Building a successful business blog

If you are already making the income you want from your blog, this post is not for you.

However, if you are working hard and not getting the results you deserve, read on!

Here’s one of the secrets behind every successful, commercial blog I have ever studied:

You can’t do everything yourself!

Every successful business has key people, who’s expertise can be called upon whenever they are needed.  Your blog-based business is just the same.

If you try and do everything yourself, the success of your blog will be limited to your expertise in a wide range of specialist areas.  So, you may know all about design, but have just average marketing abilities.  You may know how to get a ton of ‘traffic’ to your blog, but no idea how to turn that traffic into a community, which you can then monetise.  You may even know how to generate income through your blog, but not fully understand how profitable your blog-based business is or how to increase the profitability of it.

The bottom line here, is that your overall success will be limited by your performance in your weakest area.

Think of a relay race team

Think of an Olympic quality relay team, which has one of its four runners replaced my someone that’s never been to a gym, smokes cigarettes and is 30lb over weight.  That team would now finish last every time.  No matter how great the other runners are, that area of weakness will ruin their chances of success.

Yesterday, while I was writing 3 blog posts, my server guy was debugging a problem for me.  It took him 30 minutes.  It would have taken me a full day to locate and resolve that same issue, because I’m an amateur in that area.  Had I fumbled around and tried to fix it myself, you would not be reading this post – I would not have had time to write it.

My specialist areas are marketing and copy writing, so I hire in experts to cover the other areas of running a successful blog.  For example, I use AccountancyExtra for any financial questions or planning issues I have.  Stuart and the team there get a call from me whenever I’m thinking of making a significant financial decision.  End result, I make great decisions and avoid losing money.

I use the Headway wordpress theme on all my blogs and I’m an affiliate.  This one’s also no brainer.  Headway has already saved me a ton of money, because I am able to do 100% of my own blog design, with zero need to touch any code.  Just dragging and dropping – perfect.  Its paid for itself many times over.  In fact, just 2 weeks after placing an affiliate link to Headway on my blogs, I had generated hundreds of dollars in affiliate income.

But Jim, I can’t afford expert help!

I hear that excuse more than any other, whenever I speak with people about developing their business.  It’s as if they really believe that every new business is rolling in money, except theirs.

Here’s the thing: I have worked with well over a thousand small businesses and most of them started off with little or nothing.  However, the businesses that were serious, realised they would need to get expert help if they wanted to succeed, so they found a way to get the help they needed.

Found a way?

Yes!

They cut their spending in other areas and invested that money in developing their businesses.  Some started off with nothing at all, then slowly, as they started to develop their businesses, they invested in the most urgent areas, based on their need.

For example, many bloggers start off with a blog hosted for free at wordpress.com or blogger/blogspot, then realise they need the additional functionality, that comes from a self hosted blog.

So, they invest in a host that offers the best value they can find.  It’s a start!  Now, the added of functionality their self hosted blog opens a ton of valuable, new opportunities.  For instance, they can use plugins that will collect email addresses for a marketing list.  They can also offer java based advertisements.  In short, the only limitation now is their imagination!

But some people just don’t “get it!”

I once spoke with a business owner that spent around £700 a year on Starbucks coffee, but who said she couldn’t afford to invest $80 on a theme for her blog!  She was unaware that there’s a difference between not being prepared to invest in a business and not being able to.

There are trillions of webpages and billions of websites out there.  For your blog to stand out, generate an income and a healthy profit, it needs all the help it can get.  There are a lot of serious people out there, competing hard for the same readers, customers or clients as you.

To be in with a chance, you need to be just as dedicated and invest just as wisely as they do.  That’s how I developed a top 10 blog.

What do you think?

Have you come across people that want the rewards, without the investment required?  What have your experiences been? Please share them with a comment.

Photo: John Spooner