I'm a blogging fanatic.
I was blogging before blogging was even a thing back in the days of HTML pages and dialup.
I maintain several blogs today.
I do a specific strategy on all my blogs and it works every time. Maybe it can help you. Maybe it can't. But here it is just in case:
3-year 3-Phase Strategy
- Year One:
- Create blog posts for a full year. Focus on creating the best content possible that matches both search intent and problem solving for your target audience. Don't ever create a blog until you have a target audience first, otherwise you're publishing in the dark. Your posts should be value-packed, high quality, relevant, human written, unique, and SEO/mobile friendly.
- Launch a mailing list and start collecting email from your blog homepage and posts. I find the email popup works best especially if you offer a really good lead magnet. It's okay to launch a mailing list at the start. It's an owned platform which gives you direct access to your followers.
- Year Two:
- Keep creating content and building your list. By year 2, you should have a good consistent posting schedule that doesn't overwhelm you. I post once a week and it's perfect. You should also have a consistent email newsletter schedule.
- Year 2 addition: Marketing. Establish your brand on social media, improve search engine optimization, fix any issues that Google Search Console and PageSpeed recommends. This is the year you want to be known, and you have a year's worth of content to prove your expertise.
- Year Three:
- Keep doing year 1 and 2 tasks.
- Year 3 addition: Start focusing on making money. Ads, affiliates, products, services, etc. You should have the content and audience to start making this a reality.
It takes 3 to 5 years to get where you want to be. Don't let that bring you down. A blog is no different than any other business. Most businesses take a few years to get out of the red if you will. Blogs are no different.
Focus on providing the best quality content possible, building your brand, building your mailing list, and turning consistent into a habit which makes it a system.
I've always succeeded using this simple strategy.