With the internet market saturated with content, it is becoming increasingly difficult to create stand-out blogs which can be monetized easily. It is no longer enough to write what you’re passionate about in the hopes that it will draw enough traffic to sustain a stable income. But it is still not impossible to create a blog from scratch and grow it to a point where it starts to generate a predictable income. Whether you’re just starting out or if you already have a blog, these 7 tips will help you grow your website and see a significant uptick in traffic.
- Find Your Niche:
This might seem like an obvious one but it is the basis for everything that will follow. If you pick the wrong niche, you will waste valuable time and effort on writing blogs which don’t generate a lot of traffic. Pick a niche with a relatively low difficulty rate and medium-to-high volume. You can use tools like Google Trends to see which keywords have had a recent rise in traffic to start building your library of blogs. Remember, blogs are fluid entities and you can always change the content to fit a slightly different niche depending on how the content is performing. Pick a niche that’s broad enough to have a sizeable audience but not so broad that you’ll be competing with large media companies.
- Backlinks, Backlinks, Backlinks:
In order to rank high on Google, your blog must appear as an authoritative source of information. One of the major ways google determines authority is by gauging how many other sites have referenced your blog on their articles. In order to link your blog to other sites, reach out to various blogs in your area of expertise and ask to guest post on their sites in exchange for backlinks, use your existing leverage to perform link exchanges with other websites and maintain lasting relationships with these media managers as it is always easier to ask for favours from people you know. Remember, links are a currency so you have to be willing to offer something in return for a website to backlink to your blog.
- Search Intent:
When doing keyword research for your next blog, look for either transactional or informational keywords. These are keywords which google recognizes as being used when people are looking for information on a product or service and potentially looking to make a purchase. An example of this would be “best cameras for vlogging” or “top podcast hosting sites”. Searches like these indicate to Google that these customers are looking to either buy a camera or subscribe to a podcast hosting site. A camera blog could use this information to make a comprehensive list of the best cameras for vlogging. Then add affiliate links, start link building with other sites and once the blog starts ranking high enough on Google, they have the leverage to start monetizing the blog. Once published, this content can then be altered on an as-needed basis depending on market trends.
- Write Big Comprehensive Blogs:
Is your blog about vacuum cleaners? Great. Make a list of the 50 best vacuum cleaners on the market right now. Like music? Make a list of the 100 best albums of the year. Comprehensive, well-thought-out content signals to Google that the author knows what they are talking about and helps raise your authority score. Think about big publications like Rolling Stone or GQ. They publish big, comprehensive ranking lists such as ‘100 Greatest Rock Albums of All Time’ because they know that this list will act as a repository of data on the internet where people will come to make a purchase or information decision which helps their authority score. This method also gives you leverage when asking for backlinks since companies would be more willing to work with someone who appears to be an expert in their field and has a high authority score.
- Have a Content Pipeline:
The key to success for a blog that’s just starting out is to publish quality content on a consistent basis. This means that if you are working on it all by yourself, you would need to dedicate anywhere between 10-30 hours a week to write and publish a generous amount of content. This can start to take a toll on anyone, especially since most of us are starting blogs as side-hustles on top of our regular jobs. To make things easier, you would need to build a content pipeline: a system that consistently and reliably produces content for you. To make things easier, plan out your topics in advance, use ai software to help you push out content faster and grammar check software to auto-proofread the material. Of course, for the more seasoned of you, there is always the option of hiring a secondary writer.
- Each Blog Is Its Own Business:
Each blog has its own set of affiliate links, its own link-building history and its own unique authority score. This means that once the blogs have been published, it is imperative that one checks them regularly to ensure there are no errors on the site, the keywords being used are still ranking high enough, and most importantly the on-page content is up-to-date. Each blog can be used to link to various other products on your own site and to 3rd party sites that may have paid you to include their link on your blog. The more carefully you maintain each blog and the better you understand the nuances of each blog, the better your chance of monetizing it effectively.
- See What The Competition Is Up To:
One of the first steps you must take before starting a new blog or optimizing existing ones, is to see what other successful blogs in your sphere are up to. You must be able to decipher:
- What keywords are they using?
- What topics are they covering that you aren’t?
- What can you learn from them?
Doing this will help you plan better for the future and will give you some perspective on what the rest of the people in your industry are up to.
Optimize your website with Candybox Marketing.
And that’s it. Those are the 7 tips that should help get you started when monetizing or optimizing your blog or website. But if that seems like too much work, or you still don’t feel confident enough to manage your blogs, we can help do it for you. Contact Candybox Marketing to see how our digital marketing team can help optimize your content to ensure a higher traffic rate to your sight which leads to more sales conversions.
