Blogging is not a rocket science.
In simple terms, Blogging is: “A simple practice of the right things to achieve your goal”
And yet, many newbies and veterans struggle to build a compelling blog.
There’s one simple reason:
Ignoring the simple (YET POWERFUL) stuff.
In this post, I’ll be sharing 11 Blogging tips which seem very on the eye; but are as much difficult when it comes to implementing them.
- Drive More Traffic
- Write Better Blog posts
- Create Killer Content
- Be More Productive
Be Consistent, and get 98% MORE traffic
Being Consistent is so underrated.All Successful Bloggers have this one thing in common: they’re ridiculously Consistent.
Building a successful blog comes down to the three things really:
- Create a Strong foundation.
- Map a growth strategy.
- Follow it, CONSISTENTLY.
In fact, even 1 post a week is perfectly fine, as long as you’re promoting it well.
“What? Really?”
Yes, I’m pretty much sure of this:
1 extremely good piece of content every week will BEAT 7 poor pieces of content every week and don’t take my word for it, here’s a quick comparison of our recent stats:
The blue graph and orange graphs represent December and November respectively.
We were highly consistent in December which wasn’t the case in November (due to some other commitments)
And as a result, we got 98% more page views in December as compared to November:
Now, I’ve just applied this to traffic.
You can apply it to whatever you want.
Perhaps, you want to improve your writing. Write 500 words a day, everyday.
And you’ll get better.
Maybe, you want to build your brand on social media.
Be online, interact with people. Share other people’s content.
The bottom line is this
“Be highly consistent in whatever you plan to achieve and you’ll start seeing the results” -Tweet This
Be Unique, Have a Voice… or Get Lost in 200,000 blog posts
Close to 200,000 blog posts go live everyday. That’s Immense.And it’s very easy to get lost in this kind of crowd.
Especially if you’re posting repetitive and boring content.
I’ll show you how:
Google your topic (or whatever you’d like to blog about one day).
For example:
I checked out, three or four articles that showed up on the first page…
… and look what I found:
Almost every website offered somewhat similar advice. And, hey, I’ve only compared one point…
But, many others are similar:
We’ve now established the fact that many similar points have been covered by the posts that rank on page #1 for the “best ways to start an online business query”.
Now let’s see how many results Google has for this query:
Yep, 174 million.
Imagine, you start a blog in the business niche and write:
10 Proven strategies to Start an Online Business in 2017
#1 Get a Website. Duh. It’s obvious, isn’t. And it’s already been said time and time over.
But, add something like this:
#1 Your Business is a sure shot FAILURE if you don’t know this
Ah, something unique and practical, cool, read on.
So, in order to compete with 17.4 billion similar pieces of content offer something others haven’t.
And if you want to rank on top, you’ll have to stand-out.
You’ll must a UNIQUE perspective and a voice.
… Or you’ll just be repeating the same things (that have been said time and time again), ever.
Do Not Think About Money for the first Year, I repeat DO NOT
The prospect of lucrative money lures us everywhere.Not just a blog but people are lured toward PTC, with as low as $1 payout after working for hours clicking on ads.
Gods, what not can be achieved if they invest those hours into something more constructive.
Every time I go on Quora, my timeline is filled with “how to make $n” questions.
Take a look:
I don’t have the exact figures but I’m sure most people start a blog wanting to make more money.
And I get it, that’s completely fine.
Blogging is a big industry, capable of generating lots of income if you’re serious enough.
I was the same when I started out.
But, over the past year, I’ve realized that’s not how it works.
So:
Create Content that will truly help people and money will just be a by-product.
However, it will not be the same if you’re having a make money quick approach.
Sorry to break it to you, but you’re bound to fail with this.
So, it’s better to concentrate — for at least first year — on providing the best content and building your brand. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be good to start implementing monetization strategies.
Start Creating quality Content, or Forget about getting on page #1 in Google
All over the internet, you’ll find tons of growth hack strategies, which will apparently help you rank on the 1st page of Google.I feel sad while saying this: many of them do not guide you in the right way.
You start concentrating too much on SEO and forget about the actual people who’ll be reading your blog.
Mind you, the prospect of ranking on 1st page of Google is tempting.
According to Advanced Web Ranking’s CTR study, it was found out:
The pages ranking on the first page get approx. 80% and 70% clicks on Desktop and Mobile respectively.
So, the importance of ranking on page #1 (more in the top 5 results) is evident.
Over the past two decades, Google has made many changes to its search Engine algorithms.
Panda, Penguin, Mobilegeddon, RankBrain to name a few.
In October 2015, it was revealed Google had been using AI for months and it was believed to be the 3rd most important ranking factor.
Before that, site credentials and age played a role in ranking.
Meaning, some web pages with average content rank over other web pages which are comparatively new and have fewer credentials (backlinks, social shares, etc.)
This, however, has seen a change since PageRank. Google’s bots have started using Machine Learning, trying to understand even better.
Google has deployed thousands of Computer Scientists trying to integrate even more AI to improve their search engine results and provide the best results.
Even today, the average content hasn’t completely disappeared from the 1st results page.
But, it has definitely reduced as compared to before RankBrain.
So, remember this:
There will come a time in near future when machines will understand what web page is better and actually provides value.
And if you don’t want to get hit, then, concentrate on creating Content that provides the user best value.-Tweet This
Integrate more VISUAL content than ever
Before getting into the details, let me state some numbers:- 81% of the people only skim the content they read online (source)
- On the average web page, users have time to read AT MOST 28% of the words (source)
- Video traffic will make 80% of the global internet traffic by 2019 (source)
- Instagram’s monthly active users have risen dramatically by 200 million from 2015 to 2017 (source)
What’s the reason for this?
Have people become lazy? Nope, they haven’t.
Perhaps, impatient.
Everyone wants information fast. And with fast I mean REALLY FAST.
And in the easiest way.
I mean, think about yourself: What would you prefer?
Reading 5000 words or perhaps an infographic which will give you what you NEED.
Obvious, right?
You’ll see all the best bloggers and internet marketers integrating a lot of visual content.
Neil Patel, Brian Dean, to name a few.
Even, here on GrowingMetrics, you’ll see a lot of visual content.
I make sure to add charts, screenshots, infographics wherever possible; to make my content more appealing and quickly graspable.
So, it’s necessary to integrate VISUAL content in your content creation strategy.
Here’s a quick infographic to show you a few types of VISUAL content to integrate:
Target ONE platform to start with, and eventually, expand on others
When I started out with blogging about 14 months ago, the first thing I did was create accounts on: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube.Creating accounts was okay, but then I tried to expand on them all at ONCE.
The result:
I could not expand even on one channel.
This is the worst possible mistake you could do at the start.
DO NOT start with all the channels.
Start testing with the channels you’re already popular on.
For example:
You’re highly likely to have accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat.
Try to start building on one of them.
Find if one of the influencers has had any luck on any of these channels.
If you’re on Facebook but that channel has been denounced the worst to grow in your industry, you’ll be wasting your time.
So, before you get going invest a bit of time into finding what will work.
For instance, platforms like Reddit, Quora and outreach have worked best for us, so far.
Here’s a quick graphic on which Social Media platform might work for you:
Upgrade Old Content
It’s always advised to create evergreen content (content that won’t become irrelevant with time).But, there’s always content that becomes old and must be replaced.
Let’s take an example:
A few months back, I’d created a super-massive post collecting 100+ Blogging Tools for 2017
But the thing is new tools pop-up every day in the market and a few disappear, too… or simply degrade in quality.
So, it’s my job to Update the list regularly.
Whenever I come across some new tool that’s better than the existing one, I replace it.
Upgrading old content gives you a couple strategic advantages:
- Let’s your readers know, you are up to date with the latest services and only provide the best
- Every time you update a post, make sure you’re changing the date to Updated. Here’s an example from BloggingBasics101:
-
- To do that in WordPress, you’ll have to install Last Modified Timestamp plugin
- Next, use the word [Updated], [Latest], [Upgrade], [Latest Year] in your titles to catch attention or write the latest year.Examples:#1 100+ Blogging Tools and Resources to Work Faster [Updated]
#2 17 Actionable SEO tips to rank #1 on Google in 2017
#3 15 Latest Search Engine trends that will dominate 2017
Even if you can improve 30% of them, you’ll get dozens of new visitors with a fresh promotion.
Create well Researched and Data Driven Content
Content creation, whether it is text or visual — in itself — is the backbone of your blog.The more compelling content you create the better.
Yet, I see many posts with outdated data; with no research whatsoever.
Data is the heart of any concept.
Look:
You can create two kinds of posts:
- Speculate strategies that you believe will work.
- Craft strategies in the form of content; properly backing every strategy with relevant results.
Another important step in crafting content is researching the existing content. by research, I mean, very, very deep research.
When you research existing content, you get tons of loopholes wherein you can provide data backed solutions to those problems.
Here’s how:
#1 Google. Don’t just limit to the first 5 queries or the first page. Go beyond, upto 3rd – 4th page, if necessary.
#2 Famous blogs on that topic, you know about, but don’t rank on top.
#3 Comments on the blog posts can help you.
#4 Taking opinions of other top bloggers on social media or email.
“Creating well researched and data driven content will help you get more credentials and your blog with more backlinks” -Tweet This
Use Random Ideas Effectively
Ever had a really good random idea enter your brain, which you thought could integrate with your next blog post?But then when you got home and sat down to write it, you just couldn’t.
Boom, it was gone. Disappeared.
I’ve had such ideas dozens of times.
And most of the times they used to disappear.
Until one fine day, I sat down to find a solution.
I thought what if: every time a random idea is generated I could note it down somewhere and expand on it later.
And that’s what I did.
In my Android device, I have:
#1 Evernote
#2 Google Docs
These are powerful text editors which you can sync across all devices.
So next time a random pops-in make sure you’ve got installed one of the above apps on your phone.
Just jot it down and when you get home or perhaps while writing the next post you can expand on it.
Procrastination = End of Your Blog
Procrastination, whatever niche you’re in, will end your blog.We’re all guilty of it sometimes.
Some, more often than not.
We know what to do about it, but it’s really difficult.
Here are some of the effects of procrastination:
- You’ll lose your priceless time
- You’ll not be able to meet your goals like completing your next blog post or a video for a round-up post.
- You might miss a golden opportunity like missing the deadline for a guest post on one of the most reputed blogs in your industry
- You could ruin your career as a blogger, as people who don’t procrastinate will achieve more in the same 24 hours everyone has.
- Time Management: Just becoming successful will be not worth it if you are not able to pursue your hobbies or spend time with your loved ones. So, managing time is an important habit that every successful person is proficient at.
- Setting Goals and Achieving them: Not Setting goals will often leave you in a state of dilemma. If you don’t set a target of what you aim to achieve in the next day, week, month or year — you’ll not be aware of whether you are progressing or not and will not be able to strategize accordingly. This is another great habit of every successful person — they set targets that are difficult to achieve and try to beat the deadline.
- Track and Analyze Progress: You know one of the most important parts of achieving success — that we usually ignore — is tracking the things you’ve been doing and analyzing if they’re working.
Never, Never, Never Give Up…
Let’s come to some reality:Getting decent traffic will take much more time than you expect, and making money? Even more.
And this thing frustrates many.
Blogging requires a lot of patience, discipline, and persistence.
In fact, according to Technorati 95% of the blogs are abandoned, this data was analyzed in 2009 and no new data came yet.
Even though this is a comparatively old study, it’s still very much true.
And this troubles me, very much.
So, on an ending note I want you to read this:
- 7 Life Lessons from a Guy Who Can’t Move Anything But His Face These are the 7 life lessons from Jon Morrow, one of the best bloggers around the world, who can only move his lips due to a neuromuscular disorder. He has built multiple blogs which have been read by millions of people and made tens of millions combined.
- 12 Famous People Who Failed Before Succeeding This is a collection of stories of some of the most famous people around the globe who had to see some difficult early days.
Let me know the top three things that trouble you the most in blogging in the comments section in this post ==> Blogging Questions Answered post.
I’ll ensure to help you in the best possible way.
Now:
It’s your turn.
Tell me some ridiculous, yet powerfully effective tactics that have worked for you in the past.
I’ll be happy to learn and implement them.
Source: http://growingmetrics.com/blogging-tips-for-pros/
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