Power Blogger: Sean Percival
When it comes to following search trends, Sean Percival is the man with the mainline to the brain from Google Trends tapped 24/7. I’d love to see what his traffic from search numbers are on a daily basis… ours sucks. But then again, we’re not all powerful SEO people with the knack for turning a creek of traffic into a surging tsunami of awesome with the flick of a few finger strokes like some people… Looking at you Mr. Percival.
What was the reason you started to blog? What keeps you going?
Sean, “I’m obsessed with creating content online, always have been and I imagine always will be. The blog (wordpress in particular) empowers me and millions others to tell their own story. To me the story is key, when I blog I create a written record of my life and experiences. That data is consumed, archived, and syndicated throughout the web. While I love reaching new audiences, it’s the autobiographical qualities that interest me the most.”
How many hours a week do you spend thinking about blog posts and writing?
Sean, “For me it’s beyond a full time job, in fact my full time job is also blogging, so how many hours are in week? I guess the answer would be all of them.”
If you could change one thing about your blog, what would it be?
Sean, “I always worry about the longevity of some of my blog posts. Since many are trends based topics, anything I write can become out of date quickly. I’m starting to address this with one of my products Daymix (http://daymix.com).
“Here I can grab a widget that includes an aggregated experience about any topic and embed that into a blog post. Now that post can always contain the latest and most relevant content on that topic.”
What’s your favorite Social Media outlet other than your blog?
Sean, “That of course would have to be Twitter.
“For many the service has neutered there blogging ability (why blog when 140 characters will do). However for me it’s become a great extension of any content I create online. I feed my blog RSS feed directly into my profile to keep my followers coming back to my blog.”
Do you think Twitter and FriendFeed contribute or take away from your blogging?
Sean, “Like I said before, services like Twitter and Friendfeed certainly inhibit many from doing actual blogging. Most online audiences prefer content in bite size pieces and both these services are ideal for that. However somewhere along the line you should own some of your social media as well.
“The only way to really do this well is off your own domain and with a blog.
“Here you truly own that content and you have much greater freedom over it.
“That being said, these stream based services are like a river and you should most definitely fish that river. ”
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There you have it. Learn something new every day. I didn’t know Sean Percival blogged for a living. Makes sense now why he’s always connected. He probably read this post already and I haven’t even submitted it yet.
Photo: Wm Marc Salsberry, none other.
