How I Went From 0 to 1,012 Blog Subscribers in 101 Days

It took me 101 days, but I finally hit 1,012 subscribers. The rate at which this blog has grown has surprised me and I am grateful for everyone who has supported me throughout this short journey.

I intend to keep on writing and producing more valuable content for a very long time. I’m following my passion. I’m connecting with new people and in general having a lot of fun.

The last 101 days have been a lot of hard work. A lot of bloggers come into this game thinking it’ll be a breeze. To tell you the truth, if you’re not ready to work hard, you’re probably not going to make it.

This is why it’s so important that you find something you’re passionate about. We all have something like this inside of us.

If you can find a topic you could die for, you’re on the right track. What if someone had a gun to your head and you had to choose one topic to write about for the next few years? What would you choose?

1. Finding My Passion

In November 2009 I had been contemplating starting what would become Wake Up Cloud and following my true passion, which was and is writing about financial freedom and self improvement. I felt an inner urge to reach out and help people.

I wasn’t always clear about my passion. Earlier in 2009 I had thought about the idea of starting a blog about health, self-improvement and money. I jotted down some thoughts and notes, but it never felt right, so I never took action.

I went back to building websites that would help me make money and transition into making a living online. You see, in the beginning of 2009 I was still playing poker, but I wasn’t enjoying it. Sure, the money was good, but there’s more to life than money.

I wanted to do something else. Around March-April of 2009 I stopped cold-turkey and haven’t played a hand of poker since. I forced myself to work on my website at the time and make it work. While I wasn’t following my true passion, I was writing about topics I was pretty interested in. It was a step in the right direction.

During the months leading up to November 2009, I was constantly thinking about what I would want to write about. What did I do all day when I wasn’t working on my websites? It was a slow process. The answer I kept getting was financial freedom and self improvement.

When the end of 2009 came, I had already built up a nice income stream that could keep me alive while I was learning how to blog. I realized that building any kind of income would take a long time. I was okay with that, because I was going to write on a topic I was passionate about.

I was also very interested in natural health, but I knew I had to pick one main topic to be successful. I could always build a blog around natural health later on. I hesitated for a while, until one morning I had a dream that basically sent me the message “don’t wait, start NOW!”

I woke up confused. It was one of those dreams you just can’t seem to shake off. It was vivid in my mind and I took it as a kick in my ass to get started, so I did . . .

2. Modeling

I credit my poker success to all the coaches I’ve had during the years. When I hired my first poker coach in early 2005, I instantly fell in love. While it wasn’t cheap, it helped me improve my game tremendously.

I wanted to use the same strategy in blogging. I remembered earlier that year that I had thought about hiring Chris Garrett. I didn’t think much of it at that time. One day, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Chris where he announced he was opening his course, Authority Blogger.

To be honest, up to that point I had been subscribed to Chris’ blog but I never read his articles, which is why what was about to happen was very weird. When I received that e-mail, I knew that this was what I wanted. When I looked through the offer I saw that Chris offered comprehensive e-mail support, which instantly sold me.

I have never thought twice about finding a mentor and paying them for helping me. It helps me avoid common mistakes and most important of all, it helps me reach my goals at a much more rapid pace. Would I have been able to reach 1,012 blog subscribers in 101 days without joining a course? I highly doubt it.

As I started blogging, I had a lot of questions, which were answered rapidly by Chris and it helped me stay on course. I had the same problems as any new blogger. I wanted to chase every new shiny object that came across my path, but I knew that if I wanted to succeed, I had to stay focused.

If you’re just starting out and have the money to spend, there are many blogging courses and coaches out there. I personally only have experience with Authority Blogger, which makes it the only course I can honestly recommend.

3. Planning My Attack

Before I even started my blog, I thought about things like:

• What did I want to achieve?
• How did I want to achieve it?
• Who was my target audience?
• How often did I want to post?
• How was I going to get traffic?
• How was I going to keep readers interested?
• Did I want to make money with my blog?
• How was I going to produce a profit?

There are many more questions you should think about when you’re starting your blog. Naturally, all of these questions can be overwhelming to think about, which is why it’s good to have someone nearby who can help clear up confusion.

I already knew my passion, but I had a lot of work ahead of me to write out what I really wanted to achieve. It’s easy to ignore the planning process and jump right in, but going through and writing down your goals can bring a lot of clarity to your writing.

I thought about who my ideal reader was. It was someone I’d like to hang out with in real life, which meant they would be interested in weird stuff, they would be cool and happy. I finally came up with the idea that I wanted to focus my blog on a demographic, instead of only focusing on a niche. That was when my tagline was born – “self improvement for conscious people”

After all this it was time to write down my strategy. How was I going to get traffic? Chris talks a lot about guest posting, and he’s an avid guest poster himself, so I was somewhat influenced by him in adopting guest posting as one of my main strategies. My plan was to write 5 posts for my blog and then kick things off by being an active commenter on blogs that I enjoyed reading. At that time, I didn’t know when I was going to write my first guest post. I just knew I wanted to do it.

It’s all well and good to get traffic, but how was I going to turn them into subscribers? The best option was to use a sign-up incentive, which is basically a bribe you give people for signing up. This would help me get people on my e-mail list, which would help me engage the people that were serious about improving their lives.

There are a lot of e-mail list services out there. I personally have used Aweber for several years and haven’t had problems with them. I recommend you do some comparisons do find a service that resonates with you, but make sure you build a list as soon as possible.

At this point I didn’t really know how I was going to help people by creating products and services. What I did know was that there were a lot of people out there struggling with making a living online and following their passion. I was making it happen, and I had already helped a few people make some money online, so I was confident I could lend a helping hand.

4. Executing My Strategy

Writing and planning is cool, but nothing really happens if you don’t take action. I knew what I wanted with my blog and I knew how I was going to achieve it. I have always hated planning, so I try to skip it every chance I get, but in this instance I really discovered how much clarity it can bring to whatever I am doing.

Just knowing what I was going to do and how I was going to do it gave me certainty and confidence to take massive action. I basically had everything written down, so I knew the steps I needed to take to make this happen.

I was scared all the time in the beginning. I was scared before I started my blog. I was scared when I put my first blog post up. I was scared when I wrote my first comment and I was scared when I did my first WordPress update (still somewhat scared of updating my blog).

The way I got over my fears was to have a purpose that was more important. I wanted to help others achieve a life they actually liked. Most people are still trapped in the 9-to-5. They are afraid to take the first step because of the uncertainty.

The internet is a scary place. There are an overwhelming amount of opportunities you could choose from. This is one of the reasons I like to find a mentor, coach or just a training course. It’s much easier for me to stay focused if I know what I’m doing has a high probability of success.

When I worried about what people would think of me, I kept my goal in mind and it helped me move forward. Thinking about helping others made my fears insignificant. The times where thinking about this didn’t work, I thought about me on my deathbed.

Did I really want to look back and regret not doing this? Did I want to be a coward for the rest of my life? Thinking like that got me back to reality and motivated me to take action. Hey, it may be a somewhat negative way of motivation yourself, but whatever works is good enough for me. I can always change it later on.

Building a successful blog is a lot of hard work. I knew that coming in and I was prepared to do whatever it takes to make this happen. I wanted to make living my passion a reality. This is exactly why I recommend you find your passion before you start anything.

The more passionate you are about a subject, the harder you’ll work and the higher chances are that you will succeed. If you’re just starting a blog to make money, chances are you will fail.

5. Guest Posting

After I got my first guest post published and saw the traffic it brought to my website, I was hooked. I recognized the power of guest posting and I made guest posting my main strategy for getting traffic, links and subscribers to my blog.

It is one of the reasons why I have grown so fast. I haven’t kept track of all my guest posts, but during these 101 days, I wrote close to 50 guest posts on various blogs. Some brought me ten visitors while others brought me one thousand.

I started by guest posting on the smaller blogs, because I was a bit intimidated of having my writing on the bigger ones. Once I got comfortable writing more and more, I started approaching bigger blogs. After a while I realized that my fears were unfounded. All the blog owners I’ve been in touch with have been incredibly friendly.

Even when my guest posts were rejected they delivered the news with a smile on their face. If you’re afraid of guest posting, know that it is the best strategy for getting traffic to your blog or website.

If you’re sitting there wondering why you aren’t getting traffic to your blog, it’s most likely because you aren’t putting in the work. I made my fears insignificant by having an important purpose and following my passion. You can do the same.

6. Adapting to Circumstances

As with anything, your plan won’t be flawless. You will have to adapt your approach over and over again. When I had written for a few months, I realized that something was wrong. I felt bad writing and I got writer’s block.

I do not consider writer’s block to always be a bad thing. It often helps me realize that I should be writing about another topic. Getting stuck is easy when you let your mind go on auto-pilot. When this happens I go back to the drawing board and think about what I am really interested in.

I also asked my readers for help. From doing that, I got feedback that I should be writing more on the financial freedom aspect of my blog, which I had unknowingly neglected because writing about self improvement was so much easier.

I started sharing my experiences with making a living online, how I did it, how I helped my girlfriend and what mistakes I’d made along my journey. This increased the growth of my blog. I was giving my readers what they wanted.

I still had to be careful not to fall into the trap of listening to the vocal minority, which basically refers to the fact that most of your readers will never comment on your posts or e-mail you their thoughts. It’s a hard line to balance. My approach has always been to experiment. As long as my blog keeps growing, I know I’m doing something right.

7. Staying Focused

One of the most obvious traits of successful blogs is their consistency. It takes a long time to build a blog readership, which means you have to be in it for the long haul. I know I’m probably not going to make close to a living for at least a few years from this blog, which is fine by me, because I really like what I’m doing, whether I get paid or not.

Getting to 1,000 subscribers feels good, but it’s not the end goal. It just confirms that I am heading in the right direction. It’s important for me to keep reminding myself of what my goals are. I’m here to help and connect with the right people.

It’s incredibly easy for me to read about a new course, see the promise of how much money I could make and want to buy the course. This happens to everyone, as I mentioned in this post. It’s something I’ve learned to be okay with. Your mind will always want things, so remember to focus on your goal and keeping moving forward.

If your strategy isn’t working right now, get someone to give you some feedback and adjust your strategy. There really is no reason why you should go through two years of frustration like I did with my first website. There are so many great resources out there you can take advantage of.

What are you waiting for? The stars will never align. The time will never be right. Act now.

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