Last week I decided to share with you my blog's monetization strategy. After sitting down to write the article, I realized that there was no way to fit it all within one post. So I decided to make it a six-part series. Last week, I discussed the essential phase of planning. Today, I will present Step 2 - Growing Your Readership Base.

Don't Believe What You Read

I have been blogging for a number of months now. In doing so I have become familiar with many (many!) other Make Money Online (MMO) blogs. What I aim to do here at Buzz My Blog is to find a way to differentiate myself from them all. One way I try to do that is to be open, honest, and hopefully, helpful to my readers. Those of you how have been here before can attest to that. That is why I say to you now that You Can't Always Believe What You Read.  If there is one piece of advice that I have seen most frequently on many different blogs, its some derivative of putting the money ahead of the content. Whether the advice is "don't wait to monetize" or "content is not king, marketing is" or "spend more time promoting than writing", I don't agree with ANY of it. 9 times out of 10, this advice is being given in order to convince you, the reader, to sign up for some affiliate program that the blogger will be compensated for. Don't fall for it. The best way to earn long term, recurring revenue from your blog is to first build a steady base of growing, loyal readers. In order to do that, you need to give readers a reason to come back while simultaneously attracting new ones. That is why Growing My Readership Base is Step 2 of my blog's monetization strategy.

There are basically two types of blogs. There are the ones the start out strong and attract tons of visitors early on by exploiting every social media gimmick that comes along. These blogs enjoy the rush of overnight fame and popularity as their Google Stats spike through the roof. They quickly come crashing back to earth, however, as people realize the blog really has no purpose and a limited amount of relevant information. The second type of blog is one that exists for a purpose. The owners of these blogs are more focused on WHY people visit their blog, not HOW people visit their blog. They are dedicated to providing information that meets a need of the reader. Whether that information is informative, entertaining, funny, or enlightening, these blogs gain readers slower than the first type, but these readers end up returning regularly. This is the type of reader that is needed for long term revenue growth on your blog.

Once your blog has a strong base of loyal readers, your ability to earn money comes almost as a side effect. Advertisers will realize that you have a solid base and will seek you out. Your readers will trust you and sign up for services that you actually believe in. Your traffic will look more like an never ending gradual upward slope instead of a haphazard spikes and dips. These types of stats can do wonders for your PPC ads. If you want an example of the type of blog that I am referring to, I highly recommend you visit Maki's blog at DoshDosh.com. Maki has been a huge influence on me and epitomizes the art of providing relevant, interesting, and useful content. His strong base of 15,000+ faithful followers is a testament to his dedication serving his readers not just his blog.

How To Get More Visitors

Ok, so if getting more readers is important to making money online (it really is quite obvious, isn't it?), then just HOW do you go about doing so? Below is a list that I have put together as part of my blog's strategy, ranked in order of importance. The exact strategy for another blog might be slightly different. But for the most part, your blog will surely see a huge change if you follow the recommendations below.

1. Regular, Relevant Content

People often ask me, "Hey Jeff, have you tried out this service" or "have you used that app?". Most of the time, my answer is an unfortunate "No". I am far from quitting my day job in order to blog full time. Until that becomes possible, I have a limited number of hours that I can devote to my blog between a full time job, family, and other pursuits (hint hint...look for something new from me in the coming weeks). Therefore, the time that I do spend on my blog needs to be the most productive. At this stage in my Blog's Strategy, that means providing informative and relevant content for the purpose of recruiting regular readers. Period. With my limited amount of time, my blog will fail if I spent most of it messing around with Twitter, FriendFeed, FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace....you get the picture. I admit, its not always easy. Twitter is pretty damn addictive (by the way...you can follow me at http://twitter.com/JeffBuzz). But I have a plan and I try to stick to it. Right now, that involves publishing content that readers will follow.

2. Networking with Other Bloggers

In order for your blog to be successful its important to have allies. You will find that what you put out to the blogosphere will come back to you, often many times over. Make friends, comment on other blogs, help out a fellow blogger when they are in need. You can spread the word about your own blog the best you can, but you won't get very far in this world WIDE WIDE web. Having many other people help spread the word about your blog is critical. Do it for them and they will help do it for you. This is one of the underlying philosophies here at Buzz My Blog. It is also what makes viral market work. Make friends that will help you. Each of them makes other friends, they also make friends, and so on. Before you know it friends 3 or 4 generations away are visiting your blog. That is exponential growth! If you try to do it alone, you'll be screwed.

3. Guest Posts

Guest Posts are a fantastic way to get a LOT of new readers. If you are able to write content that is good enough to be published on a well-known blog, definitely take advantage of it. You will see a whirlwind of traffic and can gain many new readers by being exposed to a new reader base. As I said in my prior post on this topic, it is important that you work hard to retain these new readers. A guest post will bring new visitors to your blog, but its up to you to convert them into followers. Be sure to follow up a guest post with a killer post on your own blog.

4. Promotions

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that I hate contents. I do a weekly feature called the Weekly Buzz, where I randomly select one winner and write up a free review of their blog. They also win a prize that helps them promote their blog. Usually its in the form of EntreCard credits, but occasionally I will do a special give away (like this WEEK!) and offer hundreds of visitors of actual traffic. But to me this is not a contest, this is a Promotion. Contest serve one purpose and one purpose only - to benefit the blogger that is running them. They usually involve some simple prize but require other bloggers to sell their sole and shamefully promote the contest holder for chances to win. Promotions, on the other hand, give your readers a reason to WANT to talk about your blog. Take my Weekly Buzz for example. People have nothing to lose. I don't require them to post anything about my blog or the promotion. Yet, they chose to do so anyway because it exists for one reason - to help OTHER bloggers. Promotions are a great way to get new people interested in you blog, but just make sure you aren't trying to take advantage of your readers.

5. Social Media

Earlier I mentioned that I don't have time for Social Media. For the most part that is true. But I would be giving up a huge source of traffic if I ignored it entirely. Social Media, if used for good instead of evil, can be a great way to bring visitors to your blog. StumbleUpon is the number one source of traffic for my blog. When I publish a post that I work very hard on, I typically get hundreds of new visitors from StumbeUpon (hopefully this post will live true to this, wink wink). I also utilize BlogCatalog where I have a few hundred "friends" that I can broadcast announcements to when I have a new post to check out. EntreCard can bring a ton of new visitors as well, although some will argue how valuable the traffic really is. Of course, I always Tweet an announcement when I have a new post available. Social Media is important, but not the most important priority. That is why it is #5 on my list. If you work hard to give people a reason to visit your blog, they will find you eventually. Social Media just helps that happen quicker. Its kinda like chicken soup when you are sick...probably helps, but definitely doesn't hurt. The important thing to realize is that Social Media can bring people to your blog initially, but its up to you to turn them into the type of visitors we want...regular followers.

6. Paid Services

The final item on my list is services that allow you to pay cold hard cash for traffic. This is last on my list because it should only be used if absolutely necessary or if you have an actual budget and intend to spend money on your blog. I believe that your blog can make you money without having to spend much of your own. It just takes more work. If you want to take the lazy route, or just have the money to spend, you can use services like Google's Adwords to pay for click throughs to your blog. When I do special traffic promotions for the Weekly Buzz, I purchase direct traffic to the winner's blog using a StumbleUpon campaign. If you don't mind spending the money, its a very easy way to get people to your site. Just make sure you have something there to keep them coming back.

If you've made it this far, congratulations! Good thing I made this post a multi-part series, huh? I hope you find this information useful. If so, please drop me a comment and let me know. Stick around for next week when I talk about getting started with Pay Per Click advertising.

Jeff