Business Sphere

Jenny, a newbie blogger from Singapore, sent me an e-mail yesterday, asking for my “best practices” as a blogger of a business blog.

She just launched her blog about a week ago with business as her niche, and she was asking for my advice on how she can become a “value blogger of a business blog like me” as she put it.

Jenny was asking for tips, secrets and my “best practices” for making this very young, 85-days old Business Sphere blog generate an average of 600 visitors a day, with a Google page rank 1 and an Alexa traffic rank of 110,503. She has equated this stats as an indicator of value, that this newbie blog must be valuable.

She was wondering what I did to accomplish all these stats in just 85 days (I launched this blog by writing my first post on April 25, 2009). She told me she had friends in Singapore and Hongkong who had been blogging for one (1) year already and yet their Google page rank are still zero, their Alexa traffic rank are still in the 500,000 category, and their blogs have only an average of 100 visitors daily at the most. She requested me to share my experience to her, so that she could make a shortcut and become a valuable blogger of her business blog.

I’m not an expert blogger, but as a management consultant, I used the principles of business management, like the principles of marketing, to promote my blog. So, for Jenny and for other newbie bloggers out there, here are my secrets, which are no secret at all:

1. Offer your blog as a source of advice, information and valuable tips. Readers have grown tired of blogs that are full of family pictures, of articles about their dogs and cats, and of posts that talk about their families and friends. Any blogger can do it. But it takes a good blogger to make a difference.

2. Specialize by creating your niche. When you have a niche, then you will be able to differentiate your blog from millions  other blogs. That is why you must have a niche. If you have background and experience in business, then blog about business and related to it. If your forte is travel, then  publish travel articles. If your hobby is gardening,  by all means, write about gardening, by offering tips and advice on it. Having a niche will ensure visitors to your blog coming from your segment, and who will read your posts regularly. In the end they will become your loyal readers and subscribers. Once you have created a niche for your blog, don’t forget to let your readers and subscribers understand the difference between what you and the other bloggers are offering.

3. Blog for your readers, but stick to your niche. It’s your readers who provide you with traffic, generate your ads revenue by clicking and reading the ads put by advertisers in your blog, and by buying your online store, if you have one. Be close to your readers and build relationships with them.

4.  Advertise your blog. Many bloggers commit a cardinal mistake of just doing little or nothing at all to make their blogs known. They just hope that once they have already launched their blogs, traffic will just follow as a result. But you must know that today there are millions of blogs in the blogosphere, and what is the reason in the world why people will visit your blog if they don’t know that it exists?  How do you make your blog known to the world, especially to your niche? The answer is promotion, promotion, and promotion.

With these tips, based on my personal experience, I hope you will attain what you want your blog to be-a valuable blog and you a value blogger of business.