Attracting traffic to a blog or a web site is challenging enough. So from the very beginning, when you start to see visitors coming to read your blog, be sure that they feel comfortable to stick around. And there are a number of ways you can help them to do just that.

Here are seven vital ingredients for building a successful blog with a loyal following.

1. Publish Regularly.

As your readers become familiar with the frequency of your posts, it will influence their visiting behavior. If your readers know that you post fresh content every day, they will probably come every day to read it. If they know you post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, that’s when they will come.

2. Stay on Topic.

Stick to your niche. If your blog doesn’t have a niche, give it one. Readers like blog’s that are focused on a particular theme or topic. If you have no theme and just post about anything, then readers are less likely to become passionate about your blog and will probably move on to somewhere else.

3. Use Meaningful Titles in Posts.

This not only announces clearly what the post is about, but it will help people navigate your blog and also influence your ranking with search engines.

4. Interact With Your Readers.

Think of your blog like a conversation. You post. Readers comment. Be active and be positive as you interact and converse with your readers.

5. Highlight Your Best Posts.

Don’t let your best posts get lost in your archives. It’s always a good idea to link to your best posts from a ‘best posts’ category on the main page.

6. Provide Good Navigation to Popular Pages.

If you help people find the key pages within your blog, their visit will be a much more enjoyable experience.

7. Avoid Not Posting for Extended Periods.

If someone visits your blog and discovers that the last post was three weeks ago, they will probably be disappointed. If you don’t post, people may give you the benefit of the doubt and come back on a few days to check, but you better believe they will lose interest quickly if you fall out of your regular schedule and stop posting.

There you have it. Seven little tips that will make a big difference to your blog’s readership. It’s not rocket science. It’s just using some common sense when posting and interacting with your readers.

About The Author

Mike Seddon is a writer, entrepreneur, and webmaster. He is the author of the popular e-book, ‘How to Build a Money Making Blog’, available from http://www.MoneyForBlogging.com

In addition to regular advertising copy, they are also called on to write brochures, catalogs, newsletters, press releases, and even radio commercials.

Why Do Companies Use Copywriters?

Companies spend a fortune on advertising – placing advertisements in newspapers and magazines, printing catalogs and brochures, and sending out bulk mailings to their customers. Of course when they are spending so much to send out a message, it is important to get the words right.

Take direct mail as an example. It costs tens of thousands of dollars (or hundreds of thousands depending on the number of pieces sent) to send just one direct mail campaign. If you don’t believe that pick up the photo and call a mailing list broker and a printer and ask them to explain their pricing. Companies rent lists of hundreds of thousands of names from brokers, and these typically cost $100 per thousand names.

It’s a huge investment so it makes sense for these companies to ensure that the marketing copy is crafted by a professional. As a copywriter, that’s your job. As a good copywriter you know that you can make a big improvement to their response rates by writing some excellent copy.

How Much Do Copywriters Make?

An experienced, hard-working copywriter in North America can earn more than $100,000 annually. Admittedly not all copywriters reach that six-figure mark. Still, in a recent survey of copywriters some 39% of respondents earned between $50,000 and $100,000. This compares very well with other areas of writing.

Of course the amount you earn as a copywriter will vary depending upon your location, the location of your clients, your fees, and how hard you work.

How To Getting Started in Copywriting

1. Look around you. Look at brochures, catalogues, sales letters and advertisements. Which do you think are effective? What works? And what turns you off? Which ones would be fun to write?
Peter Bowerman’s “The Well-Fed Writer” is an excellent resource to help you get started. At $12.95 it’s one of the best guides to building a copywriting business. Considering that copywriting courses can cost as much as $1,000, The Well-Fed Writer e-book is incredibly good value.

2. Write some samples. They might be samples for some imaginary businesses or you could complete a free sample for a local business that you know. And start working on a brochure for your own copywriting business.

3. Identify potential clients. Write down a list of local businesses. How about sports clubs? There may even be charity groups that are willing to pay a small fee for your copywriting services if it will help them to raise some extra funds.

4. Send a letter to the organizations you have identified, informing them about your copywriting services. Follow up with a telephone call to discuss whether there is anything you can help them with.

5. If you are still struggling to get your first real assignment, consider developing something “on spec”. This is where you agree with a client that you will go ahead and write it, and the client only pays you if they like it and decide to use it.

That should get you started. Once you start working as a copywriter, and if your services are good, you may be surprised just how quickly your business grows. That’s because “word of mouth” is one of the main ways that clients find good copywriters.

I confess to living in a time zone far from America so a good percentage of my ebook sales come in just like that. During the daytime in North America, while I am sleeping, someone purchases and downloads one of my ebooks. An email is automatically sent to me, notifying me of the sale.

Each morning I check in to see what happened overnight. I love to see a hundred bucks there. Or two hundred. Or even just fifty. The income varies from day to day but over a month it all adds up to a reasonable amount.

Many people are unsure if there is money to be made in writing and publishing ebooks. Other people are just too afraid to take the first step and get started.

Here are a few myths about ebook publishing.

MYTH ONE. Writing an Ebook is Difficult

It’s not. Well it’s certainly no more difficult than writing a regular book and in many cases it can be considerably easier. Consider that the average ebook is much shorter than the average book in regular print. I have seen many successful ebooks in the range of 25 to 80 pages and it is certainly easier to write a 75 page book than to fill up 225 pages.

Many ebook authors find that writing an ebook becomes easier if they begin by clearly outlining the structure of their ebook. They carefully plan out a sequence of chapters. Next, they look at each chapter as a separate article that needs to be written. Many people can write one article within a day, and at that rate, writing an entire ebook doesn’t take too long.

If you need some good advice on how to write an article every day check out http://www.publishyourownebooks.com/articleaday.htm

MYTH TWO. Getting People to Promote Your Ebook will be Difficult

It’s not. Once your ebook is written and published, consider selling it through the marketplace at ClickBank. Besides enabling you to take credit card payments online without having a merchant account with your bank, ClickBank boasts an army of some 11,000 affiliates ready and willing to promote good ebooks.

Other ebook publishing partners are also available and there is more information on these at our web site.

MYTH THREE.  It’s Better to Do-It-All-Yourself

Wrong. Self-publishing is a terrific idea, but once your ebook is written and published you should enlist as much assistance as possible in promoting it.

Partnering with related sites is just one example of how you can do this. If a related site is already selling ebooks, offer to let the site owner add your ebook to their selection and pay you, for example, fifty percent of the revenue from each sale. They could simply cut you a check or pay you by PayPal every quarter.

You’ll probably be busy concentrating on your own sales efforts, and it will be a pleasant surprise when their payment arrives each quarter with a lump of additional revenue.

MYTH FOUR. After Your Ebook Is Written, Just Sit Back, Relax and Watch the Checks Roll In

Bad idea. You should always be working on something new. Almost certainly interest in your first ebook is going to fall off after some time. It could take years, but it might only be months or weeks.

You will reach a point of saturation after a good number of people in your audience have already purchased your ebook. And sometimes your audience’s interest will simply move on to other topics.

By always having more ebooks in the development pipeline you should be able to keep several good sellers on the market at any point in time.

Think about the myths. Think about your desire to be a successful book author. Now take action. Write. Publish. Sell

Before we look at the incomes of writers, let’s review how freelance writers earn their living. They write articles for magazines, newspapers and web sites. Some concentrate on copywriting or technical writing. And others specialize in writing resumes, short stories, poetry and greeting cards.

The pay that writers receive for their services varies quite widely, however, much more so than for other professions such as teaching or plumbing.

A recent survey conducted by the American Society of Journalists and Authors revealed some interested facts about the incomes of freelance journalists. The results took into account the responses of 473 freelance journalists who worked in United States and who considered freelancing to be their primary job.

Around 7% of these freelance journalists earned $100,000 or more. A further 24% earned between $50,000 and $100,000.  And approximately 69% of these writers earned less than $50,000 a year.

The good news is that many of these writers are clearly not starving. And 7% of them reached the “six-figure writer” status.  In fact, 3% of the freelance writers surveyed actually earned $150,000 or more!

The bad news is that many freelance writers are still earning less than $50,000 annually. If you are a writer reading this article and that also describes your situation, then here are some tips to increase your income towards that six-figure mark.

What Do You Write?

By changing the type of writing you do, you may be able to earn better rates for your work. One of the more lucrative areas of writing is copywriting. I know of a survey of copywriters that revealed that 39% of respondents earned between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, certainly a higher percentage than the 24% of writers above.

Other lucrative areas of writing include ghostwriting, working as a technical writer, and writing and selling your own ebooks and information products.

Discipline and Perseverance

It takes hard work to build any business, and a writing business is no exception. Plan your targets well in advance. Calculate how many hours you will work and what amount you need to earn per hour in order to achieve your targets. For example, in order to make $100,000 a year, you must earn an average of approximately $2,000 per week.  If you are going to work 40 hour weeks, then you need to earn at least $50 for each hour of work in order to reach your target of $100,000 for the year.

Many people dream about being a full-time writer but don’t know they could make it a reality. Now you know it’s possible to earn a good income from freelance writing. You just need to get into it with your eyes wide open. Do some due diligence up front. Check out which areas of writing are likely to be better for you.

Now go for it. Write on!

The ‘How To’ Article

This is a very popular type of article, in which you tell the reader how to do something. It could be how to build a garage, how to write a book, how to sell a house, or how to clean tar off a pair of trousers. These articles tend to be particularly popular because people love to find out how to do something.

When writing how to do something, and if the sequence is important, then it is a good idea to number each step. Remember to keep your instructions simple, yet specific. And you could even use a picture or illustration if the publication allows it.

The ‘List’ Article

The list article is an article that lists several related pieces of information, and is one of the easiest types of article to write. It could be “10 Ways to Save Money”, “5 Flowers to Plant In April”, or “The Best 12 Places to Live in Canada”. A list article should have:

• An introduction.
• The list; each item may be a paragraph or two.
• A conclusion.

The ‘Roundup’ Article

In the roundup article, you provide a roundup of information, statements, or opinions from a variety of sources. You might interview a number of experts, for example, and ask them the same list of questions. In your article you then write a roundup of the answers, e.g.

“Bill Jones, CEO of SHJ Limited, is confident that the market will turn around soon. “Within the next six weeks at most”, he predicted. But Tom Sloane, at Pickwick Associates, disagrees. He explains why…”

The ‘Inspirational’ Article

Inspiration articles include inspirational narrative, essays, articles on faith and religion, and self-help articles.

Do you know of an issue or concern that affects many people? Think of your own every day experiences. Write about the issue… and help the readers to deal with life and to improve themselves in some way.

The ‘As Told To’ Article

Because many of the people who have outstanding experiences are not writers, there is a market for writing those people’s stories. This is quite similar to ghostwriting, except that in this case the audience knows that you are the writer. In the credits, you would show “By Peter Wallace [subject], as told to Jim Davies…” [writer].

Instead of writing a third-person narrative of the event, the ‘As Told To’ article makes the tale more real and personal by using the first-person.

So next time you are about to write an article, pause… and ask which type of article would best suit your situation and topic. By varying the types of articles you write your writing will also develop a new depth and your articles will be picked up by a much wider variety of publications.