Under Creative Commons license
After you’ve chosen your theme (see our previous post on how to choose a theme), it’s time to start writing. There is no better (or cheaper!) way of getting your thoughts down and beginning to build a following than by blogging them.
So why start your investment newsletter business by blogging (free) rather than publishing a newsletter (makes money)?
Blogging allows you to:
- focus the content model: it’s free, gosh darnit — consumers of free content are a lot more forgiving of mistakes and changes when they receive valuable information for free.
- get immediate feedback from readers/subscribers: the blogging medium allows a direct channel to readers to poll them for their thoughts and opinions on the value you’re providing them. Don’t worry — you won’t even have to ask. Blog readers will give you more feedback than you want sometimes.
- begin building a following: When things are free, it’s a lot easier to get people to read them. Through openly, free content on your blog and a strong theme behind your writing and analysis, people will start reading your content. As you grow your userbase, figure a percentage of those will convert to paying customers. You’ve just built your own sales funnel. Read about what we’ve written about marketing and sales on the Internet.
Which blog platform to use
I recommend using WordPress.com initially. Why?
- it’s free: it’s hard to beat ‘free’. Google’s Blogger system is also free as is WordPress big sister, WordPress.org.
- pros and cons of WordPress.com: The .com and .org platforms are essentially the same content management software powering the two different systems but the .com is already hosted by WordPress. That means you don’t need to go out and find a hosting platform. The downside is that on the .com system you cannot run advertisements, have few options to hack it to make it look the way you want, and have fewer widget plugins for added functionality.
- content structured to show up high in Google: You’ll see quickly that Google begins to start sending you traffic. The more you write, the longer you do so, and with greater frequency — Google traffic will start ramping. WordPress.com does a tremendously good job at structuring your posts for best visibility in Google. Make sure you fill in all of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) field on every post. It just flat out works.
Spread a wide net
Contribute content to sites like SeekingAlpha which aggregate financial blog content. SeekingAlpha cleans up the content and runs it through an editorial filter. They then syndicate your content out to sites like Yahoo Finance, E*Trade, Reuters and Marketwatch. Read SA’s editorial guidelines here.
So, you start a blog, submit your first post to SeekingAlpha and next thing you know, you’re blog post has made its way onto the 800 lb gorilla of online finance, Yahoo. As your readership grows, you’ll begin to see how to best monetize your newsletter business.
Pretty cool.
Check out our previous installment, How to start an investment newsletter: picking a theme. Sign up to subscribe to New Rules of Investing today.
