Aaaah that new blog smell. There’s really nothing like it. Logging into Wordpress for the first time right after installation and publishing that first post can be exhilarating, especially if you’re planning on making money with your blog. Bloggers that have weathered the first few months of blogging will all tell you that building a blog’s readership from the ground up is hard work and that, unless you’re some kind of celebrity, traffic building takes time and patience. It’s easy to lose steam and motivation in the early stages without focus, the right expectations and a plan.

Although I only flipped the switch and released this blog to the search engines a few weeks ago (January 12th to be exact), I have a road map in my head of where it’s going over the next few months, and I thought that I’d take a moment to share my strategy and some thoughts with my readers, so you know what to expect over the coming months and why. Here are a few thoughts from me on planning, branding and building a new blog…

The First 90 days - What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Traffic)

If you’re serious about blogging, you’ve got to take a long term approach. Period. With millions of blogs out there (and tens of thousands of new blogs each day) the most important thing is to keep plugging away at it relentlessly and not let trickling traffic get you down. The majority of blogs that don’t make it - especially make-money blogs that were started just to make a quick buck - fail within the first 3-6 months at the precise point when the bubble bursts and the blogger realizes that it’s really going to be a long haul and is forced to re-assess the time commitment it takes to be great. This is what Seth Godin calls this The Dip. It’s the point at which you really have to take a good hard look at what it’s going to take to succeed, how much you’re willing to give, what the potential payoff is, and whether it’s worth it to keep going. Most don’t.

When people hit that point, get overwhelmed and let frustration take hold, the result is often trickle of posts that eventually lead to a dead blog. But for those that stick around, there are dividends to be paid. Not only does sticking with it through the dip give you a sense of accomplishment, it sets you apart from the millions that will fail after that first 90-120 days. Tenacity is largely a self-fulfilling strategy in blogging. Remember that every new post is a chance to snag visitors at the search engine and to convert casual surfers into readers by wowing them. When it comes to the web, live pages are timeless and every new post builds your net for catching new visitors. At a post a day you WILL see consistent increases in traffic. It’s inevitable. Stay focused and build great content and your traffic will start growing exponentially as people notice you.

The Importance of Building a Strong Content Base

I can’t stress this next point enough. If you’re looking to increase your readership, you’ve got to give people a good reason to stick around. Even though you might get a few hundred, or even a few thousand hits on a new post from social media on that first day, the new post is only your first point of attraction. Your potential “return” visitors are the ones that read most or all of the post, and THEN start interacting with the site to see what they’ve been missing and what kind of quality and consistency they can expect. In short, they do a quick “what’s in it for me” check and the decision can be quick - only a couple of clicks. Understanding people’s behavior when they’re doing that “make or break” evaluation is important for your long term success because every new visitor does it. It’s 15 to 30 seconds of “why should I care” multiplied over thousands upon thousands of new visitors over time. Here are a few tips for maximizing your chances from turning visitors to readers in that first 30 seconds.

• Use Your About Page As A Weapon - The “next” click for a new visitor after the landing page is often the “about” page. You better make damn sure that it captures the interest of your target audience. People who hit the about page second are looking for information about who is behind the scenes, what the blog or site is about, when it was started, why they should care and how the blog’s current content (and all future content) can be useful to them. “Useful” is key, by the way. If people feel like they’re not learning anything new from you, they will go somewhere and probably never return.
• Highlight Your Most Popular Content - People don’t want to dig through your archives or site map to find our what makes your site special. The most popular second click for a new visitor will be to posts, pages or areas that highlight your most popular content. This could be a “Top Posts” page or to a “most popular posts” section that’s prominently displayed (preferably) above the fold on your site. Surfers don’t bullshit around too much when they’re trying to assess your worthiness. They go straight to the good stuff to make a one-time determination about whether you’re worth they’re time (I know I do) . Highlighting your best content is a great way to encourage readership. Writing a few killer posts and putting them in visible places where new visitors will access them first is a great way to market yourself and will help your chances of survival.
• Keep The Scope of Your Content Focused - This is a personal thing for me, but I can almost guarantee that I’m not alone. When I’m evaluating whether to subscribe to a new blog or not, and I hit the “all posts” or “top posts” page, I don’t just look for gems, I look for keyword and topic density. A blog on entrepreneurship shouldn’t just have 1 or 2 great articles - it should have many. Even the fringe articles should be related. Although I’m a loyal reader of his, it drives me crazy when I go to John Chow’s blog only to find a post about what he ate for dinner last night. Here’s the other thing - from an SEO perspective, keyword density plays a huge part in page rank at the search engines. Staying focused is a natural way to optimize your search results for your main topic.
• Core Content On The Basics Gives People A Reason To Stay - Not everyone that hits your site is going to be an expert. Advanced posts especially may challenge some readers with new terminology and topics for which they need additional background. Anticipating the needs of those readers is key to keeping them around. While you don’t want to alienate the advanced readers, it’s good to have a core of basic posts that describe basic topics that you can link to so that your less advanced readers can do their research on your site. This is something that you should work on at the beginning of a blog when your readership and traffic is low. It’s good to have a plan about what that basic content repository will be early on. It’ll provide a foundation for your future success. View your posts as assets - they’ll be a well you can draw from when you want to provide information in a later post without sending someone to another site.
• Know When (not) To Display Your RSS Stats - Displaying the number of RSS readers you’ve got can make or break your blog in under 5 seconds. If your readership is anywhere under 50, don’t display your stats as a rule. It’ll just signal that, whether you’re new or old, not enough people think you’re worth following, which’ll send a pretty clear message to someone still sitting on the fence. On the flip side, having a large readership can be used as a selling point. Displaying RSS stats that are huge says “I’m popular and therefore worth your time”. Under those conditions, a lot of people subscribe just to see what all the fuss is about.

Never Stop Tweaking And Testing

As your readership and traffic grow, you’ll be able to use analytics, reader feedback and earnings statistics to gauge how you’re doing. Use the information you glean from those sources to tweak your site’s layout and look, as well as your message and your branding. Do things like use a different header, change your tag line and writing style, play with your ad placement and track your results. Small changes can have a big effect on your success over the long run. You want to always be shooting to maximize the draw for your target audience, strengthening your brand and increasing your readership.

Stay Engaged and Learn To Differentiate Yourself by Plugging Into The Blogosphere

I’ve been a regular blog reader for about a year now - it’s part of my daily routine. I use Google’s RSS reader to manage about 100-150 subscriptions. It’s a good habit to have as a blog writer for a number of reasons. You can learn a lot from successful bloggers and it helps you stay current with what’s going on, especially if you’re new to the game. Here’s the thing though - use your time spent on other blogs constructively. See what the big guys are doing, but don’t just copy and regurgitate. Improve, expand and differentiate yourself from the pack. This applies to all facets of your blog or site - visual and textual. Remember, there are millions of blogs out there. Most of them look and feel the same. Make sure yours doesn’t.

What To Expect From This Blog In The Coming Months

All of this considered, I’m still in week 3. Over the next few weeks I’ll be building my “Traffic Building”, “Affiliate Marketing”, “Web Mastery” and “SEO” 101 sections. I’ll throw in an advanced post here and there to keep it interesting, but for the most part I’m developing from the bottom up. I want entrepreneurs who come to this blog to be able to use it as a useful resource for building multiple streams of internet income - not just be a hit or miss daily article site. I want my ”
top posts” section (coming in the next few days) to read like a reference book, not like a mashup of random thoughts. Even though this strategy makes for a slow start that won’t likely “wow” the big boys, in 6 months, this blog will be a GREAT place to link to and the investment in keyword density will pay off in the long run.

I hope you join me for the ride. Happy surfing.

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