13 Jun Tips for Launching a New Blog: What to do?

We live in a world where blogs are slowly but surely becoming the primary source of information for an increasing number of people. They will, in time, replace the newspapers as the main medium for transferring both vital and everyday information to people all around the world. The mere availability of the information posted on blogs supersedes that of any other carrier of information. Naturally, blog owners have found a way to turn this into a way to make money. Since we live in a capitalist world, there are many ways to profit in the service industry and, more importantly, people come up with new ways almost daily. It is not strange then that people have found several ways to make money off of a blog.

Blogging has now become quite a large service industry, which provides jobs for millions of people worldwide. Since everything is done online, there is no restriction on where people can work from. More importantly, it is possible to run a blog from anywhere in the world. The prestige that the blog has is not determined by its geographic location (unlike with many other service industries), but solely by the quality of service that it provides. This basically brings us to the point that many internet users will put forward, and it is that anyone can start and run a successful blog. This, simply, is not true. The reason why this claim is not true is, perhaps sadly, the fact that a large number of people have come up with that same idea. Now we have a situation where thousands of blogs are launched every day. In this sea of blogs, a blog that you start would be only a drop, which means that you need to find a way to make that drop shine and attract attention, so that it would turn into a larger drop, so to say.

I have a friend who once tried to start a blog, because he thought that it would be a cool and trendy thing to do. He wanted to make it a successful one and his goal was to profit from it. Having followed numerous blogs and being very active on social networks made him think that he could pull it off with ease. However, once he started, he ran into many problems which he could not see beforehand and the sad truth is that he had earned not nearly enough to be able to call himself a successful blog owner. He dropped the whole idea after a few months.

So, that is the sad truth, many blogs fail after a short time, simply because they cannot survive the launch. They do not attract enough traffic in the first place and, without initial traffic, they cannot generate more traffic, which is crucial in profiting from a blog. Of course, the world of blogging is never an environment in which everything is sure-fire, but some rules, like this one, can be established and they will work in 95% percent of the cases. Those 5% that disprove the rule just had a lot of luck, or have been working real hard to deny the negative effects and turn things around (for example, Instablog has managed to turn around their fortunes after a disastrous start).

In this article, I will provide you with some tips that will help you launch your blog successfully. Of course, as I said, blogging is a game in which fortunes change constantly and there is no guarantee that following any tips will yield the desired results, but by following these tips, your chances of succeeding in the blogging world will definitely increase.

First of all, let’s start with the most important thing, and that is the first impression.

The first impression

This is, usually, the most important thing when starting anything. So, here are some things that you should and should not do, in order to make a good first blogging impression.

Establish a good connection with the readers through a good welcome page

Well, you definitely need to welcome people to your blog. It is the goal of every blog – to have people spend as much time there as possible. You can do this through creating a good welcome and about me page, which will help you connect with your readers on a personal level. If the readers get to know you a bit, it will make it easier for them to feel what you and your blog have to say, thus they will be spending more time on the site, reading through various articles.

Do not get caught with your pants down

Launching a blog that will be no more than an empty page with two or three posts is definitely not a good idea. Many potential ‘bloggers’ make this mistake at the very beginning. They make a blog and put one post on it, and they keep going from there. If you want to launch a serious and professional blog, you will have to present the whole picture of what your blog will be about. This will help sort out the target groups and differentiate you from all the other personal blogs that no one reads. In effect, this will show people that you are serious and that they will be able to count on you to provide them with information quickly and to a great extent.

Going viral

This is, of course, the goal of anyone who wishes to become successful and famous on the Internet, be it a blogger, a prankster or a musician. However, there is a thin line between trying to go viral and becoming a spammer, so here’s what you have to pay attention to.

Make the template work for you

What many blogs still do not realize is that you can provide great coverage of the most popular social networks just by adding a few buttons to your already existing template. These buttons serve to help your readers share the article that they have enjoyed on their social networks with just one click. Almost every modern blog template has the option to add these buttons, but some blog owners are still trailing behind on this.

These buttons are very useful because they will help you avoid putting those spam messages, like: “If you liked this article, share it on Twitter, Reddit (or whatever else).’ When I see such a line in an article, for example, I instantly decide not to do that, because I am really sick of it, and many people share my feelings. However, if I see a neatly designed social networks panel (I will say once again, almost every modern blog template supports these), I will be more than glad to share the article, if I liked it in the first place.

Seed, seed, seed!

Social bookmarking websites, such as Stumbleupon, are increasingly gaining popularity as a means to receive relevant and interesting information. I myself have been a Stumbler for quite some time now (my profile has been active for about three years) and I was quite impressed with the whole idea. These websites use social networking techniques to bring their users relevant content.

Choosing to seed your posts on such networks is not an option, it is a must! There is no better way for your blog to be noticed and remembered than by providing the users of these bookmarking networks with quality content. In order for your posts to be noticed on such networks, you must make sure to tag them well, using both broad, popular tags and those more specific ones. This way, you will be able to constantly attract a new bunch of visitors each week.

Now, Stumbleupon aside, there are a few other social bookmarking networks that can be used to seed your posts and which are used by millions of people every day. In no particular order, here they are:

• Digg – Regarded as the most popular social bookmarking network; has an enormous community and a lot of traffic, but is somewhat tech-oriented;
• Netscape – A very well organized network with a lot of traffic; has a mix of topics, but it is mostly orientated towards news;
• Reddit – This network boasts on random content, while still providing useful information; not as much traffic as the others;
• Newswine – This one is orientated mostly towards politics and daily news, sort of like a newspaper search engine; it does not have a lot of traffic, but it is a great source of information;

RSS Feeds & Subscriptions

Insert the RSS Feed above the whole thing

This is, perhaps, not the best solution as far as revenues are concerned. Putting an RSS feed above your fold, however, will greatly contribute towards the number of subscribers that you have on your blog. And, as most experienced bloggers know, subscribers are basically the blood of any blog. Without subscribers, being that they are usually experienced blogging devotees who know what they are looking for, you will be left without regular comments which are important if you want your blog to look alive. Also, webmasters particularly like to use RSS to follow blogs, so through them, you get a regular source of links for your blog. This is something that many experienced bloggers would consider fairly obvious, as they know that traffic and the community are the most important things when it comes to blogs. However, new bloggers usually make the mistake of sacrificing the space that should be reserved for the RSS feed in order to be able to squeeze in a bit more of AdSense, thus enhancing short-term revenue. If you are planning on becoming a successful blog owner, then short-term gain should not be your aim.

The RSS feed should be available in the email version, as well

Besides putting the RSS feed on top of the whole deal, you might consider email versions of the feed. While email newsletters and RSS feeds are usually regarded as services that cancel each other out, recent studies have shown that one can be incorporated into the other (namely, RSS into an email). Moreover, they have shown that using the email as an RSS feed carrier increases the number of subscribers at least two times. I have already explained the importance of subscribers, so it is clear that you should consider using this method. You can never have enough regular traffic.

Networking

What you need to understand as a fresh blogger is that you are not alone in the blogosphere. There are numerous other bloggers and each of them provides new possibilities. This is why getting connected with them is very important.

Comment often on other blogs and make sure your comments are of good quality

What many people fail to realize is that most of the communication that is being carried out between blog owners (such as providing tips, links and similar stuff) goes on mostly through private means of communication (emails, IMs, PMs, etc.). This is the way in which the community in the blog world functions. Now, when you are new, it might be a bit difficult to just obtain the email of a successful blogger and even more difficult to get him or her to answer. However, by leaving valuable comments on their blogs, you will quickly make a name for yourself. Make sure that you always provide quality content in your comments, and you can even sparkle up a few debates. Quality comments will quickly get you noticed. Be aware that doing this requires some panache and finesse, as you cannot just go around and drop your URL in every comment box you see. Instead, leave the URL in the URL box, and make the content of your comment speak for itself.

Use the buzz: Utilize the opening window to your advantage

Once you launch the blog, you will get a few days of activity around it, as the community of your blogging niche will come to check out what your blog has to offer. Your goal is to make them interested in what you have to say, because, this way, you will keep them as regular visitors and you will get accepted in the community.

‘How do I do this?’ you may ask. Well, the main weapon in any blog’s arsenal is the quality content that is available on its pages. So, during these few days of buzz about your blog’s launch, make sure that you provide the audience with top-quality content that you can come up with, and, more importantly, update it regularly (regularly here means, at least, ‘daily’). This is your time to shine and do not waste the expectations of other bloggers by posting unimportant or garbage content.

Since the launch buzz is also a nice way to get quite a few extra links, without any real effort in the marketing field, this is an opportunity that you definitely have to take if you wish to be a high-traffic blog.

Link to other blogs

As I already said, getting to know other bloggers in your niche, and getting them to notice you is the primary goal at the beginning. Now, one of the main tools that bloggers use to see who is talking about their website is the referrals list. This list tells them how the visitors came to their blog in the first place, by showing them what the last website that they visited before they landed on their blog was. You can utilize this tool to your advantage with a simple trick. Put links to other blogs in your posts, and the bloggers will notice you, if you pop up in their referral lists enough times. This can help you get noticed, but also get these bloggers to link your blog back in their posts, which means that you will get free marketing.

Getting there…

In the end, there are a few final things that you need to do and you will be set to go.

Activate your friends

Should you have some webmaster friends (and, since you are considering launching a successful blog, you surely do), have them review your blog a few days before it is launched. Since many blog owners and webmasters consider launching your own website to be similar to opening a company, they will gladly lend a hand in any way possible. By asking them to review your blog, you help them feel incorporated and you show them that you consider them to be experts. You will also be able to receive some valuable information from the more experienced bloggers, experience which might provide essential to your future development and might also help you avoid some of the common mistakes.

Make your comments section look presentable

One of the greatest problems that new and upcoming blogs face is comment spammers. These are the people (sometimes even bots) who leave non-related, generic comments on blogs, in which they advertise and provide links for ‘The pills with the most astonishing results’ and things that ‘you definitely have to check out!’. It is your obligation to weed the comments section of these comments, because, nothing keeps readers away like a comments section full of spam content. This is why weeding out the irrelevant comments must be done on a regular (daily to weekly) basis. Later on, when you are a successful blog, you can hire a moderator to do this for you, but for the time being you will have to do it yourself. The good thing is that spam comments are easy to notice and easier to delete.

Interact with other bloggers in ‘real life’

Blogger gatherings are not uncommon in the real world. They get together often to discuss things and most of them are good friends due to their interaction beyond the web. If you live in a big city, that you know a lot of bloggers hail from, or you visit such cities occasionally, do not hesitate to send a few emails inviting them to have a meeting of the minds. You can tell them that you wish to learn from them (thus striking the fruitful vine of vanity that a lot of bloggers possess; they all think that they are experts in their fields) or to just exchange valuable information. This can lead you on to becoming good friends, and from those friendships, many great things may come, either in form of valuable experience or important links that you will be able to cash on.

To conclude…

So, if you wish to launch a new blog, and you thought that it would be a walk in the park, you were very much mistaken. As things are never 100% certain in the blogosphere, you can never know for sure what needs to be done in order to succeed. Thus, while this advice from above can help you get through the jungle without many scratches, I cannot (and for that matter, no one can) guarantee you that they will yield definite results when it comes to a successful blog. However, by following these tips, you will surely get a launch that will get quite a few people going. How you go from there, depends on the experience that you gather from the launch and the lessons learned.