Blogging for a Target Market

Blogging is an effective way to earn an income while writing about something you are passionate about. It is sometimes too easy to let your blog run astray so make sure you always have your target market in mind.

The most effective blogs stay true to their main focus and primary target market. Your ability to keep your blog’s focus on your target market will be result in greater loyalty from your readers as well as greater opportunities to earn money on or through your blog.

You should try to get as specific as you can when determining who your target market is. For example, the criteria you may consider when determining your target market may include:

•   Age

•  Children or no children

•   Ethnic background 

•  Gender Geographic area

•  Income bracket

•   Marital status

•   Religious background

•   Sexual orientation, etc.

These are just some of the characteristics you can consider when identifying your target market.

Identify Interests of Target Market

Once you have identified your target market and described them you need to start to determine what interests them and what does not. You can use social media sites like Facebook to gain some insight into your target market.

Remember, your target market will have diverse interests so you want to try to identify trends and similarities. Try to stay as close to your blog’s primary purpose as possible. Identifying their interests will enable you to make appropriate references in your blog rather than add entirely new subjects that have little relevance to your primary subject.

Invite Feedback from Target Market

You can invite feedback about your blog from your target market on your blog or on social media sites. Input from your target market is a great way to make sure you are on point and will help you make sure your blog is serving your target market well.

Blogs should be viewed as conversations not monologues. Your readers will feel more loyalty if they can contribute to your blog and start dialogues with you and other followers of your blog.

Do not get in the habit of thinking you are the only one that should offer commentary on your blog or you will have very few followers.

Identify your target market, focus on their needs and welcome them as part of your blog and you can be well on your way to successful blogging.

Monetizing Your Blog -Make Money Blogging

Some people blog for the pure pleasure of blogging about something they are passionate about. Some people blog with the goal of making money. There are a number of ways you can monetize your blog. You can choose one or more of them depending on which is the most appropriate for you blog’s topic and your blog’s followers.

Making Money with Affiliate Arrangements

Depending on the topics of your blog you may be able to make money through affiliate relationships. If your blog is on a topic that relates directly to products you can almost assuredly make money by placing affiliates’ ads on your site.

For example, if you have a blog about accessories you can sign-up for affiliate programs from retailers of accessories. You can place affiliate ads on your blog as well as add affiliate links in your actual blog postings.
The affiliate relationships may even drive some of your content. If you can earn money by mentioning a new product or service on your blog and provide a link (with the affiliate tracking code) to a retailer offering the product you can earn a percentage of the sale.

You can also contact retailers directly and request that they offer your readers a coupon code. The coupon code would give your readers a discount and earn you a commission for every sale. This way both you and your readers benefit from the affiliate arrangement.

PPC Ads on Your Blog

You can add Google, Yahoo and Bing ads to your blog as well. You will earn some money every time someone clicks on the link from your blog. If you are going to do this it is important that you use ad filters so you can make sure that the ads that appear on your blog are appropriate for your target market.

You do not want ads for the sake of having ads. You want ads which are relevant to your target market. The more relevant the ads are the more likely the ads will be clicked on by your readers.

A high-traffic blog can make considerable money through PPC ads though perhaps not as much as if done through the right affiliate relationships.

The bottom line is you can monetize your site with affiliate relationships and PPC ads. If you are taking the time to write compelling content you should reap the rewards of your effort. Go ahead and monetize your blog in one or both ways.

How to Manage Comments on Blog

Comments by readers of your blog can be moderated by you in a number of ways. Your decision on how you will monitor comments will have a large impact on your overall blog. It is important that you keep in mind the pros and cons of your decision.

 First and foremost, blogs that invite comments from readers are generally more popular than blogs that do not. Web 2.0 is all about participation on the web and people like to feel part of a blog community rather than just a reader of a one-sided blog.

For some businesses it may make sense to disallow comments, however, for the majority of businesses and personal blogs you should consider allowing comments from your readers.

Unrestricted Commentary

One option you can have on your blog is unrestricted commentary. This allows anyone to post comments on your blog with no moderation. Though this is the most open form of blogging it is also the most dangerous. You will undoubtedly find inappropriate comments and SPAM on your blog which can lead to problems with the search engines.

For the most part it is not a good idea to allow unrestricted commentary.

Registered User Commentary

One small but effective way to restrict the commentary on your site is to require the person interested in commenting to register for your blog with a valid e-mail address. This will prevent most spammers who want to post quickly and move on. It will also help prevent people from posting ridiculous comments on your blog. Some SPAM and ridiculous commentary will still get through.

Once someone is registered you can monitor their postings on your blog and ban them or block them if you find them posting inappropriate comments.

Approved Comments Only

Most bloggers choose the option of allowing only approved comments to appear on their blog. Basically you set up the blog so you are notified anytime someone posts a comment to one of your postings. The comment will not appear until you have reviewed it and actively approved it.

Requiring comment approval is a good way to both allow comments and protect the integrity of your blog at the same time. Most people familiar with blogging expect to have their comments reviewed before being visible.

Allow commentary on your blog in order to keep your readers active on your blog but choose the level of protection that works the best for your needs.

Blog Set-Up – Plug-Ins

When you are setting up your blog you will have the option to add plug-ins. There are many add-ons or plug-ins to choose from. Some of them can be quite useful and some of them can be quite useless.
Since WordPress is the most popular blog choice we will focus our examination on plug-ins with WordPress blogs.

Blog Plug-In: Akismet

SPAM is a serious issue on the web including on blogs. Akismet is a plug-in option for WordPress blogs that helps eliminate SPAM before it can appear on your blog. This free plug-in is essential and is considered by many bloggers to be their most important weapon against SPAM.

One of the first plug-ins you should add to your blog is Akismet. Make sure it is up to date and properly installed on your blog.

Blog Plug-In: Add to Any

Social media marketing has transformed the Internet. The vast majority of bloggers also have social media accounts. Bloggers are typically quite actively engaged in social media sites and social bookmarking. Add to Any is a plug-in for social media marketing.

Adding this plug-in to your blog makes it easy to add blog postings to your social media sites as well as to bookmark your postings.

Off Blog Feeds

When you set up your blog you will have the option to arrange a blog feed that other people can pick up and add to their site. Basically your blog postings will be displayed on any site that adds the feed to it.

A blog feed can open up new traffic sources and revenue streams with no additional effort on your part. You should also add your blog feeds to directories and other resources that people search in order to add fresh content to their site.

Remember, fresh content is a key to success online. Your blog can become a source for content for other websites which means your blog and their website wins. Link your blog to your social media accounts and blog feed resources for maximum impact.