In this post, you’ll not only learn blogging for beginners, but you’ll get 17 concrete steps you can take to dramatically increase your chances of success.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t started a blog yet, or if you’re a veteran, because just one of these tips can make a big difference.
1. Purpose
When your purpose is weak, your chances of giving up somewhere along the way go up dramatically.
So ask yourself the following questions:
- Why are you starting a blog?
- What do you want to get out of doing this?
- Why do you want to succeed?
2). Passion
This is the single most important ingredient that keeps your motivation alive. If you don’t have a passion in what you do, there will come a point in time when blogging becomes a drag and is no longer a fun thing to do anymore. In the absence of it, usually the slightest setback opens the best exit door.
Don’t just start a blog because you want to make money. There are no shortcuts to success.
If you want to build a thriving blog that brings in revenue, you will have to work hard, and to stay motivated, you have to find something you’re passionate about.
Or at least something you’re interested in.
3). Personality
To really stand out from all the noise, you have to inject your personality and expertise into your blog.
There are too many people out there teaching something they have no experience in.
If you don’t have experience, get some. The more you know, the more you can share with your audience, and the more they will grow to know, trust and like you.
4). Exchange link. If you just enter into the blogosphere, you are better off exchanging links with fellow bloggers within your niche as part of your initial link building exercise. The key here is to be proactive.
5). Link building is the art of building credibility in the eyes of search engines, thus placing your site higher in their search results.
For the uninformed, it’s the process of building inbound links pointing to your own site which can be achieved in general through reciprocal link exchanges, article marketing or commenting on dofollow sites. Either way, it helps in creating awareness, visibility and credibility of your site.
6). Come Up with a Domain Name
There are many ways of coming up with an excellent domain name, but in the end, you alone have to decide what kind of name and brand you want to build.
A few tips for coming up with a good domain name is to make it:
- Unique
- Memorable
- Easy to spell
- Concise
Also Read: Why You Should Use a Custom Domain Name for Your BlogSpot Blog
7). Don’t fake it.
Unless you are damned sure of what you are talking about, it’s smarter to write something you are knowledgeable about or at the very least have put into practice before. It’s never difficult to tell when a blogger is faking it. The blogosphere is too small for you to lose your credibility this way.
8). Tag line
Coming up with a tagline is not absolutely necessary when you’re starting out, but it can be a lot of fun.
Go for a tag line that communicates who you help and what you help them with. If you help small businesses get more leads on their email newsletter, a simple tag line could be:
“Turn your readers into leads, and your leads into raving customers.”
9). Niche
The next step is to find your niche. The best way to stand out from all the millions of blogs out there is to become an expert in a highly targeted area.
Think opt-in conversion expert instead of email marketing. Think turning your blog into a book instead of just general blogging tips.
Get specific and you will go far.
10). Entertain your readers
Facts and details are deemed to be boring, you need to pay attention that not only your article should be informative, it must also be entertaining. Jay from SuiteJ did it really well here with his video review. Tell me what you think about it (…mind ya it’s addictive).
11) . Pick Your Web Host
Avoid using a free blogging option like WordPress.com or Blogger.com. If you’re serious about blogging, you need a self-hosted service.
There are plenty out there, like BlueHost and HostGator. They are just a few dollars a month and will get you started on the right path.
12). Google tools.
Having the right tools such as Feedburners, Webmaster Tools, Analytics makes a whole lot of difference to your site. With all the information at your disposal, it’s easier to stay on top of the game.
Also Read: 10 Thoughts on How Blogging Impacts Life
13). Content Strategy
You need to have a solid content strategy in place, so think about the following questions:
- What kind of content will you produce? (audio, text, video)
- How will you produce it?
- How often will you publish new content?
- How will you make new readers aware of old content?
- How will you use your content to grow your business?
14). Help fellow blogger in need.
Your sincerity and willingness to help, no matter how trivial the issue is, will come in handy when you need help from one of them in the future.
Also Read: Free Ways to Promote Your Website/Blog Online and Offline
15). Interaction with your readers, in whatever form, is an important part of maintaining a healthy community around your blog. In such an impersonal world of blogging, responding to your readers’ comments adds a little more personal touch to it. Use your blog to start a conversation.
16). Know your competitors and yourself, you will win every battle – Sun Zhu (the Art of War). Well, I’m not referring to a ‘seek and destroy’ strategy here but rather spying on your competition to understand their strategies and learn what makes them more successful than you.
17). Monetization
The next step is to think about how you will monetize. How will you make money with your blog?
If you don’t want to make money with your blog, you can skip over this step. But I see so many people jump into blogging without having a simple business plan.
You have to have an idea of how you will generate revenue. You don’t have to be crystal clear, but there needs to be opportunities for you to do so.
Look at what people are already paying for. Go to ClickBank, Amazon, or just use Google to find products and services people are selling in your market.
18). Traffic Generation
How will you get traffic to your site?
Write down at least three traffic generation strategies that you will start off with. For example, I started with blog commenting, but I quickly moved over the guest blogging, because it was so much more effective.
To this date, I’ve written close to two hundred guest posts for different blogs, and they all keep bringing traffic to my site and building my list, and consequently, my business.
19). Quality Article. Write from your heart, proofread and speak to your audience through your writing. These are the obvious points yet pretty much overlooked by the majority of beginners. Just remember that it all comes down to quality vs quantity.
Also Read: How to make your blogging muscles stronger
20). Read more. The more you read, the more ideas you will get. I simply can’t think of a better way to learn from success of others than subscribing and reading other people blogs. It’s simply a great way to improve your knowledge and give you a different perspective of what you have already known
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