As someone who once attempted to run a successful blog, after having to maintain one during college for school projects, it isn’t as easy as one would expect. At one point, it was NFL Draft odds , another was whatever the buzzworthy topic of the day was, or even stuff outside of sports, my primary interest.
Quite frankly, writing is the easiest part of it all, but there is so much that goes into that to grow a successful blog and develop a following. Here are three steps that will get you started on a path to developing a successful following for your block.
1. Finding Your Niche
One of the things I found was writing about a general topic wasn’t good enough. For people who are first starting out, like I was at the time, and don’t already have a credible following from somewhere else, the worst thing one can do is write about a general topic. Sport is a great topic to write about. Even segmenting it down to a specific sport, league or team works. Finding a niche and starting small is a key component.
Once you pick out what you’re writing about, it is important to know what the field looks like. See if there are any big bloggers already in that field. Track down who the experts may be. Perhaps you’re a baseball fan and want to capitalize on the growing popularity of sports betting. You could segment this even more by picking a particular sportsbook, such as BetUS.
Gamblers would spread out their activities across different sportsbooks, and as the industry is rapidly growing with the legalization across the United States, novice gamblers will be learning to find their favorite books, whether BetUS , DraftKings, FanDuel, or any number of different offerings.
2. Becoming an Expert
It isn’t enough to have an opinion on something because you go back to square one. Even though you have your niche, who cares what you have to say? Seriously. Starting a blog from scratch is difficult because while friends and family say they will support you, that isn’t enough to attract new people to grow.
It is imperative to become knowledgeable on the subject you’ve picked out. This should require seeking out expert research, data, historical information, and opinions to begin forming your own evidence-based opinion. Or perhaps it’s researching a different topic each week on a particular category, such as special education.
If the topic you picked is something that doesn’t have a lot of data available, it just creates more work for yourself. But the rewards far outweigh the risks because you’ve found an underserved community of people. Treat that with great care because you don’t want to mislead people.
In this instance, you’ll want to double up on research and may even need to record your own interviews with experts in the particular field. The first few entries will be key to gaining the trust of others moving forward.
3. Consistency is a Big Key
Now that we have our topic and have established a path to growth, it’s time to check off the last box. Time management is so key to building a consistent schedule. Giving readers a specific time the blogs will post can build credibility and also give you responsibility with a built-in deadline. Once readers see this will drop in their inboxes at 8 a.m. on Mondays, for example, they will know to look for it.
Maybe starting with once per week, or even once per month if it is an underserved topic, to figure out how much time is needed to get the research done. Be sure to do research ahead of picking a topic, too, so you can begin to build institutional knowledge of your own.
Balancing a blog between the everyday busyness of life is a challenge, and also a great responsibility. Successful blogs can allow everyday people to one day be an expert, especially on underexplored topics. It also can become monetized through ads or subscriptions. But the key is to zero in on a topic, but the research time in, and deliver consistently to attract and grow a following.
