How to be a blogging superstar from day 1

Hey {NAME}, Thanks for joining this free series on how to improve your blog. I'm going to show you how you can be successful at blogging by sharing my secrets with you. I’m going to walk you through my successes – and failures – so you can learn the best practices right away. Whether you already have a blog or are looking to start one, the advice I'm going to share will take you to the next level of success! I've learned a lot about running a successful blog in the last eight years. My methods have made me the largest travel blog on the web with over 1.5 million monthly readers and I'm excited to share those tips with you here! Think of blogging like the restaurant business: Just because there are a lot of restaurants doesn’t mean that they are all good or that you shouldn’t open your own! People who open a restaurant or desire to be a world-class chef look around and say, “I can do this better.” That’s the mindset you should have about your blog. Say it with me "There may be a lot of blogs out there but I CAN DO IT BETTER!" Today, I’m going to start off with 5 tips that can give you a strategic edge over everyone else. Start doing these today and I guarantee you'll start seeing big you’ll be half way there: 1. Read! I am always shocked at how few travel bloggers develop their skills by reading. Very few read marketing books and try to acquire business skills that they can apply to their own blog. Running a blog is running a business, and if you don’t go to “school” and constantly learn, you’re going to fall behind. Every successful person I know is a voracious reader. After all, why reinvent the wheel? Learn from the masters. Read what experts have to say, learn what works, and apply the tips you pick up to your blog. Read marketing books. Read strategy books. Read management books. Read history books. Read biographies. Even if you only get one idea from the book, that book was worth it. Here are some of my must-reads to start you off: - [Influence](=), by Robert B. Cialdini - [The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People](=), by Stephen R. Covey - [What Got You Here Won’t Get You There](=), by Marshall Goldsmith - [The Psychology of Persuasion](=), by Kevin Hogan - [Start With Why](=), by Simon Sinek - [Ask](=), by Ryan Levesque - [On Writing](=), by Stephen King - [Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing](=), by Don George - [The Obstacle is the Way](=), by Ryan Holiday - [The 4-Hour Workweek](=), by Tim Ferriss - [Choose Yourself](=), by James Altucher - [Confessions of an Advertising Man](), by David Olgivy Commit to reading at least 15 minutes per day. Read on your commute. Listen to an audio book. Read before bed or while the food is cooking. But read. This will be your greatest advantage over everyone else! 2. Be like Apple — think different Whatever you are going to write about, try to present that subject in a way that hasn’t been done before. If everyone is sharing sponsored content, don’t. If everyone is writing text, make a video. If everyone is serious, be funny. If everyone has complex designs, go simple and visual. If everyone is doing one-off blog posts, create a story through a series of posts that keep people coming back for more. Always innovate — do something different and unique. Don’t just create another travel blog hoping to “inspire people to travel.” 3. Invest in your blog — and yourself! For a long time, I viewed everything as an expense that had no return. “That designer would be nice, but I can’t afford it. I’ll just create a crappier design myself.” But I soon realized that money spent wisely is an investment that pays for itself. Now I pay for designers, SEO auditors, conferences, video and audio editors, copy editors, and much more, so I can improve the reader experience on this website, develop products, work on other projects, and free up time to write. All of which makes me more money that allows me to pay for those people in the first place. It’s easy to say, “Oh, that conference is too much. I don’t want to spend that much.” But if that conference results in one strong business connection that leads to new sales or a guest-posting opportunity, then the conference was worth it. It can be easy for me to say now, but even when you start, spending a little bit of money can go a long way. I didn’t start out hiring lots of people. I hired one person, then another, then another. Even if you spend a hundred dollars on snazzier banners, that can go a long way to improving your readers’ experience, which gets people coming back to your site and clicking on my ads or buying more products. Start small, but make sure you start! Because if people see you investing in your website, they are going to want to invest in you because they’ll see that you care. When people see you’re invested in this, they will see you put skin in the game, and will take you a lot more seriously. 4. Be niche Back when I started blogging in 2008, it was easy to maintain a general budget travel website. There were only a handful of bloggers. You could cover a wide range of travel topics and face little competition. Now, there are too many long-established blogs and websites to do that. (And you’d also be way behind in Google search results.) I recommend being as narrow and focused in your topic(s) as possible. Whether it’s RV travel, Turkey, Thailand, NYC, or your small town, the power of search lets everyone define their niche and still be able to reach millions of potential readers. In fact, being niche now is better than trying to be a more general resource site like mine. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Go narrow and go deep. 5. Be persistent Rome wasn’t built in a day — and your blog won’t build itself overnight either. Maintain realistic expectations about your blog. Don’t expect anything but hard work for the first year. Don’t rush. Build something that will last. The light is always at the end of the tunnel, but too many people give up right before the end. Keep going. You’ll make it! **** These are the five basic things you should do to grow your blog. These tips will get you in the right mindset for growing your blog and thinking strategically. You can't do anything else if you don't do these five things. In the next email, I'll talk about a few more in-depth, focused tactics that will help you get eyeballs to your website! Best, Nomadic Matt [Unsubscribe]( | 407 W University Ave, Georgetown, Texas 78626