I have a Blog, What should I do Next?

There you are, you have your blog up and running for just a few weeks or months. Your blog layout looks great, you managed to have a few guest articles published on other blogs and gained backlinks … but … traffic is still very slow. And because of this, you might start to lose interest, because things are not moving fast enough any longer or even worse … you might end up having no more creativity and risking having your blog fading away into anonymity. What can you do?

The amount of articles explaining how SEO (Search Engine Optimization), having more backlinks and other very important stuff to gain more traffic, on the internet  is endless. It seems that for every question there is an answer …

But what if you tried everything and you are just not succeeding … what the heck can you do now?

If you look at your blogging endeavor from a business perspective you can say that you are on the verge of bankruptcy, losing everything you worked hard for. Small companies who are facing a similar prospective have a few options left, there is one that I would like to discuss with you here.

Collaboration

Did you ever consider teaming up with a blog that has very similar ideas? I know you are after world domination all by yourself, so am I 😉 … but sometimes working together to achieve a common goal is the only solution. And besides, there is nothing wrong with collaboration, there is an ocean of good business minded people like yourself who may be happy to collaborate with you.

Collaborative efforts with other blogs can be valuable and can have many advantages. However, there are a few things you need to consider before entering into any type of collaborative relationship. You want to ensure that when you enter into a collaborative relationship, it is a win-win situation. You also need to formulate a plan, agree both on it in writing, stick to it and go after world domination together. Another benefit is you will have someone there that will get you on your feet when you feel like doing little … for example; when you go to the gym alone, you can decide to stay at home or go to the gym … BUT if you workout with a buddy, you have an obligation. Another bonus is that two minds can come up with a lot more ideas than a single mind, and last but not least you have someone that you can discuss your strategy with.

Working with another person adds something to yourself. Think of knowledge, networking, skills or personal qualities.

• Two heads are better than one
• The sum is greater than the parts
• Union is strength
• Achieve synergy
• One-stop-shopping (Sharing content to widen your market reach)

Or on a more strategic perspective you could consider collaboration for:

Strategic Alliances

You can collaborate on all levels or limit the collaboration to certain areas. You could consider working together for technological advancement (Layout, PHP programming etc.) or to share content, enrich each other.

• Together you can response faster to market developments and trends
• Enter new markets or develop a new combined effort market
• New PMC’s (product-market combinations) developed jointly and put in the market
• Scaling / profit improvement
• Share research or investment costs
• Expanding hardware capacity

Additional considerations

Of course there are also angles one should consider carefully before teaming up. The two of you should think alike, have the same priorities and make strong agreements. You should beware for people that are dishonest and those who are after anything but a true and solid collaboration, but that is a risk every businessman is facing.

Successful cooperation with a partner

Before collaborating you should ask yourself important questions:

• Do I know what I want to achieve with my blog (vision)?
• Do my partner and I share the same visions for the future?
• Can we achieve our common goal within our limits?

Conclusion

Teaming up with another blog also gives a lot of new perspectives, and maybe this is the next step for blogs to discover. Nowadays, more and more people want their information in shorter packages, and now that twitter is well established the articles are limited to 160 characters. Furthermore, a lot of people own a Smartphone and use it to browse the web while they are commuting. In short, minimization has arrived, in terms of information 😉 Perhaps teaming with other blogs and build some sort of new social network where every blog keeps its own identity but allow visitors to communicate through the blogs with other blogs, and share anything they want, is the future of blogs.

One thing I know for sure, people want the information they are after faster and faster and their identity on the internet is becoming more important every day.

But before I start dreaming more and get way off topic, let’s stick to my initial topic for now. Teaming up with other blogs, is this a possibility and what are the advantages and the disadvantages?

I look forward to read your thoughts.