Strategies for a successful blog

22 replies
Hi people,

I'm fairly new to IM and was wondering exactly how to build my blog in the acne niche.
Not so much the technical details, but the actual strategies I need to take.

Should I create lots of unique content before attempting to promote it? I really want to build an authority site with plenty of information, as well as reporting on new treatments, breakthroughs etc..

To be brutally honest I'm not familiar with backlinking or article marketing, or any other traffic generating strategies, so I was planning to just keep on writing articles on my blogwhile learning some of those techniques. Would this be an effective plan given time?

This was planning to be my long term project but I also had a couple of other niches I had been looking at, perhaps a small Amazon site, as the niche I had planned for this would not be packed with information. Should I focus solely on the bigger project or maybe work on the smaller Amazon site in conjunction.

I understand that there's many paths to success online, but any help would be appreciated.
#blog #strategies #successful
  • Profile picture of the author Rewbert
    Banned
    For an authority site great content that's genuinely informative is always a plus. Through amazon affiliate you might be able to promote some products related to your niche aswell

    I recommend building up a somewhat nice amount of articles before you promote, but nothing insane. Slowly build up the website.

    I am still a beginner with IM but these are the tips i can come up with right now.
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    • Profile picture of the author jimbob28
      Thanks Rewbert,

      I think that's the best option,just keep on writing informative articles.

      I think I get disheartened when I hear the words "unique content". To me this conjures up ideas of finding some completely new and unique way to write about my subjects, which just isn't always possible..some subjects just are what they are, and even though you can put your own spin on things you cant always write something that has never been heard (or seen)
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  • Profile picture of the author WordpressManiac
    Go and target longtail keywords and you will see traffic without backlinks. In the meantime you can learn or outsource SEO and add it to your marketing toolkit.
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  • Profile picture of the author troy23
    Only blog when you have something to say.
    Some say to blog twice a week etc, but really you don't have to do this.
    Don't get too hung up on the idea that you need to blog regularly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by jimbob28 View Post

    Should I create lots of unique content before attempting to promote it?
    Some.

    I don't know about "lots".

    I start off my niche sites with not very much content, and just add to it as I go along. You need enough content to look plausible and credible and make it look like something the visitors will want to opt in to, and you need to have the opt-in showing and prominently incentivized before attracting any traffic, obviously, because you wouldn't want a niche site/blog without building a list? Not if you want to earn income from it, anyway!).

    Originally Posted by jimbob28 View Post

    To be brutally honest I'm not familiar with backlinking or article marketing, or any other traffic generating strategies, so I was planning to just keep on writing articles on my blogwhile learning some of those techniques. Would this be an effective plan given time?
    Not so much, really. Who's going to read the articles if they're only published on your own blog?

    Content is useful to you only if there are people there to read it, and be impressed by it, you know? You need traffic.

    It's this post again: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post7830246
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  • Profile picture of the author taskemann
    Don't focus on SEO (maybe a little, but not too much), but rather focus on content and what your audience/target group want.

    In brief - Create a blog for your users, and not for the search engines.


    For a few month ago I created a new blog and I didn't focus on SEO at all. I just wrote useful content for my target group and now this blog receives on average 500 unique visitors a day (90% from Google), even if the niche has a lot of competition.

    Through my 3 years in this industry, I have created a lot of sites and paid well-known "SEO experts" to do SEO work for me like backlinking. But I haven't seen any positive results from these $$$ jobs. I have also tried the EMD + "1-2% keyword density in the content" a lot without much success. But if you write (or pay someone to write) useful content for your site, your users will appreciate the content and do the SEO job for you by sharing the page/pages on forums, on their own blogs, etc. and build the backlinks with a natural and human pattern that Google wants.
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  • Profile picture of the author MartinPlatt
    Content is going to be a good start. If the information that you give is different from everyone else, and is helpful, people will share it, and come back to see what else you can help them with.

    Personally, if you can afford it, I'd pay for someone to do SEO for you, as it can be hard to do yourself. These guys stay on top of what works, and what doesn't so you don't have to.
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    martin-platt.com

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    • Profile picture of the author Cyber Star
      for a non mainstream way, I am using tumblr blog platform to promote my Amazon product. I have to post a very good image without any copyright problem in my post, and then tag it properly, the more detail I give the tag, the more audience I can get. So, if you prefer to do a visual based promotion method from tumblr, you can PM me anytime.
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  • Profile picture of the author larryboy03
    The first thing you should do, is to build up some solid good content. You want people to visit your site with content and not have an empty site. Target long tail low comp keywords. Try to focus more on content for the first month and try to make one high quality article per day.

    Try to get backlinks from scribd, issuu, youtube, vimeo and slidshare. These sites have good authority and will help push your new web page higher in the serps.

    Hope it helps
    Regards
    Larry
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    Do you have a website making money and want to sell it? Contact me, I'm looking to buy sites monetized by Amazon and Adsense!!
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  • Profile picture of the author paul nicholls
    if you are looking to build a blog in your niche then you need to have a long term plan for it

    this is why you need to make sure you will still be enjoying the same niche in 2 years time and not get bored with it and move onto a different niche

    i have built my IM blog up over a few years and this month it's on for over 5k in traffic with hardly no seo and i also don't build any back links

    your blog is a vital ingredient for your overall business so make sure you take it serious

    here a few tips

    1. plenty of great content will put you on the right tracks

    2. forget about just doing affiliate promotions on your blog like most people do, this is why most people completely fail with their blogging efforts

    3. send your list subscribers back to your blog to get more interaction getting you more traffic

    4. make sure you build your list from your blog

    5. forget writing for any search engines or bots, write for your readers and subscribers and everything else will fall into place

    paul
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    • Profile picture of the author jimbob28
      Hi Paul,

      Thanks for the great advice. One thing you mentioned was "forget about just doing affiliate promotions on your blog like most people do". Do you mean that I shouldn't promote products? What are the best ways to monetize a blog, without looking like I'm nothing but a salesman..which I'm definitely not. Apologies as I'm just finding my feet in IM.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andy Fang
    If you're using Blogger, build up that Circle! It will instantly skyrocket your SEO rankings for every post.
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  • Profile picture of the author maddyy
    Content, Mailing lists, contact us page, reviews......
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  • Profile picture of the author jimbob28
    Hi people, thanks for all the advice.

    Trying to put all the pieces together so I can get a good overall view of what direction to take. So it seems that creating content is the most important thing with when starting out.
    The plan is to just keep creating unique content, and build from there.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jimbob28 View Post

      The plan is to just keep creating unique content, make sure that plenty of targeted traffic reads it, and build from there.
      I've taken the liberty of inserting a few words into your post ...
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  • Profile picture of the author khooster1
    Hi jimbob,

    I'm sure you have lots of great advices from our warrior experts in this thread.

    Mine will be slightly difference.
    1. Build a beautiful blog. Though good content is important ( I think so too), you need to sustain your new viewers' attention. Can easily outsource this.
    2. Have a "about me" page. Viewers will stay longer in your site if they know you better.
    3. Have a good domain name. Try not go for keyword name.
    Using your name as the domain is good for branding. You might want to explore this.

    Hope these helps. Cheers


    .
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    • Profile picture of the author yakim1
      Originally Posted by khooster1 View Post

      Hi jimbob,

      I'm sure you have lots of great advices from our warrior experts in this thread.

      Mine will be slightly difference.
      1. Build a beautiful blog. Though good content is important ( I think so too), you need to sustain your new viewers' attention. Can easily outsource this.
      2. Have a "about me" page. Viewers will stay longer in your site if they know you better.
      3. Have a good domain name. Try not go for keyword name.
      Using your name as the domain is good for branding. You might want to explore this.

      Hope these helps. Cheers


      .
      I have to disagree a little on the name of the domain being the domain owners name.

      Here are some of the things I teach when getting a domain name...

      1. Never get a domain that can't be spelled out by just hearing it. Example...

      Reply2JimBob.com

      It should be...

      ReplyToJimBob.com

      I've been talking to people or they are on a webinar or teleseminar and they have to explain a domain url because it is not spelled the way it sounds. So clever or tricky domain name are a real NO, NO!

      2. Never have a hyphen in the domain name. Oops a lot more explaining where the hyphen is.

      3. Never use your name as the domain name. What happens when the site is doing pretty good and you want to move on to something else, which could be a countless number of reasons, the domain has no value to anyone else unless they have the same name as you.

      Once you put your name as a domain name you really limit the value of that domain. No one else will purchase that domain and you will not want to sell it because you will have no control over what they do with it because people will think it is you doing what ever the new owner would be doing.

      It makes the domain worthless to anyone else but you.

      There are many more ways to brand yourself on the domain. So never ever use your name as a domain name.

      Sorry, but I had to jump in here on this. I hope it makes sense.

      Best regards,
      Steve Yakim
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      • Profile picture of the author Kush Sharma
        A lot of people here advising on going for low competition long tail keywords ? On an average, how many exact global searches is 'low competetition' ?
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        • Profile picture of the author +newportone
          I think low competition globally is in the range of three thousand [ 3000 ].
          While three thousand may sound high to some, the immense size of the World Wide Web profoundly overshadows such levels.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by yakim1 View Post

        I've been talking to people or they are on a webinar or teleseminar and they have to explain a domain url because it is not spelled the way it sounds.
        This one's going to be relevant to people who might promote their domain-names on "webinars" or "teleseminars" - not so much to people all of whose traffic will click on a link to get to their site, perhaps?

        The real reason for not using "2" and "4" in domain-names, in place of "to" and "four", is that many people (especially outside the US) think they're just silly, and they can alienate people.

        Originally Posted by yakim1 View Post

        2. Never have a hyphen in the domain name. Oops a lot more explaining where the hyphen is.
        Try telling that to the owners of pen-island, mole-station-nursery and other celebrated instances of people who screwed up by not using hyphens.

        Originally Posted by yakim1 View Post

        3. Never use your name as the domain name.
        Again, the opposite of what many people advise, for those who want to "brand themselves".

        Originally Posted by yakim1 View Post

        It makes the domain worthless to anyone else but you.
        And you imagine that's necessarily a bad thing? I offer you the observation that people buying a personalized domain, for branding purposes, don't want the name to be of value to anyone else.

        Originally Posted by yakim1 View Post

        Sorry, but I had to jump in here on this. I hope it makes sense.
        It makes sense, Steve, but various parts of it also rest on many assumptions which simply don't apply to all people, all the time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Soubhik
    Try hiring a SEO team from sites like Elance.com and Freelancer.com. They will guide you on the best way to go about it.

    Originally Posted by jimbob28 View Post

    Hi people,

    I'm fairly new to IM and was wondering exactly how to build my blog in the acne niche.
    Not so much the technical details, but the actual strategies I need to take.

    Should I create lots of unique content before attempting to promote it? I really want to build an authority site with plenty of information, as well as reporting on new treatments, breakthroughs etc..

    To be brutally honest I'm not familiar with backlinking or article marketing, or any other traffic generating strategies, so I was planning to just keep on writing articles on my blogwhile learning some of those techniques. Would this be an effective plan given time?

    This was planning to be my long term project but I also had a couple of other niches I had been looking at, perhaps a small Amazon site, as the niche I had planned for this would not be packed with information. Should I focus solely on the bigger project or maybe work on the smaller Amazon site in conjunction.

    I understand that there's many paths to success online, but any help would be appreciated.
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