8 Steps to Building a Strong and Fulfilling Blog

1. Build Content that is interesting and attracts eyeballs. It should generate comments and conversation. Ask for feedback and don’t be afraid to be controversial. Keep writing every day, even when you think no one is reading it. This is paramount to a successful blog/site.

2. Track your traffic. Seems elementary, but do you do it? Google Analytics is great for tracking traffic and free. It will also give you a mental boost to know that people are visiting even if they are just lurking for now. Controversy and questions helps them make the step from lurker to poster which will help bring in more visitors who engage you.

Make your blog stand out

3. Subscribe to Google alerts for your keywords. If you keep writing daily, and your articles are fresh and original, Google may pick you up as an authority. This increases your chances that Google will send out your blog posts to others who subscribe to alerts for your keywords.

5. Host contests, and other giveaways as you progress and your blog matures to generate buzz and more subscribers. You want a list that makes money for you when you hit the send button.4. Have something to give away. That can be a newsletter or an eBook on a topic. Send communication to your audience once or twice a week, not daily. The key is that you build a list of subscribers. Later on you will use that list to monetize what you are sending with money generating offers.

6. Go to authority sites in your niche and become an expert commentator and put your link in your signature. Most blogs and forums allow this. Once the people on those sites get to know and like you they will click your link and begin to visit your site.

7. Try to stand out in some way, be unique. Take a different angle/view from the herd. Don’t manufacturer this mindset, but certainly there are areas where you disagree with the masses. Go for a niche within a niche sort of thing and then expand to be more general from there. You have a better chance of getting to the top of search with topics and keywords that are not so saturating, but good content generated repetitively will help a great deal.

8. Monetize, but wait until your content is progressing nicely. Don’t be afraid to put product and services that you find valuable in front of your audience. In some circles it seems to be taboo to make money from your site. Baloney. Promote quality and you’ll be doing your readers a favor. Google will see you as an authority if you are a content first person.

AuthorKen Chiarella is a successful veteran in the internet marketing space, and the founder and CEO of e-commerce site Wormman.com Ken has built dozens of revenue generating sites over his career, and has a strong grasp on the processes of building a winner. From geeklesstech.com