For once in this blog’s history, I might not go over 2,000 words in this post!
That’s right, I have a very concise (but incredibly useful) tip for you today on how you can write for 50,000 subscribers on a regular basis, even if you have a brand new blog!
How?!
More importantly, will this strategy actually work?
Both of these questions get addressed in the post, so let’s do this!
Writing For 50,000 Subscribers… With A Brand New Blog
Now, before you go calling me a liar, I’m not revealing a strategy on how to get 50,000 subscribers for a brand new blog in only a few weeks time.
That’s going to take (without exception):
- Lots of great writing
- Lots of great guest posts
- Time
However, there is a way to write for 50,000 readers on a regular basis, and grow your own email list at the same time.
The best part is that it takes the completely basic strategy of guest blogging and just kicks it up a notch.
Will it work?
Well, I’m going to be trying it for the first time in my blogging career, so you’ll get to see first hand!
What I’ll Be Doing
Essentially, I’ve become a regular column writer for two blogs I really enjoy, DailyBlogTips and the BufferApp blog.
Basically, Daniel of DailyBlogTips, and Leo from the BufferApp team, both contacted me about being a regular contributor.
I was initially approached by Daniel after my guest post on the 3 ways to be a better affiliate marketer got a compliment and a tweet from Pat Flynn (I used him as an example).
This lead to Daniel checking out my work, and he informed me that he liked what he saw.
Because I liked this idea so much, I decided to approach Leo of the BufferApp team with the same proposal, since I had just submitted two guest posts.
Leo emailed me back almost the next day with my author account!
The best part is, I not only enjoy both of these blogs, but they are also serious contenders when it comes to their reach.
I don’t know specific data about the BufferApp blog, but it’s very popular (150+ average tweets on each article) due to it’s social media content and overall quality (which is why I decided to contribute).
Daniel was nice enough to provide me with these stats about the DailyBlogTips readership:
- Roughly ~50,000 RSS & Email subscribers
- Roughly ~ 400,000 pageviews a month
- 15,000+ followers on Twitter
Point being, both are excellent blogs with some serious reach, and I’ll be a regular contributor for both.
…And You Get To Watch
Hey, don’t be gross… 
Fact is, I’ve never tried being a regular columnist as a promotional strategy for a new blog, I’ve always stuck with “regular” guest posting and it’s worked well for me.
In fact, so far it’s worked really well for this blog!
I zoomed past my first 100 subscribers within the first week and a half (guest posts galore, and two great interviews helped with this greatly) and my unique visitors have been going up and haven’t dropped single day since I’ve started focusing on this blog.
But as a regular contributor, I (and you) get to see how this will work first hand.
I’ll be keeping track of the data of my contributions to I can report back to you on whether or not this is a viable strategy, and if it is, how well it really works to regularly contribute to a few related blogs.
How Can You Pursue This Strategy?
If you want to try something like this for your blog, pick a few blogs you really love in your niche.
Then, start guest posting for them.
And I mean awesome guest posts, posts so good that you want to keep them for your own blog.
If you notice that the blog is typically only ran by one person, they will more than likely be interested in decreasing their workload with a regular contributor they know writes quality posts.
That could be you!
Generally speaking, it’s a good deal for both of you.
The author gets free posts of an awesome quality.
You get regular new visitors, exposure, and backlinks from a respectable blog in your niche.
Definitely something worth trying out.
My Million Dollar Blog
Sophistefunk has been doing well in the Million Dollar Blog Project, but I need to concentrate more effort on the site.
This means stuff is getting done within the next couple of weeks.
Coming up:
- Custom email opt-in for the sidebar and footer (why don’t I have this already, d’oh!).
- More interviews and “out of the ordinary” posts, I need to start amping the content creation up a notch, I feel like I’m becoming too “generic” of a electronic music blog. Generic = dead in the blogging world.
- A/B testing: I need to see what really converts. Just because I have a music blog, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take conversions and web analytics seriously, and that goes for your blog as well, no matter the topic.
Basically, it’s time to put in work, and I expect to see traffic go to an all-time high this month, come hell or high water!
What’s Next For Sparring Mind…
Oh man, I’ve got some great posts coming up, I’m really excited to get to them starting this week (had to take a break for turkey day and family last week, sorry for the lack of posts!).
Just a few posts that come to mind…
- Interview that reveals how the BufferApp team got 80,000 users in only a few months
- Post that covers web design on a “starving artists” budget, top to bottom (including a new tool from Brian Gardner!)
- A article that covers 5 ways to use psychology (with proven studies) to build a better blog, includes a fresh serving of real science!
- A giant interview combo that reveals how to be a guest posting god… or goddess!
Yeah, it’s going to be a fun month.
In the mean time, connect with me on my Google+ profile (I was told all the cool kids have one) and I’ll update you on the next post!
Over To You
What do you think about being a regular contributor to a few select blogs as a growth strategy?
What are some of the possible strengths of this method?
What could be some potential weaknesses?
of Sparring Mind, the behavioral psychology blog with over 100,000+ awesome readers and a highly popular newsletter.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Greg ,
This is pretty cool, I totally agree with what Daniel have told you in that comment on your post, and Leo is cool, both blogs are great!
So strange that I’ve been thinking of getting you on board, but what to do, you became a very busy guy now
Keep up the great work!
Thanks Hesham!
I’ll always have time for FamousBloggers! I’ll keep submitting guest posts and if you ever want to talk about me posting more consistently, just shoot over an email!
Thanks for the continued support.
The potential weaknesses for guest posting would obviously be: 1. Your blog suffers because all your best posts are elsewhere. You have to be true to yourself. Your subscribers (on your own site) are looking for the best of you. Guest posting mania means ‘you’ are scattered elsewhere. 2. It’s not really a good investment of your time. You can potentially burn out with all the stress of the extra non-paid work. 3. Your potential ad revenue goes to someone else – not you. 4. You could lose subscribers here while you’re elsewhere answering comments on the others’ blogs, doing research for their articles and adding great material there.
The advantages of guest posting have all been done to death so I won’t go into it.
Hey Anne, really good points. The quality & time thing is something that I’ve been thinking about, but luckily I’m not under any sort of “contract” for this stuff, so I have a very flexible posting schedule.
The other thing I considered was getting “promoted” to the same audience over and over, how well will that convert after a few posts?
Will people begin to recognize me on these two sites more often and be more inclined to visit my site?
Or will the people who want to check me out do so within the first few posts, leaving my next posts as somewhat useless in terms of new visits?
We’ll see!
I was recently considering regular guest posting with a big blog (as I had received an offer much like yours), but I just don’t have the time to commit to it. I’ll be really interested to see how this works for you! Awesome work Greg.
Also, the stuff you’ve got planned for Sparring Mind sounds really exciting too
Thanks Tom!
You’re posting on WPMU was a semi-inspiration, I though maybe some unpaid work on related blogs on a consistent basis might be a more cost-effective use of my time over traditional guest posting (although I won’t be stopping my regular guest posting).
I’m going to see where this “regular contributor” strategy takes me, and I’ll adjust from there.
Thanks for the continued support and I look forward to more of your posts!
Greg, I feel like I see your face everywhere now.
But that’s okay, because whether it’s here or in guest posts or in comments, you always have something incredibly valuable to say. Twice now I’ve been insanely impressed with your articles on Buffer, and I was excited to see that you’ll be posting there frequently.
One of my fellow bloggers for the QLP blog is a regular contributor for a geek pop culture site. I know that we’ve seen lots of new traffic from the site, but as it’s not in our same niche, I don’t know how much is translated into conversions. But at the very least, we have a fresh batch of readers and it’s a nice break to write outside of our marketing umbrella now and then.
I’m excited to see what you have planned for Sparring Mind, so I’m going to go sign up for your e-mail list now.
Thanks Mandy!
That’s really interesting about that regular contributor blogger that you know… it’s definitely something I’m new too so tracking the data will be interesting.
Right now I’m trying to decide whether a more focused group of blogs to guest post is better or if the “spray and pray” method of hitting every blog in your niche is better… I guess we’ll see!
Thanks for joining the list, I’m really glad you’ve enjoyed the content over here thus far!
Dude, you’re killing it! Congrats on all the success you’re having with the blog. Inspired me to work a lot harder, especially to write more.
I’m trying to write at least 5 blog posts a week between my two blogs, and if you can write millions of guest posts a week, I can do some too. ;-D
Thanks Alex, glad to see you over here!
Doing my best to write a ton, I just remind myself of the work I could be doing (I used to do construction back in highschool) and that whips me back into work mode anytime I don’t feel like writing, haha!
Good luck with LifeNotion my man, I know you’re gonna kill it.
The strategy of being a regular contributor to popular blogs you love, does really work. I have a fairly young blog and am getting to learn so much on how to better my blog. However, one thing I have noticed is that it is important to give away the very thing you want. All the best with your plans for Sparring Mind! I am borrowing very good ideas from you!
Thanks so much for the kind words Veehcirra, glad you are able to take away some value from my posts. =)
I do believe guest-blogging is the most powerful tool out there to move traffic quickly. I found out that a Google search isn’t the best way to find the biggest blogs in my niche.. The bots don’t do a good enough job. Alltop is probably the best tool to find A+ bloggers to pitch. Jon Marrow does an entire course on this, and I’m starting to see results.
Most definitely! I’m going to have a big post coming up on that subject alone, it’s definitely worth it’s own post (in fact, it’s worth many posts!)
I couldn’t agree more. Guest posting is very powerful and I’m sure you’re seeing the proof.
I recently purchased Jon’s course. It’s very good.
Greg, I can’t wait to read your post on guest posting. I know it’s going to be amazing!
Jared
I think it’s an excellent growth strategy! On the few occasions that I’ve written guest posts, it’s always attracted a fair number of email sign-ups to my own blog with emails/replies mentioning that they enjoyed my guest article. (Problem here is I don’t do it nearly enough).
These are some great ideas, but first, as you already mentioned, you need to write very good content and for this you need very god writing skills … which many of us, including me, lack.
Maybe in time I’ll be putting some of your ideas to test, thanks