It’s Friday so thought I’d take a break from mind-stretching topics for a minute and outline my plan for growing cuinlalaland.com. This plan will likely change with time and experience in what does and does not work and I’ll update this post to reflect those changes. But since as I write this there are just a handful of you reading, I figured this was a good time to lay out my philosophy for growth.

Community Participation

By far the single most important thing to me is to build a community of active participants. I can’t do this alone, I need each and every one of you to make this site a success! If you like something you’ve read here and believe it deserves greater attention there are a number of ways you can spread the word and support the Cause.

Thoughts on Various Strategies

1. Creating Value

Although the main thrust of my growth strategy is to focus on building a community, that community has to be built around something. I’ve chosen to build it around lots of free valuable content presented through this blog. My content focuses on personal growth, improving relationships, changing your life for the better, and being the best you can be. I intend to write mostly timeless content so that you and the people you refer to this site will be able to benefit from it years after it was first published. If you would like to learn more about this philosophy Steve Pavlina has a great article about creating value.

2. Flagship Content

This is a concept by Chris Garrett that I’m just beginning to learn more about and I think it makes a lot of sense. I intend to implement this idea the same way Chris Guillebeau has done with his manifestos, produce a high-quality ebook that is 100% non-commercial and make it freely available to everyone, and encouraging everyone to spread it freely to everyone they know.

3. Social Networking

This ties directly into my main goal of community. You can find me on Twitter where I’m a regular participant in many conversations, come say hello! My site is very young so it’s probably not a great gauge yet, but as it stands about 3/4′s of my traffic comes from tweet links. In fact one of the easiest ways for you to pass along something you like from cuinlalaland.com is to click on the tweet button at the bottom of every article.

4. Article Submission

I’ve never tried this before but I hear it can be a good way to build backlinks and establish credibility. I will start submitting short articles that relate to my blog entries within a few weeks so we’ll see how that goes.

5. Forum Participation

This is something that has worked quite well for me in the past. Particpating on a popular forum can be very helpful. A) Network with a lot of people on the same subject of your blog/site. B) Popular forums often rank well on Google so with prolific participation my posts will rank high too.

6. Blog Commenting

I think insightful commenting on blogs is a great way to introduce myself to the blog owner and the most active contributors on their blog in a non-spammy and mutually-beneficial way, not a bad way to start up a friendship in my book!

7. Guest Blogging

I can definitely see this having a big impact on visitors to the site. Guest writing for popular blogs will get much more visitor attention than a comment and it should also help with a Google ranking backlink. It’s my hope that commenting on a blog would lead to a relationship with the blogger which might lead to them giving me the privilege of speaking to their audience.

8. Media

Even though social media like blogs and social networking are putting the power of the press into the hands of everyone. Right now getting mentioned in traditional media can still have a big impact on blogs.

9. SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a hot topic in the online community. Although I don’t plan on completely ignoring it, I put it near the bottom of the list for a reason. I write for you, my reader, not for a search engine’s crawler bot. I figure with a community of human beings who enjoy my work and share it with others I don’t need a computer program to like me. Besides, the people at Google are constantly working to combat SEO tricks because they want people to be able to find high-quality, relevant information. Since my #1 marketing strategy is to provide exactly that sort of content, I should be rewarded by the search engines naturally.

10. PPC

I can understand how Pay-Per-Click campaigns can work for certain online business models. But I don’t think it would do much for me. Right now everything on this site is free and I have no plans to monetize it with piles of ads as you’ll see in the next section. Paying for traffic with the hope of eventually making that money back somehow doesn’t make much sense for my site.

Generating Income

Although the site will remain ad-free for the most part I will eventually introduce some ways to monetize the site. For the time being my focus is on producing quality content, building a thriving community, and spreading the word. But when the time comes there are a few income-generating options I will consider.

Products

As the community surrounding this site grows I expect to get feedback about things my readers would like me to go into in more depth. When that happens I will aim to produce my own products for sale. These will likely take the form of ebooks, mp3s and other downloadable content. Self-published paperback versions of the books may also be available for those who prefer to read on paper.

Services

I may provide services such as one-on-one consultations, webinars, and tele-conferences.

Affiliates

For the products and services I can’t produce myself, or resources produced by others that I highly recommend, I will provice affiliate links. I don’t expect this to be a significant source of income, but it may be a small supplemental.

Donations

For those who feel they don’t need the products or services I provide, but who would like make a financial contribution, I may accept donations.

Conclusion

I think that’s about it, and describes my strategy pretty well. Like I said I’ll be updating this post as lessons are learned and progress is made. I look forward to getting to know you and want to extend my sincerest gratitude for any and all assistance you choose to lend to the Cause. I also look forward to helping you achieve all of your goals, together let’s make a difference! If you’re into blogging or otherwise building your own online presence I’d like to recommend this great post by Taylor Lord about what he learned in his first 2 and a half months of blogging.