When Your Blog Bites

My Blog Bites

The last few weeks I’ve seen a satisfying bump in subscribers, traffic and in some cases comments.

I could attribute the jump to a few things: being more active on Twitter, time spent answering questions in small business forums or getting picked up in the Junta42 and Alltop lists all come to mind.

While they’ve all helped, none of them has sent thousands of visitors on their own.

The more I think about it the more it just feels like this blog has started to gain added traction – it’s starting to bite.

Gaining Traction With Content Marketing

When you first start a blog, or begin doing anything online, there’s a period when not a lot happens on it’s own. You may be seeing traffic from PPC advertising, offline promotion or a PR push – but it’s certainly not happening on it’s own.

It feels a little like spinning your wheels on an icy road – your giving it all you’ve got but your getting nowhere.

And then suddenly, it bites.

You have traction. And you start speeding off in (hopefully) the right direction.

Where Traction Comes From

So why is it that websites and blogs can suddenly bite and gain traction?

1. Critical mass of content: When you create content it isn’t just a one time thing. Content hangs around. Content is an asset. Once you’ve created a reasonable amount of content assets, people – and the search engines – start finding your content. Volume does matter – so long as it’s also quality.
2. Critical mass of links: The more quality links you establish the more breadcrumbs you leave back to your website or blog.
3. Critical social networking mass: Whether it be Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, establishing a presence takes time. But once that presence is established you’re no longer the only person talking about what you do – your connections amplify and spread your content.
4. Social proof: People take their cues from others. The more people that follow what you do and talk about you, the more it shows those that come later that you are worth checking out.
5. You get better: The more content you create the better you get at creating content. You learn what strikes a cord and what doesn’t. Your style develops. You find your voice. Creating content allows you to develop your ideas, learn from others and keep up-to-date with what’s going on in your industry.

So why is this important?

The growth of your blog (or any other form of content) is not a straight-line graph. It’s a curve.

You’re not likely to see any real returns from your content creation efforts in the first few weeks or even months. The early stages of your curve are all but flat.

Apparently some 90% of blogs are abandoned or only updated every few months. I’d guess that the majority of these blog owners started out with good intentions – but a lack of early results led to apathy.

Content takes time. Blogging takes time. Once you start to gain traction, the rewards are self-evident, but you need to be prepared to give it that time and stay committed to what you’re doing.

Tagged as: blog, Blogging, content, Content Marketing, facebook, linkedin, social media, traction, twitter