Four Steps to Creating a Successful Blog
Member Feature: by Jennifer Botha of VA Connect
In today’s life with over 4 billion people around the world on the internet blogging is becoming increasingly popular. Now why is this? Well, with so many people on the internet, if you have a message to share that you are passionate about, or you have specific products to sell or a service. People are searching the internet looking for ways to solve problems all of the time, so you could be a problem solver and blogging is a really powerful and good way to get your message out there.
What should I write about in my blog?
These days there are blogs about virtually everything you can think of. So what takes your fancy, what can you talk all day about? You can write about that. People are always looking for ways to solve problems, so think of ways you can do this. An example of this is, many stay-at-home mothers have become ‘mommy bloggers’, sharing their joys and struggles of day to day life bringing up their family. These types of blogs have a huge audience of moms sharing tips and experiences with each other. Create compelling content that is useful and relevant to your niche. Invite your readers to engage with you and the other readers by asking for feedback.
Attracting your audience
You can write all you want and have the most creative and colourful blog out there, but if nobody knows about you, nobody is going to see your blog. Here are a few tips on how to attract visitors to your blog:
- Word your headline with keywords that are relevant to your target niche and blog topic that will spark the interest of your audience, enticing them to click the link.
- Tell your social media friends about your blog and ask them to read, comment and share.
- Use tags and select keywords from your blog or of interest to your target audience.
- Join forums and visit other people’s blogs about the same topic of your blog and comment, adding the link to your blog if allowed.
- Have a Facebook page where you post a short passage from your blog with a link to it.
- Buddy with other bloggers and link to each other’s blogs.
Monetize your blog
To make a blog profitable, with the mommy’s blog for example, would be to sell products or services through the blog i.e. baby clothing, toys, baby photography, products for the moms. Remember, babies grow up and as they grow their needs change i.e. educational toys, books, sports and that’s just some. You could add a link to another blog of yours which caters for moms with older children. This is a huge market with many opportunities.
Turn your audience into loyal subscribers
Ask any successful internet marketer and they will say the money is in the list. So what do they mean by that? Many things have come and gone over the years on the internet, just like trends and fads, but one thing still remains and that is email and is here to stay. A really good way to grow your list is by offering something free on your blog i.e. an e-book on how to keep your baby safe and in order for you to send them the e-book, they need to fill in their name and email address to receive it. This way you grow your list of subscribers and email them regularly with a link to your latest blog or a product that you are selling.
For more on Jennifer and how VA Connect can assist you, please do visit our members page.