In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else's blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that's about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction" which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.


Top 10 Tips
10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn't news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don't have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name -  If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that's the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you've done a good job!).


7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people's blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.


Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.


6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger's article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it's sort of like your blog telling someone else's blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.


This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.


5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.


To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com


3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it's so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it's worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!


2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. - This is another tip that doesn't bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it's worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.


How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.


1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I've listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won't stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.


I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I've put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it's certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.


This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.


To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link: www.BlogMastermind.com

Before you begin brainstorming possibel markets to target with your internet business, stip and consoder the following:

1. What are you interested in?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What subject or topic do you have a lot of knowledge about?
4. What are people always coming to you for advice about?

If you stat your business based on something you know and like you’ll enjoy it more, will stick with it through the tough times, and at the end of the day, truly enjoy it more – while it pays you money.  What could be better than that?

And it will be easier to start you business on something you already know, rather than trying to become an expert (though that’s not too hard either…)

Sometimes I hear that moms think they don’t have any skills or interests…or just their kids.  That’s baloney.  You used to have skills and interests way before you had kids – remember that time…and you still do – they may be new, or it may time to dust off an old hobby.  Are you an expert on getting your kid to eat his or her vegetables, clean her room or get straight A’s or more time on the playing field.  Can you feed a family of 6 on 50 bucks a week… guess what – people want to know how to do that and they might  be willing to pay you for it.

So start with this:

1. Consider your interests, hobbies and areas of expertise.  Think about your life experiences – all the jobs you have ever had  even the unpaid ones, and the volunteer work and the hobbies you’ve tried.  All the times you have helped people and enjoyed it.  Keep a notebook handy and keep adding to the list over a day or two.

Our Next post will be list of questions you can ask yourself to help find your interests and passions – stay tuned.

First, think about how people use the internet.  Why do you go online? Entertainment, sure.  News, probably.  Finding an answer – most definitiely.  Shopping – yes.  Now think about the last two.  Everyday millions of people use the Internet to find out information – how to solve a problem they’re having, how to do something.  They use the internet for research and this is also true when people go shopping.  Typically you go to the store to browse, but when you go online to shop, you’re usually looking for something specific – you’re researching before you buy – even if you’re going to buy in the store.

Keeping in mind that when people use the internet to find solutions – whether it’s for a problem or a product will go along way in helping you pick your niche.  Your niche needs to be focused around a problem are trying to solve – whether it’s how to cure acne, lose weight or stop their child from bedwetting, or which model of camera to buy.

Say for instance you love jewelry and want to start a business in that area.  Now jewelry is too broad, but perhaps you really love making your own glass bead jewelry.  Are there lots of other people who like to do that too?  Do they have blogs, websites and forums they go to?  Arre peole who like to make and buy bead jewelry easy to find and identify on the internet?  Yes – and that is why a market niche defined like that makes sense.

Now you’re probably saying – but there are already tons of people online in the bead jewelry space – how could I make money there?  If it’s big enough market you can – you only need a small percentage of the active buyers to buy from you.  But remember – most of the people in this market might not be looking for jewelry that is already made – they’re looking for supplies, how to books, how to videos, etc.

And this is where you come in – are you an expert in this area?  Could you become one by reading a few books, taking a few more classes?  Could you start a blog about bead jewelry and put Google Adsense on there?  Could you write an e-book about how to make bead jewlery and sell it for $9?  Could you find someone else who’s already done it and sell their product as an affiliate.  Does Amazon have a lot of products about bead jewelry that you could promote, weaved into your blog content about bead jewelry?

Do you get the idea?

Internet Marketing Strategies

If you haven’t figured it out already, when starting your internet business, picking a niche is critical.  Go too broad and you won’t be able to afford to reach anyone.  Go to narrow and you won’t have enough customers to make money.   Internet Marketing allows you to cost effectively reach lots of customers, but still, picking a niche is key.  And now I will get personal.
When I stated my second internet business, GirlMogul, I wanted to sell girl power t-shirts.  I was inspired by an idea, but I did some research – there was no one else selling girl power t-shirts and there are lots of girls who wear t-shirts.  Slam dunk, right?  Not quite.  The lack of competition should be your first indicator when picking a market.  Competition is good – it means people are making money.  It’s not your job to break open a new market – it’s expensive and time-consuming – especially for a mom who is looking to start a profitable business to make extra money.

Secondly, think big.  With my third internet business I thought health and wellness – it’s a market with tons of competition, but it’s also huge.  And the people who tend to buy one health and wellness product tend to buy more.   Repeat buyers.  For me to be successful I only need to capture a few “customers”.

So when you’re thinking of your internet marketing strategy, the first place to start is to decide what area you want your online business to be in – don’t worry so much about products yet – instead look at broad categories.  Think about what you’re interested in – cooking, gardening, reading, parenting, automotive repair, home decorating, house projects…or any other hobby you might have – running, lacrosse mom, wrestling mom, etc – list them all out.

Why?  Because your internet marketing strategy will be based on you becoming something of an expert in your niche – you will be spending a lot of time in this market so you better like it.

Affiliate Marketing Lets You Work From Home

So what is affiliate marketing and why is it a good way for moms who want to work from home to make money?  In simple terms, affiliate marketing is online commission sales made through an affiliate program.  If you’re thinking party sales or meetings, think again.  You could be a very successful affiliate marketer and never leave your house.  You can work in your underwear and make money.  But yes, you will still have to work.   In essense, in affiliate marketing, you promote a merchant’s product online and when someone links through your site or ad and buys from that merchant, you get a commission of the sale.  Like in the earlier post where we talked about some of the benefits of affiliate marketing (no products, low overhead, no credit cards or returns), affiliate marketing really is quite simple in its essence.  Doing it successfully does take work.

Commissions can be paid in a variety of ways, the most common being:

Pay per Sale – a Sale must occur and you will get a commission (up to 75% sometimes) off of the sale price

Pay per Click – you get paid if you host a link to a merchant and someone clicks on it – no further action is necessary – you generally don’t get paid very much for this.

Pay per Lead – you get paid if someone registers or downloads a product – this will usually be a set fee per lead provided.

So, in four easy steps, this is how affiliate marketing works and how you can make money online:

1. You join an affiliate program and get a unique affiliate id (this is how you will be paid) that is coded into a url or link
2. You put the affiliate link on your blog, website, or in your email newsletters, or sometimes in online classified ads
3. Someone, other than you, clicks on this link, goes to the merchant site and makes a purchase or signs up for something
4. The merchant then pays you a commission for the successful action.

Sounds easy and it is.  The merchant has to create a compelling sales page, has to develop the product, test it, handle returns, and exchanges, process credit cards, etc.  You just sit back and collect the checks.  Literally.

Sounds so easy anyone could do it, which is why I, as an Internet entrepreneur who had managed to generate a lot of buzz for my company, but not many sales, decided to try it.

Of course, though those general pricnciples work, it’s not as simple as all that.  We’ll go more into the details about how you actually make money from affiliate marketing in future posts.

Try Affiliate Marketing?  What is affiliate marketing? It’s simple – it’s where you promote other people’s products for a cut of the sales price (your commission).  If you’re thinking that this means you need to buy a sales kit full of jewelry and start asking all of your friends to buy from you, think again.  Internet affiliate marketing is a bit different and you never have to sell anything to your friends or family, unless you want to.

So first, lets talk about some of thebenefits of working as an internet affiliate marketer before we talk more about what and how to do it.  This way you can decide if it’s right for you.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing:

1. No Manufacturing Costs – the costs to develop a new product are expensive and usually beyond the reach of someone looking to work from home and make money online.  In affilaite marketing you are selling a product that has already been created and proven in the market.
2. Low Cost Set Up – even setting up a simple online store and stocking it with inventory can cost several thousand dollars.  With an investment of tens of dollars you can start on affiliate marketing in your spare time
3. No Employees – For many moms, the want a flexible job or business where they can still manage to make money and have time for the kids – which is why a work from home internet business sounds so attractive.  The last a mom wants to do is to start a business that requires employees.  Affiliate marketing requires no employee and still allows you to make money online.
4. No Order processing or merchant accounts – I know lots of moms who started online stores and got orders.  And then had to fill them – at night, on the weekends, at holidays – all for a very small margin.  And while it was thrilling to them to make money, they were working pretty hard for just few dollars profit – and spending time away from their families.  Not to mention the hassle of returns, and setting up a merchant account.  With affiliate marketing, all this is taken care of for you.
5. Make Money Online While You Sleep – yes, if you’re affiliate website is out there on the internet, it is working for you 24/7.  Somewhere, someone is online who will be interested in a product you are promoting and will buy it – and you have made a commission while you sleep.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

So is affiliate marketing the right way for a mom to make money online and work from home?  Yes, it’s can be one of the best ways to have the best of both worlds – time with your family and an income.  See our next posts for more about what affiliate marketing is and how to do it.

The number one thing you need to do before you decide to start a business is to find out if there are people who buy things.  It’s called defining a niche.  A niche market is a focused portion of a targetable market…

Cooking is not a niche it’s too big.  But baking cupcakes is a niche.  Some niches combine different segments, like Christian dating, or work for stay at home moms to create profitable niches.

Some niches can be too small.  And some can be too big.  More about how to evaluate the size of a niche later.  But what should guide you in picking a niche?

Knowledge + Passion = Profits – Do you have hobbies or a specialized knowledge?  Are there enough people out there who buy things related to that subject?

Not sure you do?  Consider that some things are always in demand like

Health and Fitness – Weight Loss, aging, acne

Pets – Parrots, cats, DOGS, horses)

Finance – Business opportunites, personal finance

Family/Parenting

Self-Improvement

Know something about a subject in any of these fields?  Willing to become an expert?

Next up – how to use online tools to find out if a topic is a viable niche.

The goal is to build an online business that yields $1000 in revenue a month, with minimal start up costs, overhead, and expenses, in one month.  Other requirements include:  It has to be something I can build and run in my “spare time” since I already have a business, a family and lots of other responsibilites.  Also, no shipping of product.  The money has to come from advertising and product referrals (otherwise known as affiliate marketing).  And the subject can’t be about how to make money on the internet.  And startup expenses (inclusding advertising) can’t be more than $500.   And as I said, at the end of the month, I want it to be generating $1000 in revenue from advertising and affiliate marketing.  And I am going to follow a course or book step by step  – to see if I can do it too.

So up for the challenge – you can comment below or sign up for the email newsletter to stay up to date.

And so I embarked on my great adventure.  Fast forward a year or so.   I had spent way more than a few hundred dollars, I had racked up credit card debt and liquidated my savings.  Sure I was making sales, but except at the holiday season, no where near enough to wind up with $1000 a profit.  I had expanded from t-shirts (which while they made little profit, didn’t require me to store inventory) into carrying other items – I had to pack and ship thing late at night after the kids were in bed, running to the post office or the UPS store during my lunch hour.

By no means had I achieved my dream of being able to quit my full time job and spend more time with my kids. And worse with the money I had thrown into the business, I was even farther away than if I had simply not started a business and put all the money away in the bank.  So much for my mom’s version of the American dream.

But then I got serious and wrote down what I really wanted.  What was most important to me was to be able to spend more time with my kids.   Running a giant mail order business was not necessarily what I wanted.  I didn’t want to spend all of my time packing boxes, keeping track of orders or updating shipping information.  It was hard to sell tweens t-shirts using Cafe Press.  I wasn’t ready to commit to going into wholesale.  I needed a business that would deliver $1000 in month in profit, that would allow me to run it from a computer in mom hours – while the kids were at school, after they were in bed.   Trust me I had learned a lot – from how to get a website build, start a blog, send out an email newsletter, source graphic designers, etc.

So I kept searching and looking.  I needed to stop spending money on PR and pricey display advertising, so I decided to get serious about blogging. I started GirlMogul Magazine, a blog aimed at tween girls…and the response was overwhelming.  Offers for products to review, people wanting to get on the list, interest from advertisers.  And I started to get really into blogging.  All of sudden I was getting a tons more traffic to my site for free.  I developed an e book (a pdf) and using ad words, started to sell that.  All of a sudden my sales shot up.  I added advertising to my site and I made money in my sleep….My e-book was delivered without my touching it.  Woo hoo. I had finally cracked the code of how to make money as a mom without running around packing boxes, shipping $20 orders, and making less than $5 on them.  But guess what happened – the products part of business really took off – once I found a way to get more traffic to my site through blogging, and build my email list using Google Adwords, all parts of my business took off.  From using my blog to gain advertising revenue, to selling my ebooks, to my product sales, the strategies I used, once I got serious about the using the internet to effectively grow my business, helped me acheive my dream.
So that’s what this blog is about – how moms, any mom, with a computer and a desire, can make money on the internet using time honored principles.  I believe blogging, email marketing and some other principles of internet marketing can allow a mom to start a successful business, whether it’s a blog to earn money, an online store, a direct sales business or a service or free lance business.  So join the The Biz Wise Mom and let your dream take wings.