I used to maintain many blogs from different niches around 4 years back. Most of them where some copy paste stuff since content duplication was not so strict. I didn't relayed a lot on search engine rankings yet i was getting a decent traffic and some adsense revenue also. Then i left all those and now i planning to start everything again. I thought myself to be a blogging expert but now i see everything changed a lot and need to start from zero
Why did you quit if you don't mind me asking? Yes, a lot has changed but for me it's all for the better. Google is stricter now because of the unbelievable spam sites out there. The old tactics don't work anymore because the focus has shifted to quality and high value blogs. So my recommendation focus writing quality content. You don't have to do the writing yourself. You can hire a premium article writer at oDesk for less than $6. If you are serious about monetizing your blogs and making it a long term business then get yourself educated with the new techniques in blogging.
Everything has changed indeed, i use to have sites that rank because of exact match domains but it don't work this way now. You can hire SEOs in odesk as well.
Even i am doing blogging from last 3 yrs. No wonder blogging is completely changed now but trust me it is not that much typical to be a successful blogger. The only required things to keep in mind are - Passion and Patience Follow Google Guidelines Server your Readers Make yourself Innovative
Blogging is not changed but little bit upgraded. You have to think several times before posting some related stuffs. I am just adding one point to the above as, Relevant and Unique content posting Passion and Patience Follow Google Guidelines Server your Readers Make yourself Innovative
One thing will never change - the importance of valuable content. Informative and authentic content always finds it way to the top. Apart from that, it is also important to get backlinks for your websites from the authoritative websites related to your niche.
Yes blogging has changed over the years. The main thing is setting up your website/blog the right way. Understanding that these days it is all about engaging with your readers and building a community. It is about finding out what your readers want and providing answers/solutions to problems. I have been blogging for a relatively short time over the last year. I have just set up my 4th blog soniamharris.com from scratch because I did not set up my other ones the right way. I want to focus on helping people. Have you started your new blog yet?
Yes am agree with some comment that, One thing that Quality content can't be changed (like content is always king), so make the informative blog and keep niche based content... make sure content should be informative for the purpose of the visitor, if you will be getting original traffic on the site then you make really good business.. thanks!
It's true that 4 years ago and now things have changed. MilesGeek has given out an answer that will not change which is always true, valuable content. Originality and quality will never change. You should start a new domain where you blog valuable content. If you make it high quality and post original content this will build your business for years to come. Giving a new start with more professional way and learning your previous mistakes not to repeat them will give you a longer life to your online business. We all learn from our mistakes.
Gaining a good list of mail subscribers is a major method to attract traffic i think. If you can give some interesting content every time that list will be highly productive.
I really agree with your advice which is why I started from scratch and hopefully I am learning from my previous mistakes. I decided to do some research about mistakes that bloggers make and wrote about it in my latest blog post soniamharris.com/blogging-mistakes
4 years ago is not too long ago. I have actually been online for 4 years now and when I started it was already a bit hard to build successful blogs with duplicated content. I've tried it a lot and didn't really work and only earned a couple of dollars from adsense. When I started learning about affiliate marketing, that is when I took blogging more seriously to help me get free targeted traffic to make money as an affiliate more than with Google adsense. I don't really see much of a change in blogging than before other than the new blogging tools and blogging platforms popping up all over the internet. The main core of building a successful blog online has always been creating new, valuable, interesting and unique content for the internet - for the internet user. There is no way around that. Copying and pasting content has never been the official way of building a successful blog online. Just read what the definition of Blog is: blog bläg/ noun noun: blog; plural noun: blogs 1. a personal website or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis. verb verb: blog; 3rd person present: blogs; past tense: blogged; past participle: blogged; gerund or present participle: blogging 1. add new material to or regularly update a blog. "it's about a week since I last blogged" If you understand this core and fundamental fact about Blogs and basically blogging online - and if you follow this very well, then you can definitely build a successful blog online fast. This is just what I have learned over my 4 years online. I failed miserably for about 3 years trying to build many niche blogs online. I made mistakes and learned from them. So I hope no one else makes the same mistakes. This is what I know will help anyone start building a successful blog online. This is a great topic you have brought up here! I just wanted to share a piece of what I know here... Wish you the best online! Cheers!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I particularly like it that you took the time to find out the definition of blogging. Very useful to understand exactly what it is about. I too have made a lot of mistakes and now I want to learn from them. I decided to do some research on blogging mistakes and decided to write a series of blogs on the subject. I have just posted part 2 out of 3 because there was so much information out there. My most recent post can be found on soniamharris.com/blogging-mistakes-2 - I thought it would be useful for people to use as a resource and of course for me to look back on.
Yes, every day there's a lot of changes and one of this changes is to create your own blogs. Quality content and make sure readers get to be interested.