It was around 6 pm IST when I started observing a certain
spike in traffic on my blog. When I tried to figure out the source, I found out
that It was coming from bloggers.com when I went to that site, to my surprise
saw that my blog has been featured for the day.
I immediately checked my email and saw an email from them informing me
about the same.
Soon after , what followed was a stream of congratulatory messages
from fellow bloggers and also some queries about the anatomy of a successful
blog. That’s when I thought about writing this post. Without wasting your time
about the trivia, let me take the bull by the horns and give you the 4 most
important factors required for any blog to succeed. They are as follows
- Content Creation
- Content Distribution
- Monetization
- Periodic Review
Lets discuss them one
by one ;-)
1. Content Creation
The most important of all. All of us know about the
importance of creating quality content however few of know how to do it. The
key to create quality content is - any thing readable, interesting, satiate the
knowledge thirst of your readers and if possible make it rich in your targeted
keywords.
Many SEO thought leaders have over emphasizes the use of keyword in your content. I beg to differ from them and my small advice is don’t sacrifice the quality of an article for a keyword. If you think a headline minus your keyword appears to be far more interesting or effective, just leave it as it is. Don’t try to stuff your keywords either in your content copy or headline just for the sake of SEO, do it only if it fits seamlessly.
2. Content Distribution
Now comes the next part. Now you need to figure out
where and how to spread your blogs.
- First go and claim it from blog directories like technorati, bloggers.com. ontoplist, networkblogs etc.
- Then, create your social media presence on all the major social media portals (facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. ) and increase your fans/followers/friends.
- Adopt the similar approach for social bookmarking sites like (Digg, Delicous and so on)
- Actively participate in your niche related blogs, forums and social groups.
3. Monetization
Money is the root of all evils but anyhow we need it to pay
our bills ;) if you are taking blogging as your fulltime profession then, you
need to monetize it to make a living out of it. How to do that?
- Sell a service- I sell website promotion service. You can choose to sell anything you are good at and ask a reasonable price.
- Sell a Product – many use affiliate marketing or sell their in house books or course
- Sell an advertisement spot on your site- lure advertiser to directly advertise on your site
- Sign up ad networks and share the profits- use adsense, or chitika or adbrite and so on.
Monetization is sometimes the most frustrating part of
blogging but once its gets working you will get the satisfaction of your life
;-)
4. Periodic Review
Last and the most important part. You need to periodically
review your strategy of content creation, distribution and monetization. A
periodic review will help you figure what is working and what is not. Tools like
Google analytics, Getclicky will assist in deciding your future course of
action
Conclusion
So, what I gave you above was a broad roadmap of what any upcoming blogger can use to create a successful blog. Hope you have found it useful. As usual looking forward to your comments and suggestion.Reprinted with Permission from WebMarketingWar