Congratulations to these blogs – the winners of the first annual Blog Design Awards by The Blog Builders™!

Think Traffic

Pink Peonies

The Fox Is Black

Home Stories A to Z

I’m an Organizing Junkie

Social Media Examiner

Liz Marie Blog

The Art Of Non-Conformity

Scathingly Brilliant

Infarrantly Creative

Ruche Blog

500px

Beneath my Heart

Craftaholics Anonymous

All Things Thrifty

Pretty Handy Girl

Man Repeller

Remodelaholic

The Lettered Cottage

Ecoki

Tidy Mom

Vintage Revivals

I Heart Nap Time

Know of a blog with incredible design? Drop us a link in the comments – we’re already compiling our list of candidates for 2014!

The post 2013 Blog Design Awards appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

Congratulations to these bloggers who are among the many who are making money! It’s great to see people doing well and more and more people every day are creating part-time and full-time incomes through blogging. If you’re interested in starting your own blog for profit or fun, check out my beginner’s guide to creating your own blog.

If you’re interested in appearing in these reports, get in touch with me. I’d love to talk to you!

April 2013 Blog Income Reports

1. Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, RSS)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $54,747.28
Net Revenue: $45,823.54

Income Breakdown:

• Affiliate Earnings: $44,829.89
• GreenExamAcademy.com Product Sales:$3,456.12
• SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com: $2,836.57
• iPhone Applications:$2,715.09
• CreateaClickableMap.com: $489.51
• 2 Other Mini Experimental Sites and YouTube (adsense):$420.10

Note: There is a small amount of income on Pat’s report that isn’t from blogging. But, the vast majority of the income on his report is.

2. Dollars and Roses by Jeff and Mandy Rose (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, RSS)

Latest Report: February 2013

Gross Revenue: $16,424.84
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Earnings on Good Financial Cents: $7,518.70
• Dollars and Roses blog: $638.51
• House of Rose blog: $1,974.89
• Other niche sites: $6,093.74
• Freelance writing: $200

3. Leaving Work Behind by Tom Ewer (Facebook, Twitter,Google+, RSS)

Latest Report: February 2013

Gross Revenue: $6883.25
Net Revenue: $6,729.02

Income Breakdown:

• Freelance writing:$4,722.21
• Websites:$11.21
• Affiliate Marketing (Leaving Work Behind):$963.03
• Information Products:$973.56
• eBooks:$108.23

4. Pinch of Yum  by Lindsay and Bjork (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, RSS)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $6,914.71
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• BlogHer – $3,010.77
• Tasty Food Photography – $1,354.50
• Bluehost – $1,235
• Google AdSense – $1,012.46
• The Thesis Theme Affiliate Program– $122.43
• Elegant Themes – $78
• BuySellAds – $61.14
• Amazon Affiliate Program – $40.41

5. Nerdy Nomad by Kirsty (Facebook, Twitter, RSS)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $6458.00
Net Revenue: expenses not reported

Income Breakdown:

• Google Adsense – $225.00
• Affiliate Sales – $105.00
• Advertising – $6058.00
• Ebook Sales – $70.00

6. Avocado Pesto and A Couple Travelers by Dave and Vicky (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube)

Latest Report: March 2013

Income Breakdown:

Gross Revenue: $6,109
Net Revenue: $5,159

• Direct Advertising ACoupleTravelers: $3,385
• Direct Advertising AvocadoPesto: $1,565
• Google Adsense and BlogHer AvocadoPesto: $150
• Direct Advertising Other Blogs: $1,005
• Amazon Affiliates: $3.66
• Website Purchase on Flippa: $500
• Hosting: $10
• Facebook Ad: $8
• Virtual Assistants: $433

7. Matthew Woodward by Matthew Woodward (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, RSS)

Latest Report: February 2013

Gross Revenue: $5,953.23
Net Revenue: $5904.28

Income Breakdown:

• Affiliate Income – $4,901.49
• Consultation Income – $1,100.69
• Expenses – $48.95

8. My Multiple Incomes by Robert (Twitter, Google+)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $4,433.35
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Websites: $4106.34
• Investments: $328.26

9. Practice of the Practice  by Joe (Facebook, Twitter)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $2,476.92
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Counseling, consulting, and useful products: $2403.85
• Affiliate Marketing: $76.10

10. TrueValhalla by Matthew (Twitter, Facebook)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $2223.00
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Affiliate referrals:$20.00
• Myriad Online:$20.00
• HTML5 mobile advertisements:$225.00
• Website advertisements:$265.00
• Licensing:$280.00
• Book sales:$400.00
• HTML5 sponsorships:$1013.00

11. My 4-Hour Workweek by Eric Gati (Twitter, Google+, RSS)

Latest Report: February 2013

Gross Revenue: $2,476.92
Net Revenue: expenses not reported

Income Breakdown:

• Authority Site Earnings:$9.22
• Misc. Affiliate Earnings:$1,797.96

12. Money Home Blog

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $1675.49
Net Revenue: expenses not reported

Income Breakdown:

• SEO SERVICE: $177.00
• Amazon: $328.50
• Chitika: $24.50
• Ebook: $260.00
• Adsense: $885.49

13. Mike from Maine by Mike (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, RSS)

Latest Report: March 2013

Gross Revenue: $1,938.34
Expenses: $723.16
Net Revenue: $1,215.18

Income Breakdown:

• Project X Tube Method: $5.95
• Text link ads: $31.66
• SocialAdr: $25.60
• Ezarticle link: $34
• Whoosh Traffic: $20
• SafeSwaps.com: $15
• Adsense: $225.41
• Income Igniter: $9.22

The post April 2013 Blog Income Reports appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

Every day, more and more people are getting into the exciting world of blogging for fun or profit. It’s never been easier to set up a fun, professional-looking blog.

My name is Court Tuttle, and I’ve been a full-time professional blogger since 2007. I created this “complete walkthrough” to ensure that if you want to, you can have an awesome blog that’s set up and configured like a professional’s TODAY.

If you’re ready to start your blog now, click here to go to Step 1: The Basics >>>.

Why You Should Use This Guide Instead Of All The Others

Let’s be honest, there are a lot of guides out there that can teach you how to start a blog and set it up. I’ve personally looked at dozens of them. Most of them unfortunately were not created by people who have successful blogs and if you haven’t been successful yourself, obviously you can’t teach others to be successful. When I read those guides, I see right through them.

I have found two guides that are REALLY good, but they are paid guides that costs $97 and $247. You’ll find them if you look for them. They both have everything you need to set up a great blog but let’s be honest, you shouldn’t have to PAY just to learn how to set up a blog.

After seeing what I saw, I decided to create a free guide myself that anyone can use to start a killer blog. You may not care about making money with your blog (or if you’re like me you may) but trust me, your blog will be a lot more fun if it’s set up in a way that can attract more visitors and readers. This guide gives you the tricks and secrets I have used to create the blogs I make my living with.

Why Free Blogs Aren’t Really Free At All

I can’t recommend with a clear conscience that you use a free platform like Blogger for your blog. While it’s technically free to get started on Blogger, the actual cost is in reality, very expensive. There are multiple ways you can lose your shirt with a free blog:

#1 – It’s possible for you to lose your blog to someone else. One of my really good friends created a great blog on Blogger and was able to make good money with it for a while. Somehow, a troll was able to get his user name and password and ended up taking over the blog. After some fighting with Blogger, he was able to eventually get it back but the blog’s traffic had been significantly damaged. He lost a ton of income.

#2 – Blogger (or any other free platform) can shut you down at any time, if they don’t like your blog. Literally thousands of people have lost their blogs simply because the team at Blogger didn’t like the content of their blogs. On other occasions, I’ve seen Blogger shut down blogs because they thought the owner was stealing other people’s content. In reality, the content was being stolen FROM them. Lametown.

#3 – You don’t have control of your blog. I’ve seen this work against people in a lot of ways. For example, my sister figured out that she could create a lot more income if she used ads right at the end of her posts. Since she was on Blogger, she couldn’t put an ad in the right location unless she edited every single post (she has hundreds of posts).

Paying for a blog isn’t expensive – it’s dirt cheap and can save you thousands. NEVER start with a free blog, even if you aren’t sure how serious you want to be about blogging. It isn’t worth losing all of your hard work. You can get hosting for $5-7 per month. It’s like eating at Wendy’s.

How To Create Any Type Of Blog With This Guide

This guide teaches you how to set up a blog on the WordPress platform – the platform used by over 90% of the successful blogs on the web. This platform is very flexible and allows you to create almost any type of look, allowing you to have any type of blog.

WordPress uses themes that you can use to change your blog to look however you want it to. This guide shows you the entire process of choosing and installing a new theme in an easy-to-digest, video format. There are literally tens of thousands of free ‘themes’ to choose from. If you use this guide, you’ll be able to pick any theme you want and install it on your blog.

I’ve seen blogs started through this guide that cover Religion, Philosophy, Parenting, Fashion, Sports, Marketing, Photography, Food, Fitness, Decorating, and many other topics. I happen to be somewhat of an expert on what WordPress can do and am willing to help you if you get stuck so there’s no need to be intimidated, even though this stuff is new to you.

The “100% Guaranteed Method” For Setting Up A Blog

Step 1: Follow what’s in the videos. I recorded the entire process of setting up a blog from start to finish and you can just do what I did.
Step 2: If you get stuck, use my free live chat or visit the Help and Support tab, to the right.

I help someone every single day to get their blog set up and enjoy doing it. Since I get a small commission from the web host if you use my help to set up your blog, you aren’t being annoying if you ask for help. You’re HELPING me to make a little extra. It’s a true win-win so don’t hesitate to take advantage. I look forward to hearing from you.

Click here to go to Step 1: The Basics >>>

The post How To Start A Blog And Get It Right (Video Tutorials) appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

In this episode of The Blog Builders Podcast™, I interviewed Jeff and Mandy Rose, an awesomely successful married couple who are building a blogging empire (seriously) together. Jeff runs Good Financial Cents (among other things), Mandy runs the House Of Rose Blog, and together they run Dollars and Roses, where they teach people how this whole blogging thing works.

I first found Jeff and Mandy by searching for bloggers who do income reports. Just to give you a heads up, they were able to produce $17,762.79 of revenue in January from their blogs. They have great momentum and are growing their business fast. I can’t wait to see how far they’re able to take it this year. CAN YOU SAY AWESOME?

I met Jeff and Mandy in person at the New Media Expo in January and honestly, they were the coolest people I met down there (no offense to anyone else haha). I was really impressed with how down to earth they were. I’m afraid they are stuck with being my friends for life!

Despite the fact that speaking really isn’t my thing, I think that you’ll enjoy the interview. Here are some of the highlights:

• The story of how Jeff and Mandy got started, and what led them to what they’re doing online now.
• How Mandy has been able to get ridiculous traffic from Pinterest
• How Jeff started his blog to get clients as a financial planner, but how it evolved into much more, including the launch pad for his book and just a great online revenue stream in general.
• How Jeff was able to get featured on tons of incredible sites like Fox Business, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, and Forbes.
• How Jeff was able to get his site to recover from Google’s Panda update.
• Why Jeff once turned down $150,000 cash for his site.
• How Jeff has used movements to get exposure for his brands (this is incredible stuff).

Connect With Jeff And Mandy

• Good Financial Cents
  
• Good Financial Cents On Facebook
• Soldier Of Finance
• House Of Rose Blog
• House Of Rose Blog On Facebook
• Dollars And Roses
• Dollars And Roses On Facebook

The post TBBP 002: Tag Team Blogging Success Story With Jeff And Mandy Rose appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

In this episode of The Blog Builders Podcast™, I interviewed Beckie Farrant, CEO of an incredible blogging business that includes three super high traffic blogs: Infarrantly Creative, Roadkill Rescue, and Knock Off Decor.

Combined, these sites did over 2,000,000 (yes, I got the number of zeros right) pageviews last month alone.

I couldn’t be more stoked about this interview. I learned a ton. Some of the highlights for me:

• How Beckie used unique positioning and a coordinated launch to get Knock Off Decor to 300,000 pageviews within three months (!!!)
• How she got other people to create most of the content for two of her sites
• How she was able to figure out ad layering to improve her own revenue and basically double the revenue of many consulting clients (amazing)
• How she learned how to make the jump into hiring help so that she could focus on what matters the most

I’ve found that most bloggers, up until this point, have been unable to think about their blogs as a business. Beckie has an incredible story that proves that blogging can be an amazing business if you’re willing to treat it like one.

I hope that you enjoy this interview as much as I did!

P.S. – If you’re a blogger who gets traffic but doesn’t have the revenue numbers that you would like to have, I would highly recommend getting in touch with Beckie. By using ad layering, you can probably make huge gains in the amount of revenue you can produce from your traffic.

The post TBBP 001: How To Run Your Blog As An Incredible Business With Beckie Farrant appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

With blogging, first impressions matter in a huge way. Every day, people are going to land on your blog and interact with it. To say this in a more direct manner, they are going to land on your blog and interact with YOU, either directly or indirectly. That experience can make a lasting impression on a visitor, but it can also make no impression at all.

We all make judgements about the blogs we visit every day. We gauge the value of the blog within seconds. The problem is that for the most part, we make those judgements without thinking about them. For that reason, we sometimes have a hard time putting our own blogs through the same analysis that we use when we look at blogs that belong to other people.

To help eliminate that problem, I want to focus on some subtleties, things that can lower the impact you make on a visitor:

10 Ways To Make Yourself Look Like A Blogging Newbie

1. Don’t have pillar content.

Almost every successful blog I know of has epic content that sets them apart from the pack. You need to have at least one incredible project, video, e-book, or blog post! If you don’t, I’m afraid it’s hard to not look like a beginner.

Think about it. Is there a blogger out there that you really respect and follow that doesn’t have epic content?

Make sure that a visitor to your blog can easily find your best stuff, no matter what page or post they land on. If they can’t find it, they will assume that you don’t have it.

2. Use too many elements in your sidebar.

Some blogs I’ve seen have no less than 300 items in their sidebar(s). Most of the time, the majority of the items are links to other sites. I understand why it’s done – the blogger who does this is usually trying to give to other bloggers that they like. Do it too much, and it looks like a newbie move.

3. Have design from 1999.

I personally wish that we lived in a world where design doesn’t matter. Why? Because I have no design skill. I wish that people would focus 100% on my writing. Unfortunately, they don’t. The way your site looks matters and matters more and more as time goes on.

4. Have too many categories for your content.

This is a very effective way to look like a blogging newbie so make sure you don’t forget about this one! Adding a new category for every post is a powerful, advanced newbie disclosure method.

I’ve seen blogs with over 100 categories. You don’t need 100 categories. I personally need to go through my categories and get rid like five of them.

5. Lack topical focus.

Change topics every time you post. Consult with your readers about what kind of things they would like to learn.

Most of us fall into this trap at one time or another so don’t beat yourself up over this one. But, if you have a lot of interests that don’t fit together, you should have more than one blog.

I should say that I believe that there are exceptions to this. Mommy bloggers, for example, are able to successfully navigate a variety of topics related to being a mom, but they all fit under one main thing: being a mom.

6. Spread yourself thin.

Social media makes it all too easy to take focus away from your blog. It’s your blog that matters the most. No technique or amount of effort will be effective with social media unless your blog is strong.

7. Use meaningless post titles.

Titles like ‘Another meaningless Monday’ (You’ll notice that I’m ignoring title case for a double-newbie-effect.) and ‘Life sucks again’ are my personal favorites for looking newbieish. (Is newbieish even a word? Hmm.. Is newbie even a word?)

8. Beg for attention.

I see sites that literally scream ‘I want attention’. They have widgets asking people to review them here, there, and everywhere else. I hate to say it but if you’re annoyed that you don’t get enough attention, you are probably focusing too much on yourself! Make it about your readers and things will turn around.

9. Post erratically.

This has been my achilles heel and I’m working to turn that around. I don’t have a problem creating content that people like but I tend to be somewhat erratic. I always gain more traction when I’m steady.

10. Run around begging for links.

The most tell-tale sign that you’re a newbie is running around asking high-level bloggers for links. We’ve all done it, so don’t feel bad or anything. But, this isn’t going to work and it kind of reveals that you don’t understand how things work.

Links happens because bloggers are trading value. Sometimes they are trading guest posts or if a guest post has enough value on its own, one blogger publishes it in exchange for a link.

If a piece of content is truly epic, it will get natural links from all over the place.

Focus on developing friendships and links will come.

The post 10 Ways To Make Yourself Look Like A Blogging Newbie appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

1.  I want to start driving some real traffic to my site without having to rely on Google.  My feeling is that I need to get serious about Social Media Marketing.  Going after every social media site out there would be a full time job, so what are the best ones to work with and why?

2.  What’s the best way to build a following and establish contact with people in your niche?  Is it simply about searching facebook and liking pages for example?

3.  Once I’ve built a following, how can I best market my site to people using social media?

4.  I plan to put an E-store on my site in the not too distant future, how well do you think social media traffic converts?

5.  Should I monetize my site with something while I wait to set up my e-store and if I do should I continue to monetize after my e-store is setup?

If you’re interested in any of those questions, this video is for you. The people who were there are seriously awesome:

• Beckie Farrant from Infarrantly Creative
• Brooke Ulrich from All Things Thrifty
• And a special guest host: Amy Lynn Andrews from BloggingWithAmy.com as a guest host. We were super stoked to have her!

I’ll add the videos of our first two hangouts:

#2:

#1:

Here’s the creative that Beckie made for the event – thanks Beckie!:

The post Better Blogging Part 3 With Beckie, Brooke, Me, And Amy (Video) appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

I’m excited to announce that SEO for Creative Bloggers™ is now available for download. It will be available on Kindle shortly. Here are the main bullets from the book:

• Finding and Using Effective, Searched-For Phrases Without Making your Posts Sound Awkward
• Creating Search Engine Friendly Post Titles that are Still Exciting and Fun for your Blog’s Visitors
• Optimizing your Images for Maximum Impact
• Building Friendships and Alliances with Other Bloggers
• Using Content Off-Site to Increase your Authority
• Using the Link Structure of your Blog to Make Posts Look Strong

I’d like to especially thank Beckie from Infarrantly Creative and Brooke from All Things Thrifty, who helped me with the book. Beckie, graciously, wrote the foreword for the book.

The post SEO for Creative Bloggers™ (available for download) appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

1. Smart Passive Income by Pat Flynn (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $47,546.29
Net Revenue: $43,375.45

Income Breakdown:

• Affiliate Earnings: $39,000.58
• Sales of his own product on GreenExamAcademy.com: $3,012.84
• Earnings on SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com: $2,797.45
• Earnings on CreateaClickableMap.com: $289.71
• Mini-Sites: $502.09
• iPhone Applications: $1,943.62

2. Adsense Flippers by Justin Cooke and Joe Magnotti (Facebook, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $16,124.58
Net Revenue: (Expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Private Sales: $11,896.76
• Adsense: $2,787.69
• Consulting: $300
• Niche Site Gold: $50
• Affiliate Sales: $1,090.13

3. Dollars and Roses by Jeff and Mandy Rose (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)

This income report is from October as they take about a month to report.

Gross Revenue: $13,491.48
Net Revenue: expenses not reported

Income Breakdown:

• Earnings on Good Financial Cents: $9053.13
• Other niche sites: $2,734.41
• House of Rose blog: $753.94
• Freelance writing: $200
• Financial planning fees: $250
• Online Planning Fees: $750

4. MatthewWoodward.co.uk by Matthew Woodward (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS)

Congrats to Matthew for appearing here for the first time!

Gross Revenue: $9,315.59
Net Revenue: $8,717.64

Income Breakdown:

• Consultations: $7,114.65
• Affiliate Earnings: $2,798.89

5. Leaving Work Behind by Tom Ewer (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, RSS)

Congrats to Tom for appearing here for the first time!

Gross Revenue: $6,268.02
Net Revenue: $5,776.97

Income Breakdown:

• Leaving Work Behind: $410.51
• Information Products: $2,279.36
• Niche Websites: $2.03
• Writing: $3,556.30

6. Nerdy Nomad by (Twitter, Facebook, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $4,895
Net Revenue: $4,322

Income Breakdown:

• Private advertising: $4,272
• Adsense: $309
• Affiliate commissions: $111
• Ebook sales: $98

7. Pinch of Yum by Lindsay and Bjork (Twitter, Facebook, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $4,782.70
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Bluehost affiliate commissions: $975
• Sales of own product – Tasty Food Photography: $1,673.76
• BlogHer: $1,026.19
• Google Adsense: $938.21
• Thesis Theme affiliate commissions- $82.83
• Amazon associate commissions: $54.71
• VigLink – $32

8. The Financial Blogger by Mike (Twitter, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $3,746.01
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Niche site ebook sales: $205.32
• Niche site Adsense: $215.12
• Adsense: $3,325.57

It also appears that Mike is selling a lot of a book that he wrote for the Kindle, although the income isn’t in his income report. It looks like he’s selling 70-100 copies per month at $9.99 each.

9. My Multiple Incomes by Robert Farrington (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $3,348.26
Net Revenue:  (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Private advertising: $1265
• Affiliate commissions: $717.99
• CPC ads: $10.27
• Writing service: $1355

10. Mike from Maine (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $2,870.05
Net Revenue: $2,480.55

Income Breakdown:

• Sales of starter sites (he builds starter sites and sells them for $50): $1,106
• Affiliate commissions: $1,514.05
• Adsense: $250

11. My 4-Hour Workweek by Eric Gati (Google+, Twitter, RSS)

Congratulations to Eric who is appearing on this list for the first time! Keep your entrepreneurial dreams going Eric, you’ll get there.

Gross Revenue: $1,606.26
Net Revenue: (Expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Affiliate Income: $1,576.58
• Niche Sites: $26.85
• Article Writing: $2.83

12. Avocado Pesto by Vicky Berman (Facebook, Twitter, RSS)

Congratulations to Vicky who is appearing on this report for the first time. Nice work Vicky!!

Gross Revenue: $1021.67
Net Revenue: (expenses not reported)

Income Breakdown:

• Private Advertising: $854
• BlogHer: $45.90
• Google Adsense: $77.67

13. Traffic Generation Cafe by Ana Hoffman (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, RSS)

Gross Revenue: $863
Net Revenue: $638

Income Breakdown (all affiliate commissions):

• Acme Traffic Plugin Pack: $410
• Market Samurai: $211
• TweetAdder: $202
• Aweber: $40

The post Blogger Income Reports for November 2012 appeared first on The Blog Builders™.

After our conversation, I got thinking about the differences between her and other people I’ve worked with and talked to who struggle. She has obviously created a traffic machine – why do other people have such a hard time with this?

I’ve worked with a lot of people who struggle to get into the right mindset and if you’re in this boat, search traffic is going to be extremely hard to come by. I’m talking to you if:

• You don’t have a network of friends in your niche.
• You aren’t focused on making every post shareable.
• You aren’t actively trying to make connections.
• You aren’t trying to get your work onto other sites.
• You don’t write about topics of interest
• You are only trying to get search traffic

You Don’t Have A Network Of Friends In Your Niche

I’m telling you – if you want search traffic, having a network of friends in your niche is the most crucial thing you can do. Working alone, you have a long road ahead of you and I see this again and again.

Collaboration is extremely powerful. I’m always looking for new people to collaborate with because I know that I can’t compete without their help (and they can’t compete without mine).

I’ve found that most people fear that they will never find friends in their niche. I relate with that because I’m about as introverted as they come. It’s hard for me to branch out. My solution? I force myself to do it. What has happened as I’ve done this? I’ve found some really cool people who want and need to collaborate with me just as much as I want and need to collaborate with them.

Collaborating with A-listers in your niche isn’t what you’re going for.  A lot of people are trying to connect with them and frankly, you don’t have a lot of value to provide them. You need to be collaborating with people who are at or near your current level but that’s a topic for another post.

Not having friends in your niche affects you mostly because at the end of the day, you don’t get linked to by enough sites that have real traffic. If all of your links come from sites without traffic, it’s a bad signal for Google.

You Aren’t Focused On Making Every Post Shareable

I rarely see people fail to develop search traffic if all of their posts are shareable. When your content gets shared, it inevitably will lead to links and links lead to search traffic. You should be looking mainly to create useful content that leads to pins on Pinterest, likes on Facebook and Google+, and retweets.

This isn’t going to come all at once. When you don’t have an audience, it’s hard to get shares. You have to just focus on creating stuff that’s shareable, even if it isn’t actively getting shared. The progress will come.

You Aren’t Actively Trying To Make Connections On Social Media

It’s very difficult to develop consistent search traffic if you aren’t trying to make connections.

Let’s say you take the time to write an awesomely shareable blog post that you KNOW people will like. How do you let people know about it? If you aren’t making connections, this gets pretty difficult, doesn’t it? If you had even 100 people who you’ve connected with on your site or via email, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, it could make a HUGE difference.

Things get especially exciting once you’re able to increase those numbers. If you have a few thousand people subscribed to you by email or have a few thousand Twitter followers and/or Facebook fans, it’s a lot easier to get some love for your post. One of them may link to it or share it with someone who will link to it.

Blogs that get gobs of search traffic are able to do this on a consistent basis. They may not get hundreds of links to a single post, but all of their posts get some shares and they get linked to here and there.

I see a lot of people who have to try to manually create all of their links and this ultimately doesn’t work that well. There’s no leverage in it and at the end of the day, search engines will notice the lack of social signals.

You Aren’t Trying To Get Your Work Onto Other Sites

Your search traffic will never be that great if you don’t get talked about on other sites. Other sites need to link to you and talk about you for search engines to like you. When you are starting out, getting this to happen is really difficult. You solve this by being proactive – by writing posts (or creating audio/video) that other sites would want to publish.

For those of you who are starting out, this is really key in the beginning. It’s a great way to get the ball rolling.

You Don’t Write About Topics Of Interest

I’ve come across a lot of blogs that provide a lot of value, but don’t create blog posts that are created around searchable topics. Or, you may create blog posts around searchable topics without using searchable terms in your posts.

You should be actively using the Adwords Keyword Tool (or another keyword tool) to discover the topics that people search for in your niche. You should then be creating shareable posts that cover those topics. Use a catchy title that contains your topic/keywords.

You Are Only Trying To Get Search Traffic

I’ve mentored a lot of people and can tell you that this obstacle is the hardest to overcome. If you are trying to develop search traffic without developing other kinds of traffic, I believe that ultimately you will fail. You might succeed for a while, but that success will probably be cut short.

It’s easy to develop a little search traffic without providing much value, especially if you pick an easy keyword. You can just write a post about the topic and write some guest posts about that topic that link back to your post. You might rank for a while and get some solid traffic.

The problem lies in the types of sites that will be willing to publish your sub-par guest posts and link to your sub-par content. As soon as Google tightens up their algorithm again, you could be filtered out. On top of that, other people could come along and publish better work that will get shared and linked to. When that happens, it’s likely that you’ll get knocked out since your work won’t get shared or linked to. If you and your competitors links look similar and your competitor has social signals, you will lose.

I’ve found that it’s a huge uphill battle to keep getting traffic when I’m only focused on developing search traffic. I have been able to win that battle temporarily many times but ultimately, those projects fail to consistently produce. They always die.

People who are stuck in this mindset tend to quit when they lose their search traffic. They start feeling like it isn’t worth it. They often start over and build search traffic and then quit again once the search traffic dies out. It’s a vicious cycle.

The Search Traffic Game Has Changed

I know a lot of people who are still hanging on to the old ways of doing SEO. They still want to just ‘build links’ and make full-time incomes. At best, this will be a very shaky way of doing things going forward. The people who are going to thrive from here on out will learn how to create shareable blog posts and meaningful connections with other people. Combine that with solid SEO strategy and you can really create some traction.

Some of you are already brilliant at this, others have some work to do. What do YOU need to work on most? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

The post Why Your Blog Doesn’t Get (and May Never Get) Search Traffic appeared first on The Blog Builders™.