Blogging: The Super Simple Guide On How To Make Money Blogging in 2016 - Stop Working and Start Blogging (2016)

Chapter 4. PROMOTING YOUR BLOG AND BUILDING YOUR AUDIENCE

Always remember that sustainable blog traffic growth can only happen if your content rocks. Having somebody visit your blog once is just one thing – but having them to come back again and again is another and that is the reason why awesome content is a necessity if you want to profit from your blog.

The process for generating profits from a blog isn’t always easy, but the first step is to build a massive and loyal audience/following.

The best approach to achieve this isn’t always clear, and the strategies needed to achieve this goal are different for everyone, depending on the type of blog they’re creating, who the target audience is, what the goal of the blog is, and how well the blogger (that’s you) manages to promote their blog.

Building, maintaining, and constantly expanding your blog’s following (audience) is an absolute requirement if you ultimately want to generate revenue from your blog.

Of course, if you chose a topic you’re passionate about to be the main focus of your blog, the hard work you’ll need to put in while building your blogging business won’t always seem like work. Here are some of the ways to build traffic on your blog:

Create an Identifiable Logo for Your Blog

Develop your blog into an identifiable brand. If you’re starting a blog from scratch, consider having a unique logo designed for it, and begin to develop an entire brand and visual identity around the blog. Or, if you’re developing a blog for your company, incorporate your existing logo, branding, and slogans, for example, to maintain continuity.

WORD OF MOUTH

Word of mouth is a great way to start building traffic on your blog – you tell your friends about your blog, who in turn tell their family and friends and that is how your list of readers increases – in case your content is read worthy.

Before you begin talking to people about your blog, spend some time crafting your elevator pitch. This is a thirty second overview of what your blog is about and how readers can benefit from it. Once you are ready with the pitch, practice it, hone it and own it.

Here are some ideas about how to build word of mouth publicity for your blog:

COMMENTING ON OTHER BLOGS

A better approach here is to read the blogs that you like – especially the ones that you feel have a great crossover traffic – and leave a thoughtful comment with your blog URL only if you genuinely have to say something. This means that your comments have to be genuine, straight from your heart. If your comments are genuine and insightful, they may lead other readers from the blog to reach out to you via your blog.

PROMOTE OTHER BLOGS

Promoting another blogger can be as simple as linking back to another blogger whose post inspired any of your posts. Most blogs have trackbacks on their blog posts – this means that if you link a person’s blog, they will automatically get a notification that you linked their blog.

NETWORKING

Networking can open new doors for your blogging business. Apart from forging genuine friendships, you get the opportunity to grow your blog. I must mention here that ‘true, genuine friendships’ come first. If you make friends with the intention of growing your business, your friends can see right through your eyes.

The best way to connect with other bloggers is via blog conferences. This is a highly misunderstood profession and I can’t tell you how amazing it is to be in the company of like-minded people who understand what you do for a living.

GUEST POSTS

Guest posts have an amazing potential to drive traffic to your own blog. The key to a great guest post is to not post on a site with a similar audience but to write something so great that your host’s readers are driven to your site in order to read more of what you write.

If you are interested in guest posting on other sites, make sure that you ask for guidelines and always submit original content. Also, do not try to be overly familiar – since this is not ‘your’ audience. You are writing for somebody else’s audience. Submit your best content and never make your post self-promotional.

BUILD YOUR E MAIL LIST

‘Building an email list’ model is extremely impactful when you want to reach out to an audience that can be converted into a sales funnel that you want to use in order to sell your expensive courses or physical products. This model is extremely effective for online marketers.

As you build your email list, remember to place the subscribe button at a prominent place in your blog. Create some nice freebies for your subscribers – these could range from recipe books to goal setting and time management guides – just make sure that you are adding value to your readers. Always promote the incentive that you offer on social media

UNDERSTAND SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

As you create content, remember to create content that is SEO friendly. You must remember that Google’s only goal is to display the best possible content for a particular search. The extremely sophisticated Google algorithms look at everything ranging from the content on the web page to the time visitors spent on the page. Another important thing to remember is that Google cannot be tricked via SEO.