I started blogging way back in early 2007. At that time, I didn’t even know blogger.com or blogspot even existed. I used a blogging platform hosted by Friendster, a social network similar to Facebook now. At the time I mainly blogged about my life and the audience was clearly just my friends. Then came my bundle of joy and I decided to put my blogging activities in hiatus.
Almost a year later, my husband and a dear friend of mine told me that they really enjoyed my writing and suggested I should start blogging again. My sister-in-law helped setting up my personal blog, and I started blogging about our family. The main purpose of this blog was to share our son’s milestone to our family who live outside the country.
In 2009 I happened to experience one of the hardest moments in my life. I struggled so much about being a new mom, a good wife, and simply balancing my time between work and life without turning into what I called “Momzilla”. It sounds really cliche, but I was just having a lot of emotional turmoil. At one point I was able to breakaway from all the problems back to somewhat normal again. I thought I couldn’t be the only one who’s having issues after the arrival of baby in the family. I bet lots of people are having the same problem whether it’s relationship with spouse, career, financial, and so on. And that’s how mommylicious.net was born. For the next two years I blog part time and have accomplished:
- 500+ Unique Visitors. Sometimes I wonder if people (other than my friends and family) really do read my blog, but I clearly don’t have 500 friends
- Perks. I’ve gotten free Ringling Brother’s tickets for my entire family and received lots of samples from PR companies among other things
- Writing gigs. I have gained the privileged of working with big and small companies to do PR and be compensated for it
- Got countless invitations for fashion shows and sample sales, something that I haven’t gotten the opportunity to go
- Network and develop friendship with other blogger
For someone who only blog part time, I viewed all the above as an accomplishment. Sure I could have done more, but I also enjoy working and spending time with my family. So what does it take for a no-name blogger to gain exposures?
1. Pick your niche and write about what other people want to read
Nobody, other than your friends and family, cares about what you eat for lunch or whether your kids spill something on the carpet. Write lots of tips and how to, something that people would search on the Internet. Once you develop readership and your readers get to know you personally, you might want to throw a little bit of personal stories here and there, but stay focus within your niche. This blog is somewhat like a Women’s Lifestyle Magazine. You will see fashion, recipes, suggested places to eat, relationship, career, and parenting. Occasionally I throw in current events that people talk about but still stay within my niche (you will not find me writing about the death of Osama Bin Laden).
2. Stay true to yourself
Copycatting is easy but pretty soon your readers will find that out. Coupon blog is probably by far the hottest blog out there and they gain readership and PR offers more than any other type of blogs. I’m not a couponer, I barely look at the prices when shopping. I will never write about deals and coupons because that’s not who I am. You should write what you are passionate about and your readers will eventually find you.
3. Blog everyday
This is by far one of the most challenging tasks for me. On average I probably blog about 3 - 4 times a week. Notice I blogged almost everyday this week and I barely cooked dinner for my family. You should blog everyday because Search Engine loves it and you might lose your readers if you don’t. What I find really helpful is creating series of blog topis for a week in my personal calendar. This way, I sort of know what I’m going to write about and eliminate all the brainstorming.
4. Keyword Optimization
When writing a post, be sure to check keywords optimization and insert it within the body of your post, titles and tags. You use Google Adwords to research keywords popularity. This will make it easier for Search Engine to crawl your blog.
5. Network Network Network
Join blogging community to network with other bloggers. Sometimes you will find inspiration through other blogger. It doesn’t mean you should copycat their work. For example, you might read another blogger write about their opinion about Tiger Mom. You can also write
your opinion
about Tiger Mom from
your experience and point of view
. Also, be sure to comment on other blogs and response when people commenting on yours. Networking with PR firms is also very beneficial. I recently was invited by Kroger along with other Columbus bloggers to attend a short session about its new Fuel Program. It was raining and the location was all the way in downtown area. I really didn’t feel like going, but I took the opportunity to network with other blogger and and company’s representatives. There were only two bloggers (including me) and the company’s reps. I ended up getting a free gas and a big bag full of goodies as well as a gift card. I didn’t expect to receive these items, but I went with a good business intention. The stuffs I got was just a bonus because the connection I built with these people is much more valuable.
6. Be a nice person
People in general like to be associated with nice folks. Don’t mock other bloggers, don’t complain too much about your husband or kids, don’t gossip about someone you knew on your blog. Maybe once in a while you can rant and raves on your blog, but if you do that too much, people will find it too depressing.
7. Utilizing social media
I find Twitter works better for me than Facebook. Most people use Facebook just for friends that they know personally. So posting your blog on your walls only gets to your circle of friends. It’s definitely a start, but you should expand it further if you want to gain more readership. A lot of blogger use combination of the two and it works really well too. I personally found it’s really annoying when businesses post too many ads on their walls. In addition to Facebook, you can’t separate your Facebook page from your personal account. I find a lot of blogs that I “like” but ended up not knowing you they are because it shows up as personal account. Twitter is very useful when you announce something, such as giveaways, promotion, etc.
8. Guest blogging and becoming a Contribute Writer
Promote your blog through guest blogging and becoming contributors on websites such as
ehow.com
,
examiner.com
or
macaronikid.com
. Not only you can insert your name, websites and keywords associated to your blog on the signature of your post, you can also practice your writing skills to be on a more professional level.
9. Promoting your blog offline
Depending on your niche, you want to promote your blog offline by attending trade show or exhibition. For example if your blog is about handcrafting, you might want to attend arts and crafts show in your area. Give out business cards to vendors as they might be interested in giving you samples for giveaways.
10. Don’t burn yourself!
There are times when you feel sick and tired of writing, lose inspiration or simply get burned. Don’t let this happened to you as it did to me! Take a break for a day or two, shake it off and get back in writing again. It takes a while to build readership and the last thing you want to do is to start all over again from losing your readers.
As you can see, blogging takes a lot of time and hard work. There is no such thing as easy money. If you want to earn income from your blog, you have to treat it like a business. Has blogging earned me enough income to quit my job? Absolutely not. Will I ever quit my job and blog full time? Probably not, because I do love my job and profession. Do I think my blog needs a little more “oomph”? I think so. Right now I’m just enjoying writing what I’m passionate about… one blog at a time!
Tags: how to build blog , promoting blog
