Blog planning – how to start a high-traffic, high-paying blog?

After reading about a SEO experiment in DP, I gave a serious thought about what is the best strategy to start a blog. What is the best planning? How to attract more visitors? How to get maximum revenue? How to make people remember you?

I am not exactly a SEO expert, it is more likely that I am a SEO enthusiast. I am not interested in making money from SEO, my money source is programming. But for the past two years I do (and experiment on) search engine optimization for some sites. It is not a complete service and only small part of them are mine. I have some sites in high competition niches and some in low ones. And I make tests on different types of blog/website monetizing.

So what I have learned till now. The basic is – you have no guarantee in anything related to search engines. Two websites with no duplicate content but identical in niche/ marketing/ optimizing will have very different performance. This is not a rule of course but it happens most of the time. And all of this is just my opinion and analysis, I don't pretend to be fully right in anything.

I’ll make a simple plan for starting a blog, according to what I have learned till now. I choose a blog, not a website because it is a little more complicated for a website.

1. Initialization
   This is the research part. If you haven't selected a niche for your blog - now is the time to do so. You must select a niche where you can provide quality content. If you are not a pro in writing consider hiring a professional writer. Make a deep research on your target niche. Analyze your competitors, niche forums, social sites, trends, keywords, etc.
   Spending a little more time on this first part will help you to solve many problems of the future.
   
2. Actions - any of this step may be not appropriate for your niche, make the final decision what to do in a clear mind
   
   
   
   • Make minimum 20 posts before doing anything else with your blog. Maybe this advice is not suitable only for political/ civil/ spicy blogs.
     
   • Make gradual link building campaign – too fast link building may put you in a sandbox
   • Make minimum 3-4 posts per week for the first 3 months
   • Active membership to some related forums and communities – minimum 3-4 quality posts per forum per week
   • Make 30 or more directory submissions per week – prefer high rank directories
   
   
3. Goals
   Define your goals depending on the niche popularity in a monthly rate:
   
   
   • Unique visitors expectations
   • Performance
   • Revenue
     
   
   Keep in mind that in a high competition niche your blog will need more time and efforts to become popular.
   
   I usually start to monetize my blogs after 3 months starting period. It is better to set goals according to the niche for the expecting revenue. Don’t aim too high because one disappointment at the beginning may be critical.
   Selecting the type of revenue program is also a very complex task. I’ll live it for another post.
   
   
   

Posting - how often?

How often I need to post in my blog to get on the top of the search engines?

This is a question that many newbie (and not only) SEO experts ask all over the net. And the truth is that no one can tell you the answer of this question. The answer is different for different blogs - for some people posting four times a week is the best, for other this doesn't work at all.

Some experts says - the more often, the better. I am not exactly convinced in this logic. Of course more posts will help in getting traffic and if they are with good content they will grab the readers attention to the blog. But not all of us have enough time to write cool, long post every day.

So for me works another tactic. I think that it is better to test for periods of one to two months with different frequency. You will find the best solution for your target market without spending too much time writing and wondering on the next topic.

The most important SEO things to do after writing a cool new article

So you have written a new article and you think that it is cool and fascinating? Maybe it is so, but if no one knows about it, you won’t gain any profit.

What are the basics, what to do after writing new post or article?

First - figure out a describing title. It must contain the correct keywords for your article and blog/site. Select a meaningful subtitle – something that people will use in the search engines to found you. Always tag your titles and use bold to emphasize on some of the text. Your article must be human and search engines friendly, all of them must find easily what they need.

After finishing the article altering – it is time for making many deep links. Post your article to your favorite social network websites. Ask your network friends for opinion on the topic.
Post your article to digg and other voting and social bookmarking sites.
Select some of the biggest forums in your niche and start a discussion about the topic, ask for readers’ opinion.
Add your new link to the best local forums if you are targeting a specified location.

These are some of the basics in making a blog a little more popular.

How to learn SEO? Top 3 ways

How to learn search engine optimization? What is the easiest way to learn SEO?
I'll try to answer these questions here.

• SEO books - there are many SEO books out there. Some cheap (even free) and some really expensive ones. If you want to spend some time quietly reading in the garden, this is the way for you.
  


• SEO blogs - like this one. You can learn some basics from different SEO blogs and websites. Be careful for harmful tips. Don't forget to read the relevant search engine guidance.
  


• SEO forums - seo experts tend to gather in large online communities to share some tips and ideas. This is the best way to up to date with the current SEO trends.
  

SEO as a career - is it good?

Search engines play very important role in the contemporary life.
People nowadays search for anything - where to lunch, how to plan their holiday, how to fix something broken, even how to educate their children.

Search engine optimization services are high demanded. People need them in order to do their business. Any new website needs to be optimized. Can you imagine an e-shop with no visitors?

Is a SEO career possible?
Sure, there are many SEO experts, companies and so on out there. And they are making money.

Is a SEO career for you?
People can do anything they wish for. If you have enough time, investing it in understanding SEO basics will help you to answer this question. Technical background will help you a lot, of course. You need some knowledge about HTML, JavaScript and etc. for basic on site optimization.

What are the first steps?
Educate yourself about Search Engine Optimization. Read the basics and then start practicing.

Where to start?
There are two places to start - first is as a employee of a SEO company. The second way is the more risky - just start by yourself.

Of course don't forget that SEO like any other popular and money making profession desires hard and continuous work.