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.