When speaking of blogging, bloggers tend to speak only for their niche, leaving many webmasters wondering how to be successful in theirs. Although I will be unable to speak for every niche, I will speak about what it takes to be successful in general.
Generally speaking, most of the usual advice remains the same. Reviewing products or services, holding contests, commenting in forums and on blogs, submitting your website to directories, writing articles and submitting them to directories and as guest posts, linking out, linkbait, and SEO are not changed. What is different, however, is how to do it and what works best.
As stated within the comments of How to Make Money Like John Chow, I suggest commenting and social media are the best at becoming a popular political blog. Although I don’t particularly have experience in that field, I am allowed to make this assumption because political blogs are hard to rank for (local politicians are a different story) due to the amount of coverage in major newspapers and magazines.
The great aspect of social media is its large diversity. You can just as easily have a review on the frontpage as you can a comic.
Tip: Since linkbaiting and SEO are one in the same; it is important to have keywords within the linkbait title.
Social media is important to the life of any website. Social media acts as a gateway to more links and visitors. It is often argued that it is dead traffic, which it is in most cases; however, I argue that getting to the front page of any social media website isn’t about the direct traffic but the indirect. Being front paged means tens, even hundreds of links, which is the #1 SEO tactic.
As for reviews, it is important to know what is currently seeking attention within your niche. Is there a new book out explaining a new theory? What about a new movie starring a famous celebrity? A new gadget? With reviews, it isn’t needed to always be positive. On the contrary, words such as [problems] are often searched for (as is the word [review]).
When commenting, keep it relevant. If you own a “dog safety” website, comment on dog safety forums and blogs. Not only will you receive links, but once you are considered active you will be seen as an authority within your niche. And as we all know, being an authority means extra links and more direct visitors.
The single most important issue in webmastering is knowing your niche. How crowded is your niche? What keywords are searched for most? Are those searches crowded? What websites are seen as authorities? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you construct a plan on how to receive more visitors.
In short, the more crowded your niche is the more work it is to find long-tail phrases. If the niche is overcrowded, you might need to seek alternative ways other than relying on search engines (at least in the beginning). This means you will have to rely on social media, comments, and guest posts until rankings begin.
Want more advice? Leave a comment.
Written: Sep 8, 2008
StanHayes
September 8, 2008 @ 11:28 am
I see this phrase a lot “…more work it is to find long-tail phrases.” What is a long-tail phrase?
Gary R. Hess
September 8, 2008 @ 11:41 am
A keyword phrase that is three or more words. Such as ‘fantasy football rankings’, ‘fantasy football mock draft’, ‘fantasy football advice’, ‘fantasy football sleepers’, etc.
Generally the longer the tail phrase the better chance you have at ranking for it.
Dennis Edell
September 9, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
The long-tail is something I’m just starting to get into…very effective indeed
bagus
September 11, 2008 @ 10:59 am
google is now scoring your backlink from the quality of the site that linked to your blog so it is better if you find backlink (including commenting) from quality and relevant website.
Jamie
September 13, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
Long tail traffic is almost 80% of my daily traffic. I suggest taking a free trial of HitTail to learn what people are coming to your site for. Since I started gearing my articles more towards what people where searching for when they landed on my site instead of what I *think* they are searching for I’ve noticed a 50% increase in traffic.