How To Blog: Build An Audience, Boost Your Traffic and Kick-Start Your Business Without Selling Your Soul
Published by André Klein
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2012 André Klein
1. Introduction
Why Blogging Is The Best Way To Boost Your Brand Or Business
In the movie "The Social Network" young Mark Zuckerberg played by Jesse Eisen gets dumped by his girlfriend and goes home to publish some pretty rough stuff about her on his blog.
According to the real Zuckerberg, none of this is true but the image of the blog as a venting-platform for nerds and other socially awkward personalities has prevailed in many people's minds.
Blogging is like diary-writing, only public. The more personally revealing, funnier, angrier, the better. Right?
Well, there's blogging and then there's blogging and blogging.
Diaries Vs In-Depth Coverage
The Huffington Post would have never been sold for $315 million dollars, if it weren't for the bloggers. (Also, its founder wouldn't have been sued, had she paid them better. But that's a different story.)
Journalistic blogging provides one of the best forms of in-depth coverage of any event, especially if the blogger is independent and free from editorial board constraints.
So, there are the vengeful nerds and angry geeks blogging about the highs and lows of their daily lives. This is the subjective approach. Then there's journalistic bloggers. That's the objective approach. But there's a third kind, as well.
Whereas the first form (blogging as public diary) and the second (blogging as news coverage) imitate earlier media, the third kind cannot be compared to any previous way, shape or form of expression.
I'm talking about the audience-builders, attention-magnets and opinion-shaping folks.
Bloggers of The Third Kind
Those are the people who use the medium of blogging unlike anyone else. They use it as an unconventional extension of their personality in a very conscious and focused way, thereby...
creating an audience
spreading their influence
generating leads, sales, fans, etc.
Some people believe it's "immoral" to use blogs for business. After all, a newspaper, ok, but who would want a diary with ads in it?
That's a misunderstanding. This third kind approach to blogging is not about simply publishing sales-letters and calling them blogposts.
Instead, it's about providing readers with as much helpful information as possible. Period.
The business part happens when you get readers hooked. They know from experience that you deliver. This creates trust. And they are more likely to purchase products or premium services you offer or follow recommendations.
But you don't have to be a Seth Godin to benefit from this approach to blogging.
Anyone can do it. Sure, it's not easy. Especially at the beginning. But if you want to drive traffic to your homepage, get more people to sign up for something or purchase products or services, this is way better than spending thousands of dollars on Adwords clicks.
Why?
(almost) zero cost: If you're already running a homepage somewhere, adding a blog won't cost a dime. Also, whether you write one post per week or 100 (easy, there!) won't have any impact on your wallet. If you're planning to start a new one, basic hosting packages start at around 5 dollars per month (more about this further down)
increased creativity and focus: Blogging increases reflectivity about what you do. By writing a professional blog you'll get more ideas about what you do and how to present it from as many angles as possible.
networking: Facebook & LinkedIn are great, but writing a blog and connecting to your readers and other bloggers directly is priceless. It's the difference between running in between one-room apartments in a tenement building or throwing a pool party.
How To Get Started: The Preparation
If you look at one of the many books or blogs on blogging, what you'll find repeated over and over again is this little word: niche.
They tell you to find your niche, to research keywords based on your niche and network with people in your niche.
But what is that supposed to mean? Let's have a look at the dictionary:
A niche is...
1. A recess in a wall, as for holding a statue or urn.
2. A cranny, hollow, or crevice, as in rock.
"Wait a second... I don't want to network with people that live in a rock...," you might say.
Of course not. This is why a niche is also a "situation or activity specially suited to a person's interests, abilities, or nature" or "a special area of demand for a product or service".
The word originally comes from the old French word nichier which means to nest.
Why does it matter?
Here's what a lot of "Make Money by Blogging" guides say:
Find a special area of demand for a product or service that is suited to your interests, abilities or nature -> niche.
Build a blog around this niche, slap on some advertising and market the hell out of it.
There are at least two problems with this approach, here:
If you're reading this book you probably already have a special field of interest, product, service or artwork that you'd like to bring into the world
This book is not about making money from advertisement. Instead, it is about using your writing in place of advertising, presenting what you're about and connecting to potential clients, customers or fans
Now, the term niche can also refer to a "gap in the market". For example, maybe the whole world is just waiting for a solar-powered electric toothbrush that reads you the morning news in the voice of Luke Skywalker. Okay, maybe not...
But people say that if you can find one of these gaps or "market niches" and fill it, you can make money, a lot, preferably.
As long as we're thinking in terms of physical products and novelty items, this is fine. But we're in the information business, here.
Blogging is about communication.
And communication does not work based on supply & demand or other market models. (At least not the kind of communication we're speaking about, here.)
The reason for this is that information is infinitely reproducible. In this respect, information is like energy: constantly changing form but never disappearing. (See also: Law of Conservation of Energy which states "that the total amount of energy in a system remains constant over time.")
In other words: Communication is the action which moves and shapes information while the total "budget" of the system stays constant.
It doesn't work on a scarcity model, where there is just never enough for everyone, although admittedly on a micro-level there are a lot of information gaps all over the planet.
But this is an educational problem, not an economical one.
One informational item, let's say the name of the Queen of England or yesterday's lottery numbers can be broadcasted to millions of people simultaneously, after which they all "have it", so to speak. The information itself doesn't get weaker through reproduction, although human communication often misshapes it.
What does that all have to do with our topic?
Let's bring it back:
For example, maybe there are already ten thousand blogs about a certain topic. That doesn't mean that you can't bring your own voice to the table and excel.
It's about the way you shape the information. In other words: The how rules over the what.
In total, there's never too much or too little information on any given subject. (The limitation is only imposed by time: too much or too little at a given moment in time. More about this further down.)
This is why, at least for our purposes, the term niche doesn't apply to blogging, at all. In short: Don't try to find or create a "hole in the information market". This is not how it works.
Here's an alternative suggestion, instead:
Before you start building a blog, ask yourself:
"Why am I doing this?"
So, you want to build traffic, gain more potential customers and clients, make more money, etc. but beyond that - What value are you contributing? Maybe you want to provide people with materials containing tips about physical exercises and eating, enabling them to feel more comfortable in their bodies and ultimately increase their life expectancy? Maybe you want to help people reduce stress at the workplaces and offer audiobooks and other materials to increase their well-being? Maybe you want to sell music that makes people scream and shout and feel alive? Whatever it is, there should be something that you care about, personally.
This personal motivation is important because it will determine what you are going to write about and how convincing your writing is going to be.
If you're just writing something half-hearted in order to make money, this is not going to work and you might be better off doing something else.
Writing is hard work. And readers are getting pickier every day. If you don't care deeply about the topic of your writing, don't expect them to.
CONCLUSION:
Forget about thinking in terms of niche.
Instead, ask yourself about the personal motivation behind your product or your service.
It doesn't matter how big or how small the answer.
Nobody justs wants to "make money". There's always something else behind it. Even the most hard-headed economist isn't making money for money's sake but for the freedoms and securities it enables.
The better you can pin-point what exactly it is that makes you excited about your products, services or artworks, the easier it'll be to blog about it.
This is a long-term process, of course. That's why it's good to start as early as possible.
How To Get Started: The Infrastructure
1. Selecting A Software, Service Or Platform
There are many blog-softwares or so called CMS (Content-Management-Systems) that you can use.
This could be Typepad, Movable Type, Drupal, Wordpress, etc.
For most people, Wordpress is the best-choice.
Here are a few reasons:
It's free
It's simple to use and yet you can make it do almost anything by using the
endless variety of plugins and themes, both free and premium leading to
It fits both a beginner's needs and the world's most popular blogger's requirements, this is why
9 out of the TOP 20 Blogs in the world use Wordpress.
Data: Technorati, as quoted on Wikipedia (source)
IMPORTANT:
There's a difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org and it makes up for a lot of confusion.
Wordpress.com is a platform where you can sign up for a free blog on their servers
Wordpress.org is the place where you can download the Wordpress software to use on your own server
Therefore a question that many beginners have is:
Should I sign up for a blog on their servers or should I host it myself?
Here's my answer:
I'd recommend signing up for wordpress.com only as a way of quickly checking out how Wordpress works. So, yes, if you have never used Wordpress before, it's simple to just head over to wordpress.com and set up a new blog. This way you can learn about the difference between posts and pages, how to use tags and categories and all the other basic stuff.
But for the long run you should definitely host the blog yourself because:
hosting it yourself means 100 % control over each functionality and design element. (It also means more responsibility to keep it secure and running.)
you can set up one (or more) top-level domains like myawesomeblog.com - Wordpress.org gives you only subdomains: myawesomeblog.wordpress.com. They're harder to remember and while there are offers to upgrade and attach a domain, it can be both cheaper and more convenient to host the whole blog yourself
Also it's not free, yes, but it isn't expensive, either: For roughly $5 dollars per month you can run your own blog or website.
That's about the price of a really good coffee.
And it's really not as complicated as it sounds. In fact, self-hosting a Wordpress blog has never been easier, since modern hosting packages come with a "one-click" install button for Wordpress. Before you sign up for a hosting service, make sure they offer this. For example, I have often used Hostgator to set up my Wordpress installation in just a few minutes. Here are two screenshots:
This is a lot easier than it used to be! When I first installed Wordpress a few years ago, I had to manually download the software from wordpress.org, upload all the files to my server, create a database and then painstakingly connect it all by editing the configuration file.
As you can see in the screenshot, now you can do it all automatically with just a few clicks.
In a Nutshell:
Wordpress is one of the best ways to blog.
It's easy to use and simply looks great.
Go to wordpress.com to give it a try.
Then, find a good web host, come up with a domain-title and install your own Wordpress with one click by using a web host like Hostgator.
2. Dressing It Up
The standard theme the latest Wordpress version comes with by default is actually very good.
It has good Typography making the text as easy on the eye as possible
It comes with a nice header image and menu
It has a sidebar for widgets
If you don't like it and you're into programming you can use this standard theme and modify it by editing the files in the /wp-content/themes/[name-of-theme] folder.
If you need help with that you can take coaching sessions with the Learn Out Live Media department. I have been coaching people myself in this matter and will continue to do so as long as my calendar allows. In the past we've seen huge successes with this program: Students/trainees have built whole online businesses from scratch in just a few months. The way it works is that people simply tell me what they want to accomplish and then I walk them through the process, step by step.
The beauty of such a one-on-one training is that
instead of going through manuals hoping to find the answer to your question you can focus on what you need to get done as mini-projects (e.g. a customized menu, sidebar, etc.)
instead of hiring someone to do it for you, you can learn how to do it yourself from then on
If you want to find out more about this program, click here or book a free 20 minutes consultation session.
But even if you don't want to mess with the code yourself, there are lots of beautiful themes available for Wordpress. Just go to the official directory or Google "Wordpress Themes". You'll find some that are free and some that cost a few dollars.
But no matter what style you are looking for, there will be something for your project, too.
Having said that, here are a few things that you should look for in a template, free or premium:
the chosen fonts should be comfortable to read because the core content of a blog is writing
the main layout shouldn't be too cluttered, containing to many columns or extra widget areas that will distract people from the core content: the writing
some themes come with special Theme Options, making it easier to control pre-selected color-schemes, columns, inserting a logo etc. without editing any code. While that isn't necessary, it can be a big plus, especially for beginners.
NOTE: The easiest way to install or search for new
themes is directly from within Wordpress. Simply go to Appearance
-> Themes -> Install Themes and upload your theme file or
use the search function to find and install more themes directly from
there.
3. More Features, More Fun: "There's A Plugin For That"
What you can do with Wordpress right out of the box is a lot. In fact, it covers most of the things you'll do in your day-to-day blogging.
Nevertheless, there are a few things it doesn't do:
It doesn't allow readers to subscribe to your blog via email
Depending on your theme, there might not be any buttons for sharing your posts through Social Networks
There's no contact form through which people can, well ... contact you
There are of course a million different functionalities and features some people need, want or wish for their particular blogs.
But for most of them, there's a plugin.
Here's
a quick list of plugins that I'd recommend for starters:
optimizes your posts and pages for search engines
protects your blog against spam
highly versatile contact form
a simple way to add all kinds of Social sharing buttons
creates fancy thumbnail-galleries or advanced
sliders (see official developer's screenshot) to your other articles
so that visitors will even find these old gems lurking somewhere in
your archive. It's a rather advanced solution, requiring a few
preliminary installation steps: click here for a
manual.
same as above but a lot easier to install - perfect for beginners. Must have! (see official screenshot from linkwithin.com)
when a person makes a comment it allows him to enable receiving emails when other people comment on the same article. Very important for creating debates, discussion, etc.
the bigger your site gets the more important it will become to keep it running smoothly. caching plugins are a great way of reducing server load and increasing performance. W3 Total Cache is the most complete solution to all caching needs. Note: Many options will not be necessary and/or overly complex at the beginning but even with standard settings you can see huge improvements.
very important little plugin which adds an option
of specifying for each widget (content or design elements in your
sidebar) where and when to show up: Example: Maybe you want that
"Recent Posts" widget only to show up on the homepage.
Simply enter "is_front_page()" into the WidgetLogic
field in the editing options (see screenshot). For a complete list of
functions, consult the official "Conditional
Tags" list.
NOTE:
The easiest way to install any plugin is to go to Plugins in your Wordpress dashboard, click Add New and then use the search function. Once you've found something, you can install any plugin with one click. Couldn't be simpler. But remember to activate your plugins, too.
Here's how it looks like.
1. Search for a particular plugin
2. This is what the results for the search-term "Contact Form 7" would look like. Simply click "Install Now" to get started.
3. After the installation is finished, click "Activate"
IMPORTANT:
As for the email subscription I mentioned earlier you don't really need a plugin, although there are plugins for that, too, like Subscribe2.
But the easiest way is to just use Feedburner.com.
The most important thing about an email-subscription is stability. Feedburner is owned by Google so you generally don't have to worry about down-times. If you choose to manage subscriptions yourself through a plugin, sure, you can gain more controls over the minute details of it, but you also have the responsibility of keeping yet another thing running smoothly because each and every mail and update will be handled through your own server.
This is why, Feedburner will the best choice for most of us, at least in the beginning. You can always export your list, later, if you like.
Here's how you activate Feedburner's email option:
After you've added your feed to feedburner on feedburner.com, go to Publicize -> Email Subscriptions and click ACTIVATE
Then, select all the code feedburner gives you in this box and copy it.
Back in Wordpress, under Appearance -> Widgets drag a new "Text" widget onto the sidebar and paste the code inside it.
Give it a title like "Subscribe by email", click save and that's it.
Here's how it will look like to your visitors:
If you add a bit of styling with CSS (advanced users only) you can turn it into something more appealing like this:
But no matter how it looks like, anyone who's interested in receiving updates from your blog can simply enter his email address, click the button and then get a confirmation-email containing an activation link.
Now, every time you post a new article, everyone who is subscribed to your blog will get an email. Couldn't be simpler.
And since we're talking about it, already, let's look at the difference between email blog subscriptions and mailing lists.
Email Shmemail: Newsletters and Autoresponders
One thing that every book, course or blog about "online marketing" tells you is that you need a mailing list.
The idea is simple: You build an email-list of potential customers by
adding people who've done business with you before
adding people you are in contact with that might be interested
giving new people the chance to sign up for your mailing list
Then, every once in a while you send them an email about a special offer, event or other opportunity to open their wallet.
The larger your mailing list, the higher the chances to generate sales by this method.