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BLOG GROWTH
BLUEPRINT 1

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Blog Growth Blueprint 1

As I mentioned in the video, the first step growing a blog in a world with 164 million competitors, is to
avoid these 3 deadly mistakes.

Mistake #1: Publishing Too Often

Have you ever heard anyone say: “Dude, I just found this new blog. It’s so great… they publish 3
times per week!”

Of course not.

Readers and search engines don’t care about how often you publish.

And if you want potential readers and Google searchers to even find your site, you need to spend
more time promoting your content than publishing on it.

And that’s only possible if you don’t have a twice-weekly publishing schedule that eats up all your time.

So commit to a once every 3-4 publishing schedule when first starting out. And spend that “extra”
time writing absolutely epic stuff and promoting it like mad.

Mistake #2: Less-Than-Amazing Site Design

When people visit your site they make dozens of subconscious, split second decisions about you,
your blog and your brand.

One of the best ways to make sure those first impressions work in your favor is to get an incredible
site design.

It doesn’t have to be fancy (in fact, simple works great), but it does have to be clean and polished.

Here are some blogs that have outstanding design:

http://www.quicksprout.com/ http://www.paleoplan.com/blog/

https://www.helpscout.net/blog/ http://pointblankseo.com/blog

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If your blog doesn’t look like that, no worries.

Just hire a designer on Elance, ODesk or PeoplePerHour.com to give your blog’s design a new
paint job.

Here are the 4 most important things to pay attention to:

1. Simplicity: Antoine de Saint-Exupery said it best: “A designer knows he has achieved

perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take
away”. That should be your guiding principle as you design your blog.

2. C
 omplementary Colors: Aim for 2-3 main colors. For example, Backlinko uses green and
orange pretty much everywhere. You’d be hard pressed to find brown, purple or any other
color anywhere on the blog.

3. L
 ean Sidebar: Resist the temptation to load your sidebar with badges and links. A
cluttered sidebar is the #1 design sin I see bloggers make today.

4. C
 ontent Comes First: Make sure your blog posts have the content above the fold. Don’t
make people have to scroll to read the content, like this blog.

OK, so now that you’ve dodged these 3 mistakes, it’s time to move onto the 3-step Focus Formula.

1 Step #1: Get a Niche Expertise

Let’s face it:

The world doesn’t need another fitness or business blog.

But the world DOES need another blog about email marketing, ballet, woodworking, at-home
fitness and drop shipping.

If you want to stand out and establish yourself as one of the go-to experts in your industry, you
need to find a niche that people identify with YOU.

How do you know which niche to choose?

Well your first step is to identify what problems your customers or potential customers tend to have.

How can you possibly know that, you ask?

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Industry Forums: You can find forums in almost any niche by searching for “keyword” + “forum” in
Google. You can also use BoardReader.com (click on “forums” on the top left corner and then enter
a keyword). Look at the threads that tend to come up again and again. These are awesome blog
posts topics.

Quora: Quora is a massive gold mine for questions on any topic. Just create an account and
search for your keyword. Note any questions that tend to crop up again and again.

Google Keyword Planner: The Google Keyword Planner is awesome for learning about what your
audience is having issues with. Of course, most keywords won’t be in full question form, like “how
do I organize my closet”. But you can usually read between the lines. When someone searches for
“closet organizing tips” or “messy closet”, they’re usually looking for a solution for their messy closet.

Blog Comments: Head to popular blogs in your space and see what questions people to ask. If
you see the same questions over and over again, it means that lots of people in your space can’t
find a solution to their issue.

Here’s where you can keep track of the problems you find:

AUDIENCE PROBLEMS

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2 Step #2: Position That Niche Expertise as YOUR Expertise

Now that you’ve established your niche expertise, it’s time to make sure people see you and your
Niche Expertise wherever they look, especially:

• On your about page • Author bio (on your blog and on guest posts)

• Homepage • Sidebar

3 Step #3: Write ONLY About Your Niche Expertise

Most bloggers jump from topic to topic. They cover whatever they feel like covering that week.

BIG mistake.

When you string together content on the same Nice Expertise it makes people say: “Wow, she
knows a lot about this topic. It’s all she writes about!”.

As I mentioned in the video, I was called a “link building expert” by a number of respected blogs
after only 8 posts on the topic. It doesn’t take 25 posts. 8 consecutively published posts that are
is all you may need for you to be considered the go-to guru on that topic.

So make sure that you cover your Niche Expertise topic for about 8-10 posts in a row. Once you’ve
exhausted that topic, move onto another Niche Expertise and follow the same exact formula.