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What would you do to jumpstart growth

32 for a new companys blog?
February 20, 2015 by Dylan La Com in Blogging, Content Marketing,
Early Traction
24 comments
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Inspired by @Morgan's great question last week: What would you do
to jumpstart growth at an ecommerce store?

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comment.

Morgan Brown (@morgan) February 20, 2015 at 11:36 am Link

Heres what I would do:

1) Understand really clearly what the goal of the blog is,
how it ts into your marketing eorts, what value youre
trying to provide and who youre trying to reach.
2) Id then go and look at other blogs that are serving the
similar audience. What do they do well, what are they
missing. In other words, whats the gap in the market that
I could ll?
3) What content is popular and gets shared a lot. I would
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3) What content is popular and gets shared a lot. I would

use tools like BuzzSumo and this strategy by Iris Shoor on
reverse engineering where sites get their trac:
http://www.startupmoon.com/reverse-engineeringmarketing-where-do-other-sites-get-their-trac/
I would also identify the thought leaders in the space. The
big inuencers and people with large social followings. I
would research their writing and Tweets/blog posts and
identify what topics theyre passionate about.
I would plan my initial content around ideas that are
proven to be interesting to people in the space by writing
things that are:
- Related to the ideas that get shared a lot but add a layer
of detail or research to them.
- Content that aligns or contradicts what inuencers in the
space say, that leads them to share or address it with their
audiences.
- Content that has proven successful in the past based on
share rates etc.
You can use @backlinkos approach to getting inuencers
to share your content as he describes here:
http://backlinko.com/increase-website-trac
Also, again Iris Shoors ideas here:
http://www.startupmoon.com/outsourcing-marketinghow-300mo-on-odesk-boosts-our-traction-by-14/
I would also read this post on how Movoto built their blog
from 2,000 visitors to 18,000,000 in two years:
http://www.movoto.com/blog/movoto-com/buzzfeed-forreal-estate/
4) I would also start to build up my own distribution
network by building a twitter audience.
http://www.programmingformarketers.com/lesson-2-howto-programmatically-acquire-50k-twitter-followers/
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Angelo Lirazan (@angelolireezy) February 20, 2015 at 12:43

pm Link

I especially like #3, learning from others who are

already successful. I would also look into how
community sites might be able to benet from your
content. For example, nding receptive subreddits may
be helpful as well.
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Benji Hyam (@benjihyam) February 20, 2015 at 12:19 pm Link

Now thats a pretty solid strategy.

4

Reply

Dylan La Com (@dylan) February 20, 2015 at 11:41 am Link

this is amazing. thanks @morgan!

3

Reply

Everette Taylor (@everette) February 21, 2015 at 10:04 pm

Link

Awesome @morgan just a few things I would add to

this.
-Figure out what communities and content aggregators
that your audience is hanging out at. These are the
places you want to be able to submit your content to,
get feedback, spur ideas for future posts, and even nd
guest writers for your blog.
-Create a social strategy around your social media
channels to distribute content and start to put more of
an emphasis on growing your targeted audience on
social media like Morgan said.
-Use email collectors on blog landing page and Twitter
Cards on social to start acquiring emails to distribute
your content for those who are interested. DONT opt in
everyone in your current email list to your blog email
list. Announce your blog to them and allow them to opt
in.
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Arian Rahbari (@arianrah) February 20, 2015 at 1:04 pm Link

This is awesome!
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Pascal from Munich (@pascalswelt) February 23, 2015 at

12:44 am Link

great! Thanks @morgan

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Angelina Fomina (@aafomina) February 24, 2015 at 8:56 am

Link

Awesome advice! Thanks for including the guides.

2

Reply

Rachel Berry (@cmrberry) February 24, 2015 at 8:39 pm Link

Thanks for the awesome list, what a great way to start.

2

Reply

Earl Dos Santos (@earldossantos) February 20, 2015 at 2:12

pm Link

Really loved this list thanks!

1

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Zach Abramowitz (@zachabramowitz) February 21, 2015 at 9:51

am Link

@morgan has an excellent list I would add one other

item.
Interview thought leaders and experts on your blog. They
will then share the content with others in their network
(its always attering to be interviewed!) and you can
encourage them to share it by tweeting at them e.g.
Check out my interview with @morgan on how to grow
your blog audience.
We grew our blog audience this way blog.replyall.me
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Morgan Brown (@morgan) February 21, 2015 at 12:18 pm

Link

Totally agree with you Zack. Interviews are a great way

to do it. That was one of the key strategies I used to
grow my blog back in the day.
Sometimes experts will want to know theyre doing the
interview on a site with trac. One hack around that is
to line up a contributed post of the interview at a big
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to line up a contributed post of the interview at a big

blog. That way you get exposure, the guest post and
links back to your blog to grow it.
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Zach Abramowitz (@zachabramowitz) February 21, 2015 at

2:58 pm Link

@morgan so funny that you should say that, because

I did that here
abovethelaw.com/author/zachabramowitz/
Heres another hack if you can get that rst
interview with someone impressive you can then
leverage that to atter the guest. Instead of focusing
on trac and exposure in your ask, say something
like, Heres an interview I did with X, Y & Z.
Focus on the guest, emphasize that youre
interviewing them because of their expertise. I dont
always get a yes for an interview request, but I dont
get asked, How much trac does your blog get? If
you atter correctly, trac shouldnt even come up.
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Johnathan Dane (@johnathandane) February 22, 2015 at 2:31

pm Link

These are all great ideas! :) I wanted to get your take on

this one:
At my old company, we launched a Halloween AdWords
guide and had great success with downloads and people
sharing it because it was during October of last year.
http://get.disruptiveadvertising.com/halloween-guide/
Through Twitter ads, it gave us over 1,000 downloads,
which we then turned into our blog subscribers with still
great engagements and some unsubscribes.
For a few thousand $, do you guys think thats a good idea
to kickstart a blog? And then obviously continue to
produce great content that people will want to read by
going back to your blog and share from that.
Please let me know!
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Morgan Brown (@morgan) February 22, 2015 at 4:19 pm Link

I think this is a great idea @johnathandane!

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Shannon Byrne (@shannon-byrne) February 23, 2015 at 9:44 am

Link

For me, building an audience from scratch is all about

community and relationship building.
Well, rst and foremost. I second what @morgan said
you need a clear understanding of your blogs goals the
value youre providing and who that value is best helpful
to.
When that blog is still just a glimmer in your eye, you
should be out there talking to people in relevant forums,
Facebook and LinkedIn groups, on Twitter, IRL events, etc.
Ask them questions relevant to the problem or issue your
blog will be solving for. Get a better idea of their specic
interests and language they use to describe this problem
then use that language in your content. Get their
contact info so you can casually share it with them later.
Or ask them to provide their feedback before its public,
then give them credit.
Its also smart to identify thought leaders and inuencers
in your focus area early on. A great way to do this is with
social listening and media monitoring. Build a rapport with
the thought leaders in your space and ask the to
contribute to your blog. Better yet, ask if you can
contribute to theirs!
I could honestly go on about this forever it is my fav
subject.
I dont want to spam here, but for anyone interested, I
recently wrote a post on the topic for CoSchedules blog.
Happy to share!
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Morgan Brown (@morgan) February 23, 2015 at 12:31 pm

Link

Share, share Shannon! :)

Great suggestions as well.
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Shannon Byrne (@shannon-byrne) February 23, 2015 at

2:18 pm Link

Wellsince you asked ;) Here ya go!

http://coschedule.com/blog/how-to-start-a-blog-withno-audience/
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demetrius michael (@dem_z) February 23, 2015 at 6:54 pm Link

Knowing your audience is not the same as your audience

knowing you. Spend 10 hours promoting, for every hour
you write.
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Joseph Putnam (@josephwesley) February 24, 2015 at 8:52

am Link

If a blog post gets published but nobody nds it, did it

really get published?
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Morgan Brown (@morgan) February 23, 2015 at 7:48 pm Link

Love this Knowing your audience is not the same as

your audience knowing you.
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Joseph Putnam (@josephwesley) February 23, 2015 at 3:53 pm

Link

Id start by dening the topic and the core audience. The

hard part here is attempting to go broad or niche. Broad
means a lot more trac potential, niche means youre
getting exactly who you want to your site through your
blog.
Then, similar to @morgan, Id study what works on other
sites based on my own observation and tools like
buzzsumo. You dont want to copy exactly, but you do
want to reverse engineer and create content around
similar topics, something I did recently by borrowing a
Movoto strategy and turning it into an infographic thats
coming out on Wednesday. If it works somewhere else,
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coming out on Wednesday. If it works somewhere else,

theres a good chance you can get it to work for you.
Something else Id do is nd way to leverage inuencer
audiences through interviews with them, round up posts,
etc. This is another strategy Im using on Wednesdays
infographic.
Id also nd as many ways as possible to create unique and
amazing content. If other blogs are writing 500 word posts,
Id write 2500. If I have the resources to create a really indepth guide, Id do that. If you can do infographics, thats
great, or maybe white board videos. Anything thats
unique and done at a really high level and doesnt just
regurgitate content thats been covered 100 times or
more.
Last but not least, be sure to oer a download to entice
email subscribers, preferably with a tool like
GetRooster.com. You should easily double your sign up
rate which goes a long way towards jumpstarting a blog.
Oh, I almost forgot, dont forget to promote your posts and
also to publish consistently. Consistency is important so
people know how often theyll hear from you and also
provides deadlines to make sure you continue producing
content. Publishing consistently once per week for a year
is going to be better than 5 times per week for a month.
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Joseph Putnam (@josephwesley) February 24, 2015 at 8:52

am Link

Out of all these tips, reverse engineering what works on

other sites and taking time to promote posts are the
top two things Id focus on.
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Anna Kingsley (@anna-kingsley) February 24, 2015 at 4:30 am

Link

Great post, thanks @Morgan. I use BuzzSumo and its a

great tool esp to nd inuencers.
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