Many bloggers often get confused with the main elements of building a successful blog. With so much information online you can get confused very easily on what factors you should focus on when first starting a blog. However, I’m here to tell you that you can build a successful blog by simply focusing on “3†very important factors. These “3†factors will help guide your blog setup, content creation and marketing so you effectively reach your audience building engagement. I’ll tell you the truth…
The success of a blog is based on how well you can generate traffic online and keeping them coming back to your blog without reinvesting. This is why email lists are so effective because your essentially driving thousands of people back to your website through a simple follow-up email. Anyway, before going any further let’s explore the “3†important elements of a successful blog.
Let’s get started…
The Right Platform
I can’t stress how important it is to choose the right blogging platform when setting up your blog. There’s NO need to waste time coding and customizing your blog. For example, the “3†most popular CMS platforms WordPress, Drupal and Joomla all offer a complete solution to bloggers. What use to take 1-2 months setting up a blog has been completely compressed into 1 day and I’ve personally created a tutorial setting up a blog in under 4 minutes. The point is you have to have a solid platform before you even start blogging so you can easily tweak the necessary elements you need to grow your blog. Here’s an example,
I’m currently using WordPress for all my blogs and love this platform because it allows me to streamline all the important factors ranking my website. It’s takes care of…
- On-page SEO
- Content formatting
- Compressing images and videos
- Has email opt-in plug-ins
- Contact form optimization
- Internal linking plug-ins
- Simply add Google Analytics
- Security features to protect user information and files
- And much more.
Here’s the point I’m trying to establish…
With a complete solution your entire blogging will be streamlined and automated so you can focus on the important elements like writing content and off-page SEO.
Writing Impressive Content
Your up against some serious competition so it’s important you write content that stands out. You have to create content people love to engage with and share on their social networks. Social media is a great way to drive enormous traffic to your website however you have to offer value so it creates an immediate buzz. Here’s a strategy that’s worked out great and I continue to implement it within my content marketing till today.
First, I always research a common problem within my niche because I know it’s a great way to build momentum. The greater the problem the more buzz it’ll generate once I publish a complete solution. The solution I write will include images and videos basically be the best available online. You won’t be able to find a solution better than mine and this factor will help it rank high within the SERP’s. Google has tweaked their search engines to display the quality content high within the SERP’s and they have algorithms in place to differentiate between different types of content. Here’s something else…
Content length has a lot to do with ranking, for example look at the illustration below published by Neil Patel. You’ll notice the top 10 results within Google have an average word count above 2,300 words. It’s awesome right?
(Source: Neil Patel)
Here’s the point…
Write content for your readers and the best content always solve a problem. Think about what products sell the most and you’ll notice they always solve a common problem within a given niche.
Know Your Marketing Channels
By now you know you have over 20 different ways to market your blog with some being more effective than others. If you want to build a successful blog you need to know where to focus your energy. This will obviously depend on your niche however statistics have taught us a lot about marketing over the last few years. Here’s what I suggest…
Organic search –
You have to incorporate a solid SEO campaign when blogging. The best type of traffic is truly FREE and targeted utilization keywords relevant to your niche. This is a long-term commitment however it should be something that’s applied to your blog marketing.
Social Media –
An enormous source of traffic and you should start building a following right away. Imagine having 50,000 followers and tweeting to them each time you publish new content. That’s a potential 50,000 people coming back to your blog through a single tweet. The power is amazing and should be utilized.
Email Marketing –
Start building your list right away because it’s a great source of recurring traffic. Neil Patel has said the only reason he’s able to generate 100,000 visitors to his blog each month is through a solid email marketing campaign. Use ESP’s like Aweber to add an email form to your blog quickly. You’ll even be able to track progress making tweaks over time.
I’ve just listed what works for me, but you’ll need to do some trial and error finding the right channels for you. For some you’ll find forums and business directories are a great choice however your objective is to find channels which produce the highest conversions.