Profitable Blogging - 3 Keys to a Successful Blog

It is hard to define success in blogging because everyone's goal is different. For most people, traffic is a good measurement of success but high traffic blogs don't always make more money than other less popular traffic. However, no matter what your goal, there are a few things every successful blog has in common.

No matter which path you take, here are 3 keys to build a successful blog:

1. Know your purpose

Are you starting a blog to build your audience who like what you have to write? Are you building the audience so you can get coaching or consulting clients?

Do you plan to sell ad space after you get some traffic? All of those matter and will determine what you should do later.

If you don't know your purpose, there is no way you can reach it. Everything you do doesn't matter at all.

When I got started, I focus on getting traffic. Whatever traffic is good, or so I thought. So I blogged about everything. AdSense allowed me to cash in on every visitor, but over the long run, it would be much more powerful if I just serve a market. There will be more leverage if I do it once and get more people in.

2. Create a plan

An action plan is the steps you need to take to achieve your goal. If your goal is to sell ad space, you will design your blog so that you have spaces on the sidebar or at the top of the blog.

You get what I mean, your blog's purpose determines what you should do in every step of the way.

Sure, things change every now and then, but you must have a plan before you write your first blog post. Fortunately you don't have to custom design from the beginning.

Think about it this way. Before you fire, you need to aim at a target. Without a plan, it's like shooting in the dark. There is little or no chance that you will hit the target this way. So, plan ahead.

3. Execute

Once you get the plan, all you need is execute until you reach it. You may learn new things along the way. Use your new knowledge to adjust things but keep your eyes on your goal.

If you are to build a list of prospects, don't stop and try other strategies too soon. If you keep jumping from one strategy to another, you will not succeed.

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