The post How to Monetize Your Influence Type: Platform-Specific Superstar appeared first on ProBlogger.

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When we think of influencers, we generally think of people with huge followings on their blog or social media platforms. There is more to influence than just audience numbers though, which is good news for the majority of us! Different influence types means there are different ways to monetize your influence as well.

In this series we’ll take a look at which monetisation strategies better suit your influence type. Hopefully you’ll find something that works in your particular situation, or a mix of strategies you can use do you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

In each context (or type of Influencer) we’re going to look at influence based on two factors to help inform the best ways to monetize:

a) where is your traffic is coming from?
b) what does the engagement look like?

Influence Type: Platform-Specific Superstar

Do you have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube followers? Maybe you’re a celebrity of some kind? More likely you’re not quite there yet, but on the way, so here’s an insight into monetising the influence you have on one specific platform.

Celebrity endorsement is of course used and sought out by brands trying to make it onto the radar of their audiences. The combination of the reach and perceived endorsement is hard to look over, but with wildly differing rates among influencers, increasingly difficult to value! Social Media Stars are the new celebrity and are certainly enjoying their time in the influencer marketing spotlight (and its associated marketing spends). The shine is starting wear off however as marketers are starting to realise what the difference between reach and engagement, and even the type of engagement, means to their bottom line.

Monetize Your Influence Type Working with Brands

If you’ve got a large following you can certainly monetize by working with brands for product placements and endorsements – how much you can expect to successfully charge however will depend on whether you’re just driving impressions or actions.

Where is your traffic coming from?

In this case, where are your followers coming from? Are they following you because you are you (ie a celebrity in their eyes), because of your content, or (not recommended) because you bought them or are using bots to gain followers?

Some brands (or more likely the agencies that work for them) will not care who or where your followers come from – they just want eyeballs. It’s a short-sighted approach and amounts to paying over the odds for awareness. Impressions can usually be bought more cost-effectively through Facebook ads.

This is why marketers are starting to place lesser value on follower stats and even engagements. I’ve recently learned of one platform valuing followers as low as $0.001 per follower (yes, that is one tenth of one cent or a CPM of $1), or you can check out this article to see how marketers are arriving at a slightly more generous CPM of $5 or a Cost Per Engagement (for each like, comment, share) of just $0.25.

These are media buying metrics and the trend looks like the price of reach through influencers is heading south. So your best tactic is to trade on your influence rather than your reach. More importance should be placed on why your followers are following you, because this generally tends to inform the type of engagement and results you can get for a brand.

What does the engagement look like?

Social media superstars can have what looks like impressive reach and engagement, but on closer inspection that engagement can be quite shallow and doesn’t translate to influencing on behalf of a brand. It comes down to this – are your followers engaging with you or with your content? If you feature a brand in your Instagram post, let’s say a handbag, are your followers comments “You look amazing”, “Love your style”, “Insert emoji bot comment here” or are they “Does that bag come in other colours?”, “Where can I buy it?”, “Is it free trade?”, “Do you have a discount code?”

If it’s the latter, you can prove that you can drive conversions and should charge brands for your influence accordingly.

True influence drives action, not just awareness. There are certain verticals where social media influencers will be more likely able to drive these actions, for example: fashion, beauty, affordable gadgets, restaurants and experiences. These are purchases that are just a step above being convenience goods, where your followers are using you as a simple filter to help them make relatively low risk decisions.

Conversely there are some verticals that can almost be too aspirational and even a high level of engagement has less chance of converting. For example, health and wellness, fitness (fitspo), luxury goods. We can like them all day, but it doesn’t mean we’re going to sign up to the gym, actually change our eating or cooking habits, or buy that gorgeous $30,000 watch. These verticals convert better for people who are more relatable, which brings us to an alternative monetisation strategy.

Monetize Your Influence Type by Selling Your Own Products

If you do have a large following on one specific platform, you can use all the aforementioned influence to sell your own products, rather than someone else’s! This is especially so when your audience is more connected to you than just your content. Anyone can curate pretty content that people will click on, but only you can create an authentic connection with an audience and earn their trust.

Where is your traffic coming from?

Selling your own products works best when people subscribe to you because they see you as an authority or thought leader and they keep coming back for more. They seek you out rather than waiting for you to come up in a news feed, for example they subscribe to your YouTube channel and/or sign up to your email list. They want what you have, whether that be an uncluttered house, a passive income lifestyle, a skill they want to master. They’re coming to you to solve their problems, so create a solution and sell it to them.

What does the engagement look like?

When the level of engagement is deeper, the connection to your audience is stronger. Conversations trump likes, real life behind the scenes (ie Snapchat and FB Live) means more than perfectly curated content (Instagram feeds), content people can relate to and feel like you understand what they’re experiencing rather than superficial endorsements. Yes, you could still work with brands and influence this audience, but what they really want is you. When the connection and the intent of the audience (ie their search to find a solution to their problems) is this strong, create a product! Whether that be an eBook, a course, or even consulting services – listen to them and give them what they want.

You don’t have to be a social media superstar to sell your own products – this monetisation strategy and working with brands are not exclusive to influencers with large audiences. Stay tuned for the next instalment in the series where we’ll take a look at how you can monetize your influence when your traffic is passive and less connected to you.

Are you a social media influencer who relies on working with brands? Are you noticing brands being less willing to pay or pay as much? Would you consider selling your own products?

The post How to Monetize Your Influence Type: Platform-Specific Superstar appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post How to Monetise Your Influence Type: Micro-Influencers appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Welcome to the next post in our series on monetising your influence type. Last time we looked at Platform-Specific Superstars – a small percentage of all influencers. This time we’re going to take a look at the other end of the spectrum. Most of us fit into the category of “micro-influencer”, and it can be an exciting place to be!

Who are Micro-influencers?

Call them what you will – micro-influencers, long-tail influencers, the “Power Middle” – who are they and why are they getting so much attention?

There is no one defining characteristic or measurement that defines you as a micro-influencer. Generally it’s those of us with an online audience of less than 100,000 followers, be that a social or blog following. Some define it more specifically as having 500-5,000 followers, the power middle crowd have been defined as having 100,000-250,000 followers. You won’t get a straight answer from anyone, so let’s look at something other than just audience size to help figure out if you’re a micro-influencer (my term of choice, so I’ll use that from here on in).

Generally, as audience size goes up, engagement comes down. As marketers get smarter and realise the power of engagement over reach, their gaze has drifted to micro-influencers. Here’s why, neatly summed up in a graph from research done by influencer marketing platform Takumi on half a million instagram accounts.

You could argue that the focus on the superstars and celebrities is warranted – 1.7% of 100,000 is still more people engaged than 9.7% of 1,000. However, here’s where it gets exciting for you if you’re a micro-influencer.

The Advantages of Being a Micro-influencer

As a micro-influencer, the people who engage with you are likely to be more connected to you and more aligned with your passions, niche and generally of a similar demographic. It’s more likely that they actually know you, or have followed you from the beginning of your online presence – they know, like and trust you. This is why reaching a smaller number of your specific and engaged audience can be better than reaching a larger number of potentially less relevant followers of a bigger influencer.

This leads to another reason why it’s good to be a micro-influencer: trust and authenticity. Micro-influencers are less likely to publish as many sponsored posts and ads as bigger influencers, and when they do talk about brands their recommendations are more trusted by their faithful followers.

One of the reasons why micro-influencers can be even more trusted than everyday customers when it comes to recommendations is the ‘expert’ factor. Expertcity, another influencer marketing platform, discovered that micro-influencers have 22.2 times more ‘buying conversations’ than regular consumers and more consumers find them to be more believable and credible, more knowledgeable and better at explaining products than regular consumers.

So maybe that’s why their study showed that 82% of consumers are “highly likely” to follow a recommendation made by a micro–influencer, compared to 73% who are highly likely to act on a recommendation from an average person? It could be that the word of a micro-influencer could hold more sway than that of a friend in situations where an ‘expert’ opinion is more valued.

The Disadvantages of Being a Micro-influencer

It’s all the the word ‘micro’ – you may have better engagement and influence over a more specific target audience, but too often reach wins out. In order to get the same reach of a macro-influencer, marketers need to work with a group of micro-influencers, and that’s hard work. Finding influencers, negotiating with them all and managing multiple content pieces vs working with just one big influencer – many marketers opt for the second.

However it’s not all gloom and doom, because it’s often the group of micro-influencers that will deliver superior results, especially when it comes to conversion rates. Again, as a micro-influencer your audience is more specific, more connected to you and more likely to engage and act on your recommendations.

Monetise by Working with Brands

Whilst it’s encouraging that marketers are realising the value of micro-influencers, they can still very much try and earn your influence rather than pay for it. For example, they’re more likely to offer discount codes or giveaways for your audience, rather than pay you to do a sponsored post.

Rather than be frustrated with this, look at it as a way to prove your influence. If you can show a prospective brand partner proof of how you positively influenced your audience for a brand, then you’re more likely able to convince them that working with you on a paid basis is less risky and will ultimately give them a return on their investment.

Your first hurdle will be getting on their radar, so here are some great tips on marketing yourself. Start small and build up as you build up your evidence of influence. Focus on your engagement rates and other evidence that proves your influence, like testimonials from your followers. Get to know your audience demographics, either through the insights provided by the social platforms, Google Analytics or by directly surveying your audience. For more ideas, check out How to Pitch Brands When You Have Low Traffic.

Monetise via Affiliate Marketing

Put that recommendation power to work with affiliate marketing. Whilst normally a high-traffic strategy, affiliate marketing can work for micro-influencers too. Your best approach is to carefully select the products or services you affiliate. Choosing a few highly relevant products that you have a close affinity to will serve you better than promoting anything you can think of and hope it sticks. What are the products and services you use and love and find yourself naturally recommending?

Also consider the value of the product and the level or type of commission being offered. Naturally higher priced items can net you higher payouts, but make sure you can stand behind why your audience should purchase them. Affiliate programs on recurring services often offer recurring commissions, so you are rewarded for the lifetime of the customer, not just a once off payment. Examples of this include email marketing and other software services.

If you’re going to give affiliate marketing a go, remember it’s more than just dropping in a few links and hoping for the best. Don’t forget the ‘marketing’ part – create great content around the product, tell your story and it will resonate more with your audience. Want to know more? Check out  this podcast episode by Darren on how he makes money with affiliate marketing (even though he’s not a micro-influencer, many strategies are the same).

Monetise by Selling Your Own Products

If you have influence with an audience or community you have built up, no matter the size, one of the best ways you can monetise is by creating something for them to buy. Whether it’s an ebook, a course, a membership community or an event, you are in a great position to listen to your audience and create what they need.

An excellent example of this is when Lisa Corduff from Small Steps to Whole Foods decided to run a free challenge after having run a small blog and Facebook group for a couple of years. 550 people signed up to her challenge which she then transformed into a paid eight-week course which she has now launched multiple times to create a six-figure business. You can hear her story here. With less than 15,000 Facebook followers and just over 1500 Instagram followers she’s definitely a micro-influencer who is punching above her weight due to the trust and connection she’s built with her specific community.

So, are you a micro-influencer? Are you having success with any of the above monetisation strategies? Which one appeals and feels most achievable for you?

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The post Seasonal Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Ben Yoskovitz’s 6 Steps To Getting Back Into The Blog Saddle reminded me today of some of the tougher times in my own blogging journey when I found it difficult to keep things going.

• The month I had Bells Palsy (facial paralysis and loss of all balance)
• The two weeks that I virtually lost my sight and couldn’t look at a computer screen
• The numerous times I took vacations and found motivating myself to start again a real challenge
• The many ‘critiques’ from others that took the wind out of my sails to the point where giving up seemed attractive

The list could go on (sickness, holidays, disillusionment, boredom, inability to think of fresh ideas etc) – it’s no wonder I’ve written so many posts on the topic of keeping your blog running (see below for a few).

Seasonal Blogging

Since reading Ben’s post I’ve also been considering the idea that blogs will go through different seasons over time.

Winter

I think it’s natural for the tough times (Winter?) to hit periodically. Times like I’ve described above where it is easy to get down in the dumps and consider giving up.

The task during a Blog’s Winter is to keep things going. You might not launch any new projects or add too many new features to your blog in these times – but if you can keep things ticking over until Spring time you’ll see the benefits of sticking at it.

Winter is a time where character and discipline is tested – it’s a time when many bloggers give up – but where those who stick at it can build foundations for a strong blgo that lasts.

Spring

But it’s not all the doom and gloom of Winter when you blog. Spring can be just around the corner at any moment with a period of renewed energy and life for your blog.

Perhaps it is triggered by a fresh idea for a series, the search engines tweaking their algorithm to sending loads or traffic or even by another site linking up.

The key in Spring is to go with the new life and let your blog grow to the next level. This might be a time to harness energy and launch a new feature – or even a time to do a little cross pollination with others in your niche to see what new partnerships might emerge. You might even have a little time to do a little spring cleaning up of your blog while you have renewed energy.

Summer

Then there are other times in the life cycle of a blog where things seem to coast along.

The content is flowing, readers are interacting with what you’ve been writing and you feel like you hardly need to put any effort in at all – it’s like a Summer vacation.

You might even take a little holiday at this time and bring in someone to help you keep things running while you take a little rest and relaxation.

Fall/Autumn

Lastly – there are seasons in every blog where change is needed. Dead wood needs to be cut off and swept away – like the sweeping away of the leaves on a deciduous tree in Autumn (Fall). Other areas will need a little fertilizing (extra compost to get them growing to their potential).

This is a time for refining and consolidation of what you do, perhaps with a little pruning and thinking a little strategically about where your blog is headed. This might also be a time for storing up supplies (write some extra content for that rainy day).

The decisions you make and the work you do in these times can help you to get through the Winter that might be ahead.

The Seasons Each Have Their Place

None of the seasons are ‘bad’ – all have their purpose and all have their tasks that blogger might need to be working on.

The trick is not to give up in those Winter months that so many of us have – but to keep working through them so that the blog is able to still be there at the next change of season.

What Season is your blog in at present?

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The post Maintaining Momentum in Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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The Blogosphere is suffering from an epidemic of inactivity.

One of the most quoted statistics about the growth of blogging is that last year Technorati says that one blog is started every second (that’s 86,400 per day or 31,536,000 per year).

This is an amazing figure and one worth slipping into conversation when attempting to convince someone of the worth of blogging – however another finding from Technorati that is quoted much less is that around half of new blogs become inactive after just three months.

Scientists talk about the amount of ‘space junk’ accumulating in orbit around the earth – my mind boggles at the number of blog junk that must be sitting idle – orbiting aimlessly through the blogosphere.

There are many reasons for this blog junk. A lot of it is the results of splogging. A “Splog” or Spam Blog is a blog created for the sole purpose of linking to other associated websites. Splogs have a short lifespan. Some other blog junk is the result of blogs coming to the natural end of their life cycle (even good blogs die eventually) and some of it is the results of bloggers ‘testing’ new designs or playing around with different blog platforms.

I would guess however, that many of the abandoned and inactive blogs orbiting around, are the results of bloggers who’ve started blogs with good intentions, who have not been able to maintain the momentum that they started out with in terms of posting quality and frequency.

Most of us have struggled at one time or another with maintaining momentum on their blog/s. The reasons for it are many:

• Bloggers biting off more than they can chew – one common scenario that I see in ‘Pro Blogging’ circles is bloggers starting multiple blogs at once and then failing to maintain any of them due to the load. Another problem is picking a topic that is just too wide and therefore overwhelms the blogger.
• Running out of things to say – on the flip side of starting a blog with too wide a focus is choosing one that is too narrow and where it’d difficult to find much to write about.
• Hitting ‘bloggers block’ – many bloggers hit periods where creativity and new ideas just dry up.
• Busyness – many bloggers find that the busyness of their lives is not compatible with the maintenance of a blog
• Holidays – taking time off from blogging is an essential part of keeping fresh and not burning out – however it’s also a danger time for bloggers as many fail to reengage with their blogging rhythm after a period away.
• Crisis – similarly some bloggers fail to reengage with blogging after a crisis hits their personal life. A death in the family, the loss of a job, a relationship break up or any other significant event can mean putting blogging on pause and make it hard to start up again.
• Blogging Crisis – I’ve seen a number of bloggers in recent times become overwhelmed by the negativity of the blogosphere, particularly when they’ve been critiqued or even attacked for their blogging. While this drives some on to blog harder and stronger it can also be a trigger for giving up in some.
• Boredom – as I look at some of the blogs I’ve let go over the last few years one of the reasons was a lack of excitement about the topic. It’d difficult to keep writing on a topic that fails to engage you.

Linked below is a series of posts on the topic of Maintaining Momentum in blogging (at the request of a number of readers of late). Hopefully through it will give us all a little inspiration and a few tips on how to re-start (or end gracefully) those blogs we’ve struggled to keep moving forward.

There is likely to be a bit of cross over between this series and the Battling Bloggers Block series because ‘bloggers block’ is obviously one barrier to momentum. However, maintaining momentum is wider than just a lack of ideas and creativity and hopefully you’ll find this series will address the wider issues in a way that the previous one could not.

Read the rest of the Maintaining Momentum in Blogging Series at:

• 3 Factors to Consider before Starting a Blog
• On the Go Planning
• Using Posting Schedules to Maintain Momentum
• Build on Reader Comments
• Schedule Writing Times
• What to do when you’ve said everything there is to say

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The post Should You Blog for Money? appeared first on ProBlogger.

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I speak with bloggers every day who have heard the stories of blogs that make big dollars and who want to try to make an income from blogging also. One of the pieces of advice that I attempt to convey (and I’m afraid it doesn’t always get through) is that it’s worth pausing, before running out to slap ads on your blog or promoting every affiliate deal available, to ask yourself whether making money from your blog is right for you.

While this might seem to be a silly question to some (what’s wrong with earning money?) I think it’s worth at least asking yourself the question

“Should I blog for money?”

Because, not every blog is suited to blogging for money.

Does it Fit with Your Blog’s Goals and Objectives?

For me, a lot of the advice that I’ve given in this series of blogging for beginners comes down to working out some goals, strategy and vision for your blog (I’ve written extensively on strategic blogging here so won’t unpack this now). There are many reasons why people blog and the motivation of money is just one of them.

Here’s some of the responses I had when I asked why people blog:

• ‘I blog for recreational purposes – to help me relax’
• ‘I blog as part of my plan for world domination’
• ‘I blog to help me promote my book/business’
• ‘I blog to keep a record of the life and times of me’
• ‘I blog because I want to help others’
• ‘I blog to because I’m lonely and want to connect with others’
• ‘I blog to pick up cute girls/guys’
• ‘I blog because it’s fun’
• ‘I blog because I want to build profile – I want to be known’
• ‘I blog to make a living’

Now there is nothing wrong with blogging for more than one reason – but bloggers considering adding income streams to their blogs need to consider the implications that blog monetization in all its different forms MIGHT impact their other goals.

Let me share some scenarios of real cases that I’ve come across (no names given) where putting ads on a blog wasn’t a good idea. If I were a betting man I’d say that they represent the story of many bloggers and that others could add more scenarios:

Scenario 1: Business Blogs – I remember one blogger who added contextual advertising to their Business Blogs (blogs which had primary goals of promoting a business’s services) only to find that the ads that were served to their blogs were for other businesses in their field who they were competing with. While they could block some of the ads they found that more ads replaced them. In the end they felt it was better to remove the ads and keep the focus on themselves.

Scenario 2: Reader Uproar – Another blogger who I have been talking with recently told me the story of the day she added impression based ads to her blog and created a mutiny among her readers who were angry that she’d gone that route. While on some blogs reader ownership are not very high, there are other blogs where for one reason or another that readers take great offense to bloggers changing the rules midstream – especially when it comes to ads. Depending upon the community levels and the way you introduce the ads you can end up losing readership and you need to consider whether the benefits of the income will outweigh the costs of fewer readers.

Scenario 3: Money Obsession – Perhaps one of the saddest examples that comes to mind is of a blogger who had been running a really interesting and reasonably successful blog (I wouldn’t call him an A-lister but he had a small loyal following) who got bitten by the ‘money from blogging’ bug so badly that it ended up killing his blog. Ultimately he ended up deleting a lot of his archives (the ones that had no income earning potential) and slapping so many ads onto his blog that it was hard to find any content. He ended up only ever writing on topics that he thought were ‘earners’. In doing so he lost the vast majority of his readership and ended up with a pretty poor blog. Greed took over.

Scenario 4: Poor Conversion and Clutter – A number of bloggers come to mind who have announced that they are fed up with ads on their blogs largely because the payoff has not been worth giving the space over to the ads. Ads do add another element of clutter to your blog and if the conversion isn’t sufficient they can seem quite pointless. This varies from blogger to blogger and sometimes comes down to the type of ad chosen and the topic that they are writing about – but it’s one of the main reasons I see bloggers taken ads off their blogs.

Scenario 5: Reputation – My last example is of a blogger who was blogging to build his own reputation in an industry. He’d been blogging for a number of months and was slowly become better known (although had a way to go). His problem started when he started promoting affiliate products that he’d had no knowledge of and which (he later found out) were actually ripping people off. In doing so he ended up doing the exact opposite to what he’d set out to do – he destroyed his own reputation.

I’m aware that this post has a somewhat negative tone to it and don’t want to disillusion readers too much. On the flip side of these stories of bloggers who found that blogging for money is not the answer for everyone are many more stories of bloggers who have found ways to supplement their income via blogging (and even a few stories of bloggers who now blog full time).

If you do want to build a profitable blog and transform your blogging hobby into an income-generating business, then I would strongly suggest you check out my “Four Pillars of Blogging – Make Money” Course. This course encapsulates my practical experience making money blogging for the past 20 years and takes you through:

• The many and varied ways to make money blogging
• How to create your own monetization strategy and
• What to focus on first to develop your revenue streams

The post Should You Blog for Money? appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Monkey Bar Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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I’d like to take a moment to make a ProBlogger Public Service Announcement.

Its actually something that I’ve been considering doing for a while now because I’ve had two worrying incidents happen in the past week that have left me somewhat concerned.

The latest of these incidents happened two days ago when I received an excited email from a new ProBlogger reader (I have his permission to share this with you without using his name) who was writing to tell me that he’d just ‘turned Professional’ as a blogger and quit his job to go full time with blogging.

His email was written in an excited tone and was full of grand visions of blogs that would make lots of money. Not only was he excited but his partner was also as they had been reading numerous stories of bloggers making their riches from the medium over the past week. They have two little kids and he was excited to be able to stay home with his family to write each day and be able to provide an income for his family.

The email left me with a sinking feeling in my guts as I considered the decision that this guy had made to quit his secure job to become a Professional Blogger. You see he’d only started his first blog a week ago – the day he handed in his resignation.

ProBlogger Public Service Announcement

It takes time to build a profitable blog. You do not just become a Professional Blogger anymore than you just become a Professional Golfer. It is not a decision you make, it is something you work towards over time.

When we’ve polled the ProBlogger audience on how much money Bloggers are currently making from their blogs, over a third who have responded make less than $30 each Month – less than $1 per day. Around half of those who responded earn less than $100 per month – less than $3 per day. Those are numbers to consider before you launch into ProBlogging without a back up plan.

Monkey Bar Blogging

A wise man once gave me some good advice on business. He reminded me of when as a child I would play on the Monkey Bar Play Gym equipment. If you want to get across the monkey bars, from one end to the other, the safest way to do it is to grab hold of the first bar and swing to the next without letting go of the first until you have a firm grip of the second one. As you let go of the first you propel yourself to the third without letting go of the second until you have a strong grip of the next one.

The quickest way to fall off the monkey bar and break a bone (I broke my collar bone doing this) is to try and skip a bar, or to let go of the first one before you grip the next one.

Business (and Professional Blogging) is the same. There are times when you need to take risks in business – but there are also times when you have to be sensible and have some sort of a backup plan. Don’t try and skip steps without being sure you can survive on where you’re at.

My Blogging Journey

When I first started blogging I was working two jobs part time. I had no idea that blogging would become an income stream for me – it was purely a hobby.

Six or so months later when I started to earn an income from it I was tempted to quit my jobs and go full time but I decided to be careful – and I’m glad I did.

There came a time when I let go of one of those part time jobs – when it became realistic that I would be able to earn enough from my blogging to make up for the loss of that income – but I did keep hold of one of the jobs. Later on I was able to relinquish the second part time job and go full time with my blogging.

I was blogging for 2.5 years before I could afford to ‘go Pro’. I worked 6-10 hours 7 days per week (sometimes more) updating 18+ blogs daily. It was hard work. I loved it and wouldn’t have done anything else – but consider the cost before you launch in.

Yes you CAN make a lot of money from Blogging – read the stories that are going around on blogs of people making decent money from blogging – but also read about the hard work and time that it’s taken them and remember that for every success story you read there are plenty of others around who have tried and failed to make more than a few dollars from their blogs.

I’m not wanting to dampen the excitement and dreams of ProBloggers – in fact the whole point of this blog is to help you reach those dreams – but I think its the responsibility of those of us who are ‘talking up’ blogging to also keep giving reality checks. Otherwise we’re going to end up with a lot of Bloggers that look a little like this guy on the Monkey Bars – hanging on for dear life!

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The post Harnessing the Force: How Lessons From Star Wars Can Elevate Your Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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In a galaxy not so far away, the Star Wars franchise has captivated millions with its epic storytelling and enduring characters. Beyond the realm of lightsabers and space battles, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the success of this iconic movie franchise. As a ProBlogger, you can harness the Force of Star Wars to enhance your blogging business and captivate your audience. In this blog post, we will explore how lessons from the Star Wars movie business franchise, including franchising, rights management, and merchandise sales, can propel your blog to new heights.

1. Embrace Your Unique Voice

The Star Wars franchise stands out for its distinct voice and storytelling style. As a blogger, it is essential to find your own unique voice and embrace it fully. Just like Star Wars has its signature blend of adventure, humor, and drama, your blog should reflect your personality and values. Develop a writing style that resonates with your audience, and let your authentic voice shine through each piece of content. By doing so, you will create a strong connection with your readers, fostering trust and loyalty. Here’s an article on Finding Your Blog’s Unique Voice.

2. Build a Compelling Brand

Star Wars is not just a movie franchise; it’s a globally recognized brand. From merchandise to theme parks, Star Wars has expanded its presence beyond the silver screen. Similarly, as a blogger, you must build a strong brand around your blog. Develop a compelling logo, choose a consistent color scheme, and create a visually appealing website. Craft a tagline or mission statement that encapsulates the essence of your blog. By building a cohesive brand, you establish a memorable image that sets you apart from the competition.

3. Franchising and Collaboration

One of the key strategies behind the success of Star Wars is its ability to expand through franchising and collaboration. As a blogger, you can leverage similar approaches to enhance your blogging business. Consider collaborating with other bloggers or influencers in your niche to cross-promote each other’s content and reach new audiences. By joining forces, you can tap into each other’s networks and benefit from shared expertise.

Furthermore, explore opportunities for franchising your blog. If your blog has gained a significant following and you have developed a strong brand, consider offering franchise opportunities to other bloggers or content creators who align with your values and vision. This allows you to expand your reach while maintaining the quality and consistency of your brand. However, it’s crucial to establish clear guidelines and maintain strong communication to ensure that the franchisees uphold your brand’s standards.

You can listen to more about How Collaborations Can Accelerate Your Blog’s Growth here.

4. Rights Management

Star Wars is a prime example of effective rights management. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, retained the rights to the franchise and carefully managed its use across various platforms. As a blogger, understanding and managing your rights is crucial to protect your content and monetize your brand.

Ensure that you have clear terms and conditions on your blog that outline the ownership of your content and any limitations on its use. Copyright your original work to safeguard against unauthorized use or plagiarism. If you plan to use external content, such as images or videos, familiarize yourself with fair use guidelines or obtain proper permissions and licenses to avoid legal issues. Here’s 3 Things You Can Do to Protect the Content on Your Blog.

Additionally, consider diversifying your revenue streams by exploring opportunities for licensing or syndication. If your blog has gained traction and you have developed a unique brand, there may be opportunities to license your content to other platforms or publications, providing an additional income stream. However, it’s essential to negotiate favorable terms and protect your intellectual property during such arrangements.

5. Merchandising and Monetization

Star Wars has been an unrivaled success in merchandise and monetization, with a vast array of toys, apparel, and collectibles that have become iconic symbols of the franchise. As a blogger, you can learn from this merchandising powerhouse to enhance your own monetization strategies.

Consider developing branded merchandise related to your blog. This could include items such as t-shirts, mugs, stickers, or even digital products like e-books or online courses. Leverage your unique brand and audience to create products that resonate with your readers and provide value. Platforms like Shopify or Print-on-Demand services make it easier than ever to design and sell merchandise without significant upfront costs.

Another avenue for monetization is affiliate marketing. Just as Star Wars has partnered with various brands for product collaborations, you can seek out partnerships with companies in your niche. Promote products or services that align with your audience’s interests and earn commissions for each sale generated through your affiliate links. However, be transparent and ethical in your promotions, ensuring that you genuinely believe in the products you recommend.

Additionally, explore sponsored content opportunities. Collaborate with brands or businesses that align with your blog’s niche and values to create sponsored blog posts, videos, or social media campaigns. However, it’s crucial to maintain authenticity and transparency by clearly disclosing sponsored content to your audience. Here’s some tips about Partnering With Brands: Ways to Collaborate and Earn an Income on Your Blog.

6. Engage Your Audience through Events and Community

Star Wars has excelled in creating a sense of community and engagement among its fans. As a blogger, fostering a similar community around your blog can have a profound impact on its success.

Consider hosting events or meet-ups for your readers, both online and offline. Webinars, live Q&A sessions, or virtual workshops provide valuable interaction and foster a sense of belonging among your audience. Offline events, such as conferences or workshops, can further strengthen the bond with your readers and provide networking opportunities.

Create a space for your community to interact, such as a forum or private Facebook group (make sure you’ve joined the ProBlogger Facebook Community). Encourage discussions, facilitate conversations, and respond to comments and inquiries promptly. This engagement not only helps you better understand your audience’s needs but also creates a loyal and supportive community around your blog.

At ProBlogger we’ve hosted lots of live events for our audience. A good first step is also hosting online events – here’s a case study of How One Blogger is Using Online Events to Build Engagement and Make a Difference.

7. Adapt to Evolving Trends and Technologies

Star Wars has successfully adapted to changing times and embraced new technologies to reach broader audiences. As a blogger, you must also stay abreast of industry trends and adapt accordingly.

Stay updated with the latest blogging platforms and tools to enhance the user experience and streamline your workflow. Explore emerging content formats, such as video or podcasting, to cater to different audience preferences. Leveraging social media platforms, like Instagram or TikTok, can help you reach new audiences and engage with them in innovative ways.

Additionally, monitor analytics and data to gain insights into your audience’s behavior and preferences. This information can guide your content strategy, enabling you to create more targeted and valuable content for your readers.

The Star Wars movie business franchise offers a wealth of lessons that can be applied to blogging. By embracing your unique voice, building a compelling brand, exploring franchising and collaboration opportunities, managing your rights, monetizing through merchandise and partnerships, engaging your audience, and adapting to evolving trends, you can elevate your blogging business to new heights. Just as the Star Wars saga has captured the hearts of millions, your blog has the potential to captivate and inspire your readers. May the creativity and wisdom of Star Wars guide you on your journey to success in the blogosphere. May your blog be as iconic and enduring as the galaxy far, far away. Embrace the lessons, trust in your abilities, and let your blogging business soar to new galaxies of achievement. The Force is with you, always.

The post Harnessing the Force: How Lessons From Star Wars Can Elevate Your Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post How to Make Money From Your Blog – Direct Methods appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Having thought through whether you should blog for money it is now worth taking a look at some of the different models for doing so.

I tend to break the different models that bloggers are using to make money from blogging into two areas – Direct and Indirect methods.

Direct Income Earning Methods – these methods are where a blogger earns an income directly FROM their blog.

Indirect Income Earning Methods – these methods are where a blogger earns an income BECAUSE of their blog.

Most blogs tend to fall into one or the other of these methods – although there is nothing to stop bloggers experimenting with elements of both ( I’ve seen a few bloggers get into trouble with this (example: Scenario 1 in the previous post).

In this post I’ll look at 7 direct income earning methods and in the next post of this series I’ll explore indirect methods. Please note that on occasion in the following post there will be few affiliate links to services that I use and have had some success with.

Direct Income Earning Methods for Bloggers

1. Advertising

There are many ways of selling advertising space on a blog (this could almost be a series of it’s own) but some of the different advertising options that I see working for bloggers include:

• Display Ads: Display ads are graphical or text-based ads that appear on your blog. They can be placed in various locations, such as the header, sidebar, or within the content. You can use ad services or networks like Google AdSense, Media.net, or Ezoic to display contextual ads that match your blog’s content and target your audience.
• Native Ads: Native ads seamlessly blend in with your blog’s content, providing a non-disruptive advertising experience. Platforms like Taboola and Outbrain offer native advertising solutions where you can display recommended content or sponsored posts on your blog.
• Programmatic Advertising: Programmatic advertising involves using automated systems to buy and sell ad inventory in real-time. Ad networks like Google Ad Manager allow you to manage and serve ads from multiple demand sources, including direct advertisers and ad exchanges.
• Direct Ad Sales: Selling ad space directly to advertisers gives you more control over pricing and placements. You can create an “Advertise with Us” page on your blog and reach out to potential advertisers in your niche. Alternatively, you can use platforms like BuySellAds, which connect publishers with advertisers looking to buy ad space.
• Sponsored Content/Advertorials: Sponsored content or advertorials involve creating content that promotes a specific product or service. You can negotiate sponsored content deals directly with advertisers or work through sponsored content marketplaces like IZEA.
• In-Text Ads: In-text ads appear as hyperlinked keywords within your blog posts. When users hover or click on the keywords, a small ad box or pop-up appears. Platforms like Infolinks and Sovrn offer in-text advertising solutions for publishers.
• Rich Media Ads: Rich media ads include interactive elements like video, audio, or animations. Platforms like Raptive specialize in serving high-quality, engaging rich media ads on your blog.
• Contextual Ads: Contextual ads are targeted based on the content of your blog. They analyze the keywords and context of your pages to display relevant ads. Ad networks like Media.net and Adversal offer contextual advertising options for publishers.

When considering ad services or networks, it’s important to evaluate their ad quality, payout rates, user experience, and support. You can explore multiple options and test different networks to find the best fit for your blog’s niche and audience.

2. Sponsorship

Another form of advertising that a smaller number of bloggers are using is to find their own advertisers. All of the above systems have the advantage of finding you advertisers (or at least assisting in the automation of ads to your blog) but as your blog grows in profile and influence you might find other options for private deals come up.

The big blog networks have people dedicated to the task of finding advertisers (often working through ad agencies) but smaller bloggers might find this worthwhile also. I’ve been selling ads on my Digital Photography School blog for years now and as it’s grown in traffic and profile and managed to attract larger companies (who are willing to pay more) to buys space. Currently the blog features programmatic ads as well as periodic sponsorships from companies who can purchase a combination of banner, newsletter and text ads.

The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about. There are a variety of ads that you can offer them including banner ads, buttons, text links, mentions in newsletters and even individual post sponsorships. I would highly recommend that you always make it clear to readers that your post is a sponsored one when you’re writing a sponsored post.

3. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are where you take a commission for referring a reader who purchases a product or service to a company. Probably the most common of these for bloggers is Amazon which has tens of thousands of products that you can link to (I reviewed it here). Other affiliate programs that represent many different companies and products include Linkshare, Commission Junction, Clickbank, Shareasale and Impact.

Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic. If you want to explore affiliate programs more you might like to read 10 tips for using affiliate programs on you blog.

4. Selling/Flipping Blogs

The idea of selling (or flipping) your blog is one that many bloggers have in the back of their minds for ‘one day’ but in reality it is not something that is overly common… yet (I think this is changing). Starting a blog with the main goal of selling it down the track is one that I’ve heard of a number of bloggers doing but few have been successful. Rather than starting with this intention I think if you start with the intention of building a quality site that has a large readership and it’s own good income stream you are more likely to find buyers down the track.

If and when you do establish your blogging business as a saleable entity, you can market it via sites like Flippa, Empire Flippers and FE International.

5. Donations and Tip Jars

Some blogs are making good money with voluntary payment platforms like Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee. To be successful with asking for money from readers you’ll want to have a large and loyal readership (and a rich one might help too). Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make it work. Many more are providing more value and content behind a paywall with subscriptions (see below). An example from podcast world of someone who asks for and receives lots of donations is Dan Carlin with his Hardcore History podcast.

6. Merchandise

Another method that some blogs use with reasonable effect is to sell T-Shirts, Mugs, Stickers etc with the blog’s name, logo and/or taglines on it. This is another idea that will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog. Some blog topics lend themselves to this more than others.

7. Selling Subscriptions

The idea of charging your audience readers for content is one that is growing, particularly in the podcasting space. While there are numerous websites around the web that do this successfully (community membership sites) blogs are starting to do this too. The problem that most bloggers who have tried it have run into is that most topics that you could think to start a blog about already have free sites available. To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic alongside an engaged audience with a real sense of community and attachment to you. Patreon is the top platform for this and a good example I’ve seen (listed to) lately is the Tooth and Claw podcast which alternates between free and paid (Patreon) podcast episodes.

Next in the series we’ll look at indirect ways of making money because of your blog.

If you want to learn more about monetizing your blog, you can take my “Make Money” course to transform your blogging hobby into an income-generating business.

The post How to Make Money From Your Blog – Direct Methods appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Making Money Because of Your Blog – Indirect Methods appeared first on ProBlogger.

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We now turn our attention to ways of making money from blogging that are more more ‘indirect’ in nature – or how to earn money because of your blog rather than from it (How to Make Money From Your Blog – Direct Methods).

Many of the following methods are the result of the profile and perceived expertise of the blogger themselves (whereas many of the direct methods mentioned previously are less reliant upon this).

Building a profile as a blogger doesn’t happen quickly and starting a blog with some of these hopes should be seen as a long term thing. My own experience in this area when starting ProBlogger is that it took about 12 months for opportunities to open in most of these areas. However, with the accelerated pace with which you’re now able to build a personal brand online, these opportunities are probably all available sooner.

Consulting

When you are perceived as an expert on a topic you will find that people naturally come to you for advice – some of them willing to pay for it. Some niches are probably better positioned than others for their bloggers to get into paid consultancy work of course. I spoke with one blogger recently (blogging in a business/technology field) who was able to charge himself out at $600 per hour to give advice to a large company. Many bloggers sell appointments in their calendar, using a cart linked to a booking app or an all-in-one solution like Book Like a Boss. Most of these 1:1 consults are at the top of a pyramid of consulting-type services or digital services that bloggers offer.

• Neil Patel has built a successful consulting business by leveraging his expertise in SEO, content marketing, and online advertising. He offers consulting services to companies and individuals seeking to improve their digital marketing strategies and increase their online visibility.
• Amy Porterfield is a blogger, online marketing expert, and host of the podcast “Online Marketing Made Easy.” Through her blog and online courses, she provides valuable insights and resources on topics such as social media marketing and list building. Amy has expanded her business by offering consulting services, where she works closely with clients to develop and implement effective marketing strategies.
• Joanna Wiebe is the founder of Copyhackers, a blog and training platform dedicated to teaching persuasive writing and conversion copywriting. Joanna has utilized her expertise to offer consulting services to businesses aiming to improve their copywriting and conversion optimization.

These examples demonstrate how successful bloggers can leverage their expertise and credibility to offer consulting services in their respective niches. By sharing their knowledge and providing personalized guidance, these bloggers have built thriving consulting businesses, helping clients achieve their marketing and business goals.

Employment Opportunities

There’s many examples of companies not just hiring bloggers as consultants, but actually employing them full-time for their demonstrated expertise. Here’s just a couple to give you an idea of how your blog can act like your online CV.

• Lindsay Ostrom started the food blog Pinch of Yum in 2010, where she shared recipes and food photography. Her blog gained a dedicated following and her photography skills attracted the attention of the kitchenware company, Williams-Sonoma who eventually hired her as a full-time photographer and recipe developer.
• Gina Luker ran the DIY and home decor blog The Shabby Creek Cottage. Her blog’s success and expertise in home decor and crafting led to her being hired by a home improvement retail company to create content and lead DIY workshops for their customers.

Successful blogs can lead to career opportunities and partnerships with companies seeking to tap into the blogger’s expertise, industry knowledge, and audience reach

Business Blogging

Similarly there are some businesses who employ people to blog for them either as their main role or part of their role. These companies recognize the value of bloggers in creating engaging and authentic content that resonates with their target audience. Hiring bloggers to focus solely on creating content for the company’s blog allows them to tap into the blogger’s expertise and established audience, enhancing their brand’s online presence

• Kate Arends, the founder of the lifestyle blog Wit & Delight – which covers topics such as fashion, home decor, and personal development – was hired by Target, where she worked as a full-time blogger and content creator for the company’s website and social media platforms. 
• The Toren brothers, Adam and Matthew Toren, started the blog YoungEntrepreneur.com, which provided resources, tips, and inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs. Their blog’s success led to them being hired by Dell as full-time bloggers and content creators, where they contributed to the company’s entrepreneur-focused initiatives.

ProBlogger Jobs is worth following if you’re looking for these types of jobs. There are hundreds of jobs listed each month across a variety of niches. You can set up job alerts based on keywords associated with your niche interests.

Book Deals

Some days as I read through the RSS feeds that I follow it seems that every blogger I read has a book either in progress or coming out. Once again it’s about being seen as an expert in your field – if you can achieve this you will find publishers are more receptive to having an idea pitched to them and at times will even seek you out. This is becoming more and more common with publishers as they are seeing not only some great writers but that many of them already have large amounts of content on their blogs ready to be pulled together into a book! Self-publication is also a viable option if you’ve built up an audience via blogging.

• Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman, started her blog sharing stories about life on a ranch and her love for cooking. Her blog’s success led to her securing a book deal. She has since written several cookbooks, including “The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl,” which became a New York Times bestseller.
• Jenny Lawson, known as The Bloggess, gained popularity through her blog where she shares personal stories with humor and candor. She received a book deal and published her memoir “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir,” which became a bestseller and launched her career as an author.
• Brandon Stanton is the photographer and writer behind the blog Humans of New York (HONY). He started the blog as a way to capture the stories of people he encountered on the streets of New York City. His blog gained widespread recognition, leading to a book deal. He has published several books featuring photographs and stories of the individuals he has encountered, including “Humans of New York” and “Humans of New York: Stories.”

These examples showcase how bloggers who have established a strong online presence and gained a loyal following through their blogs have been able to secure book deals and transition into successful authors. Their unique voices and storytelling abilities captured the attention of publishers and allowed them to share their experiences and perspectives through printed works.

Offline Writing Gigs

Bloggers who demonstrate expertise, thought leadership, and a unique perspective through their blogs can also attract the attention of news outlets, leading to employment as full-time writers and contributors.

• Ezra Klein began his blogging career on The American Prospect website, where he wrote about politics and policy. His insightful analysis and writing caught the attention of The Washington Post, and he was eventually hired as a full-time blogger and columnist for the publication.
• Megan McArdle began her blogging career with her blog “Asymmetrical Information,” where she covered a wide range of topics including economics, politics, and public policy. She was hired by The Atlantic as a full-time blogger and columnist, where she continued to write on similar subjects.
• Martin Lewis began his career as a journalist, then launched the personal finance blog MoneySavingExpert.com, gained a significant following, and was then hired back as a full-time financial journalist and expert by a major news publication.

Online Writing Gigs

Similarly, some bloggers land jobs writing for other niche websites as a result of being discovered from their blogs, to contribute their knowledge, insights, and engaging content to the platform.

• Joanna Hawley, the creator of the blog Jojotastic, which focuses on home decor, lifestyle, and travel was hired by Apartment Therapy, a popular home decor and design website, as a regular contributor and writer.
• David Lebovitz a food blogger and author known was hired by the food and cooking website, Food52, as a regular contributor, where he shares his expertise and delicious recipes.
• Ana White’s self-named blog focuses on do-it-yourself furniture and woodworking plans. Her expertise in woodworking and her ability to provide accessible DIY tutorials led to her being hired by the website BuildSomething, where she writes and shares woodworking projects exclusively for the platform.

Business Partnerships

One of the benefits of blogging about a niche topic that interests you is that you will begin to connect with others who have similar interests and expertise. As you interact with them it’s amazing to see the opportunities for working together that arise.

• Joy Cho is the founder of the lifestyle blog Oh Joy!, known for its vibrant and creative content. Through her blog, she connected with her now business partner, Angi Welsch, who also had a blog focusing on children’s fashion. They joined forces and established Oh Joy! Studio, a design and branding agency that offers creative services, licensing partnerships, and product collaborations.
• Jess Constable, the founder of the blog Makeunder My Life, and Erin Loechner, the creator of the blog Design for Mankind, met through their respective blogs and realized they shared similar values and goals. They collaborated and co-founded The CAMP, a creative agency that offers branding and design services, as well as workshops and educational resources.
• David Schneider, a blogger and software tester, connected with Rosie Sherry through their shared interest in software testing and quality assurance. They co-founded the Ministry of Testing, a community-driven platform that provides resources, training, events, and conferences for software testers worldwide.

These examples showcase how bloggers who meet through blogging can form meaningful partnerships and go on to create successful businesses together, leveraging their complementary skills, shared interests, and established online presence to pursue ventures beyond their individual blogs.

Speaking Opportunities

Once again this is dependent upon the topic you’re writing about but some lucky bloggers end up with all kinds of opportunities to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars on their topic of choice. Sometimes they are freebies, other times the conference will cover costs and on other occasions there are speakers fees. You can check out my “Speaking” page for some ideas. Other bloggers who make money speaking include:

• Pat Flynn – the founder of the blog Smart Passive Income, where he shares his experiences and insights on online business, passive income, and entrepreneurship. His expertise and success in these areas led to him being invited to speak at various conferences and events related to online business and marketing. He has become a sought-after speaker (he’s spoken at a few ProBlogger Events) and has delivered keynote speeches at renowned industry conferences, earning a fee for his speaking engagements.
• Rand Fishkin is the co-founder of the blog Moz, which focuses on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and online marketing. Through his blog and expertise in the field, he became a recognized authority in SEO. He has been invited to speak at numerous conferences and events worldwide (including ProBlogger Event), where he shares his knowledge and insights on SEO and digital marketing. His speaking engagements have contributed to his reputation and he often commands a fee for his presentations.
• Marie Forleo – Marie Forleo is a life coach, author, and founder of the blog and online platform MarieTV. Through her blog and online presence, she has built a large following and established herself as a thought leader in personal development, business, and entrepreneurship. Forleo has been invited to speak at major conferences and events, where she delivers inspirational and empowering talks with a significant fee for her appearances.

What does this mean for your blog?

If you’re planning to use some of these indirect ways of making money because of your blog it’s important that you think seriously about building your own profile and credibility as a blogger. Think about the types of people that you respect and look to as experts an consider what they offer in their fields.

These people are generally original thinkers that not only report what others are doing, but who provide answers and vision for their industry. They are also often well networked and have the ability to draw others along with them.

Here’s where I’d start:

• provide useful content that shows an understanding of your niche.
• network within your niche. Work on being connected with other key players (big and small).
• use your blog not only to report and rehash news but to also show initiative in proposing solutions. Be proactive in your blogging and lead the conversation rather than just react to it.

There’s probably endless indirect methods to leverage your blog to make money. What are some other ways you’ve used or seen?

The post Making Money Because of Your Blog – Indirect Methods appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post 10 Strategies to Boost Your Blog’s Traffic appeared first on ProBlogger.

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As a blogger, one of your primary goals is to attract a larger audience to your website. More traffic means more visibility, engagement, and ultimately, more opportunities for monetization. Fortunately, there are several effective strategies you can employ to increase your blog’s traffic. In this article, we’ll explore ten proven techniques that encompass search engine optimization (SEO), social media, guest blogging, and more. By implementing these strategies, you’ll be well on your way to reaching a wider audience and achieving your blogging goals.

1. Optimize Your Content for SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving organic traffic to your blog. Start by conducting keyword research to identify relevant and high-traffic keywords in your niche. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your blog posts, titles, headings, and meta descriptions. Additionally, focus on creating high-quality, informative content that addresses your readers’ needs and interests. Well-optimized content will help search engines recognize your blog as a valuable resource, resulting in higher rankings and increased visibility.

Here’s 8 “First Step” SEO Tips for Bloggers if you’re new to this topic.

2. Leverage the Power of Social Media

Social media platforms offer an excellent opportunity to expand your blog’s reach and engage with a broader audience. Identify the platforms that resonate most with your target audience and establish a strong presence there. Regularly share your blog posts, along with captivating captions and relevant hashtags. Encourage social sharing by incorporating social sharing buttons on your blog, making it easy for readers to share your content with their networks. Engage with your followers, respond to comments, and actively participate in relevant conversations to build a loyal community.

This article explains in more depth How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Blog, including giving you 9 tips to using social media to find new readers for your blog.

3. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging allows you to tap into the existing audience of other established bloggers in your niche. Identify influential blogs that align with your niche and offer to contribute guest posts. Write high-quality, valuable content that showcases your expertise and includes a link back to your blog. When readers find value in your guest post, they’ll be inclined to visit your blog for more of your insights. Additionally, guest blogging helps build relationships with other bloggers, opening doors for future collaborations and cross-promotion opportunities.

If you want to learn more about guest posting Finding New Readers for Your Blog with Guest Posting gives you some important information.

4. Engage in Blogger Outreach

Connect with other bloggers in your niche and actively engage with their content. Leave thoughtful comments on their blog posts, share their content on social media, and reach out to them through email or social platforms. Building relationships with fellow bloggers can lead to collaboration opportunities, guest posting invitations, and mutual support in promoting each other’s blogs. The blogging community is a valuable network that can help amplify your reach and attract new readers. 

The Ultimate Guide to Leaving Comments On Blogs covers this part of blogger outreach very thoroughly.

5. Create Compelling Headlines

The headline of your blog post is the first impression your potential readers get. Craft attention-grabbing headlines that evoke curiosity, promise value, and pique interest. Use power words, numbers, and actionable language to make your headlines more compelling. A well-crafted headline will entice readers to click through and explore your content, thereby increasing your blog’s traffic.

My post on Why Blog Post Titles Are Crucial tells you more about creating headlines and I’d also recommend you check out Headline Studio by CoSchedule which is a very helpful tool.

6. Implement Internal Linking

Internal linking is the practice of linking one page or blog post on your website to another. This strategy not only helps readers navigate your site but also improves SEO. By interlinking relevant articles within your blog, you can increase the time readers spend on your site, reduce bounce rates, and signal to search engines that your content is valuable and interconnected. Incorporate internal links strategically throughout your blog posts, guiding readers to related content and encouraging them to explore further.

Here’s an internal link for you, explaining all about How do you link to yourself?

7. Optimize for Mobile Devices

With the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, it’s crucial to ensure your blog is mobile-friendly. Optimize your website design and layout to provide a seamless browsing experience on smaller screens. Use responsive design, compress images for faster loading times, and ensure that your font sizes are legible on mobile devices. A mobile-friendly blog will not only improve user experience but also contribute to better search engine rankings, as search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites.

You can listen to my podcast about The Benefits of Your Blog Being Mobile-Friendly and that page also contains further reading on the topic.

8. Utilize Email Marketing

Building an email list is a powerful way to maintain a direct line of communication with your readers. Encourage visitors to subscribe to your blog’s newsletter by offering exclusive content or valuable incentives. Once you have a subscriber list, regularly send out engaging emails that highlight your latest blog posts, share valuable resources, and nurture relationships with your audience. By leveraging email marketing effectively, you can drive repeat traffic to your blog and cultivate a loyal following.

Here’s the first article in a series about email marketing for bloggers which covers Why Your Blog Needs an Email Newsletter.

9. Collaborate with Influencers

Partnering with influencers in your niche can significantly boost your blog’s visibility and attract new readers. Identify influential individuals or brands that align with your blog’s topic and reach out to them for potential collaborations. This could involve co-creating content, hosting joint webinars or podcasts, or featuring each other’s work. Influencer collaborations introduce your blog to a wider audience and help establish your credibility in the industry.

The though of approaching influencers in your niche might be a little scary but this article about How to Approach Influencers in Your Niche will simplify things for you.

10. Analyze and Refine Your Strategy

Regularly analyze your blog’s performance using analytics tools to gain insights into what’s working and what can be improved. Monitor your traffic sources, popular content, and user behavior to identify patterns and trends. Adjust your content strategy accordingly, focusing on topics and formats that resonate with your audience. By constantly refining your approach based on data, you can optimize your efforts and continuously improve your blog’s traffic.

You should review your results regularly – here’s How to Dig Into Your Blog Statistics – and consider whether you’re meeting your objectives or if need to change your strategy.

Increasing your blog’s traffic requires a multifaceted approach that combines effective SEO practices, social media engagement, guest blogging, and more. By implementing the strategies outlined in this article, you can attract a larger audience, boost engagement, and achieve your blogging goals. Remember that consistency, quality content, and building relationships within your niche are key to long-term success. Embrace these strategies, adapt them to your blog’s unique needs, and watch your traffic grow. Happy blogging!

The post 10 Strategies to Boost Your Blog’s Traffic appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post An Introduction to Using Images on Blogs appeared first on ProBlogger.

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The following post was originally submitted by Duncan Riley from the Blog Herald, Weblog Empire and updated with current tools and tips.

I asked Duncan to explore the topic of using Images on Blogs. I think you’ll agree that his article below is a very comprehensive exploration of the topic, which I hope you will find helpful.

Any good blogger will tell you that images and imagery are vitally important in the development and rise of any good blog, but they can also be frustrating, time-consuming, and challenging to work with. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to understand how to effectively use images on your blog.

Types of Images

For ease of use, let’s categorize images on your blog into two categories: design imagery and content imagery. Design imagery includes any images you may want to use in the header, sidebar, or footer to enhance the overall visual appeal of your blog. Content imagery refers to photos and images you include within or exclusively as blog posts. While we will cover common ground in dealing with both types of images, there are some distinct considerations for each.

Toolbox

While there are various tools available, let’s focus on free resources for image editing and creation to suit different needs and budgets:

1. Canva: an excellent web-based graphic design tool that offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of customizable templates. It provides an extensive library of free images, icons, and illustrations to enhance your blog’s visual content. It’s what we use here at ProBlogger.

2. PicMonkey: another useful tool for creating visual content for your blog with photo editing and design plus templates for logos, banners, thumbnails, and more

3. GIMP: powerful open-source image editing software available for PC, Mac, and Linux. Many users consider it as powerful as Adobe Photoshop but without the price tag. GIMP offers a comprehensive set of features for manipulating and editing images.

Posting Images to Your Blog

The method for posting images to your blog depends on the blogging platform you use. Most platforms, whether free or paid, offer image hosting as part of their services. However, it’s essential to consider the bandwidth/traffic limitations of your blogging package and how image sizes can impact your blog’s loading speed. To optimize your images, you can utilize image editing software such as GIMP or Canva, which allows you to resize and compress images.

TIP: If you’re having trouble wityh your image file size being too big, try using TinyPNG which is a free service for Smart WebP, PNG and JPEG image file compression.

Copyright Issues

Copyright laws vary, but in general, using copyright-protected images as extracts or complements to your posts falls under Fair Use or Fair Dealing. However, using such images as part of your blog’s design may not be considered fair use. It’s crucial to familiarize yourself with the legal concepts of fair use and fair dealing in your jurisdiction.

When it comes to commercial sites, it’s safest to assume that the images are copyrighted unless stated otherwise. It’s advisable to avoid using such images unless you understand the legal implications.

It’s also important to follow the unwritten rule in the blogosphere of providing attribution when using images from other blogs. Include a link back to the source blog within or at the end of your post, giving credit to the original creator.

Where to Find Copyright-Free Images

To find copyright-free images, you can explore the following resources:

1. Unsplash: offers a vast collection of high-quality, copyright-free images contributed by photographers worldwide. The images are available for free and can be used for both personal and commercial purposes. We’ve previously used Unsplash a lot at ProBlogger.

2. Pixabay: provides a diverse collection of copyright-free images, illustrations, and vectors.

3. Pexels: another popular platform that offers a wide range of high-quality, free stock photos and videos. You can search for specific images or explore their curated collections.

4. Freepik: provides a vast selection of free vectors, PSD files, icons, and photos. It’s a great resource for bloggers looking for graphic elements to enhance their visual content.

5. Canva’s Free Image Library: In addition to its design tools, Canva also offers a free image library with a wide variety of high-quality photos and illustrations that you can use in your blog posts.

Remember to review the specific licensing terms and requirements for each resource to ensure proper usage and attribution.

What services are there to help bloggers with images?

There are several ways you can enhance your image experience as a blogger:

Forums: If you encounter any image-related issues, check out the user forums of your blogging platform or hosting service. These forums often contain valuable information and discussions on similar problems. You can search for solutions or even post your own questions.

Support: If you’re using a paid blogging service like TypePad, take advantage of their customer support. Reach out to their support team via email with your questions or concerns. While they may not directly assist with image-related issues, they can point you in the right direction or provide helpful resources.

Blogs and Bloggers: Many bloggers have encountered and solved image-related challenges. Utilize search engines like Google and blog directories like Technorati to find blog posts or articles discussing similar issues. You may discover valuable insights and solutions shared by experienced bloggers.

By utilizing these resources and tools, you can effectively incorporate images into your blog posts, enhance your blog’s visual appeal, and navigate any image-related challenges that may arise.

Remember to always respect copyright laws, give proper attribution when necessary, and strive to create a visually engaging and appealing blog through the thoughtful use of images.

What tips and tools do you have for using images on your blog? Drop them in a comment below.

The post An Introduction to Using Images on Blogs appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Principles of Choosing a Profitable Blog Topic appeared first on ProBlogger.

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I recently had a conversation with a reader about selecting the right topic for a profitable blog. In this discussion, I realized that finding a balance among various factors is crucial. Let’s explore these essential principles for choosing a profitable blog topic.

Topic Popularity

One important factor in the success of any profitable blog is that it will need to find readers. I could probably build a blog that would dominate the niche for ‘green striped paper bags’ and get 100% of those searching for the term on Google (there is no competition) however the fact of the matter is that I’d probably be my only reader. It’s important to choose a topic that meets a demand for information. It need not be on a topic that absolutely everyone is searching for information on – but the popularity of the topic is obviously one factor that could increase the chances of success.

Selecting a topic with a significant demand for information increases the likelihood of attracting readers. While it’s important to find a balance between popularity and competition, identifying niches within popular topics can be highly profitable. For example, rather than starting a broad blog about fitness, focusing on a specific niche like “keto diet for beginners” or “high-intensity interval training (HIIT)” can yield better results. These focused topics allow you to position yourself as an expert and capture a dedicated audience.

To gauge the popularity of a blog topic, keyword research tools can provide valuable insights. These tools help identify search volume, competition, and related keywords for conducting your niche analysis:

• Google Trends: This free tool allows you to explore the popularity of specific keywords over time and in different regions. It provides data on search interest, related topics, and rising trends.
• SEMrush: Known for its comprehensive keyword research features, SEMrush offers insights into search volume, keyword difficulty, and competitor analysis. It also suggests related keywords and provides an overview of the competitive landscape.

Topic Competition and Narrow Niches

Another way of increasing the chances of profit is to choose a topic which currently has few quality sources of information already existing online. You may think that no such topic exists – but you’d be wrong. Whilst the web is a crowded place there are many topics where there is little competition and as a result you have the ability to be one of the biggest fish in that small pond. Sometimes you have to narrow your topic to find such niches, other times you have to be ‘the first’ as a new topic emerges and other times there might be existing sites on the topic – but they are of a low enough standard that you can compete easily by producing something better or more useful. Finding a niche with limited competition can provide opportunities for significant growth and profitability. Here are a couple of examples:

1. “Indoor Urban Gardening Tips”: With the rise in urban living, many people are interested in growing plants indoors. By focusing on providing valuable content and advice on indoor urban gardening techniques, tools, and plant care, you can establish yourself as an authority in this niche. Monetization options can include affiliate partnerships with gardening equipment suppliers or creating your own line of indoor gardening products.
2. “Sustainable Fashion for Men”: As sustainability becomes a global concern, the demand for eco-friendly fashion is rising. By catering specifically to men and providing content on sustainable clothing brands, styling tips, and ethical fashion practices, you can tap into a growing market. Revenue streams can include affiliate marketing with sustainable fashion brands and collaborations with eco-conscious clothing companies.
3. My narrowest niche blog is one that I run on UAV’s or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Now it’s not my most profitable blog by far – and when I started it ten years ago there weren’t as many people searching on the topic and I was able to get a fairly large % of those searching for my keywords because I ranked so highly on Google for them. These days this topic is a lot more competitive but it’s an example of what you can do over time if you’re willing to carve out a niche for yourself.

Here are some additional niche analysis tools to help you identify untapped markets:

• Ubersuggest: offers keyword suggestions and competition analysis. It provides information on search volume, difficulty, and related keywords, helping you discover specific niches with lower competition.
• Ahrefs: a powerful SEO tool that enables you to analyze competitors, discover low-competition keywords, and explore niche opportunities. It also offers content gap analysis, helping you identify areas where your competitors are lacking.

Availability of Revenue Streams

Ok so you’ve found a topic people search for and you don’t have much competition – but you’ll never turn a profit on it if you don’t find an income stream for it. Contextual advertising programs like Adsense offer varying click values for different topics. Ideally, you’d want to choose a high-paying topic, but you might discover intense competition within those niches. It can be worthwhile to explore medium-level click values with less competition. Remember, Adsense is not the only revenue stream for bloggers. Explore available affiliate programs relevant to your topic and consider opportunities for sponsorships from private advertising sources.

Identifying topics with potential revenue streams is essential for long-term profitability. Here are two recent examples:

1. “Smart Home Automation”: With the increasing popularity of smart home devices, blogging about smart home automation can be lucrative. Monetization options include affiliate partnerships with smart home product manufacturers, sponsored content from companies in the home automation industry, and creating digital products such as e-books or online courses on setting up smart homes.
2. “Digital Nomad Lifestyle”: As remote work and location independence gain traction, the digital nomad lifestyle has become a popular topic. Bloggers in this niche can generate revenue through affiliate marketing of travel gear, sponsored content from travel agencies or co-working spaces, and offering coaching or consulting services for aspiring digital nomads.

Researching “your topic affiliate programs” on search engines and exploring Amazon’s affiliate program can be excellent starting points. Here are a few examples of tools to assist you in assessing your blog affiliate revenue potential:

• Amazon Associates: Amazon’s affiliate program, known as Amazon Associates, allows you to earn commissions by promoting products relevant to your blog’s niche. With a vast range of products, it can be a valuable income source for bloggers.
• ShareASale: an affiliate marketing network that connects bloggers with various merchants and brands. It offers a wide range of affiliate programs across different niches, allowing you to find relevant partners for your blog.

If you are going to use Adsense you ideally want a high paying topic. Unfortunately whilst you might identify one you may just find that your competition is incredibly high. Sometimes it is worth picking a topic that is in the medium level of click values and has less competition.

Availability of Content

You’ll want to do a little research on your topic before starting a blog to see if you’ll be able to sustain it in adding fresh content over a long period. The thing that kills many commercial blogs very quickly is that the author simply runs out of things to write. I’ve started numerous blogs over the past couple of years that I quickly found I had nothing much to say about.

Ensuring a steady stream of content is crucial for maintaining engagement and attracting readers. Here’s an example:

• “Plant-Based Recipes for Families”: As more people embrace plant-based diets, there’s a demand for family-friendly plant-based recipes. By curating and creating delicious, kid-friendly plant-based recipes, you can cater to this audience. Content can include meal planning tips, nutritional information, and creative plant-based alternatives for popular family meals. Regularly sharing new recipes and engaging with the audience can help build a loyal readership.

If you’re wanting to test the availability of content keyword research tools can help identify popular topics and generate content ideas. Here are two tools to assist you:

• BuzzSumo: allows you to discover popular content in your niche by analyzing social media shares and engagement. It helps you identify trending topics and create content that resonates with your audience.
• AnswerThePublic: This tool generates a visual representation of questions and phrases related to your chosen keyword. It can inspire content ideas by revealing what people are searching for and what information they seek.

Measure your own Energy, Passion and Interest

Lastly (and very importantly) it’s worth trying to objectively measure your own passion, interest or energy level for the blog. Whilst there might be plenty of news going around on the topic will you still be energized by posting on the topic in 6 months time (without the motivation of money – because it might take take a year or two to establish yourself in a niche). If you don’t have something motivating you to post on a topic it can become very difficult to keep doing so – unless you have a very dedicated personality type.

Put it all together

The fact is that you’ll rarely find a topic that all these factors come together on unless you’re either very lucky or the first in a popular new niche that you just happen to have a passion for. Most blogs fall down in one (or more) of these areas. This does not mean it can’t be a viable and profitable blog, but it’s good to be aware of the weaknesses as you venture out. The beauty of blogging is that there are no rules – and some of my most successful experiments have flown in the face of most of the above principles.

For example (just to disprove myself and give a little hope to you rebellious types) – arguably the most successful blog I’ve ever been involved with (over a short period of time) was the Athens Olympics Blog that I ran with a mate which generated 2 million visitors in a few weeks and made us a tidy sum of money.

This blog succeeded despite having massive competition (from every major news website going around) and despite having very low click value on Adsense and few lucrative affiliate programs. The sheer weight of people searching for information over a short period of time was the main ingredient to our success. This was coupled with us working incredibly long hours (around the clock for two weeks and for months before) providing a blog that was actually quite useful. We actually became known as a site that updated statistics and information faster than most of the ‘professional’ sites covering the event.

Despite being dormant (and falling into disrepair lately) it still even gets reasonable visitor levels to this day.

So take these principles as friendly advice – not rules. In many ways they are ‘ideals’ which you will almost certainly have to compromise some of at some point but which can help you choose a topic that has a greater chance of success.

Add your own suggestions and experiences in choosing a blog’s topic below in comments12.

The post Principles of Choosing a Profitable Blog Topic appeared first on ProBlogger.

The post Strategic Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Over the past year I’ve been meeting with a business coach who has been helping me to look at my blogging as a business rather than just a job. One of the things that has become evident to me is that good sustainable businesses don’t usually just happen by accident.

Instead they take planning, strategy and intentionality.

Thinking through some of the “big picture” issues that underpin your blogging does take some time and brain-power, but (especially if you’re feeling a little bit lost) could be the difference between a good and a great blog.

I know that for some this type of talk will be frustrating – words like mission, vision, values and strategy are not where you’re at – but humor me please. You see I believe that if you get these things right you’ll find many of the next steps that I share later in this article to be much more powerful as you’ll be able to use them in much more focused and effective ways.

This mega-post combines a series I wrote to lead you through a strategic plan process that a friend of mine gave me to think through another (non blogging) project that I’m working on – I think it’s highly relevant for ProBlogging and hope you find it helpful. Here are the steps of the strategic blogging process we are going to follow:

1. Mission
2. Values
3. VisionGoals
4. Issues
5. Present Position
6. Future Direction
7. Strategy
8. Action Plan

Each step of the process gives some homework – a few questions to ask that hopefully will help you to think through the issues at hand. Feel free to answer them in private or to even think out loud in comments of this post.

Mission

13 years ago when I started studying my Marketing degree the focus of many of my first year lectures was ‘Mission Statements’. I remember writing mission statement after statement – to the point where I started to dream about them. It was obvious that my lecturers through they were a pretty important starting place for any good business venture.

Whilst perhaps ‘mission statements’ are not quite as much of a buzz phrase as they were in the early 1990s I still see asking questions around mission as a worthwhile task – especially when it comes to blogging.

‘Why do you exist?’

This is the key question that my friend’s strategic process asks in the area of ‘mission’. I don’t think it’s asking us to ponder the meaning of life – it’s not quite that deep – but it does ask a business (blog) owner to try to get back to the basics of what they are on about.

‘Why do you blog?’

Take a few minutes (or better still a few hours or even days) to ponder this question. What is it that you blog for? What are your core motivations? Be honest as you answer this question because it’s important to nail it down as much as you can as everything else comes from this.

Some blogging ‘missions’ might include:

• ‘I blog to make a living’
• ‘I blog for recreational purposes – to help me relax’
• ‘I blog as part of my plan for world domination’
• ‘I blog to keep a record of the life and times of me’
• ‘I blog because I want to help others’
• ‘I blog to because I’m lonely and want to connect with others’
• ‘I blog to pick up cute girls/guys’
• ‘I blog because it’s fun’
• ‘I blog because I want to build profile – I want to be known’

These are just a few examples that come to mind off the top of my head. Some of us will have simple sentences, for others our reasons for blogging might be a little more complex and combine a number of things.

One person’s blogging mission will be different from another’s – there is really no right or wrong here – behind each blogger there is some sort of mission whether it’s deep, shallow, silly, smart, selfish or altruistic. The task now is to name yours.

To identify these missions is very helpful because knowing why we blog then helps us to work out how we should blog to best reach our mission.

So what is your mission? Why do you blog?

This is not a question about measurable goals or strategies and your answer probably shouldn’t be too blog specific yet (ie don’t write one for each of your blogs if you have more than one) – rather get at your motivations and big picture hopes for your blogging.

Values

Having thought about our mission (or why we blog) it’s time now to turn our attention to the values that we have that help to shape how we’ll achieve our overall mission.

There are many means to an end and many ways of achieving a mission. For instance if your mission is to make a living from blogging you could do so in many different ways ranging from blogs that rip off the content of others, to blogs that are purely original in content, to blogs that explore topics of purely a ‘family nature’ to blogs that are quite explicit and ‘adult’ in their nature etc.

These decisions come out of our values as a blogger.

What values determine our behavior?

Our values will come out of many different places including our family, culture, experiences and perhaps even personality type. They are worth naming in the early days of our blogging as there comes times in the life of any Blogger when the temptation to step outside the boundaries of behavior that we believe in comes a knocking. Having previously named (privately or even more powerfully – publicly) these values helps us to resist the temptation in the heat of the moment. Values are also important in helping others understand how or what we blog.

So what are the values that shape your blogging behavior? What are the boundaries that you’d be not willing to cross? What are the topics you’d be not willing to blog about? How will you treat those around you (other bloggers, your readers, suppliers of information etc)? Take a few minutes to write a list of the values that you want to shape your blogging. These might include things like:

• I value the work of others and when I build upon it I acknowledge them
• I don’t blog about anything sexually explicit, gambling, drugs or concerning Harry Potter
• I create an environment where everyone can have their say without fear of censorship
• I respect the privacy of others in my blogging and don’t reveal private conversations or contact details
• I only publish fact and will state if I’m speculating
• If I make a mistake I publicly acknowledge this and correct it
• I will always make it clear if I’m benefiting from something that I write
• I value people and will not blog about them in degrading ways

Of course such a list will always cause discussion and debate simply because one person’s values will vary from another person’s values. In a sense we’re talking ethics here.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to write up a set of values like these as a public blogging value statement of manifesto to promote the type of blog/s you’re keeping and to give your readers permission to keep you accountable to what you’re on about.

With your mission and values in place you’ll be ready for the next stages of actually mapping out how you’re going to move forward in your blogging.

Vision

Having answered questions about why we blog (mission) and setting some boundaries for our behavior in doing so Values) it’s now time to be a little more concrete in our big picture thinking. Where are you headed with your blogging? More specifically:

What is your objective for your blogging in the next three years?

Now three years might seem a long way away (and perhaps one or two years might be a better time frame to set objectives for in the ever changing field of blogging) but look beyond the near future and ask yourself questions about vision.

We’re now narrowing down the mission that we have into some more measurable and specific things to aim for in the long term. Don’t get too specific (we’ll get there) but make it concrete.

For example – your mission might be to make a living from blogging but your vision for three years time might be to be a full time blogger that need not do any other work.

Make your objective/s (don’t come up with too many) big enough to be inspiring but realistic enough to be achievable. They should probably come out of or at least relate to your mission.

Take some time to plot some longer term objectives for your blogging.

Goals

For each objective that you’ve mentioned you now should be breaking things down into smaller achievable goals. Perhaps this strategic plan is a little pedantic here and adds too many steps (hence I’ve added Vision and Goals together) but the basics of what we’re doing with goal setting is breaking down the big picture into smaller achievable parts.

In setting goals you might like to ask:

How will we know we have achieved our objective (vision)?

For each objective there will probably be multiple goals that signal it has been reached. For example if the vision is to be working full time in blogging in 3 years the goals might be to ‘quit from current job’ (once a certain earning level from blogging is reached), be earning $XXXX per month regularly by a certain time.

In a sense we’re breaking down our objectives into bite sized parts that can be ticked off one at a time as they are reached as stepping stones to a larger vision.

Issues

If we want to design a strategy to help us reach our goals we need to identify the areas in which we need to work. At this point in the strategic plan we take time to break down the task of blogging into activities or issues that we face.

What are your main activities?

The answer to this question will vary from blogger to blogger depending upon their focus and current approach to blogging – but they will probably include some of the following:

• finding content
• writing content
• blog design
• marketing and publicity
• administration (monitoring comments, processing cheques, book keeping)
• finding and managing advertisers
• managing other authors
• search engine optimization

In a sense what you’re describing here are the areas that you need to achieve in to make your blog successful (the above list is only partial). The list may include tasks that you already do well, don’t do well or don’t yet do at all.

In identifying these issues or activities you define areas that you’ll need to consider some strategy in.

Present Position

Having identified each activity that you need to engage in to be successful in achieving your objectives and goals you now do a little analysis of how you’re currently performing in each activity. The question you want to answer with each are is:

Where are we?

What am I doing well in this area? What am I neglecting? What is working and what isn’t working? These are all good questions to ask. You may want to do a ‘SWOT’ analysis here (look at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and assess the current reality. Be honest with yourself – if you’re anything like me there are some things that you’re doing very well and other things that you’re ignoring.

Whilst it may not be pleasant to acknowledge current short fallings it’s vitally important as your blog will only ever go as far as your weakest area allows you to.

Future Direction

Now you’ve described the current reality you again should look in to the future in each of the activities that you’ve identified and ask yourself:

Where do I want to be in this specific activity in a year?

You know where you are now but what are you going to work towards? For example you might have identified marketing as one of your ‘activities’ an in analyzing it find that you’re great at marketing to other blogs in your niche but that blogs outside your niche and non bloggers have never heard of your blog. As a result you might say that in a year you want to be known outside your niche and be getting exposure in the wider media.

In a sense you’re again setting mini goals, breaking down your overall ‘vision’ into specific areas of your blogging.

Go through each of the activities that you’ve identified already and come up with some future direction. Be specific enough in each one that you can measure your success in each area. Don’t write how you’ll achieve this direction yet (that comes next) – rather try to paint a picture of the future in each of the areas of your blogging.

Below you’ll see a table that illustrates how each of the above three steps might look if you put them into some sort of spread sheet. Of course I’ve completely oversimplified the process here in order to illustrate the point. Each ‘issue’ is likely to have a multifaceted description of the present position and may in fact have a number of ‘future directions’ for each.

Strategy

You’ve analyzed your current position and have looked into the future to how you want your blog to be in each of the activities of your blogging – now you basically need to compare one with the other. How does your current reality and future vision compare? Do they match up? If they do you’re either a brilliant blogger, you’re lying or you’re not aiming high enough.

For most of us the current reality doesn’t match what we want to achieve.

What major changes do you need to make to get to your future vision?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as ‘doing the same old things the same old ways and expecting to get different results’ (paraphrased). The only way you’ll see changes in your blogging is if you change your approach. Which of your ‘activities’ needs to change? How?

You might find that some of your activities are doing well and don’t need too much changing – but the reality will be that we can all improve in all areas – and that in some areas more than others we might need a complete overhaul if we want to really achieve something. Make a list of the changes you need to make.

Once again I’ve included a diagram that hopefully illustrates how this might look (in a very over simplified form).

Action Plan

We’ve reached the last step of the strategic plan and now we finally get to a time of planning (and doing) some action.

In each of the ‘activities’ break down your strategy into achievable tasks. You might like to break it down into some sort of a timeline.

• what will you do in the next month?
• what will you do in the next 3 months?
• what will you do in the next 6 months?
• what will you do in the next 12 months?

Your action plan should contain very specific tasks.

Some might be ongoing tasks like:

• ‘post 10 posts per day every day for the next month’
• ‘start 1 new blog every month until October’
• ‘add 3 new affiliate links to my blog every day this month’
• ‘write 1 press release to promote my blog each month’

Others might be one off tasks like:

• ‘apply for Adsense program and integrate into blog’
• ‘get to know blogger X’
• ‘do survey of my readers to find out who they are’
• ‘write a series of posts on <insert topic here>’

Once again these tasks need to be specific, measurable (you need to know when they’re complete) and achievable. In doing this you’re achieving the very big picture dreams and objectives that you’ve previously set one step at a time.

You’ll see once again below that I’ve filled in (in a very simplified way) how some of the strategic plan might build as you add your action plan. In reality each ‘issue’ could have multiple strategies – each of which could have multiple actions assigned to them. By this point you should be left with a larger list of ‘things to do’ that you need to prioritise for and then begin to work through. Once again these actions should be broken down into small enough parts so as not to overwhelm you. Make them measurable and achievable so you can begin to tick them off and create some momentum to your blogging.

The post Strategic Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post 4 Ways A Superhero System Will Make You A Better Blogger appeared first on ProBlogger.

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“That’s it! I’m starting a blog!”

We all had that fire, that passion when we first started a blog. The excitement of creating content and putting it out into the world was tangible… that feeling (and motivation) to publish a few posts and see what everybody thinks.

Fast forward a few months: what happened? Where did all that motivation go!? Now that excitement somehow turned into: “I just have a blog that nobody reads, I’m tired of updating, and I’m wondering if it’s even still worth it.”

We’ve all been there.

Life gets in the way, our kids get sick and keep us from working on our blog that ONE day we had free, or we come home from work dead-tired and fail to write even the first sentence of a new post.

I certainly know I have. I first started my blog Nerd Fitness fourteen years ago, and I can probably count on my fingers and toes how many times I sat down to write simply because I was motivated to do so. More often than not, writing was the last thing on my mind. And yet, here I am: now a pro-blogger (750 published posts, most of which are 2000+ words), and a published author!

I’m not saying this to brag, but to prove a point: I didn’t rely on motivation, but instead put a superhero system in place to make sure I stayed on target.

After all, we all know how awesome superheroes are, and influential they can be in our lives. Just ask Darren!

Today, I’m going to share with you a 4-step system that will help you finally crack the code and consistently improve at your efforts to become a superhero blogger. It’ll help you stop relying on motivation and instead use rock-solid strategies to take over the world…or save it.

BATMAN: Hack Your Batcave to Win.

One of the most important ways I’ve learned to manufacture discipline in life (instead of relying on willpower and inspiration) was through hacking my Batcave.

Bruce Wayne, AKA Batman, is unique in the superhero world in that he doesn’t have any special powers. He can’t fly, he can’t teleport, he can’t regenerate or shoot lightning out of his fingers. Instead, he’s a regular guy that uses his gadgets, gizmos, and a normal mortal body to fight crime.

Since we’re also mere mortals, it’s time to start thinking about your own bat cave (your surroundings) to help you effortlessly stay disciplined like Bruce Wayne.

Your Batcave will probably be your apartment or home office, your kitchen table, or wherever you set up shop to work on your blog. Ask yourself: is this Batcave designed in a way to help me get closer to crushing it as a blogger, or farther away?

Because we are products of our environment, everything around us is subtly pulling us in one direction or another. That TV in your living room is saying “watch me! I have reruns on my DVR!”

While at your computer, Facebook is saying “check me! quick! You might have more likes on that cat video you posted!” Your phone might be next to you might have a notification about a new comment on Instagram, or an email about a sale at JCrew.

If you are going to succeed as a superhero blogger, it’s time to get serious about putting systems in place that work for you. Willpower (aka the power to say “I will write and I will not do all of the other amazing distracting things around me) is a finite resource, which means the more you have to rely on it, the more likely you’ll be to fail.

So stop relying on willpower. Create a lifestyle that sets you up to blog consistently.

I start by adding steps between me and the bad habits that keep me from writing:

• Cancel your cable. Those shows are useless anyways.
• Put your TV in your closet. Or at the very least, far away from where you write.
• Install Freedom.to on your computer and block time wasting websites until you’ve written your 500 words for the day.
• Uninstall all social media apps from your phone (life will go on), and turn off all notifications.
• Find other creative ways to limit the powers of distractions in your life.

I then decrease the number of steps between me and the writing habit I’m going to build:

• I write first thing in the morning, before I check email (don’t even keep the gmail tab open!)
• I have a blank document open on my computer before I go to bed so as soon as I sit down, it’s the first thing I see.
• I set a daily goal of 500 words. It doesn’t matter if it’s good content, or if I want to write, I have to write 500 words.

You need to cultivate discipline, and your environment needs to work for your writing, not against it.

SUPERMAN: Recognize and understand your kryptonite.

Next, we turn to one of the most powerful superhero ever created: Superman!

This dude is faster than a speeding bullet, can leap over tall buildings in a single bound, and shoot freaking lasers out of his eyes! There’s a reason many on earth consider him a god.

However, for all of his powers and abilities that are unlike anything else in existence, he can still be undone by a substance: KRYPTONITE! This glowing green mineral can be used by bad guys to keep Superman at bay.

We all have kryptonite in our lives too that can keep us from becoming Superhero Bloggers if we’re not careful. Not only do we need to recognize our kryptonite, but we need to prepare for it too.

Again, we’re not relying on willpower here, but rather we’re going to kryptonite-proof our lives so we can work daily on our blog.

Let’s start by identifying what your Kryptonite is: this is something that you have almost no chance at withstanding. For me, it was video games: I had purchased NerdFitness.com and did nothing with it for two years because I was too busy playing video games online with my friends and never “found time” to write.

FORTUNATELY, my computer broke, and I couldn’t afford to fix it, so I told myself I couldn’t play another video game AT ALL until I made my first dollar through my website. For the next 18 months I came home work and wrote articles for Nerd Fitness, eventually making money through ebooks with the site. Only then did I allow myself to play games, as I was better equipped to handle them properly.

What is your kryptonite, and how can you fight it?

• Do you come home from work exhausted and all you want to do is plop down on the couch and watch TV? That’s okay! Recognize that writing after work isn’t an option for you, and build the habit of writing BEFORE you go to work.
• Are your kids your kryptonite? I don’t mean they’re glowing and green, but I bet it’s quite tough to focus on blogging and building a side business if you have kids and a family to take care of. So wake up before they do. Yup, it might mean waking up at 5AM to be able to write for 90 minutes uninterrupted before they come jump on your bed.
• Is it TV? Video Games? Negative people in your life? Get rid of them. Life goes on without TV, Netflix, or Fallout.

Maybe your kryptonite is self-doubt. You’re afraid to hit publish because things aren’t perfect, or you are afraid of what people will say, or what if nobody reads it. Seth Godin said it best: “Be judged or be ignored.” People will say anything and everything, so might as well get them talking about you and your work!

If you know where your energy is going to get zapped from, you can prepare for it ahead of time and make sure you get the important stuff done before that kicks in.

WONDER WOMAN: Fight with Passion and Strength

After the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader, we turn to a female badass: Diana Prince, better known as her alter-ego, Wonder Woman!

This Amazonian goddess has gone through many iteration over there years, but a few things have stayed tried and true throughout her comic book career: her inner and outer strength (I mean, come on…she’s WONDER WOMAN!), determination, passion, and compassion.

It starts by being honest with yourself: are you in this for the right reasons? I think a lot of people like the idea of running their own business, buy a course on blogging, and then try to go into a niche they have no idea about because they’ve told “this is a profitable part of the internet!” These are the people that give up after a few months when they realize money doesn’t just magically start shooting out of their computers once they publish a few blog posts.

The truth is this: becoming a professional writer, running an online business, or being a problogger is a lot of freaking work. I love The Four Hour Workweek as much as the next guy (I bought NerdFitness.com after reading it!), but many people took it the wrong way in assuming they were simply a few weeks away from making a living online with a tiny bit of work. If you are blogging about something that you don’t care about, eager to make money immediately by creating a product before you even have a site worth reading, you’re setting yourself up for a short (and quick) trip back to reality.

Instead, pick a subject you are passionate about. I hate to use the word “passion,” as it gets thrown around by Internet Marketers looking to get you to buy their course on hopes and dreams and unicorns (apologies to any unicorn bloggers), but there’s an element of truth to it. You have to LOVE the topic you’re writing about and the community you hope to build, because you might be writing on that subject with no audience and no money for a long long long time.

Help people. Wonder Woman is known for her humanity: feeling compassion and giving love without discrimination. If you’re struggling to figure out what to write about, solve a problem. When in doubt, help people. Sure, it would be great if you could get paid to eat pudding and watch Netflix, but who will pay you for it? Start creating an insane amount of uniquely helpful content that solves a specific problem for people, and answer every email without discrimination: whether or not that person every pays you a dime, improve their lives in some way.

For the first 5 years of Nerd Fitness’s lifespan, I answered every email that came into the inbox, and the autoresponder people got when they signed up asks “what’s your biggest struggle when it comes to getting fit?” Everybody got a response, and today we have 750 free blog posts, free message boards, in addition paid courses and events. We still answer each email and help each person regardless of who they are or where they came from.

Help people. Write about things that you are fired up about. And expect to do it, thanklessly, for a long time.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: Surround yourself with powerful allies to keep you accountable.

These days, bands of superheroes are everywhere, from the Avengers Movies to the upcoming depiction of the origins Justice League in Batman vs Superman.

Real life allies can be incredibly powerful – the difference between success and failure.

Think of it this way, if you skip your blog writing today to watch TV, nobody would know, and who does it hurt, right? But now imagine you’re in this with a friend who is also writing, and they notice you didn’t have your blog post up and give you a call. This is the beginning of introducing some accountability to your system.

I got a bit extreme with this, and gave a coworker $500 of my dollars, and for every day a blog post was late, she would donate $50 to a cause I HATED. Of course, I couldn’t possibly live with myself knowing my money funded something I disliked so much, so I had to get my blog posts done on time. Sometimes it was at 4AM, other times it was seconds before I had to hit post… but I got them done.

So form your own Justice League!

• Follw the Problogger Facebook Page: It’s a community of people who are struggling with the same things you are!
• Build your own mastermind group. Online or in person, group up with others who share your excitement about building a business and holding each other accountable.
• Find an accountability buddy…aka accountabilibuddy. A single person that will call you on your excuses can an incredibly long way in holding you accountable when you need to get shit done.

I’m not quite sure if Batman gives Wonder Woman homework, or if Superman makes sure Bruce Wayne gets to his workouts on time, but I like to think they do!

The world needs more heroes. Will you heed the call? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below with:

1. 1 environmental hack you can use to stay on target with your blogging
2. Your blogging kryptonite and how you will fight it off.
3. One way you can be more helpful and serve your audience better.
4. 1 friend you can recruit to your Justice League

Steve Kamb is the author of Level Up Your Life and creator of Nerd Fitness, a worldwide community of average joes and jills looking to live better lives.

The post 4 Ways A Superhero System Will Make You A Better Blogger appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Thinking of Quitting Blogging? Here’s How One Blogger Turned it Around appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Today we chat to Nicole Avery from Planning With Kids, who was dangerously close to burnout a few years ago. She knew if she didn’t change her approach to blogging, she was going to ditch the whole thing entirely. Her ideas of how to pull back, recalibrate and start again with a new focus is super-inspirational, and I am sure that those of you who are looking for fresh ways to do an old thing will find Nicole’s tips incredibly useful.

5 tips to get you back on track when you feel like quitting blogging

Towards the end of last year I reached my lowest point with blogging. I was tired, overwhelmed and feeling completely over blogging. I felt like quitting.

Blogging brings along amazing opportunities but it is possible to take on too many. Blogging is a wonderful medium to share, but it is no longer just about blogging, there are newsletters to write, social media channels to grow and products to make. Blogging is a fabulous medium to start an online business but with tens of thousands of blogs started every day, keeping up can feel like you are continually running a super fast race struggling to keep up.

My love of blogging though won out and I continued blogging, managing to turn around how I was feeling in the space of three months. While I did more than what is listed below, here are 5 key things I did to get me back on track.

1. Take a break

Each year I usually take two full breaks from the blog, one in the summer school holidays and then the second in the winter school holidays. Due to family circumstances, I never had the break in July and never seemed to find the time to take it later in the year.

Taking a break from the blog is essential to maintaining my enthusiasm and love of what I do. So at the end of December, I took a break (I had planned to take time off in late January). Usually to take a break I work super hard in the lead up to schedule blog posts and social media posts. This time I just took almost a week off and didn’t post. I gave my weekly newsletter a rest for the whole of January and I pared back my social media activity, for example I went from four posts a day on facebook to one.

2. Analyse your time

It was in my break that I came across the Pareto principle. If you are not familiar with it, it can defined as follows:

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.[1] {source}

If I was to apply the 80/20 rule to my blogging it meant that 80% of the time I was spending on blogging was only creating 20% of my results. Effectively most of my time was being spent activities that were not adding value.

To understand this better and see if it was indeed true, I used RescueTime to see exactly how I was spending my time. RescueTIme focuses on measuring exclusively active computer time and detects when your computer is idle. My initial analysis showed me very clearly that the vast majority of my time was spent on activities that contributed very little to results, way too much time on email and social media. On my least productive activities I was spending only 26% of my time on design and composition. A huge wake up call and a stark reminder that if you are spending your time on the wrong activities, no matter how well you manage your time, you will not achieve the productivity you are after.

3. Set a goal

I came across an interview with Jay Papasan, the author of the book The One Thing. Listening to him speak helped me realise something I think I knew all along. My many and varied goals needed to become a goal clear and concise goal.

If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one. Russian proverb

So I created one goal for my work life and one goal for my personal life. It has made a huge difference to how I operate on a daily basis. It gave me clear purpose and has aided me in making better decisions. My goal is in the forefront of my mind every time I make a decision – will it help me achieve my goal for the year? If not then I have no choice but to say no. Having one goal makes this process so much easier.

4. Create a work schedule

Creating a work schedule helped me get back on track for two key reasons:

• It scheduled in the activities that will help me achieve my goal for the year. We are all aware if you don’t plan it is unlikely to happen.
• It prevented decision fatigue – work is just one part of my life. There is always a great deal going on at home and by creating a work schedule it is effectively telling me what to when. Not having to think about what to do means I can just get started on my work each day and not lose time procrastinating over where to start.

5. Practice daily gratitude

This one is a little out there I know, but I have found my attitude to the task at hand plays a huge part in how I approach it and the results it creates. Practicing gratitude does wonders for improving your attitude – we do really have so much to be grateful for if we take the time to think about it.

I began using the 5 minute journal app which I cannot recommend highly enough. I have always thought practicing gratitude would just add to the list of things I have to do and become a burden. This app however allows me to practice intentional gratitude in 5 minutes each morning and evening.

Instead of bemoaning the pressures that come from running a small online business, I would very frequently list it as something I was grateful for. For example:

• I was grateful I could easily help out in my son’s class at short notice.
• I was grateful picking up a sick child from school was not stressful and could be done in minutes.
• I am grateful I can choose to clear my calendar and not take on additional work to free up more time when family life gets busy.
• I am very grateful blogging allows me travel overseas each year.
• I am so grateful I receive the most amazing feedback from readers who read my posts and take action.

Have you ever felt like quitting blogging? What did you do to turn things around?

Nicole Avery is a Melbourne mum to five beautiful kids aged 16 to 6. Nicole is slightly addicted to spreadsheets, tea, running and CrossFit. Family is the most important thing in her life and her goal is to be a planned, patient and present mother to her beautiful kids.

The post Thinking of Quitting Blogging? Here’s How One Blogger Turned it Around appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post How to Build Your Blog’s Audience with Long Form Evergreen Content appeared first on ProBlogger.

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Who wants to grow their blog’s audience?

I’m yet to meet a blogger who doesn’t, so I’m picturing in my mind a room full bloggers with their hands in the air!

If you’re one of them, I would highly recommend you spend a few minutes today listening to the first 20 or so minutes of this podcast by Tim Ferriss who outlines how he’d build his audience if he were starting from scratch today.
Note: the rest of the podcast answers other questions which are good but less relevant for bloggers.

There’s some great ideas in his answer that in essence are similar to what I’ve written and spoken about previously:

1. Identify who you are trying to reach
2. Ask where those readers are gathering and/or focusing their attention
3. Work out how to build a presence in those places

But one of the other key messages in Tim’s podcast that really stood out to me was this statement that he made:

‘The most labor-efficient way to build readership over time is long-form evergreen content.’

There is so much wisdom in this statement and I’d highly recommend bloggers ponder two parts of it.

Long Form Content

There has definitely been a trend over the last few years for many bloggers to move toward shorter form content. I’m not sure if this has been the result of the short for nature of social media, an assumption that people’s attention spans are short, the pressure to publish more posts or something else – but I’ve heard it taught from the stage at conferences and have definitely noticed more and more bloggers creating shorter posts in recent years.

My experience has been similar to Tim’s. I’ve noticed that it’s my longer and more in-depth posts that tend to get the most shares, the most links and the most traffic – both when they’re launched and over their long tail life.

There are definitely exceptions but today as I look through the top 10 most read posts here on ProBlogger over the last 12 months the shortest one is 714 words and the longest is over 7000. Their average is 2491.

I recently spoke about some of the benefits (and some of the costs) of creating long form vs short form content here so won’t go on too long about it except to say that at the very least longer form content is worth weaving into the mix of content on your blog.

I’m not arguing that every post needs to be longer form – it takes a lot of effort to create and there is a definitely place for shorter content – but the effort you put into longer posts can be a great investment to make into your blogging.

Further Reading: read Search Engine Journal’s article Why You Need to Start Creating Long, Evergreen Content Today.

Evergreen Content

Note for those not familiar with the term ‘Evergreen Content’: Evergreen posts are ones that don’t lose their relevancy over time. You write them today and they will be as helpful to readers in a few months (or even years) time.

I know that not every blog topic/niche naturally lends itself to the creation of evergreen content (for example ‘news’ and ‘reviews’ sites can sometimes struggle with it) but most blogs should be able to find a way to create at least some content that doesn’t date quickly.

As I look through the most read posts on both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School over the last 12 months every single post is what I’d consider to be evergreen content.

Of course part of the reason for this is that it’s the main focus of what I do – but we do cover ‘newsy’ type posts from time to time on dPS and apart from a spike in traffic shortly after it is published it rarely ever gets more than a trickle of traffic ever again.

Evergreen Content Case Studies

To illustrate the case for evergreen content, let me give you a couple of examples.

Here’s how a time sensitive post announcing the launch of the New Adobe Lightroom that we published on dPS recently performed in terms of traffic.

You can see the initial burst of traffic as it went live and as our readers excitedly gobbled up the hot news (and it was fairly significant news in the photography niche).

But in the month after it’s had little traffic and I suspect will never see more than a handful of visitors coming to it in a given day again.

Contrast this with an evergreen post I published back in January of 2007 on the topic of ISO Settings.

The post had it’s own little spike in traffic in the first days (although I had hardly any readers at that point) but to this day it continues to get traffic (for example yesterday it had over 1100 visitors).

The beauty of evergreen content is that it not only gets the same initial spike of traffic to it when you publish but it also is much more likely to be searched for and found in search engines in the years to come.

The other benefit of the evergreen content is that you (and others) are able to keep sharing it on social for years to come also! It is this evergreen content that I’ve built my whole social media workflow around.

Take a look at this daily traffic graph of the same post on ISO where you’ll see some bigger daily spikes periodically on the days I reshare it on social media.

I have given that post a refresh occasionally over the years but it’s largely the same content that I published in 2007 and despite being 8 years old still gets a great reaction every time I share it on social.

Worth noting here is that this example is not what I’d consider to be ‘long form content’ – it’s around 700 words in length which isn’t short – but it shows you that there’s a place for ‘mid sized’ form content too.

The Most Compelling Case for Investing Time into Evergreen Content…

As I look at the two examples of posts I’ve just shown you what strikes me most is the investment that was put into those two posts was similar.

From memory I probably spent an hour or two writing the post on ISO. I’m not sure how long the author who wrote the Lightroom announcement post spent on it but looking at it he put at least that much time into researching and writing it.

Considering that investment of time – I’d say the case for evergreen content is pretty clear.

The quote I started with from Tim Ferriss was all about labor efficient ways to build readership. It’s not the only way but I’d have to say that I think he identified one approach that really resonates with my own.

Further Reading: Check out Ali Luke’s post Your Ultimate Guide to Creating Amazing Content that Draws Readers Into Your Blog.

If you want to learn more about creating content, take ProBlogger’s Create Content Course to learn how to create compelling and engaging content on a consistent basis over time.

The post How to Build Your Blog’s Audience with Long Form Evergreen Content appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

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This is a guest contribution by Nicholas Whitmore.

The title: What on earth does it mean?

Well, recently it seems like a lot of bloggers fancy themselves as marketers. You can’t read a post on a blog without seeing a load of other bloggers commenting at the bottom, with a link back to their own site. Of course other bloggers use black hat SEO tricks and other shady tactics in order to drive traffic to their blog. Each to their own you might say, but at the end of the day life can be much, much easier.

If you publish blog content that’s truly awesome, everyone else will market your blog for you.

If you seem to spend half your life trying to promote your blog with your efforts never coming to fruition, now’s the time to stop. There’s a reason why things aren’t working out – and you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s the actual content in your blog posts.

Sorry to have to break it to you, but your blog posts suck.

It’s time to go back to basics because if you’re guilty of trying to build links and force traffic to your blog, you’re trying too hard.

The art of blogging involves thinking up great topics and blog titles, performing research where required, then authoring great work.

Building links and driving traffic to your website does not fall under the blogging remit – that’s marketing, something different altogether.

Good things come to those who wait

Starting a successful blog is not something that you can do overnight. In fact, it can take months or even years before you start to see traction and those crazy traffic figures you’ve dreamt of. If you’ve got a short attention span or you’re incredibly impatient, the chances are that you won’t make it as a blogger.

Whilst some bloggers out there make a living from their sites, don’t go quitting your day job and blowing your life savings just yet – getting a blog to the point where it can be successfully and sustainably monetized takes a very, very long time.

Expedite success with more awesome blog posts 

The only way in which you can expedite the success of your blog is to publish more high quality content. Be careful not to inundate your visitors with too much content to digest though in your race to the top. Careful balances need to be struck between quality and quantity – a balance must also be struck between too many and too little blog posts.

Rarely will you see a sparsely populated blog that’s extremely popular. One of the core ingredients of a successful blog is frequent content – there’s no getting away from that fact. You don’t have to post 10 new blogs each week, but it would help in a lot of cases.

Hard work always pays off 

On my desk is a mug that my father used to drink out of. It says: “Hard work always pays off” – I find that little saying resonates around my head at least one million times each day. There are few things in life truer than this saying – and it can of course be applied to the world of blogging.

Be prepared to spend a good few months writing awesome posts that few people will read initially.

Keep plugging away – keep publishing great content and your blog will be recognized. The pay off comes when the recognition that your blog receives snowballs – links from other blogs start rolling in, and people recommend your posts on social media.

Recognition usually starts like a little trickle of water – gradually it will build up into a raging torrent. The more recognition your site receives, the more people will read it. As more people read your blog, it’ll receive further recognition. It’s an infinite loop of goodness for you as a blog owner!

In Summary 

When you write and publish awesome content on your blog, good things will come your way.

When you write and publish boring content then spend hours on end building links to it, trying to force people to your website, good things will never come.

Spend your time blogging – not marketing. The marketing side of things will be taken care of for you by your visitors if the blog posts that you publish are good enough to be recommended and shared across the internet.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sharing posts you publish via social media with friends and followers – it’s the ideal way in which to generate that initial buzz and interest about your blog. When the marketing of your posts takes longer than it does to actually write them however, you’ve almost certainly lost your way as a blogger.

 Nick is a freelance journalist and website content editor from http://www.contentwriting.org. He writes extensively about the art of blogging, as well as online marketing techniques such as SEO, PPC and SMM.

The post Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance? appeared first on ProBlogger.

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A few days ago we published a post on ProBlogger titled ‘Forget about Marketing: Concentrate on Blogging‘, which led to some interesting discussion on Twitter and in the comments.

I love the points author Nicholas Whitmore made in the post but I wanted to give a few thoughts, based on my own experience, on developing great content and promoting your blog.

Nicholas wrote some great arguments for focusing your energy on writing great content as the central way of growing your blog. He writes:

“When you write and publish awesome content on your blog, good things will come your way.”

I completely agree with this sentiment. As a blogger your #1 focus needs to be on producing content that is useful, engaging and of as high a quality as possible. Without it, all the marketing you might do will be wasted as you’ll just be directing people to something that is of no value to them.

As Nicholas goes on to write:

“When you write and publish boring content then spend hours on end building links to it, trying to force people to your website, good things will never come.”

Again, I agree with the sentiment expressed here.

However, on Twitter a discussion among some of my followers highlighted that some bloggers differ quite a bit on how much effort should be put into promoting a blog vs developing content for it.

• On one hand, there were certainly people who felt that if you build a great blog that it markets itself.
• On the other hand, there were people who felt that if you didn’t get out there and market your blog you ran the risk of all your hard work in developing great content going completely unseen.

While I think we all agree that the content on your blog needs to be of a very high focus, I’m also of the belief that if a blogger wants to grow their readership they also need to put effort into promoting that blog.

I like the idea of the marketing being taken care of by your visitors, if you have good enough blog post. In my experience, there are things you can do to promote your blog to help speed the process up, without compromising the quality of your posts.

In the early days of my own current blogs (here on ProBlogger and at dPS) I estimate I probably spent almost as much time writing content as I did working on growing the readership. In fact, I’m sure there were some weeks where I did spend considerably more time promoting my blog than writing content!

In short, I don’t see marketing and creating content as mutually exclusive – both are really important to me.

How did I grow my readership (or market my blogs)?

I recorded a webinar last year on this very topic with a load of tips in it. You can listen to it and see the slides here so I won’t rehash all of that but here’s a summary slide of the points I talked through.

You can see that my process actually talks about the content that you develop as being a part of finding readers for your blog (both in points 2 and 8). But by getting off your blog to promote what you do you are certainly able to significantly grow your blog.

Point #9 shows that this is a recurring cycle.

For me, I’d say that the balance of creating content and promoting has changed over the life of my blogs over the years. This is probably partly because the life cycle of a blog but also due to my own personal circumstances and how much time I have available to work.

That said , I would always prioritise both on a daily basis… and would probably also add in that I prioritise other things too such as ‘engaging with readers/building community’ and also a focus upon ‘monetization’ (without which I can’t sustain what I do).

Where is the Balance of Promotion and Content Creation for You?

I’d love to hear how others get this balance right in your blogging?

The post Content Creation vs Content Promotion: Where is the Balance? appeared first on ProBlogger.

     

The post Six Ways to Get Feedback On Your Posts and Pages (And Why You Need To) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures.

Are your blog posts working well, or leaving readers unsatisfied? Is your About page enticing, or confusing? Does your Hire Me page do a great job of selling your services, or is it too bland?

Often, the only feedback that you have comes in the form of numbers. Maybe readers aren’t spending long on your blog. Maybe you rarely get comments. Maybe no one’s ever hired you.

The problem is, it’s hard to tell why. Without any feedback from readers, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

Honest, constructive feedback isn’t the same as a comment saying “great post!” Good feedback:

• tells you exactly what’s working, and what isn’t
• offers suggestions on how to fix any problems
• encourages you to make the most of your strengths.

Perhaps you’re reading this and thinking no one will give me any feedback. I don’t have any readers yet. Or maybe your blog isn’t even online—you’re struggling away with your posts and pages, trying to get your core content together before you launch.

Don’t give up. I’m going to give you six easy ways to get feedback.

Six ways to get feedback

1. Look at your current comments

If you’ve received any comments on your blog, look at the following.

• Which posts have the most comments? These will, in some way, have struck a chord with the reader.
• Are there any suggestions that you can use for future posts? Sometimes, commenters will tell you exactly what they’d like to read. Other times, they’ll mention what they’re struggling with—and you can use that as the basis for a post.
• Did any posts get negative or confused comments? If a reader leaves a comment to say that they didn’t understand, you might want to take another look at that post and make sure it’s clear.

2. Ask around on Twitter or Facebook

If your blog is new, you might well have a bigger following on Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks. Try asking there for feedback: post a link to a particular post or page and explain that you’d welcome any constructive criticism.

You’ll be surprised at how generous your friends—and even complete strangers!—can be. Don’t discount the opinions of non-bloggers, either; they might not “get” the technology, but they’re likely to be representative of your general audience.

3. Find a blogging partner

Some bloggers like to swap posts with one another. If you’ve got any blogging friends, ask around and see if anyone would be interested. A blogging partner can do a lot more than just read your posts, too—check out Find a Blog Buddy [Day 15 – 31DBBB].

If you don’t know a single blogger yet, try looking in the comments sections of relevant blogs (ProBlogger might be a good place to start). Find someone who seems to be at a similar stage to you, and drop them an email.

4. Post a message in a forum

When I’ve been looking for feedback, often on sales pages, I’ve posted in the Third Tribe forum. I’ve always had great responses from other members, with plenty of insightful feedback. When you put out a request like this, it’s often helpful to specify what particular areas you want feedback on. You might ask questions like these:

• Was my About page clear?
• Did it encourage you to read on?
• Is there anything you think I should add?

If you’re not currently a member of any blogging or business-related forums, you might want to take a look at ProBlogger’s own Facebook Community Group. ProBlogger Community even offers a “blog review swap” thread.

5. Join a blogging-related course

Many ecourses will include some element of interaction—that might be live calls with the tutors, or forums where you can easily interact with other members. There’ll often be a chance to ask questions and get specific feedback.

Even if it’s a big course without any individual instruction from tutors, you’ll find that other members are very willing to help out. People taking an e-course are often more engaged (and at a slightly further stage) than your general audience on Twitter or Facebook.

Checkout ProBlogger’s Courses, where they have both free and paid courses, including several on creating content.

6. Hire a writing coach

For really in-depth, expert feedback, look for a writing or blogging coach. They’ll work with you to help you shape and polish up your content, and a good coach will be careful to preserve your own voice and style.

Coaching is definitely an investment, but many bloggers find it a very worthwhile one. That applies even if you have a strong writing background. One of my own coaching clients, Prime Sarmiento, is an experienced journalist. She wrote about the benefits of getting coaching in a guest post for Men with Pens: Why Hiring a Writing Coach Can Help You Build Your Business.

The review

So, you’ve found someone willing to give you feedback. What should you ask them to look at?

I think there are several key areas where you’ll want to make sure your writing (and formatting of posts) is as good as it can be.

Your cornerstone content

If you’re creating a series of posts as cornerstone or pillar content—posts that readers will go back to again and again—then you want them to be as good as possible.

It’s worth asking someone to read through the whole series, so that they can help you both with the small details (like typos and clunky sentences) and the big picture (making sure that all the posts fit together well).

Your About page

Did you know that your About page is probably the most-read page on your blog after your home page? (Check your Google Analytics if you’re not convinced!) It make sense—new readers will often read a blog post or two, then click on “About” to find out who you are and what the blog’s purpose is.

A great About page can turn a casual visitor into a subscriber. A poor About page might lose you that visitor completely. About pages are really tough to write, so it’s definitely worth getting feedback and even some help with the drafting.

Your Services or Hire Me page

If you’ve got any services (or products) for sale, you want to make sure that your sales page does a great job of drawing potential customers in. That means, at a minimum, being totally clear about what you do and who you work with.

I’ve read lots of incoherent and confusing sales pages—and even decent sales pages often don’t sell the blogger as well as they should. You should always get feedback on a sales page, to make sure that your offer is totally clear.

Your next steps

Pick one page or post on your blog, and find someone who can give you feedback on it. That might be a friend, a forum member, a coach … the important thing is that you get a second opinion. Ideally, it should be someone who understands your audience (even if they’re not part of that audience themselves).

And if you’re not sure who to ask, why not pop a comment below? You might just find a new blogging friend…

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, and author of The Blogger’s Guides series of ebooks. She has a weekly newsletter for writers and bloggers, and has just released a mini-ebook How to Find Time for Your Writing –click here and sign up for her newsletter to get your free copy.

The post Six Ways to Get Feedback On Your Posts and Pages (And Why You Need To) appeared first on ProBlogger.