Those who have visited my site for quite a small time would know that I like to reinvest into my affair. The only way your going to build your site larger and better is to work really hard and place money into it. In this post, I want to run over the things I find most valuable, things that make my blog stand out from the crowd and the things that help the site run so smoothly.
Here’s a list of 11 things that make my site better than most:
1. Buy The Perfect Domain
A domain name is the first thing people see when they come to your website. Really they see it before they even come to your site, that’s why it’s so valuable.
Earlier this year when I start ExpertPhotography.com with my brother, I knew we had to get a excellent domain. The photography niche is very competitive and has a lot of people in it. One thing you will notice with all the top sites is they have fantastic brandable domains. I started just typing domain thoughts I like into my web browser and seeing if they had a site. The margin had, but when I got to ExpertPhotography it had a landing page at BuyDomains instead. BuyDomains is in the end a brokering company that work on behalf of the owner to sell the domain. I contacted them and after some negotiating I bought the domain.
Fantastic domains are not just the ones people see as an authority but also ones that hold a fantastic brand. One thing I like to do with my domains is to make them describe what the site is about. Let me show you how this works.
- ExpertPhotography.com – It’s about being an expert at photography.
- Retireat21.com – How to retire young.
- AwesomeWeb.com – How to build awesome websites.
Here’s an example from one I came up with for a friend. He wanted to blog about outsourcing and so I came up with SaveTimeOutsource.com – it describes what the site is about in the domain, yet is small and catchy.
2. My Blog Design Is Incredible
Most new bloggers will use a premium WordPress theme, such as one from Woothemes. This is something I urge, we did it with ExpertPhotography. But, after a while, when you start making money from your site and you want to take it to the next level, that’s when you get creative and design a site.
I’m not a designer, neither are you probably, so I would urge you hire someone instead of yourself attempting to do it. My top tip for for making fantastic sites is looking at all your competitors, find out what they all do really well and place all those things together to make one really well done site.
IncomeDiary will always be a work in movement, every time I have a new thought, I get it implemented. Every time I see something isn’t working out, I get it removed.
3. I Have Guest Writers
Before I started getting people to write for me on IncomeDiary, I was publishing a post perhaps once a week, in some months I’d struggle to write just one post!
If you want to dominate in your industry, get other people to write for you. Before you do this though, I highly urge you set high values and pay your writers to make sure you deliver the best to your readers. Since applying this approach, we have been able to publish content nearly every day and over the last 6 months, quadrupled our traffic.
4. I Have My Own Product
If you constantly place out fantastic free content, they will always want more. Make and sell your own eBook or course and those who want more will come and buy. This is a must have! I like promoting connect harvest but the one draw back is, your always helping another person out and that person is most likely your competitor. Having your own product means you keep everything and you get to improve your brand.
5. I Have a Mailing List
If your still not construction a email list, then your leaving money on the table and your not getting as much traffic as you could get. The fantastic thing about mailing lists is that every time you publish a blog post, you can let all those people who subscribed via email know about that new post. This brings thousands of people to my site every time I publish a post!
Try Popup Dominion if you want to play ‘catch up!’
6. I Branch out My Income
If you rely on just one income stream for your website, then your not making as much money as you should! On average, you can make three times more money if you monetize your site in three different ways instead of one. There are only so many people who will pay for an advert on your site and only so much room to show ads. When I went from monetizing Retireat21 with just banner ads to diversifying my income with manifold techniques, I drastically increased my earnings.
Check out these 14 ways you can make money from your website.
7. I Have Fantastic Hosting
I have used over a dozen hosting company’s since I started online. Always read reviews and question friends before you get a host. The worse thing for me as a website owner is having my site offline. If you have seen The Social Network film about Facebook, your dredge up the scene when they talk about their server and how it can’t go offline because the second it does, people will start looking else where. The same applies for your blog, if your site is offline, people will look else where.
A few recommendations when choosing a host:
- 24/7 Live Support! This way, if you have harms, you can always reach someone to help fix it.
- A wide range of hosting offered, so as you build your online affair, you can boost your hosting with small to no downtime.
- 99.9999999 up time. If they have any track record of their servers going offline, I wouldn’t urge you use them.
- Have been around for a few years. Don’t ever go for a new company’s, this may sound mean but this is your affair and you need to be sure that who you host with, will be responsible and will be sticking around.
I in person use HostGator to host IncomeDiary, I use one of their VPS’s (a type of server). It also hosts ExpertPhotography. So far, I have had very small harms with them, on the rare reason the server goes offline, it’s always been my fault and my brother has been able to go into the live support and just question them to reboot it.
The other day, ExpertPhotography was running slow, my brother went on their live support and questioned why. They told him two wordpress plugins were slowing down the site. He removed the plugins and it went back to full speed. They help you. In person, they are worth more to me, than I pay them.
Check out HostGator now.
8. I Have Well loved Posts
This may sound like a small thing but it’s really valuable. When you visit a blog and you like what they have to say, the next thing you look for is a pool of all their best posts. You do this because you want more! Well loved post widgets make it simple to show those posts.
On IncomeDiary, my well loved posts section is custom coded and is not a plugin. On my other site, I use Woothemes and a widget they offer with their themes, allows you to show well loved posts. I like that feature! Yet again, another company, going the space with what they offer their customers.
9. I Have a Fantastic Combination of WordPress Plugins
It’s incredible the variation a bunch of WordPress plugins can do. You can see 20 WordPress Plugins I urge, by click here.
10. My Site Is Optimized For Search Engines
Traffic is everything, without it, what we do would be pointless. Thanks to my buddy David, we have been able to apply all of his search engine optimization tips to get my site to rank highly in Google, which has meant a 200% boost in search engine traffic, that means I get over a thousand more visitors a day.
Click here to see the drawing we followed to get my site to rank well.
11. I Publish Fantastic Content
All when they start, they are more worried about how their site looks. The first thing you need to reckon about is CONTENT! That’s why people are going to visit your website. Focus all your time on fantastic content, that will bring traffic and then once your sites getting a decent amount of traffic, focus on making money from those visitors.
Don’t make the mistake most people make, don’t focus on monetization at the beginning. People who do that seem to only ever focus on the money and that really comes across in their content. Blog for the like of the subject, that first. The money comes naturally.
Hope you delight in this article. Let me know what things you reckon you can apply after reading this post!