Ever wondered…
What makes a good blogging site ?
How to get visitors ? Grow traffic ? ….
I did some reading on this and would like to share my learning here .
1. Topic on Top:
The first step is to choose the topic to write on. Select one in which you see a lot of discussion happening on the internet.
How to find this out?
Find keywords trending in top searches made on Google/Bing/Yahoo.
Browse on websites related to the topics and view traffic trend on them ( e.g. using comscore or alexa).
Find users comments / behavior / interaction on these websites.
Grab insights from other / conventional media to know topics that are talked about.
Selection:
Filter topics which you are interested about ( pretty obvious)
Do not select topics that have short media life ( e.g. Anna Hazare …you get the point)
Select topics where you find people who are extremely passionate ; such as technology , start-ups, photography, etc.
2. Start blogging:
Don’t think much, else you would end up just thinking.
Start writing .Don’t worry about grammar , content ( to an extent) , formatting ,etc. They can be taken care as you progress.
Once you write few blogs you will soon start to fall in love with your blog page. Even a single comment from the reader would make you elated and extremely motivated to write more.
And that is when you will start working on the aesthetics of your blog. This will come automatically to you.
3. Wait..wait…wait:
Getting traffic to your blog is not very simple. Its a long process and requires relentless effort with no results in sight for a long span ( at times running into 5-6 months or more).
So have patience.
Plan your blogging activity and stick to your schedule .
Start with 2 blogs a week and slowly pick up the pace.
Blogging is fun to start with , painful when it becomes a routine and fun again when you start getting traffic and hopefully start making money out of it 🙂
Hence before you can start with user contributed blogs/forums you need to get your hands dirty.
Write write write ….and soon your followers will start contributing. Its the time when you can take a breather !
4. Monitor:
Treat your Blog like your baby. Need to take care of it .
Especially once you start others to contribute , you need to be extra careful.
DO NOT ALLOW – SHOOO users away who are posting irrelevant or offensive content on your site.
Block them !
5.Organic growth:
Blogs should have organic growth. Users should be allowed to invite others who share the same interest.
Once users start contributing provide them the tools to showcase their blogs to friends/family. Heck! my friends like ( on facebook) my blogs even if they do not understand them 🙂 – > This will help spread your blog-brand though might not contribute much of user growth. So its worth it.
6. Market your blog:
You need to learn few basic marketing techniques.
SEO: It is really not very difficult to learn SEO and its an effective tool to gather traffic.
Tip: Get your blog links on Google+ < Google+ links tops in Google search. Nepotism it is 🙂 >
Create a fan page on facebook or use a blogging app on LinkedIn ( depending where you audience is more active).
Share your blogs on LinkedIn groups.
If your blogs have lots of images – Pinterest.com comes to your rescue 🙂
I hope the tips are useful to my fellow bloggers . Good luck!!!
Please share your feedback and let me know more tips on the same.