This guest post is by Mei of CCFoodTravel.
Not too long ago—in the middle of this year to be precise—I got an email stating that I was one of ten special bloggers chosen to participate in the Queensland ProBlogger event. I was over the moon, to say the least! In the coming week I prepared myself and my gear for this immersion in the great Australian outdoors, as well as for the blogging workshop with Darren of ProBlogger…
Little did I realise that at the event I would make such cool friends from all over the world, in the form of the other nine bloggers—some of them have even guest posted for me now! I also learned that blogger collaboration is indeed a huge aspect of reaching out to people—something that is yet untapped by my blog. Here are six other handy tips I picked up from the ProBlogger workshop.
- Have a system in place: Blog as often as you can, or in a way that suits your lifestyle. Tweet, Facebook, Stumble and employ other social media to help, but mainly do what works for you. Try to keep your blogging activities to a similar time each day of the week. If you know what time your USA market segment wakes up, for example, then try to schedule your tweets for the highest traffic periods of the day.
- Re-appraise past posts: It’s good to go back and re-write old posts and make them better, especially those that draw a lot of interest—your top hit posts. You should link those posts to other posts on your blog that you feel are even better. This keeps the readers engaged with your blog and makes your blog sticky.
- Test, try, and tweak: We should always strive to improve our existing strategies. Do not be afraid to test out new ideas. Once you have found something that works, keep tweaking it till you can no longer get any better results out of it. Once we implement these new ideas, we should continue to evaluate, assess, and to tweak until we get the desired outcome.
- Try to sell your own product: I met many inspiring ladies at this ProBlogger workshop, and they ultimately sold their own products on the blog. I would like to try this out for my blog, but am still “testing, trying, and tweaking” till I find the one!
- Plan to monetize: Create a professional-looking media kit and promote yourself in a professional manner. Advertisers are investing their time and money in you, so don’t be afraid to make yourself sound as good as you truly are. Adding testimonials and media mentions helps! And create an at-a-glance rate card that will help you to be more efficient in replying to emails!
- Blogger collaboration: Make friends, exchange business cards, and learn what makes the other bloggers’ blogs so special. And ask for guest posts and give give them out generously too, when you’re asked for them. That’s the best way to reach the untapped audience!
Have you used any of these strategies on your blog? I’d love to hear your top tips for blogging success in the comments.
Mei and her husband Jo, are avid travelers, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For some delicious food porn and adventure travels, check out CCFoodTravel. In our spare time we also write for our fitness and health blog, Cikipedia. Alternatively check out our extreme sports/adventure blog, WHOAAdventures. Follow Mei on Twitter.