How To Break Into Any Niche Part 4: Don’t Burn Up Your Blog Too Fast
In the past we've talked about creating an autoresponder sequence to automate relationship building with your prospects or even your existing customers.
If you had 10 autoresponder messages, you wouldn't set them up to use them up in 10 days. You'd space them out to give subscribers a chance to take in the information.
Remember, you aren't only concerned with readers. The bottom line is how much money does your blog make... if it makes nothing then what's the point?
I'm not saying it has to make money directly with ad space or AdSense. If your blog gets you some regular traffic, which leads to more autoresponder signups, which eventually makes you more sales, then your blog is a source of income.
- You want to keep your readers' interest, but at some point get them a little bit bored so they'll check out one of your other products that sells something.
- You want to give other blogs and sites a chance to mention a recent article of yours before it's taken off the front page.
- Don't forget that search engines penalize sites that toss up too many pages too quickly and don't grow at an average rate.
Like I said when I started this blog, I wrote 50 blog entries before I made the blog public. I could post one entry a day and burn it all up in two months, then be left with nothing else to write. Or I could post one entry per week and last a year. I could post 2 entries a week and last 6 months before I had to come up with any new content.
Here are my tips about not burning up a blog too fast, based on my experience with running membership sites and watching other peoples' blogs start out well but eventually fail miserably:
- Have a reserve of emergency articles -- at least 6 months to a year's worth -- to continue populating your blog at a regular pace. This doesn't have to be a lot. If you intend on posting a minimum of one article per month, all you need are 6 to 12 articles.
- Don't post more than twice a week. Daily is too much even for active subscribers to keep up with.
- If your articles are 1000 words in length or longer, break them up into manageable 250-500 word pieces. You can perform a word count using Microsoft Word or any decent text editor.
- Post replies to comments for two reasons: to let your readers know that you are reading what they say and encourage them to keep commenting, and keep your entries fresh, even if they are a few days or weeks old.
Comment below and tell me if you have a reserve of emergency articles for your blog or if you just wing it... and if so do you post on a regular basis or whenever you feel like it?
Filed in: Niche Selection
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Hi Robert,
Never thought about an emergency reserve for my blog.
Lot’s of good ideas here!
God bless,
Andy
Great information I have been adding articles of 1-3 per day for a few weeks now.
Appreciate the advice.
Bryan
Sound advice as usual, Robert.
I think the advice to keep an emergency ‘fund’ of articles is a good one. Many of us understand the need to do that with money (whether we actually do it is a different question!) and this is no different, really.
It’s also worth remembering that it can be hard to maintain the momentum to keep posting every day, or several times a week. The average person finds it hard to do, especially if they have a day job to contend with.
We know you’re a bit different, of course 🙂
“You want to give other blogs and sites a chance to mention a recent article of yours before it’s taken off the front page.”
That’s a very good piece of advice. If you’re posting anything worth reading then others will naturally want to link to/comment on it.
Hi Robert,
I’ve got to admit I don’t post to my blog nearly as often as I should. In fact I haven’t posted since March 27th…ooohhh that’s bad.
If I had a reserve of articles already written, I wouldn’t be in this pickle. Really good idea Robert. Now…instead of posting on your blog, it’s time to go and update my own.
Hi Robert
I generally wing it! I wait until I get some PLR product’s that I sell then write an article covering the different aspects of the product.
Seems to work for me 🙂
Best Wishes
Paul Conway
Newbie
Robert, I love your down to earth practical advice. I don’t have a stock of pre-written posts, but I do have a hoard fo PLR articles that I can quickly rewrite if I am short on posts.
Robert, sound advice especially since I am very much on the new side of internet marketing. Thanks much for the sound advice.
Warmest Regards,
Paul
Thanks for the advice on blog posting frequency, it’s useful to have some idea of how often to post, especially as a lot of PLR article sellers tell you you must post a few times a week. Your advice seems to be more inline what I have found when blogging.
I only recently started converting some sites to blogs to make updating easier, or adding a blog section to ones which already done well. In doing this I also realised the value of your comment about keeping content in reserve, and have been trying to do this as much as possible.
Thanks again for some useful advice.
Thank you AGAIN, Robert…
You are so innovative and now you’ve come up with yet another smart marketing idea. It not only saves time, but could save your behind as you said…
I truly appreciate your gems of wisdom and you!
Donna
No problem Douglas. Last weekend at the Warrior Event, one of the presenters (I think Dr. Mike) explained that when you build mailing lists you train them for a specific kind of behavior.
If you build a list with lots of freebie content and no sales offers you are training them to only take content from you and never buy. (duh)
If you build a list with people who bought only low-ticket items, they won’t be responsive to the high-ticket stuff. (again, duh)
But what I *never* thought of was what happens when you change the frequency of your broadcasts:
If your subscribers are used to hearing from you once a week and you change it to once a day, they won’t be as responsive.
You subscribers haven’t been trained for that. They’ll forget who you are, unsubscribe, delete your e-mails without reading them… because you’ve changed that formula.
That’s such a lightbulb moment for me and I hadn’t thought of it when I wrote the above blog post (months ago). That gives you all the more reason to stay consistent, but NOT so consistent it’s boring.
Example: E-mail and blog post once a week but NOT every Thursday.
Robert,
Great food for thought, as usual.
but… are YOU back and posting, or still computer-less and having the posts made for you? 🙂
(I want to see you program automatic “replies to comments”.. heh!!)
😀
Hi Robert,
I have no emergency posts to use “in case…”, but I have a lot in the head. It is a good idea to get them on “paper”. And to empty the brain. Thanks for the inspiration.
Jørgen
Hi Robert,
I usually post when I get around to it, but I’m trying to get back into the groove of things. I was thinking about 2-3 times a week at least.
My main problem was having wayyyy too many blogs to keep up with, so they all became splogs.
I definitely don’t have an article reserve yet, but I do have some backup subjects… it is just a matter of taking the time to write the content.
Great point about prewriting some content, although 6-12 months worth may be overkill or scare people off from getting started.
What you don’t want to do is to tell yourself you are going to blog daily and then run out of ideas next week.
I don’t necessarily agree that daily blogging is too often, if you have something to say, and especially if they are short posts. That doesn’t mean people have to visit daily to read it.
One of my blogs contains technology news items, so it’s not easy to keep a reserve of posts due to the ephemeral nature of news.
However, it is possible to have some general posts ready that are timeless. They’re not necessarily news, but they can be worded like news items or press releases.
As it happens, my blogs tend to get neglected for long periods, and then get a flurry of activity as I remember to maintain them. Not good, really, but I rarely post more than once a day even when I remember them.
Prewriting content makes sense. Haven’t started a blog because of the commitment. Like you I need to write a year’s worth in advance and then just add my own comments to “update” my prewritten posts.
Robert can you demystify wordpress and trackbacks or whatever you call them? How would I attract traffic to my “new” blog?
Oh yeah, don’t worry, I’m back now. I still check the blog but automating and having the reserve of posts means I only need to check it a couple of times a week… instead of multiple times per day.
I already have a bunch of articles about that on this blog… look in the “How to Break Into Any Niche” category for parts 1-3.
You don’t need to worry about what trackbacks are, all that means is, you link to someone else’s blog from your blog and that makes it show up as a comment on their blog.
My formula basically is: regular blog posts + funnel into either a paid product (link sidebar on the right) or into a mailing list + forum marketing on a forum in the same niche as the blog.
The forum marketing doesn’t pay off at first but if you keep getting them on a list it will build up. You can use JVs to speed up the process.
Some people’s “speed of thought” is oxymoronic – give ’em what can be handled. 🙂
Also, breaking up your own material into smaller chunks is not new; we do it with PD material and PLR stuff all the time <or if not, we SHOULD 😉
Great ideas
Thanks
It’s just a matter of doing
Thanks for the ideas.
I’m not such a great blogger – mostly because I can’t decide what to publish.
Pre-written content could solve my problem.
I only wonder why i didn’t think of it before… ;o)
Thanks, Robert. I’ll tell my friends about your post, so that they don’t worry too much about “not blogging often enough.”
We did an experiment involving two sites covering a similar topic. In Blog A, posts were published once a week. In Blog B, was posted daily.
Blog B’s traffic was less than 7% higher than the traffic of Blog A. In some months, Blog A’s traffic even surpassed that of Blog B.
I am guilty of both – posting too often and not posting enough. I think I’ll have to schedule some posts for times I know I won’t be able to post at least once a week.
Thanks Robert…
Never thought that the technology is there.
The old publication date button was usually a surprise revelation for people when they kept asking the question “Well, how do you drip feed content over time?”. Heck, there were a number of software programs sold that did exactly that when it was already built into WordPress for free.
In the latest WP2.5 you have to look at a small line on the right of the Write Post box that says “Publish immediately Edit”. Click the Edit link and you can choose your date as before.
Thanks robert..
Good idea….
never thought about it.
Hey Robert,
Your offer of 22 for Sonic for 48 hrs arrive 17 hrs ago. You send us to the WSO and the price is 23.80, not 22. You did not say it was a price escalator, you said it would cost 22. Sorry to bitch, but that is not good customer relations!
Robert,
Thanks for another great post. I am going to put some articles together and every once or twice a week post them to my blog. What do you use to drip these into your blog without manually entering them?
Also, what plugin or code are you using to place the RSS feed link at the bottom of each post? Keep up the good work Robert.
Patrick Whitson
The Comic Collector
Time to write again as you have long surpassed the ten comments criteria….
Keep up the good work. 🙂
It does look that way, doesn’t it. I’ve been feverishly putting some sales letters up (wrote 8 of them in a day the other day) and recording several daily videos for two of my classes (Post Product Launch and Head First PHP).
Had to push back a few of my scheduled blog posts because the products they lead up to aren’t ready yet… I’ll get there!
Wow I’m glad I stumbled across your site Robert…being so new to all this you are really giving me the tips I need. I only recently set up a blog and thought I should be posting every day minimum…ahhh I can relax a little. Well not much too worry about at the moment with the blog seeings Google haven’t even indexed it:/
By the way, I have heaps of PLR articles that I know I can get great info from to make up a stock pile of posts, a great feeling knowing the content is at my fingertips.
Hey Chris Noble, thanks for the tip on setting the date to post in WordPress, another little gem of information I never knew about. Cheers.
I have about 20 future blog posts but they are not done yet–lol— I am trying to post twice a week. As the blog gets larger I plan on slowing down the posts. I try to keep my private blog post –unfinished posts— under twenty. When I get more than that I try to go in and finish off several and get my future posts down under 20. I always finish the oldest unfinished post first and then go and work on anyone I want to finish.
Anytime I am commenting for links to one of my blogs and i end up running a long comment (this is an example) I will copy my comment and start a Blog post from my comment. I always have the site I am promoting open while I am reading other blogs in that niche. That way I can copy and drop the comment right into my blog.
Rick