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You have your Blog site up and running, now it is time to start writing - or is it?
Not yet, hold up champ, we have a few more questions you need to answer before we go anywhere near that keyboard if you want a successful blog.
There are Millions of Blogs online today, out of all of them why are
people going to read yours, and read it repeatedly (and click on your
ads hopefully) - How are we going to make it a successful blog? Relax... I'm
going to tell you...
A Successful Blog, How To
If I could give you any one advantage over your competition what would it be?
What one advantage would you like above all to make a successful blog above all the other blogs online?
What one thing do you think you would need for a successful Blog?
What would you vote for?
- Superior knowledge in your field?
- Better Blogging software than your competitors?
- The fastest most up to date computer?
- Programming skills in Java, Php, HTML, and command line Linux shell scripting?
- Training in professional writing?
- Professional Graphics, Logo and Branding?
- Original content?
- A better Page Rank for better positioning with the search engines?
- Backing of a powerful network like blogger.com?
- Something else?
There is only one correct answer that will beat out anything you can
think of - any advantage you want there is one that I can name that
will beat you every time.
What is the biggest advantage a blogger can have?
An "information hungry crowd", or even better yet, an "information starved crowd".
If you write information that people really want to know but there
is nowhere for them to read it... except on your Blog... then they will
come.
Et voila! A successful blog!
If you can find a crowd of people that are under serviced (or overcharged) and then
help them out with the information they need then they will come to you
no matter what your competition does, in fact if you do this properly you effectively won't have any competition.
If you deliver the information they would read it on recycled toilet paper if it was the only place they could get it.
In fact this has been done in the old direct mail game.
I remember a story about a fellow in Texas who ordered the wrong
grade of paper by mistake for a letter out to a list, he accidently
ordered the lowest quality recyled paper available for his letter and
envelope, funnily enough this attracted people's curiosity and then
when they read the letter and the offer he was making to them they
could not have cared if it was wax sealed with gold embossing.
Let this be a lesson.
Too many times I see a Blogger wasting his time trying to pick
colour schemes, changing templates, complaining his fonts aren't quiet
right, it doesn't matter. Spend time on what matters.
The Only Thing That Matters Is You Have Information For Your Target Reader Market
Target Reader Market - What is that? These are the people you envision reading your Blog.
If you are Frank, the rose gardener from our previous article, then
your readers are fellow Rose and Tulip gardners. You don't go and write
about the new hot actress stopping in your town tonight - none of your
target readers are interested in that. Give them planting season tips,
watering tips, how to fertilise properly, maybe branch out into other
plants that accentuate your favoured flowers, how to present them
properly, maybe review some relevant gardening books.
This is also called your Niche Market
For your first successful blog you want to find a Niche market that is under serviced or the quality of
information is poor, or the market is big enough to support another
voice.
Make sure the Niche is large enough to give you a good audience, and
a reasonable income. Do some research, you might find the Alexa tool
useful for determining the popularity of websites as you do your
research.
Also write about something you enjoy, a hobby is a good starting
place, remember if you are a solid gardening enthusiast then you will
have a lot of information to give out to the starting gardener and it
will be easy to write. Better yet because it is something you enjoy it
won't be work - you'll be helping people too so you'll feel good about
your new "job".
Spend time doing this before you write anything - if you do not know
who you are writing to then nothing you will write will interest
anybody, and you won't have a successful blog.
But don't stress too much, many Blogs go through growth and
transition as they mature - but you need a definite direction and
target niche to start with.
Try for something smaller rather than larger too. Electronics goods
is far to large a field for you to be ever recognised as a specialist -
digital cameras would be a much better area.
You could gain recognition as an industry expert, your reviews
trusted, manufacturers would eventually seek you out and send you
samples to review - you can build affiliate relations and could make
money rather easily if you become The Expert in your field.
Personally recently I was in the market for a new mobile smart
phone, I searched and found a blog site that reviewed all new mobile
phones. I read up on all the models I was interested in. Because the
Authour was writting about phones every day his reviews were very
informative and well written, I could compare features from a users
point of view and I trusted his reviews as he told the good and bad
with each phone. I even checked out the ads on his site for the phone I
ended up purchasing - and if I was in the same country there is a good
chance I would have bought from one of his affiliates.
Spend some time thinking about these points if you want a successful blog. When you have your target Niche market then you can move onto the next step.
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