Fethiye, Turkey
Finding the proper mix between writing and marketing blog posts accelerates your blogging success exponentially over the long haul.
Publishing detailed, targeted content builds the foundation for an outstanding blog.
Marketing the blog effectively enables targeted readers to see the content for their benefit.
A billionaire once noted how most entrepreneurs generate truly helpful ideas but develop no distribution plan.
When a Redwood falls in the forest with no ears to hear it the massive timber makes no sound.
Bloggers who publish dazzling content with no distribution system in place make no sound, either.
From personal experience, most bloggers publish solid content but distribute it poorly or not at all. If no one reads it you cannot succeed. If highly-targeted people never see it you cannot thrive.
Content and Marketing Are Equally Important
Some of this self-sabotaging tendency originates in blindly following this idea: content is king.
I believe history suggests that a king attempting to rule solo without a queen or team of advisors to share counsel tends to do a horrible job.
Most become mad men. Others more harmless loons. Few do a just, compassionate job solo because every mind needs help to create lasting, collaborative success.
Call marketing the queen, advisors or any calming, wise presence who offers critical advice and forms a crucial team approach to getting the job done.
You need a king and queen in the form of content and marketing to thrive as a blogger.
One other prime self-sabotaging tendency: I will spend 100% time onsite because I fear going offsite….that’s a scary place filled with strangers!
After inviting me to guest post on his blog, one of the top blogging tips bloggers at the time basically re-pitched me because I deeply feared spending time offsite in front of a large, global community. He offered me a generous opportunity to help his audience and market Blogging From Paradise indirectly in the process. I pissed in my cyber boots until feeling the fear and forgiving it.
I eventually accepted his offer and built a high volume of quality backlinks while serving his readership.
My Definition
Two words: content marketing.
Content = what you create and publish to your blog.
Marketing = how you promote blog posts to the world.
I intend to combine my personal blogging experience with the strategies employed by seasoned bloggers to give you a workable ratio for your blogging campaign. Carefully observing blogging big dawgs and my journey forms the basis for the information below.
Before diving in let’s chat about content then marketing.
Content
Publish long form content to lay a strong foundation for your blogging campaign.
Google loves long-form content. Readers do, too.
Basically, most algorithms and meat suits agree on 1200-1500 words or so as constituting a thorough blog post.
Write posts based on a long tail keyword from your niche. Add practical tips to the post. Drill down into details. Make posts scannable with ample paragraphs, headers and toss in bullet point lists to boot.
Marketing
Market your content by engaging in:
- blogger outreach (indirect marketing)
- social media work (more direct marketing)
- forum work (more direct marketing)
Note; marketing your blog is not posting social media updates like HEY LOOK AT ME AND MY BLOG!!!! NEW POST!!!! NEW POST!!!!
Desperately shrieking raucously from the cyber mountain tops is not marketing but the desperate terror of traffic and income loss. This is blogger outreach gone bad.
Marketing is being truly helpful, engaging, relaxing and allowing people to visit your blog.
Blogger outreach involves:
- commenting genuinely on blogs from your niche
- promoting bloggers on your blog
- promoting bloggers on social media
Make friends. Blogging buddies promote you to expand your success. Indirectly, outreach establishes relationships which increase your traffic and income.
Social media work involves:
- publishing targeted updates to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
- replying to updates
- commenting on updates related to your niche
Follow hashtags on Twitter, engage group members on Facebook and do the same on LinkedIn to gain credibility. Boosting credibility influences social media users to visit your blog.
Forum work consists of publishing detailed answers to questions on sites like Quora and Reddit in spots related to your blogging niche.
1: 50/50 for New Bloggers
Beginner bloggers wet behind the ears need:
- confidence
- clarity
- focus
in both content and marketing terms.
Splitting your time in half between creating content and marketing the content makes sense. Gain content confidence. Gain marketing confidence. Split it down the middle to gain posture through both strategies.
Resist messing with this ratio as a beginner because giving precedence starves your blog of the successful ratio. For example, the “content is king” error I discussed above repeats itself via bloggers who give 100% of their time to creating content and none of their time to marketing content.
Bloggers often ask why no one reads their blog posts. Clicking through usually reveals solid content. But when I ask about their marketing-distribution strategy virtually all admit to doing zero marketing.
How can you succeed if you skip one of the two necessary steps to driving blog traffic?
Go 50-50 as a newbie blogger.
Split your efforts to develop a sense of balance about your new blogger strategy.
Publish detailed content. Market the content effectively.
Lay a rock solid foundation for your blogging campaign.
Make your blog outstanding. Engage in an outstanding marketing campaign. Be seen, heard and trusted as a newbie blogger.
Note; a small percentage of new bloggers errs in networking primarily but rarely publishing content. Label this the 10/80 crowd.
Perhaps this crew gains exposure but….what kind? Low quality, thin blogs sporting a few posts impress no one, even if you know many bloggers.
Bloggers blog and network. Pump the brakes on networking to write and publish detailed posts brimming with targeted value. Then, when your network sees them, bloggers will gradually promote the posts.
2: 30/70 for Intermediate and Veteran Bloggers
Shift to a 30-70 content marketing ratio for intermediate and veteran bloggers.
As for the time frame between beginner bloggers and this level, consider blogging intelligently for 6-12 months before shifting the ratio.
Mid-level and veteran bloggers built an outstanding resource. Devoting 30% of your time continuing to updating old content and publishing new content makes sense.
Giving 70% of your time to distributing the content logically follows because in most cases you still need strong amplification to:
- drive heavy, highly-targeted blog traffic
- increase blogging income
Your blog is not Google, Facebook, Twitter or Reddit; visit those sites, help targeted people and organically attract them to your blog with most of your blogging time and energy.
Common Error
At this point, intermediate bloggers make the common error of spending most time and energy on their blog and ignoring blogger outreach, answering questions on social media and answering questions on forums.
Self-sabotage rears its ugly head because this is the time to help people offsite to draw attention to your outstanding blog at a level of scale. Basically, marketing your blog through smart distribution is your chief priority. But fear of criticism, rejection and wasting time scare you into fiddling around on your blog doing small potato type of work. Or maybe you write and publish smashing long-form content only to lack the distribution for people to see it.
Market your blog to be seen. Get offsite to be heard. Amplify your blogging success by leveraging your presence.
Spend some time creating content. Spend most time marketing content.
What About Google Traffic?
Bloggers at this stage who drive steady Google traffic may be tempted to skip marketing.
However, this is a bad idea because the fickle Google algorithm can wipe out your traffic overnight for a variety of reasons. Some undisciplined bloggers incur Google’s wrath after taking shortcuts. Other disciplined bloggers fall victim to SEO wizards on the come up or seasoned SEO pros who decide to gobble up more long tail keywords.
Go for Google traffic. Drive passive, targeted traffic to your blog around the clock. But never rely solely on Google for marketing because limiting distribution channels to one seems to be a foolish decision in a world of abundance.
Market to gain exposure outside of Google. Millions of people use sites other than Google to get answers to their questions.
Conclusion
Whatever ratio you choose after reading this post simply be mindful of splitting up content and marketing work.
A well-rounded approach promotes your blogging success.
