5 Unusual Ways To Grow Your Blog For Five Bucks

First off, let me just say that even the poorest of bloggers probably have five bucks laying around somewhere... I can search my couch cushions and find five dollars, or raid my five year old's piggy bank (I wouldn't really), or if I was really unscrupulous I could stand on a street corner with a sign for about five minutes and come up with a five dollar bill.  The fact that most bloggers have $5 in their bank account makes this list of ways to increase blog traffic or grow readership very appealing.  It's not an overnight sort of thing, but having these resources in your 'almost free' arsenal can help you achieve some of those blogging goals that may have been evading you until now.

You may be asking yourself, what can I buy for $5 that will really help my blog or get me new traffic?  Is she going to try to sell me some junk e-book (have I ever tried to sell you anything?).  No, I haven't.  Let me introduce you to Fiverr if you haven't already met.  It's a marketplace where people sell products, information, or do simple (and sometimes wacky) tasks starting at $5.  The simple fact of the matter is that sometimes as a blogger, there are things we need done that we can't do, or don't know how to do yet.  Whether it's a software impairment or you want something done fast, cheap and right, Fiverr is a great place to have a look around.  Browsing can't hurt, right?

1) Make your presence known on YouTube
As I talked about in #15 on my post about getting more blog traffic, posting video tutorials on Youtube is a great way to bring new eyes to your content and create loyal subscribers.  There's lots of free software out there for making videos or screen captures, but that doesn't mean your video will look appealing to people and get them to watch past the first ten seconds.  Paying $5 for a video intro and or video outro can help make your videos look appealing, and help viewers identify your videos right away when they start to watch.  It's similar to creating brand identity.  Check out the video intro I had made for my Hot Shot Blogger videos on YouTube below.

Also have a look at this video outro for Photoshop Helps purchased on Fiverr.

As with any gig you purchase on Fiverr, take a look at the product, the description of the product, and the rating and reviews of the product and seller before purchasing.  There are some scammers and bad sellers on Fiverr, but for the most part, the ratings and taking a look at the actual product and description will point you towards the good sellers.  If in doubt, you can always message a fiverr seller to ask questions about the product you're thinking about purchasing.  Check out the Video Intro's available on Fiverr here.

2) Purchase Advertising

Advertising for your blog for only $5?  Are you crazy?  Well, maybe just a little, but there's an entire advertising section on Fiverr devoted to helping you advertise your service, business, website, or all three.  Whether you need video testimonials to post on your blog, want a guy to drive around advertising your website on his car during rush hour in Washington DC, need 100 fliers about your site handed out at Harvard, want your message out on the radio, or just want some guy in a hot dog suit to dance around in public singing a song about your site, Fiverr makes it available to you in their advertising section.  You don't just have to advertise your site online (although there are a number of people offering this to you on Fiverr as well).  Think outside the box, and start getting new eyes to your content!

3) Let someone else take care of your graphic design needs

If you don't feel comfortable drawing, don't have Photoshop or the skills to use other graphic software, or just want something that looks polished (and frankly, awesome) then you can hire someone on Fiverr to design your web graphics for you.  You may not realize just how important eye candy and the look and feel of your site can be.  First impressions on new readers are important if you want those readers to come back, so having a good looking banner, a smooth blog design, slick post graphics, an eye catching logo, and even good advertising banners is a big deal.  There are hundreds of graphic designers on Fiverr waiting to draw, design, and create just for you, so why not take advantage of them?  Find someone with a style you like and good reviews, and contact them about a project you'd like them to get started for you.

4) Have someone test your website

Note: You should not give anyone on Fiverr your username or password to let them have access to your blog account.

Sometimes your bounce rate is high and you can't figure out why, or visitors just aren't converting to sales.  Having a fresh pair of eyes look over your site, test loading times, and give you suggestions for improvement might be what you needed to push your site into overdrive and get it working for you again.

5) Get someone to help you fix your website code

Learning to code is just part of learning to blog, but sometimes you make a mistake, or something funky happens with your code and makes everything go wacky.  It also may happen that you need a specific code written into your blog template to make it do what you need it to do.  Hiring someone on Fiverr to help you with your code is a cheap and easy way to take care of your coding problems.  Before you order any gigs for this, you'll want to make sure to send a private message to the seller and talk to them about what you need done and get a guarantee to make sure they can do it for you.

I've shared only five ways in which you can spend $5 on making your blogging dreams a reality, but if you take a good look around Fiverr I'm positive you'll find more ways to use this service to your advantage.

What are some of the ways you use services at Fiverr to help you blog or run your website?  Let us know in a comment below!

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Building Your Blog 204 - The Death Of Your Blog

Welcome to the death of your blog: you.  That's right, I said the death of your blog will be you.  You are your blog's own worst enemy.  It's not the blog down the cyber street that you've been competing with, it's not the search engines that refuse to put you in the #1 spot, it's not the readers that aren't coming to your blog.  This is reality talking, and begging you to listen up, lest your blog die a painful, lonely death.

At this point you might be thinking, 'how can I be the death of my blog?  I made it look sexy and I wrote a bunch of awesome content!  I've even got a few followers.'

Ok, so your blog does look good and you did put up some content, but let me ask you this: are you still actively posting to your blog?  Are you engaging your readers?  Have you left room for your blog to grow?  Truth time.

Death Stage 1) If you're not actively posting to your blog on (at the very least) a weekly basis, then your blog is getting ready to shrivel up and die, and your readers may be getting ready to leave and not come back.  Nobody likes a stagnant blog.  Your readers want to see new content in new ways.  Don't leave them hanging because you got bored with your blog or ran out of steam.  Take the time to learn to come up with awesome content with our article HERE, and how to dominate your time HERE, so that you can keep going strong with your posting.

Death Stage 2) Failure to engage your readers and keep them interested, involved, and invested is a fast way to lose them.  There are lots of strategies you can use to keep them engaged.  Let's look at three of them here:

    - Ask your readers questions at the end of posts in order to get them commenting.  You want your reader to feel invested in the topic by giving their input.  Where a reader is invested, they will want to come back again and again.

   - Keep readers interested with contests, polls, sexy graphics, and a constant stream of new and interesting content.  If a reader feels bored with your blog, they won't be coming back.  You want them to be excited about coming back to your blog on a daily basis to see whats new for them.

    - Give readers the option to share your content with others, in as many ways as possible.  If your blog doesn't have social bookmarking options like the option to share on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc, then it's time to upgrade.  You want your readers to share your content with as many others as possible, and they'll want to share your articles if they're truly awesome.  You're only deterring them from sharing if you don't have the option for them to easily share.

Death Stage 3) Did you build your blog in a box with no room to grow?  This is a problem.  From the start you need to take steps to leave room for your blog to grow.  When one of your posts goes viral you want to have the space for several things, including: hiring more authors, adding new pages, and growing into new topics in your niche area.  Don't forget that you'll want to have room for selling advertising on your blog if you plan on monetizing it, and also have ways for your new readers to follow you in a variety of ways including: Twitter, Facebook, and feeds.

Death Stage 4) Giving up.  Too many bloggers get discouraged when their blog doesn't become an instant hit or they're not making the big money they thought they would.  If there's one lesson I've learned in my blogging career, it's been not to give up.  In the blogging world, you get out what you put in.  If you aren't dedicated to your blog, then you won't be getting the big results.  It's a lot of hard work, and I haven't lied to you about that yet and don't plan to.  If you're planning on giving up, have a look at what we have to say HERE.  If you give up on your blog, it will be the blog's instant death.

Reality says blogging is hard, time consuming, and is not for everybody.  Reality also says that anybody can be a great blogger if they put in the thought and effort.  I don't want your blog to die, and I'm positive that you don't either.

What do you think?  How many times have you been close to giving up?  What are some ways you use to keep your readers engaged?  Let us know in a comment below, and don't forget to subscribe to us on Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter.

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