Are you new to blogging or have an already running blog? Are there specific strategies that you use to ensure that your blog thrives beyond expectations?
Well, building a blog takes time and effort before you finally start earning from it through advertisements, guest posts, courses, e-books, and much more. You must invest in your blog with relevant content that will work like your startup investment.
As time goes by, you will need to promote your website in different social media channels and other modes of advertisement.
You may have spent some months or years trying to establish your blog, but nothing seems to be working. Well, in our guide to blogging, we have provided different start a blog tips: how to get into blogging, things to know before starting a blog, etc.
9 Tips to Have a Successful Blog
Starting a blog can take a few minutes with some content management systems like WordPress.
Therefore, whether you have previously had a blog or just starting, these blogging basics for beginners will help you.
However, the blog's growth and monetizing require more effort. Most blogs that start to earn immediately tend to have a previous following or strong brand.
Therefore, their audience will shift to their new blog if they have had a previous one. However, that shouldn’t worry you at all. You can start from scratch and build something amazing!
Tip 1: Find a Blogging Niche
Starting a blog can be confusing, but you will get comfortable as you proceed on. When looking for a blogging niche, you need to find one that you are most passionate about.
Blogging is a long-term venture. Therefore, the niche should be something lucrative. It should be something that interests you and ten years to come you will still have content to write about.
Not only should passion drive you, but also the capability of the niche to make money. You shouldn't write about topics that people rarely search for. It will be a waste of your time (in general society’s point of view) and effort.
Therefore, strive to choose a niche that you will expand on. The niche should also surround something that makes you curious.
For example, you can never go wrong with technology considering it keeps growing e.g., the metaverse, Virtual reality, augmented reality, ChatGPT, and much more. It keeps revolving; therefore, your audience can be your fellow tech enthusiasts.
For a start, to get blog examples, search for the “top technology trends” to know what you can write about.
Tip 2: Explore Whether It Is a Profitable Niche
This is a crucial tip in the guide to blogging when starting a blog to check whether the niche is profitable.
It can't be fair if you started writing about the evolution of humans, yet, no one searches for that. Therefore, if you want to get a large audience, choose a niche that sparks a lot of interest in people.
You are also not limited in the number of blogs that you can have. Therefore, you can have blogs based on the season. For example, during World Cup season, you can have a blog about sports and other football players and legendary information.
When it's off-season, you can write about the different sporting activities, the English Premier League, etc. Just be wise about how you go about it.
A large audience will make it easier for you to earn from advertisements and also the sale of digital products. You can choose a more competitive niche that will assure you of a large audience, even though you will need to put in more effort.
Just search the niche on Google or Bing to check some of the most popular blogs in that niche and find out their total traffic using tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and Similar Web.
The websites can help you find relevant keywords, do competitor searches, and even check website traffic.
Tip 3: Set Up a Blog – No Guide to Blogging Will Miss This
Once you have settled on the perfect niche, you can set up the blog. First, select a hosting platform and domain name, and establish your blog design.
If you are not sure how to build a blog, you can seek help from a freelancer from reputable online freelancing platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, People per hour, freelancer, and much more.
WordPress is a reputable platform that you can use to build your blog effortlessly. It also has some great themes, plugins, and search engine optimization capabilities.
i. Choose a Hosting Plan
While on WordPress, explore to choose the perfect hosting plan for your website. Great hosting will ensure your website remains safe and fast and has reduced outages.
If you want external hosting from WordPress hosting, you can also consider Bluehost, Hostgator, SiteGround, or DreamHost.
ii. Choose a Domain Name
You need to be wise when choosing a domain name. The domain name should depict what your blog is all about. Don't choose a domain name that is far from it. The domain name should be easy to remember and pronounce.
Also, choose a domain name that is short, contains only letters, and isn't trademarked. Moreover, consider high-level domain suffixes like .com or .net. They make your blog look more professional.
Once everything is settled, you can start your blog.
Outsource a great web developer or designer to create an outstanding blog for you. Also, ensure the theme colors resonate with the kind of blog you have.
Tip 4: Generate Blog Ideas
You should put the biggest effort into generating blog ideas. Yes, you have chosen a niche. However, do you know what's trending at the moment?
You wouldn't want to write about topics that won't get any kind of attention from people.
Without an audience, you definitely won’t make any money. You shouldn’t think of how people will get your blog; you should think about what your target audience are currently searching for.
You can discover topics to write about on forums such as Quora and Reddit, competitor analysis, and keyword research. In most cases, if people can't find answers on Google search, they tend to go to Forums to find some answers.
Therefore, you can take up such topics and write about them.
In competitor analysis, check smaller competitors and see what they regularly write about before you face off the large competitors.
Also, check the high-ranking blogs and see the kind of articles that rank high in their blog.
Also, consider keyword research using a keyword tool to find out the most searched-for words on Google. Once you have e a couple of ideas, try and narrow them down to get the best that you can start with and build on.
Tip 5: Plan How to Write the Topics
So, you have done your research and found some marketable topics. You can write them down in an Excel sheet or Notion and schedule when you will be writing each of them.
Be organized and consistent in your writing. You will attract more target audiences with consistency in your writing.
Schedule the work for each of the weeks and months.
The topics should build or relate to each other. It’s up to you to decide whether you will have how-to articles, educational articles, or just general articles.
You can also have an editor that goes through your work once you write and also a graphic designer to provide illustrations for your blog. You need to use unique images that resonate with your blog.
Also, it is crucial to use quotes in your blog posts; they can help to make your blog to be better.
Tip 6: Plan Your Article Outline
Now, it's time to get serious with the writing. Therefore, first, check the topic's competition on the search engine.
What have the competitors written about, and what points have they missed out on?
Also, check the word count of the popular posts. Therefore, you can know the perfect number of words for your first blog post.
Use extensions like SurferSEO to get to know the word count right on the search results page.
However, if the post is about photography or other how-to articles, you might need to have more visuals and fewer words. The blog post needs to be in-depth to ensure that you satisfy your specific audience.
You can then have an outline of what to write on the blog.
Also, remember to use the right formatting, such as headings and short paragraphs that are easy to skim or scan through.
People get bored reading large blocks of the paragraph, therefore, breaking them down to be a bit shorter and easier to read. Once done, use a plagiarism tool like Copyscape to check the uniqueness of your work.
Original content creation can boost your website more than plagiarized work, which can cause your website to face penalties.
Also, use Grammarly and LanguageTool to check your work.
If you are not that perfect in writing, you can outsource freelancers from online freelancing platforms. Once done, you can post your blog post.
Also, remember to have an email subscription form on your website to capture the email addresses of your target audience. You can write two or three articles consistently first before you take a break.
Tip 7: Work on Load Time
Since you have already set up your blog, you need to check how fast it loads. You can use the Page Speed Insights tool to check how fast your website loads.
People easily leave websites if it loads slowly. Check the speed on the desktop and the mobile phone. If people leave your site fast, it can affect your ranking regardless of how relevant your blogs are.
Also, if using WordPress, you can install search engine optimization tools like Yoast, All in one SEO, or Rankmath to boost your website.
You need to optimize keywords, images, videos, external links, headings, meta descriptions, internal links, and text to make it easily visible.
Tip 8: Promote Your Blog Posts
You can start by submitting your article URLs on the Google Search Console to rank them on search engines. Don’t forget about Bing Webmaster Tools as well to drive traffic from Bing and Yahoo.
Compared to Google, Bing easily ranks posts from high-authority sites. Therefore, you need to find the best ways to promote your articles.
You also need to have social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or other platforms to share your content.
You can also consider letting influencers promote your blog. However, you need to have enough content on your blog to make your audience want to read more of your articles. Also, remember link building is essential.
You can link to high-authority sites with valuable content that your audience can benefit from.
Tip 9: Monetize Your Blog – One of the Best Tips in Our Guide to Blogging
Once you have captured a good amount of your audience's attention.
Strive to monetize your blog through having AdSense, affiliate links, and even selling digital products like e-books. However, don't focus so much on monetizing your blog that you even forget the main idea of starting the blog, which is to provide valuable content to your audience.
What’s Next for Your Blogging Career?
We hope that this guide to blogging has been helpful to you. We have shared some of the most practical tips and tricks for bloggers. Therefore, you are assured that when you start, you will succeed.
Furthermore, don’t have the monetizing aspect as your major priority. Consider how to provide valuable content first, and then monetizing will come later.
Writing comes from within, and if you don’t enjoy writing, you will end up failing. Never hesitate to start blogging, regardless of your age. Want to look at the tips again? Let’s have it with our guide to blogging infographic we have made just for that case.
If you want to improve the content or want to build a strong brand voice, then StanzaGo can help you do that effectively. Just reach out to us and let’s know what your content marketing goals are, and we’ll provide our services to the fullest at affordable prices.
Till then, happy blogging!!
