Starting a blog seems easy. You can head over to blogger, wordpress.com, tumblr, and other free blogging sites and setup shop. Once you have setup your blog, what steps should you take next?
I’ve put together a list of five tips that will help you in your journey from a novice to an experienced blogger.
1 – Find a mentor
When first starting out, take a close look at blogs that are in your niche that you respect and have a considerable amount of traffic flow. Make a connection with the blog owner and ask questions! Blogger’s are typically great about sharing advice and tips in relation to how they have succeeded in design, drawing traffic, and more.
Latch on to what they are doing, put your unique spin on it, and use their advice to add value and functionality to your blog.
It’s best to reach out to bloggers that are not in the A-list that you hope to be someday, but to bloggers that have more experience and success in drawing traffic that you. Aim for collaborating with bloggers that are in the experience level just above yours. It can be a challenge to find a great mentor, but don’t get discouraged!
2 – Write
One of the first pieces of advice I was given when I started my blogging endeavors was to write, and write some more. It’s important to write as much as possible. The more you write, the more you’ll find your voice and style emerging. No one enters the blog world with a gift to create perfect content. It is a skill that needs to be honed through practice. Another benefit of writing often is that you will quickly have more content for your readers to look at when they reach your blog.
Don’t write just for the sake of writing. Choose topics that are of interest to you that also will be of interest to others. One quality post about a topic that has a broad appeal is better than several posts that a small number of potential readers may care about. Quality, not quantity is the key here. It’s important to get some posts out there, but be mindful that quality, detailed posts will attract traffic.
3 – Promote
Use free social media and distribution tools like Twitter, Facebook, and RSS to promote your blog. These free services can give you hundreds or perhaps thousands of impressions. The more people that know about your blog, the better. If you promote a topic that twitter and facebook users find interesting, they will visit your blog, share your content with friends, and interect with you via commenting.
You’ll find as you grow, that your readers will also do a healthy bit of promotion for you as well by sharing links to your posts, “liking†the post of Facebook, and “re-tweeting†it on Twitter. If your readers like your content, they will share it.
4 – Interact
When readers comment on your posts, it’s important to engage them. Thank them for reading and commenting. Continue the discussion beyond the original posting.
The dialog in your post comment section may give you ideas for future posts. If you make a strong effort to engage readers in your comments, you very well could turn a one-time visitor into a frequent visitor.
5 – Give
Solve a problem for your readers. When people come to your blog, they may initially just be interested in the topic you have chosen to post about. Ask yourself, how am I helping my readers?
Some of the best posts out there offer tutorials, lists of resources, or reviews on products. If you put your unique flavor into these areas, and provide content that is valuable to readers, they will keep coming back.
Did you find these tips helpful? Please share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. (If you do not see the comment section, click the post title above and scroll to the bottom of the post)
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