written by BroAlex
Blogging can be a very powerful and profitable tool online , if used and done correctly. What most people don`t realize , is how blogs really work. I just want to point out some of the things people should consider before starting a blog. If following these steps you chances to be a better blogger will increase , and not only but gain the audience you want and keep your self motivated by monetizing your blog.
Where to start?
We all asked this question at least once. Where to start your blog? A lot of people want to blog , but don`t know what it really involves, things like programming , template designs , promoting and social networking . Now I don`t like the idea of getting a free hosting service , such as Blogger or Wordpress , but in many cases using a free blog hosting service is a must. It lets you learn as you go along the basic principles in blogging. A free hosting service can always be transfered to a paid hosting. The are some pros and cons about free blog hosting. But there tend to be more cons because it doesn`t have as many features and options as a self-hosted blog such as Wordpress has.
Choosing our niche
A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. First thing when your start a blog , you will be asking your self ‘What am I going to write about? I suggest choosing a topic that interests you the most , so things will be much easier.Never start a blog , about “Health Problems” and write articles about ways to generate traffic. Choose your topic correctly. You can always make your blog a personal diary blog , there is nothing bad about that , but I suggest to consider blogging as a business and be more professional. There are thousands of junk blogs , no wonder their audience is very low if not at all.
Bring fresh new content
Adding fresh new content to your blog is how you can grow your audience and feed them with interesting articles daily. Imagine a popular magazine, you are buying it because it`s great or interesting. Maybe this magazine is going to be published once every six months , are you going to be that interested anymore? It`s audience will go down steadily. Once you have a bit of audience , you should start updating your blog with at least 2 post daily if not 3. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for adding new entries to your blog. 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. Especially if you want to be making money out of your blog , treat it like a business , give your best to your audience. Use the time ‘Post Timestamp’ feature in Wordpress and decide when you want your posts to get published. I use this feature for some time now. What it actually does , it publishes your content at any time you want , and makes it live for your visitors. The benefits of ‘Post Timestamping’ are several. You can wake up in the morning , spend some time inspiring yourself , and start writing around 2-3 posts for the whole day ahead. Then use ‘Post Timestamp’ to automatically publish them at any hour of the day you want. I usually set them to be published once every four hours. This way I can get going with other things , write posts for my other blogs and do some promoting.
Traffic
It’s no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. What is a grocery store without any customers ? There are a lot of ways to generate traffic from to your blog. Such as paid advertising, free advertising, search engine marketing, RSS feeds, and the word of mouth which I personally enjoy most. You will always have to insert your blog URL in all mails , forums , groups or any social network you take part of, it`s just like a business card for your blog. Another way to bring traffic is by submitting your blog to the main search engines and blog directories. Submitting your RSS feed URL to pinging services such as Technorati and Ping-o-matic is another great way to build up audience . Submmitting your posts URL`s to article syndicators sites such as GoArticle , Articlecity.com , Hubpages , Squidoo , EzineArticles will allow you to build great back links to your blog and not only , people can actually use your articles for their own content , this is another great way to have your links in hundreds if not thousand of places. Do not forget to include your URL at the end of each article.
Tracking Your Blog Stats
Tracking your blog means you check your stats , things like unique visitors and page views. This way you can tell if you blog is gaining audience. If you just started your blog and not receiving comments on your posts , it doesn`t mean you don`t have audience. You need to give people time and more credibily and the returning visitors will start leaving comments. Now I suggest using StatCounter for tracking your blog or and an even better and more accurate , but paid service for keeping up with your stats is Sitemeter , pricing starting from $6.95 up to 199.95 a month. I highly recommend Sitemeter. You need to use an advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, search engine information , the time people actually spend on your blog in order to see the exact stats of your blog.
Using keywords
Search engines are used to find great pages on specific keywords. Now your blog can be found in the search engines by typing some keywords. This can be also be tracked in your stats counter dashboard , that lets you easily see how exactly people found your blog and what keywords they have used. You can basically use those keywords in the future to make your blog even more powerful. You can always use a keyword research tool just to make sure your are doing it the right way and you will gain the most audience to your blog, writing about things actually people want to hear about. Lets say your blog is about “Internet Marketing”. There are several keywords that are more searched than others on this topic. That is why the keyword research tool will improve your performance online. Now I don`t really base on keywords , some people are very obsessed about keyword researching and their competition , but taking keywords into consideration is a must , at some level.
Starting Multiple Blogs
Starting multiple blogs can only be managed by experienced people. You need at least some months in order to start some other blogs. Remember a blog without fresh daily content will die slowly. When running multiple blogs you will need to manage your time to keep every single one of them updated. The benefits of owning multiple blogs is that your can easily direct traffic from one to another , especially when they are on the exact same niche. I suggest you gain some experience first before starting off a new blog. Paid services can be used , that means you can hire someone to write new posts to your blog every day. It depends on how much you are able to spend , usually for a normal length article of 500 words they charge from 10$ up 100$ , it depends on the complexity of the article and it`s subject.
Keep your articles at some normal lengths.
Normal length articles for some people mean around 200 words for other it can go up to 1000 words , it depends. I suggest keeping them somewhere around 500 words. People are not reading a whole book on your blog. You blog should be a series of posts , that make up the value of a book if not several books on the topic you write about.The point is not to get the reader bored and give them the information and tips they need. Try implementing polls on your blog and ask people what do they really want to hear and actually give them what they want. I can see bloggers that write 6000 words articles , but that is the way they started their blogs out. Their already built up audience is already used to their writing tactics. One good example and I would recommend reading is Steve Pavlina. One of the greatest bloggers on self improvement and personal coaching which I think is worth reading. His articles are around 3000 - 7000 words but they are worth thousands.
Bringing your blog to life
There are some blogs that really impress me , by the tactics their authors use to place photos into their posts , well designed banners and nice weekly videos. Now the design of a blog is very important. People want to feel comfortable while reading your blog. Giving them access to each and every post , place the categories widget on the navigational areas , use the the recent comments widget , your communities widgets and not to forget the ads placement , design and sizes. Ads are sometimes annoying but very helpful for several people , what they really do is to help targeted traffic. Someone reading your blog , a specific post about “Personal Care” , will notice some ads targeted on that topic , they may be interested in reading more about the subject and ads can be useful to them.
Be Personal
One of the things I`ve also run across since starting out my several blogs , is the idea of being personal. Imagine reading a blog , with an unknown author. People are willing to get in touch with the blogs author , be informed about their personal lives , this way it`s much easier to interact with your readers. Apart from acting like a professional , try to give readers as much information about yourself as possible. Some blogs are very successful , exactly for this reason. Try to include your life experiences once in a while. Places you visit , interesting movies and books you`ve read about , your personal blogging experiences , don`t do it every day , I think once a week will do just fine.
Monetize your blog
You gained some audience? Then you will need to start to profit from your blog. You can either use contextual advertising and ad networks , or do affiliate marketing , or do both at the time. The more monetization strategies you use , the better the pay outs will be. Try not to rely on Google Adsense , try more monetizing strategies. You might want to consider other several networks I use to generate profits online. Apart from these monetizing strategies you can also do paid reviews or sell private advertising.
You can be a professional
If you follow all of these steps , then you are really on your way to successful blogging. Now it`s time to get a self-hosted plan and a domain. This won`t cost you much actually it`s less than eating at Mc`Donalds once. As low as 1.99 $ for domain registration and 10$ for a hosting plan. Don`t worry , if your writing or speaking skills aren`t from the best they can always be improved. English is not my main language either. If we take a look in the blogosphere there are some really successful bloggers that even have a lot of grammatical errors. Grammar and writing skills can be improved as you go along. Blogging made me be a better writer , without having any writing experiences before.
Reading other bloggers
Other bloggers can always inpire you. They don`t have to be the greatest. You have to choose the ones that really have to say something , or any blogger that you consider interesting to read. Subscribe to the RSS feeds , this way you can keep up with a majority of the bloggers you like.
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