31 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Business Web Site
14 years ago
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Secrets to Blogging Success
Suppose that you have plenty of patience and time, and now you need to know how bloggers can turn that patience and time into money. Believe it or not, there isn’t a secret recipe for success. Truly, success comes from commitment, time, and possibly a bit of luck. You never know when your blog might get picked up by a major news portal that can attract a lot of attention to it and possibly give your blog a big boost. Sometimes, success is a matter of being in the right place at the right time — the nearby sidebar “Perez Hilton’s lucky break” describes one celebrity blogger’s rise to stardom. However, for most bloggers, success comes with persistence. Here are some tips:
Pick a topic people are interested in. The potential size of your blog’s audience is directly related to the number of people who are interested in the topic you’re writing about. However, you should know that just because you pick a popular topic doesn’t mean that your blog will receive a flood of visitors. You also have to pick a blog topic that isn’t already covered repeatedly online. If you do pick a topic that has already been overdone, make sure to put a unique spin on your content so that it stands out in the crowded blogosphere.
Pick a topic you’re passionate about. Remember that because successful blogs are updated frequently, you have to write about your blog’s topic continually and for a long time. Make sure that you have the stamina to stick with it.
Be social. This is the biggest key to blogging success. From the tone of your blog posts to your responsiveness to comments posted on your blog and e-mail sent to you based on your blog’s content, you need to be friendly and constantly work to build relationships. Those efforts don’t stop on your own blog. You also need to visit other blogs and leave relevant comments, visit forums, join user groups, and more to get the word out about your blog and build relationships with other bloggers.
Keep learning. Successful bloggers never stop learning about new blogging tools and concepts, their blog topics, and their audiences. The more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to take your blog to the next level.
Take risks. Don’t be afraid to be creative. Try new blogging features and functions, inject some unique content into your blog posts, or change the layout of your home page. You never know what might work. Just make sure to track the results so that you know what works (and what doesn’t work) to bring you closer to meeting your goals.
Every blogger has her own definition of blogging success. Before you start your blog, define your success metrics. Do you want to get specific results, such as sales or business contacts? Do you want to attract a certain number of visitors? Do you want to make a certain dollar amount from your blog? Do you want to network and build relationships and create an online pres-ence that leads to other opportunities? Or do you simply want to have fun? Write down your blogging goals and return to them every few months to see whether you’re on track to meeting them, whether you need to make some changes to get there, or whether you want to rewrite them completely. Only then can you find and achieve your own blogging success.
Blogger Intro
Pyra Labs launched Blogger in 1999 as one of the first programs dedicated
completely to blogging. At the time, blogging was in its infancy, and the three
Web developers who created Blogger had no idea what their product would
grow to become.
Blogger is often credited with helping to boost blogging into the mainstream.
By offering an easy-to-use and easily accessible blogging platform, people
slowly began to realize how much power blogging could deliver. Terms such
as user-generated content, citizen journalism, and social Web became part of
the common vernacular, and people (and businesses) from all walks of life
wanted to jump on the blogging bandwagon.
But what exactly is a blogging platform? In the simplest terms, a blogging plat-
form (or blogging software) is the computer program that does all the work
behind the scenes to publish your content on the Internet. You type the con-
tent into your blogging software, such as Blogger, WordPress, or TypePad,
and the blogging software creates a Web site where your content resides (see
Figure 1-1). The blogging software formats your content, dates it, archives it,
and more. Suddenly, having a Web site was no longer a possibility only for
businesses with a budget to burn. With the birth of blogging and the popular-
ity of Blogger, anyone could have an online presence, become a blogger, and
join an online community that would come to be known as the blogosphere.
Blogger simply gives your blog a home online. Imagine Blogger as a banquet
hall. As host, Blogger offers a location for various people to create and store
their blogs just as a banquet hall gives people a place to hold events. What
happens on your blog and the success of your blog depends on you.
Unlike a traditional Web site that offers a static message, a blog works more
like an online diary with posts published in reverse chronological order. In
this way, blogs tell a story, and that story is completely up to the blogger,
who has the freedom to write and publish anything he wants. Although blogs
started out as very simple online diaries, they grew to be much more. Blogs
are still used now by many people simply for fun, but they are also used by
people who try to earn an income from them, launch a new career, or build a
business, for example. The opportunities that blogs create are seemingly end-
less. It’s all up to the blogger.
Of course, some unwritten rules of the blogosphere and secrets to success
exist, such as posting frequency, networking, and creating compelling con-
tent. However, a blog is the product of the blogger and evolves the way the
blogger desires. At its core, blogging is a simple concept. It requires little to
no monetary investment but could potentially demand a great deal of sweat
equity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
