How To Become A Semi-Successful Blogger

This is a guest post by Jake Bouma from JakeBouma.com. If you are interested in writing a guest post too, let me know

If the task of developing a successful blog were divided into different phases of growth, it is my belief that the most difficult step for many bloggers is moving from Phase 1 to Phase 2:

Phase 1: 1 - 20 readers/subscribers. This is mostly family, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances who think it’s “neat” that you have a “weblog”.
Phase 2: 21 - 100 readers/subscribers. This includes Phase 1 people as well as people genuinely interested in your niche who discovered your blog via search engines and/or referral links.
Phase 3: 101 - 500 readers/subscribers. Will not be discussed in this article.

You see, in the bloated world of blogging self-help articles, you will find tons of articles promising to “Shoot your RSS subscribers through the roof”, “Become a world-famous blogger in 5 easy steps” and so on. The reality, however, is that for many people becoming a successful blogger considerably more difficult. Here’s how I moved from Phase 1 to Phase 2, starting with a single post.

Believe that your voice deserves to be heard

If you don’t believe in your own abilities as a writer and blogger, no one else is going to believe in you either. You must have confidence that your voice deserves to be heard in your niche. Confidence is easily discernible in writing, and readers not only appreciate it, but they associate it with authority. Wishy-washy effort and writing will give you wishy-washy results.

Analyze your niche and contribute something totally unique

If you’re researching how to become a successful blogger, the piece of advice you’ll hear over and over is “Write compelling original content”. But that only begs the question “How do I write compelling original content”? I blog in a pretty distinct niche that is dominated by about 10 or less blogs. After reading thousands of posts in my niche, it occurred to me that something was almost entirely absent from the entire conversation: humor. I dedicated several hours to writing the perfect post that served two purposes: first, to contribute truly unique content in my niche and second, to showcase my unique voice within the niche. With this one post, I was essentially saying, “Here’s how my unique voice fits in the conversation”.

Don’t be afraid of shameless self-promotion

I just knew this post, if distributed through the right channels, would be a huge hit. I knew that even the top-tier bloggers in my niche would appreciate the post, because my slant on the topic (humor) was totally unique and well-crafted. Perhaps against my better judgment, I emailed a bunch of the aforementioned top-tier bloggers shamelessly self-promoting my post. The email said something like “Hey [name], I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time now and I thought you’d appreciate a post I just wrote entitled [ultra-witty and attention-grabbing post name]. Let me know what you think!”

To my surprise, many of these people not only viewed the post, but commented on and linked to the post, and the most important blog in my niche dedicated an entire post to describing and linking to my original post - all within two hours of publishing the article. So I found more avenues to shamelessly-self promote my article, including posting a link in a Facebook group dedicated to my niche.

Follow-up with your new audience

Now that I had new readers coming to my blog, I wanted to focus on getting them to take a look around and stay for a while. I took the time to respond to every single comment, both by commenting myself and replying via email. I wanted to establish a relationship with my new readers and to let them know I appreciated that they visited my blog. Later on, I contacted some of these people to sponsor a prize giveaway on my website and many of them happily participated.

Conclusion, or Getting in with the popular kids

I’ve been blogging for nearly three years, and its only within the last two months that my blog has transitioned from Phase 1 to Phase 2. I simply got tired of dedicating time to something that wasn’t appreciated by very many people, so I figured out a way to throw my blog into the mix. And although I’ve only gone from being a totally unsuccessful blogger to a semi-successful blogger, I have made the most difficult step.

I was describing all of this to my younger brother the other day and I described it like this. “It’s like becoming popular in school. Once you get in with one popular person, it’s way easier to get in with other popular kids and so on. But it’s befriending that first popular person that takes the most dedication and persistence.” May you find your way out of the ever-depressing Phase 1 and become a truly semi-successful blogger.