Apr 14, 2009 Dec 3, 2025 2009-04-14

Whenever I stretch myself enough to get out of the comfort zone, wonderful things are happening to me. As you already know, I am on a trip to Japan these days. Whenever I am on longer trips I usually stretch myself a lot out of the comfort zone, by projecting my activities into a complete realm of unknown. This trip is even more demanding as I barely know the language and find that getting over small tasks like eating and finding directions is quite a challenge for me. It surely gets me out of the comfort zone, that I can tell you.

The good news is that each time I’m getting out of the comfort zone I find new perspectives to old stuff. I start to look at things I already know from different angles. Of course, I already wrote about that in the travel as a personal development tool, so if you want to find out more you can read on. In today’s post I’ll share a refreshing perspective about my blog posts. In fact, this is a fresher perspective of all blog posts, not only mines.

Your Blog Post Is A Traveler

Once you hit the “Publish” button, something magic happens to your article: it starts to travel. It becomes independent and it engages on a journey of its own. Your blog post becomes a traveler. And everything you wrote into it will carry your message in a special way. Here’s how various components of your blog post will influence your traveler’s story.

Keywords And Tags

Your keywords and tags are the invisible structure of your blog post. In the blogging world, every traveler is defined by a series of invisible attributes and those are the keywords. No one really see those before seeing the traveler but most of the time the traveler is found because of those tags.

Every time you chose your keywords and tags think of what you would like your traveler to be found. Are those tags relevant for the traveler? Are they enhancing his story or another story? It will be easier to be found by other people?

Paragraphs And Images

Those are the visible appearance of your article. The other people will actually see and perceive your traveler based on these forms. It’s not about the actual message but mostly how it is presented, it’s the fine and subtle clothing that shapes your traveler’s body.

Is it properly dressed? Those paragraphs are aligned with the traveler type and gender? Is it fashionable? Remember to check your blog post structure every time you’re ready to publish, you’ll always find some small adjustments to make.

Links

Links are the hooks your traveler send to other traveler or other countries. These are pointers that your traveler holds for proving his friendship and / or his grudges (in case of linkbaiting). In other words, think at the links in your posts as some friendly pats on the back to other guys.

Are those pats polite? Are they understandable? The other guy will benefit from those links? In case you’re linking to your own post, you’re telling the right story? Keep in mind that your popularity might be judged by the number and quality of your pats on the backs sometimes.

Categories

Your blog post categories act like countries, in the sense of defined territories. Your traveler comes from those areas. It is defined by the categories in the same way we think at citizenship. In case you’re using only tags and not categories, this is even more important as they will shape its invisible structure too.

Are your countries correct? Your blog post is comfortable with its categories? Your traveler is having a real citizenship? It is this citizenship in sync with your blog post values? In case it’s not, your blog post will be hard to recognize?

Title

The title of your blog post is the exact address. If categories are the countries, the titles are the exact address where the traveler can be found. Most of the time, this address must be unique in order to keep your traveler’s house easy to find.

Are your titles easy to remember (that’s fundamental for an address, you know)? Are your titles unique? If not, your traveler might share a house with several other travelers which can make him a little difficult to spot.

Downloadables

If you have downloadables in your post, those are usually perceived like gifts. Every people on Earth loves gifts. They can be anything, from simple diagrams or mind maps to complicated plugins or complete ebooks. But your traveler is carrying a gift now, which will make him much more appealing.

Are your posts carrying gifts? Is not always mandatory but when you can add some gifts to your traveler, don’t hesitate, it will make his journey much more easier. A traveler with gifts is usually a very easy to recognize and can become famous in time.

The Words

That’s the real message, that’s what your traveler speaks. That’s your blog post story. If your traveler is telling a complicated story, people will stop listening. Even if he’s well dressed, from a famous country and with a respectable address, even if he’s carrying gifts and he’s friendly enough, if his story is boring, people won’t listen.

A traveler with a nice, entertaining message can come from a less popular country, can share an address with many other travelers (if his message stands out of course) can have no friends in the beginning and can be unfashionably dressed. You can take care of these later, but the message is crucial.

Is your traveler ready to tell YOUR story? Is your blog post in good shape, prepared to carry your message? If not, make this traveler happy to hit the road for you.