You have a legitimate beef if your head is spinning after reading that title. I bet the last time you were inundated with such a chorus of “legits” you were listening to an MC Hammer song. (More on this below…)
However, if the question, “wait a minute! Didn’t he spell ‘legit’ wrong?”, is pulsating through your mind, then it means you are not familiar with the best site search service on the web, and for that you have absolutely no excuse and are hereby rebuked by the author of this blog.
Why?
Because take it from me: if you aren’t familiar with and using Lijit, then your blog is not as legit as it could be.
And as we are wont to do here at H2B, let’s count down a few of the reasons why.
Reason #1: The People at Lijit are Walk-the-Talk Legit
That’s right, the first and most important reason why you should use and become Lijit has absolutely nothing to do with their blog search services; rather, it has everything to do with the people who developed, who install, and who provide client support for their blog search services.
One of the most fertile grounds for blogging inspiration is other blogs. A pretty high percentage of posts I write come to me while reading someone else’s blog. and I always find it more fulfilling to read a well written, well done blog post by someone that I know and can interact with.
Case in point: Small Hands, Big Ideas.
If you’ve been following H2B since day one, you are familiar with the brilliant young blogger behind SHBI: Grace Boyle, who also happens to be in charge of new business development for Lijit. Grace wrote the first guest post on H2B, discussing what she wishes that she had known when she started blogging.
I first became acquainted with Grace when she contacted me about installing Lijit on Midwest Sports Fans. Since then, she has become an invaluable part of my online network and, whether she realizes it or not, and indispensable stitch in the fabric of my worldwide web.
(Side note: have you ever considered who your indispensable stitches are? I bet your answers will intrigue you.)
Whether reading a terrific post like Comparing the Eras: Where People Wrote Letters and When They Did Not and coming away feeling nostalgic and enlightened, or requested her help in promoting a story I want to get exposure for, or having a technical question about Lijit, Grace is a tremendous resource.
The same is true about Erica Prather, another Lijit team member who has been my contact for all things technical. In addition to being helpful at her day job duties, Erica is another inspirational, entertaining, and informative online personality.
And, as a blogger, even just as a non-blogging person at large, you can never have too many of these types of people in your online or offline network.
Then there is the company itself. Lijit has taken huge strides and grown tremendously just during the time I’ve been affiliated with them. When you are out there on the Interwebs trying to carve out your niche, your little cyberspace section of the blogosphere, nothing is more encouraging than seeing someone else start from nothing and build up something substantial.
Lijit has definitely proven itself to be substantial, in large part because the company obviously places a premium on hiring the right people (so far as I can tell). All of this mixed in together, topped with a spoonful of the site search services we’re about to discuss, is what makes Lijit…well…legit.
Writing and WordPress tips are great, but when it comes to being a better blogger don’t overlook the power of growing your network, being inspired, and connecting with people who reinforce the motivations and values you want to perpetuate.
Reason #2: Site Search on Steroids
All blogging platforms come with their own site search functionality. If you are not going to post very often or have many visitors, sticking with this basic search functionality is okay.
But our goal at H2B is not just to help you make your blog okay…it’s to help you (and ourselves) become great. Lijit moves you forward one step on the road to great by giving your users dynamic, accurate, and efficient search functionality.
When a reader is on your site, you want them to stay there as long as possible. Lijit increases the likelihood of this happening with its unique search widget and by giving you granular control over how your readers search your site, your network, and the web at large for related content.
Reason #3: Valuable Site Analytics
While you should have a comprehensive analytics program like Google Analytics installed on your blog, Lijit also provides analytics that can help you learn more about your readers.
You can find out how often people are searching for additional information on your blog, what they are searching for, and where they are searching from. You can also find out about how people are getting to your blog from search engines and then what they are looking for once they get there.
Obviously you have to avoid information overload and paralysis by analysis, but Lijit’s analytics provide a nice supplement to what you are getting from elsewhere.
Reason #4: Advertising Potential
One of the most fruitful recent developments at Lijit has been their advertising opportunities. Lijit always gave you an opportunity to make some extra revenue from site search, but they now offer publishers the ability to opt-in to their ad network and increase their revenue per impression.
As soon as the opportunity was offered we jumped on the chance to add Lijit’s ads to Midwest Sports Fans and Dallas Sports Fans. It provided one more source of revenue and one more way to provide marginal revenue for time spent on the blogs that we would be spending anyway.
And who doesn’t want to make a little extra moolah for their efforts when they can?
Reason #5: An Always Pleasant and Inspirational Source of Early 90s Nostalgia
Don’t lie: even before the second sentence of this post, after just reading the title, you thought about MC Hammer. If not, you are either lying, unnecessarily embarrassed, or it’s a sign that growing up in the early 90s scarred me forever.
Regardless, MC Hammer clearly knew a little something about blogging (even if he didn’t know that he did), as manifested in the title of one of his more famous (infamous?) hits:
A major factor in building an audience and in developing influence is time. Fly-by-nighters don’t built long-lasting influence, and readers will respect you and be more likely to return when they see that you are in it for the long haul and “in it to win it”, so to speak.
Thus, there aren’t many blogging tips better than this: if you want to be a blogger, simply put, be too legit to quit.
And we have whoever named Lijit to thank for this seemingly obtuse but actually illustrative juxtaposition of blogging and Hammer Time.
Final Thoughts
So now, the onus is on you.
My recommendation is take the ten minutes to sign up and get Lijit installed. That’s all it takes.
Your site will be better and more user-friendly, your readers will have one more way to engage with your content and be compelled to stay on your site, and you’ll make personal contacts that will make you a better blogger.
Sounds to me like a legit win-win.
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Jerod Morris is the Director of Blogging and Social Media for Orangecast, a web marketing firm located in Dallas that specializes managing the online profiles of small- and medium-sized businesses.
Jerod is the managing editor for Corporate Compliance Insights as well as Midwest Sports Fans, where he hosts a podcast, has been a guest on ESPN’s Outside the Lines, makes regular radio appearances, and has hexes named after him.
Follow Jerod on twitter (@jerodmsf) or email him: jerod [at] orangecaster [dot] com.
How-to-Blog.tv Disclosure of No Material Connection: How-to-Blog.TV is participating in a cross promotion agreement with Lijit. That said, our policy is that we only recommend and endorse products, sites, and plugins that we use ourselves. As you can see from the sidebar, we are proud Lijit users and excited to have the opportunity to share our endorsement with you here. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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Jerod, this is an AMAZING synopsis. Thanks so much for taking the time to articulate the value of Lijit; the people, the product and the service. It means a lot to us because our publishers are the most important piece to our business. We greatly value their/your feedback, ideas and questions. Needless to say, it’s fulfilling to read posts like this. And of course, thanks for the shout-outs
If anyone has questions, thoughts or feedback, I’m all ears: grace at lijit dot com
See, I told you they were awesome.
Jared,
Being a baby boomer, I didn’t grow up with MC Hammer, so I loved seeing the video about being too legit to quit. Thanks for letting the world know about Lijit as this small but powerful company needs to be known by every blogger. I agree that Grace, my daughter, is awesome too.
Ms. Boyle, I agree on all counts!
Thats true. They offer deep stats coverage and other great tools. They are much better than others in many ways.
My experience with Lijit is good till now. They really have a good responsive team which actually delights you when you do not expect a fast response looking at your experience of dealing with other networks. Only limitation that I see with Lijit is that they do not have a referral program.