

If you can’t be found, there’s no reason to put your blog out there. It’s just that simple.


DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG WITH LINKBAIT

And this is where the slimy worm John Chow comes in. For all of his annoying characteristics, he did make his money on the Internet (selling computer hardware from his startup called TechZone). So, he’s got to know something about driving traffic.

Even if he did make his money during the dotcom era when there was a lot less competition, he still is able to get his blog up to the top of the lists for “make money online”.

Recently, he talked about linkbaiting in a “search results” war he is having with Blogstorm.

Linkbaiting is basically taking a term that people are doing a lot of searches for and writing an article in that space to capture some of that traffic. (John Chow mentioned a great articule that BlogStorm has available called the Linkbait Beginners Guide)

If you’d like an example of an amateur professional linkbaiter, Jason Alba of JibberJobber, who already as a natural link affinity for anyone famous named “Alba”, did a little Jessica Alba linkbaiting here.

And, of course, Carl Chapman of Confessions of an Executive Restaurant Recruiter uses Jessica Alba constantly, both because of the eye candy and because of the linkbait.


Give it a shot! Use the Blogstorm Tracker and see what it a hot topic today that you can post about tomorrow.


Enjoy the Search!

-Dan
—–
Daniel R. Sweet
Chief Cook-And-Bottle-Washer / Technical Recruiter
FRACAT.com - Free Resume and Career Toolbox
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrsweet
Call Me On Jaxter: http://www.jaxtr.com/fracat


Photo by: lisaschaos

Stumble it!          add to del.icio.us     

Back To FRACAT Blog Home

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 7:57 am and is filed under Candidate Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.