Comments on: 8 Steps to Making Your Blog Successful

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:33:13 +0000

Hi Dave,

You’re welcome – but I’m not sure I’d describe blogging as a basic and general subject..!

Cheers,

Martin.

By: Jim Johnson

Jim Johnson — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:56:02 +0000

All right Martin. How can we make each blog more effective? Everett-mortgage-on-line I have read your site and agree qwith almost all of it.
Jim Johnson´s last blog ..Everett Mortgage – Homes for Sale Everett

By: Sadekya

Sadekya — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:37:58 +0000

Its marketing and promoting a blog that is a real effort. More often than not, one carries on a monologue.

By: Jim Johnson

Jim Johnson — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:41:51 +0000

Good ideas. I get a few visits and a high bounce rate. i will take what you say and use it. Jim Johnson Everett-mortgage-on-line

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:51:01 +0000

Sorry to hear about your job – but good luck with ramping up your blogging

Being terminated earlier in the year was the best thing that’s happened to me for ages.

Cheers,

Martin.

By: marvin

marvin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:47:23 +0000

Nice reminder. I need it. Specially now I am about to lose my job .

Just revived my main blog after it was hacked (moved to a different host also since I suspect it was server side hacking). So I’m planning to start writing “sensible”articles.
marvin´s last blog ..Breaking Point

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:05:47 +0000

Ah…!

Interesting you should mention ‘build it and they’ll come’. That worked 10 years ago, but definitely not today. And those steps I set out above certainly don’t constitute a build it and they’ll come approach.

I wrote an article on ‘build it and they’ll come’ a while ago – you can find it here.

It includes a few of the steps I mentioned above, and touches on PPC as well.

I certainly don’t dispute the need for traffic, but traffic in itself isn’t much good to you (if you’re hoping to monetise your blog) unless it’s targetted.

Un-targetted traffic just eats up your bandwidth.

I do agree, though, with your thoughts on why bloggers tend to fight shy of PPC. If I’m honest, I’d think I’d failed with my blog if I resorted to PPC to get people to visit it. Crazy, I know – and maybe I should sort my brain out!

Cheers,

Martin.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:42:04 +0000

I used to subscribe to the “build it and they will come” theory when I first started blogging and there is some truth in it but you need more. My own experience is that I got more traffic and much faster when I implemented an aggressive traffic plan. The same goes for my websites. Are you using only wire?
I’ve thought of using PPC to promote a site but like you have always resisted for some reason. There’s something that doesn’t feel right about promoting a blog with ppc, or is it simply that we’ve all read the same advice and believe blog traffic should be obtained virally?
If you have some good prominant adds on your site it might pay. It would be an interesting experiment.
Cheers
Paul
Paul´s last blog ..Ebay Research

By: Martin

Martin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:12:53 +0000

Hi Paul,

Actually, those 8 steps pretty much constitute my traffic generation plan – meaning if you’re successful at implementing them the traffic will come.

It’s never quick, though, which is why an additional step that I’ve been turning over in my mind for a while is paid advertising for this site.

I’ve got as far as creating a landing page for it and identifying a few places I could place ads, but I’m still wrestling with the idea. Not sure why I don’t feel comfortable with it, but I don’t

Thanks for dropping in!

Cheers,

Martin.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:40:20 +0000

What we are all looking for when we write our blogs is an audience, or in web speak traffic. A successful blog in my opinion is one that can generate consistent traffic.

What we do with the traffic depends on the objective of your blog. If you set up a political blog for example, and your objective is to spread your beliefs and theories to as many people as possible, then the more traffic you can generate, the more successful you will be at spreading your message.

If the objective of your blog is to make money by either selling your own products or affiliated products, the more traffic you get the more sales you will make.

Bloggers need traffic like newspapers need readers. Like celebrities need the paparattzi. Ask yourself this question: Would you continue blogging if you knew you would never generate more than ten readers a day?

Come on be honest, would you?

I accept that there will always be exceptions. I’m sure there’s blogs somewhere in cyberspace putting forward arguments that the world is flat and the pictures of earth taken from space were constructed by NASA’s special effects department. No doubt, they have six or seven readers who will all interact and reinforce each other’s beliefs. And the blog owner will be happy.

Some people will argue that they blog because they enjoy it, and they don’t care about traffic. Fair enough, but wouldn’t a diary be easier.

For the majority of bloggers though, success is measured in traffic. It’s the Holy Grail for bloggers which is why I would add one more essential item to your list of what makes a successful blog, and that is: “A Traffic Generation Plan.”
I could talk for hours about traffic but I won’t bore you anymore. Nice post. I enjoyed reading it.
Thanks
Paul
Paul´s last blog ..Ebay Research