Your First 30 Days of Blogging

Starting a blog is easy…right? Technically it is easy to throw up a WordPress or Blogger blog, but it isn’t easy to create a successful blog.

If you want your blog to flourish and be looked upon as the go to resource for your industry, then it is critical that you follow and act on these steps over the next 30 days.

Day 1: Don’t launch until your blog is correctly setup.

No matter how tempting it maybe, you don’t want to launch your blog too early. You have to cover the basics by making sure you have an about and contact page as well as a decent looking design. Your design doesn’t have to be perfect or unique, you could just use a free WordPress theme.

And lastly, make sure you are using Feedburner to track your RSS feed and Google Analaytics to track your visitors.

Day 2: Pick a topic and stick with it

Even though it’s your blog and you can write on whatever you want, you have to pick a topic and stick with it. Although there is nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want, your blog will be much more popular if you stick with 1 topic.

It’s very rare to see a popular blog that covers dozens of different topics. Most of the popular blogs (TechCrunch, I Can Has Cheezburger, Gizmodo, Perez Hilton) write on 1 topic.

Day 3: Be consistent

If you have a lot to say and a ton of time, then blog daily. If you don’t have much time on your hands or much to say, blog once a week. Once you figure out how often you are going to blog, stick with it and be consistent. The biggest way to lose your audience is inconsistency.

If aren’t sure how often you can blog, start off by blogging once a month. If you happen to have more time, you can step it up by blogging more often. Just don’t reduce the number of times you are blogging.

If you don’t believe me, just take a look at Quick Sprout. During the beginning of the year I use to blog weekly and my blog was getting roughly 100,000 visitors a month. Now my blog is only getting 60,000 visitors a month because during the second quarter of this year, I was averaging 1 to 2 blog posts a month.

Day 4: No man is an island

Now that your blog is a few days old, you should start seeing some comments. Although it is only a standard practice to read every comment on your blog, you should make an effort to respond to every commentor.

If you don’t, some of your commentors may feel like you are ignoring them. Responding to every commentor will help you build a loyal following, which will help build up your traffic in the long run.

This is the main tactic I have used to help build up Quick Sprout.

Day 5: Stop regurgitating content

Don’t just blog about the news or on something you saw on another blog. If you are going to write on stuff everyone else has written on, make sure you throw in your two cents.

People are reading your blog because they want to hear from you…right? Then give them what they want by providing your opinion.

Ideally you should only be blogging when you have something new and exciting to say.

Day 6: Don’t be afraid to get dirty

Most bloggers are afraid of saying what they really think, especially when it is something negative. Don’t be afraid to get dirty unlike most bloggers. If you really feel a specific way about something, then write about it. I don’t care how negative or positive it maybe.

Controversy is one of the quickest ways to build a large following because it will cause other bloggers to link to you. Just don’t abuse the power by writing controversial posts for no reason. If you do, it could end up backfiring.

For example, I saw that Matt Kirkpatrick was messing up on his blog, so I called him out. Not only did I get Matt to come to my blog and comment, but that post also caused me to see an uptick in my RSS subscribers.

Day 7: Differentiate yourself

Like anything else, you are going to have competitors. So if you want people to read your blog compared to your competitions’ you’ll have to do something unique. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, just something different.

For example, I blog about entrepreneurship like thousands of other bloggers. The way I try and differentiate myself is by writing detailed content that helps entrepreneurs take action. Entrepreneurs can get information from anywhere, but it is hard for them to find resources that tell them what to do.

Day 8: Survey your readers

Now that you have built up a small audience, it is time for you to survey them because the best way to improve your blog is to get feedback from your readers.

I usually use Survey.io to survey my blog readers and it has helped me realize that you want me to blog about things entrepreneurial related compared to things related to branding (Quick Sprout was once a blog on personal branding).

Surveying your readers will allow you to adjust your blog to meet their needs. You won’t be able to satisfy everyone, but you should be able to satisfy 80% of your readers.

Day 9: Leverage the social web

Two of my biggest sources of traffic are Twitter and Hacker News. Not only do these social sites drive visitors, but they also drive a lot of commentors.

Your blog may not be relevant toward the Hacker News audience, but it is relevant to someone on the social web.

Look for social sites that promote content similar to yours. And if you don’t know of any, you can always try going through this list.

In general sites like Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon work well for most bloggers. And out of these 3, Twitter is going to be the easiest to leverage because every time you write a blog post, you have it automatically tweeted out.

Day 10: Network with bloggers

The easiest way you can grow your blog traffic is to get other bloggers to link to you. But if you just hit up 100 random bloggers you’ll be lucky if you can get a few to blog about your blog.

On the other hand if you start chatting with bloggers through instant messaging and email, you’ll start building a relationship with them. And when you need them to plug you on their blog, your chances are going to be much higher.

When I launched Quick Sprout, within the first few days I had over 1000 RSS subscribers because bloggers like Shoemoney and Paul Stamatiou blogged on my launch.

Just don’t abuse the privilege because bloggers can easily get irritated if you keep on bugging them for mentions on their blog.

Day 11: Analyze your Feedburner stats

Feedburner can do a lot more for your business than just tell you how many RSS subscribers you have. If you dig a bit deeper you’ll notice that they tell you how many times RSS subscribers clicked on different blog posts.

By studying this data you will have a better understanding of what content your readers like and don’t like.

In addition to that, you’ll have a better understanding of the type of headlines your readers like.

Day 12: Participate in the conversation

In addition to responding to the comments on your blog, you should comment on your competition’s blog. This is a great way to get some of their visitors to come over to your website.

Are you familiar with Mashable? If you aren’t, it is one of the top 100 blogs on the web when it comes to popularity. One of the things that led to Mashable’s success is that they commented on their competition’s blog when they first launched.

I know this can be time consuming, but you don’t have to do it with all of your competitors, just do it with the popular ones.

Day 13: Optimize your blog for search engines

According to Alexa, Google is the most popular site on the web. So why not optimize your website for it and other search engines? SEO doesn’t have to be complicated. If you have a WordPress or Movable Type blog, this article will walk you through the steps you need to take to be search engine friendly.

If you don’t have a WordPress or Movable Type blog, you can still optimize it, you just may have to put in more time.

Day 14: Write a three part series

Writing a 3 part series blog post isn’t going to be an easy task, but the results that it will produce will be worthwhile. By publishing a 3 part series over a week time span, you are going to encourage readers to come back more often.

For a new blog this is important because even if your readers like your content, they’ll tend to not come back. If you leave them wanting more they’ll naturally have to keep on coming back.

A good example of a blog that has created a multiple series post is Problogger. Problogger has taken this concept to a whole new level, with a 31 days series post about blogging.

Day 15: Come up with a monetization plan

You shouldn’t try and monetize your blog within the first few months of blogging because it can be a big turn off to your readers. But, you still need to know how you are going to make money from your blog.

Come up with a plan of monetization strategies you want to test over the next few months. And don’t just rely on the standard methods, such as slapping up Google AdSense.

Get creative; try out some affiliate ads and things that are more integrated with your blog, such as a subscription program.

If you don’t want to make money from your blog, that’s fine, but in many cases the popularity of your blog will increase as you make more money. Just look at John Chow.

Day 16: Encourage commenting

A good way to increase the number of comments on your blog posts, is to ask a question at the end.

For example, you could end your blog posts with questions like:

So what do you think?
If you have any other suggestions, feel free and leave a comment?
Do you have any questions?
Or if you want, you can do what Gary Vaynerchuk once did:

If this post doesn’t receive 600 comments, I am going to stop blogging. So please comment.

Day 17: Have someone tweet about your blog (not you or your mom)

Tweeting about your blog posts isn’t enough. You need other people to tweet about your blog. Now that you have been leveraging Twitter for a while, here are a few ways you can get others to tweet about you blog:

Ask your followers to retweet your message (assuming you just tweeted about your blog).
Email friends and colleagues who use Twitter and ask them for a tweet.
Join a social media ring. If you join a group filled with social media users, you can ask each other for tweets.

Day 18: Leverage blogrolls

You’ll notice that a lot of bloggers have blogrolls on their blog. It’s their way of showing their readers which blogs they typically read.

If you can get your blog added to a few blogrolls, not only will you get an increase in traffic from the link, but you’ll also get a bit more traffic from search engines.

The best way to get your blog added to a blogroll is send out custom emails to bloggers. Build a relationship with them and nicely ask if they wouldn’t mind adding you to their blogroll.

Most bloggers are going to say no when you email them, but like anything else, it’s a numbers game.

Day 19: Get personal

Now that you have been blogging for roughly 3 weeks, it’s time to build a personal connection with your readers. You can do this through three ways.

The first is to write a detailed about page that includes your life story. I have done this with my about page and based on the comments I have received, it has been effective.

The second tactic that has helped me build a relationship with you was when I started blogging about my life experiences, such as the 7 business mistakes that nearly made me go broke.

And lastly, although this is more of a requirement than a tactic, you should add a picture of yourself in your sidebar. I don’t care if you’re ugly or pretty, people won’t bond with you unless they know to whom they are talking.

Day 20: Track your internal searches

Through services like Lijit, you can track what people are searching for and what blog posts they are clicking on. This will enable you to get a better understanding of what content your readers are looking to read.

Once you have enough data to crunch, then you can consider writing blog posts related to the keywords people are searching for.

Day 21: Survey your readers again

I know that you already surveyed your readers once, but you want to make sure that you are meeting their expectations. Hopefully after you learned what they wanted from you the first time, you were better able to satisfy their needs. But, if you don’t survey your readers, you won’t ever know.

And if you don’t happen to meet their expectations, that’s fine. It took me roughly 3 times before I met your expectations on Quick Sprout (or so I hope).

Day 22: Reduce your bounce rate

Now that you have a decent amount of traffic coming to your blog, you want to work on reducing your bounce rate. A few things you can do to reduce your bounce rate are:

Add a widget to your blog that shows your most popular posts. This way if a new reader comes to your blog they can easily find the best blog posts you have written.
If you don’t have a tagline, consider adding one. A tagline will help better explain what your blog is about to new readers.
In your sidebar consider adding a short paragraph that explains what your blog is about. This should help convince a few of your visitors to stick around a bit longer.
Day 23: Tweak your design

Similar to modifying your blog to reduce your bounce rate, it is now time to modify the design elements on your blog to meet your goals.

For example, if your goals are to increase the number of RSS subscribers you have, increase the number of comments per post, and make your content more readable you would:

Move up your RSS subscription link above the fold as well as provide an email subscription option (a lot of people don’t use feed readers).
Implement a threaded comment system that encourages a conversation.
Consider using larger text and Arial as your font type.
Your goals may vary from the ones above, but whatever they are, make sure your design is helping you meet those goals. If it isn’t, modify your design.

Day 24: Write an in-depth guide

Now it’s time to figure out how in-depth your readers want your content to be.

Om Malik once said that if you have a blog post that is 1000 words, it could be written in 500 words. And if it could be written in 500 words, then it could be written in 250 words.

What Om was trying to say is that you shouldn’t ramble on because no one likes reading fluff. But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write detailed blog posts that are long and actually provide a ton of value.

By writing a blog post that is 2000 plus words (assuming there is no fluff), it will give you an understanding if your readers like it more than your blog posts that were short. Based on that, you can adjust how long your future blog posts will be.

Day 25: Guest post on another blog

A great way to get more readers to your blog is to write a post on another blog. Whether it is a competitors blog or not, it doesn’t matter. As long as the blog you are guest posting on is popular and some what related, you’ll see an increase in traffic to your blog.

So create a list of 10 blogs that you would ideally want to guest post on and approach them. The majority of them will say no, but if one of them says yes, it will be worth the effort.

If none of those 10 blogs say yes, consider creating a list of 10 more blogs that aren’t as popular. In addition to that you may want to adjust your approach when you reach out to these bloggers. Not only should you ask them to guest post, but tell them what you want to write on and how it would benefit their readers.

Day 26: Keep on feeding the fire

Through services like Google Blog Search and Technorati, you will be able to find out when someone mentions you on their blog. Keeping track of this on a daily basis will allow you to thank every blogger that mentions you on their blog.

By showing your appreciation you will build up a larger fan base. Plus, those bloggers will more likely blog about you again because you said “thanks” to them.

Day 27: Join a blog network

Networks like 9rules and b5media have access to hundreds of popular blogs. By joining their network not only will you be connected with other popular bloggers, but you’ll start getting more traffic.

Don’t expect a ton of traffic from these networks, but expect a high quality of traffic. Plus, your blog is new, so every bit helps.

Day 28: Write an “ask the readers” blog post

If you aren’t familiar with what an “ask the readers” blog post is, check out this post I wrote. If that doesn’t help explain it, it’s pretty much a blog post that is asking a question to your readers.

Not only does this encourage a conversation, but it allows you to find out how many readers you actually have. And when a good chunk of your readers posts a comment, make sure you take the effort and get to know them on a personal level.

You can do this by replying to their comments, visiting their website if they have one, and by shooting off an email to them.

Day 29: Start cross-linking

A great way to get more pageviews out each of your visitors is to link to your older post. You can do this through a few ways:

Add a related posts widget at the bottom of each your blog posts. So if they like what they just read, they can read other similar blog posts.
Within your content link to other posts you have written. These links tend to get the most clicks because they are embedded within your content.
As I mentioned on day 22, in your sidebar, you can add a most popular post widgets. This will also encourage your readers to click through to other posts.
The other benefit that you’ll receive from cross-linking is that it helps with your search engine rankings. Over time, you’ll end up getting more Google traffic if you cross-link.

If you don’t believe me, just look at Mashable. They are notoriously known for cross-linking and it has worked out well for them.

Day 30: Don’t expect the world

Unlike any of the previous days, day 30 is a bit more relaxed. Instead of doing anything to your blog, I want you to sit back and just thinking about everything you accomplished and the areas you could improve upon.

And most importantly, don’t expect your blog to be popular. It can take months, if not years, before your blog really becomes popular. You just have to be persistent and keep on going at it.

If you stop, you’ll lose the traction you built over the last 30 days.