Ready, Set, Blog!

“What separates the winning blogs from the ones that are left in a cloud of dust?

There are many action steps to creating a successful blog, but the five below really are critical to success. Focus on these and you will be off to a flying start.

Number One: Be The Giver.

Your blog should not be about you.

Blogs are for your readers and visitors and your job is to help them with their needs and their problems. While you can share from your life experience and knowledge, our role as bloggers is to educate and guide them to their own success.

As a guide, you show them how to get from where they are now. to where they want to be as quickly and easily as possible. Do this consistently and visitors will be attracted to your site and subscribe to your blog.

Number Two: Know Your Audience.

This is crucial.

Who is your ideal reader?

Are they a man or a woman?

Are they under 30 or over 65 ?

“Are they local, on the other side of the planet, or scattered all over the place?

What keeps them awake at night?

“Is it money worries, pain, searching for a soulmate, wanting to release weight? “What are they always searching for?

The more you know about your ideal customer, the better you will be able to relate to them. Top bloggers know exactly who visits their site and exactly who they want to visit. They create their content and their offers to the exact needs of that audience.

Number Three: Customer Transformation (Journey)

Every customer begins their journey “Wondering about” and then as they grow and learn from your guidance they arrive at “Understanding.”

Imagine the customer journey is like going to work on a train. There are usually multiple stops along the way before they arrive safely at their destination.

Instead of a train journey though, the customer journey commences when they need information, continues as they receive information, and finishes when they can apply this information successfully to do what they wanted to do eg create a blog.

As their guide, you need to understand and educate them on that journey.

So what have we learned so far?

You need to be a guide, know your audience and their wants and needs, understand the journey they are on and help them move forward along their individual path until they reach their goal.

Always remember, the journey is about them. Not you.

“So what else will they need on their journey?

They will need quality content.

They will need to buy products.

They’ll need help and advice.

Help to provide these things to them and your blog will take off!

Number Four: speak to their pain points.

Every piece of content you create should help the reader solve a problem. This could mean sharing experiences from your own life, but it always means finding the best way to help the reader resolve theirs, not your own.

Understand their pains and desires, create content that helps resolve these and they will respond in droves.

Number Five Over Deliver.

Most people and bloggers are afraid to share what they really know.

They keep this knowledge trapped inside and guard it as if their life depended on it.

They release very little free content on their blog.

They believe sharing this knowledge will hurt their sales.

The fact is you need to give, to get. It is the Law of Reciprocity, but that’s another story.

Remember, you are developing a relationship with your reader and your free information is proof that you want to help them. Not just any old drivel, but high-quality information you would otherwise be willing to pay for. Do this well, the customer will then learn to like, know and trust you and sales will follow.

If you do these five things, your blog will be profitable and a lot of fun for you as well.

Helping people makes you feel awesome!

Like some more help? Then click here and download The Blog Monetization Checklist for Free!

Believe in yourself, always

Geoff

This is a guest post from Geoff Farrugia if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.