Military Financial Independence

This is the third part of a series. You can read the second part of blogging advice here and the first section of blogging advice here.

By now you’ve begun to pick up on my hints that the top priority of successful blogging is regular doses of quality content. No tricks, no shortcuts, no magic software or plug-ins: just a few solid years of writing… mostly for no salary. However, while you’re building your audience, you can hone your craft and add productivity tricks. I’ll start with my favorites, and you can add your own in the comments. Gosh, maybe this series will run for a fourth week. I’m still building my list of WordPress plug-ins with advertising & affiliate tools for this site’s upcoming move to its own host.

Your post template and checklist

Around my 10^th post I noticed that I tend to do the same actions with every post. I need to highlight the text with bold and italics, I need to break up the format with headers, and I need to add links. Eventually I developed a template that I use for every post. I don’t follow every step every time, but it reminds me of all the features in my style. I compose a post in a word processor, but I start every post in WordPress’ software with my template and then add in the post text. There’s probably a plug-in that does this, but I haven’t looked for it. If you want a copy of my template (just an embarrassingly simple and short checklist) then e-mail me or use the “Contact me” box. I’ll send you the HTML file to adapt to your own blogger software.

“Start here” page

If you’re blogging about a process (“Here’s how to achieve financial independence”) then new readers will want to start with that before they read your advanced techniques (or your latest sea story). One of the main pages of your blog should entice new readers to “**Start here!**” You can include all the details of the process, with links to the pertinent blog posts or pages. Other blogs put this information in the sidebar as a blogroll series of links. “10 steps to military retirement” might link to a page of just the 10 steps. However, that phrase (and its link) can be the header of a blogroll section that includes links underneath (“Step 1“, “Step 2“, “Step 3“…), to each individual post or specific list of actions.

Of course you’ll eventually add other main pages to your blog like “Contact me”, “For the media”, “FAQ”, “Guidelines for guest posts”, “Embarrassing photos”, or whatever you think will keep your readers coming back for more.

Landing page

Some readers are annoyed by a blog’s static landing page (the blog’s first page) that exhorts you to sign up for the blog with your e-mail address. However, you could make a separate website of just the static landing page and link to the blog from there. Readers would see the static page and make the subscription decision. From then on they could go directly to the blog’s URL, use a blog reader, or just read the posts in e-mail.

The real advantage of a static landing page on a website is that you can optimize it for SEO with a descriptive URL like “Top-military-financial-independence-advice.com”. A personal-finance blogger used this technique to become ranked by Google as his state’s top financial advisor.

Podcasts, videos, and other referral sites

Social networking doesn’t stop at Facebook and Twitter. One of the Internet’s top personal-finance bloggers gets most of his new traffic from YouTube, where he posts podcasts and videos of his blog material. Bloggers can produce audio & video for very little expense and moderate effort, but most bloggers just feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there in a different format.

If you’re going to grow your blog for a huge (and profitable) audience, then I’d suggest that you should strongly consider adding podcasts & videos.

If you’re a photo blogger then you may be linking your blog from popular photo-sharing sites like Flickr or Picasa. One of the Internet’s biggest referral sites is now Pinterest, bigger than LinkedIn and Google+ combined. (If your audience includes testosterone-poisoned guys, then use MANteresting.com.) Try different types of social-networking sites (and different media) to attract new readers to your blog.

Use a calendar

You’re already keeping a list of topics that you want to blog about. (My list grows faster than I can turn the topics into posts.) Consider linking that list to a calendar of seasonal topics: religious or federal holidays, patriotic holidays, institutional anniversaries (like the submarine force’s birthday), special events like “America Saves Week”, or even tax season. After you’ve cycled through the calendar you’ll have a few dozen posts ready for annual re-use. You could offer them to other bloggers as guest posts or update them for your own blog.

Use other templates

Hopefully your topic list already inspires you. However, one day you might feel as if you’re writing about the same ol’ topics in the same ol’ format. Before that happens, try Kim Roach’s list of 17 copy-and-paste blog post templates. Even if you’re writing about the same ol’ topics, they won’t sound the same as last year’s posts.

If all else fails you can use your own 18^th template: “What I’m reading now“. It’s a compendium of website links or a book review or a list of recommended reading. Many bloggers do this near the end of the workweek so that their readers have the weekend to dig more deeply into the subjects.

If you’re running a forum with your blog, or frequently linking to someone else’s discussion board, then you can start a topic on your blog. Next you can invite your readers to join the conversation in your comments or on the forum.

Start a movement

Most blog post are supposed to include a “call for action“. What do you want your readers to do now? You’ve inspired them to leap out of their chairs and start… what? Go… where?

It might be as simple as motivating us to write for 20 minutes a day. Maybe you’ll remind us to exercise, even if it’s just taking a walk. Perhaps we’ll set up an automatic payroll deduction to a savings account, or get started on our tax returns.

Jeff Rose of Good Financial Cents is starting a Roth IRA movement to remind young investors to open Roth IRA accounts and maximize their contributions. He announced it in early March and gave us three weeks to write our own blog posts. Over 100 bloggers are going to hit the Internet with our movement on Tuesday 27 March. Frankly he’s doing most of the publicity for me, and all I have to do is keep retweeting it!

Post your numbers

Be ready to share with your readers. Everyone expects a new blog to have very few hits and few readers, so you have nothing to lose and nothing to be embarrassed about. As your blog grows, your numbers will improve. Sharing the excitement of that growth will feed back upon itself. You don’t have to report your statistics with every post, but you could include a widget showing total hits (or total spam). Other plug-ins can show how many hits you had last month.

Share your other progress, too. If you’re blogging about debt, then show how much progress you’ve made on eliminating yours. If you’re blogging about personal finance then be ready to discuss how your net worth is growing. If you’re an investor then you’d better be ready to present your track record, maybe even with scans of your tax returns. If you’re blogging for income then share how much you made last month, where you made it, your latest trends, and what you’re doing about it. You should most definitely blog about your failures– or someone else will.

Of course sharing your numbers enhances your credibility. It also helps you set your quarterly and annual goals. And, like telling everyone that you’re on a diet and working out, it forces you to stick to your commitments.

Freebies & contests

When you choose to earn money from your blog, some of it will come from Google AdSense. Some will come from keywords or display advertising. Some of it will come from your readers clicking on your affiliate links to buy products from your partners. Advertisers may also prefer to compensate you with free product samples or discounts on their services.

Share the wealth. Pass a percentage of your income to your readers. You can give them all of your samples. Running contests and giveaways will bring more readers to your site, which will enable you to earn even more ad revenue and to charge more for your display ads.

Custom themes and plug-ins

Nobody should have to program CSS to run their blogs. Heck, most of us snivel about having to tweak the occasional HTML format. However, an entire cottage industry has sprung up around creating blog themes and plug-ins, and the choices are overwhelming.

When you start your blog, go with a simple (free) theme. You don’t even need widgets or plug-ins. Avoid the paralysis of analysis of all the choices– later on you can switch your theme as often as you change your socks, and 99% of your blog posts will convert over without a hiccup.

When you someday break free of WordPress or Google hosting and take your blog out to its own service, you will want a robust and complex theme that allows you the flexibility to customize and automate as much of your blog as possible. You might want to earn piles of money, but you also want to work as efficiently as possible. You can see what you get for free with this blog’s WordPress “Twenty Ten” theme, but by 2012 it’s beginning to look a little… old. Take a look at an example of the Thesis theme (which costs money) or see how you can run wild with (buying) other custom plug-ins on Pat Flynn’s blog. You’ll also notice that both of those guys get discounted services and affiliate income from sharing the products that help them.

Take a (short) break

Believe it or not, you might eventually burn out on your blogging routine. (I’m still skeptical about it happening to me, but I’ve seen it happen to others.) It’s perfectly OK to take a break. Maybe you’ve had an exceptionally productive week, you’re several posts ahead in your schedule hopper, and you can just walk away from the blog for a few days of longboard surfing. Maybe you have a busy week coming up and you can arrange for a series of guest posts. Maybe you’re just getting a little crispy around the edges, so you update one of your oldest blog posts with a few new sentences and send it back out there. Maybe you’ll even turn on a plug-in that randomly posts… your old posts. (You should probably alert your readers about this step.) When you’re enjoying your time off, think about what you’d change after you return. You might come up with a new blogging schedule, or a new time of day to do your writing, or even a completely new subject for a different blog.

And finally: have an exit strategy!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about volunteering during retirement, it’s to have an exit strategy. (It’s a topic for its own future post.) You don’t actually have to use the exit strategy– you just have to know what it is.

Admit it. Some mornings you wake up with zero inspiration. Other days you’re way too busy with an emerging project or a family crisis. Maybe the surf forecast is better than you’ve ever seen it, and it’s going to be like this all week. Maybe you’re ready to move on to new challenges. Sure, this series of posts has helped you write through the rough spots before– but will you be blogging for the rest of your life?

Someday you may run out of things to say. (Hopefully you’ll notice that before your readers point it out.) As we mature, we change. Military retirement and financial independence have been very important to me for the last 20 years, but I doubt that my credibility will persist for more than another five years. New readers want to learn about a significant life transition from someone who’s recently experienced it, not from a pioneer who belongs in a history book or a dinosaur museum.

I’m giving myself another 18 months. By late 2013 I’ll either be writing the book’s second edition or turning it all over to some military retiree who’s financially independent and doesn’t want a bridge career. (Hopefully I’ve started my movement by then.) I don’t even know if I’m going to actually rewrite the paperback or just put out new chapters in an e-book format.

When I make my decision, I’m going to blog about it. You’ll be able to follow along as I sort through the options– and then either find my relief or sell it to someone else.

Interested? Got a suggestion? Post it below or contact me!

Related articles:
Just write it.
Update to “Just Write It”
“So Nords, how did you start blogging?”
“So Nords, why are you still blogging?”
“So Nords, why are you still blogging?” (Part 2)

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If you’re just joining us from a search engine or another blog, this is the second post in a weekly series on blogging advice. You can find the first part of blogging tips back there a week ago. I’ve written an earlier post on starting a blog, but today I’m going to add more ideas. This is probably going to go slop over into a third post.

Your writing style

Remember how your high-school English composition teacher expected you to write in a certain way? Does your occupation expect a certain writing style from your correspondence or training materials? Kinda painful, isn’t it? For some reason our “professional” writing conforms to someone else’s standards manual– not your style. To get the grade or keep the job, you had to learn to do write in a manner that you otherwise would never do on your own.

Well, now it’s your blog: and your rules. You are your own style manual. You can change it whenever or as often as you want, but your readers will expect you to maintain a consistent & credible style. If you’re snarky, they’ll return for more of it. If you’re dry & formal, they’ll expect a professional level of discourse. If you’re going to write like a rap DJ then you’d better have experience as a rap DJ, or your rap-DJ readers will know you’re faking it.

I recommend that you write the way you speak. Blogging is generally informal and conversational, and you’re sitting around the kitchen table talking story with your readers. They’re coming to your blog to learn, but they’re also coming to be entertained. You want your blog to be a comfortable hangout that they return to again and again– especially if you’re helping them through their struggle to reach a goal.

You’ll probably write in the first person, and that makes it easier to tell your story. Readers come to your blog to learn, but they will not tolerate a lecture.  Instead of telling them what to do, report what someone else did or what other people recommend we should do. Tell them what you did– or better yet, how you were a miserable failure and what you learned from it.

If you’re going to make fun of somebody, then it should probably be you. If you’re going to criticize someone or something, then it should probably be your behavior. Some celebrities (or even readers) are just begging to be mocked, but they (and their fellow bloggers) might have the resources to bring down a hailstorm of negative publicity on you. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, but you probably want to avoid a public name-calling battle that detracts from your blog. (I’m lookin’ at you, Suze Orman.) I’d hate to blow up at someone and later have to offer an apology.

Speaking of apologies, do not apologize for the frequency of your writing. (Sounds like a lecture, doesn’t it?) Do not write things like “I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately, but next month I’ll do more!” It’s your blog, but you’re blogging for your readers. They want your support. If you’re not posting as much as you promised, then your message is that your readers are not important to you. They will immediately retaliate by abandoning you, and they may even mock you on other blogs or discussion boards.

Just share your rules, and then follow them. “A post every day!” is a painful commitment and a setup for quick failure. A posting schedule is good: “Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.” Your blogging software will let you schedule the publication of your posts so that you can write whenever you want. “Twice a week” might fly, but tell your readers to sign up for e-mail or RSS so that they don’t have to keep checking your blog.

When you’re scheduling your posts then you’re not allowed to have a blogging emergency. You should be writing a week (or even two!) ahead of schedule so that you have time to recover from a power outage. If you end up hospitalized or have a family emergency then there’s usually a way to find 15 minutes to post a short explanation and an expected restart date. If you’re going on vacation then you can trot out guest posts or even re-post some of your old material. One well-known blogger has recycled over three years of material for a couple of years, which gave him more time to write a book and start a discussion board.

No matter what happens, tell your readers something. Don’t tell them nothing. 20 years from now, you want to look back on your blogging and know that you did a good job for your readers.

Building your image

We could call this “building your brand”, although I don’t know much about brand marketing. However, your avatar will certainly contribute to your image.

Readers want to know the blogger. They come to your blog for information and advice, and maybe some social networking too, but they really want to know who they’re getting it from. You could be quoting the world’s best personal-finance advice from Nobel laureates, but they can dig that up on Wikipedia or in textbooks. Readers want entertainment and a story with their knowledge, and it’s your job to deliver.

When you create your blog, choose your image with care. You can be anonymous if you’re planning to someday reveal your secret identity, but readers might tire of the suspense. If you’re concealing your ID from your employer or your family then… well, maybe you need to reconsider why you’re blogging– or at least have an exit strategy when you’re discovered. The Internet is full of stories of “anonymous” bloggers who were outed in the most unexpected (and embarrassing) ways.

Choose your image with care, but you can change it later if you change your mind. You’ll change with time, and your readers might appreciate an update. Pick a photo, or take one of yourself, and get started. Put your photo near the “About me” section of your blog, and use the same image for your social networking accounts. Register with websites like WordPress’ Gravatar that will automatically put your image into other Gravatar-equipped blog comments.

I resisted this “getting to know you” step for a long time. I wanted “The Military Guide” to be about contributors & readers reaching their own financial independence in their own way, not just browsing sea stories from a balding ponytailed surfer dude. I wanted to be the narrator in the wings of the onstage action. However, a real no-foolin’ marketing exec (who sold billions of dollars of chips for Intel) finally convinced me to share the stage. It turns out that readers actually want to see that sea-story stuff once in a while, and it’s a valuable way to show people how you’re designing your new life. You build your credibility by sharing your identity, and your story helps readers imagine how to reach their own goals.

So get a picture or an avatar, and use those on all the images associated with your writing.

Guest posts

I love guest posts.

Your first blog post has an audience of… one. (And it’s probably your Mom.) After a month you might have tripled your audience, but as the weeks go on you’ll exert the same level of effort for puny gains (and losses) of a few readers at a time. It’s like reading Shakespeare on the stage of an empty theater: great words, but no audience.

Guest posts give you a free audience, and it’s full of your new readers.

A guest post is an additional blogging burden. Your primary mission is (all together now) regular doses of quality content. Guest posts are extra writing, and you’re just giving some other blogger a paid holiday! But you’re begging for the chance, because you’re writing for a new theater audience that’s full of the people who you want reading your blog (and subscribing to it). It’ll take them a while to find your blog by themselves, but here’s your chance to give an existing audience a free preview. You get one post to make a good impression.

Your guest post should be about the other blog’s content, but with a twist that entices readers to your blog. Other personal finance bloggers are regularly asked about the military, yet over 90% of the PF bloggers have never served. That’s your opening for posts about “Extreme Early Military Retirement“, or “Get Rich Slowly in the Military“, or even “Mr. Military Money Mustache“. Blog about topics for the audience you want to bring to your blog, and make them feel good– servicemembers & veterans love reading about how they have more frugal potential than anyone (because they’re so accustomed to deprivation). Or write about how they have more advantages at seeking employment. Or write about the military advantages that boost retirement planning. Don’t lecture them. Just introduce yourself and invite them over to your place for more info. The rest of the guest blogger audience will politely listen while you’re writing to your targeted new readers, so you can keep it short and sweet.

Before you seek guest posts, accumulate a few months of content on your own blog. You want the host blogger to be reassured that you know how to write and that you have the longevity to partner up with them. You also want them to understand your style (so that they’ll feel comfortable seeing your style on their blog) and to feel motivated to give you a boost.

How do you entice host bloggers to let you guest post? Start by putting their blog in your blog roll, and mention it once in a while. (“I’ve added ‘Budgets are $exy’ to the blogroll.” “It’s Twitter’s Follow Friday, and I’m reading PT Money’s latest.” “Another expert on debt is ‘Punch Debt In The Face’– see their link in my blogroll.”) Keep an eye on your Twitter subscribers and your fan page. If you see their blogs following you, then you know they’ve cast their eye your way and will eventually consider your guest post. Post a comment on their blog (see last week’s post in this series) and then give them a week or two to check out your blog. (Established bloggers are busy enough with their own audience and will need that long just to get around to you.) After that time has passed, use the “Contact me” form on their blog to offer a guest post. Read their guest-post guidelines and suggest a subject.

In the extremely unlikely event that another blogger happens to link to your blog from theirs, then be ready for the opportunity. If you don’t already have their blog in your own blogroll, then consider linking it immediately. Thank them publicly in your next post for mentioning you, and include the link to their blog. In the day after they mentioned you, post a “Thanks!” comment on their blog to let them see your appreciation. (You don’t really need to say more, and don’t be spammy.) If you must say more, then add a compliment like “Your link boosted my traffic 3x!”

The next day, use the “Contact me” utility on their blog to thank them again and mention that you’d love to do a guest post. You could even link to one of your blog’s posts that covers a topic their readers would enjoy but emphasize that you’d write original content on that topic.

When you’re invited to do the guest post, read their guest post guidelines on their blog and do exactly as they say, even if it’s “not your style”. This is an audition, and you need to show that you can follow directions. Your post should introduce you with one sentence, and your post can end with two or three more sentences about you. You also rate one link to your blog. You’re going to e-mail the post to them in HTML format, as thoroughly cut-and-paste ready to go as you can make it, and far enough in advance for them to ask you questions or to request changes. (It’s their blog, and you’ve just given them your post, so they get to have it the way they like it!) The nicer a guest you are, the more likely you’ll be invited back for an encore performance in front of their (bigger) audience.

For the biggest and busiest blogs, you might have to skip the step of offering a guest post. Simply write it and e-mail it. You’ll have to pay close attention to their blog because you’re choosing the subject for them, and you’ll have to execute exactly on their guest-post guidelines. If you do a good job on both of those challenges, the host blogger is presented with a ready-made post that saves them a valuable hour of contacting you to discuss the idea. They’re that much more tempted to accept your cold-call guest post because you’ve made it easy for them!

Discussion boards

Discussion boards are a tough audience. (I helped moderate one.) The moderators get pelted by truckloads of spam and they’re not going to indulge your party-crashing post of “Dudes, check out my blog!” Their guidelines will let you know what you’re allowed to link.

If you’re going to look for readers on discussion boards then you should choose one or two boards that closely match your topic. Register and become a valuable contributor. After you’ve advanced past the “newbie” stage then let the moderators know that you’d like to mention your blog. It’s probably fine to have a link to your blog in your profile, so fill out your profile and build an identity. Your avatar should match your blog so that readers see the same image on your blog, your Twitter account, your Facebook page… you get the idea.

If you patiently contribute regular doses of quality writing to the discussion board (and your blog, and the comments on other blogs, and the guest posts on other blogs, and your social network) then you’ll become a valued contributor. At that point you may be able to form a relationship with the board’s owners and moderators. With their permission, you could solicit the board’s contributions to your blog: stories, “how to” advice, resources for your subject, or just topic suggestions. You can mine a discussion board for a wealth of material, but it works best when your board members feel that they’re getting as much as they’re giving. Give them control over your content, let them tell their stories, and credit them for their contributions.

When you’re writing your blog posts, you’ll be regularly linking back to that discussion board so that your readers will join its community. When you’re posting on the discussion board, the moderators may eventually permit you to link pertinent material to the thread from your blog. (So the posters can start reading your blog.) You’re building a long-term relationship here, so put the time & effort into it. Hit-and-run tactics will just label you as a spammer or, even worse, a troll.

If you’re persistent enough to develop a large audience of commenters on your own blog, then you may end up forming your own discussion board. That’s a self-hosting project that will require its own admin and a moderator team. It’s much easier (for you) to leverage your blog off an existing discussion board than to form your own, but your readers will tell you what they want. If you’re doing a good job then they’ll volunteer their labor to build the discussion board and turn it into a community. If you’re earning revenue from your readers, then you should contribute some of your earnings to hosting the community and helping it grow. Consider it part of your marketing budget.

Support your fellow bloggers

Blogging can be a solitary and very lonely occupation, but you can join a support group.

Blogging is not a zero-sum game. We bloggers can share and leverage. Your readers will read more blogs than just yours, so another blogger’s audience might be happy to read your blog too. Instead of seeing your other bloggers as competition, think of them as future teammates. You’ll have a ready-made social group to share your knowledge on topics, events, advertisers, and other material. You could even coordinate your topics to encourage more readers to join your audience to see your tag-team writing or your potluck treatment of the same topic.

Blogging can also be a family effort. My college daughter regularly contributes her perspectives on my material (in a good way!) and suggests topics. I know another blogger whose spouse provides all the blog maintenance & tech support. Another popular blogger’s spouse has started her own blog… and although she has a very different audience, I suspect that hers might be more profitable.

I’ll try to wrap this series up on the third post, coming up in one week.

Related articles:
“So Nords, why are you still blogging?”
Just write it.
Update to “Just Write It”
“So Nords, how did you start blogging?”

February 2012: 9400 blog hits

Thanks for reading The-Military-Guide.com! I’ve blogged for nearly 18 months, and we just had our second-highest month yet– 9400 hits! Sure, last August was higher because of the book’s release and a guest post on a popular blog. (My hits died right off after that month.) Last month was noteworthy for a solid 300+ hits/day nearly every day. February was less than 30 days and it still beat 9000 hits. Last month also had a guest post in another popular blog, and it looks like you new readers are still hanging around. I’m pretty happy about the solid growth trend. Hits for a blogger are little doses of daily morale booster– please keep it up!

A friend asked for more blogging advice, so I’m going to summarize our correspondence of “advanced blogging tips” that have worked for me. I’ve written an earlier post on starting a blog, but today I’m going to add more ideas. This is probably going to go long enough to fill two separate posts. Or three.  I’ll spread it out over Thursdays so that you can spend the weekends tinkering with your own blog.

Before I start, I’d like to thank The Masked Investor at Life, Investments, & Everything for asking the questions that generated this post. The best way to improve your blogging (and your checklists) is to teach your technique to someone else. He’s helped me clarify my thinking while writing more content. His investment analysis has also helped me pay for quite a few longboards, so if you’re an active investor then subscribe to his blog and appreciate another master of his craft.

First, let me reassure you writers. There are no arcane secrets to this craft. Your blog audience grows from writing content that people want to read. It’s not search-engine optimization or paying for backlinks or keyword stuffing or fancy custom themes or any “Get readers quick!” tricks. It’s regular doses of quality writing. Those two adjectives are both important: “regular” and “quality”.

Of course unless you’re hardwired to write, then those two issues can also be a challenge. You have to figure out how to “Just write it”, or by next year you’re going to be one of those people who used to host a blog.  Nobody else will nag you to write.  Simple as that.

Even if you’re hardwired to write, you have to focus. Write here first before you do your other writing assignments or post to other discussion boards or answer e-mail. Write to your audience. (On this blog it’s nine million servicemembers, veterans, and their families.) Remember why you’re writing (to market the book) and keep tying your writing to that theme (financial independence).

Seems pretty simple. But I’d love to see WordPress’ statistics on how many people start blogging and are still at it a year later. Judging by the constant effort they put into motivational campaigns like “Post A Day”, I’m betting it’s around 10%. Per year. If you’ve blogged for over four years and you’re still hitting your stride, then I’d love to hear from you. You are part of the 0.01%.

Decide how often you’ll post– and then post about it so that the peer pressure keeps you committed to it. Mine is “Financial independence & early retirement for veterans every Monday, Wednesday, & Thursday” at the top right-hand corner of my blog. Use the blog’s “schedule” or “publish” feature to put up your posts at the same times, and let your readers know if you’re going to change the plan. If you’re going to turn out the lights (or turn the blog over to someone else), then warn the readers for several weeks in advance. Readers appreciate the notice.

Need more blogging motivation? Then how about this list of personal finance blogs that have sold for a million bucks? Keep in mind that it’s easier to play professional football in the Super Bowl: there are literally millions of bloggers, the personal-finance genre is immensely popular, and this sales list only has seven entries. But it’s relatively straightforward for us mere mortals to develop a PF blog that brings in $10K per year, a side hustle which will max out your Roth IRA and help you reach financial independence that much quicker.

By the way if you’re willing to spend $10K to BUY a personal finance blog, then please contact me. I’m just as happy to be a contract writer like J.D. Roth as I am to be a blogger entrepreneur.

I probably have over 200 hours of “just” configuration & tweaking into this blog, and infrastructure gets old fast. The good news is that most of it is a one-time setup and there’s little recurring maintenance. The other good news is that you only have to do as much of it as you care to do. Instead of being distracted by the following discussion on blog look & feel, I recommend that you start by blogging regular doses of quality content– and then add one tip per week.

On to the tips.

Readers and subscribers

Here’s your first advanced blogger tip: you have more readers than you think.  Thank goodness.

Blogs count the unique Internet protocol addresses that hit your site (besides yours). Advanced software can tell you where those IP addresses go on your blog, how long they stay, and even where they came from. That’s good information if you’re trying to boost your traffic by being where your readers are.

Ironically, however, your “best” readers probably don’t even come to your blog anymore. They subscribe to it through e-mail or a “really simple syndication” service like Google Reader.

Professional bloggers (the ones trying to earn a lot of money) love e-mail subscribers because you can market to them separately with newsletters, special discounts, and bonus deals. Your e-mail list can’t be taken away from you by a bad server or WordPress glitches or a change in Google’s search ranking. Some blogs have a static landing page (the first page you see on their blog) designed solely to get your e-mail address. Others beg & grovel for it, hopefully in an entertaining yet strangely compelling manner. (All the kewl kids are subscribing to this blog. Try it– it’s fun.  You know you want to. It makes me feel better, too.) I haven’t started e-mail marketing yet so I don’t focus on this niche. For you readers it’s just a convenient way to read the blog.

RSS readers are a “problem” because people tend to read your blog yet not comment on it. (Comments are eye candy for starting your blog’s community.) You can tease your readers by setting your blog feed to only give them the first 100 words, forcing them to click the link to read more. This puts pressure on the blogger to have a compelling lede or to play tricks, and I think it also annoys the heck out of the readers. I want you guys to learn about financial independence, not to enrich me, so you get the whole article in your reader. Of course I hope you go to the blog and post a comment– but it’s really my job to motivate you to do that, isn’t it?

Your blog software has the widgets to offer your readers their choice of subscriptions. Look for the orange RSS button near the top of the right-hand column of my blog, a few inches below the header photo. Click there and your reader should do the rest. Or go to your reader and enter the blog’s Web address for it to figure out the subscription format (this one is “https://the-military-guide.com/feed/“).

Social networking

Your blogger software should enable you to automatically publicize your posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. (That’s your Facebook fan page, not your personal one.) If your blogger software doesn’t do this then you need to find different blogger software.

Depending on your audience, you might even need to publicize your content on places like Google+ and MySpace. Clueless? Ask your readers where they spend their time. Post a poll or request their comments. There’s always advanced hit-tracking software to help you figure out where your readers came from, but you also need to figure out whether your target audience is on those sites in the first place.

You’ll still want to put up other announcements & tweets on social-networking sites, but automate the blog publicity part. Then you can tailor your other social networking to different subjects or current events.

Pinterest is in the news because it’s generating more referral traffic to blogs than LinkedIn and Google+ combined. It appeals to visual learners instead of text readers, and it’s one more way to grab attention. I’ve started my Pinterest account and another on its most manly competitor, MANteresting.com, but I’m way behind on populating them. My “brilliant” marketing plan is to add the book and its recommended reading list. I can show a bunch of surfing photos, too, but beyond that it becomes clear that I’m not much of a visual learner. If you are, please tell me what you’d like to see me pin nail on those boards workbenches.

Commenting on other blogs

Social networking puts you where your readers spend much of their time, but you also want to find new readers. The quickest way to find them is on the other blogs in your field.

The first step is to build your blogroll: your list of other blogs linked from your blog. It’s tedious but it makes it easy for your readers to learn more, and it lets the other bloggers know that you care enough about them to call attention to them. If those other bloggers are intrigued by your content then maybe they’ll mention you or even add you to their blogroll, too, but don’t count on it. Build your own blogroll and don’t worry about theirs.

Your next step is commenting on their blog. Your blog will be linked to the comment: when you draft your comment then their blog software will ask for the URL of your website, and it’ll be linked to your comment’s poster name. Don’t be spammy. Contribute to the conversation. Say something nice, don’t criticize the blog content, and add a new point. “Those are great ideas, and [insert technique here] helped me too. Financial independence is easier if you happen to have a military background, and you can learn more at my blog.” Or once you’ve made your point then you could add a phrase like “… and I discuss that on this post at The-Military-Guide.com”. I usually refer to my post on how many years it takes to reach financial independence because it answers a specific frequent question, and it’s applicable to both military and civilian readers. Many will read it and never return, but statistically 1% of those readers will be part of the military. They’ll look around the rest of the site and, if I’m doing my job, they’ll become another regular reader.

When you comment on these other blogs, don’t pitch your blog with every comment. I mention my blog on other major PF blogs no more frequently than monthly. I may comment more often on their blog (especially if it’s a good discussion) but I won’t link to mine every time. And yes, I keep a regular schedule to make sure that I comment on their blogs monthly. That’s what happens when engineers start writing.

SEO

I’ll put this section next so you’ll stop asking “Eh, where’s the SEO?!?”

The world’s most boring blog title is my concession to search engine optimization. It could’ve been “The Military Guide!” or even “Nords’ Words“. However, I chose to describe the content: “Military Retirement & Financial Independence“. (Not very catchy, huh?) In its defense, it’s working: put any of those three words into Google in any order, with or without quotes, and see what pops up at the first page of millions of hits.

I could blather on for two or three posts about search engines and their features, but you don’t care and it doesn’t significantly affect your mission. Google’s “Panda” algorithm is rumored to have over 200 factors, and they change as people start to manipulate them. It’s an arms race, and you’re outgunned from the start. Believe it or not, the most significant factor is: regular doses of quality writing. If a search bot sees your blog doing its job like clockwork then it figures there’s a real writer at work here.

If you must, you could put your blog title in the text of each blog post. (I did that two paragraphs ago.) Just about every one of my blog posts mentions “achieving financial independence” or “if you have a military retirement“. Every link you include should have descriptive anchor text like “Google Panda algorithm changes” instead of the dreaded generic words “linked here“.  Yes, I know there’s no link there.  Without good anchor text, there might as well not be anything linked at all.

Ranking algorithms even look at factors like the text in the header, or what percentage of keywords are in your blog. You could do this for SEO, and you could buy plenty of software to do it for you. However, the reality is that you’re using headers to break up the text for readers who scan your post, and you do the same with keywords to help them focus on the content. Write for your readers. Let the bot worry about the rest so that you don’t have to.

Wow. 2000 words already. Enough for today, and enjoy your weekend tinkering with this part.  If you want homework, then add a few websites & blogs to your blogroll.  I’ll have more next Thursday!

Related articles:
Just write it.
Update to “Just Write It”
“So Nords, how did you start blogging?”

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