How to Start (And Grow) a Blog

Key Takeaways

in today's video i'm going to show you exactly how to start and grow a successful blog from scratch step by step this is the same process that i use to grow my blog backlinko to 307 000 visitors per month i'm brian dean the founder of backlinko the place where marketers turn for higher rankings and more traffic and if you want to grow a blog that reaches thousands or even millions of people you'll love the actionable steps in this video stay tuned when i launched backlinko a couple years ago people thought i was crazy after all i was launching a brand new blog that was going head to head against industry giants like moz search engine land and hubspot they were well oiled machines with hundreds of employees and i was a random guy writing blog posts in my underwear even though i still sometimes write blog posts on my underwear i still found success as you can see here even though i was a new player in a highly competitive space my blog got some early traction traction that has continued to this day so how did i do it i followed the exact steps that i'm about to share with you so without further ado let's get started with step number one nail your blog's positioning when most people start a blog they wonder things like should i use wordpress squarespace or wix what are the best plugins for seo how can i get my blog to look like this other popular blog as it turns out if you want to grow your blog these are the wrong questions to ask and hey i'm not judging when i launched my first blog a while back i was obsessed with things like themes plugins and other nonsense as it turns out that stuff doesn't really matter so what does your blog's positioning positioning is a fancy way of saying what makes your blog different than the thousands of other blogs out there on that topic for example the first blog that i ever launched was in the weight loss space and i put zero thought into that blog's positioning it was for all intents and purposes just another health and fitness block and because that blog didn't have strong positioning or any positioning at all really it ultimately failed flash forward to a few years later when i launched backlinko and i made positioning a top priority like i mentioned earlier i was a brand new blog competing against established juggernauts and if i launched my blog as a generic digital marketing blog i would have failed before i even started instead to stand out i positioned my blog as a resource for all things link building every post that i wrote was about link building all my website copy was about link building every guest post that i published on other blogs was about link building i think you get the idea and this strong focus positioning help my blog really stand out in those critical first few months so if your blog is brand new or if you want to get more traction from your existing blog you want to identify one small niche topic and only cover that topic for at least three to four months then as your blog grows you can slowly branch out into other topics which leads us to our second step publish a power post so now that you have strong positioning for your blog it's time to create piece of content around that niche topic but not just any blog post a power post in other words a post that's so insanely valuable that it helps put your blog on the map for example one of the first posts that i published on the backlinko blog was called 17 untapped backlink sources this wasn't your typical list post and that's because i shared some of my all-time best link building tactics and sources in that post along with detailed steps screenshots pro tips and more what makes a power post for you depends on your industry and your positioning for example in the fitness niche my friend steve cam published this guide to the paleo diet that helped his blog grow by leaps and bounds so as long as your content is something that makes someone say wow you're on the right track wow that's pretty cool and now it's time for our third step step up your design here's the deal when someone lands on your blog for the first time they judge your credibility on design first and your content second and there's research to back this up a study out of sheffield university found that design has a bigger impact on someone's impression of your site than the content itself so if you want people to take your blog seriously it needs to have a professional design that said this doesn't mean that your blog needs some fancy design or win some sort of design award it's not at all about having a flashy design as long as it looks professional and matches your blog's positioning you're good for example in my case i use lots of colorful designs and illustrations but that's not the only way to approach things the james clear blog is the total opposite of mine his design is super minimalist and it also looks great so yeah the content that you publish will ultimately make or break your blog's success but that doesn't mean that you should sleep on your blog's design because it's also super important with that out of the way let's hit up step number four write an origin story if your blog is in a competitive space like mine having an origin story can really help your blog stand out for example i created backlinko after i started to have some success with one of my affiliate sites a site that got 90 percent of its traffic from seo and because the site was doing well with waiha seo i wanted to double down on it and learn more about it but when i looked for actionable content on why seo i came up empty so i created backlinko as the blog that i wanted to read so yeah that little story probably isn't going to land me a netflix series but that simple story that i just shared with you has helped my blog stick in the minds of my readers plus that story helped my blog stand out from the other big name blogs that all hire hundreds of freelance writers so i recommend creating a quick little origin story that outlines where you were before you created your blog why you decided to create your blog and the main problem you're trying to solve in my case i was doing affiliate marketing before i launched my blog i created my blog because i was frustrated with the waiha seo content that was out there and i'm trying to solve the problem that most white hat seo content is high level fluff and i recommend sharing this story on your site's about page on social media in guest posts and on podcast interviews with that let's move right into step number five which is to execute a post-promotion plan most people publish a post shared on social media and wait for the traffic to roll in in fact when i launched my first blog that's exactly what i did i'd work all day in a post push it live and share it on social media and then i'd wait for it to go viral today i call this the publish and pray approach because when you do it you publish and then pray for traffic and needless to say it didn't work so when i launched backlinko a few years later i put promotion burst in fact i'd estimate that i spent about 20 percent of my time creating content and 80 of my time promoting it which helped my blog's traffic grow even though it was brand new so how do you actually promote your content the right way here are two strategies that i recommend first use pre-outreach pre-outreach is just like it sounds you start the outreach process before you actually publish your post so why is this important well when most people promote their content with outreach they're way too pushy i'm sure you've seen emails like this before but with pre-outreach you flipped a script on traditional outreach you're not asking for a share because it's not even possible to share your post yet i mean you haven't even published it and because you're respectfully asking to send them an upcoming post instead of begging for a share your conversion rate will be a lot higher for example here's a pre-outreach email that i sent a while back and as you can see the person that i sent it to was super excited to see my post which is the goal of outreach anyway next you want to share your posts with your email subscribers when it comes to content promotion email crushes social media for example i recently shared this post on twitter and with my email subscribers the tweet got a total of 340 clicks and the newsletter announcement got over 13 000 clicks a massive difference so yeah social media has its place but it's nothing compared to email speaking of email it's time for step number six build your email list building my email list was one of the most important things i did to grow my blog my only regret is that it didn't start sooner that's because once you have an engaged email list anything is possible about to sell a new product you have a list of people ready to hear about it want to announce your new youtube channel you can get hundreds of subscribers on your first day want to spread the word about your latest post you've got a small army of people ready to spread the word so it's clear that an email list is huge the question is how do you actually build it first you want to make your blog's homepage a landing page not your blog feed for example my original homepage design was a list of my latest blog posts in other words a traditional blog feed now this was great for helping people find my latest content but it didn't convert well at all so as an experiment i tried a more traditional homepage and i put my blog feed at forward slash blog and that single change skyrocketed that page's conversion rate next you want to create a lead magnet a lead magnet is an ebook report video case study basically anything that encourages someone to subscribe to your email list and these don't have to be complicated to make for example some of my most successful lead magnets are just pdf versions of the post that the person's already reading that's it now there's obviously more to building your email list than those two strategies i mean their entire course is out there on list building but if you want 80 20 approach to building your email list those two strategies are the way to go and now it's time for our last step step number seven reply to comments so if you follow the steps up to this point you should be starting to get some traction in terms of traffic and subscribers and you might even notice that people are starting to leave comments on your posts if so i have a word of advice for you reply to every single comment that comes in seriously having a community on your blog is super important in fact copyblogger famously shut down comments on their blog then put them back up a few months later when they realized that they made a big mistake like me they realized that an active community is a huge part of growing a blog and that community is only going to get built up if you reply to every single comment for example i reply to every comment that people leave in the first week or so after a post goes live this takes a lot of time and energy but to me it's totally worth it and before we close out this video i've got a quick bonus step for you form a blog alliance let's face it growing a blog by yourself can be super lonely i mean you probably spent a lot of your time writing blog content promoting your blog and watching videos about blogging like this one there probably aren't a ton of people in your life who can relate to that which is why i recommend forming a blog alliance a blog alliance is a group of two to four people that meet online once in a while just to trade tips and talk shop for example when i first started backlinko i had monthly skype sessions with brian harris and these turned out to be super helpful for both of us or at least to me so if you want to form a blog alliance with another blogger i recommend sending them this simple email there you have it my seven-step process for starting and growing a blog if you like this video make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel right now just click on the subscribe button below this video also if you want exclusive seo and traffic techniques that i only share with subscribers head over to backlinko.com and hop on the newsletter it's free now i want to turn it over to you which strategy from today's video are you going to try first are you going to try pre-outreach or do you want to start replying to more comments either way let me know by leaving a comment below right now [Music] [Music] you