Internet marketing is a very fragile business because it’s very competitive, and takes a lot of patience. However, there are cool ways you can improve your marketing by researching your niche, and applying the strategies you learn at the same time. Over the years, whenever I start a blog, I’ll always research my niche and the top bloggers in my market to learn what I can from them. Since they have been in the business longer it helps me avoid the mistakes they have made along the way. Avoiding these mistakes will help me grow faster, and build my brand quickly. Next,
We have so many cool ways to market our blog which were NOT available before. For example, we have social media which will excel the rate of blog growth 10 fold. The top social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ have enormous niche relevant visitors which can build momentum quickly to your content. However, the secret is to know how to use these networks, and avoid the common mistakes made by rookie bloggers. So, what have I decided to focus on today? Simple…
I searched for the biggest mistakes authority bloggers have made when starting out, and want to discuss them with you now. This is great for those just starting, or those who have been in the business for years. It’s never too late to tweak your style so you optimize your marketing and blog growth. Let’s get started and your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Growth Rate Failure
You’ve started a blog, and want to make sure it grows over the years, however fail to focus on the growth rate. This is one of the worst mistakes anyone can make in the industry because you won’t know what has worked or what has stagnant your growth. In blogging, you always want to make sure every decision you make will increase your brand, and growth over a certain time period. This is why it’s important to make sure you have the right tools in place which will give you a better overview of your growth rate. For example, you should always ask yourself these questions going forward.
- How much has my blog grown over the last month?
- What has optimized my blog growth?
- What tools should I use to track growth?
- How have I drove traffic to my blog in recent months?
Answering all these questions will help you implement the right strategy going forward making sure you keep growing. For example, ask yourself how much content should you be writing to keep your blog fresh because we all know how unattractive a blog with old content is…right?
I suggest you install Google analytics to your blog so you can trace where your visitors are going, and then can focus on those same avenues going forward. You’ll still want to try new things, however this way you can focus on what has been working at the same time.
Very Small Niche
It’s tough building your business in a very small niche. It’s even harder generating profit when you have a very small audience which is why it’s important target a big enough niche. Focusing on a wide enough niche will give you the leverage to try different things, and build a brand around a specific topic. For example, “make money online” is a huge niche, and I can keep narrowing it down even further. I can focus on keywords like:
- Blogging
- Advertising
- Content marketing
- eBooks
- Social media
- Etc
This will just give me the flexibility to try different things, and you won’t run out of ideas. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or even search to find cool markets which haven’t been tapped into. Then start to narrow down each topic by looking at sub-keywords and products which you can focus on. Many times I have head over to Amazon.com, and started looking at the best sellers within a niche. The fact that many people have been purchasing a specific product means it’s a very HOT niche. It’s important to think outside the box, and choose a niche which has a huge audience, and isn’t competitive.
If you head over to Google and type in some keywords, you’ll be able to find some awesome niches which haven’t been tapped into by a wide range of bloggers.
Not Marketing Enough
It doesn’t matter if you just started out, or have been in the business for a long time because you have to keep marketing. The thing many people don’t understand is times are much different now, and you have to battle others to get ahead in the line so use what’s available to you. The fact so many social media websites popped up is a good thing, but can work against you too. Let me explain this a bit better…
Years ago starting a blog, writing content and generating a following was easier. It was simply based on first come first serve, and the search engines didn’t have complicated algorithms as they do now. This meant you were ranked based on start date, and how many keywords you had in your content relevant to a search phrase. However, now you have over 200 rankings factors which determine your place within the SERP’s. Here are just some of them:
- Content freshness
- Depp linking
- Domain authority
- Page authority
- Social signals
- Internal linking
- Keywords
- LSI
- Long-tail
- And many others
Since things have gotten more complicated I encourage all of you to try different marketing avenues available to you. For example, start investing in banner advertising, CPC, content marketing and others. This will allow you to outshine your competition within your niche if necessary. A lot of this will obviously depend on your niche, and how many others are dominating within it, but choosing to actively market will increase the likelihood of conversions. Start by doing a quick search in Google, and creating a list of marketing platforms. This way you can start to try different ones and keeping track of the long term conversions.
Retention vs Acquisition
As a blogger you have to pay close attention to customer retention, and acquisition. For those of you NOT familiar with these two phrases, let’s take a quick look at each:
Acquisition: This is where you continue to grow your visitors by getting new customers.
Retention: This is where you hold on to the visitors you already have visiting your website.
It’s important you continue to do both, but more importantly focus on your existing customer or reader base. Why? If you start to lose readers, this means you have a deeper underlying problem. It means you have a problem with new content bring published or have LOST the quality of your product or services. No one wants to lose customers especially when they have been active readers of your blog for several years…right?
Here is my point….
One of the biggest blunders I’ve see bloggers make is NOT focus on acquisition and retention enough. They take visitors for granted thinking they’ll stick around forever once active readers of your blog. This mentality will get you in trouble in the long run because losing readers mean you are failing to do something important which you did when starting.
As a blog owner make sure you keep a close eye on why your blog grew, and going forward make sure you continue to focus on the same things.
Delaying to Grow or Blog
For my final point I want to discuss something very important. You have to make sure you blog and write content every day. We are at a time where we should be focusing on content marketing because this is what search engines and people are looking for. More people turn to the internet to find solutions to their problems, and they expect to find them when searching through Google, etc. As a matter of fact, Google has made this clear numerous times over the last few years. Let’s take a look at what they’ve done in recent years.
Algorithm Changes – You’ve seen more changes in the recent years then ever before. These are focused at bettering search results, removing poor quality sites, and those which use manipulation to rank keywords.
Ranking Factors – You’ve seen a huge change in what now ranks your content compared to before. For example, more emphasis is given to content, social signals, domain and page authority.
Bounce Rate – Google tracks user experience by looking at bounce rate differently. They time pages more accurately which will show them the quality of your content.
Internal Linking – More important now then ever before because a solid linking patterning increases the authority of other pages. Google looks for “total” authority instead of single page when ranking websites.
These are just some examples however you can imagine how many other factors matter when ranking your website. I recommend you have a solid content writing schedule so you can keep writing up-to-date content. Google has build their reputation by focusing on providing accurate information, and one way to achieve this is by writing content people actually want to read.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have a solid list of common blunders made by bloggers, it’s important you start implementing what you’ve learned above. Start by reading over this content one more time and making notes along the way so you understand the material. Many times, you’ll still continue to make the same mistakes because you haven’t understood what I’ve mentioned above. This can be avoided by readings the content above one more time, and writing out the fundamentals in point form.
The next time you write content you can start applying these strategies and always have a way to track statistics. The thing you should do is track what’s been working so you can continue to use those and avoid the ones which produce little results. Remember, in the final point I discussed the importance of retention and acquisition which should always be your ultimate focus. Keeping both these elements in mind will allow you to keep writing content to build a bigger following, and keep those who have already been loyal readers.
Here’s something else which I forgot to mention above that I’ll go over now…
Social media is a great way to keep building readership because it taps into a huge amount of people everyday. However, you have to know how to use certain networks. For example, find out how to use social media tools which allow you to focus people in your niche. In Twitter, I use a tool called hashtagify.com which gives you a list of the MOST popular #hashtags in your niche. You start by typing in your main keyword, and the tool will generate a table of popular #hashtags which you can then implement into your tweet. For those of you unaware: #hashtags are Twitters way to sort information being shared on their network, and it’s been a valuable way so far. Learn how to use different strategies for other networks so you can get your content found on social networks which will generate enormous traffic to your blog.
Remember, having a tracking tool which will tell you where your traffic is coming from so you can continue to use that avenue going forward for blog growth. At the same time, you should be focusing on blogger retention through existing content marketing, etc.
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