The 7 Principles of Launching a Super Successful Blog

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  • 8/12/2019 The 7 Principles of Launching a Super Successful Blog

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    The 7 Principles of Launching a Super Successful Blog

    Otto von Bismarck famously said that Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. Thewise man learns from the mistakes of others. When it comes to digital marketing, theresmuch that we can learn from those who have already been where were trying to go.

    Venture arbours !arcus "aylor wrote an in-depth analysis deconstructing how si#blogs, including !ashable, $%&&metrics and 'roBlogger, grew to over one million visitorseach in as little time as si# months.

    (igital marketing firms Single Grain )where %*m +O- and Venture Harbour havecollaborated to boil this analysis down to the seven rinciles on what set thesesuccessful blogs aart from their less successful cometition.

    /. Posting frequency matters, but not as much as persistence. When 'ete+ashmore founded !ashable.com, he worked 012hour long days writing content for hissite. 3rom !ashable.coms archives, we can see that in the early day he consistentlywrote one to five articles er day. 'roBloggers archives also show a similar fre4uency ofcontent ublishing.

    %ts no secret that the more 4uality content you ublish on your blog, the faster it willgrow. owever, theres something thats significantly more imortant than your blogsosting fre4uency 22 ersistence.

    "he key to success in blogging )and in many areas of life- is small but regular andconsistent actions over a long eriod of time, said (arren 5owse, founder of'roBlogger.Building a blog is not easy, and re4uires a huge amount of effort to reach a tiing oint.

    6ll of the blogs analy7ed ersisted with a high osting fre4uency over a long eriod oftime.

    0. Know the 2 percent that !ri"es # percent of your results.Vilfredo 'aretos lawobserves that 81 ercent of the effects are tyically the result of 01 ercent of thecauses. 'areto first observed this attern in the distribution of wealth and land ownershiin %taly, but soon noticed that theres an imbalanced relationshi between inuts andoutcomes in many areas of life.

    %n the conte#t of blogging, 81 ercent of your traffic will usually comes from 01 ercent ofyour content. ighty ercent of your rofits usually comes from 01 ercent of yourroducts or advertisers, and so on."he blogs that grew the fastest leveraged this henomenon and used it to become moreeffective.

    $%&&metrics knew that infograhics were its most effective form of content. 6s a result, ithas osted over 9: of them in two years, generating over 0.; million visitors, and 9/,111backlinks from aanese blog that took this concet to a whole new level. ereached /.9 million visitors in under si# months by cleverly weighting the oortunity anddifficulty of ranking in ?oogle for a list of over ;1,111 >aanese key hrases.With this information, he was able to build a blog that targeted the /11 keywords thatoffered the otimum combination of oortunity and difficulty. %t worked.

    http://www.ventureharbour.com/6-popular-blogs-grew-millions-visitors-less-2-years/http://www.ventureharbour.com/6-popular-blogs-grew-millions-visitors-less-2-years/http://www.singlegrain.com/http://www.ventureharbour.com/http://www.ventureharbour.com/http://www.singlegrain.com/http://www.ventureharbour.com/http://www.ventureharbour.com/6-popular-blogs-grew-millions-visitors-less-2-years/
  • 8/12/2019 The 7 Principles of Launching a Super Successful Blog

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  • 8/12/2019 The 7 Principles of Launching a Super Successful Blog

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    "he flywheel is a huge heavy metal disc mounted on an a#le. %t takes a tremendousamount of energy to turn. "he first revolution may take days of ushing all day and night,but as the flywheel gains a bit of momentum the second revolution takes a tiny bit lesseffort.

    6fter weeks and months of ushing the flywheel it finally reaches a oint where it sins

    faster and faster under its own weight. "he flywheel is a great analogy of how building ablog works.

    What this is really referring to is the ower of comounding. Building a successful blogtakes a tremendous amount of effort, but over time, the amount of effort re4uired to keeit growing, negotiate deals and drive revenue, decreases.

    "his effect was erhas most obvious in =eil 'atels case with $%&&metrics. 'atel hasfounded three successful blogs that have all reached millions of eole.

    %n an article on Quicksprout, 'atel says that his first blog took almost five years to reach/11,111 visitors a month. is second took @ust under two years, and his third blog took

    @ust a year and a half to reach /11,111 monthly visitors.

    "his is a result of the comounding effect of 'atels connections, knowledge andoortunities. 'ut another way, its a lot easier to get to /11,111 monthly visits when youown two technology comanies, an agency and several blogs with hundreds ofthousands of monthly visits.

    >ust like the first year of starting a savings account, the first year of blogging is alwaysthe hardest, as the ower of comounding is yet to kick in.

    :. &sing sta%es to o"ercome the emotional challenges. ?rowing a blog is anemotional challenge that re4uires will, assion and ersistence. &uccessful bloggers

    need a driving force that kees them ersisting through the hard times. We noticed thatmany of the bloggers analy7ed alluded to having stakes on the line.

    5owses wife gave him an ultimatum to make blogging a full2time @ob within si# months.+ashmore had a strong desire not to be emloyed or have to go to university. "heothers, too, had a reason to work as hard as they did to get their blogs off the ground.

    (n summary. When we learn from the success of others, we have to take a few things

    into account. 3irst, the oosite of what works can also work. "he other truth is that whatworked then may not work now.

    "he oint of a rincile is to be concetual enough to work across multile scenarios

    over time. While coying the tactics that 'roBlogger and !ashable used may not be aseffective today, the strategies that got them there do stand the test of time.By being effective, ersistent, atient, and focused, you can imrove your odds ofbuilding a successful blog 22 as those before us did.

    http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/12/02/how-to-grow-your-blog-to-100000-visits-a-month-in-18-months/http://sivers.org/oppositehttp://www.quicksprout.com/2013/12/02/how-to-grow-your-blog-to-100000-visits-a-month-in-18-months/http://sivers.org/opposite