How to create a successful blog is one of the questions that haunt all of us as a blogger. Some of the bloggers manage to create a successful blog while others find it hard to do so. Why is it so that some of the bloggers are successful whereas others are not?
If you want to turn your idea into a successful business venture, you must read this article. Moreover, if you are planning to create a successful blogging business you will find this article thought providing and amazingly useful.
Let’s check out in this article some amazing tips to create a successful business. Some of you might not be aware of Timmons framework. Timmons framework is a model to build a successful business. Timmons has created this model to help entrepreneurs create a SUCCESSFUL business plan. Yes, successful. You might have read about various business plans to create a business but Timmons model of creating a business is unique and awesome.
If I ask you what is the MOST important ingredient for starting a successful business what would be your answer. Is it a business idea, money or an opportunity? Think for a second!
Is it a business idea? Wrong.
Is it money? Wrong. The most important ingredient for starting a successful business is the opportunity. The rest of the things are supporting pillars.
According to Timmons, the three key ingredients for starting a successful business venture are Opportunity, Resources, and Team. Let’s discuss these amazing factors one by one to gain an in-depth understanding of the concept.
Opportunity: to create a successful blog first you need to identify the opportunity
A business idea cannot generate positive results in the absence of a right opportunity. You might ask why? A business idea needs the right opportunity to build a successful business. You cannot build a successful business solely on the basis of a business idea. In other words, if you cannot transform your idea into an opportunity you will find it hard to build a successful business venture.
The demand in the market for your product (read content), market size and future growth opportunities are the most important factors that determine the success of a startup business. These factors indicate the presented opportunity.
For example, the idea of building a flying car is excellent, but you cannot sell a flying car unless there is demand for such product in the market. Similarly, you cannot force people to read your blog (no matter how good it is) unless people are searching for things you write about.
Google keyword planner is an excellent tool to identify the keywords your targeted audience use to search things on the web. You can use this tool to identify the right keywords that you can use to reach out to your targeted audience.
Google keyword planner is an excellent tool to identify the keywords your targeted audience use to search things on the web. You can use this tool to identify the right keywords that you can use to reach out to your targeted audience.
So the first thing that you will need to create a successful blog is to identify your targeted audience and their size. At the same time identify the number of competitors in your niche. By identifying the size of the market and level of competition, you will be able to build a successful business plan.
Let’s have a look at current blogging business scenario:
- According to Marketeer.kapost.com, Gartner research study shows that by 2020, consumers will manage 85% of their relationships online without talking to a human. It clearly shows that customers will first research the products or services of the company online before making a buying decision.
- According to Cisco white paper on Visual Networking applications forecast, the content delivery via video will increase from 64% in 2014 to 80 percent in 2019. This is such a huge volume that a million minutes of video will cross the network every second. It means content distribution via video will increase. This is good news for bloggers who share their content via videos. And if you share your content in writing, it is high time you should think of including some videos and audios as well in your content marketing strategy. Does it mean written content will extinct with time? The answer is a big No. It simply shows that written content supported with videos and audio content will gain more popularity.
- According to Hubspot science of blogging, 46% of the people read blogs twice a day and almost 60% of the consumers believe that blogs somewhat impacts their buying decision.
- According to Pamorama.net, Technorati research study shows that blogs have emerged as the third most influential digital resource and fifth most trusted the online source when it comes to buying decision.
- According to the HubSpot, 40% of the US companies are actively blogging and 79% of the companies have reported positive return on investment for inbound marketing
The majority of the bloggers fail because they fail to identify the opportunity. The first thing is to identify the opportunity and collect the resources and build a team to capitalize on the presented opportunity. Whether you are an individual entrepreneur or a group of individuals, identification of opportunity is the most critical factor in the success of a business.
Now let’s have a look at the size of the market.
The Ericcson Mobility Report, Nov 2015, provides insight into the state of mobile network data traffic and market trends. If you look at the above data it shows that currently there are as many mobile subscribers in the world as the population of the world.
The data consumption is on the rise and consumers are increasingly using mobile phones to watch videos over the internet. You can easily cross check the information with the Cisco white paper. One thing is crystal clear from the above data that the digital consumers are rapidly increasing.
Consumers are increasingly using online platforms to gather relevant and reliable information to make a buying decision.
However, always remember, one size does not fit all. If you want to figure out the growth opportunities in your niche you will have to research the emerging trends in your niche. If you find the opportunity worth taking a risk, you will have to capitalize on the presented opportunity using available resources.
Resources: a successful blog requires investment in terms of time and efforts
Resources include all those things that an entrepreneur needs to build a business such as money, assets and land etc. As a blogger what resources do you need? A blogger needs a laptop or a computer, internet connection, may be a camera and money to run operation. Unlike other businesses, the good thing about blogging business is that it does not require huge investment at the beginning.
You can start blogging business with a small investment. More than anything else blogging business needs investment in terms of your efforts and time that you will have to put in to build a successful blog.
If in the beginning you are not able to host your blog on paid hosting sites, you can host your blog on free platforms such as Blogger and WordPress. These platforms not only provide beginner bloggers the opportunity to learn but also earn from their blog. Once your blog shows the sign of growth you can easily host your blog on paid Webhosting platforms.
All the successful businesses have a long history of ups and downs. A majority of the businesses have started from the home and subsequently moved to prime locations in the major cities. For example, Steve Jobs started Apple Computers from the garage and slowly build it into a big empire. Similarly, a majority of the successful bloggers started their blog single-handedly and turned it into a successful full-time business.
Bootstrapping is the best strategy to build a business slowly. If you cannot afford a camera to take good images for your blog, you can buy some pictures online or simply download from websites like Flickr free of cost. Bootstrapping not only helps you reduce the initial cost of starting a business but also keeps you on your toes to capitalize on every possible opportunity.
A good entrepreneur knows how to build a successful business with minimal resources. In fact, a lot of money at the starting of a business can put your business at risk. Availability of resources in large numbers especially money make entrepreneur use easy ways to build a business. For example, you might start spending too much money too early on the promotion of your blog. Or, you might start buying tools that you do not necessarily need at the beginning.
Once the money starts flowing in you can spend money on tools that can help you grow your blog or website. Moreover, you can also build a team of people who are passionate about their work.
Team: a team is the backbone of a successful blog
Without a team, you cannot think of building a successful business. Team enables an entrepreneur to carry out business operations smoothly and effectively. A pool of talented workers can turn a mediocre idea into a successful business venture.
As a blogger, you can divide your team into two parts - Internal team and external team. The internal team of your blog will include people who directly work for you and get paid for their services. The external team members include the influencers, your network, suppliers, and your followers.
If you have talented and experienced members in your internal team, they can help you in every aspect of blogging. A majority of successful bloggers hire services of professionals for images, graphs, and data analysis.
Always remember your followers are your external team members they are supporting you in your endeavors. They read your blog and help you achieve better ranking in the search results. Your followers may not be your direct customers but they help you reach out to your real customers by sharing your blog and through word of mouth publicity.
Similarly, your suppliers, people in your network and influencers are your external team members. In the business of blogging your suppliers are the sources from where you gather your data. Your Webhosting partner is a supplier. It also includes those companies that supply you tools to run your business. Your network of influencers helps you share your content across the web.
A pool of talented team is more important than the resources. An ‘A’ grade team has the ability to turn a ‘B’ grade idea into a successful business. So if you want to expand your blogging business you must also carefully choose your team. An effective team will help you gain leadership in your niche.
Conclusion
All the above factors are interlinked and depended on one another for making a business venture a success. If you want to become a successful blogger you will have to maintain a “fit and balance” between all the above factors.
If you identify a new opportunity or notice new trends in the market, you much make necessary changes in your blogging strategy. Your ability to survive in the business of blogging determines your success.
Remember what I said at the beginning of the article, the most important thing for a successful business is the opportunity. Therefore, if you want to transform a business idea into a business opportunity, you must align your resources and team with the presented opportunity.
If you find this article useful, please do share it with others. What do you think about this model? Share your opinion and suggestions in the comment box. Keep learning, keep sharing!
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