Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, is a new billionaire.
A dozen years after starting the company during her spare time, Sara is now a sought after entrepreneur. People seek her out for advice and insight into how to become successful.
Recently, Sara shared some of her knowledge in an article on Forbes. The article is simple, but the tips for startups are useful and relevant.
I wanted to take the same approach and share some tips for startup bloggers.
Tips for Startup Bloggers
These tips are similar to those shared by Sara. She’s a great resource for information. Her tips are universal for all fields of study including blogging. I just wanted to put my own spin on things based on some experience with blogging.
1. Don’t Let Traffic Drive Decisions
It’s easy, especially when you first start blogging, to get excited about traffic. I’ve been blogging for years and I still get wrapped up in traffic. But blogging is about more than traffic. Like any business activity, blogging is about conversions. Traffic will make you feel good, but for a business, conversions will make you money. Focus on writing blog posts that are so interesting and useful that readers can’t help but subscribe to your blog for future updates.
2. Write During Your Free Time
Blogging is work, but if you’re going to be the blogger at your company then you’ll probably need to write during your free time. At least in the beginning, this makes sense. You’ll need to gauge your energy level and enthusiasm for blogging from the beginning and the best way to do that is by writing in your free time. If you enjoy blogging the chances of continuing the blog past the first month are good. That’s one of the biggest downfalls with bloggers, they quit before the blog has a chance to success.
3. Make Blogging About You
This tip flies in the face of most blog tips including a few angles I’ve written about in the past. Blogging really is about what is best for your business. Sometimes what is good for your business and what is good for customers intersect, but often you need to do things different in order for your business to succeed. Make your blogging initiative about your business. You want to blog for you and the company. Write about topics that are likely to attract the right kind of people to the blog posts, the business website, and your products and services. This is the best way to see if blogging is a profitable marketing strategy for you.
4. Work On Your Weaknesses
I’m a big fan of golf. This week The Masters is taking place and it always reminds me of what separates the amateur golfer from the greats that play in the majors each year. The best golfers in the world are the best at practicing and improving on their faults. Each golfer has an area of their game where they excel and an area their game that is not up to the standards of other players. For my personal game, my iron game is pretty solid. It’s easy for me to go to the range and hit iron shots over and over. It’s enjoyable to hit good shots over and over. But that’s why I’m an amateur. The best players in the world work on the areas of their games that aren’t fun. Putting and chipping are two big areas where most golfers, even pros, struggle. The best players are the ones that focus on their weaknesses. It’s the only way to improve. The same is true for blogging as well. If you struggle with a certain type of post, you need to focus your efforts on it in order to make your blog better.
5. Balance Processing and Experimenting
Most blogs start out as an experiment. Over the first few days, weeks and months the blog will start to develop processes that make things more efficient. You’ll find that certain posts become processable and easier to write. It’s important to find these processes for your blog. It will allow you to keep content published on the site consistently. But continuing experimentation is also important. Remember how blogs start out – with experimenting – and always focus on finding new ways to improve. To bring golf into focus once again, there is always room for improvement.
Bonus: Write About Uncomfortable Topics
Something I’m still struggling with in my own writing is the ability to write about uncomfortable topics. I’ve found that I enjoy reading about topics that not all bloggers and writers like to cover. The writers that can make themselves uncomfortable and really put themselves on the line with certain topics seem to rise to the top of the attention competition on the Internet. If you want to be successful, write about uncomfortable topics. People want to read about interesting things, but not every writer is willing to take on the subjects that are interesting and uncomfortable.