It happens every day. You hear of a mom blogger that you never knew existed and she is now everywhere and you wonder, now how do I do that?

What does she have that I don’t have?

Marketing online can be quite scary in a sea of thousands upon thousands of blogs and finding where you belong can seem a daunting task. While I don’t know a specific number, I would venture that just as many blogs are abandoned as start up on a daily basis.

A blog, much less a successful blog, can be quite a bit of work.

Here are a few tips to ease the burden and give you some food for thought while creating your blog:

1) Define success: This goes back to when you were a child and your parents asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. Have some goals to define what success is to YOU. For some, that may mean monetization. For others, comments. For still others, contacts and opportunities with companies.  Generally all of those things interact, but you will need to know which is most important to you in order to outline how you will achieve it.

Simply put, you can’t move towards something if you don’t know where you are going.

One thing I caution against, especially as a ‘newbie’, is to define who you are based on your traffic. This is a mistake that PR makes as well. Building up a steady flow of inbound visitors takes links, google love, interesting content, social networking, and time. If you check your statistics every moment, they are very likely to frustrate you and cause you to lose focus. Checking once a week is more than enough to stay on track and gauge your growth.

2) Find your niche (otherwise know as you can’t do it all/be it all): There are moms out there that write books, moms that do speaking engagements, moms that solely work on their blogs, and that is great, but I will tell you this:

You can’t do it all.

You can try, but you will either:

a) fail

or

b) be stressed, overwhelmed, or family-less

My dad always told me to never order a burger at the taco joint. Why? Because it just wont be as good as it is at the burger joint. The point is to find what YOU are good at it and stand out in that area. If you see a successful cooking blog, don’t create a knock off cooking blog thinking you can emulate the success of that person. Your heart must be into whatever you bring to the table.

Success for the sake of success will ultimately leave you unhappy and unfulfilled.

3) Your visitors should know what to expect: Having consistent online writing schedule lets your returning visitors know what to expect from you. Do you publish MEMEs on monday, content on Thursday, contests on the weekends? Whatever you do, try to create an expected schedule that proves to your visitors that you are an active blogger with content. If you sporadically post, you will receive sporadic traffic.  Bloggers should try to post at least once a  day, but I strongly encourage more than once a day when you are just starting out.

Additionally, don’t get so caught up twittering, facebooking, myspacing, and marketing that you fail what sent you there in the first place: Your blog.

You can be a heck of an advertiser, but if people show up and there is nothing for them to look at, then you’re the cat chasing its tail.

4) Don’t try to be someone else: This is one of the biggest mistakes I see newbie bloggers make online. You see someone creating an empire and you think, “I want to be THEM”. In my opinion that’s the surest way to get on the wrong track. Its OK to admire someone, enjoy their site, or watch for tips on what makes them so successful, but trying to copy someone is tacky and will prove pointless.

You are not Dooce.

You are not Kim.

You are not Cat.

You are not Me.

You are YOU.

So shine at it.

5) Don’t spread yourself too thin: There is a lot you can do online-but it doesn’t mean you should do it. Once you get into the blogosphere, you realize that social networking can really take it out of you. So can reviews, giveaways, marketing, blogging, interacting, twitter parties, blog carnivals, digging, stumbling, technorating- get my point?

I also discourage new bloggers from opening 6 blogs. Or 5 blogs. Or even 2 blogs. Find a blog, stick with that blog, and grow that blog. To put time and effort into 2 sites online that are brand new, with an exception of a few special people, will generally end badly.

Think two sites with little growth.

In my opinion, its much better to concentrate and learn from one blog before deciding if you need two.

6) Be realistic: While I strongly encourage goals and am a firm believer that nothing is unachievable, be realistic.

1.2 million visitors in 30 days isn’t going to happen unless you’re on Oprah.

7) It takes Time: Longevity and perseverance are a bloggers best friend. While there can be short term success and even viral rewards, to gain a long standing and interested audience takes time. Think of your blog visitors like friends. You don’t just rush into a slumber party with someone you met at the park.

Make sure you realize that having a blog is a TWO WAY relationship. You go out for coffee, then lunch, then dinner, maybe a movie, then before you know it you are out at the club drinking a margarita!

MomDot has been open a year and a half and we average from 40-100K visitors a month. Its a big wide spread and I never get ‘comfortable’ with my stats. I also dont put too much stock into them. Instead, I always look at ways to interact and use the ups and downs in my stats to indicate where I am going right and where I am going wrong.

Get to know your readers, respond to them in the comments, visit their blogs if you can, engage in online meetups amongst other bloggers-all of this takes time and is not done overnight.

8 ) Give something back- Your blog will start to advertise yourself via Word of Mouth (the best advertising possible!), if you consistently give back. Now I don’t mean start up a charity and become the Mother Teresa of bloggers. I mean provide something that gives back to your visitors. Create content that is useful, share knowledge, guide those that have questions, provide a skill, a laugh, a tip.

Don’t be a blog snob. Every person has something to offer if you take the time to talk to them. There are plenty of women online that wont talk to you if you don’t fall in their crowd. Don’t be that person.

Considering that blogging is a relationship with your readers, there is nothing worse than an unreachable blogger.

9) Find your tribe- Being an online leader takes time, patience, and oh, time. It also takes creativity, personality, and time.

Did I say time?

For those that cannot lead, you don’t exactly need to follow, but you do need to belong. Find a crowd that shares your same visions and goals and gives you feedback on your site. There are hoards of online forums, NING sites, chat rooms, and social networking opps for you to research. Over on MomDot (Kim and I) run a very fast, very popular, and very fun online blog forum community specifically for mom bloggers. The biggest thing we make sure is that all users that register are an active part of who we are. We don’t allow people to join and only read or join and never come back. One thing you get when you join are friendships. The biggest thing you have to do when you pick a place to set up camp, is put as much into it as you want to get out of it.

Having a strong community around you will allow you learn from others and grow your own brand at the same time.

10) Individualize- There are two things that will sink your ship online quite quickly.

One is zero original content and the other is zero originality.

Your blog, much like your clothing, is a reflection of what you are putting out first. Its the impression they have of you when they surf in. Don’t be afraid to ask others what kind of impression your blog gives.

• Is it friendly?
• Easy to read?
• Does it entice your visitors to stay longer?
• How is the load time?

Take the criticism and then ultimately decide what works for you.

One of my biggest pet peeves is to visit a blog that looks like everyone elses blog. While not everyone can afford to hire someone to create a blog, if this is your craft, your goal, your dream, its important for you to start learning a little CSS and HTML. The most memorable blogs I have seen have been custom designed or tweaked for the bloggers usage.

A cookie cutter out of the basket template that has had a few color changes and a graphic splattered on the top isn’t the best way to stand OUT from the crowd.

My advice is to find features on a variety of templates that you like, open up a test blog with some fake content and start working on combining templates for your usage.

Content is only part of the equation. Adding real life pictures, quotes, quirks that are YOU and only YOU is what fundamentally paves your road to success.

~Trisha