It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know
Okay, so maybe that has a small lie in it. As readers, you do care what a blogger knows, and continually visit blogs for their fresh and informative content. However, in saying that, you cannot run a business successfully, whether it be a small online blog or a huge offline company without connections.
Connections Are King
So why are connections so important? They’re important because of the massive marketing power behind them, free promotion and public awareness. In a blogging situation, you still might be thinking content is king… WRONG. What’s the point of writing good content if there is no-one out there reading it or taking some knowledge away from it. Apart from paid advertising, the only way to actually have readers visit and comment on your blog is to go out there and get to know them by leaving comments and interacting with them on social profiles. I’m sure many of you have realized that if you leave a comment on someone else’s blog, most bloggers will return the favor. If you do this regularly enough and post quality comments, you will be able to attract hundreds of visits each day and tens of comments simply from commenting.
Commenting also makes it easier to ask favors of other bloggers, as the relationship is already forming. The great thing about it is, it doesn’t sound pushy or spammy. Contacting other bloggers and asking them to be featured on link love and similar posts is what gives you that extra publicity to take your blog to the next level.
The more connections you have, the better. If you wish to release your own product, you are able to contact your connections and ask them to promote it for you, resulting in a lot more sales. In return, all that needs to be done is for you to return the favor at some point.
Case Study: Danny Cooper
Recently, a new blog run by Danny Cooper called Linkers Blog has hit the blogging world with a bang. If you’re reading this and have never heard of Danny’s blog, the only feasible explanation would be that you have been without internet access for weeks. 
. With a top 100k one week average Alexa rank, a rapidly increasing Technorati rank and an average of approximately 35 43 comments on his last two posts, the results of his networking and connection building through commenting are already clear. If you did miss it, Danny is running a case study on the effects of blog commenting for the month of October, and I have a feeling the results are going to blow us all away. He’s been able to achieve everything he has so far in the short space of this month through regular blog commenting and by talking to other bloggers. That’s it… nothing else to it.
The Benefits Of Networks And Connections
- Time to relax and socialize.
- Free promotion
- Growth
- Publicity
- Respect
Respect: The respect you gain from connections is a biggie. No-one is going to help out someone they have little or no respect for, but for someone they do have respect for they almost feel obliged to. Earn other’s respect and make a splash!
The 5 Keys To A Successful Blog
If you’re reading this post, the odds are that you are one of 2 types of people:
- The owner of a successful blog.
- The owner of an unsuccessful blog.
But what is it that is the deciding factor between the two? What have the successful bloggers done that the unsuccessful bloggers haven’t?
I call them:
The Five C’s
- Committment
- Connections/Communication
- Content
- Commenting
- Contests/Competitions
Commitment
Most bloggers are committed (or at least start out to be). They realize that a blog is not just something that they can spend an hour a week posting to. However, after a few weeks of this commitment, they don’t see results and fall away, and so too does the blog. Remember, good things take time. A blog will not become successful over night. To keep yourself motivated, set yourself some goals and track your progress, or get yourself into a routine.
Staying committed is probably the biggest factor in determining a blog’s success, as it entails all of the other factors: frequently writing good content, dropping comments on lots of blog, having contests and establishing connections.
Connections/Communication
Connections
When I was playing around in the world of affiliate marketing (months and months ago now) one major thing seemed to frequently spring to my attention: Each big marketer was constantly scratching the back of other marketers (in other words, they all helped each other grow to be bigger, more powerful marketers). What I have learnt is that bloggers are all the same. Take a look at this example I have for you of big blogs and how they interact. I see this almost everyday: John Chow is promoting Yaro, who is promoting Shoemoney, who is promoting John Chow. See the pattern evolving? Yes, it’s a circle of promotion. No wonder they are all big… they each have a huge force behind them giving them readers. Now I’m not saying to try and push your way into this circle. What I am saying is to take the time to have a conversation with some other bloggers and you might be talked about by them on their blog. Share them a bit of link love and there’s a good chance they will return it.
Honestly, answer yourself this question: Would you still check by John Chow’s blog if he was an unknown? All he talks about is food and blogging expo’s. People follow big bloggers because they are amazed at how big, popular and powerful they are.
Content
Ahh… What can I say. Content Is King. We’re all constantly reminded of this, so there shouldn’t be any excuse for not having quality content. If you don’t know, the reason why you need good content is so that the visitors you obtain from your marketing and promotion will want to stay and read, and become loyal readers. If you get floods of traffic but have low quality, grammatically incorrect content then you are wasting your time marketing your site.
Commenting
In my opinion, commenting is the best way to gain visitors that will actually read your content and comment on it. There are 3 reasons for this:
1. You are commenting on content related to your niche, and therefore visitors are targeted.
2. Most blog owners will check out the blog of someone who leaves a comment on theirs, and try to comment on that person’s blog.
3. You gain great exposure in your niche and establish connections.
Contests
Contests/Competitions
Holding, sponsoring or participating in a contest is a great way to gain short term exposure and many more readers to your blog. You can gain readers by asking them to subscribe in order to have an entry, and the exposure comes from other bloggers posting about it if the contest is big enough or has high value prizes. It’s also a great way to get links.
Site Flipping: How Much Can You Really Make?
Recently I have read a lot of blogs covering the topic of flipping websites for a profit. For those of you that don’t know what it is, site flipping is creating small content sites or blogs and then selling them off fairly quickly for a good profit.
Many claim that they make thousands each month flipping websites, while other, like TheNetFool, think that it isn’t possible that anyone would buy a completely new site for more than $20. Personally, I think new sites if designed well with unique content should sell for about $80 each, and therefore site flipping can be quite profitable.
Think of this:
- Build 1 website a day
- Sell each website for $80
In one month, the profits from website flipping minus a few expenses such as domain names
Site Flipping: What Can You Earn?
and listing fees equate to around $2,000 – not bad for 2-3 hours work a day.
I myself have been considering flipping sites, but my time is simply too limited. However, I am gaining enjoyment from a challenge I am closely watching between Bryan over at SiteFlipU and ImWithJoe. ImWithJoe sent Bryan an email proposing a challenge, that he wouldn’t be able to sell 5 one day old blogs for $1,000 all up. Bryan accepted, and the challenge begun.
You can read the full story at SiteFlipU and follow it, because I myself can’t wait to see the outcome – it may just inspire me to start flipping.
What I wanted to say in this post was how much a working person could actually make flipping sites each month. The time on their hands is limited, and therefore I would say that they would be able to produce 2 good quality websites a week comfortable. That equates to just over $600 a month, not bad for a few hours work each week.
In approximately 5 weeks, check back, because I will be off school then and will be able to focus more time on creating websites, and will be setting myself a challenge to make 1 site a day for 10 days in an attempt to earn $1,000 from them.