How to Blog: Laser-Focus Your Content Strategy
When people find out how much money some blogs earn, they are usually shocked. The top blogs make between $20,000 and $2.5 million per month, and with the right strategy you too can create a blog that earns money.
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While that is obviously impressive, the figures seem highly unattainable for the average blog. It may even seem to be pointless to look at the methods these large blogs use because they have access to numerous writers, budgets to hire marketers and designers, and access to the must accurate and current SEO strategies. But those massively successful blogs actually have quite a lot to teach smaller blogs. All of the strategies being implemented by blogging leaders can be scaled down and implemented on small personal blogs, and blogs for small businesses.
Small Fish in the Blogging Ocean
In case you are tempted to think small niche blogging can’t be as successful as their mammoth counterparts, here are 50 blogs waiting to prove you wrong. The main requirements for being included on this list were that they not focus on social media, blogging or marketing. Other requirements were that the blog not be a spinoff of a bigger site, not be a spoke in a mega blog wheel, and must involve a community.
Success for these blogs was based on subscribers rather than income reports. Why? Because most blogs outside of the marketing sphere don’t release that information. That doesn’t mean they aren’t making a killing with their blog, it just means they aren’t talking about it.
Some are a little more upfront about their success, like Amiyrah Martin from Four Hats & Frugal. On her blog, she focuses on family, food, fashion, and finance. Over the past four years she has built a substantial following with more than 15,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 10,000 on Pinterest. She’s been featured by national media such as USA Today, Woman’s World Magazine, and Parade Magazine, with television appearances on Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, and The Fab Life. She’s even been invited to attend a conference at the White House.
Amiyrah has been blogging for about eight years, but it’s only been within the last two that she began to look at blogging as a fulltime commitment. One of the things she lists as making the biggest difference in the success of her blog in 2015 was focusing even more intently on her niche of family. She made her husband and children a more integral part of the blog instead of her personal perspective. In doing so she said no to some ambassadorships and campaigns that didn’t fit as well, and found a greater abundance of those that did. Her laser-focus on what she is most passionate about allowed her to connect more authentically with her readers and increase the popularity and profitability of her blog.
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What the Big Fish Can Teach You
If you really want to boost the number of people following your blog, potential income, and exposure there are several things the largest blogs can teach you. You can’t implement them on the scale of a well established site, but if you follow the same strategies you will be able improve the quality of your blog and increase the number of visitors.
Interestingly, focusing on building their niche is exactly what some of the largest blogs also do. If there is something you are truly passionate about it is important that you highlight your expertise on the topic. Authenticity is like a beacon to readers who share the same passion. If you write what you think people will want to read, as opposed to a topic you are truly passionate about, you will fail to gain traction no matter how well written your content.
Let’s say you want to write about making your own all natural health and beauty products at home. You slowly became interested in the process when you weren’t able to find products that smelled the way you wanted, or left your hair and skin soft. This is a great niche about which you are passionate. Now all you have to do is help people find you.
If you are blogging, you know what keywords are and why they are important. You may dutifully plug in such keywords as homemade shampoo, sugar scrub, and natural cleaning products when you write new posts. While these are on target, they aren’t specific enough. Think of the types of things you would search for if there was something you wanted to learn. For example, you might want to find an easy vanilla sugar scrub recipe. This is also the way your potential readers are searching, and it is known as a long-tail keyword.
Perhaps most importantly, you must write. Write and publish consistently. Try to get out of your head and stop worrying about being perfect. There has yet to be a perfectly written blog, no matter how successful it is. Making a few mistakes won’t be the end of your blog, but failing to publish enough content may well be. You know your target audience because you have been that audience. If you are truly passionate about your niche, then you know exactly what people like you want to read about.. Therefore, it’s particularly important to pick a niche you relate to so that you can intertwine your blogging and your hobbies, as that would allow words to flow more easily andpassionately.
You may not have the resources to have an expert tell you how to focus your blogging ideas into a coherent niche or a marketing person to tell you which keywords you should be using. What you do have is your own personal experience, preferences, and intuition. Write about what you love and let that fuel every decision you make. Write what you would want to read if you were searching for information on your topic. But most importantly, write and hit the publish button.
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