Being Successful Online Archives

Question: How do I jump start my new blog? I feel like it’s just me.

Starting a new blog is always an uphill battle. According to WordPress.com, there are tens of thousands of new blogs started every day – that is a lot of competition. The fact of the matter is, until you build up a following, you may actually be the only one reading your blog, but don’t let that get you down.

Start with your inner circle of friends and colleagues. Let them know about your blog. Whether it is a personal blog or a company blog – you need to get the word out. Put it in your email signature (careful about putting personal blogs in your company signature!), make sure you send out a tweet on twitter every time you make a post, post it on your Facebook profile – whatever you need to do. Let people know.

A great way to get more readers is to create a facebook fan page for your blog. Some bloggers use their personal facebook page as their blog “landing page” but you can create one for your blog as well. By creating a facebook fan page, you will be listed and searchable in the directory giving you access to millions of potential readers.

Another great way to get your blog out there is to do video blog entries, or at the very least a video describing your blog, and upload it to youtube.com. Remember to put a link to your blog in the description and your profile so people can click and get to your blog easily. Doing regular video blog entries and successfully using categories and tagging will drive readers from youtube to your blog and will be very targeted traffic.

Above all – write great content! The first second of someone finding your blog are crucial and can mean the difference of them coming back or leaving for good. Good content – GREAT content – is a surefire way to get people not only reading your blog but spreading your link for you.

This is an important point. You can do all the promotion you want for your blog. You can spend money on advertising, widgets for trade shows, and more. But if you don’t provide good content, it all doesn’t matter.

So don’t worry if it is “only you” when writing your blog. A successful blogger not only writes on their blog, but also is out there on the Internet promoting their blog and adding value to other people’s blogs. Being active in your niche is one of the most important things to remember. It isn’t all about your blog, its about reaching your readers no matter whose blog or website they are on. Be an active participant and people will find you.

As well as the search engines.

It’s every blogger’s dream – to make a living blogging. But the odds are against the part-time blogger making even the smallest payout from Google adsense their first year (if ever.) So how do you beat the odds? These tips should help

Find Your Own Advertisers

Putting up an advertising space saying “advertise here” is not going to get you anywhere. You may think advertisers should be trampling each other for that above-the-fold 125×125 ad on your homepage, but chances are it will never come. So go to them. If you don’t have a rate card for your the spots you are selling then you better make one fast. An ad for $30/mo. is still $30 more a month you didn’t have.

Find a local angle to the niche your blog is about. If you are writing about “silver lab puppies” seek out a local breeder specializing in that type of dog. Likewise, if you have a more general blog such as “sailboarding” you may not have a sailboarding shop near you, but chances are you might have a local sports or outdoor supply store that sells life jackets.

Just because you have a “national” focus does not mean you can only have national advertisers. I hope you are active in your local blogging and twitter community and follow (and are followed by) other people in your area. They are probably reading your blog regardless of content. There is always a local advertiser you can hit up for some exposure. It’s great if they have a shopping cart and ship nationally or internationally, but even if they don’t – they may be interested in advertising.

Bottom line: don’t wait for advertisers to find you, go out and find some.

Post A Product Review

There must be a product or two on Amazon.com you can promote with an affiliate link. I’m not talking some random product but a product you actually use and would not hesitate to recommend. Look it up on Amazon and lin kto it with your affiliate ID. If you don’t have an amazon affiliate account – get one. Now. Seriously.

Some people do review sites for the sole purpose of making money through affiliate programs. Some are successful, most are not. So if you really love a product, review it. If you tried multiple products that are related, compare and contrast them. Some of the best performing blog posts are comparisons of similar products. An example might be The Flip video camera vs the Kodak Zi8. You aren’t just copying the description from amazon, you are doing an honest-to-goodness comparison you yourself have tried.

THAT is authenticity.

Review Your Adsense Stats

I admit it, I don’t spend nearly enough time figuring out google adsense placements and performance. I log into adsense, check my balance and then look at it again in a few hours. Repeat throughout the day.

But there is a lot of information waiting to be mined. Like everything it takes time and effort. Look at your pages and figure out the best placements for your ads. Maybe all of your ads are in the same place on every page – maybe not. Try testing different placments and sizes. It will take a while to get the relevant stats, but once you hit upon the formula for your site, it can mean the difference of tens or hundreds of dollars a day.

Review A Site or Product for $5

This one is a bit controversial so stay with me. There is a great web site called fiverr.com. On it you can buy (or sell) practically anything for $5. Everything from a phone call impersonating Kermit the Frog, to a picture of your dog posted in the middle of Tokyo’s biggest street.

One of the ways people used to make money on their blogs was through a site called ReviewMe. It’s still around, but you had to be selected by an advertiser based on your traffic, and personally I made about $20 in 2006, then nothing.

But on fiverr, not only can you sell a “review” but you can also just sell a link if you want. Now, if you want to remain reputable you would include the proper attribution such as “Sponsored Post” before your blog post, or s a similar disclaimer letting people know you are getting something in return for reviewing or linking to the site. Go ahead and search fiverr for some other ideas.

The Donation Button

We’ve all seen them, and most of us hate them, but in this day and age, who cares. The old “tip jar” is a viable way for your readers to make a donation to your site. Even Adam Curry supports his podcasts The Daily Source Code and No Agenda through listener donations. Yo may never see the $1,000 donations Adam sometimes sees for his show, but you might make a few dollars a month. PayPal makes an easy Donation button that gives you an embed code you can just copy and then paste into your blog.

Of course the biggest way to make money blogging in 2011…

Keep writing great content. Write regularly, write well, write write write. There is no shortcut for great content. Great rewards come with great work. If you only give a few minutes or hours for blogging a day, then that is what you are going to get out of it. A great blog requires a lot of work. Making a good income with your blog likewise requires a lot of work – but it is possible.

Here’s to a profitable 2011!