Thousands of people a day make the leap of faith to become the next internet superstar by creating a blog. Some of those folks are businesses trying to do the online thing, while many are simply trying to establish themselves on the internet.
Whatever the case may be, there are some definitive steps in building a successful blog – but in order to do that, let’s define what “success” actually is.
According to Dictionary.com:
Success is the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors – attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
In other words, it is the attempt to complete a task, to achieve a status, or to become something we currently aren’t. Growing up, we all had people we looked up to – people we wanted to be.
For me, it was Philadelphia Phillies third-baseman Mike Schmidt and Miami Dolphins Quarterback Dan Marino. For you, it may have been the lead singer of a rock band, or an aspiring Hollywood actress. Either way, we found ourselves looking up to someone for a very specific reason.
They attained success in a way we wish to.
In today’s society, there are many online folks that the everyday person (or aspiring blogger) wishes to become. For bloggers, that might be Darren Rowse or Chris Brogan. For women in the tech space, that might be Cali Lewis or Jolie O’Dell.
The bottom line is that we all have role models who have successful blogs. Ones we wish we could have started, or popular ones we wish we could contribute on. Like all of us, they started somewhere, and had to build from the ground up.
It will take some time, and probably hard work. But those who are diligent will experience the cliche from Field of Dreams, “If you build it they will come…”
Write Well and Write Often
I have to admit that for me this might be the most challenging one. Our lives today are filled with tasks and to-do lists. Filled with places we have to go. Calls we have to make and so on.
It’s critical that you blog frequently. Not every post has to be a novel, or a home run. But to establish traction and movement with your audience, you should be blogging at least 2-3 times a week. If not more.
Understand That it Requires Patience
As the saying goes – Rome wasn’t built in a day. Unfortunately for people who want to get rich quick, this is a tragically accurate statement. While I suppose it is possible to create a successful blog while having it built on sand, it won’t take but a wave or two to come crashing down before it’s wiped out.
Yes, that means you need to be patient and work hard. It means that like an Olympic athlete, you need to train and not just try.
Network Yourself With Others
When I first started out blogging and creating themes for WordPress, I sought relationships with others in the space. The most important person I networked with was Cory Miller. Back in those days, we spent a lot of time brainstorming and talking about our journey.
It consisted of moral support, but also paved the way to meeting other folks within our niche. It’s important to get to know the leaders in your space, and to understand what made them successful. As you get to know them, there’s a good chance that they introduce you to others as well.
Build a Community
For me, this step was easy – as I’ve always been a people-person and a gatherer. Whether it be comments on your blog, or establishing a forum on your site – engaging people and interacting with them is essential in building a successful blog.
Communities are born out of passion – passion for a sports team, passion for a brand of computer, or passion for way of life. After all, isn’t that what social media and the idea of viral loops are all about?
Hang in There and Stay Strong
A few months ago I ran a 1/2 marathon – something I never dreamed I could do. I’ll have to admit that more than halfway into the race I was ready to throw in the towel.
For me, I had hit the wall. I wanted to give up. Building a successful blog in some ways is similar to long distance running. There’s usually a time where you want to call it quits. Ask any successful blogger if they’ve encountered this. I can guarantee every one of them will say yes.
Confession Time
So what’s holding you back? What are the things that cause you to throw in the towel? Leave a comment and let’s talk about it…
I always remind new bloggers that “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.” Many will start out full of energy, crank out a few dozen posts, and overburden their schedule such that the hobby blog has become a second full-time job. The reality is, you can create great content if you set a schedule and stick to it. It’s hard, requires a lot of patience and perseverance, and will (at times) challenge your sanity.
Just like running a half marathon
Great analogy, by the way!
This concept is literally happening in my home – my wife Shelly launched her very first blog Shelly Ventures this weekend. I told her, that readers and comments won’t come overnight, but will increase if she remains patient. There’s a lot to do when you establish a new blog – using Facebook, Twittter, etc really helps.
When all a person wants is to be rich or famous they are inherently impatient with any process. As a former newspaper columnist for The L.A. Times, I interviewed hundreds of financial “powerhouses”. Not one of them (from Bill Gates to Donald Trump) ever said “I got into it to make a lot of money”. In fact, every successful person I talked with said they got into the work because they loved it. Financial reward was the secondary gain. People who have not reached their personal pinnacle of success don’t like hearing that and they almost never believe it. But it’s true. Doing what you love brings you what you need. People who end up miserable are those who, after achieving what they thought they wanted, find themselves asking “Is this it? Is this all there is?” It’s a tired old platitude, but true: DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW.
Hi Brian,
Great post. As a fairly new blogger I agree with everything you said. Some days it is hard to keep writing when little to no one is reading. As for Shelley, it may take time but she has some great content on her site.
Have you read the book “OUTLIERS”? Great book, a must-read. Written by the same author who wrote “BLINK”. He did a great deal of research and studied well-known successes from The Beatles to Bill Gates and says (among many other things) that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become expert at it. My friend is a small aircraft pilot who has never had a flying accident or even a close call. He began flying at 16 and still flies at 80. I asked him how long it took him to become expert at solo flying. Without knowing about the book, he replied, “About 10,000 hours”. So whether it’s playing an instrument, doing standup comedy, practicing medicine or blogging, it takes a dedicated investment of time and focused effort to get where you want to be.
Great insights! The “doesn’t happen overnight” part is what most new bloggers need to really understand, that and “be patient and consistent in your efforts”.
I usually suggest writing as though you already have the audience of your dreams. Approach blogging as content building, knowing that each post can be referenced later. A clear goal for your blog is so important! Do your research, and know your target market or audience.
Funny that you mentioned community and forums… I’m quietly launching a new forum right now! Guess I’m on the right track, thanks Brian!
Thanks Ginger – I told Shelly this weekend to write for the audience and the revenue will come, rather than writing for the revenue itself.
Great to hear you are establishing a forum – they can be extremely powerful, when built for the right purposes and circumstances.
There are a lot of “How to blog” posts out there.
It’s refreshing to see this one take a more human approach. You couldn’t be more right with writing well, have patience and stay strong.
These are the important PASSIVE traits that I think most people do not address to the want-to-be blogger.
Blogging was suppose to be my new years resolution and I have slacked a bit myself. Nice to get a little boost here!
Matt, I think the fact that you saw the “human” approach is proof in the pudding. This blog post was 100% auto-biographical… after all, it was my promise to folks that I would blog more in 2011 about my personal experiences on the internet.
Nice job on implementing the Hello Bar on your site. Have you noticed an increase in conversion?
on this site I get terrible conversion actually.
I’m launching my new blog soon – so this structure will be going away. I do use hellobar on a few other sites where I get 5 – 10% conversions.
Bummer to hear that – but good to hear you get such high conversions on the other.
Thank you for a great and well written post Brian.
What are your thoughts on using Twitter Tools to automatically publish a new Blog Post every time you Tweet? Of course if you tweet a lot you can always erase some of those post at the end of the day…
Anyway….
Like you said, it is very important to post frequently on your blog. I try to do that but like most people I fall short, so I implemented twitter tools on a few of my blogs. The problem I had before I started using the Genesis framework, is that the front of my blog always had a bunch of twitter posts, which to be honest with you looked unclean and scattered… Now one of the super features of the Genesis framework and the child themes by StudioPress is that unlike most blog themes one can use the Genesis featured posts (i.e., bottom left) for the Twitter posts. and it doesn’t show up on the entire front of your blog…
But here is my question… what are your thoughts on using tweets to publish content to your blog?
Is it a good idea?
I would assume it can help the blog on search engines if you always have new content even if it’s just a tweet.
Sure they are all only 120 characters but you can always go in later and add more text if it’s a good tweet, plus it kinda motivates you to work on your blog if you have to go there everyday and check the tweets to see if you need to edit out some things…
Anyway what are your thoughts on my lazy way of blogging lol.. or even more important, can it hurt my blog SEO.
Hm, I don’t know that I would tweet to my blog, rather the other way around. Publish (or share) your blog posts on Facebook and Twitter, because you may have a much larger audience there. I know that I currently have 3,000+ subscribers here on my site, but almost 10,000 on Twitter. I think it’s ok to publish a Twitter feed on your site, as I do on all of mine.
I do that as well. I to publish my lawn business blog posts on my facebook page…
BTW, How in the world does one get 10,000 twitter followers? Is there some kind of an automated tool or are those all authentic followers?
Oh wow Brian… there is a great blog posts for you… How a Human gets Twitter followers vs. A. Software bot
I would be all over that post, as I’m sure your 10,000 twitter followers would be too..
SEOmoz just published an article about the relevance of our Tweets on our page ranking… With the Tweets listing high as housed on Twitter.com, I’d be cautious about having each one create a blog post with no additional content. Wouldn’t want to get penalized for ‘duplicate content’.
I’m glad you posted your question here, Jerry… it spurred me to research a bit for a blog post.
+1 on engaging an audience which resulted in something positive.
Thanks a bunch… I will no longer be posting my Tweets as new Blog Posts..
Do you suppose it will hurt my Blog, as far as ranking, if I remove the 92 Twitter published blog posts I already have? These are over a period of 16 months or so…
@Jerry – In my opinion, SEO is very subjective. I worry less about what the SE’s will “like” or dislike, and more about what my readers/visitors will find value in. What Google considers “duplicate content” is a little different, since we can do our best to avoid it.
Questions I would ask myself about the 92 Twitter published posts you already have:
1. Do they add value to your site’s content?
2. Are they all relevant to the focus of your blog?
My suggestion:
Add value to the posts. Expand on the topic at hand in the tweets. Give your opinions, and the reasoning behind them. This will give the SE spiders more food, AND it will foster relationship building with your readers. Take advantage of the opportunity to go over the 140 characters that Twitter allowed you to use in the Tweet
Going forward, if there’s a tweet that you feel would add value to your blog’s content, why not use the topic for an informative blog post? I found a plugin today that would easily allow you to quote the tweet in the body of the post: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-blackbird-pie/
I know you said you were looking for the lazy way to blog… this does not qualify, I realize that lol. It just so happened that I was posting some of these resources in my forum today, so figured I’d share.
Sorry for the hijack, Brian! Good luck, Jerry!
Thank you Ginger for that great information.
Question: I am thinking of just putting my Tweets into a page on my blog, (My Twitter page itself) but in an iframe, but for some reason my Genesis powered Blog site does not accept iframes..
Anybody have any ideas on how to do that and would it be against Twitter’s terms and conditions to embed my Twitter page in an iframe on my blog?
Thanks
You will probably guess my approximate age by this question: IS THERE A TWEETING OR FACEBOOK FOR DUMMIES out there? I just can’t get into either one of them, especially now that every product seller in the universe tweets and/or advertises on Facebook. Maybe I’m just a rebel, I’ve always tended to turn off to things that get too popular — but I confess that under pressure I did finally register on Twitter. I’m embarrassed to tell you that once I logged on, I was completely clueless as to what to do next! I’m filled with questions — i.e., what is the purpose of following people? Perhaps it would grow on me if I knew what the hell I was doing — and why! Thanks in advance.
Hi Brian,
I don’t know how many books I have read about “Content”. Probably 5 or 6, including the one that I am reading right now. It all boils down to your number 1 point. However, in order to “write well” you have to “write often” or otherwise you will never know what your audience wants or needs to read. When I am able to merge my inspiration to write with the needs of my followers on a consistent basis then I feel as if I have struck gold.
Like yourself I helped my wife to become a blogger by creating danamustknit.com . Funny thing is that she is a much better writer than me and was able to network to the point that she now gets 9,500 hits a week and I am lucky if I get 95.
Hey Michael – yes, I have a feeling that Shelly will become quite a successful one – she’s got way more (writing) drive as well as time on her hands, so she’ll be fine. I totally agree that identifying with your audience, and how important that is. Quite honestly, it’s one of the reasons that I decided to write about my business journey here, rather than my personal life. Not much of an audience for the latter.
My biggest problem is writing often, specially during the winters, which is my “off-season”. I have plenty to talk about when the weather is nice, and things are happening around the ranch (since my blog is about my life on the ranch). I am currently working on rectifying that though. As I work to build my readership, I’m also working to find what my visitors like, and then during my off months, I’ll work to expand on those areas.
Always a work in progress, and a labor of love!
Hey Michelle – thanks for dropping by to chime in. If winter time is your “off-season”, then you’re in good shape as spring is right around the corner!
Your right Brian, activity has already picked up around here, along with my posting. I love when the weather is nice (i.e. above 50), and not raining. I’m looking forward to poking around this blog a bit more over then few days, as we are due rain.
I confess, what’s been holding me back is organization and prioritization. I’m a busy mom of five (only 2 left at home now), work part time from my home office as a web designer, wrote a Twilight guide and helped my daughter open a store, had to move and some extended family members and friends have had health issues. I wish that instead of putting off my blog for those things, that I had blogged about it along the way. I make blogs for clients, it’s my job, but I now it’s time to create something for me
Kathy, you have WAAYY too much going on for you to consider blogging. Sounds like you have 2 or 3 full time jobs already!
Great post Brian!
For me I find the hardest thing is finding the right niche for a blog. Something that is exciting to talk about.
I’ve created and sold several blogs in the past and keep trying to get my girlfriend to start one but every time she does it lasts about 2 weeks…Creating a successful blog really does take a lot of patience and hard work. I think if you have both of these the rest pretty much falls into place.
For me the hardest part is not necessarily writing good content, but finding topics to write about. I have lots of talents and am very attracted to multiple niches , yet still find it hard sometimes to write a post…I just feel like everything has already been written about before.
Hi Brian:
Yes, I agree with Victor’s comment directly above me – Great post!
You don’t know it but you have been instrumental in helping my wife Marny and I in our little Mom and Pop web development company here in Ottawa make a huge transition lately. Eleven years ago, we engineered our own proprietary Perl-cgi based content management system and built up a fairly successful business around it. We are also part-time ministers who usually work in situations where there is little or no funding available – we do a lot of work with the homeless community in Ottawa – and so the bi-vocational life was and continues to be perfect for us.
Last Fall we had several clients ask us about this whole “social media thing” and wanted us to explain what is was they were missing. It was then we knew that we either had to retire to sidelines (I’m 60 years old), or jump with both feet into the deep end of the social media pool and get back out on the cutting as we once were.
I’m happy to report that after spending several hundred hours clamouring up the learning curve we are now a fully operational WordPress development shop, a life-time member of the StudioPress community, and I’m even starting to get the hang of the blogging thing! I got onto Twitter without much of a clue as to what it is and I started following just one person at first – you. Then, when you recommended we follow Coppyblogger and Mashable, I did. Anyways, it’s all starting to come together and I want to thank you so much for your web presence, for StudioPress, and of course for your excellent articles like this one.
Brian,
I can completely relate with hitting that wall. any recommendations for sure fire perseverance tactics?
Great inspirational post Brian.
My biggest concern that is holding me back is that I know my language is not really up to par with what it should be. I have loads of ideas that I want to write down. But when I start writing out these ideas they usually don´t end up as I want them.
Which in turn when I stop writing and get back to the post later I wonder what I was doing and end up rewriting most of the post.
If I go and take a look at my older posts sometimes I´m amazed I could write that badly. And noone has told me it either. That brakes me moving forward. But I try to get over it.
I want to improve my language and try to do so. With various results.
But I won´t give up. I will continue to write and blog about the things that I know and like.
i like this theme, any theme like this in studiopress?
It amazes me how many people who keep up a blog and continue to stick with it with any sort or regularity can call themselves successful. I am guilty of starting for a week or two and falling off for a month. No one wants to read that!
Great post Brian.
All of your posts seem to be full of so much useful information and inspiration from a man who has obviously been on a journey to get where you are and has so much advice to pass on.
Nothing holding me back Brian, I’m going for it.
I don’t publish too often but I get about the blogosphere and I’ve become part of a few communities.
Found out early that bloggers support bloggers.
BTW – love the theme, love the footer.
Just starting out with Genesis and having to do lots of reading.
Fortunately you guys supply the code, I cut and paste. LOL
You are so right about the write well and write often.
When I get on a roll, and blog more, my traffic really goes up. Then I get back to creating websites and servicing clients, and I just get so busy. I always leave my own stuff for last and then I fall asleep late into the night. Working online for yourself has many great things about it, like being home for my kids, but man is it hard to stop working and take a day off.
Yeah, I hear ya – it seems like I’m always online, and that there’s always stuff to do. I don’t many folks who write well (and often) and do it successfully!
I did the “Write often” part. For months I was cranking out 3 or 4 posts a day. I was getting a lot of traffic, but I was forcing content. A topic I wrote about to NOT do…
Now I’m trying to write better posts, more meaningful, and more useful.
Quality > Quantity, in almost all cases in life!
Great article..preach on brutha
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I think it goes for any business, the same rules apply. You can’t just expect visitors overnight, and you can’t expect success overnight. So many people think that just the mere fact of it being online will make it easier than a service based local business or something similar, and in fact it still takes a lot of work.
The hustlers will always win the game
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Great article. We’ve got a whole 4 or 5 posts so far and it’s always nice to read posts like this to keep you grounded, on track and patient. I’ve always thought the most important ingredient to any business is consistency. Most people want something so bad they jump from one idea to the next and never give ONE thing their full attention. In the end I think they end up working harder than if they just stayed steady and true.
Thanks for the post
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OH and I’m more of a Caribou/Pete’s coffee addict….Starbucks will do in a pinch though
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hi, i love the studiopress themes, just have one question:
which ones contain all the post formats…? do they all or no…?
I have just started my blog it is geared toward women and relationships for those who have comented i have recieved great feed back but i cannot seem to gather an audience. So my question is how can i target and maintain an audience?
Hi Akilia
To gather an audience… get out there and comment on other blogs.
Leave genuine comments on articles that you can really add to and believe me, the bloggers will support you and visit your blog.
Just to get you started, I’ll pay you a visit.
Oops!
No link to your site Akilia.
Wow. Thanks for the advice. I have been working on a blog lately and trying my best to make some pretty cool improvements. May I ask what is it about WordPress you like? I myself am addicted to Blogger, but still considering other options. Any info you have on WordPress or any other website builder is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Cassandra