Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Marketing & PR Blogs -> Blawg for Profit

Legal Marketing & PR

: Blawg for Profit

It’s All An Experiment

There are a zillion things you need to do to build a profitable blog, right?

I mean, there’s traffic building and content writing and product creation and reputation fortifying and comment encouraging and a bunch of design stuff and on and on. And on.

Fortunately, there’s a mountain of resources—online and offline—with suggestions, ideas, and advice on how to do all of those things.

And unfortunately, there’s a mountain of resources—online and offline—with suggestions, ideas, and advice on how to do all of those things. ;^)

And if you read even a small bit of what’s out there, you’ll find what I did: While their tactics are often similar, blogging experts have strategies that sometimes differ or conflict.

So what’s the best thing to do?

Let’s say you’ve read every single word ever written on how to create and maintain a money-making blog (you may already feel like you have!). And let’s say you’ve composed a mighty mental list of everything you could do.

Even with all those possibilities in mind, you will probably still have questions like—

• Which tactic will bring the most targeted traffic?
• What products will your readers clamor to buy, and what’s the top price they will sell for?
• What’s the best thing for boosting your reputation within your industry or niche?
• What kind of blog post will bring in the most readers, comments, links, and/or tweets?
• How will you get your readers to leave a slew of substantial comments?
• How should you display your blog content for the easiest read? For top advertising revenue? For maximum awesomeness?

And I bet you can think of at least two more questions specific to your blogging project.

So…? What’s the best thing to do?!

Based on what’s worked for themselves and for others, blogging coaches, gurus, and experts can suggest what they expect will give you the best results, but they can’t know what will give you the best results.

They don’t have your readers, your writing style, or your background. They might have the same topic, but likely not the same niche. And no single person knows everything. So while their advice is worth a heckuvalot, it’s not a plane ticket to Moneyville.

If you want to know what works best for your blog (and your profits), you’ll need to find out the same way those coaches, gurus, and experts did.

The best thing to do is: Experiment!

The best way to find out what works for your blog is to—

Give it a shot.

Measure your results.

If it works, repeat.
If it doesn’t, don’t
(or just do it a little differently next time).

Which may sound like a lot of work…and it is. That’s why expert advice is rare and valuable: Too few people dig in and do the work, and even fewer track results they are able—or willing—to share.

How do you experiment with your blog?

Organize your efforts. Keep a notebook or spreadsheet of what you’re trying, what results you expect, and what results you actually got. Be sure to write it all down! It’s easy to forget or fudge the numbers if they’re only in your head.

Measure what matters. Use tools like Google Analytics, Clicky, and Bit.ly to track your blog traffic and the results. For a profit-making blog, how much traffic you have is only as important as how much money it makes you and how much it costs you.

Custom-build your strategy. Some bloggers insist posts should be no longer than 400-600 words. Yet my readers respond well to posts that are 900-1000 words long. However, I’ve learned to alternate short and long posts for the most comments, tweets, and linksharing.

Stay flexible. Trends and technology change, and your readers may too. Even after you feel you’ve perfected your blogging strategy, keep your eyes open for new techniques and tools. Be open to change and don’t be afraid try something new.

Keep your chin up. Some things you try are going to fail. You’ll have weak sales on a product or zero clicks on an ad. It happens to everybody, so don’t sweat it. Try to figure out where it went awry, learn from it, and then try something else.

Remember:
It’s all an experiment.

p.s. And check the new course coming soon, Start Blogging Today being offered here.

Exclusive for subscribers! Download Blogging Tips To Help You Blog

Copyright © 2010 Blog For Profit. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.

Published by: Grant Griffiths

Full post as published by Blawg for Profit on April 20, 2010 (boomark / email).