18 STEPS REQUIRED TO BE SUCCESSFUL BLOGGING


Every successful project can be broken down into a series of easy to achieve blocks. Avengers: Endgame is the biggest box office hit of all time, but it too was filmed 1 scene at a time.

Online success is a long term process that can be broken down into 18 easily actionable steps, each with its own outcomes. By implementing each step optimally, success will be inevitable. Not meeting the timetable laid out below will only mean slower growth – that’s all!

A website, blog or channel is line a bamboo tree. For the first 2 years of the bamboo’s life, nothing can be seen. All the growth happens under the soil. Then, one day, magically, the bamboo sends a shoot above the ground and suddenly you can see the tree grow exponentially in front of your eyes.

For the first 3-4 months, do not expect too much from the website or channel. Sure, you may strike it lucky, in which case, please let me know the site or channel name so that I can study your success and improve mine, but in general, you should see a few months with very little feedback, a small trickle, followed by a raging storm. By the end of the 18 steps, you should be able to get 100,000 page views and replace your income.

Compounding truly is the 8th wonder!

Main goals for these action steps

A football player does not worry about the whole match but makes sure that the next action he will take is the best ever. By reducing a match into a series of incremental decisions and steps with clearly defined goals, success is all but assured.

Quick legal disclaimer: This has been placed here to make sure you see it. Straight Fire Life cannot guarantee that every single site/blog/ or channel will be succesful if these steps are followed to the letter. This is not a promise or a guarantee and is provided only as a roadmap that has worked. The action steps, the timeline and the outcomes should only be taken as a benchmark to help min goal setting rather than providing an expectation of success. There are thousands of niche and business ideas, which when combined with personal drive and chemistry or timing means that it is impossible to actually predict how well your business or niche will perform. These action steps have been developed by reverse engineering sites such as Income School and Authority Hacker and incorporate our own experiences and those of friends. Your own niche or business will only work based on your hard work and skill. Not all who start down this journey will succeed and it may take 2-3 tries or more to develop a full understanding of what does and does not work. Only those who put in the time and effort consistently will stand a chance of succeeding.

These action steps work best when using a checklist to confirm that you have taken each step. We do maintain a members’ list who will receive the latest version of this checklist upon registering. If you find that you are half-way the list and you have not yet received any visitors, pop us a message and we will have a look at your site or channel to see where you might be getting stuck.

Action list:

  1. Establish yourself online and claim your stake.
  2. Polish your site and start your social media trickles.
  3. Grind through the unrewarding middle.
  4. Grind some more.
  5. Start pinning!
  6. Review the posts and update.
  7. Review the email list.
  8. Outsource an article.
  9. Try a sales email.
  10. Collaborate!
  11. Prepare your drip campaign and grind some more!
  12. Review and Refine your posts!
  13. Review the drip campaign!
  14. Look for new affiliates.
  15. Grind, grind again.
  16. Launch your course or info product.
  17. Review your sales funnel.
  18. Cruise, rinse and repeat.

Action 1: Establish yourself, claim your corner of the internet

Required Steps:

  • Research your niche idea
  • Develop the initial concept
  • Develop your “brand plan”
  • Develop the “hit list”
  • Study your competition
  • Start your website
  • Reserve you domain name
  • Source a website provider
  • Setup the site with theme, basic header and favicon
  • Design the site, add the categories, build up the menus
  • Write up the legal stuff for the site
  • Write up your basic EAT info
  • Write up your first Resource Page
  • Write up 10 Response Posts, at least, 20 at most
  • Write up 3-5 Staple Posts
  • Add the required Images to the site.

Tangible results:

  • 10-15 posts

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 0 pageviews – maybe a few bots or friends who are curious, but nothing serious.
  • Income: $0

Action 2: Polish up your site, increase visibility via social media and YouTube (if not focusing on a channel only)

Required Steps:

  • Finish the odds and ends on the site, polish the posts already up, add a gear or best practices page
  • Finish the Staple Posts, push 10 Pillar Posts
  • Queue up 10 YouTube videos
  • Start your Pinterest and/or Instagram feeds
  • Prepare your second hit list
    • This list should include focus on the type of posts that would do best
    • Low competition, go for more Response Posts
    • Harder competition – push Pillar Posts you will need them
  • Prepare a lead magnet to get emails from visitors. Dangle it out there.

Tangible results:

  • 30-40 posts
  • 10 videos
  • Lead magnet and email list

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 0 pageviews – maybe a few bots or friends who are curious, but nothing serious.
  • Income: $0

Action 3: Grind through the unrewarding middle

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits. This is to keep the funnel full – maybe you do not feel like publishing on a specific topic. By having many ideas you can always find something of interest
  • Add another 10-20 posts. This is the content churn stage. You have to output about 20 posts per month
  • Develop another 10 YouTube videos. Maybe research a slightly controversial topic. Find a topical news piece if possible and launch a video in that area but in your niche – so if you are doing a gardening website and there is a storm on its way, perhaps have a video on how to prepare the garden for the storm or how to recover from the storm
  • Learn how ads work on a website but do not add them yet

Tangible results:

  • 40-50 posts
  • 20-30 videos

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 75-125 pageviews.
  • Income: $0

Action 4: Keep grinding away

Required Steps:

  • Establish your publishing routine – aim for at least 10 posts a month and 5 videos (1 per week) but aim for 20 posts and 10 videos. The routine should be getting easier and posts should come out faster
  • Research affiliate products and place links on your gear/best practices/resource pages. Amazon seems to give you 3 months for your first 3 sales. Now is a good time to add the links.
  • Place ads on your site (Google/Ezoic)

Tangible results:

  • 50-60 posts
  • 20-30 videos
  • 10-15 pins
  • Your first income from Ads

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 100-150 pageviews
  • Income: $2, if your your Earnings per Thousand Pageviews is around $15 – this is highly dependent on your actual pageviews and niche

Action 5: Start pinning away!

Required Steps:

  • Pin your best articles on Pinterest
  • Join a few platforms such as Quora and Reddit and setup your personal profile. Include a link to your site
  • Provide a couple of quality answers on these platforms – you DO NOT want to get sucked into this type of social media but you do want to catch a few people outside of Google.
  • Churn our your posts and videos

Tangible results:

  • 70-80 posts
  • 30-35 videos
  • 50-70 pins
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 200-250 pageviews –
  • Income: $4

Action 6: Review and update

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Figure out which pages are doing slightly better and study what attracts you to them
  • Update 10 posts with this information and keep track of them
  • Keep publishing 20 posts.
  • Do the same for your pins / Instagram posts / YouTube videos

Tangible results:

  • 90-100 posts
  • 35-50 videos
  • 80-90 pins
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 300 pageviews – it will be hard not to check every single day!
  • Income: $5 – Pizza Day!

Action 7: Review your email list

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Review your mailing list.
    • Do you have 30 names or more?
    • Which lead magnet seemed to work best?
  • Send out a general email to your list and advertise your next blog or YouTube video.

Tangible results:

  • 100+ posts
  • 50+ videos
  • 100+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 750 pageviews – best leave the Analytics for Friday afternoons.
  • Income: $15.00

Action 8: Consider outsourcing

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Spend time on Freelancer, Upwork and similar platforms
  • Pay for 1 outsourced article based on your hit list
  • Check your affiliate income you should have a deal

Tangible results:

  • 110+ posts
  • 55+ videos
  • 110+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 1,000-1,500 pageviews
  • Income: $30.00

Action 9: Email Sales

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Develop a sales page for your affiliate product
  • Trial out 1 affiliate product on your email list.
    • You are testing the open rates
    • You are testing the click though rates
    • You want to refine your Salescopy.

Tangible results:

  • 120+ posts
  • 60+ videos
  • 120+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 3,000 pageviews
  • Income: $60.00

Action 10: Collaboration day!

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Approach a YouTuber in your niche and offer a cross-collaboration
    • Look for someone your own size or slightly larger
    • Stand your ground. You have your audience after all
  • Develop a drip campaign

Tangible results:

  • 130+ posts
  • 65+ videos
  • 130+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 5,000
  • Income: $100.00

Action 11: Drip and grind away some more

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Approach a YouTuber in your niche and offer a cross-collaboration
    • Develop a landing page specifically for this collaboration
  • Develop a drip campaign

Tangible results:

  • 140+ posts
  • 70+ videos
  • 140+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 9,000 pageviews
  • Income: $200.00

Action 12: Review and Refine

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Approach a YouTuber in your niche and offer a cross-collaboration
  • Review the most successful posts and videos. What works for them? Focus on that tone/format/niche area

Tangible results:

  • 150+ posts
  • 75+ videos
  • 150+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 12,000 pageviews
  • Income: $250.00

Action 13: Review the drip campaign

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Review your drip campaign. Is it successful? Tweak as necessary
  • Check your pageview stats
    • Which pages are the most successful?
    • Which new pages are doing great?
  • Add in a topical post or video to capture a current trend

Tangible results:

  • 160+ posts
  • 80+ videos
  • 160+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 28,000 pageviews
  • Income: $750.00

Action 14: Look for new affiliates

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Review your affiliate links.
    • Some will be underperforming – maybe 0 clicks. Figure out why?
      • Luxury product?
      • Bad writing?
      • Poor image?
      • Needs a “How to” post or video?
    • Some programs may offer better rewards
      • Check the conversion rate. A lower cut with a higher conversion rate can be better.

Tangible results:

  • 170+ posts
  • 85+ videos
  • 170+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 35,000 pageviews
  • Income: $1,000.00

Action 15: Grind away some more

Required Steps:

  • Review the progress on your brand plan
  • Research more hits
  • Churn out some content
  • Do a collaboration
  • Run a new email sales campaign
  • Finalize your course or info product

Tangible results:

  • 180+ posts
  • 90+ videos
  • 180+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 45,000 pageviews
  • Income: $1,200

Action 16: Launch your course or info product!

Required Steps:

  • Tweak your course or info product
  • Run it past a few friends to make sure it is 100% polished and then polish it some more until you are sick of it.

Tangible results:

  • 190+ posts
  • 95+ videos
  • 190+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • A course or info product making passive income
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 50,000 pageviews
  • Income: $1,700.00
  • EPMP: This should jump once your course is launched

Action 17: Review your sales funnel

Required Steps:

  • Do a collaboration to advertise your course/info product
  • Do A/B testing on your funnels
  • Improve sales conversion

Tangible results:

  • 200+ posts
  • 100+ videos
  • 200+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • A course or info product making passive income
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 60,000 pageviews
  • Income: $2,000.00

Action 18: Cruise, Rinse and repeat

Required Steps:

  • Review your post/videos that work
  • Publish more of the same type of posts/videos, vary the contents
  • Do a collaboration with someone new
  • Review another channel or blog
  • Work on your course some more
  • Look into new ad suppliers such as adthrive

Tangible results:

  • 210+ posts
  • 105+ videos
  • 210+ pins
  • Mailing list
  • Drip campaign
  • A course or info product making passive income
  • Ads throughout the site
  • Affiliate monetization on your resources pages

Expected Outcomes:

  • Traffic: 100,000 pageviews
  • Income: $4,000+

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