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13
Steps to Successful Blogging |
by: Ant
Onaf |
Blogs can be a very marketable
and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs
is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and
not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will
learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.
1) Where to start?
You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such
as Journal Home or Blogger. Starting with a free blog hosting
service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having
any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It
allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance
of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service
is, in the case your blog doesn't become successful you do not
lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing
about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order,
your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows
greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you
can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your
"move". Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved"
and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your
new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience
to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!
2) Niche
A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first
decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose
an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily
basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist
or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does
NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience
for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog
should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long
as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the
audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about
the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if
there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat
or the species of the cat family...you can even choose to build
your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but
first you must build your blog.
3) Update Daily (nothing less)
This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily
not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also
gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing
to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday
or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing
days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result
in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and
retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog
daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog
everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to
accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to
your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule
a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself
work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't
come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get
fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days
or weeks you'll lose visitors.
4) Traffic
It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There
are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising,
viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth.
You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of
your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication
media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines
and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed
to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger.
You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers,
associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs
can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose
you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and
lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or
ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up
and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include
your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. What
this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog,
when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish
the article on their website the "About the Author" passage is
included with each publication and the link you included is followed,
crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article
is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications
across the web. The search engines is bound to find your site
in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority
on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines.
The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding.
You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week
for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article
syndicators.
5) Track Your Blog
How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one
is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many
visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors.
I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested
in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their
1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active
daily visitors.
Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually
a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter
will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html
of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better
to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such
as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search
engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors
should be standard for any page counter service you choose.
6) Listen to Your Audience
When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how
others are finding your blog and if through search engines then
which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly
your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your
blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When
writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as
possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.
7) Multiple blogs
Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means
you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com,
Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accounts the better.
You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different
blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers.
This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases
the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results
for your focused keywords.
8) Short & Concise
Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication
your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it).
Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice
but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as
possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of
reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through
your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information,
but do not include useless information or run away sentences that
veer away from your topic.
9) Digital Art
Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and
art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics
can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content
of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to
overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics
can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics
and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content
with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos,
pictures, and art is recommended.
10) Keep it Personal
A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include
personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry.
Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more
personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any
of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews
and personal endeavors.
11) Interact With Your Visitors
You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting
with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money
Tip" or "Picture of the Week" which entices your readers to look
forward to each week.
Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or
topic which you are going to review and then talk about later.
If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog
you should state that you "will discuss the speech and give your
opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".
Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have.
Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is
deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try
to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog
was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry
about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting
to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement
ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for
exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something
useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their
appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many
readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information
they only can find at your blog.
12) Make Money
Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic
is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning
your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising,
like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually
text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted
ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click
model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small
percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising
it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com,
Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.
13) You're a Professional
You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that
free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted
solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name
for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging
software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org,
MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup
and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your
move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the
blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved"
and the blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been
moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future
reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all
returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem
finding your new blog domain.
At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up
with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting
and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than
one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because
each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea
of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all
authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping
the blog interesting for visitors.
Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging
experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your
blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should
at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an
overnight experience like many may think, but making money online
is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity
on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication,
and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of
blogging.
About the Author
Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of www.JournalHome.com He
is an online internet marketer, content writer, and IT consultant.
Ant Onaf has years of IT-related experience and Internet-related
experience. His ingenuity, dedication, and passion for technology,
internet marketing, & writing have made him a monumental icon
in the World Wide Web. His blog can be visited at http://www.journalhome.com/AntOnaf |
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