Remember Me
forgot your password?

13 Steps to Successful Blogging

Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home. I don't say that because I'm the owner, but a free blog host is very rewarding for a new blog.  Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to build an audience and buzz for your blog.  It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service, is in the case your blog doesn't become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your "move".  Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved" and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family, then you have a niche...you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. Though, I am seeing a growing trend of successful blogs that are not being updated daily, but they are successful and have a stable audience who continue to visit their blog daily.  Regardless, these blogs are still updated weekly with multiple entries.  Until you have a steady audience you should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the "About the Author" passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines is bound to find your blog in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts (free) to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com and others. The more blog accounts the better (be sure to read and adhere to the Terms of Service for each site). You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.  Stay keyword-focused.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture of the Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, TypePad, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" and the blog entry should state something like "I have a new home for my blog, please bookmark and follow the link: http://www.yournewblogdomainname.com/". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.  Plus, search engines can easily index and crawl your new blog, since your old blog should already be popular with the search engines.

At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors.


Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.


To learn more about successful blogging subscribe to the Journal Home Newsletter

Anthony Onaf
I am a experienced and seasoned SEO consultant. I specialize in search engine optimization, search marketing, and pay per click management.
Rate this Article: 0 / 5 stars - 0 vote(s)
Print Email Re-Publish

Add new Comment



Captcha
0
1. despino (06:53, 12.06.2009)
I am very pleased with the thought and don’t feel like adding anything in it. It’s a perfect answer.
Find Personal Injury Lawyer

  • Latest Advertising Articles
  • More from Anthony Onaf

Roof Strobe Lights

By: caryfank | 14/11/2009
For providing a vehicle some kind of importance and attraction of people towards them we need to specify some upgrade to the vehicle, so that it will be able to get the attraction of the people towards of it. Many kinds of vehicles are there who need some extra attention of the people for them for providing some kind of message or signal to the other persons moving on the same road.

Police Strobe Lights

By: caryfank | 14/11/2009
Strobe Lighting has been used in the police cars since 1960s. It is commonly called as strobe, which originated from a Greek word “strobos” that means “act of whirling”. Strobe light or stroboscopic lamp is a device which produces regular flashes of light.

POLICE VISOR STROBE

By: caryfank | 14/11/2009
Both are strobes but are used for different purpose and is differently made. Police visor strobes are the type of flashing type strobe. They work at low voltage and produce high intensity flashes. They are often combined with siren to show patrolling or emergency situation.

Roof Strobe Lights

By: caryfank | 14/11/2009
Many emergency vehicles use emergency lighting which is based on roof strobe lights. Roof strobe light produces flash like produced in the photography. Xenon flash lamps are used for the roof strobe light, these xenon flash lamps produce a very brief but very bright flash by ionizing and then discharging a large amount of current through the gas inside the light, then the light produced has a somewhat bluish emission spectrum, which makes red light bars to glow with a fuchsia pink color which ca

Searching for professional child models? Use the power of the Internet

By: Mark Lavel | 14/11/2009
More and more companies today are seeking model talent through online model listing services. Child models in particular are in high demand. Companies such as Online Model World are leading the way in presenting modeling talent of all ages. By availing yourself to this resource you can find the right look to represent your product, and save money by avoiding expensive offline agencies.

Under Cover Police

By: caryfank | 14/11/2009
Strobe produces the flashes in regular manner which is very irritating also for the eyes. You can see these strobe on the police vehicles in general life also. Strobe light is not allowed for the all vehicles, its only allowed for the emergency vehicles, other then under cover police strobe lightning is also used in the ambulances also.

Strobe LED Flashers

By: caryfank | 14/11/2009
Strobe LED flashers are widely used in the vehicles as turn lights. Strobe LED flashers are also very useful for the parking in the night time on a high way. They glow and produce continuous flash light which is visible from a long distance and other drivers driving on the same road can know about the presence of your vehicle on the road, this will provide your vehicle a great deal of safety and avoids accidents in the night time.

Why Using A Proven Cash Gifting System Works

By: marlon hall | 14/11/2009
Are you at all interested in adopting a program that will reap daily rewards? A system that efficiently markets to prospects will allow you to reach people who want to be part of a cash gifting program. The difficulty lies in finding a cash gifting system that will work best for your most precious asset... your time! Many types of programs, home businesses and opportunities st...

Ten Warning Signs Telling You to Sell Your Business

By: Anthony Onaf | 15/10/2009 | Entrepreneurship
Selling a business is never easy, but at some point you may be faced with the decision to sell your business. Before this day comes you should know and understand the warning signs. This article will present warning signs that tell you it's time to sell your business.

Dude, Where's my Bra?

By: Anthony Onaf | 29/06/2009 | Gifts
Have you ever needed to find the bra size of your wife or girlfriend, without directly asking her because it's for a surprise gift? This article will give you 10 tips for discovering the bra size of your woman without her ever knowing you've been snooping.

Selective Catalytic Reduction – How NOx Reduction Make the World Go Green

By: Anthony Onaf | 15/05/2009 | Technology
Selective catalytic reduction systems have leveled the playing for life and NOx to coexist in the same environment. The toxic fumes of NOx are very damaging to the world as we know it. With the aid of selective catalytic reduction technology the levels of nitrogen oxide emissions can be controlled and managed. This article takes you through the process.

Morgellons the Crying Wolf Disease

By: Anthony Onaf | 19/08/2008 | Diseases & Conditions
Morgellons disease is a serious and evident skin disease which has many people suffering. Morgellons is considered the crying wolf disease because the medical world does not recognize Morgellons as a disease, instead sufferers are tagged as delusional.

Corporate Gift Giving the Inexpensive Way But Still Appreciative

By: Anthony Onaf | 25/06/2008 | Gifts
Saving money is something every business is concerned about. This article shows you how to cut corporate expenses when giving gifts while still giving useful and entertaining business gifts. Learn inexpensive ways to give business gifts to hard working employees, appreciative business partners, and loyal customers.

Nintendo Wii the Game Controller that Controls the Future

By: Anthony Onaf | 15/06/2008 | Art & Entertainment
Nintendo Wii is extremely popular and the game controllers are the first of its kind. This exercise powered gaming console is heating up the gaming industry and this article discusses the new breed of game controllers.

Learn to Dance So You Can Dance Your Life Away

By: Anthony Onaf | 01/06/2008 | Art & Entertainment
Dancing is a great way to exercise, meet new people, and build confidence. Dancing is sociological and can help you with many issues, it can become your escape. Dance while you are young, while you still can, dance your life away!

Dancing is the Get in Shape Workout

By: Anthony Onaf | 31/05/2008 | Sports & Fitness
This article explains why and how dancing can help get you in shape. The benefits of dancing go a long way and will give you one of the most entertaining workouts. Being healthy and getting in shape no longer needs to be the high pressure exercise program which historically is the thought when considering getting in shape. Now you can have fun while getting in shape and working out!

Submit Your Articles Free: Signup
Article Categories




Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Copyright © 2005-2008 Free Articles by ArticlesBase.com, All rights reserved. (0.62, 8, w1)