All blog writers want their blog to be successful—this is the one thing they all have in common. For most blog writers, success is loyal followers.
Regardless of when or why you began your blog, a few modifications here and there to your blog and your mindset can transform things for the better. Here's a list of 7 tips to help you be successful as a blog writer.
1. Finding Your Niche
This little bit of advice has been jumping around the Internet since the beginning of the first effective blog. Still, a lot of beginning writers don’t take this advice, partly because a lot of new writers aren’t sure what to write about and partly because they don’t know what a niche is.
Niche is described as, “a specialized but profitable corner of the market.”
What we really mean when we say to “find your niche” is to slim down the focus of your blog. Referring to anything and everything that comes to mind is great if you’re composing for yourself, but visitors may discover it to be disorderly and challenging. What visitors really want is an assortment of relevant and beneficial content on the same subject to help fix an issue or query.
Examples of areas include:
- Health & Wellness
- Marketing
- Finance
- Writing
While it’s correct that there are blogs on essentially every industry, the key to really succeeding and reaching your focus on industry is to filter your subject even further. Choose a gap in the marketplace and concentrate on that. This will decrease competitors while making you a go-to professional in your industry.
An example would be if you desired to start a blog about your travels. Instead of concentrating on travel in general, you might concentrate on an individual nation or town. That way, you are likely to become the number one go-to blog for people who will be visiting that area.
2. Self-Promote
Promoting your own venture on public networking or within your team of buddies is overwhelming for a lot of people. You don’t want to appear to be boasting, and you definitely don’t want to come across looking like spam.
If you want to be successful, however, you have to tell others to get the word out, and who better to do that than you? It’s all part of the marketing procedure, and writers have to figure out how to use public networking and use feedback on blogs to promote themselves.
Many writers and public networking lovers recommend using 80% of your public feedback and shares to enhance other people’s works and 20% of it advertising your own services and products. Sometimes tooting your own horn isn’t all that bad. The key is to find balance between self-promotion and humbleness.
3. Build on What Works
Use your web page statistics and comments feature to see how visitors respond to these new concepts. If you’re not seeing any sign of a response in your statistics, study visitors to see what they think.
Experimenting is all an element of the procedure, so don’t be worried about trying something new. Start guest posting, a new weekly blogging series, and try placing ads.
Testing one thing here or there isn’t likely to harm your writing exercise. Some of these tests often lead to a surge in visitors. What's promising is that you can always dump the ones that don’t work.
4. Perform an “Above the Fold” Test
Above the fold includes the content you see when you first view your blog. It’s anything that you see without scrolling.
Since you only have a few moments to create an excellent first impression and help visitors determine what they’re looking for, you want the most essential info above the fold. For example, individuals should be able to tell who you are and what you do without scrolling. If it’s not obvious in your blog headline, there is value including a tag line. If you want to highlight your call-to-action, that should appear above the fold as well.
Test your own site by using the Clue App to set up a free 5-second test. Don’t like the results? It’s worth rethinking your website layout.
5. Make Your Blog Sticky
Sticky is a term that means you’re motivating individuals come back to or stay on your blog. For example, you might link to an appropriate article from your blog’s archives. You can do this within the material, or you can list additional sources at the end of each short article. The idea is that these hyperlinks point to your own material and offer visitors more in-depth information on the topic or a related topic.
As you do this, everyone is more likely to keep coming back and subscribe to your blog. You can also make your blog sticky by inviting visitors to subscribe to your blog or by making your RSS feed available with the click of a button.
6. Ways to Extend Your Blog
To get individuals to stay and keep returning, it’s worth increasing your reach outside of simple blog posts. This allows you reach more individuals who appreciate other types of content and contact, and it keeps your blog from getting boring.
Examples of ways to increase your reach include:
- Releasing videos
- Starting a podcast series
- Hanging around industry forums or social media
- Sending out newsletters
7. Create Quality Content
People have been saying it for a long time, and the saying still applies. CONTENT IS KING!
Without well-written and interesting material, your blog isn’t going to go anywhere. Yes, your blog style and your promotion methods are essential, but they’re essentially ineffective if you don’t have quality material. Individuals may come because of the promotion, but they’ll remain when you provide material they need.
Pro tip: Developing material customers “need” can include anything from educating them on something to offering them entertainment. While writing a blog about yourself can have its advantages, you should always be concentrating on fixing the reader’s issues first (whether they are looking for advice or a good laugh.)
Fulfilling your visitors’ needs is what will generate visitors to sign up to your blog.
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Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com
David