Category Archives: Blogging

WordPress Crash Course

The WordPress Crash Course was designed with the complete beginner in mind. I start from square one with purchasing a domain name and hosting and take you every step of the way until you have a finished great looking blog. The videos in the following modules are very easy to understand and you won’t have any problem following the steps. There is NO technical talk. You simply watch what I do and listen to my simple explanations and then do it yourself.

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Module 1 – Setting Up WordPress

In this series, we will show you all the technical aspects to setting up a wordpress blog.  If these steps are not for you… you can hire someone of www.Fiverr.com to do it for you for.  Just make sure that you buy a domain name and hosting first.

Any of the below videos you can watch in Full screen mode, by clicking on the top right hand corner arrow buttons. ( see image below)

 

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Case Study: Zero to 1000 – Using A Blog to Create A Buyers List

This is the a ” Zero to 1,000″ case study outlining how a Blog was taken from non-existence to over 1,000 unique visitors per day in just under six months.

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Before we set up our blog, a foundation needed to be laid. A set of tangible goals needed to be outlined in order to measure the success of the site and create a road map. The target demographic was studied in order to give them what they wanted. For this particular blog, a knowledge tank investing in real estate articles relating to private money lending.

Setting Goals

From that, the ultimate goal of the site was created: to provide knowledge to private money lenders. The secondary goal was to highlight the what type of deals are in the market , and promote real estate ventures. The primary goal was to give them something of value in return for a email address. In this case, well-written information and news. Remember, if you give people what they want, they’re more likely to give you what you want.

Creating Milestones

Once the goals were outlined, we needed to decide how to meet them. Thus, we crafted milestones to gauge our progress. The milestones included the number of posts per day, number of newsletter subscribers, the number of daily traffic, and eventually average income per day. The milestones were laid out in first month, third month, and six month increments. The thing about creating milestones, though, is being realistic and remembering that they aren’t etched in stone. They are meant to step you up to your ultimate goals.

First Month Milestones

The first month milestones were having at least one post per day, to have at least 10 newsletter subscribers and at least 100 unique visitors. As you can guess from the above, the first month was the honeymoon period; getting used to blogging and finding a rhythm. Having smaller goals to meet on the day to day basis removed a lot of the stress from blogging which made it more approachable and less overwhelming. If you’re constantly worried about how you’re going to meet your 10 post per day quota, chances are you won’t even make a single post per day.

Third Month Milestones

By the third month, a rhythm should have been developed and it was the right time to start bringing in the visitors. So, the ante was upped. In the third month, the goal was to have an average of 500 unique visitors, at least 100 newsletter subscribers, and at least three posts per day.

Sixth Month Milestones

Finally, the by the sixth month, the blog should have fallen comfortably into place and on a clear path to achieving each goal. The sixth month mark is usually when you can start to gauge the true potential of a blog, and adjust your goals as necessary. With that, the sixth month milestones were to have at least 300 newsletter subscribers, to maintain the average three posts per day and include weekends, and to have at least 5,000 unique visitors per month. Looking over the outlined milestones, you can see that it we were fairly conservative, but not so much that there would be no challenge or growth. The actual idea of outlining the milestones was to gradually work up to the ultimate goals of the blog. Success doesn’t happen instantly and the last thing you want is to burn yourself out in the first few weeks of being online. In the second part of the case study, we’ll go over the milestones individually and how we worked to achieve each of them.

Now lets take a  deeper look into each of the milestones, how we hoped to achieve them, and what we experienced.

Meeting The First Month Milestone

The first month was mainly focused on getting used to blogging regularly. Because this was my mentor students first blog, we decided it would be best to ease him into the process instead of diving in head first. Had he jumped right in, without carefully inspecting the waters, he may have bumped his head on the bottom of the pond. Initially, he worried about where he’d find news to post, especially for such a narrow niche and demographic. The problem was finding it for his specific demographic. My advice: when you can’t find it online, look off. Consider looking for investment news in offline sources and compiling it all in a central location (the blog).

Develop The Rhythm

So, my client mentor student starting writing blog entries. The blog was populated with about two month’s worth of content before it was officially launched to the public. Call this cheating if you want, but I call this careful preparation. By building the content before anyone was there to see it removed some pressure and allowed the marketing and growth after launch to come naturally. As my student found more sources for news (television, magazines, radio, contacting local news agencies, and later, reader submissions), his blogging naturally increased to daily posting. First milestone achieved.

Getting The People

Once the blog was unveiled, it was time to start bringing in the visitors. To do that, we started with submitting to the top blog directories and updating the ping list for some quick traffic and back links.

The directories were specifically chosen because they’re more highly trafficked and can pass a high link value. Then it was on to focusing my efforts on submitting the blog to niche specific blog and website directories. (The blog was submitted to five additional niche specific directories.)

To find niche and demographic specific directories, use the wonderful power of Google. Map out the keywords you wish to use and append ‘directory’ to it in your search. Review the website to make sure it’s reputable. The last thing you want to do is build links from bad neighborhoods to your blog.

And the yield from this carefully planned effort? In the first official live month, the blog had 325 unique visitors. I’d say we met our first month milestone. Mistake to avoid: Placing your newsletter subscription box out of site. Place your newsletter subscription box where people will find it. When the site started the newsletter box was not clearly highlighted Even though we still received the milestone ten (actually 13) sign-ups, once I moved the box to the upper left corner, sometime in the second month, the subscription rate shot up about 275%. In the next part of the series, we’ll have a look at the third month milestone and what we focused on between month two through the end of month three.

So the focus has been on building up content, getting used to blogging, and building a readership. Initially, the two months prior to launch was used to develop content, then at launch, the site was submitted to various web directories, and finally, after there was an established blog, we began marketing it via press release, networking, link building, and commenting at other weblogs. This section (IV) will cover the 6th month milestone and how we accomplished them. Sixth month milestones:

  • Three hundred newsletter subscribers
  • Average three posts per day
  • Average 5,000 unique visitors per day

Getting the Post Count Up

Blogging daily wasn’t a problem. Such a momentum had been built, its easy to maintain. Being a busy person, always on the go, a majority of posts are pre-loaded to publish in the future. While this creates a fair share of future dated entries, its suggested to also sprinkles some current blog entries in there (breaking news, scooping a story, and so on). It also helps greatly that his average blog entry is usually less than 100 words.

Advice: If you want to get your post count up there, blog early. First thing in the morning, find some news to blog about and queue it to publish throughout the day. Also, concentrate on writing shorter, more concise, blog entries. Finally, start with a single blog entry every couple of days, then work your way up to multiple times per day (if your niche warrants it).

Breaking the 5,000 Unique Visitor Barrier

Well, that barrier was already broken within the third month because of a well-placed mention on a few authority web blogs. The key now was to maintain the readership and grow the traffic from that. We knew an onslaught of traffic was heading our way, so we hunkered down and prepared to make some of those readers permanent readers. We added a newsletter subscription box to the post linked to and added a special note asking readers to subscribe via the web feed. Thanks to some well-placed links, the targeted traffic grew and with that surge came more people recommending the sites to their friends. Remember: people talk. That talking leads to the blog being linked from various websites (without a request). Another way we built up traffic and readership was to take the advertising offline.

After checking out a few trade magazines that catered to the target demographic, approach the publishers and asked for a trade in advertising. Advertise the magazine online and the magazine could advertise the blog offline — match made in heaven. At the end of the 6th-month mark, the blog was receiving – steadily – 1,000 – 1,500 unique visitors and 3,000 to 5,000 pageviews per day. It started with an idea. That idea grew into something amazing is less than half a year and (as we crawl into the 8th official month online) the site has gone up to 2,000-2,500 unique visitors per day with little additional effort. The hump is the third-fifth months. Those are the months you need to build your momentum and after that, it’s like cruising downhill. The key is to maintain. As long as you continue to blog regularly, participate in the community, get his readers involved, and give them what they need, the traffic will continue to grow.

SUMMARY

In the beginning, prior to launch, we developed content and acclimated my client to blogging. Once the blog officially launched, it was submitted to various web directories and once the blog was established, we moved on to marketing via press release, networking with other bloggers, link building, and showing our virtual face throughout the blogosphere. Finally, we moved into building up the newsletter, ramping up the posting on the blog, and building / maintaining the readership.

This final section of the case study will deal with more of the specifics to starting, launching, and maintaining a popular blog.

Understand the Difference Between Demographic and Niche

A demographic is a certain set of people grouped by commonalities and a niche is a specific topic of interest.

Middle age White men, middle-aged Asian men, people 35-70 years of age — all of these are demographics. The people who you will be catering to. You can narrow your demographic requirements as much as you want, but you must be careful not to exclude too much of the group.

Probate, debt relief, divorce, tired landlords — all of these are niches. The topics that you could essentially write about.

The idea is to choose a “niche topic” for a specific demographic. For instance, you can write about wholesaling, or you can write about government grants for first time home buyers 25–35 demographic or housing grants for single young women. When you select your topic and demographic, stick to it. Don’t try to please anyone else, otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt.

Start With What You Know and Enjoy

The fact is, my client was already a part of his target demographic “middle age men of x income, seeking good returns for retirement: this made it much easier to get a sense of what they wanted and how he would approach writing about it.

Of course, you don’t need to be a part of the demographic to cater to them, however, it would take more work. If you decide to stray outside of your demographic, make sure that you know someone (better if you know a group of people) in that demographic who can help you out. Every culture has its sore spots, so it’s important to be aware of them before you set out.

You should also familiarize yourself with the publications for your demographic and niche. Not only could they prove a useful asset for information, but they can also prove to be a powerful ally in the future, should you play nicely with them.

Incorporate Keywords Whenever Possible, But…

After reading a few of my client’s entries and realizing he wasn’t optimizing his post titles well enough, I suggested that he start using the hot keywordsin the title.

Keywords can be integrated into the title without being overdone. Just keep in mind that keywords are important, but not so important that you lose sleep over it.

Fixed Post Length Rarely Matters

On this particular case study blog, the average post word count is less than 100. Yet, that doesn’t deter his readers or the search engines. In fact, for his particular niche, it aids in getting more readers and links to the blog.

Depending on your topic, the shorter the post, the better. That may seem contradictory to what you’ve been told, however, consider that you’re mainly writing for people and not the search engines. People are busy and more likely to read an entry that only takes a few minutes as opposed to a novel.

Chances are, if your post is especially long, people will bookmark it to read later and guess what? They’ll either forget and simply decide against it. Always keep your audience’s needs before the search engines’.

Of course, you’ll want to integrate a few lengthier posts in between the quick nuggets, but you still want to keep them manageable (less than 1,000 words). These posts will actually serve as food for both your readers and search engines. They will be what gets the people hooked and the regular, short posts will be what keeps them hooked.

Editing Does Matter

In the beginning, I would go through each of his posts after he published it and play executive editor. Basically, I’d fix any grammatical mistakes or spelling errors and send him a note about it so he’d be mindful of it in the future.

This may seem pedantic, but there was a reason for the madness. Using proper grammar and spelling shows a level of professionalism and care placed in the website. Even though the style of the writing was casual and jovial, it still came across as well-written. Eventually, this lead to him being offered a deal to blog from some other well-established blogs (think b-list) and write for a magazine (which he declined).

Don’t take this as an opportunity to sweat the small stuff; you’re prone to make mistakes every now and again — it’s called being human, but make sure you keep it to a minimum and if, later on, you spot something that’s out of place, don’t be afraid to make it right.

Comments Come Later

Blogging may seem like a lonely gig in the beginning, if you have comments enabled but no one leaves any. But, you shouldn’t despair because comments come as traffic increases. Actually, only about 10% of a blog’s visitors will actually leave a comment with a majority of the comments left by blog stalkers (diehard fans).

You may be wondering why you should go through the trouble of making your blog seem as though it’s well commented and that’s because it appeals to advertisers, believe it or not, and it entices others to participate. A blog with no comments can seem like a ghost town and no one enjoys being in a ghost town — they can be downright spooky. On the other hand, a well-commented blog gives off the effect that it receives a lot of visitors (even if it doesn’t) and has more of a theme park feel.

In time, the comment count should increase naturally, especially if you actively get your readers involved.

Newsletter Marketing

People subscribed to his newsletter because they don’t know (or care to know) what RSS is. Plus, it was actually one of our goals for the site. As a result, the newsletter subscription has been steadily growing.

At this point, maintaining the momentum is like cruising downhill. It’s a matter of keeping up the posting on a regular schedule (if you’re going to be cramped for time, pre-publish and postdate).

Also, don’t think it’s time for you to start slacking off when it comes to networking with other bloggers and members of the media. It’s actually the perfect time to start. Building these relationships while your blog is established, yet still growing, means more opportunity for collaboration.

Let me finish up by saying that amazing blogs don’t happen overnight. I can tell you how to do it until I’ve passed out from lack of oxygen, but unless you actually do it you won’t see any results.

Put the time and effort into it, then your blog can also grow. Enjoy what you do and it will show.

Although this is the final entry in the case study, if I missed anything or if you have questions, you’re still more than welcome to ask and I’ll do my best to answer.