Optimize Your Blog: Part 2

written by BlogEx on April 14, 2009 in Blog Optimization and Blogging with 11 comments

In continuation of the series on how to opimize your blog, I want to cover a very important rule of thumb that all bloggers must know if they want to make money blogging. While some may not consider this a real “optimization” technique, it directly relates to HOW you should build a website or blog…if you want to make money with it.

For the most part, bloggers are scatterbrained.

This is O.K. if it’s your personal blog covering things relevant to you and your life. But if your goal is to build a website or blog that can generate income, let me provide you with a framework that successful bloggers follow.

Focus On One Thing

Every time I create a new site, I make sure the focus of that site: the content, the videos, the comments, everything is related to one topic. Instead of trying to make your site all things to all people (or worse yet, what you “think” people want to know about) find something that people are interested in (one topic) and build a website around it.

The internet affords people the luxury of finding specific groups of people who share common interests. People like to find specific answers to specific problems, and for this reason, your focus should be on creating tightly themed websites that are centered around one topic.

Example: To employ this “tightly themed” technique, it’s important that you make sure the topic in which your covering is not too broad. For example, don’t create a site centered around the general theme of “weight loss.” Instead, focus on one popular diet: South Beach, for instance. Become the expert for all things related to the South Beach Diet, and you (1) have an easier time writing content (2) attract a very targeted visitor that is first interested in information on the South Beach Diet but is ALSO interested in weight loss in general (the original much broader niche). If you want to create a site about “weight loss” don’t make it about the broad niche, find a specific subset within that niche and build a site (or sites) around that. Subsequently, you also get a backdoor into the broader niche (weight loss) but you do it in a very targeted way.

Have A Revenue Source Before You Create The Site

Continuing with the South Beach Diet example, before I would ever create a site around this topic, I would make sure I could first earn a commission for getting someone to:

1. Sign up for the diet
2. Do a desired action that generates revenue for me and is directly related to the South Beach Diet.

If you take away one thing from this article, get this: don’t create a site without first having a revenue generating action your future visitors can complete in place before you build the site. This may be earning a commission for selling a product, getting someone to signup for a trial, it could be anything. Just make sure it generates revenue for you, and it’s either selling the product your the “expert” about or is directly related to the topic.

This is the best way to build a website or blog that can make real money. Furthermore, you won’t start with the notion of, ‘I’m going to just start writing about [BLANK] and see where it takes me.’ Don’t waste your time going down that road.

Find a way to make a commission for selling a product or generating a lead, then build a niche site centered around this ONE thing. Like my economics teacher used to say, “Prior planning prevents poor performance.” Start with the end goal in mind, focus on one topic, then build your site.

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