Blog Traffic Tips Weekly Newsletter
by Yaro Starak – The Blog Traffic King
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I received an email from one of my subscribers who after reading my newsletter on targeting blog traffic (Newsletter #10) said it would be great to know exactly *how* one goes about targeting their traffic.
At first thought I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer the question. I had explained exactly what targeting your traffic is about and why you should do it, but I’ve always considered the process to be something that you need to tailor to your own blogging goals. That is true, but let me see if I can explain things for you.
HOW I CHOSE MY TARGET AUDIENCE
The reason I preach about traffic targeting stems from two experiences from my life. First, my business studies, where I was taught to always focus on finding unique markets with clearly distinguished customers. This can be termed “niche marketing” and it is exactly the same for your blog – you could call it “niche blogging”, but simply put it means to have a clear picture of who you want to attract.
The second significant experience relating to targeting traffic was more recent, during the early days of my blog, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com. I had established enough traffic to my blog that I was ready to test trying to make money by affiliate marketing (selling someone else’s product for a commission).
This was the first time I was going to overtly try and sell something to my blog readers, although it wasn’t my own product, it was an e-book and membership service provided by well known Internet Marketer, Perry Marshall. I mentioned this story in the previous newsletter about targeting traffic, which you should already have (if not, please sign up at http://www.BlogTrafficKing.com).
In the end I didn’t make much money from the experiment so I couldn’t exactly claim to suddenly be an expert at affiliate marketing on blogs (I’ve learnt a lot more since then), but I did gain an insight into my blog readership, which helped me decide the future direction of my blogging. I learnt some crucial data about who I had targeted and attracted to my blog and whether this audience would help me meet my blogging goals.
WHO WAS READING MY BLOG?
Before this experiment I had loosely defined my readership based on two variables –
- What I wrote
- How I marketed my blog
Obviously what you write is greatly responsible for who you attract to your blog. I had published content from my own experience and in areas I felt confident enough to teach. I was regurgitating my knowledge in my own simple blogging style.
In terms of marketing, much of my early days of blog promotion occurred in areas likely to attract a specific type of reader – a “young entrepreneur”. I promoted in forums and other blogs that I enjoyed, bringing in readers who were a lot like myself in terms of interests in business and stage of life.
My blog was read by young entrepreneurs and people wanting to start their own business. People who were looking to emulate my success online and who enjoyed my writing style. However there wasn’t a lot of “strategic planning” behind the way I was attracting an audience – my direction was in need of refinement.
HOW I CHANGED DIRECTION
To be honest with you I didn’t suddenly understand exactly what I wanted from my blog or know who I wanted reading it. I was gaining benefits from blogging but it felt a bit haphazard since I didn’t start the blog with a specific goal in mind.
As a blogger I’ve run my blog a lot like a start-up company, constantly evolving my methods, conducting marketing and monetization experiments almost on a weekly basis. The end result is a very dynamic entity, but one that is becoming more refined during each new month of its life.
Now I have overall strategic goals for my blog in terms of what type of content I produce, what type of reader I want to attract and how all of this ties in to what rewards I want from blogging, financially and intrinsically. It would take a business plan’s worth of content to explain it all, so for the sake of simplicity here is the short answer –
My blog, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, exists to create exposure for my name, establish myself as a credible expert in my industry and open doors to new business relationships. It must also generate a steadily increasing passive income source.
Here’s a couple more examples from my blogging empire –
The Official BetterEdit.com Blog
This blog exists to attract search engine traffic to the BetterEdit.com site and to generate new leads who purchase the editing and proofreading services of BetterEdit.com. The target audience for this blog is the target customer of the business – international students studying at university and writing academic papers in English. Therefore the content posted to the blog is aimed to attract and provide value to that demographic. The blog also serves to disseminate official news about the business.
The Blog Traffic School Pre-Launch Blog
This blog’s purpose is to build buzz for the launch of the Blog Traffic School online course and to increase the number of sign-ups to the Blog Traffic Tips newsletter (which you are reading right now). The target audience is bloggers interested in increasing their traffic and thus the majority of posts to the blog aim to provide value to that target market. I teach how to drive traffic to a blog and provide preview materials and information about the course.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
If we return to the original question I was asked – “Yaro, please provide a blueprint for targeting blog traffic” – my answer in simplest form goes like this –
- Determine why you blog
- Find readers who can help you accomplish those goals
If you run a blog now then you should know why you are doing it. If it is just to make money then how are you going to make money? If you are going to sell an ebook, then the topic of that ebook and the target market for it is the target market for your blog. Hence you should write to satisfy that audience and build traffic from sources of that type of person (appropriate forums, other complimentary blogs, etc).
If you were like I was in the early days – blogging without a specific goal in mind, or you haven’t even started seriously blogging yet, then you need to start thinking more about your “big picture”. What do you want in the future from your blogging?
Is it money? Is it exposure for your small business? Is it networking or friendship? Is it creative expression? Is it political?
These (and other motivations) are the determinants of how you target your audience and how you build traffic to your blog.
NO PRESSURES
If you aren’t ready to commit to anything specific that’s okay. You can take as long as you like to figure out why you are blogging, just remember satisfaction generally comes from meeting objectives, so try and come up with something so you can work towards it.
Start with blurry goals like:
“I’d like to be able to cover my Internet costs, get my name and contact details online and see what this ‘blogging thing’ is all about, so that is why I will blog”
And then refine things to perhaps something like this:
“I want to start making a steady $1000 a month in income from Google AdSense and use my blog to start generating content ideas for my own ebook on the topic of childcare”
When you know the reason for blogging, finding the traffic becomes simply a systematic process of testing different methods until you find the best that works for you, and then repeating those successful processes. Easy!
Here’s to your blogging success,
Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King
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More Newsletters
- How To Choose The Right Blog Topic
- How To Get More Blog Comments
- How To Build A Popular Blog
- Don’t Make This Mistake With Your Blog
- The Secret Of My Blog’s Success – The Pillar Article
- Is Blogging About Your Mistakes A Good Idea?
- Do You Have To Blog Full Time To Succeed?
- How One Technique Increased My Traffic By 25%
- What Is A Trackback And How Can It Increase Your Blog Traffic?
- How To Interlink Your Blog Articles To Increase Traffic
- How To Laser Target Your Blog Traffic
- How To Attract More RSS Subscribers
- Start Relationships For Win-Win Blogging
- Are You Trying To Run Before You Can Walk?
- Make Money From Your Blog Selling Text Links
- WordPress Bloggers – Install This Plugin To Boost Your Traffic
- The Power Of Credibility
- How To Deal With Negative Comments On Your Blog
- How To Leverage Online Forums For Blog Traffic
- What Is The Most Powerful Blog Traffic Technique?
- How Important Is SEO For Your Blog?
- The Death Of Link Exchanges
- Where To Find Photos To Use In Your Blog
- What Do You Want To Achieve From Blogging?
- Do You Blog Strategically?
- Don’t Forget The Newbies
- Competing For Attention In An Attention Deficit Blogosphere
- How To Be An Exceptional Blogger
- How To Create A Community At Your Blog
- Does Your Blog Have A Hook?
- Why Being Perfect Can Hurt Your Blog
- How One Blogging Technique Attracted 6000 New Subscribers
- Track Your Long Tail Trends For Traffic
- Track Your Blog Traffic Using Alexa
- Does Your Blog Design Matter?
- Why You Must Be A Thought Leader
- Establish Preeminence With A Pillar Article Series
- Is It Time For A Kick In The Pants?
- Why Do RSS Readers Unsubscribe From Blogs?
- Have You Considered Selling Ads Directly From Your Blog?
- Sell Direct Advertising On Your Blog Using This System
- How To Attract Blog Sponsors
- How To Kick-Start The Launch Of A New Blog
- Try This Tip To Attract Offline Traffic To Your Blog
- Apply This HTML Code Tip For Better Blog Headings
- The Most Powerful Blog Traffic Technique
- Can You Make Your Blog Readers Feel Like This…
- The Secret To Successful Blogging
- Why Bloggers Don’t Make Money From Affiliate Programs
- How Does Getting Paid $500 An Hour Sound To You?
The following lessons are from my original “blog traffic king” email newsletter, my first ever email course with one lesson per week delivered for a year. There are some real gems in these articles too, so don’t skip them!
