Karen's Blog
Blog Bomb or Blog Brilliance? 7 questions you must answer.
Did you know, that as of this month, there are over 156 million public blogs in existence? And with that type of competition growing everyday, is the effort worth the prize? What makes a blog a rewarding a home run? and are you still wondering how to attract more visitors to your blog?
We are too.
I did some research regarding this matter and there’s a lot of opinion on the subject. Some say sell advertising, some say to blog every day, some say to not write more than 200 words so the audience doesn’t get bored, others suggest tightly niche your content and others say wake up the dead with extreme controversy.
I do agree with them all, most importantly I believe that businesses need to write stuff that people actually want to read!
Before you start writing, ask yourself who the target audience is and what the do they really care about. Also ask your self these questions:
- Why do you write your blog? To make money, to serve as marketing tool?
- Have you clearly identified 3 other highly read blogs in your topic?
- Can you see their magic formula? Is meaningful content – are they a rock star, have a book and/or a national expert?
- How is traffic being driven to their site? This takes some digging, but it’s important.
- Does your niche topic have a big enough audience to tap?
- Have you looked at Google analytics to see what you have written in the past that really drew readers?
- Does your content provide pragmatic advice? Is the writing original and thought provoking, Is it entertaining, or is it just sucking up your time and you should be doing something else?
If you answered NO to any of these questions, stop writing, talk a walk, read a book and start again.
Be useful. Be unique. Be engaging.
How do these blogs do it?
HuffingtonPost – 35,000,000 estimated unique monthly visitors.
TMZ – 17,000,000 estimated unique monthly visitors.
engadget – 11,500,000 estimated unique monthly visitors.
For more blogging tips, view: 10-steps to making writing your blog easier.
The entrepreneurial motive – Your money or your art?
In the past few months, there’ been a real blow up over “scammy” Facebook game techniques from companies like Zynga. There was also a very honest run-down of scam related revenue techniques by Dennis Yu, who I had the chance to meet and work with very briefly at the first Startup Weekend.
Essentially, the idea is to gain revenues by any means necessary. And we’re not talking about a small amount of revenue either. Zynga, the maker of Farmville (which I’ve never played by the way), makes about 1/3 of its estimated $250 million annual revenue stream through these scam-related offers. It has agreed to take all of those offers out of its games, which is a big commitment.
On the other hand, there are many opportunities for individuals to play in the game of making money by any means possible. If you’re on even a few mailing lists of online marketing “gurus”, you’ll get countless offers to buy over-priced how-to guides on the process. And the fact is, if you follow some of their formulas, you can indeed make some good money.
I’ve always been hesitant to do these get-rich quick schemes – most definitely to my own financial detriment. I started to question myself recently on exactly why it is I refuse to play these money-making games. The answer I’ve come up with is that I’m the type of entrepreneur that needs to make a difference in peoples’ lives with the companies I start.
Yes, I’d love to make buckets of money just like the next guy or gal. However, doing so in a way that does nothing to help the individuals buying from me, or doing so in a way that does not create something new and different – well, I’m just not motivated by that. I’m into the art of entrepreneurship for the art itself, you might say.
Now, honestly, I can’t say I see anything wrong with a lot of the gurus out there. A lot of them are really helping people to make more money and lead happier lives. And if you find yourself in the category of doing the art of entrepreneurship for the money, then please go for it by all means.
If you’re like me, though, do yourself a favor and unsubscribe from the gurus’ get-rich-quick scheme e-mail lists. You won’t find what you’re looking for there. In fact, it will probably make you feel worse. We sensitive types tend to take offense when we see others making those buckets of money while we, the starving artists continue to starve! -
Niche Thinking – What Profitable Online Activity Does Your Niche Already Do?
In online marketing, the niche is the thing for entrepreneurs. Find a good niche, build a site, hammer away at the search engines with relevant copy, and you may just have a chance at making a living online.
The niche concept, however, has been around long enough for just about every niche and cranny to be filled. Should you spend all your time trying to figure out if you can find one that isn’t filled yet?
Maybe you should, or maybe you should try this instead: find a group of people that represent a niche and figure out how to market a service to them that’s proven profitable in the past. In other words, get into a profitable niche of your niche.
To do this, you’ll want to know a couple of things.
- How to dig into segments to find niches.
- How to figure out profitable things that niche engages in.
Now you’ve got a business. As soon as I actually get my “main idea” on doing this online, I’ll talk about it more.
