Throughout my blogging career, I have learned a lot from the most popular blogs online. I researched relevant niche blogs to see what they were doing different and what attributed to their massive success. Even though I have several blogs, my primary focus has always been “SEO” and “online marketing”. For over 7 years, I have skimmed online keeping a close eye on my competition comparing them to understand the trend better. It’s safe to say I have learned a lot and this has allowed me to grow my blog over the last several years. However, here the cool thing…
I’ve noticed what has worked for me has been the same factors which have contributed to the success of others in different niches too. I can break down the entire elements into the following:
- High-quality content
- Fuel Curiosity
- Know your audience
If you can conquer these “3” factors and perfect them, then you will see growth in your business and conversions. Let’s look at these factors in more depth.
High-Quality Content
You’ve heard that content is “King” and I have to completely agree with this. There was a time however where I thought quantity would outshine quality. The funny thing is many still believe in this and this is causing their growth to be stagnant. Some of the hottest “SEO” and “online marketing” blogs are posting 2-3 times a month, but the content would be incredible. There are some posting 3-4 times per week and they have made sure they dedicated enormous time to quality. Once you start making money, you can hire writer’s emphasizing quality and this can help with keeping the quality barrier higher than normal. I’ve seen both done by popular blogs and they have been able to flourish when others have failed.
Recent changes to Google algorithm has also been said to emphasize the importance of quality. Some of my content consisting of 2, 500+ words has been able to outrank others in a very short period of time. The point I’m making is to succeed where others have failed you should focus on high-quality in-depth content.
Fuel Curiosity
What does this exactly mean? I wanted to find out so did some research online. Here’s what I found…
Your better off growing your blog if you are able to provide answers to questions which people are curious about and this can be very tough in the beginning. You need to know what answers people are looking for in your niche and find out what they are constantly thinking about. In “SEO” I figured people are always looking for ways to rank their websites higher within the SERP’s. However, the real question was how and what does it take to rank websites on the 1st page of Google? I decided to create my blog RankTactics.com to answer those EXACT questions. My blog has interviews with the experts, complete guides, and even case studies on search engine optimization.
Over the years, I added some cool tools to help people research data, track and generate traffic to make it easier on them going forward. The journey is ongoing and I’ve learned a lot along the way.
If you want to succeed online then you have to tap into the curiosity of your audience. You’ll notice the best performing blogs have been able to do just that and have grown enormously over the last several years.
Know Your Audience
In order for you to implement the two elements above you need to know your audience. If you have been blogging for years than you probably have a good idea, however, if not, then you can utilize the following to get a better idea.
Research Your Competition-
One of the best ways to find out about your audience is to research your competition. If you are in the same niche as someone else and they’ve been around a long time, then you know their data applies to you. Skim through popular blogs in your niche looking over content, social accounts, visitors, comments, etc.
Quick Survey –
If you have been around for a few months, then add a quick survey on your homepage asking visitors to fill it out. Even better collect email addresses and shoot them a quick follow-up asking for their opinion in exchange for a FREE eBook relevant to your niche. In the survey ask questions like:
- Age
- Location
- Interests
- Feedback
Google Analytics
A FREE script you can install into your backend and awesome to find out EXACTLY what you need to about your audience. Google Analytics if a “time” script meaning it needs to run for several months to get a good idea of your audience. However, after 60-90 days you can find out pretty much anything you need about your audience. I recommend connecting Google Webmaster Tools with GA so you can find out about search queries, landing pages and source. However, the different tabs will provide you additional information like:
- Location
- Devices
- Pages
- Traffic source
- Bounce rate
- And much more
You can use this data to analyze the fields you need to grow your business and understand your audience better.