How I Grew a Second Blog to Over 6,000 Subscribers – Twice as Fast
I’ve had a lot of public success with blogging over the last few years in terms of both making money from my blogs and growing the size of their respective audiences. What a lot of people didn’t see before this success is the number of failed blogs I’ve started which consumed hours upon hours of my time, only to go nowhere.
I attribute some of the success I’ve found now to the lessons learned from those failures, and I still feel like I’m learning a lot today, which is one of the reasons I love blogging so much.
At the end of 2009 I sold my personal development blog, PluginID, for a mid five-figure sum (I can’t reveal the exact amount) when it had no less than 6,600 subscribers. It took me a little more than 18 months to reach what I consider quite a substantial readership.
In 9 months I’ve grown by a similar figure with my marketing blog, ViperChill, which I re-launced a few weeks before announcing the sale of PluginID, which had been sold a few months prior.
Though I don’t think blogging is a great way to make money fast, there are ways to speed up the growth of your blog. Similarly, if you’re just focused on growing quickly and making some easy money, then you’re in blogging for reasons that will probably stunt your growth.
There are a few core principles that I believe really helped me to grow my blog fast that I want to share with you today.
I Focused on the Essentials
When I first started PluginID I was literally doing as many things as I could to help grow the site. You would find me going through dozens of sites per day on StumbleUpon, leaving comments every time a blogger in the same niche posted an article and connecting with as many people as possible on Twitter.
Some things were effective, but others were pretty much a waste of time. Now, with ViperChill, I have two simple aims:
- Write the best content that I can
- Write the best content for others that I can
I haven’t used StumbleUpon for as long as I can remember, I leave less than 5 blog comments per month and I generally just communicate with the same people on Twitter that I did a few months ago. I found that the two most useful things for me were writing the best content I can – which others talk about – and writing great content for other people (guest blogging).
By focusing on these two things, I was able to maximise the effectiveness they had and leverage these strategies to help me grow far quicker than I had in the past.
I Worked to Build Fewer, But Stronger, Connections
Another thing I did when working on my personal development blog was try to become a ‘friend’ of 50+ bloggers in the niche. Not only did this distract me from the essential items that should have been my priority but it also led to lots of mediocre relationships, rather than a few great ones.
In the marketing field now I’m in contact with a lot less people on a daily basis, but the connections I have with these people actually result in things that help my blog grow. For example, some of the relationships I’ve built have led to me getting press mentions and regular links on popular blogs.
They also make it very easy for me to grow my reach whenever I have something to promote, as these connections as more than happy to help me. Similarly, I’m more than happy to help them with things that they need because I’ve built what I think to be genuine relationships with them.
I Made Subscribing the Most Prominent Thing on My Site
Over the last few weeks I offered one-on-one coaching for a short period of time. I had many bloggers sign-up to work with me and the number one critique I had for most of them was that it wasn’t clear what they wanted people to do on their website.
Some had pop-ups for newsletters which were more prominent than their RSS feed (yet they didn’t care as much about getting newsletter subscribers) while others had Adsense ads all over the place yet were making pennies with it and turning away the traffic they did get.
Though I eventually did this on PluginID; I made subscribing to my feed the number one focus of ViperChill. The site is very clutter-free, with only a few places to navigate and take action on besides the content itself. Unlike most blogs, I don’t even have links to my post categories.
Instead, I have clear links to my RSS feed in the sidebar of the blog, at the bottom of all posts, and frequently in the post text. I believe this focus reduces distractions for my site visitors and makes it clear what I want them to do – which also happens to be the thing I think will help them the most (get free content updates).
Instead of feeling like you have to be everywhere and offer everything. Try narrowing the focus of your blog and see where that takes you. I think you’ll be surprised with the results.
This article was written by Glen Allsopp who writes on the topic of viral marketing. If you found this useful, you might love his most popular post which is about WordPress SEO.
Related Posts:
- How Someone Who Hated Writing, Makes a Living Blogging
- How I Built an Engaged Community Around My Blog
- Think Big to be Big
- How I got 12,228 unique visitors in 4 months.
- How I Built My Blog From Nothing To Success In 6 Months
It’s good to keep learning new things. To read other comments always profit my new idea, really thanks for that.
I’ve been blogging now for a few years and as you mentioned in your article, I have also tried many different ways to grow my readership and failed on many attempts. I think that I’ve got something that should take off and I do see more people visiting. The comments I’m getting are positive and the content is good. One thing I am going to do is streamline my blog and concentrate on less material.
Thanks Glen for the great article and if you have a chance, please visit my blog and tell me what you think I should do to improve and grow my subscription list faster.
I normally sign up newsletter from other blogger to get more information.
Maxblogpress Newsletter is one example that i visit this post when i read your newsletter
Great post! Gives me some ideas on how to increase my subscribers.
nice!
Completely agree with you about focussing on a few things rather than go with a ‘scattergun’ approach to build a business out of your blog.
Saying that, I think it’s important for new bloggers to go through the experience and transition themselves, because everyone learns best from their own ‘mistakes’ and experiences along the way.
maxblogpress always provide something new and I like it
Whilst I agree that it’s good for new bloggers to learn from their own mistakes, I wish I’d followed Glen’s advice above much sooner.
I already know that what he says works: great content on your own site and guest posting. so simple and yet so effective.
Awesome tips.. know what you want from your readers,, then ASK for it, offer it, and display it.
Great article. Thanks
You are right… “Focus on the Essentials”. I always try to put good content on my blog and make people subscribe my RSS feed. I also use bookmarking for every article…
Thanks
Reading this post ended up quite a way to spend a Sunday morning; one post to another post on another blog, to another page on that blog, then even inspired me to post a long overdue one on my blog!
Almost missed church!
Well, I am guilty of some of the sins you mentioned in your post. Such as having a cluttered sidebar and trying to be a lot of thing and make a lot of things with the same blog. But then again, this is my first blog and pretty much first everything: first domain, first self-hosting experience….
While I’ll be launching other blogs in a short while and most probably do a lot of things differently, I am pretty happy where things are going right now.
Thanks for the tips and experience.
I really respect someone who practices what they preach and you certainly have done that.
I have been to your blog and there are only 2 main points of focus…your content and your RSS subscriber options. I hope to get to that point one day but like so many others, I want to experiment and test all my options. Live and learn;-)
In many years on the internet and as a writer, I fully agree that great content is what will ultimately make you money.
I have written a lot of bad stuff for quick link building and some good content which I just wrote out of my heart. The good quality content brought me better traffic in the longer run.
Truly well written article.
so i must write what i can and others article that i can even not priority
thanks a lot
This was really helpful in getting my mind to streamline by though process. There is so much you can do on the web. It’s very important to have focus and clear goals. In the case a focused and clear path.
Interesting but… what about blogging in other langages like “french” .. “French blogosphere”, french web doesn’t have stumble or big things with twitter.
How do you estimate “good” blog in the french web ? What tools to use ? Technorati ? Wikio ? Scoopeo ? Some ideas ?
Great article Glen. I really like the clean and crisp look of your blog. When it comes to great content, you definitely have it! Your blog has better information than most of the paid for products out there, plus it is stuff that actually works! Thanks.
-Kelly
I agree with you, it is paramount to take action, do something instead of waiting for something to happen and learn from past mistakes. Then change it for the better and concentrate on the essential point. And good and useful content written for your targeted audience is still king.
Thanks Glen for sharing this article with us.
Hi Glen
Great tip about having a link to your RSS feed in prime locations throughout your blog. Someone else had mentioned doing this to increase subscriptions so will definitely try this now. Agree with others that the content your blog is excellent.
Anne
I am glad to read that I am doing the right things to grow my blog http://www.menshealthcures.com
Writing content that helps my readers is my #1 job, and I just started guest blogging.
Maxblog is one my key sources to learn new skills, tricks and tools to grow my blog.
Thanks, Ken
you always give me a good informations, thank you for sharing,
Love this post. Especially the part the talks about it requiring work to have the success you desire. So many people are looking for a silver bullet.
My mentor always preaches – plan, do, & review.
There is no doubt that in the end, writing great content is the best way to succeed with blogging.
I don’t mean you don’t need to other things, but as long as you provide great content you are on the right track.
As you mentioned, doing to many things at once is not the best thing to do and when you focus on only a few things you can do each one much better and get better results.
This post is really interesting…
Most people that think about making money online generally relate to having an online business where you sell products or services. One of the most difficult parts of making money online is actually getting people to visit your website.
Thanks for posting.
Regards,
Dev
I really enjoyed reading this post. I have only been a serious blogger for about 6 months and I think the key as you say is to produce quality that others will appreciate and spread the word virally.
Well that’s the thing, deciding on more rss subscripts or newsletter subscripts. I am more in favor of newsletter subscripts in order to build a customer base for the long haul which is why i cannot wait for MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet to be re released
Great post. It definitely gives me great ideas on where to focus my efforts. The idea of Doing More with Less comes to mind and inspires me. Thanks Viperchill
My approach has been the same for years now, is to network with people in my niche and become friends so we can do great things togther.
“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
Great post