The blogosphere, comprised of countless blogs from worldwide, is one of the most popular faces of the Internet. It's not just for teenagers anymore. Several years ago, most blogs were run by kids who just wished to keep in touch with their friends, or people who just wanted to discuss their daily life.
These days, almost everyone online includes a blog.
Itâs likely that, you have one - and when you don't, you should.
Stay at home moms like to blog about their daily lives and raising children. CEOs of major corporations own blogs concerning the latest happenings at their company. Many celebrities run blogs, plus they blog about their upcoming events, movies, and roles (not to mention scandals).
And marketers have blogs about every niche imaginable!
I'm confident to state I myself am the main blogging culture.
Blogging is a wonderful way to reach out to the people on the web. They can touch millions of lives, and spread your message like no other medium. You can say almost anything you need, and you will see an audience for nearly every niche!
It is possible to run a blog simply for fun. To be able to talk about parties you attend, restaurants you eat at, places you go shopping, or where you go on vacation, someone should probably read about it.
Even if the only real audience you have is your good friends and relatives, you should have fun and manage to say whatever's on your mind.
More and more people are embracing blogging as a way to make money. Some people just want to make a few extra dollars for spending money, but others are in fact creating a full-time income with their blogs.
A few prominent bloggers even feature making thousands of dollars with their blogs (a la Perez Hilton, who parlayed his blogging fun into thousands in ad money every month, which delivered him his own TV show, podcast, and clothing line)!
There are plenty of ways to earn money blogging. Whether you're a scholar who just really wants to make a little extra cash for pizza and clothes, or you're a significant marketer who wants to make a lot of money, it's totally possible with blogging.
Blogs are big, even though they're small. Some blogs get millions of hits monthly. Blog traffic has been growing steadily for quite some time as consumers gain confidence from peers instead of trusting hard hitting sales pitches they find on the internet.
With more and more people jumping onto the blogosphere bandwagon, it probably won't slow down within the near future. If you're thinking about getting into blogging, it's a good idea to get started now.
It generally takes a few months to begin with accumulating a following. And you actually need regular visitors if you need to make money with your blog. You should work to get subscribers to your Feed, because those people should come back often to read your new posts.
And be sure you lend your personal unique voice to your posts. One of the important nuances when it comes to why blogging is such a major global phenomenon is the fact that people enjoy reading unique voices on certain topics.
They crave the differences in personalities. It's refreshing to learn information which has personality and isn't stale or stuffy, which means it's been translated by way of a single editor in order that every voice is uniform. This is why columnist pages in local newspapers are so popular.
Your unique voice is the most important section of getting regular visitors to your blog. If you need to see types of this, visit one of the most popular blogs you will find. You'll see that one thing these blogs have as a common factor is the proven fact that the bloggers make engaging, funny, or original posts.
That's your key to rendering it big in the blogosphere!
Before You Blog, Create a Blueprint
Plenty of bloggers come up with a blog without the real plan for how they're going to promote it or monetize it. Putting a blog together without a plan is like attempting to build a house without a blueprint.
It's possible, yes. But the end result is probably likely to be shoddy, and the whole lot could break apart at any minute.
You should create a solid course of action before you even choose the domain. You need to create a strong blueprint before you ever begin. Waiting until after you've already arrange it and are getting traffic could mean plenty of extra work moving in to correct mistakes.
Changing themes and adding plugins after you're already traffic generation could interrupt your traffic. Sometimes new plugins and themes can temporarily break your site, that could mean a loss of traffic (and money) until you can fix everything.
The first section of your plan ought to be choosing a niche, needless to say. Part of selecting a niche is finding products it is possible to promote. If a niche does not have any products available, you can create your own.
But if there are no affiliate products available, it could be because there isn't enough demand there for a product. In cases like this, you'd want to do some careful general market trends so that you can determine whether or not a niche is actually viable.
What's your purpose for blogging?
Do you have your own product you need to promote?
Do you want to promote affiliate products?
Do you wish to just put AdSense or CPA offers on your site?
You need to consider questions like these in order that you'll know how you would like to monetize the site. In the event that you plan to promote affiliate products, you need to test the products yourself before you promote them.
If you don't, your visitors could become very upset if you promoted something of really low quality and they got it since they trusted you. Even worse, what if you wind up promoting something that turns out to be a scam?
You don't necessarily have to purchase every product you wish to promote. When you can prove you've got a decent level of traffic (and sometimes if you just ask), you may well be in a position to get free review copies of a number of the products you would like to promote.
It doesn't hurt to ask. Although you may don't have any existing traffic yet, you can write to who owns a particular affiliate program, inform them what you're planning to do, and ask if you could get a review copy.
Some people won't give you a review copy. Plenty of marketers get requests for review copies from those that just want to get yourself a copy of their product for free. So if you come across a skeptic, or someone who's been burned before, you may get turned down.
In cases like this, it's probably far better just go right ahead and buy the product if you actually want to promote it. If it's a scam or a really crappy product, just ask for a refund.
You can also contemplate using a donation button on your blog. If you cannot find worthwhile products to promote, and you also don't have the time, money, or capability to create your own product, it is possible to still set up a donation button. If your site is very good, you can find donations.
Or, it is possible to always sell ad space on your own blog. If you strat to get a substantial amount of traffic or you get a very high PageRank in Google, you could charge a lot of money for a link on your blog. You may also get paid to make posts on your blog that review other sites.
Should a Blog Topic Be Broad or Narrow?
There are two schools of thought regarding blog topics. Some people believe your topic should be very focused, as you may bring in a flurry of laser-targeted visitors. Plus, you have less competition in smaller market segments.
Another group of people think that anything worth doing is worth doing big. They think that the only way blogging can truly be worthwhile is if you're bringing in massive traffic, and the only path you can achieve that level of traffic is when you are very broad - casting a broad net, as they say.
For example, you might have a sports blog that has broad appeal. You can talk about baseball, football, basketball, soccer, tennis, and golf. This would give you a a lot more broad appeal, and the prospect of larger traffic.
But since there will be so much competition, it could take a lot longer to obtain additional traffic coming in. Plus, just how I see it is, if I'm interested in golf, I really won't care about another parts of the blog, therefore the value of it plummets in my own eyes.
But let's say you select golf as your broad topic. Even this is broad, although you just segregated it from the other sports in existence. There are several things you could write about golf - vacations, apparel, clubs, courses, techniques, etc.
You could choose an even more targeted niche like women's golf or senior golf. That is a smaller segment of a little niche. This means you can get traffic faster, because there would be less competition.
Less competition means you have the potential to rise faster in the search engine ranking positions. Needless to say, women's golf would get far less traffic from the main spot of Google than the combined traffic out of all the other sports niches, but the chances of that traffic converting right into a sale will soar.
So essentially, it boils down to how you feel about your abilities. If you were to think you have the ability to get one large blog to the very best of the search engines rather quickly, then you might manage to handle a broad topic blog.
Unless you believe your abilities are up-to-snuff, then you might want to stick to a smaller niche at first. Remember, it is possible to always start other blogs later. You can either create a network of small niche blogs, or you might start out with one broad blog and then start multiple sub-niche blogs later. Click here to find out more can then link to all your smaller blogs from your large blog.
You could also start with the smaller blogs, get them to gain some popularity, and then start a large, broad blog later. As soon as you start the bigger blog, you should have several smaller blogs already traffic generation and already having PR that may link to the bigger blog to get it started.
If you already have a lot of SEO experience and you're confident in your capability to pull off some great search engine rankings quickly, then you start with a far more broad blog may be a better option.
You can still get some of the benefits of having an inferior blog insurance firms categories for each of the smaller niches on your own broad topic blog. One very last thing to keep in mind is your traffic will undoubtedly be less targeted if you run a broad blog.
If you have a site about skin care, you can find many traffic that's just looking for information about the best lotions or skin creams. But if you start a blog about something specific, like acne, you're more prone to get those people who are ready and willing to buy something.
Where Will You Host Your Blog?
Many people start out by hosting their blog for free at one of many common blog serves. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it is a far better idea to host your blog all on your own domain if possible.
Let's check out WordPress. WordPress is an extremely popular blogging platform. You can host your blog on the servers, or it is possible to download the program and host your blog all on your own domain.
There are a few reasons why you need to host your own blog, rather than hosting your blog on WordPress.com. To begin with, WordPress doesn't enable you to promote affiliate links on their domain.
So if you desire to make any money with your blog, you can't host it on the server, you'll have to host it yourself. Another reason you shouldn't host your site on WordPress is the fact that you can't utilize the selection of plugins and themes that you could use on your own domain.
WordPress is quite limited as far as the functionality, so don't have a much anything really cool on your blog in the event that you host it there. You could find free WordPress tutorials to help you get started together with your blog.
Now let's look at Blogger. They do allow commercial blogs, so that you can post affiliate links there if you need. But they're also against what they deem as "spam blogs" or "splogs." If they decide your site is spam, or they decide it's "too" commercial, or they just don't like it, they can delete it for just about any reason.
There goes all that effort you put into it!
You have to consent to those conditions and terms when you subscribe. That means that even though you don't actually break any rules, they could still delete your site if they chose. That's a pretty powerful motivator.
It certainly wouldn't be considered a very pleasant thing to create a blog up to several thousand hits each day, only to have it deleted (and believe me, I've heard these horror stories). You'd lose all of that traffic, all those backlinks, all of your reputation and your search engine rankings.
Imagine it all being destroyed overnight. That's not a good thing.
It's like having a fire rip during your offline store and you haven't any insurance to rebuild.
Another very important reason to host your site all on your own domain is that it offers you credibility. In the event that you host your blog all on your own domain, you'll appear more professional, and much more as an authority figure in your niche.
People will automatically assume you're more serious if you're hosting your site by yourself domain, rather than putting it up somewhere free of charge. If you do decide to host your personal domain, the vital thing you'll need to do is choose a domain that contains several keywords linked to your niche.
If your blog is about home cleaning tips, then make an effort to get housecleaningtips.com. In the event that's not available, decrease your keyword list and find the next most sensible thing. Then register the domain.
Next you need to find a host for your blog. You might want to choose a host which has Fantastico, which is a program that sits on the server and lets you quickly install WordPress (and other scripts) and never have to create and manage MySQL databases yourself.
When you have hosting, you merely need to go to your domain registrar and set up the name servers to point to your new host. Your hosting company's support will be able to help you with this.
Blogging Is Big Business
More and more companies are starting blogs, and several folks are even forming their entire companies around blogging. Customers really like blogs because they're generally filled with great (free) information, they provide an individual touch that generally isn't found on a typical corporate website, and they're not usually filled with a lot of hype and hard sell tactics.
Another reason customers love blogs is that they provide a great medium for interaction. Visitors can leave comments and receive responses with their comments. This can help build loyalty to your blog and your company, and readers really enjoy this level of interaction with someone they consider an authority figure.
It helps them feel just like they're really being paid attention to, and just like the company really cares about what they need to say - even though that "company" is an entrepreneur as if you! Blogs certainly are a fantastic way to build loyalty.
You can reach your audience in an exceedingly personal way, must more so than with a standard, stuffy stagnant website. Readers be prepared to see some personality coming out in a blog. In the event that you really let your personality shine through, it is possible to build a following that may subscribe to your RSS feed and keep coming back often, eagerly waiting to hear more of what you have to say.
This is a smart way to brand yourself as well as your business. Since you will get more personal with a blog, people begin to get to know you a bit as a person. This enables you to seem more real, and folks begin to trust you as well as your messages more.
For reasons uknown, people trust websites with identifiable people in it.
Remember, if you are blogging for business you need to stay somewhat professional. It's probably best never to post about your aunt's cataract surgery or your grandma's cat that died. You can get a little personal - after all, that's what really makes you stand out.
But most people who find themselves reading your blog is there to find out information regarding the niche, seeking solutions to their needs. Keep your posts on topic, but get personal by giving your personal voice within those entries.
Provide valuable information within your blogs. People aren't likely to keep returning to your blog again and again just to read about the brand new products you're releasing, unless you're releasing some really revolutionary stuff.
They're going to want to read industry news, tips and tricks, special strategies, and other important information for free. While it's perfectly fine to blog about new product releases, you'll want to keep providing helpful information to keep your readers coming back.
Don't ever lose sight of the fact that your readers are real people. Guess what happens you love reading in a blog, right? You want solid information - something helpful. You almost certainly don't mind the casual sales pitch on a blog full of great information, but you would be pretty annoyed to reading only pitch after pitch.
If you're in operation blog, it is important to keep your readers in mind. Give them the sort of quality information they're hungry for, and they're going to keep coming back for more. In fact, the more you give them for free, the more loyal they'll become, and the much more likely they'll be to buy from you down the road.
Blogging is centered on informing and educating. If you can do that, these potential customers will form a bond with you and they're going to make sure you spread the word about your blog which means that your URL goes viral and it attracts a straight bigger following within your niche.
Blogging can be extremely lucrative, not to mention it enhances your current branding and networking on the 'net. Here are the steps you will need to take to begin RIGHT NOW:
1.) Select a niche topic (my advice is to go narrow).
2.) Look for a domain and purchase it.
3.) Setup your WordPress blog making use of your Fantastico host.
4.) Select a theme online - Google free WordPress themes and you'll find millions it is possible to upload.
5.) Set up your site for categories, ad space, and stick an opt-in box in it to begin creating a list.
6.) Start posting to your blog using keyword relevant titles and entries.
7.) Start bookmarking your blog and sharing that link to get it moving in the viral direction.
8.) Test the conversion of various products you promote on your blog and replace those that aren't working well for you.