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Best Way to Invest Money Into A Struggling Blog

by China Newz
22 replies
What would be the best way to invest 250 per month into a struggling blog? At this point, don't have an email capture device, but hope this would be one of my first investments. Something like Aweber.
#blog #invest #money #struggling
  • Profile picture of the author Steve B
    Why is the blog struggling?

    That should be your first question to answer. Why? Because just throwing money at a blog in order to make it successful makes no sense unless the money solves the problem.

    You have to ask yourself - Why would anyone come to my blog and want the information that I'm giving?

    Then look at your traffic and see if your problem is simply that you are not addressing the right audience or that not enough prospects are interested in what you offer.

    Bottom line is . . . figure out what the problem is first, then attack that specific issue(s). Otherwise, you will never see your blog become successful.

    The very best to you,

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author China Newz
      Should have rephrased the question to be: what is the best way to invest money into a blog period?

      If you had a small budget to improve a blog, or more specifically my blog, what tweaks would you suggest? How much do those specific tweaks cost?
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      China Newz

      China Newz is a blog introducing China's history, culture, people and places.

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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by China Newz View Post

        If you had a small budget to improve a blog, or more specifically my blog, what tweaks would you suggest?
        I hope I won't sound too critical, but better targeting is what you need, I think, together with a monetization-plan aimed at the specific traffic you're (then) hoping to attract.

        Originally Posted by China Newz View Post

        How much do those specific tweaks cost?
        Nothing at all ... I think it's more of a "drawing-board" stage than spending money. I'll even go further: I think it would be a mistake to spend money on this blog without doing that first, and starting from a clearer perception of generating targeted traffic and monetizing it. It may even be that you have to explore the potential monetization methods before deciding on how to attract the traffic that matches it. But either way round, you need to do it, I think, to make progress. I think the main two mistakes you need to avoid with this blog are (a) simply trying to attract "as much traffic as possible" and only then wondering how to monetize it, and (b) trying to be "all things to all people who have any possible interest in China".

        (My reply may look at first glance totally different from Randall's, above, but I think in a sense we're actually saying pretty much similar things, here, just in different ways.)
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        • Profile picture of the author China Newz
          (b) trying to be "all things to all people who have any possible interest in China".

          [/QUOTE]

          I think I can prove you wrong on this...time will tell...but understand your more targeted traffic approach.

          Consider a women's shoes analogy. Why not write about boots, kitten heals, ballet flats, etc. on one site as opposed to having three different sites each for the different shoes. I know you, Alexa, may check it at least a few times and maybe buy those avocado nude pumps you always wanted but could never find in the store.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by China Newz View Post

            I think I can prove you wrong on this...time will tell...
            Well, it's true that you might be able to.

            I suspect that you're going to need an enormous amount of traffic to do that, though. Maybe more traffic than I could get.

            Originally Posted by China Newz View Post

            Why not write about boots, kitten heals, ballet flats, etc. on one site as opposed to having three different sites each for the different shoes.
            This is different, because people who buy boots also buy various kinds of shoes. But people who are interested in recipes for Beijing Duck with pancakes and hoi-sin sauce aren't people interested in the history of the revolution, and nor are they people who are going to Shanghai on business next March and need to book flights and a hotel. They're different monetization-groups. Is my contention.
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            • Profile picture of the author China Newz
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              Well, it's true that you might be able to.

              I suspect that you're going to need an enormous amount of traffic to do that, though. Maybe more traffic than I could get.



              This is different, because people who buy boots also buy various kinds of shoes. But people who are interested in recipes for Beijing Duck with pancakes and hoi-sin sauce aren't people interested in the history of the revolution, and nor are they people who are going to Shanghai on business next March and need to book flights and a hotel. They're different monetization-groups. Is my contention.
              Point taken...but think that content overlap will entice people to explore other avenues of "the China topics"...
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      • Profile picture of the author AlexGeorge
        Originally Posted by China Newz View Post

        Should have rephrased the question to be: what is the best way to invest money into a blog period?

        If you had a small budget to improve a blog, or more specifically my blog, what tweaks would you suggest? How much do those specific tweaks cost?
        I would definitely invest in an autoresponder. I would choose Aweber, and you can get the first month for only $1. I would then look into spending some money on advertising campaigns to get quality traffic to the blog. I would also make sure beforehand that the content was top notch.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    What I personally do is create products, email funnels, and then just blog on the front end.

    So, create a few products, create an email funnel, and then invest in driving leads to your funnel.

    In my opinion buying paid traffic directly to a blog isn't very feasible, unless you have some type of funnel in place.

    So; create a funnel, and then drive traffic to your funnel.



    That's your back end.

    Your front end can be your blog, and just a "bonus" to people who check out your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikefrommaine
    Autoresponder should be the first thing.

    The second is for buying solo ad traffic to your squeeze page.

    Have you created a product yet?
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  • Profile picture of the author enac0
    If your blog is very niche you could try Facebook advertising to people who meet your niche. If not for a blog I think the best way to gain traffic is posting good quality blog posts, so you could try hiring some article writers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Slin
    Depends, is it struggling because it lacks traffic? If so you need more content, so I'd invest in content.

    Until I start getting a good amount of visitors, then I build up the sales funnel and things, first I monetize with affiliate offers, once my blog starts going well I switch over to my own sales funnel.

    But you could do it the other way too, I just prefer to do it this way.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    1) Get Aweber

    2) Find some products in your niche with good profit margins

    3) Introduce hover ad on your blog

    4) Insert HTML code onto blog to get subscribers

    5) Do paid and free advertising, entice the subscribe

    6) Write everyday

    7) Promote products and product reviews via your email newsletter
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  • Profile picture of the author celente
    two things you MUST and i mean MUST take action on.

    - BLOG EVERY DAY.

    - BUILD A LIST

    Have an optin form at the top of your static page, at the end of each post and also at the side. Always be thinking, build my list, build my list.

    Of all the activities that I do each day, the one that has bought in the most $$ (bacon home to mumma) is to build my list. Its the single most important asset any IM'er can have. Period.
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    • Profile picture of the author China Newz
      Originally Posted by celente View Post

      two things you MUST and i mean MUST take action on.

      - BLOG EVERY DAY.

      - BUILD A LIST

      Have an optin form at the top of your static page, at the end of each post and also at the side. Always be thinking, build my list, build my list.

      Of all the activities that I do each day, the one that has bought in the most $$ (bacon home to mumma) is to build my list. Its the single most important asset any IM'er can have. Period.
      What did you sell off of that list after you built it? Your own product? Or affiliate products?
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      China Newz

      China Newz is a blog introducing China's history, culture, people and places.

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      • Profile picture of the author celente
        Originally Posted by China Newz View Post

        What did you sell off of that list after you built it? Your own product? Or affiliate products?
        I sold a video product, yes it was just a downloadable video product in the health and wellness niche. It was my own, and i am still testing with smaller lists first.

        I built my list with pure PPC and media buys, and ads ontop of forums. The ads at the top of forums are working the best followed by ppc, as these are the most targeted in all my testing. Plus I worked out a deal with the forum owners and I hardly spent any money at all. Maybe $60 USD all up.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    I blogged every day for a month, and my traffic literally septuple'd as a result. (That's multiply by 7).

    The problem I faced was my inability to create really awesome content daily.

    I do NOT like to create mediocre content. Only content that totally owns. (I have a ton of people sharing my RSS, and if I let them down I think they won't share it).

    What are your thoughts on blogging every 3 days versus every day?

    (I was preaching to blog daily only a few weeks ago, but writing that much content is difficult, and every 3 days is much easier).

    Ultimately I'll have statistics on how this effected things in a few weeks, but would love to hear your thoughts on blogging every X quantity of days over daily.

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    • Profile picture of the author China Newz
      Originally Posted by Sarevok View Post

      I blogged every day for a month, and my traffic literally septuple'd as a result. (That's multiply by 7).

      The problem I faced was my inability to create really awesome content daily.

      I do NOT like to create mediocre content. Only content that totally owns. (I have a ton of people sharing my RSS, and if I let them down I think they won't share it).

      What are your thoughts on blogging every 3 days versus every day?

      (I was preaching to blog daily only a few weeks ago, but writing that much content is difficult, and every 3 days is much easier).

      Ultimately I'll have statistics on how this effected things in a few weeks, but would love to hear your thoughts on blogging every X quantity of days over daily.
      My site has few unique visitors. My site has had the most visitors when I wrote daily blog post and actively participated in forums. Posting daily has increased my visitors compared to when I post sporadically.

      In regards to posting 3 times a week or daily, daily has to be the better alternative. Someone compared it creating a bigger net, in that each blog post is like creating a link in your net, so the more posts you write, the larger your net becomes to catch fish (readers) in the search engines. I agree with this.

      Also, have read that posting frequency is the best way to increase traffic.
      • 3-5 posts per day in order to aggressively grow your blog
      • 1 post per day for average growth
      • 3-5 posts per week for moderate/below average growth
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      China Newz

      China Newz is a blog introducing China's history, culture, people and places.

      www.chinanewz.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Fazal Mayar
    for 250 a month you should outsource it for seo
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  • Profile picture of the author bhartzer
    I would take that money and invest it into fresh, good content. Try paying someone to do some unique research--that you can then post on the blog. Make people sign up for your list before they get access to the research.

    Instead of adding a post every 3 days, try posting on the site 5 times a day. Post more often.

    Invest in content.
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    • Profile picture of the author China Newz
      Originally Posted by bhartzer View Post

      I would take that money and invest it into fresh, good content. Try paying someone to do some unique research--that you can then post on the blog. Make people sign up for your list before they get access to the research.

      Instead of adding a post every 3 days, try posting on the site 5 times a day. Post more often.

      Invest in content.
      I agree with the invest in content idea. Good point.
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      China Newz

      China Newz is a blog introducing China's history, culture, people and places.

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  • Profile picture of the author Bent SEO
    Step #1: Make sure the blog is high quality, engaging and gives useful information. For each post on the blog think, would I share this with my friends if I found it on the web? If not, delete it. Do this with all your content.

    Step #2: Find other blogs in your niche that get traffic (look for sub 20k alexa) and get $250 worth of HIGH QUALITY guest post that have very specific information. These should run you around $15 each - which means you'll have 16 or so to post.

    Step #3: Reach out to these owners and give them the titles of this content ans ask if they would be willing to put it up in exchange for a link back to your blog.

    Step #4: Traffic begins to come in. Focus on the blog and making sure it's high quality ALWAYS. I've built up traffic streams in the XX,XXX per month from other blogs alone, some post drive in 20-50 uniques a day, still, months later. And most importantly? Many of those readers become readers of my site.

    BOOM!
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  • Profile picture of the author djneill
    Definitely get Aweber and then you can opt in forms so that when you put up a new blog you can send it to the subscribers. They'll be more likely to return to the blog because you're mailing it to them and they don't have to find it themselves.
    Provide valuable content, resources, and a few freebies, some people have freebie Sunday where they provide something for free every Sunday.
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