Blog Strategy

In this guide, we’ll cover the basics you need to know about starting an online blog.

Blogs are a type of website that only work if both the provider (you) and the reader actually care about the messages that are contained within. They need to be more than flashy designs, widgets and search optimized.

Here are the key features that you need to start to blog:

 

A Clear Strategy

You need a good reason to do something as time consuming and difficult as running a compelling blog. Is it to spread your opinion to the world? Earn an income? Create a community? To learn? To build a platform to broadcast from? To build authority?

You’ll need to consider:

1. Your topic/niche
2. Your content strategy
3. Monetisation strategy (if you want to make money that is)
4. Your marketing strategy.

 

Your topic/niche

Writing a blog will not be a quick route to fame and fortune for most of us and will require hard work and dedication on your part. That means that the topic you are writing about needs to be something that you are really interested in – unless you plan to outsource all the writing which I’ll cover in another posting.

Virtually every topic imaginable has a blog about it already so it is unlikely you will be first to market with a new idea to talk about. But that isn’t a bad thing – if you where the only person in the world interested in your niche then you wouldn’t get many readers! So expect competition in your field.

Pick something that you are passionate about, and ideally something that you can add a new slant to. Maybe you are an expert in your specific field, or have an unusual perspective on it. That can add authority to your writing and make people want to read on.

Knicom.co.uk – My topic is a mixture of lifestyle design/location independent living and digital technology that can enable it. My niche is that I will use this blog as a case study to test many of the ideas, guides and instructions on other sites on how to live a location independent lifestyle and use digital technology to help provide an income source.

 

You content strategy

Will your content be just words, or will it also include audio and video? What about a mix of all three?

Compelling content that is visually appealing will attract visitors, but it needs to be informative. Would your visitors rather read the information or watch it? Maybe if you are producing a bakery blog then they would like to see video clips of the bakery process?

Content needs to be updated on a regular basis – that means you need to keep producing it! This is where most blogs fail because the blogger runs out of ideas. Hence the importance of having a niche that you are truly passionate about.

Also develop categories that will allow you to group your content into useful headings which provides easy navigation.

Knicom.co.uk – Most of my content will be written at this stage. I might dabble in video later on. I have created some categories already and will add to these as the number of my postings increase. I don’t want to create lots of empty categories at the moment as it will make the site look sparse. I also use a Task list in Microsoft Outlook. I have a list of articles that I want to write about and due dates assigned against each one. This will help keep me publishing content on a regular basis keeping the site fresh. Also, if I happen to think of a new article I can add it to the Task list ahead of others if it should be published in a chronological order.

 

You monetisation strategy

I’m almost embarrassed to talk about money! But this site does cost time (lots of) and money (not too much yet) to run. Therefore I think it is fair that the blog should be financially self-sufficient. The panacea for location independent living is to derive an income from digital media or services. Therefore in the long term my goal will be to improve the money making capability of this blog. But at the moment there is a long way to go before that happens!

However bloggers typically make money from:

• Advertising
• Sponsored content
• Affiliate schemes
• Rent a blogger

Advertising

This is the most common method of generating an income from a blog but also frustratingly difficult. Typically you will use a service like Google AdSense or Amazon which will provide advertisements in your web page that is related to your content. The advertiser pays Google to display the advert. Each time someone clicks on their advert they are charged by Google and you receive a percentage of that charge. Also known as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This is a very quick and simple way to start generating income but is only of any use if you have a high number of visitors to your site as only a small proportion will click an advert. The other downside is that when the click the advertisement link they are directed away from your site.

Sponsored Content

This could create a more reliable revenue stream by hosting content or adverts paid for by a specific person or organisation. This could go against you if you are also using PPC type advertising as it is often contrary to the terms and conditions. In addition it means that your site and content could be perceived as biased towards the sponsor. US bloggers have specific legal obligations in this area around declaring such sponsorships.

Affiliate Schemes

This is similar to PPC advertising but is more targeted. For example, if you run a bakery blog you may be discussing the merits of a particular food mixer. If you create a link to an affiliate that sells such a food mixer and the user clicks and purchase said mixer, then you earn a commission. This is a very popular way of earning revenue but will largely be determined by the topic/niche of your blog.

Rent a blogger

You could pay someone to write content for you, or inversely you could be paid be someone to write content for their site. Otherwise known as freelancing. It’s unlikely you will start down this route as you will need to build a reputation of producing quality content in the first place, before someone will pay you to produce content for them. However, it can turn into a nice little earner

Knicom.co.uk – I use Google Adsense at the moment as the quickest way to start to generate some revenue. I may move towards an affiliate scheme later on as a trial and will report back on its success. (Note: I just added a new Task to my list to remind me to do this and write an article about it!) I also have a small Donate button at the bottom of each page in case any visitors are feeling generous! I don’t expect this to be used in the early days of the blog but may come into its own as the site gets more visitors and more useful content.

 

Your marketing strategy

This is often a neglected element of a site. The ‘build it and they will come’ mentality rarely ever works. You need to reach out and drive people to the site in order to grow audience share, traffic and revenue.

Successful bloggers probably spend as much time marketing as they do writing. The most common ways to spread the news about your blog are:

• Guest posting
• Advertising
• Social media networking
• Link baiting
  

I think this is an area that requires more in depth analysis as it is obviously key to generating traffic and revenue.  I will write an article about this in the future.

Knicom.co.uk – I use social media networking already. I have included links to allow people to connect to their own social networks. I also post to Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and others each time I make a new posting. In addition, I’ve been contributing to discussions on other similar sites with links back to my own. This should promote search rankings and also help support other sites.