What's a best growth strategy for a gadget blog

12 replies
I have a blog on smartphones and gadget niche, it's very competitive niche with tons of sites covering smartphone related topic. What kind of topics should I generate for a steady growth? I started out with news type content in the beginning as there is always some new phone launch or gadget update happening around the world. But I see that it's not giving a good user experience when these old news topics show up in related post. All those old news posts are dead and offer no value.

But news content are important for a smartphone blog as there are lots of new phone launches, updates and announcements.

So can anybody suggest me the best strategy for a gadget blog to grow faster against the competition. What kind of content should I focus more?
News, Reviews, Tutorials, Top 10 list type, Comparison and Analysis.
What's a healthy ratio?

I welcome everybody to join the discussion.
#blog #gadget #growth #strategy
  • Profile picture of the author JohnGreving
    Hey, SRJCoolDude.
    You're definitely in a competitive niche, so I think your best move is to find long tail keywords other people aren't linking for and then make those your priority in posts. It shouldn't be too hard to work them into news, reviews and anything else your readers love. Get people to click over to your site bc of those long tail keywords and they may become returning users.

    I agree with Vitruvias that a Twitter account makes a lot of sense. Pinterest could be good too if you have photos about the gadgets to share. Both can help generate backlinks.

    That brings us to the next topic. Are there other blogs/sites you could supply a guest post too? Backlinks are always going to help you build your site up. Look for blogs that have comments and shares, so you know there's an engaged audience. Backlinks are good, but getting an audience at the same time is better.

    When you writer your blogs, use listicles as much as possible--though not all the time--and try to find a way to take a "controversial" take on something whenever you can. Your industry is so competitive that just saying, "This Phone Is Great" won't help you stick out if everyone else is. Find a "hot take" and run with it.

    Hope this helps!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10334458].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author armyof1
    Product reviews done by you can help boost traffic Try a youtube video or blog with lots of pictures


    Video demonstration on functionality


    Talk about accessories for the devices . this gives you more content and more products to sell
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10417395].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Alicia Thibadeau
    I would incorporate giveaways on your blog. Hosting a giveaway on your blog brings in massive traffic and depending on how interesting your blog is, people will stick around and check out your stuff. You may want to check out tomoson[dot]com - if you have an amazon prime account you'll get all the free shipping. There are tons of products on there to review on your blog, some of them pay you to review and some of them also have giveaways that you can host on your blog. You can find all of the gadgets that relate to your blog, do those reviews on your blog + giveaways, promote the hell out of it to free giveaway sites and your blog traffic will soar through the roof.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10419456].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author strawhat
      May I ask, if there is not a lot of traffic, social media following, or a substantial email list, how would people know there's a giveaway? Or is it only for those who can promote the giveaway.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10419498].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Alicia Thibadeau
        Originally Posted by strawhat View Post

        May I ask, if there is not a lot of traffic, social media following, or a substantial email list, how would people know there's a giveaway? Or is it only for those who can promote the giveaway.
        Then all you have to do is go to google and type in "submit giveaway" or "submit sweepstakes" there are hundreds of websites to submit a giveaway and thousands of people who check out those types of websites daily. This is usually the way I start up a new blog with 0 traffic. I run giveaways related to my blog, siphon tons of people to it and build a following.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10420869].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author strawhat
          Interesting, thanks. I had never seen any of those. I do wonder though if the people specifically looking for giveaways are high-quality traffic who has an interest in the product, or do they just want free stuff to resell?
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10445046].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author strawhat
    Rather a broad, general approach focusing on the phones, I would focus on the users--phones for business people (think long battery life, durability), phones for busy moms (think good sound quality, video Skype), phones for college students (think budget, cool-looking), phones for seniors (ease of use. budget), phones for high school students (budget, kid-looking), budget phones, fun phones, phones for diving (waterproof), stylish phones for men/women, phones for international travelers, etc. and give a range of reasons and prices... make it personalized. Try to help others decide which phone is right for them. Also review accessories.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10419512].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author tomhunt88
    Test the following written content types:

    1. Ultimate Guides
    2. Mega Lists
    3. Expert Roundup
    4. Contrarian View

    Then review your share/traffic count and make more of the one that performs best.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10446065].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    This is not so much a "Growth Hack" solution, but a correction in the UX of the site.

    When I am developing / maintaining a site there are 2 factors that I look at. #1 being the content that I am using to attract traffic, and #2 the context of the content once they are there.

    #1 is clearly obvious. #2 is where many many many fail. If an end user does a web search for phone X they have clearly indicated that is what they are interested in. Once they are on a page with content about phone X, in most cases they are then presented contextually mismatched options. IE a link to an article about Phones Y and Z and F and A.

    I inject related contextual content manually to each page. If they are searching about Phone X I want to ensure that I am giving them related Phone X content.

    As your post gets to.. what is that related content? I will assume you are monetizing the site in some manor. So you have to look at who is using your site and where specifically in the buying process they may be. I work with the concept that there are 4 phases in the buying process.
    1. Information Gathers.
    2. Review / Comparison shoppers.
    3. Those that are ready to buy.
    4. those that have already bought.
    As a content provider, identifying these steps makes the content production process easier. Information gathers are looking for news - what's new, are there recalls, technical data and stuff like that.

    Review / Comparison... Review the phone. what's new with this model? etc etc. In the comparison, you would want to not only compare A to B, but version 2 of A with version 1 why is this better, what changes have been made.. why you would want the new one vs the old one.

    Those that are ready to buy. bring them right into a sales page. why from you? This is where Unique selling perspective and all that good stuff comes into play.

    I think the most over looked segment in any market are those that have already bought. Providing articles on tips and tricks and accessory options as well as service and apps that increase the function of the device become great topics. Supplying this type of content today puts you in place to convert them to customers tomorrow.

    Anyways... Hope that Helps!

    Originally Posted by srjcooldude View Post

    I have a blog on smartphones and gadget niche, it's very competitive niche with tons of sites covering smartphone related topic. What kind of topics should I generate for a steady growth? I started out with news type content in the beginning as there is always some new phone launch or gadget update happening around the world. But I see that it's not giving a good user experience when these old news topics show up in related post. All those old news posts are dead and offer no value.

    But news content are important for a smartphone blog as there are lots of new phone launches, updates and announcements.

    So can anybody suggest me the best strategy for a gadget blog to grow faster against the competition. What kind of content should I focus more?
    News, Reviews, Tutorials, Top 10 list type, Comparison and Analysis.
    What's a healthy ratio?

    I welcome everybody to join the discussion.
    Signature
    Success is an ACT not an idea
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10454068].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Jaasper
    i think some of unique feature of smartphone topics should be generated.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10495180].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author failingangels
    SEO and ASO are always good for generating traffic easily. You can create ads on social media for getting most effective results easily and comfortably.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10502545].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jezza101
    I used to do tech news for a single product and that was tough to keep up with. By focusing on the one product my site gained a reputation for being the site to go to when you had a query, even some of the big sites started linking to me.

    When I tried to expand and do more it quickly became impossible to compete with commercial sites with multiple staff writers. They get the gadgets first, they get the tips, they go to the launch events. I found my articles were late and derivative, and like you say, offered a poor user experience. Sure, I got some long tail clicks but had a high bounce rate.

    I found that the sites that seem to gain traction were run by enthusiasts who were able to hack gadgets, push things further, offer new ideas, they built the site around them and their expertise and people followed them for their knowledge.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10565157].message }}

Trending Topics