I have been thinking about the ways in which I could benefit from having an app for my site. I am a follower of some amazing Bloggers and one blogger- Deidre from Cuckoo For Coupons– has an app for her blog that I downloaded a while back and use a lot. But, she is a coupon Blogger and that is such a great niche for an app. How would my parenting blog benefit from having one and who would use it? Then I was watching and reading some tips from Holly Homer of Kids Activity Blog and Business2Blogger and kept hearing that you just have to take your ideas and do them! To just do it! So I did. It is young and new, but I am excited to see where it takes my blog.
What niche is your Blog? For me I am a parenting and healthy lifestyle blogger. I bring reviews on natural beauty and food products and children book reviews. My son does You Tube children product review videos and I also have some giveaways and recipes often.
3 Benefits to creating an App for your blog
Revenue: In my app I have a shop section. My app layout and admin section is so easy to use I can upload my posts as they go live on my blog in a copy/ paste format and then put that product in my shop! Now, in my shop the links are affiliate links. I am an affiliate for some subscription services, Amazon and some retailers so if I have a post that features a product I can grab an affiliate link to I can have that open in my shop! In my posts, I direct readers to my shop to purchase the item featured.
Fan Walls: Most apps will have a fan wall or conversation tab. In what other format can you simply have ongoing chats that you or readers can start and have them all organized like a forum in one spot? This is such an immediate way to literally chat with your followers and get feedback or entice them to visit posts for their immediate needs and allow other readers to contribute to that conversation.
Sure, you an create a Facebook or twitter post with a question, but unless you pin that post to the top it gets lost fast and not easily available for your followers. To help promote your app, start some small discussions and invite readers to download the app to join in!
The Push Notifications: Lately, as Bloggers we have a sad face for the new Facebook and even Pinterest algorithms. We have to spend a lot of time and give a ton of attention to our page posts and be active in our hashtags to try and get these sites to make our posts viewable by the most of our followers. With Push Notifications, you can be that chime on their phone saying “Hi! I have a brand new Giveaway on the Blog. Come enter!” or “Hi. Parenting Healthy will be LIVE on Facebook tonight at…. come join the discussion” Now, I probably am stating the obvious, but DO NOT BE A SPAMMY PUSH NOTIFIER! Right now I want to push once a week and maybe twice if I have something exciting occur.
Finding an app developer is the easy part. The waiting game is always tough. Google Play will tend to approve a new published app in about 24 hours-even on weekends. iOS can take 3-4 weeks. I used I’mIn Marketer and I love how easy the layout is to create and add to!
Parenting Healthy is available on Google Play and soon on iOS! Please stay tuned! If you leave me a comment below with a contact, I will surely contact you once I am live on iOS!
**This is not a sponsored post!
