Blog Growth Strategy: Evolve
Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Blogging is about evolution
So many of the popular bloggers suggest different strategies and plans to become a better - and successful - blogger (none more so than Blogsolid) and even though I believe that one can find value in these suggestions / recommendations, I’m a big fan of unique strategies, which are specific to an individual blogger’s needs. But in the spirit of generic blogging strategies, I’d like to propose another one…
kill the strategy, before it kills you First thing you’ve got to remember, is that this generic strategy will not work for you if you don’t adapt it to your own specific needs. As I’ve mentioned above, I’m a firm believer in custom and specific blogging strategies - tailor-made for your own needs - this strategy is thus merely a suggestion to point you in a direction. If you’re going to try replicate this strategy as is, you’re not going to be very successful in achieving the objectives and goals of the strategy.
Okay, that said, let’s get to the topic at hand. So many bloggers start out these days, with the aim of eventually making money online, or at least to create value for their target market - as an example, I’ll use my own blog, which I use as a design portfolio (amongst other things) to gain new clients. So if one considers that it’s pretty much every blogger’s dream to be heard by thousands and thousands of people, it’s obvious that newbie bloggers would have to start somewhere. Starting however does not seem to be the problem, as new technologies and Web 2.0 trends allows newbie bloggers to set up a blog and start posting within minutes - I’ve found that the difficult part is maintaining and expanding an audience.
In my opinion the only way of doing this, is by evolving your own blogging skills along with the growth, expansion, diversification and evolution of your blog and audience. It can also be seen as a continual adaptation of what you’re doing by rethinking your current strategies on a regular basis. This means that you will continue to speak to your readers’ needs - and a happy reader is a reader that engages in your conversations through commenting, as well as turning into a viral marketing campaign through spreading the word-of-mouth about your blog.
So how exactly would you kickstart the evolution process? I would suggest two processes - observe and experiment…
Observe. I believe that there must be a reason that bloggers such as Darren Rowse (ProBlogger), John Chow (Make Money Online with John Chow) and Lorelle VanFossen (Lorelle on Wordpress) have been successful and they must’ve done something right to establish themselves in this way. So obviously observing what the great bloggers are doing, means that you could possibly replicate their successes (again - you’ll have to adapt their proposed or proven strategies to your own needs). So you’ve got to observe what these bloggers are doing, follow their lead and critically analyse their every step.
Experiment. The only way that you can determine which strategies will work for you (and which will fail) is by experimenting. Luckily for you, blogs are very dynamic in nature, which means that it’s very easy to experiment and continually modify your blogging approach. Experimenting with various different strategies is very important - but it’s also important to recognize when a strategy is not working (kill the strategy, before it kills you).
So simply put - this strategy is all about observing, experimenting and ultimately evolving. Do this and you should be able to maintain and expand your readership base. Also consider that readers make a blog - no readers means no blog. So determine the optimal approach for your blog and your blog will still be around in a year’s time! And remember to adapt this strategy to your own needs, else it will just be dead in the water before you’ve even implemented it…
* A special word of thanks to our guest author Adriaan “Adii” Pienaar. Be sure to visit Adii.co.za for more of his unique views on Web 2.0 strategy.
Char Says:
August 31st, 2007 at 7:53 pm
What a beautiful site! I found it through cssSocial - very cool.
I have watched my blogs and associates blogs evolve over time - our designs, our writing styles, and our reading habits. I think it is only natural.
Keep up the great work!
adii Says:
September 6th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Learning to evolve, Hunting the genius
I think most people’s general goal in life is to evolve continuously, because evolution is mostly associated with some kind of improvement. As a blogger and freelance designer this is something that is obviously essential to my dreams and goals, …
Pete Says:
October 4th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Hey thanks for the great article. It has left me feeling very intrigued about blogging strategies.
I have recently started my first real blog (i have played around with a couple previously with bog standard designs and free domains) and until a few minutes ago i hadn’t even considered the notion of strategy with regards to blogging. I was aware that money could be made but it didn’t cross my mind that the concept went this deep. Although i have not set out to make a living via blogging i am now very intrigued by the relationship between blogging and strategy. As a result i think i am going to begin by using this article as a launch pad for documenting my own strategy and its overall success/failure with regards to my blog.
Thank you again for this insightful article.
The Big Blog Experiment - The Underlying Strategy of Blogging. // PR Says:
October 5th, 2007 at 12:38 am
[…] blogging to be an addictive hobby. That was until I read an article by Adii Pienaar called, “Blog Growth Strategy: Evolve” on the Blogsolid website. Being quite a newby to this blogging lark, I then did some research […]
Little Guy Network Says:
December 1st, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Hey Thanks for the information.
Some good info here.
Regards
Jani
dave Says:
December 6th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Hi great blog with usfull links, thanks a lot.
Fillip Says:
May 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
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