Interview: Judy Dunn Founder Of Cat’s Eye Writer

Blogging has been one of my passions that I have grown to love and admire the past two years. When I first started blogging I had no idea what I was doing and the blog posts that I were writing had no clear mission or message to them whatsoever. Over the course of the years I have met with and networked with a lot of great bloggers.

What I’m going to start doing on my blog is start featuring more interviews with bloggers both written and video to showcase some of the knowledge that these great bloggers have to say. This is going to be something that will be twice per week and will continue until I feel that this specific segment should stop or I just run out of great bloggers to interview.

The first person I’m going to be interviewing is Judy Dunn. She is the creator of Cat’s Eye Writer. I started following Judy earlier this year when I was checking out For Bloggers By Bloggers. Her blog posts were very informative and offered a very unique touch that I really enjoyed. Here is the interview with Judy and her amazing responses:

Judy Dunn is a writer, blogger and online copywriter. She is also co-founder of bobwp.com, an online training resource for bloggers who use WordPress. On her blog, Cat’s Eye Writer, Judy shows writers, authors and solopreneurs how to attract more blog visitors with a true voice and compelling copy, how to engage their readers and how to use social media to get their brand out in the world. Her blog is one of the 2011 Top 10 Blogs for Writers. Judy is currently working on her first book, a memoir of her teaching years.

What would separate a beginner blogger from a pro blogger?

I think the single biggest things would be consistency and commitment. Professional bloggers grind out those posts, even when they don’t feel like it, even when they’d rather be doing something else. Because they know that consistency and discipline will make them better bloggers.

 

What has been the best strategy you have used to grow your blog?

Aside from winning an award, which I would highly recommend (smile), I think it’s been just being out there all the time. Talking about your content, promoting it on social media, getting known—and trusted. Quality content is the other side of the coin, so when visitors read your first post, they’ll want to come back—and subscribe.

 

How could someone find and create their unique blogging voice?

Writing with a unique voice is the single most important thing you can do to set your blog apart from the millions of other ones out there. Readers can find information anywhere, but it’s the way you present it that will hook them.

I would just say this. Be yourself. Show your personality. And if you can entertain people at the same time—or make them laugh, or touch their emotions in some other way—they will come back. My advice for discovering your voice is to write, write, write. The more you do that, the closer you’ll get to it. Some people even tape record themselves just talking about stuff, to see what they sound like, what words they use.

 

When you first started out did you have a “blog business plan”? A set idea of how many posts you were going to put out?

You know, I didn’t have a plan. I just started blogging. As I look back, I most certainly would have succeeded faster with a plan. The one question to ask yourself is, “What is my goal with this blog?” If you know what you want to accomplish (business leads, book sales, or something else), you will have that hat on when you write your posts. On frequency, I always say, one kick-ass post a week is better than five crappy ones. So always go for quality over quantity.

 

What you know with blogging now what would you go back and do from day one when you first started your blog?

Oh, there are a ton of things. As I said earlier, I would define my goal, what it is I want to accomplish. I would also pay more attention to design in terms of say, getting more subscribers by having a big, in-your-face email sign-up box on my home page. I would comment on other blogs more to get known faster and build relationships with the successful bloggers. Too many things to list here.

 

How important is design for a blog? Does it matter if you have a customized design for your blog? Which design do you use?

The “content is king” argument aside, design is incredibly important. Because what good is stellar content if your content is hard to find and your blog is impossible to navigate? Being married to a WordPress designer and trainer (@bobwp) has helped me see this side of it. People make spilt-second decisions when they land on your blog. You don’t have much time to talk them into staying. So, things like a clean header, a tagline that instantly tells them what they’ll find there and categories that spell out your topics are essential.

You do not necessarily have to pay for an expensive custom design. Many of the themes out there these days are out-of-the-box solutions that work well, depending on your needs. Choose them carefully, though and think of all the things you may be needing in the future. I am using the Headway theme and I love the look and feel of it.

 

What is your goal with your blog? What message did you want to get across to your audience?

My blog started as a tool for giving free, useful marketing advice to small businesses. We had Cat’s Eye Marketing at the time and the blog was a normal extension of our business. I wrote about all marketing topics, strategies for both online and off. The goals were to build credibility and turn readers into clients. Later, the focus of my business changed to helping people become better bloggers and my goal with the blog was to give good solid information and, eventually, to get blog coaching clients.

I am moving in an even more specific direction with the blog now: helping biz owners who want to write with more skill (or write their own books) and giving authors and aspiring authors more blogging and self-promotion tools. The blog also be an author platform for me, giving readers a taste of what’s to come in the memoir I’m writing now.

 

What are three things that any blogger should concentrate on to be the best and why?

Okay, I may be repeating myself here, but these are three that immediately come to mind:

1. Be different. Find things other people are not talking about. Use your past experience (because nobody else has had those exact same experiences) and tell your stories. Shake it up a little.

2. Have fun. The best stuff out there (think TV’s The Daily Show or The Steven Colbert Show) makes us think while entertaining us at the same time. The driest subject can come alive with analogies, metaphors, humor, and fiction techniques (scenes with characters and dialogue, for instance).

3. Read, read, read. I can’t stress this one enough. Reading—I don’t care it’s comic books, trash fiction, the classics or whatever—opens your mind up to new ideas and new ways of looking at things. Of course, it helps to read other blogs, too, because you can get lots of ideas and topics to spin and make your own.

 

Who was a person you looked up to when you first started blogging? Why?

An incredibly kind and generous blogger, Sonia Simone, encouraged me early on. At the time she had a successful little blog called Remarkable Communications.  She is now the Chief Marketing Officer for Copyblogger Media. When my blog was a baby, I read and left comments on her excellent blog  and she would stop by from time to time and leave a comment on mine.  I have never forgotten that. It’s why I try to repay the favor by supporting other new bloggers when I can.

 

What is the best advice you could give to the blogging community?

Take care of your reader community and always respect them. Help them when you can and give, give, give. Your readers—and especially your subscribers—are gold. They have many, many other choices of blogs and ways to spend their time. Give them opportunities to talk about their blogs. And always respond to your comments. All of them.