Over the last 3 years I created 2 blogs, my first (Pronet Advertising) is on marketing and my second (Quick Sprout) is on business. Although both of my blogs do well, I made my share of mistakes. I am not a big believer in regrets and I have learned a lot over the last 3 years, but if I started all over again, I would do things very differently.
Don’t blog about news
Within your industry there are probably dozens of blogs that write about the news. So why do the same? I know blogging about the news can get you more traffic, but it doesn’t provide your readers with much value.
Pronet Advertising was accepted into Google news a few years ago, this meant that it could appear really high in the Google search results for almost any search term. Due to this, I would analyze Google trends and write on things that were hot. This was a great way to get tons of traffic, but my readers didn’t care to read blog posts that were news related.
Pick a niche
My first blog was about marketing, the problem with that niche was that there were too many blogs that already discussed marketing. Sooner or later I realized this and started blogging about social media marketing instead of general marketing. After I did this, my blog became so popular that it got into the Technorati 100.
Now I don’t have a niche with Quick Sprout, but if I had, it would be more popular. Make sure you pick a niche with your blog.
Pick a big niche
As I mentioned above, my first blog was about social media marketing. Quick Sprout also had a niche at one point and it was personal branding. Both of these niches were so small, that I got tired of blogging on them. With my first blog, I just stopped blogging on it. With Quick Sprout, I ended up changing the blog from being on personal branding to business.
You want to pick a niche, but it can’t be too small. If it is, you may run out of content ideas.
Be passionate
I wasn’t too passionate about social media marketing, which is why I stopped blogging on Pronet Advertising. If you aren’t passionate about what you are writing on, your readers will be able to tell. Just look at the content on Pronet Advertising, you can tell by reading it that I didn’t care about the blog.
Don’t burn yourself out
When I started blogging, I used to blog twice a day. I got burned out and felt that I was writing too much. Blogging shouldn’t seem like a chore, you should enjoy it. I now blog once a week on average and I love doing it. Don’t force yourself to blog to often or else you will get burned out.
Make money
There is nothing wrong with making money. If you are spending a lot of time blogging, you should be rewarded from it. With Pronet Advertising, I made money from ads and consulting deals that came through the blog. With Quick Sprout, I am not making any money from it, which is fine because I don’t care for the money I could make from ads.
If you are in a position where you don’t need money, that’s great. If you aren’t, you better figure out a way to make money off of your blog.
Don’t spend too much on a design
I spent around $5,000 getting Pronet Advertising designed. What I didn’t realize is that you don’t need to have a cool design to have a popular blog. If you look at some of the most popular blogs on the web, such as Boing Boing, there isn’t anything special when it comes to their design.
The main thing you should be concerned about when it comes to your blog’s design, is that it needs to be usable and simple.
Have a unique design
With Quick Sprout, I am using a generic blog design. It looks great, but too many people are using it. This is making my blog blend in with thousands of other blogs. Because of this, I have two options:
- Modify the theme and make it look different
- Change the design
Write detailed content
If you look at the blog posts that I wrote when I first started Quick Sprout, you will notice that they aren’t too detailed. Until the last month or two I continued to write sub standard blog posts and because of this Quick Sprout wasn’t growing. Once I started writing detailed blog posts, my traffic increased and you started to enjoy reading the blog.
Respond to every commentor
The biggest mistake I made was taking commentors for granted. If I responded to every commentor since the first day I started blogging, I would have built tons of relationships. After I started to respond to every comment, I got to know a ton of people on a personal level, such as you. 
Build relationships with other bloggers
If you want your blog to be popular, you better get to know other bloggers. The easiest way to make your blog popular is to get other bloggers to blog about you and your blog. Sadly, I didn’t figure this out until a year into blogging.
After I figured this out I started building relationships with many of the top bloggers. When I launched Quick Sprout I told these bloggers and they naturally blogged on it. This lead the blog to have a 1000 RSS subscribers within the the first 24 hours of launch.
Pick the right blogging platform
My first blog was on Movable Type and this one is on WordPress. I had tons of problems with Movable Type such as comment spam and worst of all it wasn’t easy for me to make changes. Due to this I had to spend a lot of money on Movable Type developers. Once I switched to WordPress I was able to do everything myself. This saved me a lot of money and time.
Don’t write for Digg
Pronet Advertising did very well because it got on Digg a lot. Digg traffic caused the blog to grow like a wild fire, but it caused me to lose my core reader base. On the other hand Quick Sprout hasn’t got on Digg more than once and I have a very strong core user base. This is the main reason Quick Sprout has tons of reader interaction compared to other blogs.
Tell your story
Open up to your readers by telling them your life story. I didn’t do this during my first few years of blogging, but now I have a very detailed about page. I wish I did this from day one because it creates a stronger bond between you and I.
If you don’t have a detailed about page, you should consider writing one. Don’t be shy, make sure you open up to your readers.
It’s not about you
Who doesn’t want to write about their accomplishments? Bragging may sound cool, but people don’t like it when you brag. I did this a bit when I started Quick Sprout, but luckily Darren Rowse from Problogger set me straight and showed me why it isn’t wise to brag.
If you want to do well in the blogosphere, write with the intent of educating, not to brag.
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The thing I like about this post is that you tell people things you wish you had known and then talk about how you make the same mistakes here.
Neil, do you ever learn? Haha.
I do, but sometimes I make the same mistakes a few times before I learn.
Neil, you know it’s way easier to learn from other people’s mistakes than it is your own, right?
Keep it up here, every article you write anymore is in-depth and well thought out – I’d say you got the hang of things.
Matt
Sadly sometimes I don’t learn from other people’s mistakes when I should have.
Haaa! I learned to learn from other people’s mistakes a long time ago (which is why I asked you to write more about yours). People will gladly tell you about their success, which is great! However, learning from their mistakes is equally important.
It is also harder to learn from other people’s mistakes, so you need to train yourself to do so.
That’s funny. I have actually learned from others but still did what I was strictly told not to do…I guess I just sometimes had to learn the lesson for myself.
I am the same way. I am getting better at learning from others, but it takes years to master it.
I am in the same boat… I won’t believe it until I try and make the mistake and then I say to myself, I am an idiot.
I guess some of us have to learn the hard way.
You have to make mistakes to learn from them!
You do, but you can also learn from other people’s mistakes.
Sometimes we are just compelled to act on our intuition, its human nature I guess (which I believe through practice) could be altered.
Isn’t that the truth. We do get better as we learn more and become wiser.
Age is a blessing. I can’t wait till I am 10 years older because I will be a lot wiser.
That’s a great way at looking at it. Hopefully if I can increase my “wise” influence (friends and reading) I can become wiser in a shorter amount of time without having to wait for age. lol
Those are 2 great ways. I am not a big reader… most of my knowledge comes from my friends.
Age is not always a blessing Neil. You would be surprised how many idiots are still out there who repeat the same mistake over and over and does not seem to get wiser.
You could be right. I just feel you get wiser as you get older. Or at least from what I have seen.
It can. I have altered it… it just took me years.
I dad the same mistakes Neil, I need to make it up for my blogs!
It isn’t too late. Get out there and fix those mistakes.
Always have time to fix mistakes, if you don’t you look like a fool.
It’s definitely easier to learn from someone elses mistakes, but we all get a little hard headed, and when we do learn from our own we usually don’t forget it…LOL
Exactly. Over time we learn to learn from someone elses mistakes, but it isn’t an easy thing to do.
You’re so right, but a few bumps along the… well it makes for a good ride
LOL….that’s so true. Great way of looking at it.
That are what experiences are made of.
If you check out Richard Branson’s latest book, ‘Business stripped bare’; in each successful business strategy Branson found the guy who tried and failed to ask him what went wrong.
The key that I will take from this is that successful blogs usually educate people about a niche subject.
My personal blog has been an experiment for the last few months to see how to blog. Geographically I am in an area(ireland) that is very remote both physically and digitally. Perhaps a good thing in some ways because there is less competition.
Thankyou for a great post
I will check out the book.
I have just recently started commenting to everyone on my blog. That is also something I wish I had known to do when I first started. :p
It is really effective. Plus you will notice many of those commentors will come back and comment again.
That’s funny I really didn’t ever do that until recently. Actually you’ve inspired be to do that. And it’s been quite effective.
It’s really the one of the main points of the medium of blogging. Interaction and communication and conversation (2 way)
Yep, blogging isn’t a one way street. Let me know how interacting with your readers works out for you.
Neil, great post and insight. On one of my blogs I tried blogging about News and found it too hard to keep up. I like your advice about responding to every commenter as well. That’s something I’ve done as well and I think it helps make a connection between the blogger and reader and allows each to benefit. The blogger because of the connection to the readers and for the readers because they feel like their voice is heard.
Blogging on news is very difficult. It takes a lot of work and in many cases you have to do a few news related blog posts a day.
That’s so true. The only news I talk about now is either related to our business and site, or I try to tie trendy news to our business to bring in some burst of traffic.
If it is working for you and getting you sales, more power to you.
Yeah it’s been an interesting test. I even created this little system I call PR PPC, and I write about hot news stories that I can relate to my business that are the top stories in Yahoo or Google news (buzz & trends) and drive cheap traffic with PPC marketing. Anyway, it’s still being tested…it’s fun.
Leverage Google Trends.
Plus there is so much paralysis of news analysis that is already going on. Unless the analysis itself is made a niche and broadcasted it is truly a hard endeavor.
It is a skill to be able to cover news effectively. Sadly, I don’t have that skill.
Two things which really impressed me are –
1) Your reply to every comments (I know I will get reply from your end for this comments as well
, and that’s we feel that we are attached with this blog through you)
2) Build relationships with other bloggers – yep every other successful blogger making compliments about you and showing your name, like shoemoney and others.
At last we got something from your keyboard.
You should try building relationships. It can do wonders for you.
I think building relationships can be key to bringing back commenters. I know that when I get my comments responded to, I feel more motivated to come back and ask more questions because I know I will get an answer.
Even in life, building relationships is very important.
I agree with you. I learned his steps on replying every single comment on my blog too. I have increase my rss numbers and traffic tremendously. I suggest to use “Comment Email Responder” plugin in wordpress to let the commentator knows that he got a reply for his comment.
I’ll have to check out that plugin.
Great! Let me know how it works for you.
Hey that’s cool. Didn’t know about that plugin. thanks.
You’re welcome. I’m sure you will love it!
Yeah, I will try to play with is a little today after I finish up some stuff.
It isn’t bad…. I played with it a bit, but I think I would get tons of complaints if I used it.
Considering as of this comment you have 324 comments on this post alone, you’re probably right…lol.
Yea, the page is slow to load. I have to figure something out soon…
I’ll have to check but I thought that there was an option to show comments by page…
What I mean is that once it gets to let’s say 50 comments it will say click here to go to see the next page of comments.
I am not sure how that will effect your success of getting lots of people to comment, but it’s an option. I think it’s just in the WP admin.
Yeah I have seen that somewhere too…but I can’t remember if it was a plugin or a part of the normal WP admin. Now I am curious…not that it totally matters.
There are decent options, but I like all of my comments on 1 page.
Thanks for sharing!
I think it may get irritating for commentors.
ehm neil, you got wrong url boingboing.net there … it leads to adult content. lol
Crap! Thanks for letting me know.
ooooooooooh I am tellllllin’. Neil’s lookin’ at ta tas…
LOL
ROFL. It was just a typo.
And thanks to you that they have got good amount of traffic. I surprised to see such kind of websites, you prefered. But photos were really hot
Yea, they probably got a subscriber or two from me.
LOL…that’s so funny. I was just crackin up again about that. It’s all good Neil.
A few thoughts…
Blogging for news and general Internet trends can be profitable when done selectively. You can even work with both regular readers and one time search engine visitors effectively. It’s generally better to have a focus like you’re talking about in your niche selection that trying to be all over the place.
Passionate? If you’re mainly targeting search engine visitors you don’t have to be but it may get boring to you and you’ll encounter a degree of burnout.
Simple design? I agree that it’s generally a good idea, especially if you’re seeking search engine traffic. Some visual eye-candy does help you brand your site and retain regular readers though.
Lastly, I agree, building relationships with other bloggers is important for a flagship blog, meaning any blog that’s not being used exclusively for marketing purposes.
Eye candy isn’t bad at all. I think you can do this with your logo and maybe color schemes.
It really comes down to deciding what is the one main purpose or focus of your blogging and setting up the blog to be successful at that one purpose. When you stay focused like that it will help you to decide exactly how to run your blog, set it up, post to it, and the like.
There’s a lot of truth in that. Like if you’re gonna have a blog that is for Adsense then the design the traffic sources and what not have to be set up to be success with Adsense.
If you’re running a blog that is to bring in traffic and cultivate it from social networks then you have to have plugins, blogpost post, and the like to compliment that.
If you site is to generate leads then it has to have mechanisms in place to do that.
Great thought Ken.
Yep. You have to figure out your goals and then how you can solve them.
Good point. For each blogger it is going to vary.
I think I’ve been struggling with who my blog is written for lately. I’ve covered kind of a wide range of topics – I’ve put a lot of work into my posts, striving to make them resources, but at the end of the day I’m not attracting links based most centrally on the fact that I haven’t been great about actively building relationships with other bloggers.
Having “something to say” isn’t enough – you’ve got to know who you’re writing for and how you can help them.
Then, you’ve got to have a network of other publishers who appreciate your input – and will link to it.
This post has me asking myself some important questions – so thank you for that. Now to arrive at some answers…
No problem. Hopefully it helps you solve your problems.
Going out and asking for links is great too. You should have a mix of links.
Links from exchanging, links from having good content and people linking to it, links from articles, and so on.
Link exchanging can also hurt you. Be careful…
Very true. I try and keep the reciprocal link ratio low.
Or ideally you shouldn’t do reciprocal link building.
I’m very interested in starting a humor blog. I created one on MySpace and had a couple dozen regular readers, but I was stumped as to how to grow the site.
My goal is to make money doing it. I’m considering WordPress, but I’ve been told that having the /wordpress at the end of your url is a negative, and that I should shell out the money to host a .com site, and upload a wordpress blog.
Any suggestions about how to get rolling would be great.
Bob,
You can’t monetize a Wordpress.com blog, they don’t allow it. You’ll need to have self-hosted WordPress to use advertising and to sell stuff. There’s nothing wrong with having a blog there though if you don’t intend on making money with it.
It won’t cost you much to host your own though, about $10 for the domain and $10 or so a month for good hosting. You can find plenty of tutorials around on how to set it up and optimize it.
The main problem I see for you is that a humor blog is a difficult to make money with, just ask Daniel Lyons. People come to be entertained, not buy stuff. Probably the best way to make money from a humor blog would be to use it as a springboard to sell a humor book or video.
Good catch. It is funny how WordPress themselves monetize the blogs, but you can’t.
Maybe you can get away with affiliate links.
I have always thought that was “odd”. When I first started using a blog hosted on their servers I launched a cluster of them at once and they shut me down…I was like dange WP….my bad.
That’s ok you live and you learn.
The funny part is how they only show ads for IE users.
Thanks for the reply, Frank!
When you say “self-hosted,” you mean securing a .com name through someone such as GoDaddy?
If I do that, I should be able to attach a blog to it, and slap some ads on there, correct?
That’s right Bob.
I’ve found it better to buy the domain at GoDaddy or NameCheap and then use a good hosting service, like Host Gator, that includes cPanel and Fantastico. These are server side programs that will make your life a lot easier when it comes to setting up blogs and other sites.
I personally buy domains on Godaddy and use Media Temple for hosting.
Yes, as well as hosting the blog on your own server.
ok, now we’re getting beyond my comfort zone. How would I get my own server to host on?
…my noob is showing.
Go to bluehost.com or any hosting sign and just sign up. I personally use Media Temple, but it is complicated.
I use Godaddy or Namecheap for domains and Hostgator for hosting also.
But I wouldn’t just slap some ads up there just yet. Get some traffic to the site and quality traffic. Then put your ads into the hot spots.
You don’t want the site to be seen as a “for Adsense only” site. Get some links to the site and a few post on the site first and get a better quality score.
Then slap some ads up. lol
Godaddy isn’t bad, I just hate them for hosting.
I bought my domain through godaddy and have the ability to host unlimited domains through them for 150 GB of disk space and 15 G data transfer bandwidth for $6/month. Very good deal to start up.
They do a great job of upselling. They are always asking me to change to their hosting and for a discount. I just like the Gator… lol
I think that is how they make most of their money. Upselling is the key.
Yeah Amazon and Godaddy are great at upselling.
I remember when I first came online and I started buying domain names there, for the first 10 or so domains I couldn’t figure out how in the heck I wanted to buy a $9 domain and it kept turning into a $15 domain by the time I was done.
LOL…ROFL. I laugh about it now but then I was like, what the heck is going on. They just kept upselling and addons and cross sells…LOL
Yea, I always buy more crap from Amazon because they do a good job of showing related products.
It is a good deal, but their hosting isn’t as good as Media Temple.
Just pop up the blog and start. The key is to have something different than the other humor blogs. You need something cool and useful that really separates you from the crowd.
Thanks for the reply, Neil! And super-fast too.
Can you give me an example of “cool and useful” that’s helped you in the past? Or somehow elaborate how “useful” pertains to a humor blog?
I don’t have a link off hand, but break.com does cool humor videos. Unlike some other video sites, they make their own videos.
It is easy. If you buy my affiliate link in hosting, I can guide you on wordpress installation with all nessesary and useful plugins with advertising options. I can even guide you where to find advertisers, of course it is not easy to find advertisers at the beginning. Maybe, selling affiliates would be good choice while building more pages, traffic and rankings.
If you use bluehost, I believe they have a one click WordPress install.
I’m using Hostgator. I install wordpress using fantastico with one click too.
Yeah that’s one of the really cool features I like about Hostgator. But I have heard a lot of great stuff about Bluehost.
I always wanted to try bluehost. Will be monitoring it for any special discount rate.
I hear that. Try a search to for discount codes on Yahoo or Google to. Might find something there : )
Thanks for the tip. Every penny saved, adds up!
Bluehost has worked well for some of my friends. I have only tried Media Temple.
Thanks for sharing. It looks like you had a good experience with them.
Before I get into how you can begin blogging for money, I want to let you know that it is certainly possible for you to start a free blog at Blogger.com and begin doing so.
Yea, blogger isn’t bad but if your blog gets popular it sucks to be stuck on that platform.
Just thought you should know that there is a typo in your link to Boing Boing… sends you to an adult site boingboint.net
Thanks! I fixed the link.
I really like this post Neil. Every point is really true.
I just hope that people actually take what you’ve said to heart and actually put it to good use.
Combining a niche with a topic that you’re passionate about was so important for me.
It makes blogging exciting and fun and easy. If you’re passionate about a subject naturally, you’re going to know quite a bit about the subject because you’ve read and stayed up to date on the topic because of interest.
The reality is most people will not. But if even 1 person does, I feel I have done my job.
Thanx a lot for the tips Mr. Patel. I’ll try and implement them on my blog.
No problem. Let me know if you need any help or have any questions.
Getting burned out is normal. I’m sure that every successful bloggers have experienced this in their blogging career. It’s okay to blog whenever you feel like blogging. That way, you’ll not get burned out and you’ll be happy. But the truth is, if you are serious with blogging and you plan to make it more of a career, then you need to consider doing it as a chore. This is a good way to condition yourself. When you’re used to it, it’ll be easier.
Bloggers do get burned out, but the less it happens the better. If you blog too often or don’t enjoy what you are blogging on, your chances of getting burned out are higher.
Yeah I like the responding to every comment. That is what keeps me to be coming back here.
Cool! Glad to know it is working.
I wonder if the replying to every comment generates engagement or the default checkbox to “Notify me of followup comments via email” is helping to pull users back in.
Neil, have you ever done an A/B test where the checkbox was defaulted to off and checked the impact on engagement rates? I’d be very curious on this. Thanks.
I think the check box is off. Was it checked by default for you?
It has always been checked by default for me when I am on a computer that doesn’t remember who I am. If it remembers me and already has my info in the name/email/website boxes, then it has also remembered my “notify” preference.
It is not marked as default for me.
It is no marked for me either… weird.
Thanks for the heads up Mark, I will look into it.
Thanks for this list Neil. I just recently started responding to every commenter which honestly should have been a “duh!” on my part. It’s just common courtesy.
By the way, I know Thesis is growing in popularity but I really like your site. Sure a custom design might be nice – but in the end – its the content that does the heavy lifting.
It will take more than few hours a day just to reply the comments in a blog. But, it is worth every seconds we spend over there.
It is. After a while you build a process that helps speed things up.
I know that is what is so great about this blog compared to many others. Neil responds back to almost everyone if not everyone. It give a more personal feel to the blog, and if you have a question Neil does his best to try to answer it.
Thanks Neil!
Thanks for noticing. I probably get 30 or so emails a day from Quick Sprout readers asking questions. And everyday I respond to all of them.
Yeah I am also feeling in that manner whenever I visit this blog. His smiling is showing everything.
True. Now, I just feel like it is one of my personal blog here. I like to comment see what people say about my comment and the conversation goes on till the discussion net close.
I’m touched! That really makes me want to blog more often.
The only bad thing about it is that if you have too many comments, it can take hours to reply to each one.
dear neil patel thanks for this valuable information….
i appreciate your information….
you are my inspiration for start my own blog….
You should start one! It can do a lot for your personal brand as well as for your business.
Good Tips Neil. Very soon you will see these tips actually applied on my blog.
Cool! After you make the changes, keep on learning because you will still make mistakes. Just look at me… I still make mistakes with my blog.
Good to know, will try not to make these mistakes.
And if you do, just learn from them.
Very nice post. I too wish I had known this things before. I’m on my 2nd ’serious’ blog now and I can almost smell a 3rd one around the corner
Some of the stuff you wrote about, like picking a big niche and finding your passion, hit me right between the eyes. Thanks for passing on this knowledge pebble. I’m sure it will save a few innocent souls 
No problem. Do you mind me asking why you want to start a third blog? Why not just stick with your 2nd one?
Mainly because my current blog is on a very small niche and although I totally love the topic and want to continue posting about it, there are other things pulling my attention, and I have something to say on those topics as well. I wouldn’t want to post about those things in my current blog, it wouldn’t make much sense.
Just make sure you aren’t starting another blog for no reason. There is nothing wrong with changing what your existing blog is on.
If you decide to go with the third blog… best of luck! Just like you I started another blog as well (Quick Sprout from Pronet Advertising)
Lovely tips.
I like the most about your blogging is your way to respond each and every comment.
Thanks! I just have to figure out how to do this in more of an efficient fashion.
Great suggestions, and I’ve done most of these. One thing that first confused me was your mention of a big niche, which I initially thought referred to the topic, but as I read, I understood it to be subject matter.
You see, I’m in a pretty small niche, travel/photo blog, but all of my subject matter is focused around LA. Although my niche is small, my subject matter is endless. As long as I have time to get the photos, I don’t thin I’ll ever be at a loss for subject matter………:)
You could always expand out to other regions, such as Orange County.
So many tips here. I think, it can be elaborated to 15 posts in a blog. This is why I like your blog. One of the reason might be because of no ads too.
I’m glad you like the ad free blog as well. Many people tell me to place ads, but I just don’t want to.
It is ok if you run small ad section. Maybe, affiliates like bluehost (you recommended this to one of the commentator earlier for one click wordpress installation).
Or, anything that you feel worth for all of us to have it. It is something like a win win situation. What do you think about this?
I have a business concept for Quick Sprout… you just have to wait to see what it is.
I wish I could use your “don’t burn yourself out advice” for my school work. However I think the teacher might get a little upset if I started using the strategy though.
Yea, that is just the way school is. You just have to wait for the next semester or school year.
I’m trying to wait till may to finally be done with school. Ah man I can’t wait to be done, I think that will be the best day in my life when I’m done with school.
Just watch, you will want to go back to school later. I may go back… and I hated school just like you.
Maybe but not for a long time. What are you thinking of going back to school for?
I probably won’t go back to school, but if I did, it would be for an MBA.
Ed Dale sent me a link to this article. I really like it and your blog seems great. I think I will add you to my google reader.
thank you
Clint
are you for scuba?
http://www.scubadivingsarasot.info
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In response to choosing a niche, seomoz has a blog topic flow chart that is really great. The first question is “Are you one of the best writers on the web?”, if your answer is no, it is suggested that you write about something other than politics, internet marketing, sports, or celebrity gossip.
While it is important to pick a somewhat broad topic, be aware of how competitive your topic of choice is.
Cool. Do you mind sharing the link? I couldn’t find it.
I actually think that this flow chart is pretty funny, but it is serious.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/blogging-oversaturated-market-poor-decision
Thanks for providing the link!
You are welcome. I thought that my comment was deleted, but I see that it is back now. I just came back to see if it appeared and there it is.
I think that seomoz is a resource for seo tips and ideas.
Thanks Ryan for the link. I never heard of this site before too.
SEOmoz is a great site! You should add it to your weekly reads.
Great post Neil, especially the part about writing for Digg. I know I’ve been guilty of that once in while haha.
It is tempting. You just have to avoid it unless your blog is on something Diggers love, such as gadgets.
Excellent tips, Neil. I’ve found something for myself too. Thanks!!
Cool! Best of luck on fixing your blog.
Not sure there’s much to “fix”.
But things you’ve mentioned will help me help others put together meaningful blogs. Thanks again.
Geno
Yea, it is mainly hard work that “fixes” problems.
thanks for the informative post. I started our company in 2006 but was not serious into blogging, I’d post here and there at that time I did not realize how effective of a tool it would be.
Fast forward to April 2008, I made a goal to blog everyday on a topic that a consumer trying to find information about energy efficiency, wind power, and solar panels would find beneficial. Since the middle of April 2008, I have been blogging every day, 317 days straight! And I tell you not only have gained traffic and subscribers, but received tons of press opportunities and leads that have turned into revenue.
I understand building relationships with other bloggers is important, we have a community, a social network on our website in which other bloggers in our space have been creating profiles, which allows me to build a relationships, so I understand the importance…but How else can I reach bloggers to build relationships?
There are tons of bloggers out there, who should I target, people writing about stuff in our niche or should I target top 100 bloggers also?
You are a great example of getting press from your blog. I forgot which magazine you were in, but it was a pretty big business magazine.
You should target people in your niche.
it was entrepreneur magazine, quoted about trends in clean energy sector.
anyways how do I meet more bloggers in my niche? And what if other bloggers see me as “competition”, how do I convince them its better to work with each other?
Email them. Or go to conferences that are related to solar.
Looks like a family reunion here. Both your last name are Patel. Are you guys related?
We are not related, but we are good friends. There are a lot of Patels that read this blog.
Design needs to be clean and simple. Nice post there Neil and very detailed.
I agree. But, when it comes to design, we need to make sure it have good space for advertising opportunities if we want to make good money from our blog.
Yep! I hate complicated designs. Coolness is one thing, but I rather have an ugly, usable site than a pretty, cluttered site.
Usability is the king
. Simple easy to use design is what I profess in my day job and my evening consulting practice.
One of my favorite says is “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.
Would second mt for hosting, they host my blog. I use enom for domain names simply for their “bulk” tools. Some nice tips though Neil, be yourself is mine.
Media Temple was down this morning.
That Pronent site isn’t doing that bad, it has a page rank of 6/10, so the information must be good or it might be because of the hot girl(Kate) on the front page.
I don’t think google will simply give good page rank for the hot girls.
That would be pretty funny if they did though.
I got the Pagerank from WordPress theme links. A lot of blogs used a theme I created.
It they did, Google wouldn’t be successful.
It used to be good at one time. It sucks now…
“The easiest way to make your blog popular is to get other bloggers to blog about you and your blog”.
Are you able to elaborate on this and offer a few more tips apart from just telling someone directly you have a blog?
yes, I would like to know some strategies for this also, its not as easy as it sounds. how do you get other bloggers to collaborate? What is the value proposition you offer other bloggers so they are motivated to blog about you?
For each person it is going to be different. You have to figure out what you can provide bloggers in your field. For me it was SEO because I am an SEO.
Sadly it doesn’t work for everyone.
I used to do free search engine optimization for bloggers in exchange for a blog post about me.
You can use paid post. But, getting a paid post from famous bloggers is very costly. I don’t know whether it is worth it or not.
Yea it is expensive. For me it worked out because most of those bloggers did it for free.
hi Neil,
i’m a new follower of your blog and appreciate your lessons learned that you are sharing with your readers. I’ll definitely keep these tips in mind. Much appreciated and keep up the great work.
Best choice Carmen! You can learn a lot of good things here. Most of the good blogs have too much advertisement and sometimes promote the products just to get some profit. Here, all you can find is details. No money involved so far. So, most of the content is genuine.
No problem. Best of luck with your blog.
I hope to see you on Quick Sprout more often!
Thanks
you always have great tips and inspiration to take away from your posts Neil. Its really nice to read of your rise rather than only hear of the “good life” so to speak.
Thanks! You also have good stock tips on your blog.
Your 15 steps for make much better blog and earn money is really great achievement but i also have some tips for maintain quality blogs.
1. Get your feet wet.
2. Worry more about being good than getting traffic.
3. Start with success in mind.
4. Write for your audience.
5. Don’t write cheques your ass can’t cash.
LOL, I love number 5. A lot of people tend to write bullshit and keep on doing it until they get caught.
I love helping people. Nothing puts a bigger smile on my face knowing that I’ve made a positive impact on someone’s life. I feel I can reach a lot of people with positive information and a lot of knowledge to make a difference in people’s lives. I hope our community will become a tight knit group where individuals in similar situations help one another.
Helping people is good but try not to become a victim. I learn something very true in the new batman movie, it says “If you are good at something, never do it for free”.
That’s right. That is why I love the saying, “if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, and if you teach a man to fish he will steal your fish.”
Another thing Christian Bale taught me is to “Stay off the set!” unless you want your lights ripped down.
LOL! One messup can lead to a big PR nightmare like it did for him.
Some times it can back fire and people expect you to help them with everything. To some extent it can be exhausting when you are helping people.
I am enormously impressed by all these hints. So real, so useful. Thumbs up. You are popular, successful and you are a business man. When you respond to such a humble comment and nobody like me, that is really something. It makes humble people like me to love your blog and to keep reading you more. Of course you have got writing style.
I think that what it makes this blog different from any other top blogs.
Thanks! I’m glad you keep coming back.
Thanks! I always thought my writing style sucked.
Dear Neil You Are Absolutely Right And Your Information The Best For Maintain Blog, Also I Have Tips For Maintain Blogs.
Maintain A Blog
This is, in no small measure, due to the fact that,though you can influence your blog, you lose some control once you start posting publicly. The success or failure of a blog depends on a combination of several different factors. These factors include your blogs topic as well as its layout. An equally important factor is the ability to promote your blog to reach a large, and interested, audience. There is not one simple or definite formula for creating or maintaining a successful blog. Because of the sheer dynamics involved
and because you do not have absolute control over your blog, there are no success guarantees. However, by taking a few well thought out steps, you can make certain your blog has the best chance of making it in a world where one blog is created nearly every second of the day.
Post fresh blog content regularly
This is the most fundamental success factor for your blog. Fresh, valuable content posted regularly will keep blog visitors coming back for more. Even viewers who just happened to stumble upon your web site will keep revisiting your site if you offer fresh content regularly. Blogs that have no new posts are bound to become stagnant as there is no motivation for visitors to return. If you want your blog to succeed,
post fresh content and post regularly. Want to make sure your visitors return? Have them sign-up so that every time you post, they will receive an email alerting them to your new content.
Posting blog content regularly really helps. This is the area that I need to improve upon the most.
Dear Neil Patel I Wanna Create My Own Blog For Knowledge Base And Making Money Also, So Which Niche I Choose And Which Theme, Can You Help Me For That, Or You Send Me That URLs For Good Themes And One More Thing I Choose Which Platform For Own Blog Like
“Word-Press”…. ????
I recommend http://www.uniqueblogdesigns.com or http://diythemes.com/
You are absolutely right about how to get success with blogging…very simple and neatly explained…you simply rock with your writings. I mostly like the point to “Be passionate”….otherwise there is no use in blogging.
Passion is the key to success. Without it, you will get burned out.
I liked the way you replied to your commentors, so I have been doing the same (only 3 comments so far, but can only get better).
I have also been building the About Us pages on my sites over the last couple weeks, and think they are more robust now. I was surprised at the number of views they got.
Good tips, I think I am practicing most of them. Although my site design was a free one, and a lot of others use it, I customized the colors for most of my sites to give them different looks.
Sorry for the delay on replying to your comment. Sometimes it takes me a few days to get to them all.
Thanks for those tips! I have thought about several of them, and really do aspire to do better on one in particular: respond to every commentator. My challenge is time. I don’t have a lot of it, and so don’t write posts very often. Instead, I tend to invest that time into writing a good post. After that, I’ll try to squeeze in some time replying. Now that you’ve pointed the importance of this out to me though, I’ll come up with a plan for how to do both. After all, its the conversation that I am really aiming to start by doing the post, but haven’t gotten around to how to participate in it, beyond that first foray. One step at a time, yes?
It is hard. For example I will probably spend 4 hours today replying to comments.
I guess you have to figure out how to make the time for it.
Terrific post. I just stumbled on your blog yesterday but I love it — tons of helpful advice for new bloggers
Cool. I hope to see you back here again.
Neil, really appreciate this post! still on the flat side of the learning curve, but thanks to your help, feel I’ll be climbing the steep end soon.
Also, your presentation at Startonomics was awesome, we are reviewing the notes and the video at the company and implementing many of the ideas shared!
Peace
Neil, i totally concur with John’s comment about your prezo at Startonomics. Yours was off the hook. The best actually and there were some awesome speakers with great insight. My comments to DMM were that your prezo should have been 1 hour rather than the standard 30 min.
Best,
ch
Awesome! Hopefully they will invite me back.
Thanks! I thought my speech sucked, but I am glad you liked it. I just wish I had more time.
I never thought about responding to every commentor, when i think about it now it makes a lot of sence. I don’t know what was I thinking before.
A lot of people make this mistake. I think that is what separates this blog from all of the other ones.
A little late but still. Yes Neil I agree with you, you are only bloger I know who responds on every post. Nice habit. And then I was asking myself how much of time you consume for this, on daily basis?
It can consume hours. It really depends on my posting schedule.
Thanks for the tips neil. I will be starting my blog soon.Is it possible to use Word press with a login and search engine
I am not sure what you mean. WordPress gives you an Admin user name and login so you can post. Search engines will index your blog.
Neil,Well don great post,Blogging on news difficult biz it takes a lot of work..
Yep. It is a 24/7 job. You never know when news is going to break.
The disadvantage of the news blog is that you’re at the mercy of other people’s news feeds.If they don’t update their news, you don’t get any fresh news on your blog.
Well ideally you should be the one breaking the news and not rewriting the news.
Great help for a beginner like me. Thanks for sharing !
No problem! Hopefully you will implement some of the things you learned.
Just wanted to tell you how much I sincerely enjoyed this post.
No problem! I will try to write more like it.
Neil,
I share the sentiment the above comment conveys.
I enjoyed reading your article. Though after a year of blogging I do share some of the things you write about.
- S
At least you learned them within your first year. You should be proud of yourself for being a fast learner!
Thank you for an amazing post! My biggest take-away? Respond to every comment. I’ve never, ever taken any comments for granted, but it never occurred to me that they may feel neglected…That won’t happen, ever again!
It is the best form of engagement with your audience to respond to their suggestions, queries etc. That engagement in turn will make the web conversations last.
Yep! I am hoping you do the same with your blog Harnish.
If you do so, good things will happen to your blog.
Really helpful thanks.
By the way could I add a wishlist for your site. I wanted to look at some past articles to see whether your site is worth subscribing too and there was no categories to click and not “Most Popular Posts” on the sidebar. It’s probably worth adding this so people like me can get a better idea of your content.
With the redesign, I will try adding it.
These are excellent tips! I wish I had known all of this when I first started blogging, too. I’m putting alot of my lessons-learned into practice on my new blog.
Cool, hopefully they help you with your blog.
I have been also to blogging a year ago and almost I want to blog everything I know. I want to write and tell the readers what I know, and thats almost everyday. I have got troubles before setting up my blogs at first and I am glad I was able to manage to keep me going. Thanks to this additional tips here.It is wonderful.
No problem. Make sure you stay on topic with your blog. Don’t stray too much.
Fantastic post, I really enjoyed it. It just so happens I started to get my blog going last week. I had no idea how many terms and things there were to learn about blogging.
May I ask what Wordpress plugins you use? I have kind of fumbled around and added some that seemed right but I’d love to know what you’ve settled on.
Keep up the great work! Adding you to my feeds.
Cool, hopefully this posts saves you from making the mistakes I made.
Thing is you say I should have done (should do!) this. But if it were that important you’d be doing it – also things you’ve not tested are things you think you should do, but who is to know that your opinion wouldn’t change if you had (or do) do them.
I feel I have tested many of them because I have helped tons of bloggers as well as started 2 blogs.
I recently started blogging. We are required to blog for one of my communication classes at Clemson University. I really enjoyed your tips on blogging. I really liked your advice on commenting back to the people who comment on your blog. I will start doing that from now on to build relationships with them. Thanks for the advice!
Hello Madison,
I am a Clemson Alum myself. Good to see a tiger on quicksprout.
- Harnish
I think Madison emailed me thinking I was from Clemson. You should email her Harnish.
That is a a cool requirement. I wish my teachers would have required that.
That’s a great idea. It’s a real forward thinking course and gets people more adapted to modern technologies.
Commenting back and forth on blogs is a great way of showing appreciation to your readers, and to build a network of contacts.
It is, it just takes a lot of time and effort.
Excellent post Neil. Thanks a ton for sharing. I am helping a Realtor who is also a great writer (whose work has been published for money) adopt this medium. This could not have been more timelier.
Thanks for taking the time and commenting. Your comments definitely added to the conversation.
Neil, great insight. We really appreciate your article for being so helpful.
Jon
No problem. I will try and write more of them.
Good stuff!
And I enjoyed the About me page.
Thanks! It took me days to write it.
I think it’s great that you are successful and you took the time to tell people what you would’ve done your first time around. congrats. Great blog I’ll definitely be following
Thanks for subscribing to Quick Sprout!
I love that you’ve taken the time to share those hard to learn lessons. You are the virtual blog mentor!
I am just hoping I saved you and others from making the same mistakes I made.
Thanks Neil. Thanks for your all helpful tips. And congrats on being the top 100 blogs on technorati.
Cheers mate.
I am not anymore, but I was at one point in time.
Hi Neil,
I found your article to be really useful ‘coz I was hunting for tips on how to start a serious blog. I’ve always wanted to write about books but did not have the courage to try – your tips have given me some concrete ideas – thanx
Best of luck with your blogging ventures.
Thank you for such a detailed post. I just started blogging a few months ago and I am really going to take your points to heart so I don’t make the same mistakes. Thank you again.
Glad to hear that! Hearing that just made writing this post worth while.
This is one of the best post I have ever gone thru. thanks a lot Neil for sharing this with us.
No problem. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Neil! Every point in your post makes a lot of sense!! I’ve done all the mistakes that you’ve listed, and ‘m still doing a lot of mistakes.. Looks like you learn, and I never learn
Anyways, one thing that I’ve learned is that ‘never spend too much time on design’. Now ‘ve switched to a very simple theme with white, blue and black colors, easy on the readers’ eyes. Now I can spend more time on writing good content.
As long as you are learning, you are ahead of 99% of the bloggers out there.
How can you find a specific niche? Do you have any tool for that Neil?
I graduated computer science this year. There aren’t so many niches now. Gadgets? Lots of blogs on the topic. Blog about blogging? No chance to be noticed.
I just don’t want to start another marketing or SEO blog. Do you have any ideas?
There is no tools for it, the niche is going to be based off of what you love.
If you want to start a blog on SEO or online marketing, do it on a component of it. Such as link building or on page SEO.
You’re thinking too broad here. There are tons of blogs on gadgets but there are tons of gadgets out there. Identify a gadget that you enjoy and focus specifically on that gadget. Or if it’s big enough, like the iPhone, focus on a specific feature of it.
Thanks for the input!
Hi, I agree, design is not important. But niche is important. I start few blogs with many niche in one blog, and feel its not good. You blog must be related to one niche. Thanks for tips. I hope new blogger will learn from it.
A design is important, but not as important as most people think. Having a complex design can hurt you.
Neil,
great comprehensive post.
A couple of thoughts.
1. I don’t think you need to change your design. True, many people are using a similar layout (including me) but visitors like your blog for the content and your interaction…not the design. It won’t hurt to change your design, but you definitely don’t need to.
2. Your point about being passionate couldn’t be more true. I’ll go a step further and say that you should have a blast. Life is too short and blogging should be fun. Don’t take yourself too serious and speak from your heart.
Great posts, Neil.
Thanks for pointing out number 1.
I actually read a site that said that you should downplay design as much as possible. He said that the uglier the site, the better as the user’s focus should be on your ads, not the site. It was a strange idea but it had some rationale. For instance, keep a minimal site layout so the only things google sees on the page are the SEO you target.
What do you think of the ideas Neil?
I am not sure on that one. You want a simple design, but it still needs to look good.
But I don’t believe we should expect to feel passionate about our work all the time. Even if you are doing work that is a perfect match for you, it is unlikely that you’ll feel passionate about it on a daily basis.
That is true, but most of the time you will be passionate. Overall you will be a lot better off compared to no being passionate about something.
Neil once again great post, I was just adding a link to this post and I noticed out of all the links I bookmarked, one didn’t have a icon and looked quite weird. You didn’t get a icon next to the link. Then I realized you don’t have a favicon or .ico file, I was expecting to see that greatly designed quicksprout icon.
Yea, I have to design a favicon.
I guess my biggest challenge is my niche. There are many people writing about this subject but it doesn’t hurt the number of readers I have – but I know I need to probably narrow it down a bit.
Narrowing it down should do the trick. Just don’t narrow it down too much.
If you’ve already established the site, one possibility is to just make subsections of the site that really dig into a narrower niche. As such, those portions might be targeted better by search engines for those key terms.
That helps as long as your site has enough juice.
Thank god, These 15 things, now I know when I am about to start my own blog
.
The sooner the better. The longer you wait to start a blog, the longer it will take to become popular.
You do have a niche, it’s the Neil Patel show!
LOL, I am not sure if that qualifies as a niche.
I’ve hung out with you, it can definitely be a show and it would definitely be a niche.
ROFL! Thanks!
Some really good point there Neil! I would really agree about not posting a lot about the news unless you’re commenting on them or giving an opinion!
Something else I want to say is: being passionate is good but it is not enough! You need devotion too!
That’s right. A lot of people are passionate about what they do, but they get lazy. Without devotion you won’t continue to blog.
You do really reply to every comment! lol
That’s cdevotion!!
Of course.
Two points I find missing for myself excluding worpress/movabletype
I will certainly implement.
Thanks Neil Thanks !
Cheers !!!
WordPress is great. I can’t express how grateful I am to have it around.
I loved this post!
Thank you.
I started blogging and then i got tired of it cuz i would do it like everyday, but now i will listen to you when you say once a week and blog about very interesting things, not news,etc.
Thanks again!
And if once a week is too much, blog twice a month.
I totally agree with that. Especially the point “Don’t Brag”, I’ve seen too many people brag when they are trying to sell their ebooks, they claimed they earned tons of money every single day. I found it was not the truth after I finished reading their books. This is why I hate brag so much.
Great post! Very useful! Thanks for share.
Yep, I am very grateful for Darren Rowse setting me straight. Bragging doesn’t do much other than turn people off.
I can’t say I’ve found my niche. It’s too freewheeling as it is now with my blog.
Thank God, I realize early the value of responding with every reader that cares to drop a comment on my blog. And that interaction made my quiet blog a lot livelier than it used to. It’s fantastic to hear any other voice other than your own on your blog. And the fun part is it’s not contrived conversations. Proof is I have become friends with a lot of them.
Which leads to your next point about building relationships with your readers. Ah, I’m beginning to think we have a lively community now around my blog – however small. But I’m onto my 3rd month of blogging only so I have no cause for complaint.
You should try and find a nice as soon as possible. Once you do, you will notice an increase in growth.
Fantastic post! I’ve just started looking into blogging more “seriously” and this post will help me a lot!
Thank you!
Blogging can be a good career for a lot of people. If done right, you can make a lot of money off of it.
Having begun my site in October 2008, I’ve been on a steep learning curve. Painful at times. While I’m loving every second of it, I would like to make money at it, eventually, especially given I’m spending 24/7 writing and promoting my heart out. Your tips are invaluable, and precisely answered some questions I’ve had about how to get this thing launched. Thank you! and it’s nice to meet you. — Tammie
Glad to see that you are still sticking with it. It can take a year or two before your blog really starts taking off.
Came in here via Daily Blog Tips. This is a very good post. My second blog is almost an year old now and one thing I wish I knew in the beginning was something about branding (not just in theme) – including avatars, using the same information while commenting, having common profile details in all your online profiles etc.
At least you are still blogging.
Hopefully your second blog is doing better than your first.
Neil – you’re my hero! I’ve researched how to start a blog to death and this post just made me decide that it’s time to just “do it”. Thank you! You confirmed what I found about WordPress. I’ve purchased a template – now I’ll start!
Thanks for the flattery. I think I am a bit far from being a hero.
Hey Neil, great article, as usual. It’s great to hear your mistakes so I can try to prevent them from happening to me (although some already have).
No worries, at least you didn’t make all of these mistakes.
Thanks for the inspiring list! It’s super helpful for me since I’m a blogging newbie.
You will notice that you will make more mistakes. You just can’t give up!
Great list for someone just starting out! I’m so glad I ran across it because I’d already begun to fall into some of the traps you mention.
Keep in mind that if you fall into a trap, you can always get out.
Neil you share it as your mistakes but its a precious piece of blogging advices for novice bloggers like me. Thanks for sharing!
No problem. I will try and share other mistakes I have made.
What I wonderful advice you have here Neil, I wish you the best from your blogs! now I understand how you gain those comments. Good work!
Thanks! It is a lot of work, but well worth it.
I’m glad you bring up the about page, I always felt that was important.
However, is it bragging to say that I am an award-winning sports reporter?? I say it right away on my about page to show people that I have at least some experience and credentials.
It isn’t bragging if you say that. But if you keep on going on with that or brag about your salary, then that wouldn’t be good.
Your work should speak for itself.
Hello Neil,
Just a note of thanks for sharing so much useful marketing/blogging
tips for others. I enjoyed reading your bio, too. An Amazing Story of “fall down and get up/keep moving!”
I really enjoyed the Slumdog Millionaire movie and thought it was well developed and executed! The Music was awesome in that movie! Being that you have invested in many
other programs, I was wondering if you considered that market!
If you were to do a plan for marketing a movie, how would you do that?
I know that the product have to be a great, but we all know it takes more than that to sell a product!
I thought this would be a great idea for someone like you to explore
or even use this movie as a project review for your marketing plan and
have others place their comments.
I think one of the first appeals of this movie is that it was presented in “english” to the U.S.A.(I don’t know if it was made in other languages) and also with a popularity of “hit” TV show (Do You Want To Be A Millionaire) that have a universal connection.
I will be watching the Ocars tonight and I hope Slumdog Millionaire win for Best Everything! I also think the movie have social and political messages
in them that reflects a cultural difference and experience. It most certainly places attention on children who are orphaned or homeless for whatever reason-and that is a good reason to put attention to that issue to get support for those children who suffer and stuggle for mere survival everyday!
My Best!
Thelma
I am not sure because I haven’t marketed too many movies. I would grass routes stuff.
Also try to get bloggers to blog on the movie. On top of that advertise it through social networks such as MySpace.
Neil, the advice you have given in this post is very helpful. I just started my first blog last month and am constantly thinking of ways to improve it. I am certainly going to use some of your advice. Thanks!
No problem! Best of luck with your blog.
Niel,
Great experience. Thanks for sharing.
I have one question here.
You mentioned something about selecting a niche for blog and that should be big enough. But other side of this is, You need to face tremendous competition in such niches and very few blogs manage to survive.
Lets have your opinion on a ‘Automotive’ industry niche:
I am in process to design and market a blog based only on “Cars” mostly car pictures and somewhat information about cars. DO you thing this is a big enough niche to survive and has chances of getting good long time readers and big traffic?
It is a big enough niche, but I would go even smaller. How about pictures of rice rockets or just German cars
He is up for some real competition blogging just about cars… you’re right to send him in the direction of a niche
Yep, car blogs are a dime a dozen. If you want to go the generic route I would buy a blog in the space and improve upon it.
Now that’s a great idea. But I still would go the niche route…unless he is a super copywriter and has a real unique way of introducing car info. But getting traffic will be tough unless he focuses mainly on social traffic. Too many odds against him for having success in the near future.
The niche route is much cheaper. I like buying sites, but that is the lazy way.
I have trouble imagining buying sites. While it’s nice to have something established in the field, I’m always wary of putting money down for something I could have done better for free on my own. I guess it’s just a matter of evaluating the cost versus time
Sometimes you just have to do it and experience things. I love it.
Hi Neil
Great post. I am relatively new to blogging. Had a couple of goes at it but no great success at this stage.
I am interested that you only post once a week.
Do you feel that when you start a blog once a week is enough, so that you get noticed?
I do find that it is hard to generate quality content and post every day on my blog, and sometimes I find myself writing just for the sake of it.
Is once a week enough at the start of a blog to get noticed?
My thoughts are that getting noticed has little to do with post frequency, however, it is very beneficial for return readership.
Posting more often does increase your odds of getting noticed, but it isn’t the main thing. The main way you get noticed is to write GREAT content.
If I blogged more, Quick Sprout would be a lot more popular. Once a week is good enough if your content is detailed. Ideally 3 to 5 times a week is much better.
I use to blog 3-5 times a week, but 1-2 times is perfect. Then you can spend the rest of your time marketing your blog. (Getting links, or referred)
As well as having more time to write detailed content.
Thank you for documenting your experience for new bloggers. I started promoting my personal blog over the new year. You make some great points. I violate your first point, don’t blog about news, almost all the time. I do so mainly because I’m a communication guy, but after reading your perspective I will reconsider future blog entries.
Thanks again for sharing.
There is nothing wrong with blogging on news, it is just hard to succeed doing so because there are tons of people who do so.
Agreed. I think if you can provide an interesting perspective on it though, you can develop a readership. I just wouldn’t make this the sole focus of the blog and instead, keep it as something to compliment the main selling point of your blog
Try the tips I gave. They will work well for you.
Great post, it’s nice to hear from more experienced bloggers who are willing to share their journey with others. I am nearing my first year on blogging and I can relate to a lot of your ups and downs. On the news point I disagree with you, I think you can show a fresh perspective as long as you add value. As for the Niche I have chosen Internet marketing and work at home which as we all knows is a popular subject.
I am still pushing out 6 or 7 posts a week; I could probably do double that because my niche is so diversified. At some point in the future I will probably change direction to a different niche, but at the moment I still have to go through all the growing pains that is Blogging.
Thanks for the read
Hey Neil great site!, do you think starting a blog up will help increase traffic on an e-commerce site?
It will as long as it is on the same domain as your ecommerce site. Make sure you can write great content and you aren’t just starting it up to increase your traffic.
If you just show a fresh perspective you won’t be as popular as the older blogs in your niche. You need to do more than that if you want to be a successful blogger.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve had a blog for a year, and just now I am getting the traffic. I also don’t have an about me page…I guess I should get on that.
I also enjoy problogger. Just discovered your site. Should have fun reading your posts.
Great job.
You should also check out copyblogger.com if you don’t already know about it.
I think it definitely takes time to start getting that traffic. Google ranks new sites poorly so it takes time for your pages to be given credibility on google and to start getting the search results warranted for your site’s quality.
Patience is the key to success.
Timely, timely, timely! I am getting my sea legs blogging on blogger.com before porting everything over to my business site on a WordPress platform. Just getting into the rhythm of writing (and I’m a writer!) is important. I always aim to have one key takeaway for my audience that will elucidate them, rather than aggrandize me.
One other thing that you should know is that you need to create a conversation. Blogging is a two way street.
Thanks again for great info. Looking for ways to improve ny blog.
No problem! Hopefully your blog become very popular.
Wish I’d had this advice when I started my first blog, it would have helped with the confusion and frustration.
Now my only frustration is I happen to like Blogger and need to monetize it:) Learning all the time.
Thank you
At least you have the advice now. It is never too late.
I can’t find the comment, but there is a comment in here about updating Wordpress blogs… and how Fantastico has a cool feature.
Well this morning while in my WP admin I saw a “most popular” plugin that was called Wordpress Automatic Upgrade. Anyway I just thought I’d come back and post it here to solve that problemo…
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/
Hope this helps.
Yea, I have to figure out the comments on this blog. I love the amount of comments posts are getting, but it is making the site slow…
Sorry about that! Hopefully I will have a solution soon, other than pagination.
Yea, one thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes, comments lower down on the list just don’t appear for me. I don’t know if it’s because there are so many that it times out before all of them load or what. It might be best to make it so only 100 comments per page or something.
Weird, I will check it out.
I don’t like the idea of putting comments on different pages, I just have to solve the problem.
I’m trying to learn as much as I can. Your insight is greatly appreciated by us all. Keep them coming, we are like sponges. LOL
I should have another blog post up in a day or two.
I feel that it is extremely important to pick a big niche just so that you can feel comfortable branching off a little on the odd time and have more to write about – so long as the basic topic is the same (i.e. video cameras)
Plus a niche really helps with your personal brand.
Insightful!
What would you say about free blogging services vs self hosted ones like you blog? There are definitely a lot of blogger/blogspot blogs out there that have made it big.
There are more self hosted blogs that have made it bigger.
Go the self hosted route.
I’m glad I am reading this just a couple months into my blog, thanks. I find the hardest part of starting a blog is deciding what your niche is going to be…
“Pick a big niche”
I guess it will evolve. I’m not the sort of person to plan it out ahead of time. I’m not even sure what I want to achieve other than meeting and learning from other people, and self-expression. Would love to have my blog direct more traffic to my web site (I am an artist) and thus get more sales but I don’t know how realistic that is. I do know that I am enjoying the freedom of expression and that seems to be my main goal right now.
It will, just give it some time. After a few more months, you will have learned a lot more about blogging.
Thanks for the tips. I’m a new blogger and a bit all over the place at the moment, but definitely plan to tailor things. I would argue, however, that personal branding is a pretty big topic in and of itself!
Cheers,
Audrey
It is, but a lot of people aren’t ready for it yet. I think it will be bigger in a year or two.
Very interesting, Neil, great, that you try to learn!
But investing 5000 bucks for a blog design is very questionable, next time ask me if you need help
Greets,
Thome
http://www.cbc-international.de
I will. I guess you live and learn.
Do you think when we starting of blogging is designing more important or is it ok to use general common design is it make or impact on readers ???
I think either one works. A general design works fine, but a custom one may help out a bit more.
Hey, I like your advice and it is straight to the point. I’m actually just starting to blog. My website only has two blogs so far. Also, I’m a college student wanting to make extra money but my niche might be too broad. I know that no matter what, I’m going to continue to blog because I love it already. Feel free to check me out. I would love to know your opinion. Thanks for GREAT info!!!
Thanks! I try to tell the truth. Some people like it and other don’t.
Hello – I ran across your website as a result of a twitter search and it looks like you have some good information. Thank you. I am curious how you would compare Wordpress to blogger? Also, do you have any information you can share on pricing of blog service to businesses (set up, administration, weekly blog posts, etc)? I am going to continue to read your blog. Thanks for sharing.
WordPress is more customizable. Blogger is easy to use and good for beginners.
I am not sure on pricing for blog services. I recommend asking http://www.uniqueblogdesigns.com
Wow! Thank you for the helpful information. I especially like the part about “It’s not about you.” Really it is about creating a community, right? I just started my blog and have enjoyed staying in touch with your writing.
Good luck with you.
Matt
http://serialentrepreneurinc.wordpress.com/
A community is what makes a blog good. Without a community, I wouldn’t keep on blogging.
What a great set of tips. You’ve clearly got a lot of experience and it shows through with your references to how you messed up yourself. I think burning out is one of the biggest challenges as you find yourself diving into the deep end too fast and becoming overwhelmed by the workload of keeping that high standard.
You will to, it just takes time. If you have been blogging as long as I have, you probably will know more about it than me.
I agree with your point that the blog has to be in a particular niche. But the domain name should not describe a niche because if you need to change your niche later, then you are in trouble.
QuickSprout.com is a generic name and hence not a problem
Good point. I picked this domain name because I just had it in my Godaddy account.
If you are using WordPress as the core part of your affiliate marketing site you need to know that WordPress by default not only pings when you post a new item but it also pings when you update or edit a post. So if you proofread your posts and find errors or have to change out links etc WordPress pings every time you save the post. This has still not been fixed as of WordPress 2.
I didn’t know that. I guess I am pinging 15 or 20 times per posts because I make tons of changes.
Burn Out! That was my problem.. Another problem if I blog daily I got so many reader… when I stop for few days or for a week, my all readers go away!
This is really stressful to blog everyday. But, I guess I have no other way except hiring blogger.
It is a big problem. You can easily get burned out from blogging.
Well about design, I think you should not save money on this to much, but either way not spending it on too.
Design is important, but not that important when it comes to a blog. There are a lot of good templates out there already.
I’m with you on this one Neil. I don’t know why you would spend money on a design, especially early on. Just googling free options gives you TONS of possible great results.
That’s so true. There are so many great free themes that one need not know anything about Web 2.0/php/css to even have to worry about paying. And if one does have some knowledge… even if it is limited, most themes are so easy to modify if one gives it a shot. I think sometimes people just want to throw money at things because they want everything to be easy. Funny thing is.. blogs (and businesses) started up in this manner are usually the first to fail.
And you can take those free themes and modify them. That is an easy way to make your design unique.
You should first see if your blog is working out for you before you spend money on a design.
That I did.. too much time spend on design
but you know, sometimes it helps to increase revenue/traffic. 
It can help increase traffic and revenue, but you just need to get out there and blog instead of worrying about all of the small details.
I have been thinking about starting up my own blog for a while now, so thanks for sharing what you have learned so far. I think my biggest obstacle is deciding on a niche.
You should. It will do a lot for your personal brand.
It is a tough one. Do a niche that you really love.
True thing… Never brag about your blog.
Is that alrigt to use are html link in the comment box?
cheers
Yep, there is nothing wrong with that.
What do you recon is the best way to make money out of a blog. does adsense work for you?
Could you please write an article about that for me?
=)
Gretz,
himmelslichter.com Skylaternen
I don’t know. For me it is consulting revenue. For each person it is going to be different.
Agreed. I think it really depends on your blog niche. In your case, consulting would work since your posts are largely about the business side of blogging. For a more general topic, it’s hard to see that viable revenue source.
Yea, it is really tough to monetize a blog. It takes a lot of work to make money.
I should start by stating that I got to this site through looking for Facebook formats and examples, and discovered that you had postings that would be helpful.
I’m an artist with no experience blogging or posting on “Facebook” or other sites, but I can’t get over the idea that I could have great fun blogging by using very little text and allowing organic growth with drawings, pictures, photo setups, and any other creative means of visual communication. I would want to allow many artist to keep it growing, with no preconceived results or a final destination, which would be great art. Would you have any thoughts about this idea, and do you know of any examples that would help me with this pursuit? At times I think about a posting that would be a two dimensional “Theater of the Absurd” or with drawings and still images that would hint of a stream of consciousness romp, and maybe some small video clips to make it change directions. One of my stumbling blocks is that I’m not sure how to keep it from being nothing more than a bulletin board, with random and uncommitted postings. How hopeless; I’m after total freedom, with no rules and no perceived object, and yet concerned with maintaining some control, maybe I’m describing good art. I hope that you would respond to this strange query.
Thank you,
Terry
I think you’re too caught up on what the semantics of the blog world are. If you want to try that, go for it. You might not have a lot of strong performance early on but if you make good drawings that people will enjoy, they’ll visit it.
Agreed! Sometimes you have to get out there and just do it.
You are thinking too much about it. I would go with the approach of just starting to blog and see what your audience likes or dislikes. If you see it going in the direction of a bulletin board and don’t like it, adjust the structure of the blog.
It is all about testing and tweaking things until you are happy with them.
Is it really a blog you need or a site? From your descriptions of it, it sounds like you’d like to make your own service along the lines of flick.r except with a focus more on art work than photos. I think you’ve got a great idea, just go with it!
Awesome post Neil, thanks!
I’ll have to put a few of those in practice.
Cool, I hope your blog succeeds.
I like how you are capable of looking back on past mistakes and let others know what roads not to walk or in some cases run down.
Kudos on the self reflection!
Thanks! Its quite hard to look back on your past and see what you did wrong.
I must say I enjoyed this post. I found it to be informative and experiential…thanks
Hopefully it saves you from making the mistakes I made.
Hi Neil, great post exactly what I needed to learn to improve my blog. Thank you and keep posting very excited to read more.
Cool, I will try and do another post that reflects on my past experiences.
Cool dude, Inspiration starts somewhere, and you are an inspiration for me. Thanks
Glad to hear that.
Having been a blogger for 3 years, I couldn’t agree more with the recommendations you’ve made. The hardest part for me was establishing my blog’s “niche”. It is difficult to choose something specific that will inspire you to develop creative interesting content. I have found having a unique design will also help boost your traffic quite a lot as well.
–
Mike R.
DUI lawyer
Thanks for the input on the design. I am trying to modify mine as we speak.
As others have said, I like the suggestion of responding to readers’ comments, and I’m very impressed at how often Neil does this.
It is a good idea, it just takes a lot of time.
I found the comment interesting about “bragging” as I have a tendency to downplay my own accomplishments. Although I have confidence in my abilities and strengths, I know that there will always be people who can do things “better” than I can, so “bragging” feels kind of fake!
Yea, you should never talk about how much money you have made.
Thank you for the advice. I just started my first blog and I found your post very useful.
No problem. Best of luck.
Thanks for the advice. I keep hearing about having a “niche”. I guess my idea of my blog is to inspire others and offer my writing experiences. This probably isn’t narrow enough, but my blog is where I can write and be passionate. I do a a teaching blog that is a niche, but I want to use my blog to write my thoughts and things that inspire me. Can inspiration be a niche?
It could be. Inspiring other females or moms would be a niche.
Great article Neil, thanks for sharing.
No problem. Best of luck with your blog.
Great post Neil! I’m still lost on what niche to consider but thinking to create a “how to” site and at the same time monetize from it.
A “how to” site on a specific industry may work.
Hi there Neil,
This is the first time I’ve come across this blog and to be honest with you-you have so much information here. I can’t believe I missed so much of information. Luckily, I atleast got to see it now. Anyway, I’ve subscribed to your blog and will be a frequent visitor now.
Cheers and good job,
Eddie Gear
Better late than never.
Thanks Nail for tips! I would like to start blogging and your article is a real good material for beginning.
Cool, thanks for doing so.
Great tips again. The big niche is a great tip because I had a blog that even though it was PR5, an authority in that niche, etc I found out that at the top of my game I only was getting 10k page views monthly and that doesn’t amount to much money wise for the hours and hours of work.
What kind of blog did you have? PR5 is pretty good. It’s tough though because its better to have a niche, but one has to draw the line between too much of a niche, and not having a niche at all, which strangely is not easy to do.
Wow. How did you manage a PR5 with only 10k page views a month? I feel like you must have had something going wrong here as your authority should have enabled you to get a massive tail of google visitors.
What was your niche?
Don’t worry about the PR, just worry about the quality of the link.
Do you mean the quality of incoming links. Just starting my first blog, I’m realizing the importance of having good links coming in.
Still Learning…
Yea, the more related the inlinks are, the better.
Thanks for the tips. It’s always easier listening and learning from someone acknowledging their mistakes and ommissions than someone who tries to put the front on that they’ve always had the answers all along.
It is. Take advantage of learning from others as much as possible.
I agree on not blogging the news as well if you have a traditional blog. I see so many people try to do this and unless you are going to make 4-6 posts a day you shouldn’t try to compete as you will just be half doing it as the other major competitors will have the full staff to do it but you won’t be able to and you will see your visitors not coming back. I think blogs are best if you can give opinion.
Yep, stay away from the news.
there is no doubt that we all want our blogs become more popular and we must blog about something we like so my visitors like what i blog about but i disagree with the point about blogging about news because not all of us offer the same information like each other ” if Obama become US president we will lunch this news but each blog will show it with different view and point ” and also the readers will search for another view when we talk about news and the best writer will get the readers good feedback , if you talk about big niche you should look into different view because big niche will take much work from you to reach the top but with this work you can reach the top very easy in small niche but i like the way you think about this point .
That’s right. Blog because you want to and you love it. Don’t just do it for the money.
Blogging about news is the biggest mistake ever. If you blog about news in your niche it’s kinda acceptable. But if you’re blogging about general news you’ll surely not be the first one to report them and you won’t have the best analisis – there will be a lot of people doing it better than you.
Don’t cut it too short. If you can put your own unique style onto your articles, you might be able to get a pretty good following via digg. However, you should expand your niche beyond the general news.
Exactly.. if you’re going to blog about news, make sure to clamp it down to a specific niche that you enjoy. I don’t think its possible to even blog about general news… you’ll be going crazy with nothing to show for it!
Yep, it takes a shit load of time too.
It is hard to build a following through Digg. Trust me, I tried it.
Hah I hear you on this. Try as I might, I’ll get to maybe 10 diggs? Whereas I look at similar stories on the front page with hundreds. Sigh, woe is me.
Just network with top diggers if you want more diggs.
It is a great way to fail, unless you have a great perspective on it.
Being a first time blogger myself I have to appreciate your honesty here. Thanks for some great info!
No problem. I like telling things how they are.
hello nail can you please delete me from the notification list for this article i clicked the ‘Notify me of followup comments via e-mail’ option, but i dont want to receive any further emails. thank you.
my email is info@creative-business-consulting.com and info@cbc-international.de
Haha, I’ve considered doing that as well. You gotta be careful with Neil’s articles, he’s popular in comments
.
I’m agree with you about
I think the new blog must useful for many poeple first.. If it is useful for many people traffic automatic increase.. It means we can put anything, especially advertising in our blog..
If you can’t make something useful, what is the point.
I wish I had’ve known it would be so much work! a blog is nothing to shrug your shoulder at especially if you’re trying to make it into a full time income.
It’s not too late.
This is a very useful list and I shall always keep these points in my head.
Thanks! I hope it helps you with your blog.