Do you want to start your own blog? If your answer is no
you can skip reading another article but if Yes then I advise you read this
article to the end.
Starting a blog is one of the most fulfilling things
anyone can do, as it not only gives you an opportunity to express yourself but
serves as a medium to which you can use to advertise and get sales to your
products and services.
Running a blog as an individual or a business makes it
easier for you to engage with your reader’s by sharing useful information about
your business or general knowledge thereby building trust.
The fun part about blogging is that it has the potential
to make you 6 figures on monthly bases depending on how much time and effort
you are willing to put into it.
We all have actually seen one or two people that have
left their jobs to go into blogging full-time and I am sure that’s the reason
why must people start a blog?
Now this is where I advise you to take a break and have a
rethink.
Why you may ask, blogging is one of those businesses that
you have to first know the rules governing it before you jump right in.
Blogging requires a lot of preparation, from choosing the
right niche to hosting and writing contents all require proper planning.
It took me over 1 year before I was about to launch my
first blog because I was waiting to get everything right.
Don’t let that discourage as it is possible to start your
blog in one day and still succeed.
Running my own blog has thought me so many things and the
top on the list is patience and consistency.
In this article, I will highlight 10 things you need to
know as a blogger or before you start your own blog.
Blogging
Takes Time
There is a misconception that most people have when it
comes to blogging or making money generally online they believe it is a get
rich quick scheme.
Sadly it is not
If you get into blogging and expect to start making a lot
of money in your first money so you can quit your job and live the kind of
lifestyle you hope for you will be disappointed. Blogging takes time to grow.
People need to trust you for them to be able to buy
anything from or continuously visit your blog so you can make money from
display ads. This doesn’t just happen it takes time.
This is the major reason why it is not advisable you quit
your job to become a full-time blogger when you have not laid the right
foundation.
If you are just starting out you have got to engage with
your audience and this requires you writing quality contents and responding to
your readers’ comments.
Get
To Know Your Audience
Whatever niche that you have decided to go into as a
blogger be it fashion, make money, health and fitness, beauty and so on, have
in mind that not everyone is your audience.
Most people surf the internet just to have fun while some
others are searching for solutions in the various niches. You have got to know
how to differentiate both.
You have to know who the contents you are creating is
targeted to so you don’t keep making random contents believing that everyone
will be interested in it.
You have to know who your audience is, where they hang
out, what type of contents they are searching for and so on. With that
information, you will be able to tailor your articles to get maximum
results.
Content
Is King
Once you have been able to identify for your audience now its
time to start writing contents that will help them.
The word “Content Is King” is not something anyone should
ignore as a blogger as it will determine the success or failure of your blog.
Majority of people do not visit your blog because the
design is eye-catching but because of the information they hope you get that
will help them solve one problem or the other. If your contents can't do that,
they will leave and never come back.
When writing contents for your blog you have to make sure
that it will provide readers with the information they seek and help them solve
the problem they have.
Don’t go about copying other peoples content because you
want to write quality content that’s plagiarism. Write your contents in your
own words. Whatever topic you are writing about you can use other peoples
contents to get a broader view of the topic then write in your own words.
Post
Content Regularly
Depending on the kind of niche you are into will determine
how many contents you post on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
If you are into a broader niche that requires lots of
research lets say the health niche you can focus on posting twice a week. In
other niches, you can post daily.
When it comes to posting regularly it all boils down to
the amount of time you can set aside to make research and write your content.
There is no way you will be able to keep in touch with your audience without
posting new contents regularly.
What really matters is how consistent you are. If you are
able to come up with two quality contents on a weekly basis I suggest you stick
to it then you keep increasing it whenever you have the chance.
For one of my blog, since I don’t have the time to write
every day I only post 2 times in a week. All you have to do is focus on what works for you and
follow it.
Use
Attractive Titles/Headlines
Since there are lots of other blogs in your niche with the majority having junk contents most people tend to go with the blog post that
has an attractive title. I am sure you have click on a post because of the title
before I have countless of times.
This is why using an attractive title for your post is very
important. Always make sure that your title is well constructed but never lose
sight of the keywords you want to rank for. You can write down up to 3 to 4
different titles for a blog post to see which works best.
Another thing is the headlines. Since most people do not have
the patience to read all your blog post, what they do is quickly scan through and
pick the useful information they can get and leave. This is why using headlines
is very important. This will help them know what particular paragraph focuses
on and the next step after the other.
Use
Images And Videos
You want to break the tension when people read your blog
post and that is what images and videos provide. People get tired when they
visit a blog post with even one image which makes it looks as if they are
reading a textbook.
Since human beings are practically moved by what they see
you want to leverage that by incorporating images and if you have any videos
you can add it to your text.
Make
Your Contents Easy To Read
I find it much easier to read a blog post from a smaller site
than from websites like Forbes and so on. The reason has been that when you try to
read a post on forbes.com the text is just so much that it won’t give you time
to take a break.
This is not going to help you as a blogger.
You have to make your blog post easy for your readers,
make sure they can take a break while reading your post before they continue
again. for this to be possible, you will have to use headings, subheadings,
images to break your texts.
Check
Your Spellings
We all know that no one is perfect when it comes to
writing and the tendency of making mistakes is there but please do not make it
too obvious to the readers that you did not take the time to edit your
content.
Instead of you having to spend extra money hiring
someone to proofread your work there are tools that you can use to get this
done.
One of my favorite tool for checking spellings is Grammarly.
I use the browser extension of this tool but it also has
a desktop application. Both work perfectly and I advise every content creator
to use this tool. This tool helps you identify errors or misspellings on your
post and provides the correct spellings to use.
Be
Yourself
You don’t want to go about telling people you are the
expert so you can attract more visitor and make more sales that really don’t
work. there are lots of experts out there that have scammed a lot of people
which is why many people get scared when you come out telling them you the
expert on any topic.
Nobody is expecting you to have all the knowledge in the
world which is why you have to learn to be yourself. Let people know that your
main goal is to help them succeed as you are also doing the same.
Let them know you also do research before writing a
content, don’t let them feel every word was gotten from the top of your head.
When you make a mistake (not personal) you can share it with your audience so
they can also avoid making the same mistake. It is part of helping them.
Share
Your Contents
The aim of every blog should be to drive an insane amount
of traffic to their content and these can be done in different ways.
We all know the importance of Search Engine Optimization
and how it can be used to increase blog traffic but when you just starting out;
you might not have the time for search engines to rank your contents this is why
sharing your contents on social media is a good idea to drive traffic to your
blog.
There are lots of websites out there that you can
leverage to send traffic to your blog and they include Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Pinterest and so on.
If you have some cash to spare, you should consider
running advertisements so as to quickly get traffic to your blog.
Using forums like Reddit.com is a great way to also get
free traffic to your blog.
The most important thing is to look for where your
audience hangs out the most in the different social networking websites and
focus there.
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