I present to you my translation of a wonderful article written by a successful blogger Tina SY. In my opinion, this is the best that has been written about creating blogs. If you are planning to start an internet business, be sure to read this article. Trust me, it's worth it!

How I got 2,000 subscribers in three months

Hi, my name is Tina. On September 27, 2007, I started a small blog, Think Simple Now, with zero experience in blogging, internet marketing and writing. By Christmas, 3 months later, I had 2,135 subscribers.


I am new to blogging and I read very few blogs. Also, I don't follow any blogging advice, except for a couple of articles I read at the very beginning on dochdosh and problogger.


I am often asked how I achieved this, and I decided to make an article in the form of a report on my experience, hoping that others can benefit from what I learned. Using my example, I want to show you that you can make a profit and achieve your blogging goals by starting from scratch. I learned that there are no real secrets to blogging success, all it really takes is a deep desire to do it, along with the motivation to take action.

I had three important reasons why my blog was successful

Specific purpose and focus - you can't get what you want if you don't know what you want


Content creation is what I spend the most time on. Content and understanding that your audience is your king.


Promotion of materials - the steps that I took to bring the blog to the market. Everything is easy to reproduce. Only proceed to this stage, after the second is completed. Without quality content, all your marketing efforts will be ineffective.


Each step builds on the previous one, so it's very important to follow the sequence. Let's look at each stage in detail.

1. Specific goals and focus

Why goals?

It is very important to understand why you are starting a blog. What is your motivation?


I had three incentives:


To share my knowledge and experience of my inner growth with others, mental development and the search for happiness. These are the topics that I read, reflect and talk about in my free time. My dream is to work in the field of self-improvement. I have a lot of ideas for improving my life. I want to build my audience before I start working on these ideas.


Achieving my financial goals was about leaving my job and dedicating all my time to self-development.

What?

Defining my target audience and the topics that I would like to cover was difficult, but ultimately it is vital to the success of any business and project.


Initially, I wanted to build a blog around the things I am interested in: self-development, photography, technology, and entrepreneurship. But I realized that such an unclear combination of topics could confuse people. Ultimately, if I want to get more followers beyond my family and friends, the site should focus less on my interests than on the needs and wants of my audience. The interests of my target audience are a healthy lifestyle and personal growth. So the thematic area includes creativity, clarity, and happiness.

Objectives

We cannot get what we want if we do not know exactly what we want. I'm sure you will say I want wealth or happiness. But what does it mean? It is very important to be clear about your goals before starting any new business. Your goals should be measurable and time-bound.


I have found it helpful to revisit their assessment regularly. I do this on a monthly basis, tracking the progress of the site in a visitor log: unique visitors, page views, subscribers, and earnings.


For example, my goal at the start was:


By December 31, 2007, I will have 1000 visitors, 2500 page views monthly and 100 RSS subscribers.


This target was achieved on October 22, 2007 and revised to:


By December 31, 2007, I will have 5,000 visitors, 20,000 monthly views, 400 RSS subscribers, $ 100 in revenue.


The new target was reached on November 29th. By this date, the number of RSS subscribers has exceeded 1500.

Summary:

Let's summarize the main points of the stage "Specific goals and focus". It will be helpful to answer the following questions (in writing or in a text editor).


Why? - What is your motivation? Why are you starting this blog? How will it differ from existing blogs?


What? - Who is my target audience? What topics should I cover. Describe your blog using 3 words.


Goal - Set specific and measurable goals with specific dates. Review them periodically to assess progress.

Content creation

We all know blog content matters most, but how do you create content that people want to read, subscribe to, and link to?


First, remember the last time you subscribed to the blog. What was this blog about, why did you want to subscribe to it?


Most likely, the reasons will be as follows:

  • High importance of information
  • A practical solution to your need is offered
  • You just liked it. It was very interesting.
  • You are directly related to your blog topic or writing style.
  • You feel inspired and motivated

Put yourself in the shoes of the reader of your site. Now you know who he is. Ask yourself, which of the following does your content correspond to? Keep this point in mind as you write. Always write with the intention of creating something that will benefit your readers. If you don't remember this, it will be reflected in your text.


I treat content this way, not only because I feel responsible to my readers and want to give them the best I can, but also because it's the only way that new visitors to your site want to stay and come back.


Try different styles and test which ones your readers like best.

The following content creation tips work well for my blog:

Intention - Form an intention to create the best and most valuable content possible. When writing, cover the topic completely - don't hold back anything for later. Your honesty and sincere intentions will be striking. I love to write like I’m talking to my best friend, sharing the best I have with him.


Use personal examples - People love stories. This allows you to take the relationship on a personal level and perceive you as a friend.


Illustrations - Use relevant and vibrant images that are relevant to your article. Insert images whenever possible, but don't overdo it. As a rule, I use no more than 3 illustrations per article.


Length - I prefer to write less often, but more in volume, deeply revealing the topic. I add posts twice a week and their size is 750 - 1500 words. The length of the article is not important, the main thing is that it covers the topic in full. But I try to keep it short. Make sure the content of the post is relevant. Don't be overly verbose, this will turn readers away. If you were a reader, would you be able to hold attention long enough to read the entire article?


Lists - Use numbered lists and bullets whenever appropriate. Make words in bold. This makes it easier to read and easier to view.


Short paragraphs - Be as short as possible. While editing what is written, see if it is possible to write it shorter.

Summary:

Intention - Try to give the reader the most

Needs - What needs do your articles fill in? Is this really what people need or is it what you think they need.

Observations and Models - What kinds of articles do you like to read on other blogs? Collect the general characteristics of the ideal blog.

3 Promotion of materials

As soon as I decided on the goal of reaching 100 RSS subscribers and added articles I started promoting my blog. You may have the most useful site in the world, but no one benefits from it if it is not known to exist.

Off-line and email

I lived and breathed my only simple goal - to get 100 subscribers. Wherever I went, I told people about my goal and my blog, and people helped me. This included every person I met and everyone who emailed me: coworkers, girlfriends of work colleagues, family friends, people sitting across from me on the lawn, new Facebook friends, photo customers... everyone.


I have added newsletter information to my email signature so that it appears at the end of every email I send. I wrote to all my friends, asking them to support me by subscribing to the newsletter.

Interact with people

Communication with readers and potential readers is an essential part of my blogging success. Not only does it help my blog grow, but it's something I really love. Thanks to this, I have made many good friends. When people like you and they feel your articles are useful, they will tell their friends about it. I quickly discovered that many of my readers learned about me through others' links, and in turn attracted new subscribers.


I made extra effort to establish contacts. It was a process that I did personally. I wanted to make sure that not a single comment was ignored and not a single letter was ignored. And although I no longer respond to every comment, I still try to respond to every email.


If a comment is particularly enjoyable, I write a letter to thank you and attach a copy of my response to that comment - especially if it contains a question.


I wrote a letter of thanks to each commentator and offered to become a subscriber. Later I discovered the Comment Relish plugin that does this automatically.


I also contacted people via facebook by visiting communities corresponding to my niche and getting to know each one separately. In this way, I have made some wonderful friends.

Leave your comments: comments and links

Comment on other blogs, especially on similar topics. Make sure you leave thoughtful and relevant comments, otherwise it could be considered spam. I found a list of self-help blogs and visited every blog on the list, leaving comments when appropriate. Make sure again that you are not spamming. Bloggers are usually curious about who their commentators are and they will visit your site. In the case of popular blogs, you may have to post comments regularly to get noticed. If your posts are interesting, bloggers will link to you too, and may even add you to their blogroll.


I have contributed articles to article banks, blog carnivals, and rss feed directories. And I stopped adding articles to the bank only when I found out that Google was penalizing duplicate content. To save time, I hired third parties to do this repetitive work.

Contact bloggers

Meet other bloggers. You never know what to expect from these meetings, and how you can help each other. I feel the need for a community of friends "We are stronger together than alone." I advise you to add their details to the contact list to make it easier to find the desired e-mail. This is especially useful when you need last minute social media support.


This method helps me tremendously: Get what you need before helping others get what they want. In the letter received from blogger Maki, there was a postscript “let me know if you need anything”, which made a very strong impression on me. From then on, I have been sharing the Maki site every time I get the chance.


Since then, I began to use this postscript in my letters. But you have to be sincere. Always lend a helping hand without expecting anything in return. If they help you later - great, if not - don't worry.


Don't be shy, people are very kind by nature. Send them an email to introduce themselves, leave comments on their site, or ask a simple question. Don't start an email asking to link to you, rate your blog, or ask a lot of questions. Avoid philosophical questions, keep the letter as short as possible, and be friendly and honest. You can practice on me: write about yourself at tina [at] thinksimplenow.com

Links

I link to other bloggers in my articles whenever possible. It costs me nothing, but it can help someone. If this position is not close to you, ask yourself the question, would you like others to link to your blog? If your answer is Yes, then remember my motto "If you want to get what you need, first help others get what they need."


Thanks to my links to other blogs, I was not only noticed by others, but also made many new friends. As a result, I got links from sites like lifehacker, dumblittleman and lifehack.

Social networks

In the first few weeks, I got 15 hits a day, mostly from my mom and friends. Once I got the grace of 150 visitors who came from StumbleUpon on a tip from my subscriber. I was fascinated and decided to become a user of this service. You can see my personal page there.


I succeeded in this service thanks to the same motto: "If you want to get what you need, first help others to get what they need." If you want to get user reviews - do a lot of reviews yourself. If you want others to pay attention to your articles, pay attention to the posts of others. I repeat once again - do this without expecting anything in return. And when you receive a return, take it as a gift and thank the giver.


As soon as I started to feel a decline in motivation, my big breakthrough occurred - on November 17, one of my articles hit the front page of Digg and later on the front page of Del.icio.us.


Digg is now my focus. With the same motto, I started supporting Digg users and adding news regularly. I like to vote for interesting stories added by my friends. If you want to get the attention of Digg users, regularly vote for their posts.


I like to take a consistent approach to creating a user profile across all social media where I participate. I am using the same avatar image and the same nickname. Your image and nickname are your face on the Internet, people will recognize you when they meet you on other resources such as Mixx, Propeller or Twitter. But if you constantly change the image, it will be more difficult for your friends to detect your presence. Therefore, I do not recommend changing your avatar frequently. Some StumbleUpon users update their avatar all the time and it confuses me all the time and makes me struggle to remember them by their nickname.


Summary:
  • Contact everyone and ask for help: personally and via e-mail
  • Connect with readers by email
  • Install the Comment Relish plugin
  • Comment on other blogs
  • Link to other blogs whenever possible
  • Make 5 new social media friends weekly
  • Join StumbleUpon and Digg

In custody

I often hear people say, “I just can't get people to subscribe. What can I do?" My advice is to stop repeating these phrases and focus on what you want instead of what you are missing.


Develop a mindset of abundance instead of competition. Focus on your readers, use their experience, set a clear goal and follow it without even thinking of failure.


Ready ideas for your business


I see it over and over again: Every time desire is mingled with faith and reinforced by action, the probable becomes possible. There are no exceptions.


I wish you continued success in blogging and other endeavors. Keep your head high.


Address of the original article:  http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/01/30/from-0-to-2000-subscribers-in-120-days/


The site of the author of the article: http://thinksimplenow.com/