Building An Audience

Once you’ve chosen a topic, you have to build an audience of people interested in your topic. While I can’t do much for bad writing, I can help in non-content related ways. Looking around the online community I see a lot of easily-correctable mistakes.

1: Get Rid Of Advertising

Unless you’re a Top 10,000 website, the advertising money isn’t worth it, and those banner ads are  taking up valuable space.

2: Gather Emails

You know that big space in your sidebar that used to have ads? Put up a newsletter signup form. Don’t use pop-ups, bullying tactics (“Get this free guide by signing up for my newsletter!”) or mention it every other sentence. Make it easy to find and let people choose to sign up. In your first month, try to get 100 subscribers.

3: Be “Useful”

Consider this: Useless things are temporary and they go out of style. Useful things are forever. When you write to be useful, people will be more grateful to you. They’ll repay you by becoming a loyal follower and maybe even subscribe to your newsletter. They will probably read your next article, too. Every time you write something ask: “Is it useful?” If it’s not useful, then it’s just porn.

4: Create A Beautiful Experience

While content is king, a beautiful reading experience is queen. Get rid of any pop-ups, don’t spam your social share links and learn about typography and readability. This is the internet and attention is fleeting. When I land on a page that is barely legible, I think twice about reading it. Plus, when you do put something up (i.e. something you’re selling) it will have that much more impact. Start with simple and readable, you can build up from there.

5: Make Videos

Videos drive a surprising amount of traffic. And, there’s less competition on YouTube, so more people will find your videos. People love “How to” videos, too (remember “be useful”?) and you can take advantage of this. When I first started out, making videos was how I got almost all of my traffic. You can do the same.

Bringing Home The Fukuzawas

As a Metropolis reader, you have the distinct advantage of being in Japan. Sites created by people who are living here start out with more credibility and more sources for interesting content. Growing your audience to a profitable level should be easier for you, overall.

When you have built up your audience, you have to figure out something that is both useful to your readers as well as profitable for you. Personally, I prefer the “make something and sell it” route. This can be anything from an e-book to a membership site, to an experience, or something physical you sell. For example, if you wrote about ramen and had a following of J-Generation people who were interested in ramen, you could do several things.

Here’s a few ideas:

• You could create a ramen of the month club which sends a different instant ramen to members every month.
• You could write and sell a guide to the best ramen in Tokyo for travelers/visitors.
• You could offer private tours to tourists, taking them to the best ramen places. This last one sounds particularly fun and lucrative, feel free to use this idea.

I’d like to end this by saying that the ways to make money off of your site are basically endless. But, they all start from one thing: The “J-Generation” and your ability to find a segment of them to call your own. Once you’ve zeroed in on this you should be getting positive feedback immediately. More comments, followers, readers, etc. Although building up your audience to money-making levels will take a long time (expect 1-2 years), you should see constant growth as long as you’re doing the right things.

Good luck to you all out there!

If you have questions about turning your J-blog into a money-making machine, send them to askanything@metropolis.co.jp. We’ll answer them in a follow up.

Also see our interview with history blogger Marky Star.

Also see our blogroll of favorite sites.