Blogging is a great way to develop your online presence. It showcases your industry expertise and with easy to rank keywords, you can be featured on the first few ranking pages. This can help in driving organic traffic and converting it into leads.
Engaging your audience every time is not an easy task. You will also need to cultivate an online community. You will need the right blogging techniques to make this happen. Most novices wonder where to start and there is no one-fit-all answer to this. However, with the right blogging tips, you can get somewhere.
Here are the 20 best blogging tips on how to start your blog and make it a hit.
Identify the main objectives for your blog
The first blogging tip is that you need to set your goals. This will help kickstart your blogging endeavor. But to truly create a successful blog that meets your needs, you must first identify the main objectives for your blog. How do you do that?
Start by having a clear picture of your business model. This is applicable for personal blogs and while building a corporate site. Based on this, you can create your content while ensuring your blog post aligns with that model. If you wish to create a personal blog, identifying your business model is still important.
Next, know your objectives. The question you will need to ask is, are you starting a blog to boost visibility and brand awareness? Or are you starting a blog to share product-oriented content to boost conversion rates? Accordingly, you will have to tailor your content to accomplish your goals.
Now think of ways to monetize your blog. You can do this by providing paid courses, affiliate marketing, or running ads. This helps in establishing a specific development path for your blog that earns you money.
Choose a profitable niche that you are passionate about
Blogging becomes fun when you write on topics you love. For example, if you love to explore the world, writing a travel blog can be exciting. If you have a digital marketing background, you can create a blog and gain an edge in the field.
First, figure out what your passions and interests are. Then, ask yourselves these questions: Are there interested readers for your niche? In what areas can you share real-life examples? If you aren’t sure about a niche, these questions can help you brainstorm the kind of blog you should work towards.
At the same time, picking a profitable niche is important to monetize your blog. It means you have a large target audience looking and willing to pay for your products or services. You can also do a simple Google search to look for easy to rank keywords for your industry and see if the sites using those keywords are monetizing.
You will then need to know how those sites are acquiring revenue. Is it through ads, products, affiliate marketing, or services? If the top-ranking sites in a specific niche are monetizing, it means there’s a market.
Here are some blogging tips to see if a topic has the potential to drive plenty of traffic:
- Analyze search volume data for your blog topic and related keywords
- Conduct research about your target audience
- Gain a deeper insight into social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook
- Be active on forums and community platforms such as Quora
- Communicate with the people in your network
Besides your passion, your blog post ideas should reflect your willingness to resolve the issues in your industry and address the concerns your prospects may have.
Conduct a competitive content marketing analysis
What if you could peep into the topics of your competitors that are getting the most traffic?
Conducting a competitive content marketing analysis is a great blogging tip to identify trending topics in your niche. This can help you create similar topics to your competitors and compete for relevant keywords. You can also identify the types of blogs and formats your audience prefers.
Here’s how you can analyze the content marketing tactics of your competitors:
- Identify the websites publishing your niche-specific content
- Analyze keywords these websites are ranking for
- Examine the type of content published on their most popular pages
- Try to identify the techniques through which they are monetizing their blogs
- Check their activities on social media
- Evaluate their tone of voice and formatting
- Figure out what makes each of these websites different from others
It is difficult to discover your competitor’s ideas that are ranking well in your industry. The important blogging tip to remember here is that you need to search for trending keywords relevant to your business and see which websites are ranking on the first page.
You can use the Organic Research tool to extract more data. You will need to enter your domain and go to the “Competitors” tab. You can view the websites in your industry that rival yours. Information regarding the sites is also available through this tool. You can also derive the “Pages” report as that will help you find the pages that are ranking well for each of your competitors.
Ensure that your website’s technical fundamentals are solid
Another blogging tip to implement is to find the right Content Management System (CRM). Webflow, WordPress, Drupal, etc., are the most popular blogging platforms you can use.
Imagine you create one of the best content in your field, and no one ever finds it. This is known to happen if your site suffers from technical issues. This can lead to a noindex tag on your site.
You need to ensure that your website’s technical aspects are at their best. Check if your site is easy to crawl and whether the page load time is too slow.
Several tools can help you audit your site’s technical fundamentals to avoid the noindex tag, such as Google Search Console, Ahref’s Site Audit tool, etc. Use them to your advantage.
Focus on topics people are searching for
Creating quality content is great, but you will also need someone to read about it. Hence, one of the most important blogging tips is to write content on topics your audience is interested in.
Understanding user intent is necessary, but to do that you need to determine your target audience first. Once you know your target persona, research their needs, preferences, challenges, pain points, and goals.
Once you get that right, focus on asking the right questions. What kind of search terms are they using? What kind of blogs do they read? Is the audience searching for your keywords more beginner-level or advanced?
Before starting a blog, get to know your audience’s demands and how you can fulfill them. Remember, a content strategy that focuses on search intent is more likely to succeed.
To know what your audience is searching for, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner, Ahref’s Keyword Explorer, or other similar tools. The tools will show you high-efficiency topics that have the best mix of keyword difficulty and traffic potential.
You can also look at the best-performing pages in search results to understand user intent. Look for the dominant content types on SERPs. Are they blog posts, videos, or product pages? Is there a particular content format followed by the top-ranking pages? What are the subtopics and questions these topics cover?
Once you have shortlisted topics, you can then make a list of keywords for each of them.
Find topics that are easy to rank
What if you could create content on topics that are easy to rank? Links are one of the most important Google ranking factors. So, content having more links is likely to rank higher in SERPs.
You can still grab higher rankings in SERPs with a few backlinks. You can ensure this by choosing a topic that has less competition and the right search volume. Try using long-tail keywords as they are more specific in search intent, less competitive, and easy to rank on Google.
Create content that attracts amplifiers
Once you have published your content, you will naturally expect readers to share it with one or two people. However, content does not become buzzworthy this way; you need to attract amplifiers. These are people who have large audiences and can make your content viral.
Amplifiers can be YouTubers, journalists, niche writers, podcasters, conference and event organizers, or others. You can also reach out to community members. These people are influential through their private references.
You will also need to ensure that your content stands out. Creating original content is one of the most crucial blogging tips that determine your success. You can write about a personal experience, analyze data and write about your findings or you can interview experts in your field.
You can also collaborate with industry experts in the following ways:
- You can create an article with them
- You can do research together
- You can promote each other’s work
- You can contact them for an opinion or a quote
Write how you talk
Remember, blogging is all about building a relationship with your readers. The more your readers connect with you, the longer they will stick around.
Being too formal makes your readers bored and bounce off your page. So make sure you write in a conversational tone as if you are talking to a friend. To make things more gripping, use powerful words in your content and provide ample examples and real-life scenarios.
Make your posts easy to read
If you want more people to read your article, ensure it is simple to read and understand. No one wants to read content that takes a lot of time to grasp or is complex.
Here’s a list of blogging tips that can help you create easy-to-absorb content:
- Keep the paragraphs short: Long paragraphs can scare off your readers. So, write in concise and punchy paragraphs.
- Break up complex sentences: Just like paragraphs, try contracting your sentences. Find places where you wrote “and,” “that,” or “because,” and break the sentences into smaller fragments.
- Use subheads: Before reading your post, readers sometimes skim your article to see if it’s worth their time. Using subheadings can make your content skim-friendly and help readers find what they are looking for.
- Add multimedia: When writing a blog post, you might get carried away with words. But long texts can intimidate readers and disengage them. So, instead of words, you can add images, videos, GIFs, etc.
- Read your work out loud: Make sure you read your work out loud before publishing. This helps you discover the flaws in your content flow.
- Make use of formatting: Use quotes, lists, italics, etc., to make your points more clear.
Create eye-catching headlines
One important blogging tip to remember is to have a catchy headline. Readers don’t open every content article or blog they see online. It is the headline that catches their attention and drives them to a post. So, besides good quality content, make sure you write eye-catching headlines that garner reader attention.
Engaging headlines have the following attributes:
- They are specific: The reader knows at once what it’s all about.
- They are actionable: The reader knows the value of reading the article.
- They are attractive: They hook your audience right away and keep them interested.
Engage your audience with a PAS introduction
Once you have decided on an eye-catching headline, it’s time to ponder upon the introduction.
The introduction of any content piece has the potential to hook your readers and make them read your entire post. You must use the PAS (Problem, Agitate, and Solve) formula when writing your introduction.
Contact the people you’ve mentioned
Linking is a great blogging tip to remember. You should link your content to external sources. It makes you more credible in your niche and gets you more traffic. However, make sure you contact the people you’ve mentioned.
You can reach out to these people and get them to share your post on their platforms. They may or may not share your post, but reaching out to them can help you establish a connection with them. This allows you to build a strong network of like-minded people in your industry.
How can you contact the people you’ve mentioned? All you need to do is make a list of your external links, find their social media accounts or emails, and reach out to them.
Make an email list
Once you have garnered some traffic, try retaining that traffic. The best way to do this is to make an email list. Asking your site visitors to subscribe to you is a great blogging tip. You can share your newly published content with them, create a community and sell your products or services.
When you make an email list, you don’t have to worry about third-party platforms like YouTube or Facebook limiting your reach or deleting your account.
How can you encourage people to subscribe? You can offer them something valuable in exchange for their contact information. It can be an eBook, an email course, downloadable templates, guides, or maps.
Furthermore, make sure to place CTAs (call to action) strategically in your content. These should be at places where your offering naturally fits. Avoid adding too many pop-ups and CTA buttons, as this may lead to opposite results.
Request for feedback on your content
Content quality is a major Google ranking factor. So before you publish your blog post, always take feedback on your content.
Which areas need to be removed or added? How can you make your sentences better? What points need more explanation? Feedback can help you identify new opportunities for improvement and offer new ideas.
Make use of a template
A template can serve as a blueprint for your blog posts. It helps you follow a common structure for different formats, saves you time, and boosts your content quality.
For example, a listicle template can start with a title, an introduction followed by a list of items, and a conclusion.
Promote your content by repurposing it
Even before creating content, you should have an idea about how you will promote it. With over 4.4 million blog posts published each day on different channels, having a promotion strategy is very important.
The promotion platform should depend on your audience. You need to analyze where your audience spends more time. It can be on Facebook, Instagram, forums like Reddit or Quora, industry publications, LinkedIn groups, etc.
You can also promote your content by repurposing it in different formats. For example, you can convert it into videos or into Twitter threads to promote on multiple platforms.
Refresh outdated content
Once you have ample content on your site, it’s now time to run content audits. A content audit is the process of assessing and analyzing all content that exists on your site. It helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your strategy and whether your existing blog posts need any improvement.
Your knowledge or writing style may improve as your blogging journey evolves. It is, therefore, important to update your blog posts with new knowledge and ideas you acquire along the way and showcase them to your audience.
A content audit also helps you keep track of your content’s overall performance and achieve your blogging objectives. You can check if your blog posts rank for relevant keywords or if they are generating sufficient traffic.
An important blogging tip is to refresh your content to improve your ranking and traffic:
- Refresh the blog posts that are ranking low and losing traffic
- Update your easy to rank topics
- Repurpose your well-performing blog posts
- Remove or update blog posts that have outdated information
Spend 30 minutes reading, every day
Good writing skills are not acquired overnight. And as the author Morgan Housel famously put it, “Most good writing is a by-product of good reading.”
Blogging is something that requires innovative ideas and an excellent writing style. If you feel stuck or unable to write something different, it means you aren’t exploring new ideas. Reading more blogs or other content pieces other than yours helps you know about different writing styles, tones of voice, or new ideas.
Make it a habit to spend at least 30 minutes reading online content. This can be related to your industry or anything you find interesting. You can read content written by industry experts, influencers, thought leaders, or your competitors.
Maintain a commonplace book
For centuries, commonplace books have been favorite companions of thinkers and authors. A commonplace book can be considered a treasure that contains gems collected during reading experiences. It helps people collect quotes, thoughts, transcribed passages from readings, moments of introspection—anything worth reviewing later.
One crucial blogging tip is to maintain a commonplace book. Maintaining this book can help you process, comprehend and save anything valuable to you. You can note down quotes, ideas, or information from articles or books and save them for later use in your blogs.
Make a “Do 100” project
Publishing quality content helps you drive and retain readers. It also helps you maintain credibility in the eyes of readers and search engines. However, content quality is not something you achieve by writing one or two blogs. It takes time and perseverance to become a successful blogger.
It’s true for every field; quality is prioritized over quantity. Many people don’t realize that quantity leads to quality. The more blog posts you write, the more ideas you create. And the more ideas you create, the higher the chances of you stumbling upon a great idea.
One of the most essential blogging tips is to make a “Do 100” project. It means you should do something 100 times to improve on quality. In the case of blogging, you should strive to create 100 blog posts to develop your writing skills in the long run.
Conclusion
The blogging tips provided in this post can serve as a roadmap to a successful blogging journey. All you need to do is lay down your blogging goals and discover a topic that resonates with your audience.
Once you know why you want to write a blog, follow the blogging tips step by step. These tips can help you run a successful blog that brings you traffic as well as money. This won’t happen overnight.
Blogging needs time, effort, attention, and patience. The most important of all is consistency. Starting a blog without the willingness to stay consistent is as bad as not starting at all. Consistently posting blogs makes you more credible in the eyes of your readers. It also helps you climb up in SERPs much faster.
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