In the book, Moore explains the difficulties with a new business and gives many strategies into how to storm the beach and claim part of the market. The book was originally written for the high tech industry, but many of the techniques can be used today when building a business on the Internet.
Blogging has become one of the most useful tools to building a business on the Internet. Several categories of blogging have emerged with rapid growth and excitement in the last few years. The personal finance blogosphere has seen tremendous growth in the past year and is projected to grow at 108% this year.
The growth has brought hundreds of new bloggers per day that are on the way to saturating the blogosphere. The leading bloggers that have been established for several years have a big advantage that will keep most of the new bloggers from gaining substantial ground, which will eventually frustrate many of them that are not willing to invest the time and energy to compete with the leaders. The leaders have several advantages including;
- Solid foundation of original content
- Established relationships with other leading bloggers
- Recognized by the industry as the leader
- Established customer base
- Experience with search Engine optimization
- Experience with supporting services
- Experience with technology
With this in mind, it is going to be very difficult to compete with the leading bloggers. It is going to take an extra effort to cross the blog chasm.
Here is the Strategy
The path to becoming a professional blogger can perhaps be better illustrated by a two step process. The first step is getting established within the blogosphere and the second step is to establish a position of leadership.
Step one (1-2 years)
- Build original content
- Become recognized and respected within the blogging community
- Establish a customer base
- Learn the technologies, supporting services and SEO strategies
Here are some examples of actions to take in step one;
- Post articles with consistency for over one year
- Research/write new and original content
- Write several series of articles
- Market your best articles
- Comment on every other blog that you can find
- Start partnering with other bloggers, like with a link exchange
- Respond to the comments you get
- Participate in many carnivals
- Learn the technologies and the SEO strategies
- Invest in several marketing channels and supporting services
This is an excelling article series about how to get your blog to step one
22 Steps to Get Your Blog to 100,000 Visitors and Beyond
Step two (3-5 years)
- Provide the blogosphere with new unique innovative solutions
- Find new ways to expand and market yourself
- Leverage your blog to market new consulting services and expand your income streams
- Create partnerships to lead to new solutions
Here are some examples of actions to take in step two;
- Start a blog network
- Write an ebook or a real book, by yourself to market your own blog and with other bloggers to leverage the combined marketing effort
- Expand your income streams from 1-2 to 5-10 and start selling direct ads
- Create a new service that helps bloggers
- Market your professional services on your blog
- Collaborate with partnering bloggers to pitch new business idea and services
- Create multiple blogs and direct the traffic between them
- Create unique features on your blog that are not available on other blogs and are difficult to duplicate
Here are a few examples of personal finance bloggers that are taking 'step two' actions:
- ProBlogger – Wrote a book, operates multiple blogs
- Moolonany – Started multiple blog services including, The Money Network, bfbuzz.com, Blogthority, Money Hackers Network
- GetRichSlowly – Started another blog called GetFitSlowly to leverage experience with another topic
- TheSimpleDollar – has written many series of articles with lengthy content
The Finance Blog Network is part of the step two strategy. The complete process of establishing a dominate position on the Internet as a professional blogger is likely to take five years.
Crossing the Internet Chasm by building a business on the Internet is not easy, and a blog is perhaps one of the most useful tools to acheive this goal. If you want to own part of the blogosphere marketplace, than you need to get involved in building it. The part you build will likely be owned and dominated by your solutions.