Posted: 5:30 pm by tom in
Blog,
Marketing
There is no better way to gain huge exposure than to publicize a personal mission through your website. People love to follow the goals and journeys of others, especially if they are successful. The reasoning behind this is very simple:
If you are achieving a huge personal goal then people with the same goal will want to see how you are doing it.
People are obsessed with success. Even if they personally don’t care about the goals you are setting they will check back just to watch you get famous.
What else could explain the wave of ‘how I’m making money online’ blogs? Many of these websites don’t write particularly original or interesting content, yet they become hugely success. Why? Well in this case most people are obsessed with making money online. If they see you doing reasonably well they will check your website frequently and often attempt to copy you. Subsequently you will make more money, and in doing this will drive more visitors to your website, and so on…
This is an example of the perfect Catch 22. You’re effectively making money through making money, the more successful you are, the more money you will make.
Just look at John Chow’s Blog. A few months ago Ben Cook wrote quite a scathing but honest account of John ‘reaching his peak’. The article basically said how now that John was rich he wasn’t showing the same passion for his blog, employing guest bloggers and writing irrelevant content a lot of the time. However, my point is that this hasn’t seemed to effect him negatively, if anything it’s only made him more successful! By focusing on money more than content John may be neglecting his readers, but he is gaining more exposure as an Internet mogul and becoming more reputable by the day. His earnings reports show this - increasing his blog revenue every month.
A few other notable examples are:
The Million Dollar Homepage - Alex Tew grew his idea of making a million dollars by selling a million pixels to become one of the most popular websites on the internet. Whilst many viewed this as an annoying fad I’m sure Alex’s bank account isn’t complaining!
Fat Man Unleashed - This website is run by a man named Israel who blogs his journey to lose weight. A very simple concept, but he’s been able to target a highly profitable niche of wanna-be-weight-losers.
The Blogging Experiment - A great example of the ‘how I make money’ blog. Ben Cook set himself the goal of going from $0 blog income to being able to quit his day job within the space of a year, and so far he’s doing fantastically well, earning thousands each month and achieving internet fame.
Now, whilst it is unlikely that you will reach the success of these websites it IS possible. I’ve compiled the following tips to give you huge exposure through marketing your personal mission:
Your journey must interest people, it’s no good doing something that is only going to interest a very small number of people. Look at the above examples, they focus on making money and weight loss - both have HUGE market potential.
You must set yourself apart from the crowd. Because of how profitable this form of marketing is there are countless websites trying to do just what you are. You must come up with an idea that is either completely unique or puts a unique twist on a successful existing concept. The Blogging Experiment puts a successful twist on websites like John Chow by following a man from nothing to success every step of the way.
You must care about your goal, and follow it through. These two points really go hand in hand as you won’t put your all into completely your personal mission unless you really care about it. Similarly people won’t care about reading your accounts if you don’t sound passionate and interested. If you aren’t obsessed with getting rich don’t write a blog about it. Try to come up with something that effects your life in a big way. A few ideas that spring to mind are: Losing weight, getting a girlfriend, losing your virginity, quitting something (alcohol or cigarettes), getting promoted in your job. None of these ideas apply to my life, but I’m sure that if done correctly they could get a huge amount of exposure.
Blog about your journey every step of the way. Your visitors will want to know every aspect of your journey, good and bad (don’t post too much negative stuff on a make money blog though). If you’re trying to lose weight and you put on a few pounds one week then write a passionate, angry post about your personal failure and set new goals for the following week. Use your failures as well as your successes to your advantage.
Give people an easy way to monitor your success. Don’t rely on visitors to browse through your old blog posts to gauge your success. Instead try posting monthly figures on your homepage so that they can instantly see your progress. You can be creative with this. For example if I was the webmaster of Fat Man Unleashed I would have a photo montage on the homepage that faded from week to week to show my transformation. It’s important with personal missions to set a time-scale for achieving your goals. Your visitors will want to be able to measure how well you are doing.
Brand your personal mission. It’s no good just posting about your success if you don’t create a memorable brand to accompany it. Consider having a header for your website created with a custom piece of artwork to instantly portray your goal. This will stick in people’s minds a lot more than your average boring website header. Play on your personality through your writing… If you’re lazy highlight this in a humorous way, but also show how you overcome this flaw.
So there you have it, my guide to gain unlimited exposure through marketing your personal mission correctly. This is a truly great way to promote yourself and your website. At very least you will be showing yourself as a driven, goal-orientated person. To sum up:
Promote an interesting journey that will appeal to the masses.
Write with passion and enthusiasm, and write very regularly!
Brand yourself and your mission - set yourself apart from the crowd.
Don’t make people look for your success. Make it clear to any visitors to your homepage what you are doing, how long you are doing it for and how success you are.
As always I would really appreciate feedback on this article and any ideas that you make have used in promoting your personal mission.
Another great post Tom
Thanks Kieran, was it you who Dugg it by any chance?
It actually wasn’t, no!
I just dugg though.
hah thankyou
this is a very interesting info. can you give some advice how to improve my site ranking:
http://www.elalmoving.com
Thanks, if you would like a public review I’d be happy to give you detailed opinions/pointers to help with your site. Alternatively I’ll provide the same advice privately for free.
Best Wishes.