This is a guest post by Susie Brown from FastUpFront.com.
Who is it that decides who will be the most popular bloggers and who will be left banging their head against the keyboard?
You might think that it is the “people,” or you might even think that Google and the other search engines are the ones who decide who the most popular bloggers will be. Although the search engines and the people do hold a lot of influence, most bloggers who have worked their way up to the Rockstar level got there in a way that might come as a surprise.
Most great bloggers got appointed to their positions of fame by other bloggers, namely the inner circle of bloggers for that niche.
Now, I know that you may not be interested in returning to the high-school social scene where everything was about being more popular. The pursuit of being popular and accepted by “the group” mandated all types of conformities.
For example, you couldn’t be cool unless you conformed to certain dress codes, or in the case of the grunge era, anti-dress codes. People would sprinkle their vernaculars with words like, “like totally,” “sike” and “wazup” in order to show everyone else that they were worthy of being accepted to the popular group.
Although the popularity contest was fun in high school, thankfully, blogging isn’t like high-school, but there is one crucial similarity that you need to be aware of that we are going to discuss. The best way to be popular and to stay popular, in high school and in blogging, is through being in the popular group. And to be accepted to the popular group, of bloggers, you need to jump through the same hoops that the already popular bloggers needed to jump through when they were where you are right now.
Clear a Path
When you are just starting out with no reader base the first step is to have a clear plan of action for the blog. Plan what the main subjects or themes that the blog will focus on, and consider what you are going to offer your readers that is more attractive to them than another million blogs in your niche.
Content is King
Once the plan for the blog comes together, start producing fantastic content. It is crucial to keep your content at the highest standards that you can manage; otherwise, you will surely lose readers who will otherwise browse right through your blog. Finally, don’t announce your blog until it has a considerable amount of content to show to people.
Your New Blog’s Debut
After developing and posting to a blog that you can be genuinely proud about, announce it to friends and family. Make sure to tell them that you would really appreciate it if they subscribe to your blog feed, post articles on their social media sites, and hit the “like” button. Once you have a few readers; it should give your blog some initial momentum.
Guest Posting
If your blog is just starting off with a PR of 0, and still haven’t reached the hundred readers mark, there is no reason to get in touch with the premier bloggers to request to guest post on their blogs, because if they bother responding the answer will be a gracious “no.”
The place to start is with blogs that are of great quality and are still only semi-popular. Send some emails to semi-popular bloggers, and a few will probably agree to have you guest post on your blog. Guest posting on other blogs allows you to generate interest in your blog from readers in your niche, in addition to improving your SEO.
After guest posting keep in touch with your new blogging buddies, help them out, and they will also help you out. By linking to their posts in your blog, and announcing news about them in your social accounts you will keep that healthy blogosphere relationship going, and they will also help you out. As you gain consistently more readership you can guest post on more popular blogs, until eventually you can get in with the most famous bloggers in your niche.
Once you have made it into the inner circle of your niches mega-bloggers your job is to keep being awesome.
Stay Awesome
With all the writing that blogging, and guest blogging requires, it is important to stay awesome through it all. The guest posts need to be awesome to generate interest in your blog, and your blog needs to be filled with awesome content to get your new visitors to stick around.
I hope enjoyed this post very much. Do drop your comments using the comment form below…
Being a blog king is every blog holder’s wish but only a few are able to achieve it and what results in that difference is the way one works for it. Many a bloggers provide the undesired and unwanted content and face the ultimate decline in the readers. Also there are people who discourage guest blogging without considering the positive outcomes of the same. And in the end one has to believe in and should keep on encouraging himself to provide the best words to the outer world.
I think blogging is not that easy as it seems. One should work hard and need to focus on very RICH and UNIQUE “Content” for the blog every time. These tips can play good role in becoming a successful blogger.
great post, i think that relationship building with fellow bloggers certainly has a big part in the success of any blog, that coupled with patience, determination and putting out great content each time
Great post! Yeah! It’s definitely true that being a great blogger depends on how may followers, readers, and supporters you have. Consistency is the key. Continue what your readers loved about your blog and focus on improving it!
It’s true. Google isn’t the one who set the standards of being a good blogger or not. It is up to the number o people who really find your blog worth to spend their time with! Well said! 🙂
Listed some very good points really helpful. Recently i applied in technorati for guest posting. But they denied me. Searching something different with similar popularity.
I would add that it helps to send a few links to popular bloggers before contacting them too. Good bloggers will keep a keen eye on their Analytics and if they see that you’re sending them some traffic then it will be noted by them and they’ll be more responsive when you do get in contact with them.
We can’t argue that content is King. But why is there still people who allow low quality contents to spread over the internet? I don’t get their idea. But thanks for this wonderful share.
The point about content being king is CRUCIAL. I love that paragraph. Have a foundation of content before delivering to your audience. Give them something substantial to look at when they learn about you for the first time. This is strong advice to heed. Thanks for sharing!
I have done a post some days ago on blog about guest posting’s importance. Guest posting as you mentioned, is going to be backbone of getting ranked on serps.
There was an era when link building through comments worked. Gone
There was an era when article submission in directories worked. Gone
The above two do not work anymore. Now is the era of guest blogging.
If you want to know more I encourage you to read my full post. I have thrown some wisdom there , really.
regards
farhan