Blogging is one of the most popular ways to market your products or services. It has given a lot of people opportunities to help others solve their problems. If you have been thinking of starting a blog, you should do so today.
To become a successful blogger, all you need to do is start a blog and create content. While this may sound simple and easy, you’ll need to work hard to climb the ladder of success and achieve your goals. Creating a blog is easy but maintaining is an uphill task. If you are passionate about it, everything will seem to flow and you are going to enjoy every step of the way.
1. Don’t think about the money
Before we start our discussion, it’s important to have the right expectations to avoid disappointment. Before starting your blog, it’s highly likely that you’ve seen or met someone with a successful blog. He or she might be living the life of your dreams. And this is what attracted you.
If you want to get rich fast, forget about blogging. It’s better to expect to be rich with a 9 to 5 job than blogging. Yes, you can make a lot of money through your blog. However, it takes a lot of time and effort. That’s why thousands of bloggers give up after a few months. It’s not the best way to fight the financial crisis either.
Don’t quit your day job just because you’ll get rich blogging. You’ll have to work harder than the blogger next to you to achieve your goals. As the popular saying goes, nothing good comes easy.
2. Finding your niche
Now that you know what to expect, let’s discuss about choosing your niche. If you don’t take the time to choose your niche, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time and money.
You might think that being a generalist is better than being a specialist because you’ll cover a wide range of topics and reach thousands of people across the world. However, being a generalist lowers your value and makes your work difficult.
To become a successful blogger, you have to raise your value. This means discovering what you want to offer and doing everything you can to deliver it. Focusing on a particular product or service will make you a master in that field and everyone will want to buy from you.
Your niche should be something that you are passionate about. Otherwise blogging will start feeling like a heavy burden. As we said earlier, don’t do it for the money.
3. Know your target market
Your target market represents the people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. In short, your products or services solve their problems. Knowing your target market inside out will help you avoid wasting time in the long run.
Some of the aspects that can help you define your target market include hobbies, sex, geographical location, age, online presence and lifestyle to name a few.
Research has shown that bloggers who write with their target audience in mind tend to deliver high-quality articles compared to those who don’t. To know your target market means you will greatly improve what you deliver because you’ll be writing for someone.
Knowing your target market will also increase traffic on your site and this will help you generate higher revenues in the long run.
4. Create content
A blog with no content is not a blog. Creating content is one of the challenging activities that you’ll face as a blogger.
You might be wondering where you’ll find the right topics to write on and how long your articles should be. You can find the right topics easily. Once you’ve known your target market, you’ll need to engage with them actively.
Participating in forums, reading social media posts and comments and other articles related to your niche will help you discover the topics that you need to cover. Just look on the scarcity on the market and you’ll know what to offer your audience. Knowing what other bloggers in your field are doing will also help you know what you should work on.
Research shows that long articles tend to get more clicks than short articles. Therefore, if you are comfortable writing long articles, you should do that by all means. You can hire writers and editors to help you with this if you have a lot of things to do.
However, you should never sacrifice quality for quantity. It’s better to write a few short high-quality articles than many low-quality articles. Keep in mind that most buying decisions will be made based on what you have to offer. And your content speaks volumes about you.
Don’t be in a hurry to publish your articles. Review your articles carefully before publishing them. Do not think that you’ll lose your clients if you don’t publish lots of articles. Again, it’s better to publish a few high-quality articles than many low-quality articles.
5. Focus on marketing
Even after creating valuable, organized and persuasive content, you’ll need to market your blog. Don’t assume that your target audience will find you. One of the best ways to market your blog is through social media platforms. Research shows that the majority of people all over the world have at least one active social media account. You’ll easily reach your target market by posting images, pictures or short videos that will lead to your blog.
On forums, you can post a link to your website or blog after answering questions on the platform. I love Quora because it’s a platform that covers almost all the topics that you can think of. You don’t have an excuse for failing to market your website or blog. Your success hugely depends on it.
6. Include high-quality images
Articles with high-quality images are more likely to be read than those without. As the popular saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures make it easier for your audience to not only understand but also remember your blog. Instead of using copyright images, consider using sites that offer free high-quality images such as Pexel and Shutterstock to name a few.
7. Post regularly
While you don’t want to sacrifice quality over quantity, it’s important to publish your articles regularly to avoid losing your readers. You can publish an article once a week or two. Also, updating your already published articles will help you attract and connect with more readers.
Conclusion
Do not worry about the negative comments that people will leave behind. Remember, you cannot please everyone. You don’t need to be hard on yourself. Criticism means that you are not doing something right or the other person is wrong. In either case, you need not complain. By developing and improving your writing skills while following the tips discussed above, you’ll easily connect with your audience. And this will make you successful.
Bio
Leon Collier is a blogger at professional paper writers from the UK, who loves to write about everything: pop-culture, travel, self-development, marketing. He loves reading and playing tabletop games on Saturday with his friends. Follow him on twitter @LeonCollier12.
