Blogs

Want to Start a Blog? You Need One Critical Element

May 1, 2012 By Lars Lofgren 4 Comments

I could teach you how to get your posts to rank in Google. I could also teach you how to write posts that people will actually read. We could talk about how to integrate social media buttons, guest posting, email to scale your audience, and building the attention of that audience.

But none of that matters. None of it.

Ignore the traffic consultants and social media evangelists. In fact, tell them to stuff it.

Because if you don’t have one critical element, you’ll never get off the ground. Above all else, you need discipline.

Why Is Discipline So Important?

Ready for the bad news? You will write blog posts for years before anybody cares. The only comments you’ll get will be spam trying to scalp what little traffic you have. The only followers you’ll get are fake accounts trying to shove affiliate links down your throat.

This is all you’ll see for YEARS. Not weeks. Not months. YEARS.

There are two reasons for this:

It takes forever for anybody to start noticing you. We live in an attention-constrained economy and you’re competing with Facebook. It’s going to take awhile before you break through the clutter and gain some momentum.
Your first posts will suck. They’re going to be bad, really bad. You will write hundreds of thousands of words before you develop your own voice and learn how to engage readers.

And this isn’t just about a blog. It applies to podcasting, YouTube channels, email lists, Twitter feeds, Tumbler blogs, everything.

The only way to overcome these two challenges (clutter and initial suckage) is to write week in and week out.

To keep writing for months and years without any signs of gratitude from anyone, you’re going to need incredible discipline. You will be sitting at your keyboard writing your 132nd post when you say to yourself “No one is going to read this, why should I care?” Without discipline, you will quit. Then you’ll never know how far you could have gone.

The Worst Part is the Best Part

So we’ve established why blogging (and content marketing) crushes your soul before you see any return. What’s the upside?

The upside is that everyone else is going thought the EXACT same process. But they don’t have discipline. They’re going to start strong, write feverishly for several weeks, notice that no one seems to care, feel the crushing of their soul, and then they’ll quit.

VERY few people have the discipline to produce content week in and week out with absolutely no reward.

But you will. You’re going to keep going. By pushing forward when everyone else bails, you’ll move from a cluttered arena into one with plenty of space to make yourself heard. And through the sheer volume of content you produce, you’re going to get really good. Your writing will go from total crapola to an engaging narrative that grips your readers.

Then, and only then, will you start to notice the impact of what you’re doing. People will comment on your blog, they’ll reach out to you. You’ll have job and writing offers. For company blogs, you’ll start to move some serious product. You’ll see the ROI.

Make no mistake, blogging is a marathon. So dig your heels in and get ready for the long haul. There are no shortcuts.

Coping Strategies

To get yourself through the soul-crushing phase of blogdom, use these strategies:

Commit to a Specific Frequency: Decide whether you will blog daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Then stick to it. No matter what happens, it is your sole purpose in life to push out content by the deadline you’ve set. But don’t post more than this limit. Once you have your post done for the week, that’s it. Allow yourself to relax because you earned it.

Start with a Content Bank: Before you launch a blog, write 10 to 20 posts and don’t publish them. Keep them in reserve. When that deadline is looming and life conspires to throw you off course, just pull a post from your Content Bank and you’re good to go. This will give you room to breath when you need it most.

Guest Posting: Several years ago, blogging consistently was enough to get noticed. This is still true to an extent put it takes MUCH longer than it used to. Once you’ve got a blogging rhythm going, start reaching out to other blogs and try to get a guest post out there. Basically, you write a new post that gets published on their blog. In return, they link back to your blog. Their readers will then start coming to you. You’ll also get some extra Google juice from the link which will pull in more organic search traffic. You’ll grow your blog exponentially faster.

My Blogging Strategy

When I start a new blog, I follow these steps:

Write 10-20 posts before I even think about installing WordPress, now I have a Content Bank.
Launch my blog and start posting weekly or bi-weekly
Once I hit 30 posts, start building relationships with other bloggers in my space.
Guest post on whatever blog will let me.
Maintain a 1:1 ratio of guest posting and self-published posts.
Over time, get guest posts on the best blogs in my space.

If your content is good, this strategy will give you a sizable audience in 1-2 years.

So get started. There’s no better way to build your brand (for your business or yourself). But prepare yourself for a long slog.

How to Pick the Best Social Media Buttons For Your Blog

January 24, 2012 By Lars Lofgren Leave a Comment

Before we dive into which social media buttons, we need to cover how many you should use.

Each and every social media button on your site needs to earn its place. If your visitors aren’t using the button, it’s only getting in their way.

Take the Indian Luxury Trains Blog (totally random, I know) as an example. When scrolling down the home page, your browser will come to the bottom of the post and you’ll see 17 social media buttons lined up pleading for your attention. That’s right, 17 of them. Here’s a screen shot to prove it:

They actually have another 5 to bring the total to 23. The ShareThis button opens a pop-up with 5 more buttons. That’s ridiculous.

So why is this a problem? Aren’t we giving our visitors more choice? Won’t more people like us if we always have their preferred social network? Wrong.

When you only have 2-4 buttons, it’s supper easy to get people to act on impulse. The thought process for sharing is so quick, simple, and easy that people can instantly do it. There’ no thinking and no effort. And when there’s no effort, more people will do it. Which gives you more tweets, likes, and +1’s.

You’re asking your visitors for a favor (to market your business for you) so don’t make them work harder than they need to.

Choice is good, but too much choice is awful. When people have more choices than thay can comfortably handle, they’re forced to make a deliberate decision. This takes time and energy that could be better spent elsewhere.

And don’t assume a few seconds looking through social media buttons isn’t a big deal. You’re fighting for every second of attention you can get. There’s viral Youtube videos, Facebook chats, trending hashtags, new emails, and texts all competing for the same few seconds. And once one of these more entertaining sites grabs the attention of your visitor, s/he is gone. You probably won’t get a second chance so make every moment count.

Here’s the bottom line: every second of our visitor’s attention is precious. Use it as wisely as you can. Focus your website on the few critical elements that make or break your business. Take a machete to everything else.

7 Principles for Selecting the Right Social Media Buttons

Above all else, use the social media buttons that your target market uses. If they don’t use Facebook or Google+, get rid of them. If they’re on Pinterest and StumbleUpon, definitely use those buttons
When you don’t know what to use, start with Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
If you focus heavily on a B2B market, test out LinkedIn.
Aim for 2-4 social media buttons.
Be wary with StumbleUpon. Even though a few sites have built their business models on StumbleUpon traffic, this is not the norm. The conversion rates from StumbleUpon tend to be horrendous. If you need to make room for another social media button, StumbleUpon should be the first to go.
Definitely test new buttons. But when one consistently under performs, get rid of it.
Don’t hide your buttons in a pop-up. Plugins like ShareThis are very popular because they condense dozens of buttons into a single pop-up. When you use plugins like this, you inconvenience your users. Remember: every second of attention and every click is precious. Pick the most important buttons and make them super easy to use.

The Two Types of Blogs and Their Radically Different Business Models

July 24, 2011 By Lars Lofgren Leave a Comment

Before we dive into the first type, we’re going to exclude one type of blog, the diary or personal blog. This is a blog that is for the writer, not the customer. In fact, there is no customer. The writer is simply pushing out content for his or her personal benefit.

The Publishing Model

This is the type of blog we’re most familiar with. You publish content that gains the attention of a target market and then you sell that attention to advertisers. Magazines, TV stations, and newspapers also use this model.

When building a blog like this, your sole concern is visitors and page views. Nothing else matters. If you have low visits, you won’t be able to sell ad space and won’t have income, let along profit.

TechCrunch and Lifehacker are excellent examples of this type of blog.

If you’re building this type of blog, you’ll spend most of your time maximizing traffic and page views. you want visitors to hang around as much as possible.

Essentially, the business IS the blog.

The Business Blog

For this type, the blog is built around another business and used as a marketing strategy.

How do you know if this is you? If you’re selling something, you have a business blog.

The goal of the blog is to bring in people that were unaware of your existence, build trust, and give them a way to stay in touch with you so you can pitch them later.

In other words, you publish content that ranks in Google or spreads through social media to bring potential customers to you.

For a business blog, traffic won’t help you. If you get a huge spike in traffic, your sales probably won’t increase. They will only increase if that traffic is coming from your target market.

When running a business blog, quality of traffic beats quantity every time.

Some of you may be using ads on your business blog. Please get rid of them. They’re only holding you back. I’m willing to bet that you make little, if anything, from Adsense or any other ad network. Replace those ads with ads for your own product.

Your focus is on publishing content that your customers ask for. How do you come up with good content? Answer the questions that receive from your customers. Simple as that. Pay attention to the questions your market has and write a blog post about it.

Looking for an example? Check out KISSmetrics, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and SEOmoz for businesses that use blogs to bring in new customers. Notice that there isn’t a third party ad to be found.

Can You Blend These Models?

Yes, I just don’t recommend it. There is a delicate balance between selling ads and selling your own products. Some people are able to pull it off like Andrew Warner at Mixergy. He sells premium memberships to his site while selling ad space at the beginning of his interviews.

Another great example is Smashing Magazine. They sell a fair amount of ad space but also release their own products such as the Smashing Book.

Unless you are a seasoned marketer and know your audience really well, avoid advertising and stick with your own products. Profits from your products will greatly exceed anything you’ll make from advertising anyway.

What products are you using your blog to sell?

How to Start a Blog and Make Money in 5 Steps

June 13, 2011 By Lars Lofgren 4 Comments

Lets cover the bad news first. Blogs are a terrible way to make money. Honest, they’re awful. If you are able to monetize a blog so that it provides the majority of your income inside of three years, you’re ahead of the curve. Blogs can be excellent resources once they’re established but growing a blog to that point takes countless hours of hard work.

But you didn’t come here for a doom and gloom story, you’re looking for a strategy on how to actually make a successful blog.

Building a blog is pretty straightforward during the beginning phase. Until you’re pulling 10,000-25,000 monthly unique visitors, there is no reason to pursue any other strategy than the one outlined below. Forget optimization, social media, PPC, and everything else. Save yourself time and energy by focusing on what makes the biggest difference in the beginining: content.

And don’t expect to be able to make any money from your blog until you get through this phase. Your sole objective is to get beyond this as quickly as possible so you can focus on the good stuff.

Step 1: Produce 6 Months of Content

You need to do this before you even launch your blog. Go buy the domain you want and sit on it. Why is this so important? You’re going to get busy, really busy. And you’re going to need a content bank to draw from when deadlines get tight. When starting, you’ll want to publish one post a week so put together 24 posts.

Step 2: Build a List of 50 Leads in Your Space

If you build something online, people aren’t just going to show up. Google will start to give you a trickle of traffic as the months progress. But if you really want to make money off your blog, you’re going to have to get serious with your marketing. The easiest strategy for this is guest posting. Spend a day or two and find every other blogger who publishes posts on the same topic that you will. Make an excel spreadsheet with:

Name of the blog
URL
Name of the blogger
Email

You’ll need this list ready to go on day one.

Step 3: Launch and Publish

I recommend launching a blog on a self-hosted WordPress site. It’s really easy to use and is robust enough to handle whatever you develop in the future. For building a brand, there’s really no other legitimate option.

When you’ve got everything live, set a weekly publishing deadline for yourself. No matter what happens, you must publish a post by that deadline. Consistent posting is the most important variable to building a blog with decent traffic. With a bank of content ready to go, this won’t be a challenge. Ideally, alternate each week between using a post from your bank and writing new content. This should stretch that content bank out to a year while giving you room to breath.

Step 4: Build Relationships with Other Bloggers

From the list of leads you put together, spend time on the bloggers in your niche. Don’t just focus on the most popular sites, build relationships with people that are also just getting started. This is important for two reasons:

New bloggers are very accessible. They’ll be very receptive to guest posting and building a long-term relationship with you. The more successful someone is, the harder it is to get noticed.
You need to refine your pitch. Every pitch is terrible until it’s been practiced at least a dozen times. Accept it and get practicing on the little guys. When you start pitching the major players, you’ll be ready.

You’re goal is to publish two posts each week, one on your blog and one on somebody else’s. Don’t try to recycle content either, the guest posts have to be original content. Warm bloggers up by commenting on their blogs for several months before you pitch your guest post.

Step 5: Find a 50/50 Rhythm Between Posting and Guest Posting

Your main objective is to get into a publication rhythm where you’re posting on your site once a week and publishing on another blog once a week. This is going to be a lot of work. It’s also the most efficient path to blogdom success. If things get too crazy and you need to scale the tempo back a bit, drop the guest posting. Do not start slacking on your weekly posts, they’re critical to growing your traffic.

Remember the rules completely change once you get out of this initial phase and hit that 10,000-25,000 monthly unique visitor mark. That’s when you can start experimenting with monetization. If you play around with Adsense, affiliate links, Ebooks, etc before then, you are completely wasting your time.