Of the many different reasons why blogs are being created on the internet today, the most common and effective reasoning has to be for business and marketing promotion. With so much interest on content creation and increasing traffic, there is a never-ending supply of business and need for those who have an expertise in marketing and ranking content.
This is exactly what we will be diving into today in the latest edition of Meet the Bloggers, with Kai Davis, who specializes in the art of increasing site traffic and marketing for businesses around the world, while also focusing on not increasing their ad spend and budget in the process. Learn more through his interview below.
1.) Please tell us about yourself and how you got into blogging?
I help freelancers, consultants, and independent business owners get more clients without spending more on marketing (and send out a daily newsletter with tips, tactics, and resources: kaidavis.com/daily)
I got into blogging because it’s a great way to build up a 2-way relationship with readers. I love the communities that have come together through blogging projects.
2.) What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose that niche?
I actually have three separate blogs:
- My primary blog, for freelancers and consultants (KaiDavis.com/articles)
- My blog for authors, software founders, and business owners on how to reach more of their audience through outreach marketing and digital public relations (DoubleYourAudience.com)
- My blog for shopify store owners on how to get more traffic (DoubleYourEcommerce.com)
In each case, I picked that niche through a three-step process (one I often talk about on my mailing list for bootstrappers, bootstrappers.io):
- Identify a small, specific, niche market
- Research that market to identify a significant (“Expensive”) problem that they’re experiencing
- Write articles for that market on how to solve that problem
3.) How are you currently monetizing your blog traffic?
I sell a range of consulting services, books, and video training programs (KaiDavis.com/pricing, DoubleYourAudience.com/pricing, DoubleYourEcommerce.com/collections/all) for each audience, to help them build a better business.
4.) What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started blogging?
The oft-repeated advice of ‘start an email list!’ is honestly the advice you need to be following. Get an opt-in form on your site. Start emailing your list – even if it’s just three people – and get in the habit of writing.
I follow an ’email first’ writing workflow where I write my posts as emails to my list first and then syndicate the article to my blog(s).
The other piece of advice? Most posts are average. If you continually wait until you only have A+ content to hit publish, you’ll publish 1/100th as often as you should be. Better to jam that post button more often and get more engagement and feedback from your readers.
5.) What are three blogs that you visit almost daily?
6.) Can you give us three recommended tools/services that you use with your blogging?
For Keyword and Search Research I use SEMRush.com and love ’em.
For Email Marketing and Automation I use Drip.co (use the link kaidavis.com/loves/drip for an extended trial)
For Content Grammar Checking I use Grammarly.com, an excellent tool for making sure you write good.
7.) What advice would you have for someone who is just starting with their first blog?
Set a goal of publishing 30 posts in 60 days. A post can be 1 word long or 1000 words long. Get into the habit of consistently publishing.
8.) What’s the best advice or tip you’ve discovered about blogging since getting started?
Your email list is your most powerful and valuable asset as a blogger. Focus on converting readers into subscribers.
Here’s an interesting fact: if you look in your Google Analytics, how many pages (on average) does a visitor hit on your site? For me, it’s under 3 pages. Which means for the hundreds of articles I’ve published, people are experiencing… 3.
From that, I drew the lesson that it is in fact excellent and great to republish your best articles to your mailing list, so someone that subscribes gets exposed to your GREAT post from 3 years ago that, otherwise, they would have missed.
9.) If you only had $100 to start a new blog, how would you use it?
- Buy a copy of JustFuckingShip.com by Amy Hoy ($19)
- Set up an affordable and/or cheap hosting account for your blog (the technology doesn’t matter if it’s easy to use) ($10-20/mo)
- Sign up for Mailchimp or Drip.co’s free account to build your subscriber list (Free)
- Block out 4 hours/week to research your target market online. What questions are they asking? Use those to create your content.
You’ll have $30-50 left after that. I suggest investing any remaining money in burritos. 🙂
10.) How can readers of the blog get in touch with you?
The best and only official way of getting in touch with me is to sign up for my DAILY newsletter on how to get more clients for your independent freelancing or consulting business at kaidavis.com/daily. Trust no imposters!
Thanks again Kai for taking the time to share his advice and story with the Blogging Tips community. If you would like to learn about other bloggers and how they are finding success online, be sure to read through our blogger interview series.