My 4 Key Steps For Creating Successful Blogs

By Ranami Obhuo

Over the years blogs have increasingly become so popular that it has become extremely competitive, hence, despite the potential profitability of blogs, it is not every blog that becomes successful in the long run; some fail outright while others achieve success to some extent, and others still become hugely profitable. Now you might be wondering why some blogs become so successful and others less so. Does it come down to mere luck or is there something the makers of these successful blogs do that the not so successful ones don't? I tend to incline to the latter. There are basically 4 key steps when creating blogs, that if paid significant attention to, one would definitely be on the right path to creating a successful blog.

My 4 key steps for creating successful blogs include:

1. Niche hunting - if one must be competitive in the business of creating blogs, then niche hunting is the way to go. A niche is a subset of a market, a target market or a group of people with similar interests. The aim of going for a niche market is to reduce the competition by offering services or products that other blogs are not offering to a smaller group of people. In going this way your earnings from a single personal blog might be smaller but will definitely be steady and who says you can't run more than one targeted blogs creating multiple streams of steady income.

2. Choosing a Domain name - A domain name is a URL or a .com or simply a website address. Now you might be wondering why a domain name is so important. Why shouldn't you just use your name, your cat's or dog's name or any name that comes up off the top of your head. Well, the fact that majority of successful Internet businesses and, indeed, blogs use domain names that are short, easy to remember and says something about their content makes your guess as good as mine, doesn't it? Some good examples include http://facebook.com, http://twitter.com, http://ebay.com, http://shareasale.com, and http://clickbank.com, to mention a few. A good domain name must also be optimized to suit the keywords for your personal blog so that it increases its search engine ranking, placing it at the top of search results by google, yahoo, etc. A higher search engine ranking ultimately leads to a higher traffic potential for your personal blog. Of course, after getting your domain name you have to host it either on free web-hosting sites like blogger.com and wordpress.com or on sites where you pay an annual fee like bluehost.com, and they all have their individual pros and cons, but whichever you choose is not ultimately key for the success of your blog. After this, you create the blog, which you can easily do following instructions from the web-hosting site. My next key step is:

3. Adding Content to blogs - The content of your blog, otherwise known as your blog post, is what your visitors are there for, so I cannot underestimate the value of having a high quality blog post. Look at it this way, the content of your personal blog is like the products in an offline store and nobody wants to buy from a store where they sell low quality products and knockoffs. The point is making your personal blog a place to go for what people need, hence enhancing your traffic potential. The blog post, if well optimized with keywords for your site and original, could also greatly improve your search engine ranking and ultimately increase your traffic potential. Traffic is everything when it comes to making blogs for financial success. Consider traffic to your personal blog as shoppers to an offline store: the more shoppers you have visiting the shop, the more sales you are bound to make; need I say more? In other words, try to give your blog post quality & originality and never copy articles from free content sites for your blog post because doing this would just put your personal blog at the bottom of the pile in search results, hence you blogs don't get found. After this, of course you have to monetize your blog, otherwise you make no money at all, but I'll write about how to do this in another article. The next key step for creating successful blogs, and in my own opinion, the most important is:

4. Marketing blogs - Like I've said before, TRAFFIC is everything if you want to create blogs for financial success. All the 3 steps above could ultimately increase your blog's traffic potential, but there is nothing like the power of marketing. Marketing makes your target readers or audience aware of your presence instead of waiting for them to stumble upon you. It also makes them aware of what you have to offer. Ways to market blogs include Internet marketing (article marketing, e book marketing, use of social networking sites and similar blogs, ad placements, etc), the use of local media (electronic & print), the use of hard copy books, banners, posters, fliers & complimentary cards, Word of mouth, etc. Never underestimate the power of marketing. Even blogs which are sub-standard with regards to their niche, domain name & blog post, can ultimately become huge success stories with excellent marketing.

In summary, to be successful with blogs, one has to pay significant attention to some important steps while creating new blogs. Failure to do this would probably prove counter productive in the long run.

Ranami Obhuo is a Webmaster, an ardent e-business enthusiast and the founder of ebiz4africa, the meeting place of Africa's e-business people. For more information on ways of making money online and an opportunity to show off your website, products or services, join his discussion board for free at http://ebiz4africa.com.