There are a myriad of reasons why people start and maintain a blog and they include:
- generate revenue (make money)
- promote a cause
- offer useful information
- update friends and family
- share thoughts on life, living, work
- showcase results of a hobby…painting, puzzles, beadwork, gaming, and more
So, while the reasons for starting a blog may be quite different, anyone who wants to blog should begin by learning about blogging first. This will ensure that the blog achieves the intended purpose and will stop you, the blogger, from making newbie mistakes that can discourage you from maintaining your blog.
Study Successful Blogs
The simplest way to learn about blogging, and what works to achieve the goal of the blog, is to study the successful bloggers.
Writing style, blog design, font type, colors, type of advertising are components that should work to support the purpose of the blog.
For instance, a blog about interior design for work spaces would use subdued colors and clean fonts and have many images that show different work spaces with descriptions about why each work space uses particular colors and type of furniture. Another example is a blog about writing. There will be a lot of white space because there will be a lot of text – sounds weird,
doesn't it? Yet, if all you have on a blog is text, then you need the white space to break it up. And a blog about writing can be dense with information – and this can be difficult to read on a laptop or smartphone if there isn't enough white space between sentences.
What blogs should you be studying? Those in your area of interest. If you're not already following a leader in your niche you should be. Now, look at their blog closely – look at the layout, the type of advertising, the font, the colors used, the images. You can model your blog after their's…note I said model, not copy. This means if the successful blogger is using bright colors, then you should, too. Not the same colors, but colors that reflect your brand, your preference. Are their images filled with people or things or landscapes? Think about why they're using these type of images and how they connect with the reader. Are the ads subtle or obvious? Where are they placed on the blog? These details are what you are studying and making note of so that you can either start a new blog on the right foot or make changes to your existing blog to make it better.
Join a Blog Coaching Program
You can hire a blog coach or join a blog coaching program. I recommend this instead of jumping from blog to blog looking for tips and ideas. Jumping around means you'll be spending a lot of time looking at other people's blogs, trying new things on your own blog, and you'll get overwhelmed or worse…you'll lose focus on the purpose of your blog and it won't be successful.
If you join a blog coaching program, you'll be led through each stage of building a blog, building an audience, making money from the blog, and more. And, it will be done in a way that allows you to build the blog that you want.
Promote Your Blog
Traffic.
People searching online, seeing your blog, clicking on the link to visit and then coming back for more. It's the lifeblood of every blog.
Getting traffic isn't hard. But it does take action on your part. One way to get people to your blog is to promote it. And this is why having a niche is vital to the success of your blog. It's expensive to promote anything online – in terms of time, energy, and money.
So, if your blog is for EVERYONE…think this through…this means that you should be EVERYWHERE for EVERYONE to see what you are posting on your blog. How hard is that to do? How hard is it to be EVERYWHERE online? How expensive would that be in terms of advertising dollars? Again, think this through…for simplicity, let's say there are 10,000 websites offering 150 x 150 banner ad spaces and each one costs $50/month (trust me, there are a LOT more than 10,000). That would cost you $500,000 just in small ads. And you wouldn't be in front of EVERYONE.
Whereas, you have a niche you decided to focus on. One that is in the weight loss market and focused on helping women who are over 30 who suffer from an autoimmune disease. That's pretty specific. You did the research and you know that this is the market you can make money with. Now you know where to look for advertising opportunities. You can set a budget of $100/month for paid ad space on a successful blog that your target market reads. You can set a budget of $250/month for social media ads. You can set a budget that is reasonable and manageable and more importantly … you can identify the specific websites that your market visits and you can get in front of those women with your message.
This works for “free” promotion, too. Think about the time you will spend trying to spread a generic message to the 100s of social media platforms available, to the sites that allow you to submit articles, to the guest posting opportunities. There isn't enough time in a day or a month or a year to do this. But, if you have your niche market, your messaging is focused on that niche, then you can identify where your market hangs out and you can test those free platforms to determine which ones are worth your time.
If it is this simple, why don't more people do it?
Those that don't…don't know what they're doing. Those that do…know what they're doing.
Joining a blog coaching program will help you because you'll be following the guidance of someone who knows what they're doing.
Now it's up to you.
You decide how you will become a successful blogger.
Will it be through trial and error?
Will it be through trying to be all things to all people?
Will it be from modeling a few of the successful bloggers in your niche?
Will it be from joining a blog coaching program?
Your choice determines the level of your success with blogging.
