One of the difference between an average blogger just starting out and another who has set blogs up numerous times is the amount of content they have starting out.

When most bloggers first start out, they install wordpress and immediately try to promote it.  They want everyone to know about their blog as they are all excited about this whole concept and start emailing other bloggers in their niche, telling them to check the blog out.  They ask for links, they tell everyone the URL of their blog but they don’t realize that the blog doesn’t even have that much content!

With like 3 posts, what impression does that give an establish blogger? What did you expect readers to feel when they go to your blog and see an empty blog?

Compare this with an established blogger who launches a blog with 50 posts.  Although the blog might be brand new, it will immediately bring value for the visitor once they decide to click pass the first page. Whether it’s the about page, the interaction of the poll or other pillar articles, a blog with established content can potentially capture visitors into readers from day one.

There’s also the reputation and brand to consider.  If we were to build a brand based on a blog, it wouldn’t be good to have people associate the brand with an empty blog.  We want the brand to be associated with something successful and positive, and a brand new blog with 3 posts absolutely doesn’t relate to anything positive.

If you are going to start a blog (or another one from scratch), seriously consider writing a bunch of articles first before making it public.

Q: This is all great but how do you have established content on the blog without it going public?

A: There are many ways to do this with Wordpress.  Stay tuned for the next article.

One of the greatest benefit of the web is access to information.  Back in the days, there was IRC and Usenet (anyone remember those?) which were fantastic. Google then gave us relevant searches and revolutionized the way people perceived the web. These days, there’s twitter for us to ask questions and blogs which added personal opinion.

These tools are great to find information on pretty much any subject, but with lots of information most definitely comes with conflicting ones!  Just to give an example, I was at the blog world expo the other day when Jeremy from b5 media said:

advertising clients now believe unique visitors are much more important than page views

Then within a few days, Skellie’s guest post on Problogger start out by saying:

When selling advertising spots on your blog the metric that advertisers value most is page views, or ‘impressions’.

I’m not even talking about two “no name” bloggers making conflicting statements. These two people are credible sources in the blogging world who we naturally listen to. So who should we listen to?

Why This Happens

To help us figure out how we should handle these conflicting messages, it will help us to discuss why this happens.

This is What I Encountered
As with any advice that anyone ever gives, it is usually based on personal experience. Jeremy probably talked to several advertisers who gave him the feeling that unique visitors were the most important while Skellie looked at all her revenue sources and came to a different conclusion.

You Can Go Your Way, But I Know That Way Leads Me There Too
As with anything else in life, there is no right path to success. What worked for problogger might be different than what’s worked for me or you. As it is impossible to make a 100% fair comparison of going both routes, different opinions will naturally arise.

Making Sense of All This

If you are still trying to figure out who is right, then stop now because it doesn’t really matter. Here are more things to consider:

Do Both
In the above example, unique visitors and page views are both important. Do as much as you can to drive visitors to your blog and then work on increasing the page views per visitor by keeping them from leaving your blog!

Test, Test and Test Again
Become an expert yourself and form your own opinion. Test out all the methods and come up with your own assessment of who’s right. Whether you end up driving more visitors or increasing the page views per visitor, it will only help your blog anyway so test out every method out there!

Takeaway
There’s always some merit to what everyone writes about, so try to absorb the lesson behind the actual words. Rather than reading the words and follow the statements that someone makes, try to figure out the blogger’s mindset through the words and learn that instead. Once you have the same type of mindset as other successful bloggers, you will make more money. This I guarantee.

In theory, we all know that blogging for our passion is the way to go but in reality, the choice between money and passion is very tough to make.  Before I was born, my dad chose to change his profession because of $500 HKD (about $50 USD) a month in salary.  When I first heard about this, I was extremely surprised because he made such an important decision for not that much money, but I realized later in life that my family was having a really tough time making ends meet back then that every penny counted.  My dad didn’t make the choice because he wanted more money, he felt like he had to.

Everyone who blogs will tell you that blogging is hard work.  At the end of the day, we want something to show for it.  We want something to tell us that all our hard work was worth it, and that the time we spent is not wasted.  Some people want readership, some people want fame and most people want money.

Choosing a niche that’s profitable versus choosing a niche that you are passionate about is a question that we talk about often.  Normally, I try not to give advice with definitive answers because every situation is different but let me tell you this - blog about your passion!

You Have to be Content to Write Content
The main reason why you should write about a topic you are passionate about is because of satisfaction.  Blogging is hard work and if you aren’t passionate about the subject, then forget about it.  If you are enthusiastic about what you write about, it will show in the articles and that quite frankly is attractive.

Another benefit is that you will naturally want to dig deep into everything that’s related to something you love and the knowledge you gain will reflect on the posts that you will write about.

Think about Money and You will Likely Give Up at the Beginning
Everyone can write about any topic for a few short months but only the most passionate ones can write about the same topic day in and day out for extended periods of time.  If you pick a niche only because of the potential money you can make, it’s very hard to keep up at the beginning when no one seems to be reading your posts.

You Better Believe that Everyone Sees the Same Opportunities
When a niche seems very profitable, many people will start trying to write about it.  In a crowded niche, it’s very hard to distinguish yourself from the pack so gaining readership is extremely hard unless you have very good content.  If you aren’t passionate or knowledgeable about the subject, then chances are your blog will stay unknown.

Every Niche can be Profitable
The wonderful thing about blogging and the web in general is its widespread reach.  As narrow as you think your interests are, there are tons of other people that share the same interests.  Once you build a following, a blog on any niche can be profitable.

Blog about what you love, and people who share that love will follow you!

Final Thoughts
Not enough can ever be said about picking a niche that you are passionate about.  I see way too many people trying to write about something that they know nothing about, thinking that they will become rich because others do it.  A blog deserves and demands you to be passionate!  So respect its desires and feed it with your energy!

Readers ask me all the time about ways to increase traffic.  They see the success of a few of my sites and they believe that there is some secret to getting traffic that I’m not sharing.  They want to know what I do to rank high on keywords within Google, whether I pay for advertising and how much time I spent marketing my blog.

To those readers, I often tell them that the secret to traffic building is time.  There are many things you can do to increase traffic, but all of those things take time to build.  Sure you can write a killer article that gets to the front page of digg and end up receiving few thousand uniques a day for a while, but that traffic is short lived and not sustainable.

In order to increase traffic for the long term, we should look at how people come to our site: direct traffic, referral traffic and search traffic.

Direct Traffic
This category consist of readers that regularly come to your blog, the ones that regularly comment on your post, people who you know and generally everyone that remembers your brand.  It could be someone typing in your domain name in the address bar, the ones that have bookmarked your site or even those that have your page as their homepage.

In order to increase this type of traffic, it requires quality content that people value and creative branding to help readers remember you.  At first, a casual reader might read a good article from your blog and not come back, but if he/she comes across your blog and reads articles on your blog again and again, that person will become a subscriber and keep coming back for more.

Referral Traffic
These type of traffic is the best and often the most satisfying to receive.  Having other bloggers link to your posts is like others telling you that your article is one that they believe their readers will find interesting.  Links on other sites will also helps you reach new readers because it spreads the word of your brand out to different people.

Unless you are very famous or you have major advertising budget, you won’t get much referral traffic at the beginning as it takes time for other bloggers to remember coming to your site.  It takes time to build your network and it takes even more time for people to link to your articles.

The key is not lose patience in the beginning and keep writing good articles. Eventually, others will notice your great articles and links will flow to your blog.

Search Traffic
This is the area that everyone seems to spend the most time optimizing when time is actually the best optimizer.  Since a search engine’s existence is to bring qualified pages to a search term, blog content eventually will rank high because we write blog content day in and day out on one particular subject.

Search engine’s ranking are complicated but it is somewhat based on:

1. Other sources of traffic
2. Number of links to that particular blog and article
3. How long those links existed
4. How long the blog has been in existence within the search engine

Most of the factors affecting keyword rankings like the ones mentioned above are directly or indirectly time dependent.  There is no way to gain an incredible amount of inbound links naturally in a short amount of time (search engine’s actually flag your site if it happens), and unless you can manually manipulate the search engine’s ranking formula, there is no way to increase the time those links or your blog has been in existence.

Final Thoughts
You will always see some sites having a ton of visitors from day one, but if you are just starting out and don’t have the means of those people (connections, budget etc), you need to keep writing quality content. Instead of being impatient, have confidence that people will take notice the great content that you are writing.  As they often say “If you build it, they will come”.

Some of my friends in the blogsphere are starting to believe that subscribers to their blogs are meaningless.  These readers rarely come to their site and when they do, they never click on ads that are present on their blogs.  They feel that although these readers read their content, they rarely give back.  I couldn’t disagree more.

Readers, whether they are subscribers or causal readers that type in busyblogging.com in the browser is the foundation of my blog.  These people not only give me energy to write, they also motivate and encourage me to continue doing this.

Sure, the income is nice but the main reason why I’m passionate about writing my blogs is because of my readers.

These readers comment on my posts and share their ideas for me to learn from.  They email me and allow me to help them and they share their success stories to let me know that what I’m writing about actually helps people.  What’s not to like about these readers?

Without readers, a blog is lifeless.  I’m sure we all remember the good old days when our blogs never get any visitors, the days when every post we write have 0 comments, and the same days that we spend so much time but feel like we are talking to ourselves.  We don’t miss those days, I certainly don’t.

To hear people say that a subscriber is meaningless hurts me.  It shows that the blogger is not really passionate about blogging.  All I can say to that is “good luck”.

I would go to great lengths to gain readership.   Personally, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing my subscriber count going up, to see more comments on my post and to interact and know more readers and fellow bloggers.

To me, that’s the core of what a blog is - to interact and share ideas with others.   This is the best part about doing and I love every minute of it.

Thank you for being a reader.  Thank you for continuing to support this blog as without you, this blog is nothing.

Many people add advertisements to their blogs and try to monetize the site as soon as it is up. The time when there are practically no visitors and hence no money to be made. The temptation is obvious. We don’t want to leave money on the table.

When we should start adding ads is one of the most asked questions online today. Everyone wants to know the perfect time to take this step. We want to leave ads out of the blog because we know it may turn off certain visitors but we know that eventually, it is something that has to be done.

Most of us read income reports from other bloggers and then quickly sign up for adsense. We spend hours tweaking and making sure it look perfect on our blog and then we proceed to make $0.02 in the next 30 days.

An Experiment to Illustrate

Last month, I added an adsense unit on two of my newest site. The result, a combined total of $1.69 in earnings. The rest, $177.70 to be exact, came from another 2 sites. At the current pace, I can afford 100 months of adsense-free advertisements on the two new blogs if I’m willing to forgo one month of earnings on two higher traffic sites.

So in my particular case (one that is typical for all new sites), leaving ads off the new sites was an easy choice.

Patience will be Rewarded

There is really no rush to put advertising on a blog. During the first few months of your blog’s life, the focus should be about driving traffic because money will not come unless there is decent traffic and a developed brand.

Notice on BusyBlogging Dot Com that there are no ads yet. This is not because I cannot find advertisers but because I intentionally wanted it to be clear of ads for the first few months to attract as many visitors as possible.

I know that once I start to develop a following by writing good blog content, advertisers will come knocking on my door asking to put ads on my site. Waiting for this to happen will make the decision to put ads onto the blog much more natural, instead of forcing it on the blog just because I cannot wait.

Putting ads on prematurely doesn’t make you money, so hold off and build your blog first.

When it comes to your blog, branding should be of the highest priority.  Potential clients always have options, as there are many alternatives in the marketplace today.  If you make money by selling advertisements, your brand will help attract advertisers.  If you sell services, then your brand will help you qualify and generate leads.

Even if making money is not in the plans for your blog, building a brand will help bring in more traffic and readership! Therefore, it is important to start focusing on building your brand. If you never thought about this, the time to start is now.

Get Started

Here are a few pointers to help lead you in the right direction.

State the Facts
As a blog, the articles we write form the foundation in which our brand is based on. It is crucial that we state the facts and not guess.  Readers will quickly spot the bloggers who know the facts versus the ones that just type without reference.

Show Consistency
Eventually, there will be readers who follow your blog.  Show integrity and consistency by continually giving messages that don’t conflict with each other.  If the writing and mindset changes from article to article, it is impossible for people to build trust.

Be Unique
Be it the blog design, advices written or delivery method, there should be a level of uniqueness in your blog.  As I said earlier, there are alternatives out there.  Don’t just aim to be a “me too” blog.

Better to be Interesting to Some than Mediocre to Everyone
In order for people to come back, there should be a reason to come back. Don’t try to tailor to everyone because it is impossible. Instead, make sure that there are people who will love your blog so you can capture those readers. Give people a reason to come back, even if it’s at the expense of some others.

Be Coherent
At the end of the day, it is a blog you are writing on. Although you don’t need to be an English major, your readers will need to be able to understand your writing. Once you are done writing the article. At least read it over once to make sure it is understandable by someone other than you.

It is also not a bad idea to ask someone else to read your article and then tell you what the article is about. This will give you insight into how someone else perceives your article for you to make changes if necessary.

Be Yourself
Not that it is impossible, but it is too hard to pretend to be someone else. Your articles should reflect your true feelings and beliefs in topics you write about.

One Last Thing to Note

Be patient with brand building as it is a long (in fact never ending) journey. Keep the above points in mind and your brand will be developed, traffic will come and money will be made.

How often we should post on our blogs for maximum effectiveness is always a question that I get asked. There are many people that think posting multiple times a day is the way to go while there are equally as many people that think posting once a day is the optimal.  Here are the common arguments on each side.

Posting Multiple Times a Day

• Google likes your blog more and will send you more traffic when it’s updated often.
• Visitors will always have fresh content when they come to your blog, even if they come multiple times a day.
• Posting more frequently means there are more posts in the archives for readers to search.
• Most high profile blogs do this, I don’t know why but it must be better!

Posting Once a Day

• Consistency is always a good thing.  It sets your readers up with an expectation that you are posting regularly but not excessively.
• Posting once a day gives you a chance to feel fresh and write good content.
• As each post is up at the top of the page for longer periods of time, it tends to get more participation.
• More participation lends itself to more links from your fellow bloggers

So what should we do?  The answer lies in blog popularity, monetization scheme and the time you have for your blog.

Posting Frequency Depends on Your Time
Let’s talk about the last one first - Time.  Other than a select few of us who are lucky enough to do this full time, most people still have at least a 9 to 5 day job to keep up along with our daily lives!  Let’s face reality here.  We just don’t have time to write multiple blog posts a day and keep up with this long term.

Consistency is really important for your readers, so rather than posting 4 times a day for a week and no posts for 2 weeks, schedule the posts out!

Posting Frequency Should Be Tied to Blog Popularity
One of the most important aspects of a blog is its interactivity.  When readers come to a blog, they want to not only read great content but also great comments!  Your readers absolutely add value to your posts when they comment.  Not only will they sometimes add different perspectives to the topic you wrote about, they also send a message to your other readers that your blog is a great place to come back to.

Unfortunately though, comments are much easier to come by on high profile blogs because of the sheer traffic that they get.  If you need proof that it’s not just about the content, all you need to do is submit a guest post to a high profile blog.  Once it’s posted, you will see the difference.

Those that are starting out should post high quality articles but spread them out.  I suggest posting only 2-3 posts per week so each post stay at the top of your blog for a longer period of time.  Once you get more participation on your blog posts, you can tighten the posting schedule accordingly.

Posting Frequencies Depends on Your Plan for Making Money
If your blog makes money solely from Adsense, traffic from search engines is absolutely key to success.  In this case, you will want to post more frequently so Google will send more traffic your way.  However, if you are running ads that are charged on a per month basis, then quality of the articles should come before anything else.  Write because you feel passionate about a topic, not because you have to.

Advertisers buy ad space because of the perceive value of your blog and how it will translate to help their own business.  I will take one visitor from ProBlogger over ten visitors from another site that gets lots of traffic because I know people coming from ProBlogger are most likely bloggers who are interested in the topics I write about here and not some random visitor that was sent to his blog that then clicked through to my blog.

Advertisers have to constantly pick where they spend their advertising dollars.  A blog will be perceived to have a high value when they have:

• Steady posting schedule
• Great participation in terms of comments
• High number of links to your blog posts

Think about all those, and you will have a clear decision of how often you should post.

When my life is full of interesting events, the content of my blogs naturally become better.  Because blogging is about sharing, our content reflects our life experiences.  The richer our life experiences, the more colorful our content.

Sharing Your Life Experience
I also find that when I can relate to the topic on a personal level, I can write more passionately and often have much more ideas to share.  I can continue to write about personal finance day in and day out because I take my finances seriously.  Even without the blog, I would be thinking about my personal finances constantly so it is extremely easy to come up with topics ideas to share with my readers.

Sometimes, I really want to comment on an article that other bloggers write about but I just don’t know what to write and I often give up.  By sharing life experiences, there is a greater possibility that readers can relate to the article and thus increase interactivity of the blog.  A couple of days ago when I wrote about my experience calling my web hosting tech support, readers could commented because they had similar experiences with their hosting company.

Richer Content
Of course, just any experience is not enough.  If all I talk about is that I write blogs, it wouldn’t be too interesting would it?  In order for your articles to be engaging and interesting, your life should be interesting.  No one wants to read about what you ate if you eat the same salad everyday, but if you go to different restaurants everyday, then sharing your experience would be much more worthwhile.

What if I Don’t Have an Interesting Life?
Since many bloggers sit in front of the computer all day, it is very easy to feel like there isn’t anything interesting to share.  If this is how you feel, the first thing is to change your mindset!  Everyone actually has very unique backgrounds and perspectives.  This alone creates a great opportunity for sharing on even everyday topics.

Just stop thinking your experiences are boring and start sharing.  You will find that your blog will become livelier and more rewarding.

Like many of you, I hate spammers because I spend so much time each day cleaning up my comments section to make sure only legitimate comments show up. When I first started blogging, I thought about whether there is a way to eliminate these spammers. After a while though, I realized that thinking about it is useless because there is just no way of knowing where they come from or how to eliminate them.

Lately, I’m starting to think that perhaps spam on my blog aren’t so bad. Isn’t the amount of spam a measure of how popular your blog is? When you first start a blog, don’t you remember the days when you have absolutely no spam? Doesn’t spam start after your blog start getting noticed by others?

Another theory I have is related to Google. We all know that a good chunk of our traffic comes from the Google Search Engine and one of the main factors of increasing our SERPs is how many links the article and domain gets. If the spam comments contains a ping back, isn’t it helping me rank higher for certain keywords?

Another factor that helps articles rank higher within Google is the frequency that the page updates. On this front, spams definitely help. Sure, not all spam comments are on topic but there are some that are pretty good. If Google can’t tell that it is a spam, aren’t those comments good for my article’s SERPs?

Of course, no one really knows what Google’s formula for ranking is but all this in a way makes sense. There is probably a small chance that this theory is correct but at least thinking this way helps me feel better when I wake up in the morning with blogs full of spam.  In the small chance that I’m right though, I gotta say “Thank you spammers!”

Google SERPs is a relative system by nature, so in the perfect world of no spams on any blog, I’d be perfectly happy as no one has any advantages over others. In today’s world where we have tons of spam though, I take relief whenever I know that I have more spam than the other blog.