Am I doing everything right?
When I first started building the HCG Diet 411 Blog - I had already been blogging for quite a while. So I knew right away that I was doing things right. But this is only because I had learned from my previous mistakes - Trial and error if you will.
So this just means that my other 4 blogs before this, wasn't very successful, not at all! I mean yeah they got some traffic, but I was working day and night to get it. And the sad part is that it wasn't coming from Google or any of the other search engines. You know the places that you want your traffic to come from.
During the days of my more un-successful blogs, I did a lot of reading. I read e-books on SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) e-books about getting traffic, I even read those e-books about how to build a better blog; and even though I felt like I learned everything that I needed to know, my blogs just weren't going anywhere.
But this is because I did everything backwards and half-assed. I thought that I could just kind of wing-it. However, this is not what a good blogger does. If you have read anything about me, you know that I started blogging to drive traffic to my websites, which I had built for affiliate marketing. It was during this time that I realized that I really enjoyed blogging.
So I took the blogs that I had already started and I became more serious about building my blogs. But you see, I started those blogs for all of the wrong reasons. I picked the niches that I was blogging about, because those were the type of affiliate products that I was promoting.
And what is the first thing that you learn about creating a successful blog?
Blog about something that you are passionate about! If I would have done that from the beginning, I might have had an easier time building them into successful blogs. But I didn't.
Here's What I Decided To Do
I knew that I enjoyed blogging and I definitely wanted to keep doing it. So I made the decision to start all over from scratch. But this time I was going to do things the right way.
So here's what I did...
- I chose a topic that I knew a lot about, one that I had an interest in.
- I decided to treat my blog more like a business.
- I made the commitment to post quality content for my readers - not for the search engines.
- I bought my own domain name.
- I started setting goals for my blog.
- I was excited about what I was doing.
- I put it out of my mind that I was blogging to make money.
- I got more personal with my blog readers.
- I started really using analytics and testing what worked for my blog.
- I used good SEO tactics.
But I think the main thing that I did was... I just really enjoyed what I was doing and I continue to enjoy it today.
Right now my blogs are nowhere near as successful as I would like them to be, but they are getting there. Plus I am having a good time building them - I think this is one of the main reasons that they continue to grow as well as they do.
Keep in mind when I talk about my blog being successful, I am mainly talking about the success that I am having with my other main blog - The HCG Diet 411 Blog. And I think this is what proves my point about how you need to enjoy what you are doing to have your blog become successful.
Weight loss is one of the most over-saturated niches, with probably the highest amount of competition. But I wasn't worried about that, I just chose to blog about something that I knew a lot about. Plus, I like blogging about the HCG Diet because it's a topic that me and my wife get to work on together. This helps us to build a relationship with our readers and with each other. And because I enjoy it, my blog has started to become very successful.
You really do need to blog for the right reasons. If you want to have a successful blog, choose to blog about what you know - Remember, you can't fake passion. You either have it, or you don't. But because I have become more passionate about becoming a successful full-time blogger - this blog is also starting to grow better than I ever thought it would.
How do you know you are doing things right?
The numbers will speak for themselves. If you are doing everything that I listed above, your search engine visibility will grow and so will your readership. You will see it in your analytics - If the lines keep going up, your doing something right. If they are straight across the board, you might want to re-think your strategy. Kind of like I did.
But the main thing is, if you are doing things right, you'll just know it!
Do you think that you are doing things right?
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