 Now that you know why you are blogging, have planned out your blog, set up and customized your blog it is time to start to add content, create brand for your blog, post content, and start to bring in advertisers. This is the most important part of blogging. For a blog to be successful it must have good content and the content needs to be seen by other people and those people are what attract advertisers.The single most important thing a successful blog must have is good content. A blog that looks great but offers nothing interesting, unique or helpful will not succeed. Before making your blog public you should always have 10-15 posts ready for your readers to browse threw. Included in these 10-15 posts there should be at least 1 link bait post (a post that will attract other bloggers and webmasters to link to that post) and 2 very high quality posts that are VERY targeted to your niche.The link bait post should be something that everybody in your niche would gain something from. Weather it be entertainment, knowledge or even just a simple top 10 list there should be at least one post that will entice other people to link to your blog. If you look at Make Money Online blogs most of them will start a contest when opening the blog to entice visitors to visit and more importantly to entice them to link to the blog to bring more visitors and search engine attention.
While most posts in a blog should be targeted to the niche you are writing about, before opening the blog to the public there should be 2-3 posts that are targeted to a very specific part of your niche and are very high quality. These posts should be the base that the rest of your blog is going to be built on.
Now that you have started to post content it is important to build a brand for your blog. Not only is it important to have a consistent look for your blog (using graphics and color schemes) but also it is also important to have a consistent feel to your posts. One of the most important factors in keeping readers and converting visitors into subscribers is to have a consistent brand. This does not mean that all post should be the same, but almost all posts should have a consistent flow and feel.
A great example of branding is JohnCow.com. This blog has a great graphical brand as well as contextual brand. The writer(s) is very constant and most posts have a very John Cow feel to them. The readers of this blog always know what to expect from them and are hardly ever let down!
Once you have a good base of content it is time to release your blog to the public. Having good content alone will not attract visitors; you will have to promote your blog. There are many ways to get first time visitors, some are very easy and free, and some are complicated and expensive. It is important to figure out what your promotional budget is in terms of money and time.
Using Pay Per Click advertising can attract a quick surge of visitors, but it can also be expensive. If you feel like you will be able to convert those visitors into some sort of income right away this is a great way to go. On the other hand if you want to build up your readership before you try to monazite your blog (this is the method I suggest) there are many free methods.
Social Bookmarking sites have become one of the most powerful ways to gain free exposure to potential readers. Websites such as Digg, Stumble Upon and Del.icio.us allow you to show off your bookmarks and other users will visit the websites you suggest. When starting a blog I would highly suggest looking into social bookmarking and using them to their full potential.
Another way to promote your new blog is to leave comments on blogs that are related to your niche. Most blogs will allow you to leave a link to your blog when commenting. This will not lead to a large amount of traffic, but the small amount of traffic that it will lead to could lead to even more traffic. If those readers like your site, they may blog about one of your posts and traffic could grow from that as well.
It is also important to make sure that your blog is search engine friendly. One of the most important things to do is create an XML sitemap and let the search engines know about it. You can use a plugin to accomplish this, such as “Google XML Sitemaps”. Getting a high listing in search engines can often take a long time, but it is important to be set up to allow it to happen!
Using these methods to promote your blog will lead to traffic growth and the more your traffic grows the better the chance is that you can attract advertisers and start to make money on your blog. At any time you can place PPC advertisements on your blog, like AdsSnse, and you may even make a little bit of money off these ads.
The problem with CPC ads is you have little control over what is shown. When you have a decent amount of traffic I have found it is best to sell advertising space on your blog for a monthly fee. This type of advertising guarantees you income and gives you full control over content. If your blog has a lot of traffic, finding advertisers in your niche should be easy. Allow the market to set the price of your advertisements, and do not place so much advertisements on your blog that they become distracting!
Of course there is much more to advertising than this brief overview, so keep an eye on this blog for our Creative and Effective Advertising series!
Now get out there and BLOG! |
Now that you have a great plan in place and have set up your blog it is now time to customize it.