A recent piece in the New York Times, titled “Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest“, estimated that about 95% of blogs are eventually abandoned; we regularly celebrate the top earning bloggers, the ones earning six and seven figures, the outliers, while very little is said about the large majority of blogs that fail.
If you’re struggling with your blog, do not despair. The following quick actions will help you get things working, and they will guarantee a good ROI from your blogging efforts:
1. Improve Your Website Speed
Do you know that slow websites cost the US economy billions of dollars every year, and that a 1 second delay in site loading speed results in up to 7% decrease in conversions?
As bloggers, we easily obsess over things like SEO, social media optimization, etc. while we ignore our blogs where the traffic ends up at; whether it’s your goal to sell products on your blog, get people to show interest in your services or sign up to your newsletter, having a faster website is always guaranteed improve conversions.
WordPress is the #1 CMS most blogs use, and from the ground up it’s been built to be fast and lightweight. However, many bloggers fail to reap the benefits of using WordPress by having a convoluted blog, and this is often because of breaking some of the rules that impact website speed. If you use WordPress, here are some tips for you:
- Get a better host; if your web host sucks, there will be very little you can do to make your website really fast. I’ve had a poor web host literally halve my traffic before; nothing worked until I changed host.
- Install minimal plugins; WordPress plugins are invaluable, and we often want to have many features on our blogs but, with WordPress, more isn’t better. The fewer plugins you have installed on your blog, the better. Unless a WordPress plugin is absolutely essential, don’t install it.
- Install a caching plugin; the WP Super Cache plugin is a great plugin to use for caching.
- Use a CDN; the free CDN service offered by Cloudflare is a good start for most bloggers.
2. Develop a Regular and Consistent Content Schedule
For years now, several studies have been published that show that having a regular and consistent content schedule will yield better results than a one-off blogging schedule.
While some top bloggers will swear by the power of not having a blogging schedule and only publishing content when you want, the reality is that their advice is impractical for most people; it’s easy to survive without a content schedule when you have an email list of tens or hundreds of thousands of people you can email anytime. This is unrealistic for most beginners.
Research published by Hubspot, analyzing over 13,500 businesses, found that businesses that publish 16+ blog posts month get 3.5 times more traffic than businesses that publish less than 4 blog posts monthly, and that businesses that publish 16+ blog posts monthly get 4.5 times more leads than businesses that publish less than 4 articles monthly.
Indeed, some genius bloggers can publish 1 article every 3 months and be okay but that will completely suck the life out of your blog; you can’t afford to do it. Instead, develop a regular content schedule that you can stick to, and watch your blog experience explosive growth. More is better, and the data is on your side.
3. Create a Resource Article
There are hundreds of different types of blog posts that you can create, but when you’re looking to get massive ROI you need to create a resource article.
On my blog, resource articles I created years ago repeatedly come out on top of the list of my most popular content on the blog every year. I get an average of 10,000% more views for every resource article I publish on my blogs.
Resource articles work because they focus on giving people the solution they want right inside the article, as opposed to giving them tips and asking them to look for a solution.
Perhaps you’ve come across the US News list of best colleges when trying to find colleges to attend? That’s a resource article. Or maybe you’ve come across lists of blogs that accept guest posts while trying to look for blogs to submit guest posts to? Those are resource articles. You should also aspire to create something similar; a list that gives your readers the solution to a major problem, and that gives them so many options that they have to bookmark and come back again, and that leads them to share your content with their friends. Resource articles do just that, and publishing them will guarantee a perpetual increase in traffic to your blog.
4. Set up an Autoresponder Series
For a long time I kept building an email list of subscribers who didn’t really know me, or who were surprised whenever I emailed them. The reason for this was that I only emailed them once in a while, and most of them had forgotten about me after they downloaded the freebie I offered. I solved this problem by setting up an autoresponder series.
By setting up an autoresponder series, I was able to kill two birds with one stone;
- I was able to follow up with subscribers on a consistent basis, building a relationship with them and getting them to know and trust me
- I was able to drive back traffic to my blog on a consistent basis
Your autoresponder series doesn’t have to be complicated; what I do is include links to the best content on my blog, that is relevant to what people signed up for, and occasionally include links to my product. The result of this has been impressive, and subscribers regularly thank me for caring about them and sending them regular information.
5. Create a Services Page
A major struggle of most bloggers is with generating income; most people start blogs to make money, and they assume that the only way to do this is by building an audience and selling ads on their blog. Unfortunately, this is the least effective way to do this.
If you don’t have hundreds of thousands of people reading your blog, you most likely won’t be able to generate a sustainable living by displaying ads alone.
A solution I’ve found to be quick and reliable, irrespective of the size of your blog, is to offer your services as a freelancer or consultant; this is quick and easy because you don’t have to create a product, and it instantly guarantees significantly more income since a single client can spend thousands of dollars with you.
Start by creating a services page designed to get clients to inquire about your services. Here are some tips:
- Use a benefit-driven headline on your services page; let your headline communicate the results you want to help your clients achieve
- List key services you can offer to clients that are relevant to each other
- Explain every service you list to make it easy for potential clients to decide; leaving potential clients confused would only ensure nobody reaches out.
- Include a contact form, and several other contact options, so that it is easy for potential clients to reach out to you
Conclusion
If you blog, taking the above 5 actions is quick and easy and it’ll lead to significantly more ROI for your blogging efforts. What other actions would you like to add?
Bamidele Onibalusi is an entrepreneur and blogger who blogs at Writers in Charge. You can follow him on Twitter @youngprepro
Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!
