Wondering what are the best blogging tips for beginners
If you really want to make money from your own blog
Then you have to either learn all the blogging tips your fellow bloggers faced before
There are few affiliate links, if you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you
Or the other alternative is to start a blog and learn as you go along
Contents show
What is wrong with starting a blog and learning as you go?
Building blogging experience is a very long journey
Most bloggers start and quit without seeing any progress or success
I know how you feel when you are blogging with no significant success
It is an overwhelming experience that it is very complicated to document it in sequential steps
Why is that, because blogging failure can be due to so many reasons
Experience on optimizing your website itself
It can be due to slow loading website or due to tiny fonts on your website so visitors leave right away
It can be due to a website cluttered with ADs and popups so visitors quit without trying to read your contents
Now If you complete all the check list for your website to be compliant with your visitors’ expectations and to be compliant with Google standards in terms of Google PageSpeed test
Experience you gain into learning SEO
You move to the next level of optimizing your website for SEO
As you don’t have any opposing factor for search engines to consider ranking your website
This is another level of experience where you look for ranking keywords
You start optimizing your blog posts to have your keyword in your title and through out your content
Although optimizing your website for SEO is something
You have to pursue to get visitors seeing your website
Let us leave it for now as a way to get traffic
Let is assume you found an alternative way to bring visitors to your website with SEO
I would say, you found Pinterest as a solution
Your Pinterest pins draw their attentions Visitors click on your pins into your website
They can read your contents properly without any of the above mentioned obstacles
Experience to built for writing interesting contents
Next, they read your contents
Do visitors find it interesting?
Now we shift to another obstacle
Do they get a nice reading experience?
Do visitors get engaged?
When visitors reading your contents
Is it grabbing their emotions
If you practice to write powerful words to engage your audience
Experience to learn creating a call to action
You move to the next step
You have to direct your visitors for a call to action
They have to do an action either buy a product
Whatever your own product or affiliate one
Easy way to get them to join your email list
It needs a lot of experience to get visitors to buy the first time they visit your website
It requires long and convincing professional writing that looks like irresistible sales page
You can get visitors easily to join your mailing list
Than to buy from you on their first visit
If they start joining your mailing list
You move to the next level
What to write to your subscribers
Are your emails full of information/sales
You figure it out based on your open rate
Below I compiled a big list of blogging tips for beginners covering all aspects in your blogging journey
1-Start with positive mindset
I covered before five things to develop or to work on
They are as follows
Mindset, Why, Promise, Audience and Empire
Quickly I will summarize them
MINDSET to start knowing that it is a Marathon
You are not writing some random articles and expect to make money online
WHY you are creating a blog for your Audience
It is not for yourself
Yes your Audience know you want to make money from them
They need to read about solving their problems
Keep the WHY always on your mind and
You will be able to explain reasons for not seeing any result
PROMISE comes after that
You have to promise yourself that
Every blog post, call to action or email you send
Reflects your WHY
Then with AUDIENCE
I know it is tricky as not all niches can have distinct characteristics for their audiences
But if they do like losing weight after pregnancy
You know here that you are targeting Women between 18 to 45
They are busy taking care of their newborn babies
Finally the EMPIRE, you build a successful blog that not going to lose profit overnight if Pinterest algorithm one day get changed or Google changes their algorithm
You can read all the details under under blogging skills
2-Choose a niche you love
To be precise
Choose a niche you love that is profitable
Niches to go with high confidence
How to make money
Health and Fitness
Personal finance
Beauty and fashion
Relationships and personal development
Lifestyle (like survival, gardening, Women’s lifestyle..etc.)
You can read from other famous bloggers different opinions
They claim that they tackle niches they don’t love
They make lot of money
If you are starting up
Don’t waste your start up chance
Doing something you feel obliged to like
The internet covers everything thoroughly
You can be an expert in any niche
If you read about it for 20 hours
45 minutes for one month
This does not mean that
You will get connected to it
That’s why I recommend to start with what you love
3-Create a plan and strategy
When I first started in July 2018
I was not sure what is the purpose of my Blog
My initial plan was to write blog posts
Then get traffic to generate money from ADs and affiliate marketing
I realized later that this plan is tough but why it is very hard to for me
I cannot write blog post every day
So I will take very long time to get reasonable traffic to generate decent income
I learned later on the following
If I put my effort in creating my own product
I can create my first best product for topics which I know well about
I can get traffic from other affiliate promoting my product
My strategy which I live in
I create less blog posts but I make sure that my writings are covering my topic thoroughly
I always visit my old blog posts and see what I missed during that time
There must be a new value to add as we learn new things everyday
4-Think about your audience
Imagine you get inside your visitor’s brain
You understand how they feel
Put yourself in his/her shoes
Add the image under Use AIDA
Use what is called AIDA
Which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action
You can read few details about it under Use Aida
5-Pick a nice domain name
Good news is domain name does/will not affect your Google rankings
It doesn’t mean that you pick a completely irrelevant domain name
Choose a domain name that can reflect your brand
Stay away from abbreviations unless it is universal one e.g. SEO
Make sure it is memorable
Easy to spell and dictates the purpose
If you are still confused
Search for competitors’ domains
Try to find if you can find different extensions
For example if .com is taken
Look for .net, .org, .co, .biz or
Add/Change a word in the domain
For example, if ParentalTips.com is taken
I found MyParentalTips.com is available
At the time of writing this
6-Think about how to monetize your website
The way you plan ahead of
How to monetize your website
It will dictate the work you must do
For example, if you plan for pay per click advertisement
You should look for writing blog posts on highly paid keywords per click
Your best bet is optimizing your website for SEO
If you plan to create your own product
Then you should start collecting emails to connect with your audience
If you plan to go with Affiliate marketing
I would suggest you read this Affiliate marketing reality vs illusion
Also you can read more details on how to monetize your blog
7-WordPress is the solution
Why I chose this title, you can use any kind of CMS (Content Management System) to add menu for your pages and regular blog posts
Actually there are so many CMS that can do this job easier than WordPress in terms of installation and getting your website ready
The reasons I still want you to stick with WordPress are
A) 34% of websites globally are built with WordPress
Which means a lot of support from WordPress users to help when you need it
B) Great flexibility where I have never thought about any task where to find lot of plugins to do it for you
C) A lot of WordPress development companies where you can find thousands of themes to choose from
D) Open source where you can modify its code (last resort) to adapt your needs
I recommend you read about
Building your website from scratch
8-Simple blogging design
I know I am addressing this blog post to individuals like you and me who work as a one man show
I expect you are the same
You need a simple blogging design
As you need to deliver your message or
Call to action to direct your visitors to do certain tasks
The idea is don’t create a magazine design with clutter design that confuses your users and leads to no action at all
Simplicity is the key to get best result
9-Configure your WordPress
Definitely you need specific plugins to run your WordPress website smoothly
Few plugins are mandatory and must have like
Google Analytics to track your visitors like
Where they came from and which pages they visit
Security plugin like WordFence to protect your WordPress against any attacks
Performance plugin like W3 Total Cache
Backup plugin like UpdraftPlus to backup your WordPress regularly just in case
Another set of few plugins that is nice to have like Akismet which acts as Anti Spam plugin
Social media plugin to make it convenient for readers to share blog posts on Social media
No self pings plugin
After you are done with your plugins
You have to start structuring your menu and add few pages
I recommend you read more details below
What to do with WordPress after installation
10-About, Contact and Start here pages
Actually you need to have the following pages
Contact Me
About Me
Start Here
Privacy Policy
Disclaimer
Notice I used “me” instead of “us”
You try to be personal and avoid the corporate tone
I recommend to read the following
Design your WordPress blog
11-Use Permalinks for your blog posts
I know you may have come to this blogging tip on the above link
I repeat it again because I want to tell you this is mandatory
Under WordPress, go to settings then Permalinks
Select custom structure and type %postname% in the custom field
Using Permalinks is the first step towards ranking your WordPress website on search engines
12-Use responsive design
I didn’t believe my eyes when I checked Google Analytics
More than 75% of my users are coming from mobile devices
Always look for any WordPress premium theme that is Mobile friendly or Responsive design
Visitors will not stay on your WordPress website If you are not using a responsive design
13-Keep regular backup
Don’t leave a single chance that one day
You will not be able to restore your blog from recent backup
Who knows you can be hacked for any reason
You can get a brute force attack and lose all your hard work
Plan for this scenario by using a WordPress backup plugin
The backup plugin can do it manually or automatic on a cloud
UpdraftPlus is considered one of the best plugins for backing up your WordPress
14-Consider reputable theme
Although it is very easy to get nulled theme – premium theme that is modified to be free
I would suggest to stay away from them
Don’t be surprised, I knew it recently that nulled themes affect your SEO
It can be full of spam links where Google ranks websites lower in search engine if they contain a malicious contents
If you really like a theme, invest into buying a license
I would say most of them are one time payment
If you are still confused which company to buy your theme from
I recommend to go for either GeneratePress or StudioPress
Again it is up to you but I found that these are the top premium theme companies
15-Don’t marry your WordPress theme
You already bought a theme
Later on, you found a better one or you came across a theme that has excellent reviews
So what, you are not married to your theme
Change your theme right away
The idea is, don’t be obsessed and waste time trying to find the perfect theme
There are lot of themes that look good on the demo
Then you get stuck when trying to modify them after purchase or
It happens that you buy a bloated theme too heavy to load
You see there are so many reasons to go flexible and move from theme to another if required
Just a recommendation to copy your widgets text or code to a notepad and save them on cloud like Google Drive or Dropbox
Most probably Widgets will not be converted
You have to recreate them on the new theme
16-Website speed is crucial
Don’t be surprised if you don’t rank on search engines just because your WordPress site takes 8 seconds to load
Ideally you should target 2-5 seconds for your WordPress site to load
How do you measure your website load speed?
Well, Google has a nice tool called Google Pagesite speed test
Just put your homepage URL and it will analyze the speed for you with recommended steps to follow to speed up your WordPress loading time
A couple of actions I would like you to keep in mind
A) Always keep your images to the minimum, I use a free desktop called irfanview
If you are using an image as a thumbnail, reduce it to the thumbnail size immediately
B) Follow this step to reset all media size settings to zero
C) If you have a seasonal plugins like cleaning database plugin or any other seasonal plugins
I recommend to deactivate them when not used and only activate them to do your tasks and deactivate them again
D) Stay away from fancy fonts and keep it simple
Some Google fonts are downloaded every time you load your site
E) You must use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Few web hosting like SiteGround integrates with a CDN and provides you with a WordPress plugin for best performance
F) Stay away from bloated themes and those that come loaded with extra features like slider and carousel
Keep your theme simple to rank well on search engines
17-Look for the best web hosting
Although switching from one theme to another can be little bit intimidating for few users
Changing your web hosting can be challenging for everyone
I myself did not want to switch from my existing web hosting to SiteGround but I had to take this step
But what are the things that make your web hosting a best choice
A) Great customer support, yes great like getting an agent on chat within a minute and wait time on the phone call is less than 2 minutes
Customer support resources are patient and willing to help
B) Having fast, rock solid servers that improves your site when measured on Google PageSpeed
C) Doing backup daily for you on their servers, this is an amazing feature which is hard to find in all web hosting
SiteGround does that for you
D) Offering free SSL to help you get https website
E) Offering CDN (Content Distribution Network) or integrate with existing one like CloudFlare
SiteGround has its own SuperCacher and it integrates with the well known CloudFlare
Also offering a plugin to control your Caching on your WordPress website
F) It comes with one click WordPress install where you get WordPress installed for you on your desired domain
I recommend to read why I changed my web hosting
18-Always go for https
I didn’t know until recently that https is not optional from search engines’ perspectives
They do rank your site higher against any other website that is not https
Even if you are not carrying secure transactions on your WordPress still https is good thing to do on your website
Some web hosting companies offer a free https, so check to see if you have one
19-Install necessary plugins
You have to resist the temptation that so many plugins are nice to have
In reality, few plugins are mandatory like
A) Google Analytics, you cannot run WordPress site with tracking where your visitors are coming from and their activities
B) Performance plugin like W3 Total cache, you can substitute it with SuperCacher plugin if you are hosting your WordPress on SiteGround
C) Security plugin like WordFence to protect your WordPress against attacks also you get notifications of plugins incompatibility
D) Backup plugin like UpdraftPlus but you can live without it if you are using SiteGround as it will create the backup for you for 30 days
Actually you can still use backup plugin to keep track of old WordPress copies
Also there are few nice to have listed above
under Configure your WordPress (add a link to item 8 above)
20-Optimize your used images
I hope it is not too late knowing this
Google PageSpeed detects images that are really big in size where they slow down your WordPress loading time
Knowing that in advance can help you use desktop image optimization tool to reduce the size along with decreasing the quality
If you already uploaded some big images then I recommend to use ShortPixel to optimize images while they are already there
21-Be creative with your contents
It is really hard to come up with how you can be creative
I consider this one to be one of the best blogging tips for beginners
At least if you target a keyword for your blog post
Make sure to write long, epic and informal blog post better than the top 10 that come up on the time of doing the search
Think about how to come up with attractive images and work more into adding videos especially for tutorials blog posts
22-You have to love writing
This is what will stay forever as the primary task for blogging
Some blogging tasks starts and finish like installing and configuring WordPress
Some are seasonal like adding images – only when you finish your blog post
The only thing that stays is writing whatever a new blog post or ebook product idea
23-Write in-depth blog post
Writing any blog post should not be limited to the topic
You should put yourself in reader’s shoes who is reading your blog post
Are you covering all the topics related to your subject
e.g. If you are taking about how to understand Google Analytics data
First you have to cover all the related topics based on your target audience
For example, how to create Google Analytics account – beginner’s level or
How to connect Google analytics to your WordPress site and so on
Make sure that your audience will not look for another websites to complete their readings
24-Read often, write more, be creative
Without reading in your niche
It will be hard to come up with new ideas
That’s the beauty of internet
People are building knowledge on top of existing one
You can find a topic in your niche that makes you feel uncomfortable to write it as is
So you convert it to simplified Infographics or whatever
Or you can hear a video on video channels where you see that it is not covered in depth as an article
You decide to write a new blog post about it
I think the more you read the more you will become creative
25-Use conversational tone
Always use the “I, me, mine”
Make your writing looks like you are talking to someone
Asking questions then provide their answers
Remember you are not writing a professional book
You are writing articles that get viewed by everyone
No need for difficult words
26-Divide your blog posts into small paragraphs
It took me a lot of practice to write 3 to 4 as a single paragraph
This is one of my best advice to you
I have seen so many bloggers writing in a very good style way better than me
Only one thing that intimidates me
Writing long lines without empty spaces
Look below and tell me what you think
Which one entices you to keep reading
27-Comment on other blogs
You need to gain some backlinks
Best way to do this is to search for a blog post similar to a one you wrote before
Go and write your observations on this topic
You will get a backlink from your profile pointing to your homepage
This is not bad for a quick turnaround task
28-Turn on comment moderation
Even if your are new to blogging
People will find you just to spam links in your comment section
Best way to avoid this is to turn manually moderate and check each comment
You approve what you think is not a spam
29-Consider to apply basic SEO
I know there are tons of SEO courses that make this subject looks like it is complicated
May be but the basic of SEO is way simpler where anybody with no knowledge in internet or
computer background can still apply it and see results
You have to just
A) Include your keyword in your URL
B) Shorten your URL reasonably
C) Add your keyword in your title tag
D) Make sure your title tag is less than 60 characters
E) Use your keyword in H1, H2 and H3
F) Use your keyword in the first paragraph – first 150 characters
I recommend your read
https://backlinko.com/seo-checklist
30-Use link building as a strategy
I would Consider this statement below a hypothetical one
Any great blog post in a very low/moderate competitive niches that is written better than all the top 10 searches on Google should rank without doing link building
You still need link building if you are writing in a high competitive niche
But how to find places where you can add links pointing to your website
I found Keysearch to be good fit as it allows me to test it with low payment for one month
You can cancel before the renewal
You can analyze the top list of sites which are ranking well and analyze what backlinks they are using to point to their websites
31-Build your email list from day one
Using email list with tools known as Autoreponders
It doesn’t require to learn great tactics to build one
So don’t refrain yourself from building one
Let me tell you that you are wrong
If you don’t know it
There are subscribers who will never open your emails, no matter what
Build your list from day one and don’t be obsessed about your open rate
It should improve as you go on and try different methods
Some bloggers purge subscribers who never open their emails
Yes there is nothing wrong about this practice
32-Give away your best knowledge
Some bloggers think that it is better to keep their best knowledge in their paid course or ebook
Ask yourself, how can your visitors open their wallet if they don’t really see some value in your writings
Even if your paid product is a compilation with tweaking of your free writings
So what be creative and add extra benefit or cutting edge to your products
33-Include call to action
Every blog post you write should ask your reader at the end to take an action
If you want them to subscribe to your newsletter, you should say so
At certain point, some visitors will like what you wrote and they will follow your action
Technically if you have multiple newsletter based on your blog categories
You should ask your visitors to subscribe to the relevant newsletter at the end of each blog post
34-Use Google Analytics from day one
Do yourself a favor and invest sometime to understand the gigantic world of Google Analytics
With this free tool you can build a lot of decisions on how is your final audience characteristics
Based on that you can enhance your website to meet your audience expectations
This right approach will increase your visitors
35-Use Google Webmaster
Both Google Webmaster and Google Analytics are free
If you are doing SEO by yourself
Then you need to view/read site messages
Google will update you with any issues
Actually you will receive an email with notification so you don’t have to log on to check for messages
Again beside site messages
What is more important is being able to submit your sitemap and checking your crawling errors
Also viewing your site links, like who is linking to you
I recommend to read the full list here
https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2014/05/21/how-use-google-webmaster-tools-seo
36-Submit a sitemap for your website
Sitemap are not required but it is highly encouraged
I hope you understand this well
Even if you have a sitemap, Google will index each post that is not thin
Sitemap facilitates Google process of indexing your website
Yoast SEO plugin will help you do that
Then you can submit it manually to Google Webmaster
37-Use Gravatar
Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar
If you create a Gravatar account then leave a comment with your email address on blogging platforms that support Gravatar like WordPress
You picture and profile will be pulled out automatically
I believe it is nice to see comments coming from profiles with pictures
It provides credibility
38-Focus only on one blog
I mean if you have more than two niches
You would like to write about
For example parenting and blogging
You can combine both under one roof
If you are not professional then start with one blog only
Otherwise you will be distracted and lose your energy
39-Build a sales funnel
There are so many courses about creating professional sales funnel
I am not an expert on telling you how to create a good sales funnel
All I can say is write blog post about a program
Offer solutions to the problem
Add a call to action asking visitors to join your mailing list
Entice them with more solutions to their problem
Later on introduce them to your product or an affiliate product
It is as simple as that
The caveat here is to offer the best knowledge you have
Don’t rush the sales and
When you promote the intended product
Make it look like it is a recommendation
Don’t be nagging
40-Build your own product
Building your own product has nothing to do with profit
Most of the affiliate non physical products like eBooks and eCourses offer up to 75% commissions
They do that because they want the traffic
Take it this way, if you create your own product like an eBook
Reach out to top promoters
Not only you will make sales
Assuming your have attractive sales page
But you will also get backlinks to your website
This is one of the best way to make sales and get backlinks
41-Avoid analysis paralysis
If you have a new idea of a blog post or for a new product
Start working on your product right away
You will find yourself juggling things around
Your thoughts will get properly formulated
This is better than sitting thinking about everything in your head
Doing that will lead to more procrastination
42-Use social media
Using Social media has great impact on your traffic
If you are the kind of person who can manage growing your audience while working on your blog
Then I recommend you focus on Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter
At least create your profile on Social media
Give them some of your time every now and then
43-Use attractive titles for SEO and social media
It is not a surprise that People buy books because of its titles
So imagine the case for blog posts where it takes 5-10 minutes to read
Think about an attractive and enticing titles not for the sake of SEO
An attractive titles will help you not only in SEO but in your social media
Where people are hanging there waiting for you to grab their attention
To come with attractive titles use Hubspot blog idea generator or Portent title maker
44-Focus on Pinterest
If you want traffic from day one then use Pinterest
Some bloggers rely on Pinterest as the only source for traffic
I don’t blame them for that
They know they get traffic drops every now and then
This is due to Pinterest algorithm update
With Pinterest you can get traffic right away
You don’t have to wait like in SEO
The amount of traffic is dictated by your followers number,
How creative you are with creating attractive pins
How many groups and boards you joined
Also if you are pinning manually or using a tool like Tailwind
45-Link to your old blog posts
The best way to revive old blog posts is to connect/refer to them from your new contents
Also if you have old blog posts that we’re missing contents and you created these contents later
Go and edit your old posts to link to the new contents
By doing that you still get visitors seeing your old contents and you keep things connected together
46-Consider using contact forms
If you list your email on the contact us page
Some spamming tools use to scan websites like yours looking for emails to collect
Best way is to use contact form plugins like Contact form 7
47-Add more value to your old blog posts
If you have old blog posts that are not ranking on search engines
Go and check if you need to add more value to them
Sometimes when you read them again and search for the keywords used
You will find missing topics which you should have added them
That‘s the beauty of reading your niche for your own self knowledge
48-Store your blog ideas
I am always thinking about ideas for my blog posts
I am not sure about you
These ideas don’t come to me when I am in front of my laptop
That’s why I decided to keep a tool handy
I found nothing better than Evernote or Simplenote (open Google and search for Simplenote) to keep your ideas on cell phone
Whatever it is Android or iPhone
These sites you can open them on your laptop so you don’t need to transfer notes
Just write on your cell phone, go and open your notes from Laptop and everything up to date is there
49-Don’t lie to your readers
I realized in internet marketing world
I got attracted to people having normal or average success
They explain their struggles and show you how difficult it was for them to start making money
I can tell now and I think you too by reading any success story if it is fake or genuine
You and me would love to read the real truth
It is really annoying to read
50-Think about Guest posting
To be fair, I am not sure if this is considered a real advice
In fact, some bloggers managed to make money online without Guest Posting
Keep in mind that this is the only legitimate way to get backlink and readers moving from other bloggers and coming to yours
You sacrifice time into writing Guest posts but you gain solid traffic
51-Create Infographics, images and videos
When I first started, I never thought one day that I will be able to create Infographics or video
Then I came to Canva and so I found it so easy to create Infographics with their list of ready made templates
You can create Infographics for blog posts like How to and step by step to so and so
After you create your Infographics
Go back to your old blog post and add your best created Infographics there
Share all your newly created Infographics on Social media especially Pinterest
52-Always set goals for yourself
Always set a short and long term goals
Without goals bloggers like us will get lost
Short term is to set a number of posts biweekly or per month
Remember if you set a very short term like a week
You may be discouraged for not achieving it
You then have to adjust your goals based on your performance
If you find yourself able to complete one long post per week
Then setting up 4 blog posts per month is realistic
If you manage your short term goals successfully
Then setting up your long term ones should be manageable
53-Don’t tell anyone about you blog
When you speak to people about your plan to start blogging
They hear about it and maybe they tried before
They know how challenging it is
Even if some of them did not even try or not interested
They will keep bugging you every now and then
Asking you about your progress
Most of them they tell you
We told you that it is a waste of time
Do yourself a favor and study or
Take useful course for your career
You will get discouraged quickly
All of that because you did not keep it for yourself
54-Accept criticism/ask for it
Nobody will ever send you an email to criticize something
When they visited your website
You have to ask for it
There are so many forums in your niche
Just go and sign up and ask for real reviews
I saw some bloggers offer incentives to get few people to read their eProduct and provide their reviews
Always be picky about who will review your work as you want people to carefully read and pick up the missed work
55-Don’t give up
If you feel that you have done everything to the best of your ability
Still see no significant luck
I would advise you to stay positive
This is number one best blogging tips for beginners
First check if you rely on affiliate marketing
Then consider thinking about creating your first product
You will be able to build back links and get other bloggers to do some sales for you
If you feel that you are not into making your own product
Then analyze your traffic, do you have any traffic coming from SEO
Are you targeting buyers keywords
You can target informational keywords but these are keywords for visitors looking for information
Remember the cycle for any purchase process
You start with
A) Getting to know the term as known as keyword
B) Reading more on the keyword
C) Doing review on the keyword like searching for top best or the product + review
D) Buying the product by searching for buy or buy cheap + product
If you are ranking on buy + product name and still no sales
Check the product itself, are you sure the company has no bad reviews
Are you targeting a reasonable price
May be there are competitors with cheap competitive price
What I mean here
Relax don’t give up and you will be able to analyze what went wrong
Finally if you like these best blogging tips for beginners, please share them on social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)