You know how that old chestnut goes – fail to plan and you plan to fail. Sailing a ship without a sail means you will never catch the wind and move forward. Driving a car without a map means you will never reach your destination. On and on they go; all the great analogies that provide us with one very important message. If you don’t know where you are going how will you know when you get there?
You have come to terms with the mindset of a successful blogger and planning is an important part of that mindset. Now you really need to spend time making four essential plans before you move any further.
Plan 1 : Niche Research
Plan 2 : Delivery system
Plan 3 : Blog Outline & Content Creation
Plan 4 : Traffic Generation/Marketing
When you start a blog business you must go through these four plans EVERY SINGLE TIME!
The final plan that focuses on traffic generation and marketing may be more or less the same but the places you visit might be different. If you have one blog up about dating and one about dog training you are not going to market or find your traffic in the same places so you will need to have a plan that focuses on where you will get your traffic from.
Of course the more you do this the quicker you become at it. The whole thing can be done in a day or less when you know how to do it.
Plan 1 : Niche Research
It is essential you never step into the product arena without first taking a long hard look at what it is your market wants from you, who they are and why they will buy from you rather than anyone else. There are many products out there that cover this to a large degree and this is not what this ebook is about but I do want you to understand that if you miss out research you make life difficult for you before you start.
When coaching clients I recommend they change their mindset about niche research from one that focuses on it being a “nightmare” and “boring” to one that focuses on it being a “treasure hunt” and a “search for fortune” because your research is just that. When you go through learning how to research a niche and know whether it is worth being in it may take you a week on your first attempt but the more you do it the faster you get until in only a few hours you can research a niche and have a blog up selling products.
When it comes to research – check out the research blueprint I have added – it is like searching for gold and will provide you with your very own goldmine so become the detective and have fun looking into your potential niche and finding out as much as you can about it.
You will find that everyone has their own way to research a profitable niche and you will want to discover yours and I have added the details of one very comprehensive research course that I went through which I thoroughly recommend. This is all included in the resources section at the back so no need to rush off and start your researcher (talking especially to you starters out there!)
Plan 2 : Delivery System
The thing about the internet is there are so many different ways that you can make money and so many different systems you can use to build your business. As you are reading this I will assume that a blog is going to be one of your delivery systems but you still need to think about others.
I go through them in much more detail in the “Choosing A System Blueprint” at the end but just to make you aware of some of them that I use and recommend there is:
• Affiliate Marketing
• Information Products
• Membership Sites
• Selling your services
• Audio/Video podcasts as a marketing tool for all of the above!
I have chosen these because you can use a blog to help you promote every single one of them and also because each one is a business on its own. There are people who only make money with affiliate marketing, or creating information products.
Eventually you will want to mix them up because it is never good to have all your eggs in one basket (ask all the adsense website owners who saw their profits fall from thousands to nothing overnight!) When you focus on only one system you run the risk of losing everything if that system should stop being popular or fail for whatever reason.
However when you are involved in different ways to earn an income then you are spreading out the risks.
Of course the biggest risk is being involved in so many that you don’t end up really mastering any of them, which is why looking at your expertise, the time you have, whether you have the money to outsource or whether you have to do it all yourself is what will determine which one you should start with.
Once you have your research complete and you decide on what you will sell to your chosen niche you are now ready to set up your blog but before you do it is a good idea to sit down and plan your blog outline.
Plan 3 : Blog Outline & Content Creation
Creating an blog outline will take some thinking on your part when you first set out to create one but once done it will provide you with ongoing content creation ideas at the beginning which is what you need. You will be amazed at the number of people who set up a blog and then run out of things to say 3 months later and of course that is down to a lack of planning.
By setting out what you want to include on your blog you can look back at it time and time again as inspiration for what to write about and use it along with your content creation plan to ensure you never run out of things to say.
Your outline really doesn’t have to be a long drawn out process and will probably only take you a couple of hours maximum. This is a short but important part of your business.
Creating your blog outline and content creation plan
After going through your research you will have an idea of what you want to do and who you are going to reach. Doing that will have given you an idea of what you want your blog to be called and the domain name you will use. Write this as the heading of your blog outline – your domain name and a brief description of who you are reaching/what your blog will cover.
Also during your research you will have looked at keywords for your blog. Take a look at the keywords you want to be known for and see how they can be used as categories on your blog. All content is saved under a particular category and if your category is your keyword it will help you be found in the search engines over time.
Now take a look at the content you already have. Hopefully you are writing a blog on a topic you know something about, maybe you have already written information on this topic if it is a hobby. If you already have material available place it all in one folder so that you can add it to your blog once it is up.
If you have no content then you will need to start writing. It is a good idea to launch a blog with 7-10 pieces of quality blog content rather than set it up and leave it “naked” for a few weeks while you write. I recommend you do not set your blog up until you have at least five blog posts but preferably more.
Make sure you write content based on what you are calling your categories and as much as possible ensure you are using your keywords.
Here’s an example for you (because I always find they help 
)
I am setting a blog up on How To Look After Your Baby Kitten
The keywords I have chosen based on my research are
• Training a kitten
• Food and nutrition for kittens
• Health care for kittens
• Toys for kittens
I ensure my blog categories are named according to these keywords then I write 3-5 articles that covers each area which means I need 12-20 articles in total.
You add them all to your blog over a period of 2-3 days (or you may want to back date them up to 2-3 months to make your blog look more established) and you link internally to them when you can.
For example when adding your article to food and nutrition you might also want to add a link that says read this blog post on health. Internal linking (linking from one blog post to another) using your keywords is important so do that as much as you can.
At the end of some of those articles you then link to your affiliate product that you recommend. Recommend it only when it is relevant to what you are writing about.
You might also want to add a category called “Great products for kittens” and review different products that people might want to buy for their new kitten – with your affiliate link of course.
That is an example of a blog and content outline plan and you can see that when you have a plan it makes knowing exactly what to write about much easier.
Of course not all blogs turn out to be that neat, you may have 10 different categories and a number of subcategories so if you already have a blog you may need to look at how you can re-create it to fit neater into who you are targeting and why.
As your blog develops and more content is added you will find yourself receiving comments and earning money as people read your recommendations and buy what you recommend.
If you already own a blog and you have ever said to yourself that you are not sure what to write about go take a look at your blog outline and if you don’t have one sit down and write one because it will really help you focus.
What kind of content can you create?
Not all your blog posts have to be long and highly informative but if you are building an authority blog (a blog that as a lot of free valuable content on a topic) you will want it to be. However that doesn’t stop you on coming up with other types of content
• Video – especially how to do something or videos that teach
• Audio – run your own radio show or interview experts in your niche
• Thought of the day – something for people to think about that day
• Thought of the week!
• Ongoing series – write out a whole report and then add each chapter one week at a time
• A theme for a particular day of the week. More More Monday, Webinar Wednesday that type of thing
• Webinars/teleseminars that you provide on a weekly or monthly basis
• News : what’s happening in your niche/industry, what news or hot topics can you use on your blog
• Summary : summary of what has happened over the last week or month in your industry
• Events : events your readers might want to know about/attend, events your readers can attend to meet you
• Lists and resources : how to do things and lists are very popular
• Using articles written by other people that you get from article directories – do not go into overkill and make every blog post from someone else! Use sparingly and only when desperate
These are all examples of content that you can produce for your blog and there are probably many more that I haven’t even covered yet.
What you are looking to do here is expand your visibility of the web and raise awareness of you and/or your brand.
Plan 4 : Traffic Generation/Marketing
Traffic generation or getting visitors to your blog is so important that I have created a blueprint for that too. The thing to remember is that having a blog is not just about driving traffic to it, there are blog owners who enjoy 10,000 visitors every day who are not making a huge income.
Remember this is a business and what is important here is what happens to those visitors when they hit your blog. As long as they believe your content is relevant the first thing they should want to do (after prompting from you) is to sign up for your newsletter or to join your list.
I can not stress how important having a list of subscribers is and I prefer to call them an audience. This group of people who will give you their email address in exchange for what you are offering free will want to continue hearing from you. They will be your audience for your business and how you treat them will determine whether they stick around or unsubscribe and disappear.
There are so many different ways to get people to your blog and it is easy to get stuck on what to do or think it is difficult. I like to use the classics that never really change and combine them with a few newer ways to market online.
The classic ways of getting free traffic to your blog
- Article marketing – writing articles that are sent out to different article directories
- Submitting your blog to blog directories – can be dull but is essential.
- Links – internal linking to your blog posts is easy but you also need links to specific blog posts (known as deep linking) and links to the main page of your blog. Your blog is judged by the number of links it receives so the more the better but don’t be fooled into paying to get loads of them.
- Forum posting – Log into forums that focus on your niche (e.g. a forum for kitten owners) and start adding posts and helping people out. Make sure you have a link in your signature to your blog.
- Press release – If you are going through a major launch I recommend you pay to send out a press release but you can also take advantage of free sites too.
I haven’t included writing quality blog posts that include your keywords here because that seemed kinda obviously!
Newer sources of free traffic
- Social networks/micro blogging sites like Facebook, Twitter etc are well known for having millions of every day folks who will happily take a look at what you offer.
- Social bookmarking sites – Like Stumbleupon and Digg which provide links to relevant information for people. Submit your latest kitten training blog post and watch the kitten lovers flock to read it (and share it if it is good enough)
- Social creation sites like Squidoo and Hubpages. Create your content and link back to your blog plus all the millions of people who visit these sites will visit you too.
- Audio/Video – regular podcasts which are added to different free sites as well as on your own blog will bring people to you. We all know how popular Youtube is!
- Blog commenting – leaving a comment on another relevant blog with a link to your blog. Just make sure your comment provides value to the readers of that blog rather than just say “Nice blog” or something as equally lazy. Even if you do think it is a nice blog at least say why!
- Guest authors – ask someone who a lot of knowledge in your industry to write for your blog, they will bring their own visitors with them plus some new ones for you.
Decide on which ones you love to do and which ones you don’t. I love Squidoo and Hubpages but find them time consuming to create and so don’t use them too often but you may love them, people build a whole business around setting new ones up!
All of that are just the free sources. You can also take advantage of some of the paid sources of traffic like pay per click from advertising, taking out an ad in a popular ezine/newsletter, press release and a host of other ways that will cost you money but are worth taking part in.
Traffic generation is a huge topic and should also be combined with search engine optimization techniques that we really can’t get into here but I have recommended a few places to learn about this in the resources guide.
Now let’s move on to vision building for your blog <== click the link
You can get the complete PDF by registering for our bootcamp (top right)
