Every blog (in the Make Money Online category) goes through a “blog life cycle”, some blogs go through all stages and others experience only some of them, i.e they do not reach the end. These stages of the “blog life cycle” (defined by me) are:

1. State 1: blog creation – new blog gets created
2. Stage 2: blog recognition – blog starts to get recognized in the blogosphere and often gets linked by other blogs, success is near
3. Stage 3: blog authority – blog becomes authority in certain field, traffic soars and money pours in…
4. Stage 4: after success – blog either turns into community based blog that is run by the original blogger, or is run by the same blogger but loses the usefulness that it once had

High traffic often leads to content-kill

When your blog starts to get high traffic and your readership expands, it often leads to positive changes for you (the blogger) and not so positive for the readers.

Because when your blog is getting hundreds of thousands of unique visitors a month, you will be approached by dozens of different types of advertisers. Most of them will be direct advertisers, and you will rely less on the traditional publisher programs that most of the blogs in the blogoshpere are using.

That means, if previously you were writing on various publisher programs and how they performed on your blog, after Stage-4 of the blog life cycle, you won’t be talking about them anymore. You won’t be citing different publisher programs and how much money each made for you. This types of posts are usually a good indicator to your readers about various publisher programs’ performances.

But when you are running direct advertisers, and no longer using normal publisher programs, you won’t be posting such posts anymore. And that, diminishes some degree of usefulness from your content. Continue reading →

One of the mistakes new bloggers do is to end up talking exactly what other established bloggers are talking. Not only on topics that are “the current events” in the blogosphere, but even going as far as reporting their daily life posts. You need to take into account that people have already read those popular blogs, so they don’t want to read it on another blog from a secondary person.

Visitors want to read something original. And if you want to increase your readership you should give them original, new, and interesting posts. So how do you do that? Here is some of the suggestions to keep your posts original:

1. Take notes, write draft posts, and record ideas when they strike you

Taking notes and writing draft posts is very important. It will help you to save time when you want to blog. Because when you sit to blog, there will be a draft post that you can continue right away. This way, you won’t have to think about what to blog.

I do have up to 10 draft posts at one time. If you are not using draft posts, then I strongly recommend you to use it.

Carry a pen and notepad when you are not near to your PC. This way, you can record the idea when it hits you. Most of the ideas will be forgotten if you do not record them. And it’s very difficult and time consuming to remember them back.

1. Do read other popular blogs but do not be their carbon copy

It’s good to read other popular blogs and to keep yourself up to date with what’s happening in the blogosphere. But do not let these other blogs affect your own style of blogging. Do not be their carbon copy. Unless it’s necessary to blog about what other blog has posted, refrain from blogging about it (in a dedicated post). If you just want to repost what someone has posted then it’s better not to. Just remember people have already read about that! Continue reading →