Is Your Blog Ready?
Please subscribe to ProTycoon.com via the RSS Feed or Via Email.
One of the biggest mistakes I see bloggers make is rushing to promoting their new blogs. Blogs by their very nature grow and develop over time. If you start to promote your site strongly from day one, then the chance is that you don’t have sufficient content in which to retain any visitors that you do attract to your site, you could also be damaging your blogs reputation early on.
In order to make the most of your blog promotion efforts you have to make sure that your blog is ready for the traffic you intend to send at it. When I say ready, what I mean is the ability to retain and hold visitors on your site and give them useful and insightful information.
In order to understand when your blog is ready you need to understand what makes a blog, a blog. Blogs generally differ from standard websites because they allow their visitors to comment on the information presented to them. They also usually provide an RSS feed which allows people to subscribe to the blog. This means that blogs have the ability to be ‘stickier’ than standard websites.
When Is A Blog Ready?
When I started ProTycoon.com I set up some benchmarks that I wanted to reach before I promoted my blog:
- 5 Pillar Articles – A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something.
- A Completed Blog Design – Nobody likes a design that is still under construction.
- An About Page Published – People want to know what the blog is about.
- RSS feed - Needs to be available and easy to find.
- Content - At least 30 Well Written Posts.
- Comments - Need to be enabled on Blog Posts, this is what makes blogs better than standard sites.
By having the pillar articles as well as a collection of well written posts I was offering valuable content to my blogs visitors giving them the ability to comment on what they were reading. Your blog needs to be offering something of quality that will make your visitors stick to your blog and subscribe.
Imagine if your local computer store tried selling you a laptop, they gave it a massive promotion, promised you a great laptop, but when you go to the store, it is just the same standard, boring old laptop you already have. It would leave you feeling a little disappointed, that is how your visitors will feel if you start promoting your webite without offering anything of quality.
You will find that you are able to hold visitors on your blog a lot easier if you are patient and make sure that your blog is ready before you start promoting it.
How do you judge when your blog is ready for promotion? What benchmarks would you use?
Blog for Beginners | July 4th, 2008 at 5:06 pm #
You certainly have your points. I’m in the opinion that it’s fine to promote your blog right out of the box but certainly not a good strategy to ‘monetize’ early when the traffic is none other than yourself. You’ll be surprised that many makes that kind of mistakes over and over again.
Yan
goblogging | July 4th, 2008 at 5:41 pm #
really interesting preference!
It help me to set up some benchmarks for my blog too. Thanks!
Hendry Lee | July 4th, 2008 at 7:06 pm #
Content and promotion are two things that should be done as soon as possible, in my opinion.
I’d rather have a half-done design. It is easy to spend too much time on design while getting the momentum going on promotion is more critical. Sure you may lose some subscribers, but at least you are getting it going.
That’s how I operate. It’s like starting a brick and mortar business. It is easy to focus on the furniture, decoration, etc., while making sure that the product sells well is far more important.
David Shaw | July 4th, 2008 at 9:13 pm #
@Goblogging
Many Thanks
@Hendry Lee
I suppose everyone has their own opinion, I am just sharing my approach!
Halim-Belajar SEO | July 4th, 2008 at 10:10 pm #
If I’m were using your benchmark then surely I’m blog is not qualified enough but you got good point there. Thanks for remind me, this could be my reminder for my own domain in the future. This is because I’m still in SEO contest to get free domain. Wish me luck!
David Shaw | July 4th, 2008 at 10:11 pm #
@Halim-Belajar SEO
Good Luck!
Tom - StandOutBlogger.com | July 4th, 2008 at 10:52 pm #
I love your point of having pillar articles before you start promoting, because these are the posts that will set you apart from other bloggers.
dimaks | July 5th, 2008 at 12:32 am #
I think you meant Absorptive Capacity here. Great tips David.
David Shaw | July 5th, 2008 at 9:36 am #
@Tom
Pillar articles are usually the hardest to write, but have the best rewards.
@dimaks
Many Thanks
Writing An ‘About’ Page - ProTycoon | July 5th, 2008 at 10:41 am #
[...] keep up to date with all the latest blogging news and tips. Yesterday I asked the question ‘Is Your Blog Ready?’, one of the benchmarks I used to judge whether or not a blog was ready was by whether it [...]
Jug | July 5th, 2008 at 11:33 am #
I totally agree with this post. Promoting a blog without useful content is just not worth it.
You’ve got a great blog man, I just found out about it today and I have already subscribed. Keep publishing posts like this..
David Shaw | July 5th, 2008 at 11:35 am #
@Jug
Many thanks
Feel free to tell everyone you know about the blog!
Puneet | July 8th, 2008 at 11:34 am #
Usedful / Helpful content is must to get one blog get good traffic …
and hey i subscribed too
.. Good Luck .. and keep postin such info
David Shaw | July 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pm #
@Puneet
Thanks for subscribing. Got loads of great posts lined up!
JK Swopes | July 27th, 2008 at 10:51 pm #
Good tips, I think this is a great strategy to have, one that I have seen mentioned by many successful bloggers. I like the pilliar article standard as well as having some other existing content.
People don’t want to come to your blog and find out you have nothing. Again, each scenerio is different, depending on what the blog will be.
But in general, this is a nice set of standards to go by.