First, let me back up and say I will address the previous post in a bit. It’s fairly involved, so it’s going to take some time to do right. In the meantime I wanted to write a quick summary type post that illustrates an easy way to get some money from this web thing.
There’s a lot of talk about blogging and all the wonderful things it does. I’m not much into that, I could care less about most of the perceived benefits of blogging. For me a blog quite simply is a way to generate sales/leads/conversions. I want direct results.
The good news is, it’s pretty easy to get results from a blog. All you have to do is stick to writing some posts. More specifically, if you’ve been doing your reading at home then you know that fully half the traffic from the search engines - Google included - is on long tail search terms. Funky search terms that nobody would ever dream of targetting. If you have enough content (i.e. blog posts) then you’re going to be able to access that long tail search traffic. It’s easy to rank for, you just have to have the content there.
So the first thing about a blog is that we’re going after the long tail or secondary search terms. The second thing is that the site has to convert. Traffic that doesn’t convert is useless. In sales, this is called ‘asking for the sale’. You have to ask for the sale. Online that means you need to decide what your conversion is (is it a sale? a lead? Request for more info?) and put it in their face. Make it prominent.
In my industry I have a tried and true conversion form. But with my blogs I’ve always found it a pain in the butt to integrate the conversion form nicely into the blog. Until I was reading suggarae’s blog and noticed she had a new theme. And guess what, it has the biggest baddest conversion sweet spot of pretty much any theme I’ve seen. AND you can cut and paste code (or your form) into that sweet spot and it automatically publishes it in that sweet spot across all the pages. This site is actually using that theme. See that block of ads in the top right hand corner of this and every page on this site? That was a simple cut and paste.
Yes. Sweet. Very sweet. Sweet enough that I bought the developer’s version of the theme and use it across every single blog I have. It allows me to set up and run blogs and easily convert my traffic no matter what the subject. But enough generalities - the theme is the thesis theme from DIY themes. And yes that’s a commissioned/affiliate link. And yes, you should still buy the theme.
Here’s the summary to a succesful blog. Note that in six months the only difference between those making money from a blog and those that aren’t is whether or not you actually do this. There’s no secret here, just routine work.
- Get a domain name, and get it hosted somewhere inexpensively.
- Get wordpress and install it on your new site.
- Buy the Thesis theme and install it. Put your conversion or money shot in the big block.
- For the next six months, commit to writing a blog post at least three times a week.
- During those six months, follow the basic link building posts we’ve talked about previously here. Nothing fancy, just start getting some links to the site.
- You were expecting more?
That’s it. Is there anything in that list that you can’t do? Of course not. It really is that easy. It’s all I do, and my blog, as a secondary site, brings in more leads in a day than most people in my industry do in a month. Which brings me to my last point. Even if you already have a main SEO site, doing the above is a smart thing to do. Diversifying your search engine traffic is vital - and a second site like this allows you to do that. And as I hope I’ve made clear, if that second site is a blog then it’s easy enough to bring in some traffic and conversions.