Earlier in the week I co-hosted the popular #BlogChat Twitter chat. The topic was ‘How to Build a Blog Worth Monetizing’ – a massive topic.
The hour-long Twitter chat was one of the fastest moving Twitter chats I’ve been involved in (and the biggest BlogChat ever according to it’s founder Mack Collier). We covered heaps of ground but I thought I’d pull out some of my most RT’d and commented upon tweets from the hour here as a blog post.
I hope you find these helpful!
Foundational Advice
I was asked to prepare some advice for those about to start a blog (although much of this can be applied by more established bloggers too).
Knowing WHO reads your blog will inform content strategy, how to find readers, how to build community & how to monetise #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
On getting to know your readers through creating reader profiles (sometimes called personas):
An exercise I highly recommend bloggers do both before starting and after is creating ‘reader profiles’ -> http://t.co/rkYhQLkCiW #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Here are a few things I include in my reader profiles – hope they help! #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/AWgAUG5YwL
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
On identifying how your readers will ‘change’ as a result of reading your blog:
Once you know WHO is reading – the next thing I highly recommend thinking about is the ‘CHANGE’ you want to bring to readers #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Great blogs CHANGE people in some way. They leave some kind of ‘mark’. So thinking about what ‘change’ you’ll bring is important #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Who are your readers when they arrive on your blog and who will they be after reading it? #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/wFg7vBwHCb
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
3 Questions to ask about your readers #BlogChat – this creates a ‘mission statement’ for your blog too! pic.twitter.com/pdr7Xz0fKT
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
The Four main areas to work on to build a profitable blog:
4 Pillars of Blogging that I now want to walk through (each of which is a huge topic in and of itself) #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/t8Dd9tZrol
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
On Creating Compelling Content for Your Blog:
At it’s most simplistic – I love this advice from @ChrisGarrett on what to blog about on a blog #BlogChat :-) pic.twitter.com/dojeKGFYuL
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Try to get in your readers heads -> #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/oeqHC3VxHX
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Also do some analysis on who YOU are when deciding what kind of content to put on your blog #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/D7VC3O62oe
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
What topics/content do you want to be known for? These central topics could form the basis of ‘Cornerstone Content’ for your blog #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Here are some benefits of creating ‘cornerstone content’ for you blog #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/bfSzdMNDis
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Here are some questions to ask yourself to identify cornerstone content topics for your blog #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/7eogEQ4YN2
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Inspire, Inform, Interact – #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/qs6oRG5N8d
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Lastly, create ‘meaningful’ content. Don’t just go for cheap traffic, create content that matters to people and they’ll come back #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
So much content on the web today is ‘FLUFF’. This presents us with a real opportunity to stand apart! #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/6XWOP2DaU8
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
On Finding Readers for Your Blog:
Finding Readers is a HUGE topic – I recorded an hour long webinar on the topic here http://t.co/JXoNIQaZGM #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
But if I had to break ‘finding readers’ down into a few points – here are 6! #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/jwmrOzm9Df
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
A great tool to use to help analyse what people are sharing in your niche is @BuzzSumo. It’s free and powerful! #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
For starters @BuzzSumo lets you see the more shared content by keyword #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/Bq5dntA0O9
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Secondly @BuzzSumo lets you see the most shared content on any domain (yours or other blogs) #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/1K05r69VJD
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
The main way to find readers for your blog is to ‘get off your blog’. #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/w0mbIM90MU
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
To find readers ask: ‘where are my readers gathering and how do I join them there?’ #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Another important thing to consider with growing a readership is finding a relevant ‘hook’ or way to subscribe for your readers #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
A ‘hook’ to subscribe to your blog could be social media, RSS feeds but for us on @DigitalPS I find email is most effective #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
When I started @DigitalPS I thought RSS would be the #1 way people subscribe. Turns out I was very wrong #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/LmSnoQgCmc
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Anything you can do to make your blog ‘sticky’ will help grow your readership #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/g7RRgLpubV
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Lastly on growing readership: look after the readers you have. Serve them & they’ll help you grow your blog through word of mouth #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
On Building Community on Your Blog:
I wrote a post a few years back on building community on a blog that is still relevant today http://t.co/2QYGOescOZ #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
My #1 tip for building community on a blog is: “Be the community you want to have.” You need to model it! #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
On Monetizing Blogs:
There are MANY potential income streams for a blog. Here’s a mindmap I did of just some of them #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/Aq2bPPVgkk
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
You can see that money map up large at Full size at http://t.co/3zmEz5xwfg #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
You don’t just have to have a single income stream for your blog. Many streams flowing into one river could be the best way #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
For example – here is the breakdown of income streams on my own blogs at @DigitalPS and @ProBlogger #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/Tie0sJYffg
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
And over time different income streams will rise and fall. Here are mine charted over a year #BlogChat pic.twitter.com/Ic7mH5ezpV
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Monetization is a HUGE topic – I recorded a free hour long webinar here with everything I know http://t.co/URRYbxJnW1 #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
If you want your blog to be a business one day – treat it as one today #BlogChat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
A lot of people spend a lot of time ‘dreaming’ about their blog making money but don’t ever create a product or ring an advertiser #Blogchat
— Darren Rowse (@problogger) August 11, 2014
Phew – all of those tweets happened in about 40 minutes. Afterwards we continued to discuss the topic with lots of back and forth. You can read the full transcript including some great advice from other bloggers who participated here.
Lastly – I’ve since had a number of people ask me about the graphics and slides included in the tweets above and if there’s a ‘deck’ they can get them from.
The above all comes from a big workshop that I occasionally run for small groups of bloggers that walks bloggers through how to build profitable blogs. The workshop goes for a full day (last time I did it it took 7 hours!) and there’s no single deck that I’m comfy to share as a lot of the slides in it really need me there to explain what I’m showing.
Having said that – two of the webinars mentioned above cover some of the same ground so they’d be a good place to start out!
