Online gaming,online poker,online casino and sportsbooks…
Archive for January, 2010
4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic
2 years ago
One of the most common complaints that I hear from bloggers is the fact that no matter how hard they try, they can’t grow their blogs past 100 or so daily page vies. Those early days are indeed the hardest, because you need to put hard work in without the certainty of achieving results.
If you are in that same situation, here is a simple strategy that will certainly increase your blog traffic and make you break the 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could be used even if your are already over that number but have reached a traffic plateau lately.
Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally).
First Step: Killer Articles (1 hour per day)
Spend one hour brainstorming, researching and writing killer articles (also called linkbaits, pillar articles and so on).
Notice that your goal is to release one killer article every week. If that is not possible aim for one every 15 days. So the one hour that you will spend every day will be dedicated to the same piece. In other words, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of work.
If you are not familiar with the term, a killer article is nothing more than a long and structured article that has the goal of delivering a huge amount of value to potential visitors. If you have a web design blog, for example, you could write an article with “100 Free Resources for Designers”. Here are some ideas for killer articles:
- create a giant list of resources,
- write a detailed tutorial teaching people how to do something,
- find a solution for a common problem in your niche and write about it, or
- write a deep analysis on a topic where people have only talked superficially
When visitors come across your killer article, you want them to have the following reaction: “Holy crap! This is awesome. I better bookmark it. Heck, I better even mention this on my site and on my Twitter account, to let my readers and friends know about it.”
Second Step: Networking (30 minutes per day)
Networking is essential, especially when you are just getting started. The 30 minutes that you will dedicate to it every day could be split among:
- commenting on other blogs in your niche,
- linking to the posts of bloggers in your niche, and
- interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM or Twitter.
Remember that your goal is to build genuine relationships, so don’t approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Approach them because you respect their work and because you think the two of you could grow together.
Third Step: Promotion (30 minutes per day)
The first activity here is the promotion of your killer articles. Whenever you publish one of them, you should push it in any way you can. Examples include:
- letting the people in your network know about it (don’t beg for a link though),
- letting bloggers and webmasters in relevant niches know about it,
- getting some friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,
- getting some friends to Twitter the article, and
- posting about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.
If there is time left, spend it with search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole. Those can range from keyword research to promoting your blog on Facebook and guest blogging.
Fourth Step: Normal Posts (30 minutes per day)
Just like a man does not live by bread alone, a blog does not live by killer articles alone. Normal posts are the ones that you will publish routinely in your blog, between the killer articles. For example, you could publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts from Tuesday through Friday. Here are some ideas for normal posts:
- a post linking to an article on another blog and containing your opinion about it
- a post informing your readers about a news in your niche
- a post asking a question to your readers and aiming to initiate a discussion
- a post highlighting a new resource or trick that you discovered and that would be useful to your readers
While killers articles are essential to promote your blog and bring new readers aboard, normal posts are the ones that will create diversity in your content and keep your readers engaged.
If You Are Building A Website
2 years ago
The fingers on both of my hands wouldn’t be enough to count the times I started a website with a half-assed effort. The idea was cool, and I figured it was worth a shot, but I was not willing to put 100% of my time and energy into it. The result? A flop. Over and over again these websites failed to achieve a critical mass of traffic to become something meaningful, and I would just put them on the back burner.
Had I dedicated enough time and energy to them would the story be different? I am pretty sure it would. As I said, most of the ideas were solid, so the execution was the problem. In fact the execution is almost ALWAYS the problem. Even crap ideas can become successful businesses if the owner is willing to work hard enough, persist and adapt along the way. The other side of the coin? Even great ideas will flop if the owner is not willing to back them up with hard work.
Luckily I learned my lesson. These days I don’t start a new website unless I know I’ll have the time and energy to make it work. If I am not wrong, the last website I started was almost one year ago. It flopped, but due to technical problems and not because I neglected it. Sometimes I get excited with new ideas and even purchase a domain for them, but when I am about to host the site and start working on the design I always ask myself: “Will You Have Time/Energy To Really Work on This?” The answer is usually “No,” so I just drop the idea before wasting more time and money on it.
Anyway I just wanted to share this aspect of my online business because I believe all of us have suffered from this at one point or another. If you are still making this mistake, well, fix it and stop wasting time and money on websites you won’t be able to make work.
Blogging Success
2 years ago
Life is made up two different things: events and processes. A post on Seth Godin’s blog he talked about it.
An event takes a short time to occur, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 week, 1 month or even 1 year. A process takes a longer time frame, 5 years, 20 years, 50 years or even a lifetime.
An event is for the short haul, a process is for the long haul.
A beautiful story in “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” a book by Robert Kiyosaki, will help explain this further.
There was a village that had a water problem. They villagers called a meeting to solve their problem and decided to give 2 contractors the contract of supplying water to the village.
The first contractor quickly ran out and bought 2 buckets and started hauling and supplying water from the stream to the villagers.
The second contractor was no where to be found.
The first contractor started making some money almost immediately. The villagers had complains about dirt in the water so he bought a filter. He later employed his sons to help in the work.
All this while, the second contractor was nowhere.
The first contractor toiled and worked very hard till one day the second contractor appeared.
All he had on him was a paper. The paper was a document that carried an agreement signed by his company, some investors and a construction firm.
While he was away, he founded a company, employed a president, got investors and contracted a construction company to build a standard water supply system for the village.
The water system would supply cleaner water at a cheaper rate, all year round to the people in the village.
He didn’t have to carry any bucket like the first contractor.
The only money he made was a few cent for every bucket fetched.
To cut the story short, the first contractor ran out of business while the second contractor travelled the world, enjoying the success he got from following a proven process.
What Does This Have To Do With Blogging?
Well, a lot.
Firstly, success in blogging or in anything at all, is a process. It takes time.
A lot of bloggers are like the first contractor, the wake up, set up a blog, slap Adsense ads on it and start making cents.
Well, there is nothing wrong with that, only that they neglect the things to be done in making their blogs successful in the long haul. They forget the necessary and important processes that will lead to blogging success.
The second contractor went through the pain of writing a business plan, building a company, hiring people and getting investors to support the water project.
He took his time to build his success. He followed a process. A time wasting process maybe, but it was worth it at the end.
So What Are The Processes That Lead To Blogging Success?
There are so many processes and things you must learn and do to succeed as a blogger. Frankly, I believe you know or have heard about the different things already. What you may have not been told or remember is that all these things are processes not events.
They take time to learn, to perfect and to succeed in.
Here are a few that you know already.
1. Content production and writing
2. Search engine optimization
3. Traffic generation
4. Product development and launch
5. Guest posting
6. Online networking
7. Social media marketing
8. Linkbuilding
And many more.
All of these things take time to do and perfect. They are more of processes than events.
Writing a single blog post could be seen as an event, but writing 100 great posts on your blog that will get people coming back to your blog is surely a process. It doesn’t happen in one day.
You don’t wake up one day and become a top blogger; even Darren Rowse followed and still follows a process.
You don’t just start a new blog and make $10 000 in 2 days. Making money with blogs is also a process.
The bottom line is, there are so many things to learn and do to become a successful blogger but these things are all processes and will take time.
So, be like the second contractor. Invest your time, continue in the process and build on every step made in every process.
Copyright Protection For Web Publishers
2 years ago
I am quite passionate about the Internet, and as such I am always coming up with new ideas for websites and online businesses. At the same time I know that focus is vital if you want to achieve success, and I already have a couple of projects going on, so most of the time I just let those ideas site on the back burner.
Thinking about it, though, I figured that it could be interesting to post the ideas on the blog. If nothing else we’ll discuss about business models and making money on the Internet. There is also the chance that someone will like the idea and implement it, or adapt it slightly to launch something similar. If you do and end up making millions I will only be happy!
Anyway today I want to share an idea that I had back in 2008. I even purchased a domain and created a prototype for the business, but it never took off as I didn’t have time to put on the project.
The Idea
As a web publisher, I know how annoying it is to have scrapers copying my content and publishing it all over the web. In fact this practice is not only annoying, but it can be costly too. If people can find your content on other websites they might not visit yours, and excessive amounts of duplicate content might also hurt your search engine rankings, thus reducing the amount of organic traffic you’ll receive.
Unfortunately monitoring who is stealing your content and taking action to solve it would consume far too much time for the average web publisher, and here is where this business would come. It would be a company offering “copyright protection services for web publishers.”
How It Would Work
The service would have three main steps:
1. Content Theft Monitoring: Once the web publisher becomes a client, the company would start monitoring the web to see what websites are stealing the content of the client’s website. Ideally the company would develop a proprietary technology to track the copyright violations effectively.
2. Content Takedown: Upon identifying the content scrapers, the company would take the necessary actions to take it down. On this step you would have a hierarchy of measures. First of all the site owner would be contacted in a friendly way. If that didn’t work, the hosting company would be contacted with a DMCA. If even that didn’t work, the company would study with the client the possibility of taking proper legal action.
3. Reporting: Every month the company would provide the client with a report. It would include all the instances of copyright violation found, and percentage of the violations that were already solved, and so on.
Where is the money?
The business model is pretty simple. In exchange for the services mentioned above the client would pay a monthly fee. The company could have different tiers of service, depending on the size of the client’s website.
For example, a personal blog with fewer than 500 pages could be charged $49 monthly for the service, while a mainstream content portal with over 10,000 pages would need to pay $199 monthly, because tracking all the violations here would consume a lot more resources.
Challenges
The main challenged I foresee with this business is to convince web publishers that they are actually losing money due to content scrapers. If you could build a couple of strong case studies proving that by removing duplicate the revenues of the website actually increased you would be in a good position to sell the service.
Another problem is the content takedown process. You would need to have at least one lawyer aboard to manage this part of the business.
Over To You
What do you guys think about this idea? If any of you want to give it a shot I already have a pretty good domain name (paid $1,000 for it) and a basic website design ready to go.
5 Reasons to be Critical of Other Bloggers
2 years ago
This post may be considered edgy to some but I am here to say that I am not a rebel. Just read any of my posts and you will conclude that I am not a malcontent, a dissident, or a troublemaker. Probably my biggest fault is my brute honesty so I sought out one of the largest blogs in the universe to get my message across. Daniel Scocco has allowed me the honor of guest posting here on DailyBlogTips so I am taking advantage of his vast audience to speak my mind.
I read a lot of blogs and I am growing tired of the mutual admiration society. I think a lot of my fellow bloggers are becoming complacent. We are too concerned with how we will be perceived rather than speaking our minds. We are too concerned that the popular blog owner will be offended if we offer up criticism that comes straight from the heart. We’re afraid of being ostracized from the masses of commenters who have nothing more worthwhile to say than “Great Post!”, “You hit the nail on the head with this post”, or “You are a true inspiration to me and my life!”
I think we need to be more critical of other bloggers no matter how big or popular that their blogs have become. Why? Well, let me tell you…
1. We must be true to ourselves
If we disagree we should be true to our convictions and speak up! When I was just starting out with my blog I criticized a very popular blogger in the comments section of another blog who was reviewing the popular blogger’s book. Before I knew it the popular blogger responded to my comments which I thought was really cool. He didn’t respond with vitriol but with an honest reaction and counter-argument. What a refreshing concept…
2. Constructive criticism helps the Author
If I write a post I want my readers to be honest in the comments. If they don’t agree with either a premise that I made in a post or something I said, I want them to let me know. In fact, it’s the critical comments that I remember most because these are the ones that I tend to think about more than the others. Believe me, I welcome any comments on my blog but when someone takes a different stance or offers more information I find this really helpful. I belong to a few different blog forums and recently I asked other members to critique my blog site. I got a number of responses from members praising my site but it was the constructive criticism that I remember and it helped me to make positive changes to my blog.
3. A dialog will be fostered
When I criticized that popular blogger back when I started out, I have since been able to foster a relationship with him. I started a dialog that day and it has continued to grow. I think this is the true spirit of blogging. We can foster a dialog with people we have never met but have a common passion.
4. We’ll keep each other honest
I think that some popular blog owners feel that they can do no wrong. They feel that their words are pearls of wisdom and that their readers are blessed to be reading them. Well, I’m here to say that it’s not their fault! It’s our fault. It’s our lack of being critical at the risk of being called jealous, spiteful, or resentful of their success. We must continue to keep each other honest by offering up our true feelings in the comments and we’ll all be better for it.
5. Our blogs will improve!
As this New Year begins I have goals for the coming year that are based around my blog as I’m sure you do as well. All of these goals are pretty much geared toward one thing: improving my blog. We need to hear from our readers what they feel is good about our blog and what they feel needs improvement. Ask your readers and they will respond. If we are all honest with each other and give our opinions in a responsible manner then we can all improve as bloggers.
In the movie Wall Street the lead character Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, had a memorable quote that was “Greed, for lack of a better word, is Good.”
Well, I’m here to say that “Criticality, for lack of a better word, is Good!” Let’s all be critical of each other, no matter what you feel the consequences may be. Any blog owner who can’t take criticism isn’t worth subscribing to. Let’s step it up this year and be true to ourselves, foster the dialog, offer constructive criticism, keep each other honest, and improve our blogs as a result.
Blog from Zero to Hero
2 years ago
Blogging is hard work. It can easily take up to a year or two before your blog starts taking off, if it ever does. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic, because there are a lot of people out there that believe they can jump in, start writing and the money will start pouring in.
But when you mix passion with blogging savvy, the results can be amazing. Before I started my blog, I decided to join a blogging course. I have always been big on finding a mentor, someone who has done what I want to do and then learning everything I can from them.
If you are passionate about what you’re doing and have the determination to work hard, the internet is full of excellent blogging courses that will help take your blog from zero to hero. With all that said, let’s look at how you can find your passion:
1. The Elimination Method
The elimination method is extremely simple. You start by writing down every topic you’re interested in, you then compare each topic to each other one by one and eliminate anything that you do not like.
Say you like cats, dogs and parrots, just to keep it simple. Let’s start with cats. Compare cats to dogs, do you think you’re more passionate about dogs? If yes, then you discard cats and compare dogs to the rest. We only have dogs and parrots left, so whichever one you’re more passionate about, wins.
2. The Money Question
What would you do if money didn’t exist? Would you write about dogs? If you never had to worry about food, clothing and a place to live, you would have no choice but to do things you enjoy, because there would be no reason to do anything else.
This is a simple, yet powerful question. Really think about what you would want to do if money didn’t exist on the planet. There are no 9-5 jobs. Everyone is doing what they love. What would you be doing in this scenario?
3. Your Feelings
Most of us have been taught to ignore our feelings from a very early age, but the truth is that feelings act as signposts for if you’re heading in the right direction. If you’re working a 9-5 job that you hate, you will feel bad and it will only get worse with time.
Whenever you’re doing something you love, you’ll feel happy, content and at peace. Time just seems to fly by. This is how feelings were meant to be used. It takes some practice. It is easy to misinterpret your feelings, which is why many people think they are passionate about making money, which is basically a feeling rooted in fear.
4. Taking Action
If you’re not quite sure what you’re passion is, the best way to find out is to just start somewhere. You can sit there and analyze what it might be, but you will never get anywhere. It’s okay if you start a blog and find out that it isn’t what you like.
Mistakes are there to teach you. If you want things to be perfect before you start, you will never start. Believe me, I’ve been there and when I started feeling okay about making mistakes, my life became so much easier.
5. Feedback
Once you’ve been blogging for a few months, you’ll start to find your voice and start getting some traffic (if you chose a good niche). You will have a bunch of data that will tell you if you’re heading in the right direction.
Comments, e-mails, bounce rates and the average time people spend on your website. All of these factors vary from blog to blog, which is why it can get difficult and why a mentor can be so helpful. The main point I want to get across in this article is that without your passion, you will not have the fuel to keep going for the months or even years when nothing seems to be happening.
How to Make Your Blog Feel Like Good
2 years ago
Despite having already quit my job, I recently attended a “escape the rat-race” type workshop for people who were looking to start their own businesses. My main reason for going was to see the process that people teach in order to help others successfully transition out of the cubicle and into their own company.
After all, I had completely stumbled onto my current path so didn’t have a solid blueprint for the process. One thing that really struck me throughout the discussions was that every single person agreed with this: you must make your business feel like home to someone. It doesn’t have to be everyone, but it should be someone.
I started to think of this analogy in terms of blogging and within a few minutes, I was already flooded with ideas on how to make your blog feel more homely to your audience. Now, I’m going to share them with you.
Pick a Focused Topic (The Right Address)
If you pick a focused topic on your blog, the vast majority of your blog posts will apply to everybody. In other words, every time they read new content of yours, visitors will be thinking “Yep, I have the right address.” They’ll know they’re in the right place because that’s exactly what they want to read.
A few blogs do break this mould with one of the most notable being Steve Pavlina. He blogs on the topic of Personal Development but covers so many different aspects of that niche. One week he might write about dating products and the next he’ll cover religion. I can’t help but think only a tiny percentage of his readers get to read what directly interests them on a regular basis.
The more you can give your readers exactly what they’re looking for, the better the chance they’ll feel like they’re in the right place.
Keep a Consistent Post Schedule (Familiarity)
One thing I admittedly struggle with is keeping a regular posting schedule. Some weeks I might post four times and others I might not post at all. My blogging very much operates around my personal life and I know that’s not good. In fact, the only thing constant about my post schedule right now is inconsistency.
However, I’m working to change that because I know how important the aspect of familiarity can be for your blog. I know that Darren has said a few times how if he does not post on a day (which he usually always does) then he will get floods of emails asking if he is OK or anything has happened to him. His readers are often waiting for new content to be posted because they generally know when that happens.
Remember that a (surprisingly) large portion of your readers will not use RSS or Twitter to get your articles. Instead, they’ll go the ‘old fashioned’ route and regularly return to your site manually to see if you have updated. This is especially true in the non-technical niche’s out there, so try to keep to a regular schedule.
Be Authentic (Comfort)
Authenticity online can be described in many ways, but I simply like to think of it as bringing as many natural human components you would use offline, into the online world. To me, that’s what all the advice boils down to. Authenticity brings comfort to your readers because trying to be (or act like) someone else is not only difficult an act for you to keep up but difficult for your readers to relate to.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who is trying really hard to impress you? Within a few minutes you instantly know how much money they have or how attractive their partner is? If you haven’t, then I have. And when it happens, it just feels…yuck. That’s the only way I can describe it, it just feels unnatural.
I have found the best results blogging when I talk to my readers like they are real people and I don’t try to bring an enhanced version of my offline self, online. If I’m comfortable sharing my failures and mistakes in life and lessons that I’ve learned, I find that people can really relate to what I’m saying and connect with the words. The more you can engage your readers, the more comfortable they will be around your site.
Interact in the Comments (Community)
I honestly feel like one of the few bloggers who tries to respond to as many of the blog comments I receive as possible. I do this not only to thank people for taking the time to check out my website, but I know that whenever I leave a comment on other websites, I really appreciate it when the author takes time out to respond to me.
I actually have to hand it to Daniel here because he is one of the few big bloggers I see regularly responding to reader questions, either as blog posts or comment replies. You may want to install a email subscription plugin so that blog commenters can also be notified when you reply to them directly. This step is so simple, and while it might take up 30 minutes of your time each day, I believe it is totally worth it.
5 Reasons For and Against Making Your Blog Multi-Author
2 years ago
I have been blogging for over a year now, and during this time, I came to a point where I wanted to expand my blog. The problem was that I just didn’t have enough time, as I have a full time job as a market researcher outside of my blog. This lack of time led me to the decision to hire writers for my blog. This wasn’t any easy decision, and it raised lots of questions. How would I pay them? Would it just add more work? Am I fit to manage other writers?
All of these questions were hard to answer, so I did what most people do. I just started blindly hiring writers with no roadmap in place. I was going with a straight trial by fire. It took some time and patience, but I now have a great system in place and am really glad I expanded to a multi-author blog. In this article, I’m going to tell you about the benefits and drawbacks of having a multi-author blog.
The Benefits
I figured it best to give you the good news first about have multiple authors on your blog, so you don’t just read the bad news and be scared off from attempting this drastic change.
1. More Articles and Content for Your Blog
I have never been a blazing fast writer, and I have a full time job. These things together make it near impossible for me to get more than 2 or 3 quality articles done a week. With only a limited number of articles per week, quick expansion of audience and article portfolio was out of the question.
Multiple authors have allowed me to ramp up the number of posts per week, and it allowed me to keep up posting consistency. If I went on vacation or took a break before, the blog sat stagnant. With extra authors, I always have a nice stock of articles just waiting to be published.
2. Expand the Topics Covered
Much to the dismay of many bloggers out there, I am a Windows guy. I have been my whole life and will continue to do so. I run a tech blog, so I would love to write about Mac software and hardware. However, I have no experience in that arena, so any articles I may have tried to write would have come off as uninformed and low quality.
In my search for authors, I made sure to find a few that used Macs in order to expand my blog’s coverage into that area. This helps round out my articles and gives me a little more variability and flexibility.
3. Increased Network
One thing that I didn’t think about at all when hiring writers, was how it was going to change my network. I never realized that you are not just hiring writers, you are hiring new marketers as well. I’ve had writers submit articles to social media sites and link me on their blog. This does nothing but attract more readers and get Google to like my blog that much more.
5. Become an Editor
My undergrad degree is in industrial engineering. That’s about as far away from journalism as you can get. Needless to say, I’ve never been the most swift writer, but I have polished my skills and been really impressed with my progress over the last year. However, I still don’t have amazing writing speed, so crafting a great article takes me some time.
Editing articles takes FAR less time for me. I am very open to all types of writing styles and articles, so skimming through someone else’s article and correcting grammar and formatting errors goes much faster. Becoming the editor has been great for me, as I still get to put my spin on things without having to spend so much time on research and writing.
5. Management Experience
Before have a multi-author blog, I had never been anyone’s boss. Being the boss has provided me with some great experience that will translate into the real world. I know that it isn’t exactly the same as face to face managing, but I still have to assign tasks, resolve conflict and communicate goals and objectives clearly. I firmly believe that these experiences will help me in my future career wherever it may take me.
The Drawbacks
Now that I’ve gotten you excited about expanding your blog, I’m going to give you the other side of the expansion story. The next five reasons are going to focus on the downsides of running a multi-author blog, because not everyone is going to find a solution to their blogging issues by changing to a multi-author blog. Let’s get right into the reasons of why you may not want a multi-author blog.
1. Loss of Control
In a multi-author blog you are still the final approver of content, and you can reject whatever you want. You could also demand all of your authors to write only about this topic or that topic, but I have a feeling that most people won’t like to be told exactly what to do or what to write about. If you don’t give your authors flexibility, someone else will.
Writers will write in a different tone or style than your own, and they will write about topics that may not have been your first pick. I was a little bit of a perfectionist before I hired authors, but I had to drop that mindset quickly and let go of my control over everything. If you want everything to be done a certain way, having multiple authors may prove to be a challenge.
2. Loss of Voice
This goes back to the fact that other authors have a different writing style than your own. This may help or hurt your blog, as you may have built up a strong audience with the way you write. You can still edit posts to make them sound more like you, but there is a fine line between just editing an article and rewriting it. It can be hard to keep the blog as just your own, because future readers will see many authors. This takes the focus off of you and could be a deal breaker for certain bloggers that want their blog to just be their own.
3. Become an Editor
This was one of the reasons to have a multi-author blog, but that was due to the fact that I am not a writer at heart. If you are a natural writer and really love crafting articles, becoming an editor could be something that provides you with little reward or excitement. Moving your time from the creative side to a more administrative role could be very hard and boring for many individuals and cause them to lose the passion they once had for their blog.
4. Become a Manger
This, again, was a positive in the previous list. The truth is that managing people can be challenging and down right frustrating at times. People have different personalities and ways of expressing their feelings. Dealing with people can be great, or it can be like babysitting.
Also, turnover tends to be fairly high, because you probably won’t have all the money in the world to pay your authors to keep them around. Training and constantly dealing with new people can get really old after a while.
5. Share the Wealth
If you hire authors, you have to pay them (well, most of the time). This starts to cut into that revenue you were building and were so proud of. Going from $100 a month back to almost nothing, because all of it is going to authors is a very hard thing to swallow. You may not see how the increased articles will yield increased revenue in the future. It is an investment, and some investments never pay out.
Conclusion
I am a big fan of running a multi-author blog and have gotten lots out of the change, but there are also many reasons to not take on this expansion, especially if your blog is very focused on your thoughts and opinions. Let us know what you think about multi-author blogs in the comments.
Ways To Run Your Blog Like A Small Business
2 years ago
It’s always about ‘how blogging would help in a small business’ rather than the other way around. Ever since I started my intense blogging in February 2009, I’ve noticed how much my four and a half years of working background in product and customer service for a small company had taught me much about blogging. Whether or not your aim is to monetize, most of us bloggers are hoping for the same thing: traffic and productivity – which in a small business scenario translates to customers and revenue.
Here’s a basic flow of how a small business usually runs:
Starting & Planning:
1. Deciding the Service/Merchandise
Merchandise is the revenue generator for small business. It depends much on the current market and the types of needs your business could fulfill. Small business conductors will carry out brief market research, identify and test upon the targeted market with several prototypes in a considerable amount. They never sit and wait for business to come knocking on their doors.
Deciding your blog niche is essential. Even if you have no idea which niche that best fits you, tryout several writings for your preferred topics. You will then able to decide which will bring you the most satisfactions and success, while pinpoint your weakness and strength along the way. Actions lead to outcomes. Whether good or bad, gain experience from it.
2. Maximize Your Resources
Are you financially equipped? Knowledge and experience wise? Small business conductors will maximize the use of their assets to help in the business, innovatively turn every idea into action.
Some bloggers are well adapted with knowledge of programming, web designs and SEO. By all means, apply these to optimize your blogging results. Even if you don’t have much to offer, take up a self-learning course on the how-tos, joining forums to get familiarize with the blogosphere, get help or necessary advices from the specialists. Make an effort to build your resources via knowledge database because what you gain is invaluable, and will be a major asset for your blogging career in future.
3. Planning and Precautions; Expect the Unexpected
Yes, we heard a lot about the benefits of owning a business plan. However, un-expectancies are bound to happen during the process, such as product shortage on promised date, warranty issues, customer complaints etc. Such experiences taught our company to be constantly alert and have backup plans whenever an issue comes up.
In blogging, it’s advisable to have yourself prepared for situations like burnt outs, data-lost, commenting issues or a sudden server breakdown. Preparation is always better than regretting later. Try to be ahead of your problems if possible. Trust me, you’re gonna thank yourself for initiating the backup plans.
Actions:
4. Publicity & Promotional Methods
Being the sole distributor for a particular merchandise helps to gain popularity fast. Otherwise, you need to work extra hard for publicity, such as offering special discounts or free gifts for loyal customers. Educate your new customers: what’s the main attraction of your product? Why should they come to you instead of your competitors? Sometimes it requires patience, but quality is what ensures business reputations and longevity.
Same as blogging, to stand out from the saturated market, you need to start building your own audiences with quality content. Originality will win you backlinks from other sites while ensures sustainability. You could have exposures done effectively via blog commenting, taking parts in forums, initiate promotions via blogging campaigns, guest postings and participate in social media sites. Another great way is to reward your readers with free subscription gifts or link love for their continuous supports.
5. Quality Product & Customer Service
Nowadays, many small businesses overlook the importance of ‘after sell service’, which sometimes one of the reasons that drive the customers away. Word of mouth can either build you, or destroy you. Thus, be attentive to our customers is always our utmost policy.
In blogging, what defines quality content? Subjective as it is, but not running far from solving a problem, generating ideas and creating good vibe for those who read it. Consider about your readers at all times. Unless you’re super busy with reasons not able to give an instant feedback, otherwise, you need to cater their needs asap.
Reviews:
6. Feedbacks
We do monthly reviews on our merchandises. Such action helps to decide whether our business will continue to benefit from it, or should we move on to other alternatives? It takes into account every customer’s feedback, call of complaints, solutions provided by the vendor, and ROI after considering all the aspects.
Likewise, we are concern about blog visitors and their reactions to our writings. We cannot please everyone, but we still need to take in all the feedbacks, good or bad, and improvise them. Knowing the importance of reviewing your blog will ensure acceptance from your visitors. It could be done by observing your blog comments, emails, and monitoring via Google Alert regarding your personal branding on various sites.
7. Follow Ups
In small business, it’s easier to follow up on customers in a regular basis. Whether it is via phone calls, surveys or a casual conversation during their visits to our premise. This is to build up a marketing relationship with our customers, having them to come back regularly for our services or products.
By utilizing the same concept, we can try to get in touch with our readers, not only through comments, but through emailing as well. Make use of the social media sites available for effective follow-ups. Form an author-reader relationship. Bear in mind your readers could always go to other similar blogs but they’ve chosen yours instead. With this simple reason they deserved your pamper and attention at all times.
Research & Development
8. Quality Control
We are always told to deliver more than what we promised and never the other way around. A well manageable small business is never negligent of quality control.
Blogging is always about quality control for that matter. Besides writing skills, try to minimize the spelling mistakes, and have a clean blog layout that is easy to navigate. Make sure the content is well structured and not losing your personal touch. Maybe a new input would be good for your blog? Try occasional use of vodcast or radio show for your blogging presentations. But don’t over doing it, or risk yourself without a proper training at first.
9. Outsourcing & Future Planning
A small business will find ways to survive, for example outsourcing for possible ventures. Most small business conductors are risk takers and willing to expand their business to the next level.
Try to figure the next possible step for your blog. Could it be collaboration with like-minded bloggers for a webinar? Building a fan site in Facebook? An ebook? If you’re all about gaining knowledge on how to monetize your blog, it’s important to know how and when it’s the time to make it happen.
It is said that blogging market is saturated. But we need to be optimistic if we wish to go headstrong in this blogging business. Small business runners are risk takers, opportunists, and customer-oriented, something we could learn much about and benefit from. However, it’s important to never lose touch of our own selves. Be honest, sincere, and a positive attitude will help us go a long way, while running our blog successfully like a small business.
Recent Comments