Jane Smarts was a brand new blogger who knew she would have to do something different to get visitors to his brand new blog.
And to put this in perspective in case you’re not a blogger yet, getting 50,000 visitors in your very first month is akin to winning the lottery – it rarely happens and when it does it can pay off big.
So what did she do? We broke his methods into these steps:
1. Choose a niche you’re passionate about. Jane chose corporate consulting because it’s closest to her heart, and it’s also what her company does.
2. Make some quick posts so it appears as though your blog has been around for awhile. Jane already had 10 or 15 posts from previous work that she could immediately publish. Hopefully you already have some content written, whether it’s articles, an ebook, etc.
Break whatever you have down into blog posts and post them. If you don’t have content already written, it’s up to you whether or not you take this step. By having content already on your blog it appears as though you’ve been doing it for a while, but posting inferior content that you rushed to write is never helpful if someone should actually want to read it.
3. Do your research. Jane researched what kind of blog posts take off in her niche, and which get the most shares on social media. Her research showed that she needed to write really long posts – between 2200 and 3000 words, and she needed to use mixed media that included bullet points, video, images, sub headlines, etc. Her research also showed that “how to” posts or posts that people can apply to get results were the most popular.
4. Apply what you learn. Once she did her research, Jane knew just what to do and she did it.
5. Think about distribution. You can write your posts according to what your research finds works best, but that still won’t initially get your article in front of people. Even the most shared blog posts in the world have to first be seen before they are shared, and if you have no traffic to begin with, you’ve got to find it.
What Jane did was tailor her first post specifically to the audience of a social news website that she read everyday. By tailoring it to that specific audience, there was an excellent chance they would appreciate it and share it.
6. Write amazing content. Jane spent 3-4 days writing her initial post. That’s right… 3-4 DAYS, not hours. Make your content great.
7. Use what contacts you have. Don’t have any? Get some. Jane started the ball rolling by having a handful of friends give her post a bump so that people would begin checking it out. The post was good, it took off, the rest was history.
8. Capture email addresses and ask for social shares. Be sure to place your opt-in box on every page, both in the right hand column and again at the end of the article. And ask your readers – if they found your post helpful – to share it via social media.
9. Rinse and repeat. Jane found a formula that worked, so she did it again and again, each time focusing and targeting her newest blog post to a very specific distribution channel.
You might not hit the 50,000 mark your first month, but if you follow these steps you could very well hit it within 2 to 3 months, even in a smaller niche. Imagine if you capture just 10% of that traffic – that’s an email list of 5,000 who you can now invite directly to every new blog post you make. Not a bad way to get your blog rolling…
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