Lijit

We first met Jerod Morris over a year ago through his prolific and entertaining sports blog, Midwest Sports Fans. He installed Lijit and quickly became one of our self-processed Lijit evangelists. Soon after, he implemented Lijit on Dallas Sports Fans and his newest venture, How-To-Blog.TV, a great resource for blogging tips and how-to’s.

Jerod has been blogging for over five years, he personally maintains 5 blogs and professionally, he serves as the Director of Blogging and Social Media for Orangecast, a web marketing firm in Dallas. Needless to say, he is someone you should get to know. He’s everywhere.

Jerod was kind enough to answer some questions about his background, interests and how Lijit has benefited him.

How long have you been blogging and why did you start?

I started my first blog about five years ago as a companion to animated sports comedy series I was developing with some friends. I didn’t really know what I was doing; I just fired up a Blogger blog and typed nonsense. My blogging strategy now is slightly more refined. I began blogging in earnest in June of 2008 when I launched Midwest Sports Fans. Rather than use Blogger, we host our own network blogs and use WordPress to power them. More recently I have begun getting more into microblogging with Twitter as well as that in-between-a-blog-and-a-microblog space filled by Tumblr and Posterous.

What do you love about sports that drives you to maintain Midwest Sports Fans and Dallas Sports Fans?

I love the stories that develop organically from sports and the passion with which fans follow them. People say that the reality TV revolution has happened over the last decade; what I think many people fail to realize is that sports filled the “reality entertainment” void long before Survivor or American Idol came around. Sports blogs developed and have evolved because fans have a lot to say and like having a voice, oftentimes regardless of its amplification. The mainstream media does many things well serving as a conduit between the players, the competition, and the fans, but they can only do so much and still have constraints, biases and points of view. The plethora of sports blogs out there allows fans to tailor their consumption of sports information to exactly what suits them. I think that is terrific and makes being a sports fan today a much more rich and diverse experience than in the past. I’m proud that we’ve developed our own little niche within all of this and love the daily challenge of trying to entertain and inform readers who visit our sites.

What are your top two blogging tips to help others become better publishers?

1. Love what you write about. You can’t fake a passion for a subject, and you certainly cannot have any longevity – which is a key to building an audience – if you aren’t passionate about living, learning and writing about your topic.
2. Write often. This piggybacks on number one. You have to love what you write about to be able to write about it often, but you also have to have the discipline and desire to publish your passion. Whether you blog with text, pictures, video, audio, or a combination of them all, the more you do it, the better you’ll get, and the more potential you have to grow an audience and influence.

How has Lijit helped to make you a better blog publisher?

The first way Lijit has helped me personally is intangible and completely unrelated to the service. Developing educational and enlightening online friendships with the people who work at Lijit, and seeing how much the company itself has grown since I first learned about it, is inspiring for anyone who is trying to create an Internet footprint. The people at Lijit clearly walk the talk, so to speak, and offer a lot more value than simply what is contained within the search widget.

From a blog perspective, Lijit provides efficient information for both you and your readers. Lijit’s search widget is dynamic, fast, and accurate, which are three aspects that a search engine of any kind must have. Knowing that your readers can find information quickly gives you peace of mind as a publisher that at least one part of their experience on your site is taken care of. Additionally, Lijit provides analytics that helps you get to know your readers better. The more information you have about who is on your site, the better your chances of giving them something that will make them want to come back.

Clearly, Jerod understands the blogging world. He recently wrote a great synopsis on Lijit, which of course, made us blush and we feel happy to have him as a Lijit publisher. Check him out on Twitter, How-To-Blog.TV or Midwest Sports Fans. Thanks Jerod!