Hi peeps, today I have a guest post submitted by Brenda Savoie – who is a regular reader here, and also a content marketing avenger. Thanks for reading, thanks for your continued support, and above all, for being awesome. Fire away, Brenda!
Today, there are millions of blogs that are constantly competing with each other.
Every day, new blogs are trying to stand out from the crowd.
If you want to climb the ladder of building a successful and profitable blog, you must follow the right strategies.
Starting a blog is not easy, especially with so much information about it.
Finding the right information is hard, as the “blogging tips” industry is already filled with unreliable information.
Everything revolves around your blog content, i.e. your blog posts.
After the content creation process is over, the content promotion process begins.
The actual promotion of content is often referred to as “content marketing”.
OK, so let’s take a look at some positive ways to get the most out of your startup blog.
The first important question to ask yourself is;
If the goal of your blog is to eventually help you earn a living, you must first establish its purpose.
For example, the purpose of your blog might be to improve your brand’s awareness.
The other purpose of your blog is the actual value it’s going to provide.
If you own a health blog, for instance, your purpose could be to help as many people as possible get fit and healthy.
Do not attempt to start a blog without figuring out the REAL purpose and the reason for doing it.
You may ultimately fail and we don’t want that to happen, do we?
What are your goals?
Do you want to become rich?
Do you want to just make ends meet?
Do you want to share your knowledge and educate others on a specfic topic?
Questions after questions… But; in order to reach success, you must first build a roadmap.
Planning your progress and creating actionable and SMART goals is the best way to start your blogging campaign.
You need to set some time aside and think of the long-term future.
How do you want your blog to look in a year from now?
How much do you want to earn from it?
How many unique visitors per month would you like to have by then?
Establish the long-term goals, and split them into chunks of tasks.
You can go for monthly, weekly, and also daily goals.
All of them should be related to your long-term goals.
This way, by completing your daily to-do list, you are making sure that you’re staying on the right path to blogging success.
If you are consistent and committed, there’s no way you can possibly fail, right?
Remember, your goals must be palpable and measurable. So don’t just state “I want my blog to be popular by 2019”.
Instead, go for something like “I want to have over 5000 unique monthly visitors and make 1000$ in sales each month by 2019.”
Check out Fabrizio’s Ultimate Blog Planner Workbook if you haven’t already done so.
I know Fabrizio has spoken about identifying your target audience many times before, but we really need you to understand the importance of this, so let me beat that drum again if you don’t mind.
Before you start to plan your content strategy, and also before thinking of any promotion techniques, you must first identify your target audience.
What specific audience do you want to dedicate your blog to?
Focusing on a particular niche is the best way to attract only like-minded and interested people.
If you write about sports, people that enjoy sports will follow you.
If you write about health, your content will be approached by individuals that look for health advice.
Identifying your target audience is a very important process. If you wish to make things easier, use this actionable strategy:
Imagine the ideal customer.
Think about his or her problems, his or her needs, and his or her wants.
If you can resonate with his or her feelings and problems, you’ll be able to draw him or her to your side.
After you have established the specific characteristics of your ideal target audience member, you can start writing content with him or her in mind.
Write like you were directly speaking to that person individually, helping them with his or her problems, and being compassionate and genuine about it.
A successful blog is obviously valuable and relevant to its readers.
If you want to have a successful blog, your content must always be unique, impeccable, and extremely valuable.
It needs to be problem-solving too.
There’s a lot of content around the web to compete with, but only the best of the best get shared around and ranked high by search engines.
Think of it this way:
Whenever you want to publish a new article, search through Google’s first page.
Find the best-ranking articles and see what people wrote. Read around, and come up with your best version around the subject.
This is not plagiarizing at all; everyone does it, but only a few actually do it properly.
My good friend Andrew Warner calls this the Content Remix Method.
If you manage to provide your readers with consistent and valuable content, they’ll start to trust you and buy more of your products.
You can even do affiliate marketing, as your word is the word of an expert.
Social media is the place to be nowadays. Almost every “normal” person has a Facebook profile and can be instantly reached through it.
Social media networks are filled with engaging opportunities. You can perceive the social media environment as a vehicle that takes your information and drives it to your readers.
The first thing you should do is figure out;
Which of the social networks can help your business the most?
Each social media platform presents different audiences, different types of advertising options, and different mechanics.
Facebook is universal, but LinkedIn, for example, is a professionally-oriented network.
Most people that use LinkedIn do it in order to create a professional relationship and improve their blog or their personal brand awareness.
If there’s one thing I regret, it’s not building an e-mail list from the beginning of my blogging experience.
An e-mail list is fundamental to greater brand awareness, a bigger chance of converting visitors into customers, and a better income stream.
An e-mail list is basically a digital agreement between you and your blog’s readers.
You offer them exclusive information throughout your emails, and they’re paying you back by sharing and purchasing your content, products, and services.
If someone reads an article of yours today, if you’re not capturing that person’s contact details and have them subscribe to your list, you’ll probably never see them again.
If that reader notices that an incentive is being offered if they subscribe to your e-mail newsletter, they’ll be tempted to go for it.
If you gather a list of loyal customers, you can expect to make a lot of sales in the longer term.
Check out the awesome list building tool Thrive Leads (Aff) to help you with your list building.
One of the most common mistakes the new bloggers make is that they focus on the wrong things.
When you create something complex… a blog in our case, you must focus on making it popular.
In marketing terms, the popularity of your blog is often referred to as brand awareness.
Creating a larger brand’s awareness is just like fighting for a spot in the marketplace.
When you write and promote your content, try to “educate your readers”, instead of selling them products and offers.
The main strategy in blogging revolves around delivering value to the reader, then letting them make up their own mind concerning the purchase of your products and services.
Aggressive marketing strategies no longer work, as people are tired of annoying and impulsive ads and cheesy sales pitches.
If you truly want to develop a successful blog, then focusing on your brand’s awareness is what’s going to help you the most.
When people within a niche market are aware of your name, they’ll always talk about it.
You’ll be the first recommendation when it comes to helping someone with advice: “Hey, check out Fabrizio’s blog, he’s really good at providing advice on creating a conversion-focused website”.
Launching a successful blog represents one of the best ways of reaching your personal or business goals.
If you can manage to draw readers to your blog, establish your name in the marketplace, and be consistent, your blog’s success will skyrocket; and so will your sales and revenues!
Try to take advantage of other’s mistakes. Do not fall into the same traps, and make sure that your continued development goes smoothly.
Reading this article was a complete waste of your time IF you’re not applying what I’ve shared here. So as Fabrizio would say, “take action”.
That’s what makes the difference between mediocre and successful bloggers.
In fact, the difference between blogs works under the same principle as with people.
If you work hard and take action, things will start to progress, and measurable results will start showing up.
Brenda Savoie is a content marketing magician at Essayontime . A grammar tutor master and desperate dreamer. Writing her first romantic novel. Seeking contentment through mindfulness. Find her on Twitter and Facebook.
