If you want to make money from your blog Then you have to write a lot of contents To achieve that you have to learn How to increase typing speed and boost your productivity to its maximum Where you can write an average of 1,000 words an hour
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
Yes this is doable You just need to follow my ideas below Where I am going to show you productive ways To increase typing speed skills Without losing focus and accuracy in writing
Remember I am talking about increasing typing speed with moderate speed writing on your keyboard with less errors
Also writing and editing are two different things Related to each other but can be separated In a way that can make you productive
Meaning you can write whatever You want like anything that comes to your mind Still need to edit it later as You will find lot of typos
I notice that it can take me Around 2 -3 hours to properly Amend my blog posts After copying it from SimpleNote (open Google and search for Simplenote)
I am OK with that and I don’t measure it in my typing speed time My challenge and so yours are with writing as a main task It is drudgery with no doubt But it is the only way to make or break
I just want to lay down a fact that Most bloggers who fail to make money online It is because they may know that writing contents is really very essential to their success But they get lost in the writing process
Either because they don’t know how to write good contents Or they are not sure what to Blog about (add a link from not sure what to Blog about) Or they spent tons of hours completing a piece of content Where it turns out that writing as a task is a torture for them
Hoping you get ideas on how to increase typing speed Making the habit of writing like a pleasant experience Where you seek a spare time to just write
1) Start With Outlines
I will call it fill in the blanks (highlight yellow) You have to know What you are going to write If you stare at a blank screen You will get stuck on where to start from Start with an outlines instead of blank head Although outlines take time to prepare
That’s why if you find yourself Having topics on your head Write it down as headlines Avoid details, finish them and revisit later These are the seeds to where you will start from
I do all blogging tasks while my kids are around Only writing requires quality quiet time
For you own sake Setup a daily fixed quiet time At least a minimum of an hour
Before you start, train and force yourself to avoid distraction Even put your cell phone on mute You may require to search something online Well I would say, move to the next point Search the internet only when you decide to take a break
If you have all your points ready Your fill in the blank task should be easy Again any required research should be on the next iteration when you go online again
While writing and help you increase typing speed You create an account, log on and start typing Then specify how many words you want to type Also you will not be able to see your words only the last character
3) Practice writing Every Day
If you force yourself to sit down and type daily No matter what even If you think sometimes writing is a daunting task
You are not writing to become a novelist You are writing to take your blog to the next level I suggest you don’t write your first product Until you write more than 100,000 words on your blog
Make sure you master organizIng your titles Practice tweaking best performing titles to adapt yours Also rearranging your headlines to which headlines come first Learn how to create your table of contents like this one here
4) Develop Your Micro Sprint
Right after getting quiet time and Practicing writing every day You get to develop what is called Micro Sprint
This is the key to increase typing speed It is the ability to type continuously for 5 minutes
It can be plus or minus a minute or two Depending on your brain power Good news is that Micro Sprint can be improved for all of us Remember you don’t go back and edit your text You just write flawlessly and measure your performance
5) Define Your Goals
You plan to increase your writing productivity It should be measurable plan Where you are able to define goals Are you planning to reach 1000 words per hour
If this is the case, what is your current words per hour Are you working to improve it within the next month then 2,3..months down the road?
Without goals, you have no clue what you trying to do and where you are going You will be like a boat that is set to sail to nowhere
6) Write Anywhere You Can
When I first started writing I realized that dedicating a writing time It is not the best solution Sometimes you get few points You really want to write
It becomes very annoying You start writing your points on your cell phone When you go home, you email them to yourself Then copy and paste on your WordPress This is completely impractical and unproductive
That’s why I found that If I can use my phone to write my blog posts Synchronize what I wrote on all devices like my laptop or tablet This way you can be productive by writing anytime everywhere like when you are on public transit
I started with Evernote and switched to Simplenote Evernote allows you to format your text But you still need to fix your content when you paste it on WordPress That’s why I switched to Simplenote
Actually when I am using Simplenote I have to make few lines as title H1 to H3, bold or italicize a word or phrase I just add my note between 2 brackets for my action Like I write a note that says make it bold or italic
If you know about an editor that overcome this formatting challenge Add it to the comments below I use IPhone and I have this link It compares all text editor apps
I am happy with Simplenote as it does the job Perhaps I am looking for search text feature Simplenote is missing that
7) Use Voice to Text Apps
Typing is faster than writing While nothing can beat the speed of speaking over typing Getting your thoughts written on paper If you are like me who is slow in typing on keyboards You can think about using one of the speech to text apps You have to try many mobile apps till you find the best suitable match for your needs
Also if you are writing on your Laptop You can use Google Voice But you have to use Google Docs You can speak and then copy and paste Your contents to your favorite text editor
Also Dictation.io is another version of voice to text
8) Use Text Expansion and Automatic Spelling Corrections
Who doesn’t like to get tools to help be productive Text Expander is one of them If you have some words you always use You can build a list of abbreviated words Then you type them and they will be written for you
Like you type IMHO (make it bold) it will be in my humble opinion (make it bold) Remember to take sometime to review your writings and come up with these words and their abbreviated version
Also spelling corrections software is a must – it helps increase my typing speed I always see when I write on word that few words are getting corrected automatically If there is no correction, at least it will underline the ambiguous words for you
9) Take Frequent Breaks
You think that I don’t know What I am talking about or I lost focus of my point
If you don’t take frequent breaks You will never be able to write faster than before My tips here are a mix of both Internal and external factors
Know yourself first I myself struggle to write Continuously for 30 minutes I have to take a break and So I measure my performance in each session
If I am able to write 500 words per session I will set a realistic goal of 750 words You are not writing faster from memory But you are writing from your mind
There’s a big difference Your goals here are for improving The process of writing You are not trying to improve the speed
10) Set a Deadline to Finish
If you manage to stick to setting deadlines You are on the first step to great productivity
Problem with blogging and internet marketing in general Everyone speaks from different perspectives Each blogger has his/her own formula on how to accomplish things Only one thing that really matters Those who have deadlines and due dates They are the one who made it online
Take this example, if you are 100% sure that You need to write 60 blog posts each is around 5,000 words If writing each blog post takes 12 hours Plus let’s say 3 hours for editing and adding images
You need 900 hours (60 posts x 15 hours) If you work 4 hours per day and avoid weekends You need 900 divided by 20 (4 hours/day x 5 days a week) You have to work 45 weeks (almost a year)
In reality every blog is different than the other The 60 blog posts can be different from one blog to another Back to the deadline and setting due dates (making commitments) I was very easy when I mentioned 4 hours per day In reality it is really hard to achieve 4 hours a day Especially if working full time and raising up small kids
You will end up taking very long time of around 2 years Till you start seeing decent traffic to your blog I bet you will quit before 2 years That’s why the only way to blogging success is by Setting goals, defining clear due dates and working in small sprints
11) Skip Tough Parts
You have outlines which I call it Fill in the blanks but That does not make it easy to Write eloquently without you get stuck losing focus and Staring at your monitor wondering How to move from one point to another
If you can manage to skip your current point Go to the next one and revisit old point later That would be great, it is hard I know and I sometimes still struggle to make it
Practice yourself to interrupt your thoughts Move from one point to another easily You will figure out that You revisit your old point and write again very smoothly So you could have wasted your time for no reason
12) Set Separate Time for Editing
If you can ignore your urge to edit typos and missing words Due to high speed of mind thoughts Release your mind to let your thoughts flow and obey your hands to write Go and edit later but don’t interrupt your mind
That’s why I mentioned Ilys earlier as when you start typing you will not be able to see your existing words This will make you stay focused
13) Avoid Multitasking
Multitasking is good, but not when you’re writing You will experience a drop in productivity It will take longer to finish writing your blog post You will also be vulnerable to more errors
Every time you switch from writing and coming back Your brain will take long time to adjust to where you stopped
14) Accept Competition
I am not sure about your behavior but I found that it can work for many people Those who love to be challenged
There are so many forums and websites They let you sign up for writing competitions There is 31 day writing challenge Many more for 500 or 750 words per day
It should be similar to what I said before, but I will recap the above in different words
1) Prepare a draft copy with all your titles/headlines as known as outlines
2) Avoid distraction at all cost
And stay focused as much as you can Stop checking your emails/Facebook if you are in the middle of writing Put your cell phone on mute and don’t answer calls or reply to texts
3) Write everyday no matter what
In other word, writing for your blog can be intimidating But try to develop a desire to like it as your best friend
4) Develop your micro sprint
5) Have a set of goals
You are writing to have a good content to promote blog Without blog content, it is hard to get SEO Without SEO then no traffic and no conversion
Check them on either apple store or google play or even Google Voice
8) Use Text expansions and automatic spelling corrections
9) Take a break every 30 minutes
If you can focus more than 30 minutes then keep writing but if you get tired Don’t waste time staring at the screen Take your break and come back fresh again
10) Assigning a deadline for every blog post
11) Skip showstopper and move on
You may get stuck on a headline or title Skip it and move on Come back to it later and you get inspired to write easily and increase typing speed
12) Finish your edits on non writing time
Don’t mix your writing with editing your text I know it sounds hard, I want you to keep writing
Then edit your post later
13) Multitasking is bad enemy to writing
Multitasking is not for writing
14) Join writing competitions
Go to Google and type the phrase “join writing competitions” and see what you will get
Tools That Help Increase Your Writing Productivity
Google made it easy to write on laptop by opening Google Docs on your browser Also download it as an app and resume writing on You have to be connected online from your cell phone to be able to access your documents
Free version lets you synchronize your documents between your laptop and cellphones You can format your text and create headlines but they don’t work with WordPress as you have to fix your format
3) Simplenote
I love it for its simplicity and ability to synchronize text between multiple my laptop and cellphones It keeps track of multiple version of your same document which is a very nice feature It lacks the ability to search for a word or phrase on your cell You can search on your laptop using the browser search feature (CTRL+F)
Although Trello is not considered a true text editor app It has the ability to create multiple boards and align them together I see this feature very useful when creating your own eBook or online course You can lay all your chapters structure so you keep focus on your topics
Even for English native speakers Making grammar mistakes can happen Grammarly integrates with your browser or on your cell phone It corrects spelling mistakes and grammar instantly while you type
You specify how many words you aim to reach It will let you write without viewing your previously typed words It is just a way to help you overcome your temptation to editing habits
Finally if I managed to successfully guide you on how to increase typing speed, please share what you have learned with your friends using social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)
If you really want to learn How to write for a blog that keeps Your readers attracted like a magnet Then you need to follow all the steps below
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
If you think that writing stunning content is only A gifted talent given to few writers then you are wrong I am going to show you below how you can start practicing writing enticing content in no time
What I wrote below works for all kind of blog posts If you read it attentively and follow them to the letter
Personally I am writing this post for myself first As I am planning to use it as a guideline Every time I plan to write a new blog post
This blog post is intended to take you Step by Step on how to write great content for your blog Without going through procrastination writing your blog contents Due to fear of starting to write And not able to organize your thoughts Or doubting that your Audience will not like it
Another issue that adds up on top of that is Taking SEO (Search Engine Optimization) into consideration It makes you really sick as you cannot write flawlessly As you try to write SEO contents plus appealing to your Audience
I know all of your problems as I have gone through all of them In this blog post, I will show you how to create blog contents Without worrying about SEO and making sure your Audience will definitely like it and share it
Think about your title
Your blog post title is the key to either Repelling or enticing visitors to click on your blog post and read your content
Don’t write a title that promises something Different than what is inside For the sake of being attractive
For this blog post, I came up with this title Although I found Hubspot suggesting different Attractive one but I realized I wanted to Keep my promise and provide you with a content Related to my title (I hope so)
A trick which I always do when I come up with my blog post title I take my title and do a search on Google Using “AllInTitle:” followed by my blog post title With no space after the colon
If I repeat my title, Google will show up some results I try again to change anything in my title and Repeat again the “AllInTitle:” till I get no results found
This helps me to identify when I publish my content To see if Google indexed my blog post or not yet Keep in mind to keep your title characters to 60
Consider your Audience first
I always imagine myself Going inside user’s brain to Understand what is the user’s intent When searching for a title like mine
Google managed to sort websites based on Many factors, I read that they are around 200+ But one key factor that Google gives great weight is How long your audience stay on Your blog post and your website in general
If Google decides to show up your blog post to visitors They measure if you helped them find What they are looking for
The only way for Google to know that is By measuring how long your visitors stay on each visited page
Please imagine for a moment If you have a visitor now Do you meet his/her need For what he/she is looking for
Action, forget about SEO here Focus to provide the best solution to Your Audience problem or concern and this will Happen by the deep research as listed below
Do very deep research
You know the famous phrase “Content is king” but How to write for a blog that great content that you call it a king
A. Read search engine top results
Go to Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex and DuckDuckGo for your planned topic Trust me it is not lot of work
Once you do it for one blog post You will be able to complete This step in less than an hour
All you need to do is to take points And drop them into any editor For example in this blog post I collected half of the ideas here Only from checking other blog posts
Think about it this way People are craving for Solutions to their problem They can tell If your blog did an excellent job Or they go and look for another blogs
B. Modify your old blog posts
Nothing is best than Writing a blog post Following all steps listed here
Then later on after publishing your blog post You go and find something missed
Remember making a blog post thorough Never happens overnight
By the way this item itself I added after I published this blog post
It was 6 AM early morning I was half asleep and I realized That I always add missing things to old blog posts So I decided to add it here
C. Analyze major social media
When it comes to Social media sites Especially Facebook, Instagram and Twitter Not all niches work the same I don’t know about your niche But as a rule of thumb The best blog posts those that get viral To search social media sites I use Buzzsumo.com free account
You need to get an idea of What made an ordinary blog post go viral Keep in mind that sometimes The blog post itself is not different than other posts
It may be unique due to its visual media Like great Infographics, mindmaps or videos Created to summarize it
D. Search for your topic on Pinterest
Pinterest is not a social media site It is a hybrid of social media and search engine Go to Pinterest.com and search for your topic From top results check for how many times Any particular pin got pinned
I cannot give you a definite number of What to consider as a great blog post As it differs from one niche to another Pick the pins with the highest number of re-pinning
E. Search Quora for related questions
Go to Quora.com and search for your topic I love Quora as one question can lead you to another Which has never crossed my mind Some answers are completely out of the box
F. Check Reddit site
I recommend Reddit.com because The community there is against adding any link Except when it is collaborating a point
It has a voting system where the best answers According to most of users will rise to the top
G. Check Answer The Public and QuestionDB
Go to Answerthepublic.com and QuestionDB These sites they add no value but They generate hundreds of questions Based on the seed word e.g. “write great content” or “great content”
BCTT = A good question is like an arrow you can aim at any challenge (Gamestorming book)
Put effort to segregate your points under the right topics
I have a confession to you, I am not good at this but I am doing my best to look at all the points Which I collect from the above deep research
My advice is, don’t try to complete it in one sitting It is an iteration job Once you start writing more details for every point You can see that some points make more sense If they get moved under different headline
For example under the headline below For adding the magical spices to your content Adding engaging images and relevant videos Where in fact created as a separate point
Later on, I realized that it would make Sense to group it under the below headline
Add these magical spices to your content
Always think about using All of them as they can be applied Almost to all types of blog posts
1. Start with nice appealing Introduction
Start with a statement what your blog post is about Restate the problem to show your empathy and To assure to your audience that They will get what they were promised on the title Inform your audience with the benefits They will get from reading your post
2. Use AIDA
AIDS is an acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action Actually this can be a separate blog post But I will summarize it here
Attention Who is reading your blog post To get your user’s attention You have to develop what is called An empathy map as shown below
Put yourself in his/her shoes Create a persona of gender, age, education, Their current occupation and interest
What is the most current Problem they are facing How you are helping them With your current blog post
You only have the title and The first paragraph to show them That your can relate to them
Interest Best way to grab their attention is By providing an information that Educates and entertains them
Doing that you will be able To connect through emotional level
Desire You create desire when you Provide value to their problem
List all the possible information Then provide them with a solution That will make what you said very easy to achieve
For example, if I tell you that I have a tool that scans all of the above Mentioned sites under the deep research section If know you will develop a deep desire to buy it By the way, there is no tool doing that
Action If all of the above were done perfectly You have a high chance of closing your action successfully Like asking to subscribe to your mailing list Or even buying a quick guide that take them by hand
3. Write Anecdote
Definition of Anecdote in dictionary is Short amusing and interesting story About a person or an incident
Always write a story about yourself That shows their weakness but in you Describe their weakness as if it is yours Don’t show yourself as a hero
4. Share interesting statistics
Day to day statistics is not going to grab attention but shocking numbers will make your Audience want to read more
5. Add engaging images and relevant videos
Images and relevant videos are totally up to Your imagination, there is no training or advice I had an earlier post on building websites I found an image of a child stacking cubes (I got hooked to it)
My advice here, there are free sites Where you can download images from Like Allthefreestock.com
If you can add a mix of cartoon images, 3D Or your own images created by PowerPoint
Infographics is considered one of the factor That can lead to sharing your blog post on Social media or sharing the Infographics on Pinterest
Venngageand Canvais considered one of the best Places to create your Infographics images
6. Speak with a personal style “I, Me, Mine”
When I first started writing on another blog I thought that I will lose credibility by using the “I, Me, Mine” I realized later that the opposite is true People tend to listen to personal experience If it is back up by solid proof
Make your content scannable
Provide your audience with clean experience Everybody now is surfing the web from their mobile phones
Speaking about my experience with my iPhone 8 When I visit websites and I get any pop up Sometimes I cannot close it Because the close [x] icon is very tiny
I try if no luck then I kill the web page I learned a lesson as what if I have a visitor On my website, what is his/her experience
Anyway I will give you my advice Please stick to it (I created them in short notes below)
1. Create small paragraphs of 4-6 lines at most 2. Each paragraph has short lines (even if you have full width page) 3. Add bullet points for list items 4. Images not only illustrate your words But they relax your eyes between long text 5. Font 20x and line height 28px (try it, it makes very nice reading experience)
Here is a proof based on the 2 screen shots below I leave it to your judgment
Just Basic SEO is enough
Start with the following 1. Setup Google Search Console 2. Install Bing WebMaster Tools 3. Setup Google Analytics 4. Install Yoast SEO if you are using WordPress 5. Put your keyword in your URL 6. Shorten the URL 7. Use your keyword in the first paragraph and in the summary section
Did you hear the skyscraper technique Simply you find a piece of content and Take this content and you build on top of it
You make a complete guide out of it Build a long complete not missing any point
Some misunderstood the skyscraper technique They find a piece of content and rewrite it
Don’t fall into the mistake of finding a long content To take it and rewrite it, you are creating A garbage non sense content
Link to some relevant content
Google loves seeing you taking reference By linking to authority sites
But How do you know that You are linking to a high authority site
Well download SEO Quake or MozBar extensions on Chrome browser Any website with DA (Domain Authority which ranges from 0 to 100 to measure the authority of any website) Greater than 50 is enough sign that It is an authority website
Add a clear call to action
some bloggers have their call to action is Offering their an affiliate link or their own product
I believe the best approach and it works most of the time Encourage your visitors to join your mailing list
If you have a very nice researched blog post You have a high chance of getting lot of sign ups Assuming you have a relevant sign up form to What your visitors had read on your blog
What are the best content writing tools
This section can be a separate blog post But I managed to append it here As it makes sense to complement What I discussed above with best writing tools
This online website will make it easy to take notes, Create To Do lists and write blog posts Best thing is that you can see it from everywhere You write on your laptop and it synchronizes with Evernote mobile app
When it comes to task management To sort your ideas, draft your project Then Trello comes in place
You can divide your work into Separate columns name it whatever you like Ideas, To Do, Doing and Done or completed You can move any items between above columns
Also similar to Evernote You still can update your items On the go by using the Trello mobile app
What happens is you start blogging and you either put effort based on knowledge you built by yourself or applying it from an online blogging course
Time passes by and no money at all
You go and check all of your affiliate programs, nothing is there, still no sales yet
Then you check Adsense or any pay per click you are in and again few cents here and there
Very frustrating and not really worth the effort and energy you put in when you started
So here I am trying here to list the top 6 reasons why bloggers fail online
I will start with (keep in mind that this is not a negative tone, I am doing my best to transfer a realistic impression but I seriously hate negativity and I always adapt all possible methods to keep me positive)
Anyway now you know that writing blog posts and promoting your blog are the keys to your blogging success, you write first then promote
3-Blogging requires a lot of traffic
I started promoting this blog on October 29th (almost 3 months after I started)
Being lucky to get one sale for ebook called how to get instant Followers on Facebook page on November 24th, here is what I noticed
Trying multiple traffic sources on my first week then I realized it is impossible due to very limited time constraint
So I decided to keep Pinterest as the only source of traffic for now while trying to build some links to my blog when possible
I realized that this sale happened because I picked a product which I chose carefully and I already bought it so I knew what I was writing about
I imitated a post about this product from a very similar well known blog
But I wrote it from a different angle and I was able to do that because I purchased the product already
So not only you require a lot of traffic but also a very reliable well known trusted product that other bloggers are highly promoting
This sale happened with around 100 visitors per week and 89 visits to only this blog post that is promoting this Facebook page product
4-Blogging requires dedication and focus
One of the reason why bloggers fail when it comes to dedication
I was very realistic when I decided to start creating this blog
I knew that I will not be able to put time every single day due to taking care of my two lovely little boys
But I was very determined to stop few things like reading novels as my hobby and only if I have time, it will be for my blog
Also focus to get what you want to accomplish first before you get distracted by any other things
For example, if I am working on my manual Pinterest pinning
l will make sure to pin first whatever the pins that caught my attention, then checking their associated landing pages after
If you don’t have this strategy, you will start doing one pin
Then because of our human curiosity you will end up visiting the web page linked to that pin
If it is a professional one, you may end up signing up to this website newsletter
Or navigating through this website (you got the idea)
You may even forget that you actually started the pinning task
5-Blogging requires setting a clear goals
Why bloggers fail is that they are not setting a clear goals
Clear goals don’t occur unless you set up very short term goals first
Best way to reach your short term goals is to plan 2 weeks of tasks and activities on your calendar (some bloggers write it down on a physical calendar)
This is totally up to you, for myself I use an app on my iPhone to plan my 2 weeks
Your tasks/activities should include writing at least one blog post (I say at least because I struggle completing only one blog post)
Also planning 2 weeks of submission on social media using Social Media automation tools like SocialPilot or Buffer
Plus the main driving traffic task like Pinterest or any other things on your calendar
6-Blogging requires some creativity
I am very positive personality and I hope you don’t see a negative message in my few sentences below
The formula for making money online is a recipe of writing contents that are all about specific problem written from different angles
Also written with many different blog posts as you are not sure which one will convert the best so try to cover your best affiliate products in different blog posts
Plus adding the blog design/testing to the formula to make sure you have an easy to navigate blog posts when using especially mobile phones and laptops
Plus adding the traffic to the formula as you will not be able to make decent money with 50 visitors a day, you need way more than that (maybe 20 times, it all depends on your power of writing converting words)
Finally adding to the formula, the final piece which is your creativity
With creativity you manage to create your own product, convince your visitors that it is the right fit for them
With creativity, you can convert the same content which you have on your blog to different forms of data like video, podcast, PowerPoint presentation or PDF (by the way, the list did not end with PDF, sky is the limit)
To recap, the top 6 reasons why bloggers fail online
1-Blogging requires a lot of patience
6 months to 1 year working very hard and if you have questions always ask on bloggers Facebook groups
2-Blogging requires a lot of time
How much time,refer back to my excel time tracker which I listed above
3-Blogging requires a lot of traffic
If you think it is 50 visitors a day,I would tell you starting with 50 x 20 times
4-Blogging requires dedication and focus
If you don’t get distracted and you keep focused on your task for at least half an hour
Then you are on the right track
5-Blogging requires setting a clear goals
I recommend you to create a bi-weekly plan on either a physical calendar or mobile app
6-Blogging requires some creativity
You have to come with your own ideas and to believe in yourself
My final advice here
Bloggers quit (I don’t blame them) after not seeing any significant results from their blogs due to
Skipping so many days not doing anything, these days count toward measuring your overall success
Not contributing consistently a daily time like an hour minimum to your blog (if you miss a day or two, you can cover it later)
Paying for so many services that pulls money out of your pocket (start with only SiteGround as your web hosting – this is the best web hosting service)
Not building a solid relationship with other bloggers as they will understand your pain and speak your language
Finally if you realized why bloggers fail, please share this post with your friends using social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)
I will discuss now the top 10 blogging challenges all bloggers don’t follow When they start blogging I bet you at least 2 or more I and you had fallen in
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
I list them below in chronological order based on How critical to your blogging success journey Let me begin with
To provide them with what they really love to read about
Then you need to figure out how to do that?
You have to come up with a list of websites from your best influencers in your niche
Just go to buzzsumo.com and type your URLs which you collected earlier
It will display the top posts which got shared
Don’t be afraid to write down the same ideas other bloggers wrote about
As in fact you can make it better
For example if the best shared posts on specific URL on buzzsumo is about top 10 tricks/ideas about so
And so then you can search other bloggers site
Then come with top 15 or whatever the number you come up with
Here you are adding value and educating yourself
And by doing that you can come later on with a better idea to represent your post as an infographic (long image) listing all your posts headlines and share it on Pinterest or Instagram
3) Blogging should be on a very narrow topic
One of the Blogging Challenges is to create a blog on broad topic like how to make money with all possible methods (Forex, Investment, Savings…etc.)
Always start very narrow, build your traffic then go broad if you want, you will be building an authority site
When I started my diet and fitness website the one I mentioned earlier which was a total failure
I wrote about different broad topics like diet, fitness, gym, exercise and training
So not only I did not connect to my readers’ own problems
They were also not able to navigate my blog due to lack of relevant posts
Again I did not have any experience/passion about this topic I went very broad so readers were not able to find any related posts to keep them connected to my blog
Although there are so many examples
I recently found on some blogs about two or more broad topics like Making money, family finances and mommy tips but in fact every topic is relevantly covered by many linked posts very highly connected to each other
In fact, if I am able to write about different topics in different niches
I would rather create separate blogs for each one but again this is my opinion
4) Blogging should be about quality and not quantity
Fourth mistake is to write short posts not covering everything, I am not against short posts
if you decide overcome blogging challenges by writing your blog posts
Please make sure to cover everything and make it epic (quality)
Adding 50 posts to a blog with few contents due to the rush of completing your post and moving on to the next one (quantity) will not help you in SEO and even for your readers who are coming from social media sites
I remember a fellow blogger once said that he took 16 hours to write an epic post
And when I heard this I went to my blog log (excel file where I keep track of my daily activities) I found that I have posts that took 20 hours to complete
Assuming you work 2 hours daily (undivided attention) then you need 10 days to complete one post
I sometimes visit my existing posts and I try to make them more perfect as when I write my posts
I read others so I may come to something I wrote before
But I missed a point or an idea so I return back to my existing post and try to make it perfect
5) Blogging is not only about writing but also promoting your contents
Fifth mistake is to only focus on writing and you think that traffic will come through search engines
Always plan for driving traffic to your posts unless you are very talented in SEO and you know what you are doing
If you write very long epic posts with fantastic images and you stay there hoping visitors will come to your blog
Then good luck as nobody is going to see it, you should plan for driving traffic and promoting your blog
I would rather say when you start a new blog your focus will be 100% on writing your contents and after reaching a certain limit (I would rather say 35+ posts)
You should start switching your time to 80% promoting your blog and keeping 20% to writing new posts
When you start promotion especially on social media sites you will completely be surprised by finding your hard work being perceptively shared less than you expected
Based on your readers combined opinions which you cannot deny
I go to Google analytics and I find some posts which I really put great efforts in to perform OK
And the posts which I spent less time and wrote them without diligent research perform very well
By the way that’s a good sign because you still have to room to enhance them
You will end up to getting a sense of what you will work on more and what your readers would like you to write about
In reality, you will find yourself writing some posts again from different angles
6) Blogging is about consistent writing (stick to a schedule)
Sixth mistake is to write lot of blog posts when you start
Stop for a month or two then write again, this is a fatal mistake
Although I talked above about giving 80% of your time to promotion
You should still dedicate consistent time to writing new contents
Sticking to a realistic schedule for posts writing will help you with search engine traffic to stay steady as blogs which don’t get updated frequently lose all the search engine traffic gradually
So stay focus as I mentioned earlier you will end up writing fresh contents based on your visitors’ engagements
Meaning every time you write a new post and share it on social media sites
Your visitors will reply with remarks, questions and notes that would give you an idea of what they really expect from you
Actually some bloggers take the contents creation to a new level
They add a survey link on their blogs to collect their visitors feedback as not all visitors will leave a comment (SurveyMonkey is an example of survey sites to gather your visitors feedback)
7) Blogging should be engaging your readers (allowing comments on posts)
Seventh mistake if you don’t see your blog posts from readers’ perspectives
I never thought why would someone create a blog and remove the comments from their posts
But what happens few bloggers cannot handle criticism
I keep all opinions and I remove only comments which carry bad language and off points comments
You have to approve all comments (called comments moderation)
Before they get published on your blog and if you are using WordPress as your blogging platform
You can go to Settings –> Discussion –> Comment Moderation and check your settings to make sure you have full control on your visitors’ comments
08) Blogging is not free, there is a cost
Eighth mistake when you start blogging on a free blog platform without realizing that the best way to start blogging is by buying your own web hosting
Then keep in mind that free bloggers will not let you put any advertisement on their sites nor affiliate links (free WordPress sites allow some affiliate links like Amazon and eBay)
You will be very limited in your options to choose your affiliate links
So why the hassle when you can buy affordable hosting like Siteground (that’s the one I am using)
You can save with this offer for 3.95$ you can get a StartUp plan
Which covers you with hosting one website plus your domain name (name of your website)
Remember starting with the right web hosting will help you down the road
When your site gets some traffic from search engines like Google and Bing who knows and you don’t want to lose all traffic coming from search engines because of your slow page load speed
I have a detailed post on Google page load speed and that’s why I changed my web hosting
9) Blogging time is always unlimited
Ninth mistake when you think that one day you will not put any effort in your blog
I hope I can explain this better
First I will start with the fact that blogging is never ending journey
If you write a book you know that one day you can finish it but when you begin blogging there is no end
When you start a new blog there is certain steps to follow to start making money from your blog
These steps are
1: What your blog with be about
2: Choosing your blogging platform (I use and teach WordPress)
3: Choosing your domain name
4: Find a web hosting (I recommend Sitegroundas best web hosting)
5: Installing WordPress (I recommend WP101 course to fast track your WordPress learning process).
Step 5 regarding installing WordPress can be overwhelming for non-technical users
But WordPress is not intended for technical users
It is easy platform where few courses like WP101 managed to explain it in 3 to 4 hours and you can easily fast track your WordPress learning process
Steps from 8 to 10 are always ongoing steps and they never end
You always need fresh contents to add to your blog, keep looking for new affiliate programs to try and keep promoting your blog
Successful bloggers always tend to write good contents in short period of time to minimize the time required to establish their blogs before they start the promotion step
Creating 35 to 50 new fully researched contents like roundups, How Tos, long list posts, cheat sheet posts…etc. takes lot of time and energy
If you remember the roughly 20 hours range which I estimated earlier for each post and multiply it by 50 posts this means you need 1000 hours of hard work
Assuming you work 3 hours per day so you need one full year for writing good contents only
I am not putting these numbers to discourage you, absolutely not
What I am trying to do is to make sure you realize how important not to get distracted by any activities but to focus on writing your contents and putting your best effort to deliver long posts in a short period of time
The good thing is that you actually don’t need 1000 hours because if you start writing and avoid all distraction at all levels (putting your cell phone on mute, closing your email program…etc.) you will end up writing more than 2000 words in less than 4 hours
I created 10 long posts around 2000+ in less than a month with images while working 2 hours a day, keep in mind that English is not my native language and my English level is like grade 9 students
Yes you can do it too but having said the above, always keep in mind to give yourself 6 months before you start making money as writing contents alone can take 3 to 4 months alone
Here is a hint for you, always try to come up with 3 to 4 blog posts so you move from one post to another without wasting time on what to write about when you finish your current post
I learned this when I found that I can spend like 2 – 3 days doing nothing because I have no idea what to write about so don’t fall in this trap
10) Blogging perfection can waste your precious time
You waste lot of time on making everything perfect, please this habit as it is one of the blogging challenges that take you nowhere
This is my top weakness; I spent one day almost 4 hours looking for a simple theme with full page width and another day testing all of them to choose the best one and another 3 to 4 hours just trying all possible plugins for Google ads and other ads network
Top one priority is to write your blog contents and when you get tired/bored of writing and think about switching tasks, you can look at what you have on your list by using a website called Trello where you can keep track of all your wish list and track your accomplishments
Another big time waster is to stop in the middle of writing to search for topic on internet only to find yourself moving from one page to another losing track of what you were initially doing (this is called analysis paralysis)
Then followed by the comparison trap where you watch other bloggers’ website comparing their contents, images and layouts to yours leading you to being discouraged
Another big time waster is not having a plan for your current week ahead of time, keeping a plan with your progress (percentage of tasks completion) will make you focus on completing your tasks before your due dates
Always make sure your weekly plan is very reasonable in time and never miss a week without having the content creation on your list
To summarize the above post, I talked about the top 10 blogging challenges all bloggers abandon
Blogging should be for niches with real passion
Look for you passion in niches that make money like
Don’t write about your own interests but write about your audience problems, you can write about yourself on how you solved these problems
Blogging should be on a very narrow topic
Always start very narrow, build traffic then go broad if you want (building authority site)
Blogging should be about quality and not quantity
Try to write long posts, make it epic, do lot of research and always keep your posts on mind, if you find something to add to existing posts, go and edit them
Blogging is not only about writing but also promoting your contents
Excellent blog posts without traffic are useless
Blogging is about consistent writing
Best way is to stick to schedule like 1 post every week or 2 but always try to be consistent
Blogging should be engaging your readers
There is nothing wrong about allow commenting on your blog
It is OK to do comments moderation (approving all comments before being published)
Blogging is not free, there is a cost
Yes expect to pay reasonable fee like any other thing in life we pursue
Blogging time is always unlimited
There will never be that one day where you will stop touching your blog
Blogging perfection can waste your precious time
Wasting time on tiny details as this will distract you
Just focus on your task at hand
Finally I listed the 10 blogging challenges for you to follow, please share it with your friends using social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)
There are so many reason on top of my head to start blogging now
I am not trying to convince you, it is all up to you to see it the way I do
Blogging helps other visitors looking for information
Yes even if you are not getting enough traffic from search engines
Having the fact that you are actively engaged on social media sites may lead users to visit your website and read your blog
Blogging can help you make extra cash
Please listen to my advice, if you are just starting your blog right now and the only purpose of blogging is to make money then be patient
Yes be very patient some bloggers say it can take up to 6 months to a year
I don’t want to comment on this as I really don’t know your dedication and how actively you work on your blog but again yes some bloggers make really good money from blogging
Blogging helps to organize your thoughts and still learn more
Yes this is true, for example while I am writing any post
I go and search the internet to look for other bloggers’ opinions and I get really great ideas on my topic
Always try to make your content inside your post looks like an epic
So I really learn new things every time I come with a new idea to write about
Blogging makes you a good researcher and better writer
Yes to write better you have to read more and more and the only way available to you
If you are in front of computer with internet is to read about what others had to say about your topic
You can come with a compiled version of all ideas or even come with better ideas based on laying down other bloggers’ thoughts and writing your opinion about all of them
Blogging opens a lot of opportunities for you like self promotion
While blogging some visitors go to the About page (the most visited page in all blogs, you should create one)
And read more about you, who knows you may get an email from someone who really wants to work with you or gives you an idea of something you have never though of
Blogging helps you to stay in touch with visitors
Blogging allows visitors on your website to leave a comment (if you allow commenting)
This will help you to reply back to them or modify your content based on their advice but also blogging allows you to capture email addresses from visitors on your blog and stay in touch with them
Blogging builds rapport and increase engagement
Blogging gets connected with the automated social media tools like Buffer
So you can get your existing and new posts to go to all social media sites which means more traffic for you and increasing your engagement by getting users to share your blogging contents to their contacts
Blogging can be your hobby if you don’t have one
I myself don’t have hobby to waste my free time
The only thing I enjoy is to work on my blog and I think a lot of people like me
Blogging helps to grow your business or your brand
If you are working on a company website
Starting a blog with useful contents about your product or service can really help to grow your business and increase awareness of your brand
Blogging helps you to stand out and establish authority
Blogging done with quality content, personal touch, exposure (social media sites), building email list, focusing on relevant topics and not broad range of niches
Blogging helps you to educate your customers and users by enticing them with great contents about how you can solve their problems
And provide answers for their concerns and by doing that you establish a mutual trust between both of you and so you have a high chance of increasing your sales
Also blogging will increase your traffic and by adding more contents to your blog
Then SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will definitely increase where you can use the extra traffic to your blog to put internal links taking your customers to your products/services and that will lead again to more sale
Few assumptions to know before you start blogging
I assume you are familiar on how to use the internet including signing up in websites
Checking your emails and doing basic searches on search engines like Google and Bing
I assume that you know that blogging takes lot of time and effort before you start seeing significant impact on your traffic coming to your site especially if you are planning to make money from your blog
Of course you know that blogging is not free and there is a cost to get started but it is affordable
You know that blogging platforms are so many and I use here WordPress as my blogging platforms
I assume that you should expect to learn very basic HTML, basic SEO, using Social media and basic things on how to use WordPress (yes I am using WordPress as blogging platform)
Also be aware of copyright issues as you are not allowed to copy contents from other websites into your blog
I assume that you have already decided which niche you want to pursue as I am not discussing here how to choose your niche
Now the 5 Simple Easy Steps to Start Blogging In an Hour
Step # 1: Choose your domain name
10 Minutes
Although choosing domain name does not have any action to take
But it is essential to be listed as a step because it is part of your blogging overall success
Make sure to choose a domain name that reflects your brand, avoid abbreviations as much as possible
Make it memorable and make sure of your words spelling
Think about your blog purpose and try to come with a domain name to convey this
Finally if you are still confused
I suggest you go with a domain name similar to all blogging
You already follow and come with either variations of extensions e.g. if the domain name you like is .COM
Then look for .NET or .ORG or try to add/change an extra word in the domain name e.g. ParentalTips.com is taken , I found that MyParentalTips.com is available (of course at the time of writing this post
Thinks first on how to come up with blog posts ideas
Sometimes they don’t want to start
Because they are afraid of running out of ideas to write about
I don’t know what to blog about
How to plan for what to write about in your blog?
I know how you feel about your blog
When I started this blog, I was exactly like you
Thinking about what I should write about
Which can fascinate my audience
I started with one blog post
Then I got stuck wasting time doing nothing
As I did not have any idea what to
Write next on my blog
Then I realized that I have to create a strategy
That makes me laser focused on what my audience really want to read
Plus you want to make sure that you have enough ideas to keep you busy
Anyway I will tackle the following list below as shown in table of contents
Look for the highlighted in yellow notes to realize how each point brings for you
Something to do if you don’t know what blog about
Speak about your Passion
While it is very hard for you to write about what others like
We are all created by default to show our own interests to others while we can still feel what they like
We cannot force ourselves to be Interested on something we have never liked before
What fascinates others in a well known niche that really makes money like Weight Loss
It does not mean that it will interest you and you should pursue that niche
There is nothing wrong about writing on what really interests you
What interests you definitely should be interesting to others around you unless it is not nerd
If what you really like falls under those niches below
How to make money Health and Fitness Personal finance Beauty and fashion Relationships and personal development Lifestyle like survival, gardening, Women’s lifestyle..etc.
The list above covers Health, wealth and relationships
These are universal interests for all People around the world
If you have an interest in one or more of the above
It can be very easy to attract audience
Don’t say then I don’t know what to blog about
The only challenge you will face is to create a broad or very specific niche
For example under Fitness
You can go with Yoga
This is a broad niche
While under Yoga there are materials, books and techniques
Those are sub niches
There is nothing wrong If you go with a broad niche and then based on your audience interaction
You can decide which sub-niche you want to tackle
Now again how pursuing your passion can be eclectic in your writing
Well, let me use a niche like gardening as an example
You have a passion and knowledge about Gardening
Now what to do with your passion?
Break down all the elements adhering to your gardening niche
Like Sun, Moon, Light, Seasons, Water, Air, Wind, Soil, Fertilizers, Seeds, Pot, Planters and Containers
Then analyze them with W questions (What, How, When, Where and Who)
Also Mix two or more elements together and repeat the W questions
These are just what I thought on top of my head
It took me a minute to come up with the above list
I did not use my best friend Google
You can use each gardening element to create not few blog posts but a complete book
Seriously, for example for the Soil
You can write about what type of soil to use
How to know the right type of Soil where to buy the best Soil or fertilizers
Now think about combing two or more elements together and come up with questions
How can Sun affect your Soil when to Water your plant during different Seasons
Remember I am not into gardening
Please don’t pick up on me
Focus on the fact that you have got a passion
And don’t say I don’t know what to blog about
What people ask you for advice?
It works most of the ways based on your degree or education
If you are someone like me who works in informational technology (aka IT) job
People will ask you to fix their laptops
It is not a nice experience especially you will do it for free
But while they are always asking you to fix something
Most probably they will come to you seeking advice
Like best laptop to buy, difference between 2 different phones or
Should I buy Android or iPhone phone
Keep that in mind and don’t say I don’t know what to blog about
If your education or current job is really a passion
Unless not having any other craving passion then use it to build your blog about it
I found it difficult to pursue a blog about technology
Because I love internet marketing
What do you know or like to read about?
I read books about internet marketing more than technology
But at least, it turned out that although I would really like to make money blogging
I found deep inside that making money is not my first desire
In my case I love to try everything new when it comes to online marketing
The idea of seeing something working for you can really be measured by making money out of it
It took me a while reading different books until I realized by analyzing my reading trend
Look at the last 5 books which you read
If they are all into one subject then you must have a passion about it
Don’t say now that I don’t know what to blog about
How to find topics to write about
Find popular ebook on Amazon
Go through its table of contents
Take blog ideas from each chapter
I found that I would read any book for Seth Godin or Dan Kennedy (the later created a NO B. S. series)
Although they teach the core of marketing
They managed to write in a style that really makes any internet gurus learn from their teachings
Think about your target audience
Think about whom you want to speak to whom you want to teach
If you read this advice that says you must create a Persona
I never gave it attention
Until I had this incident (written below) that made me a deep believer in creating my Persona
First what is a persona?
When you write anything on the internet
You must be thinking about someone like you reading and understanding your words
What if nobody understands what you write, you either think that they are all stupid or
You have to write it in a level of details that makes your target readers understand most of your writings
You start to create a fictional user or group of users
Who if possible give him/her a name (in case of thinking about one user)
That has a level of education (completed high school or college ..etc
Works in a certain job and has an issue which you are writing about
Like how to do basic troubleshooting for laptops
If you find your persona then you don’t say I don’t know what to blog about
Why you need a persona?
Now what made me believe in creating persona
I thought of creating Persona as a useless advice
Until a family member asked me to check her laptop as it was very slow
I started checking all unused programs
I asked her if she knows how to uninstall programs
She did not know so I explained the term and I uninstalled few unused programs
Then I found 20 GB of old movies and another 50 GB of music she was not interested to keep
Then she asked why I deleted them and didn’t use the uninstall programs to safely remove them
I did not have the persona on mind yet while thinking about my level of details for explaining things
But I knew I will never go in details to a certain level like that
If I am writing about Technology
Let’s say how to boost your laptop performance and speed
I will never think to explain the difference between programs and files
And never be interested on targeting those people
I am very patient to teach people around me what I know
If someone does not understand what I am saying
It makes me challenged to use my words to break down
The technicality into something anyone can understand
Problem is that targeting very basic beginners In niches like Technology or How to do things
Makes you obliged to go with Videos multiple series of videos to show them
As if they are sitting with you
That’s what I learned from the above experience
I am writing how to do technical things
I would rather create videos on YouTube
Which I was not comfortable doing it but I finally did it
What I learned from using personas?
I decided to have my Persona as an advanced beginner
I can never imagine that I could write a version of
How to build a blog for someone who doesn’t know how to use a computer at all
See if those questions trigger any idea to build a blog post about
I always challenge myself to take few questions From AnswerThePublic that I feel It would resonate with my audience
Use Related Forums for your niche
If you say I don’t know what to blog about
Just search on Google for forums in your niche by typing
Keyword + inurl:”/forums/” or Keyword + “discussion board”
Try also Keyword + inurl:”showtopic.php”
Usually you will find sticky posts
Where due to their popularity forums’ owners decided to keep them on top
You will find answers to so many How to questions better than The top 10 on Google
Here is a trick which I found recently
I noticed few members in internet marketing called WarriorForum
Those members have thousands of post reply
One of these members was discussing his way of getting traffic by sharing his Google Analytics account
Obviously some of his traffic are coming from the forum itself
This means that if you follow members with high numbers of replies
You can collect a very good number of blog post ideas
Also if you add your own comment
Definitely you will get traffic (although this post is not about getting traffic
But I just wanted to list this traffic trick here)
Use Pinterest
Pinterest is a hybrid type unique social media tool combined with Search engine one
You can type your keyword
Pinterest will display best pins according to its algorithm
Go there and collect ideas
It is unique because its search engine is different than Google
I collected so many ideas before where I thought I had enough data and knowledge
When searching Google only but I found that by using Pinterest, I find more ideas completely not shown on Google
Create a board to save any pin Where you feel like it is sparkling a new idea for you Practice using Pinterest as a user and you will get many ideas
Use YouTube videos
YouTube is the second best search engine after Google itself (a fact)
To get the most out of it, just type your keyword
Be patient and listen to the top videos
Especially If you are writing a list post
You can collect the best lists from Google Then switch to Pinterest Then listen to YouTube videos
You will be surprised to HEAR lists that are completely new
Use your competitors’ best content
Analyze Social Media sites using Buzzsumoto investigate
What makes a specific blog post goes viral or analyze domain names from your competitors
To see which blog posts resonate with people
You can also use SEMrush to see how your competitors are ranking and what they are ranking for
Find gaps in your competitor’s blog post That is showing on Google first page top 10 results Write something that is not only better but the best
Write reviews on books, products or courses
So many books I buy and read just because I got a recommendations from well known bloggers
Books are covering all niches
You can find a great book to read
Come up with summary that fits in a blog post or take set of ideas from all chapters
Remember with Amazon books above, you don’t actually read the book
You just skim through the table of contents
Be honest if you used/read the recommended book or Tried this product or that course otherwise Readers can tell if your review is honest or just A fake review to earn affiliate commissions
Create Lots of Beginners Guide
Beginners guide is very useful when building trust with your audience
Although it takes time to build one but they see you as an expert
The challenge when creating a beginners guide
How do you know if you are really targeting beginners
When thinking about writing beginners guide I always check the “How To” in Quora View the answers and see which ones Is getting more votes
Create ultimate guides
Ultimate guide focuses mainly on covering the niche itself
I encourage you to create at least one ultimate guide in your niche
Start with this ultimate guide and then
Add to it separate details as links to new or existing blog posts
You can publish your ultimate guide Then add to it more contents later If you hold on publishing your ultimate guide until you make it thorough I am afraid you will never publish it
Create how to blog posts
How To works well with Ultimate Guide like peas and carrots
Don’t create “How To” if your ideas are not in order This can be a List type blog post Also videos are best tool to illustrate the “How To” Don’t be afraid to take videos for yourself
If you still not comfortable then you can screencast your text and use free text to speech software to read the contents which you want to say
Create why blog posts
I remember my 3 years old son saying WHY to everything
When I think about it
I realized that the “WHY” question creates challenging environment for me in my brain
It makes me eager to answer this question honestly
I will tell you a secret where I have so many WHY questions
Where I am still having them as a draft copies to create blog posts from
Use Trello or SimpleNote (open Google and search for Simplenote) on my iPhone, also available for Android users to collect reasons I find reasonable to my WHY questions Never accept unreasonable answers to any why question
Create lists blog posts
Lists blog posts are irresistible for anyone not to click on
It acts like a title bait
I cannot resist seeing “38 tips to” or any number
You can collect other lists from different blogs to come up with a longer list I always strive to think about adding my own list ideas
Don’t ever add the number in the link URL
As you may go and edit your list post and add new items to it
Conclusion
All the ideas above work great if you say to yourself, I don’t know what to blog about
Especially if you are stuck and not writing anything for a week or more
This is a sign that you finished your last blog post and wondering what to write next
Remember you don’t have to follow it to the tee
At least cover what your audience want to read about
Also by experience, you will never be able to write a Perfect blog post from the first round
There is lot of room to come back again and edit nothing is wrong about it
Finally if you don’t know what to blog about, I hope I explained it better
Please share this with your friends using social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)
Wondering how to make 1000 a month from blogging Continue reading as the title says after one year blogging This is a very realistic plan for new bloggers I don’t want to lie to you and deceive you Just to open my blog post
I know what you are thinking You already read similar blog posts like this before You believe these types of articles are a waste of time
The reason you become skeptical Because every blogger is blogging About blogging to sell you blogging tools
They want to make money by convincing you to Buy their recommended blogging course or They ask you to buy your web hosing through their affiliate link
By the way, they get paid a one time payment That may even exceed what you paid For your web hosting for the full year of service
I don’t want to sell you a web hosting here I just want to tell you the steps You have to follow to create a successful blog
How to make 1000 a month
Before you start blogging keep in mind the following things
Blogging is all about the Mindset
Why? because when you start blogging You have to build a positive motivational mentality Where you should believe you will be able to make money After working on your blog persistently for at least 6 months
Usually because most bloggers are working part time It takes more than 6 months Since they don’t see any trace of small cash They give up before they make it online
One of the blogging challenges is that you don’t make Gradual income that keeps increasing time after time
Unfortunately you may not make money at all in your first year
If you are making few cash that keeps increasing I believe all bloggers on this planet would have not given up Their blogging journeys after 6 months to a year of their blogging
Those who make money in 3 or 6 months are those Who tried before multiple times so their boost plan is actually saving them 6 months easily
What are the blogging boost plan I am talking about
When you start blogging I will assume you made up your mind About your niche and you found your perfect domain name
You have the right mindset and determination Now there are few things you should learn and If you are new to blogging then These are inevitable to waste time for you Therefore, you cannot start writing your blog posts from day one
Don’t tell me you will be able to catch up all these knowledge instantly That’s why it pisses me off when I read a blog post about How to make 1000 a month in 60 or 90 days of blogging
Although there are very few bloggers Who made more than $1,000 in 60 to 90 days of blogging With no real experience and they started from scratch
Any exceptions for bloggers making $1000 with new blog in 60 or 90 days
I am not contradicting myself here I said few bloggers but it is not the case for vast majority
It could be true if you are Pat Flynn When you read his success story It looks like he got the right blogging skills That’s why it looks like he does not brag
Now my advice to you Learn all the required blogging skills first and Don’t count it on your blogging time scale
Yes before you give up Ask yourself how long you have been blogging I mean writing blog posts and building back links to your blog
Please don’t count your first year of blogging If you are still learning the above mentioned skills or tasks
So you may be wondering
What should be counted in your first year of blogging
Your first year of blogging is only about Writing blog posts that are tightly related to 3 or 4 Silos
Silos are group of categories or keywords related to What your blog posts are about In other word Silo is equivalent to the blog category in WordPress
For example if you are building a blog about Frugal Living You can have a Silo called Save Money or Invest Money
Write your blog posts to fit under these Silos
Now start thinking about how to build your writing structure
I don’t want you to start writing and after completing your first or second blog post You get stuck for a week or more trying to come up with what you should blog about next
Now you have your silos ready These are the silos that you commit yourself writing about
Take these silos one at a time and search them in order using the following tools
Let me start with Pinterest You collect ideas for every silo Remember each silo can have an epic blog posts Like Ultimate Guide to do/start followed by your silo
Writing contents based on Pinterest and Low competitive keywords
Write your contents based on very high count of repins for some pins on Pinterest The only way to find the total number of repins for any Pin is By checking your Pinterest account on your mobile
Why I am telling you to do that Because while you are waiting for Google to love your new blog up to 6+ months, maybe more You need an instant traffic and this traffic comes through Pinterest
How traffic comes from Pinterest
The above pin has 71k Keeping those pins on Google drive This will help you write blog posts on Very popular topics all Pinterest users are Highly interested to read them
At the same time write these blog posts Using the right focused keywords by using Keysearch tool You build a solid traffic on Pinterest and At the same time build blog posts That are highly customized for SEO When the right time comes for Google to consider your blog
Tip for you, once you find a successful pin That has thousands of repins Copy the blog domain for this pin into Ubersuggest
You will be able to see all blog posts with total number of repins You can hunt multiple blog posts with thousands of repins Export the data to Google drive to keep them on your mobile too
Keep adding to the Google drive sheet Resort them descending and make a huge list Take the very top to target them as your blog posts
This means from the above that Not all niches are going to drive you The same amount of traffic on Pinterest Blogging about blogging is the worst
Take this next advice Writing epic blog posts and How Tos and List blog posts are not enough to build a traffic
You have to target long tail keywords Those that are low competitive by using keyword research tool I know if you are not making money You don’t want to be spending a recurring monthly expenses
Trust me the only way to start getting traffic to your blog is by haunting low competitive keywords
Go and pretend that you want to Create a new account on Pinterest You will be surprised that You will not be able to find Blogging, SEO or WordPress Under your 5 categories that You choose for your account
Next after Pinterest you should write contents about your silos based on low competitive keywords Remember you do it sometimes if you find low competitive keywords with high volume of traffic At the same time you should think about link building
I know what you are thinking about I was not paying attention When I told you to collect Highest number of repins for some Pinterest pins At the same time, I ask you to target low competitive keywords
Actually highest number of repins come first Then followed by finding the best low competitive keywords to Write your blog post about While you are using Keysearch You will come across low competitive keywords with high volume Save them to your list They are really worth to write blog posts targeting these keywords
Using Youtube and Google to look for your Silos
If you go to Youtube and Repeat the same scenario as Pinterest Type your silo one at a time Like “Save money” You get a list of what people are interested to watch
Do you see the first video that came up How to save money on low income Surprise I saw similar pin on Pinterest With high number of repins
I use Youtube and Google as a reference But Pinterest and low competitive keywords Both should be your starting points
Same thing for Google search You need to search for your silo one at a time I go to Google and type “Save money” Look at what I got below A list of simple ways to save money
Next step after collecting best blog posts to write about
Next comes the consistency in writing content or building links
You cannot write 30 blog posts in your first month and Then 2 posts in your second month Google is expecting a consistent pace in providing update to your blog and Based on that they will smartly build an automated robot to Visit your blog expecting to find a new content as if You train Google on when they should visit again Your blog to re-index your new blog posts
Next advice is to build your own network of peer bloggers You discuss with them the challenges you both face and You update each other on the latest link building ideas
If you have a big group of bloggers, you can build a multi-way link building method, for example Blog A links to Blog B and Blog B links to Blog C and Blog C links back to Blog A
It is a nice trick to avoid the 2 way link building which became devalued by Google
To recap the above on how to make 1000 a month by building a successful blog
Think about link building while writing your blog content
Build a network of bloggers like you to help each other
Remember by building a blog with What your audience are interested to read Connect all these blog posts together With the help of SEO Yoast plugin
What will happen next
Keep your hard work consistent You will start to build traffic Reaching Mediavine level of traffic (25,000 pageviews per month) This can happen after 6 to one year of blogging Your income level can be $800 to $1,000 from advertising Plus any other thing you can make money from Like Affiliate marketing and building your email list
Finally if you dream to start blogging and wondering how to make 1000 a month your dream can come true Only if you live the reality that blogging requires hard work in the beginning That’s why it makes sense to hear about bloggers claiming that They make 5 figures working 2 hours per day They are hiring freelancers to do the work for them
What do you think about what you have read If you know how to make 1000 a month from one blog is feasible You can replicate the work as you already built the experience from your first blog Who knows one day you will be having an empire of blogs making fortune for you
Yes, that’s true WordPress is popular free and open source
WordPress powers over 40% of all website and it’s no accident.
Its popularity stems from being free, open source, and incredibly user-friendly, making it accessible to beginners and pros alike.
In this post, we’ll explore the top reasons why WordPress is popular free and open source
Why WordPress is popular free and open source
Why WordPress Is Popular Free and Open Source
Being known as someone who knows how to build a WordPress website from scratch
A friend of mine approached me last week asking how to build a website
As he actually knows some HTML, he put a terrible one page website for his business
I asked him how did he build it He told me that he used a ready made basic web builder tool Which is already built-in on his web hosting then he modified the extracted HTML to his taste
And so I asked him if he had heard before about WordPress He said he is very familiar with the term As many of his peers say it is one of the best tool to build websites
I said it is not only one of the best tool but WordPress is popular free and open source He actually told me he found an icon on his control panel that says “WordPress Installer” He doesn’t know that it is actually known as “One Click Install”
Real Path To Building Your Website From Scratch
My friend whom I am referring to is An IT guy (Working in computer networking) So I decided to write this post to document My own path when I started using WordPress
I know how you feel, If you have a passion for starting a blog Or even building a new website, but you are afraid because There are so many details that overwhelms you
I will help you as much as I can I only need your help to communicate with me through contact us page If you think I missed something crucial
Now let us begin this journey with why WordPress is popular free and open source
Which Website Builder Is The Best
I always reply back by saying, best in terms of what They don’t like my answer Well, if you want straight answer
In terms of setup
HTML/CSS on top you don’t need to install anything If you upload an index.html (or .htm) To your domain folder on your web hosting You are all set
With Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly You have to sign up and create an account They let you choose your design/template as known as your appearance As you choose your front landing page as known as Homepage They offer you hundreds of template to choose from
Categorized by your type of business Keep in mind that you don’t have to stick to their suggestions For example, if you like a template from fashion and clothing under Online store And You want to use for your Jewelry store You can still do that as you will be able to replace the background picture With something more fit to your business
With WordPress you are not limited to WordPress templates as known as Themes Which comes for free in the admin area You can still buy your own theme
In terms of support
With Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly You can always get their support as long as you are paid customer
Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly are on top They are all a drag and drop mechanism
WordPress comes after as you still Need to learn and practice few things
HTML and CSS is not convenient at all You have to really learn HTML/CSS to be able to design your website Or at least use a tool to facilitate the process
In terms of flexibility
WordPress is on top as you can do whatever you think of No limitation at all to any components
Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly they are all limited they offer what they believe all you need for building Your website for business or for blogging purpose
With HTML/CSS you can build your pages with no limitation I will give you an example to make it easy for you If you want to design your homepage with menu to the left You can do that but in Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly You should find a template that has the menu to the left
In WordPress, same thing you have to find a theme that is Either designed with menu to the left or Its theme can be customized to relocate the menu
Conclusion, I would choose WordPress over all other web building tools
Why I Choose WordPress Over Other Web Building Tools
Building your own Website is a learning experience You will learn few things after your website is already launched
You will discover new add-ons components and tools that complements your audience online presence
I don’t want you to use Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly By the way they are easier than WordPress but you’ll get stuck a month after you launch due to lack of functionality
In WordPress any components you think of can be found with the magical WordPress plugins These are the components that get integrated with WordPress
That’s why it deserves to say that WordPress is popular free and open source that suits all needs
As a live example, if you think about a survey tool To get your audience’s feedback, go and search under plugins Type “survey” and you get unlimited number of plugins to choose from In Wix, SquareSpace or Weebly they have to build it for you
In HTML/CSS you have to find a way around as it is not an interacting language If I did not say it before, HTML/CSS is a markup language that Displays your text and images according to your desired format
Choose a web building tool that lets you do everything as You don’t know what will come on your way later
I chose WordPress over other website building tools due to
WordPress completely free to use with so tons of plugins and themes to choose from
You can use it for Blogging (create a blog or website) small or large scale, it doesn’t matter
It can work on all devices like tablets and mobiles (assuming you use a responsive mobile friendly theme)
Tons of support and developer community sites available to help you
Does WordPress Cost Money
WordPress itself does not cost any money WordPress is popular free and open source, meaning you can download and use it completely free That’s why most of Web hosting companies they integrate it with their web hosting
Is It Easy to Learn WordPress
Yes if you plan to use it as a beginner user like I do That’s why I put this WordPress Tutorials for beginners Take it easy and you will advance Very quickly in WordPress
You will not notice the transition from a beginner user to someone
Having confident to install plugins Change your WordPress theme to even fixing few common WordPress errors
What are the steps to build a WordPress site
My friend did not ask me this question but I am writing this post to show you How to build a website from scratch using WordPress I will do my best to nail it down to these simple easy to follow steps
Starting with the following steps preferably in order
Defining your plan
Ask yourself, why do you need to build a website Are you creating a website for your business and You need to have an online presence If this is the case, focus on delivering the right first impression When your audience visit your business website Is it easy to find your services and your terms and conditions Are you displaying your customers’ reviews or any awards you got
Or You plan to build your own blog for making extra money on the side Then I recommend to read more about developing your blogging skills
Choosing your Domain name
Choosing a domain name is not an action by itself but It is very essential part of the process It doesn’t make sense to buy a domain name called ParentingForBusyMom.com To use it for your Gardening business
You think about buying a domain name that reflects your brand A domain name that represents your business If you own a business, your domain name preferably is your company name Try to avoid abbreviations if you can, make it something memorable
This is obvious but I have to say it, make sure of the spelling Always look for .COM, .NET or ORG if not available Try to add a suffex or prefix to your words or look for local domain in your country Like buying .CA if you are in Canada
Buying your best suitable web hosting
Although WordPress is popular free and open source but you have to pay for web hosting
Pay attention to this step as if you are very reluctant to changing your web hosting because of experiencing slowness or figuring out that your Web hosting is missing essential feature
I am OK to switch web hosting because I have done it before five times I even mastered the steps to transfer my website and domain name But trust me you will be procrastinating once you realize how daunting these steps can be
I am finally hosting with SiteGround If you sign up with my link above it is $3.95 per month It is one of the best web hosting I have ever found The only cons is the renewal fees
Renewal comes up to $11.95 for Startup plan for one website only Or $19.95 for GrowBig Plan for unlimited websites So if you decide to sign up with SiteGround I recommend you buy 2 or 3 years with the discounted price
Make use of it to the maximum If you feel that SiteGround is little bit pricey when renewing Then next best web hosting after SiteGround is BlueHost
SiteGround has automatic backup for up to 30 days BlueHost also has this amazing feature SiteGround has built in CloudFare and SuperCacher (SiteGround’s own tool) To improve the site loading speed time If I am not mistaken, BlueHost does not have this
To write your first blog post, follow my recoomendation and use them as a checklist
Especially in my summary section, I summarize the required steps to follow for your first blog post
Actually I was very reluctant on writing this post about the 10 steps on how to write great blog post
As I also struggle while writing all of my blog posts for so many reasons like
English is not my primary language and I always tend to write basic vocabulary (you don’t need dictionary when reading my blog posts)
I take around more than 15 hours to write a blog post of 2000+ words as I do a lot of researches to make my post informative and provides value to my readers
I don’t want to pay someone to write my initial posts (first 20 to 30 posts) as I want to make sure that they are very well covered and authoritative
When I revisit my old posts which were written more than a month ago, I realize that they need a lot of editing (by the way, I recognized that this is a very healthy feelings as again it makes your blog posts leaning into perfection)
But I realized that the more I read about my topic the better I write
How to write your first blog post
And I always follow what I am going to show you below
This works well for me on writing an amazing, authoritative, long post that attracts my readers like magnet and provides value to them
Bounce rate from Google Analytics is the best indicator on how your blog performs well from readers’ perspectives
Recommended anything less than 70% Now below are my 10 steps on how to write an excellent blog post
Consider your audience in advance (generate your idea)
Think about it if your audience is generalized or specialized
If generalized like in this blog post then I have to provide a lot of more content to cover every aspect in my post
But if your audience is specialized then only focus on the technical details only
For example if your post is about how to configure w3 total cache plugin
Then it is acceptable if I covered How to install W3 total Cache
But it will be completely irrelevant to discuss what is WordPress or What is a blog
Again if your blog post is generalized
Then you need to come with relevant content to cover your initial topic or idea
For example when I was looking for ideas on this post, I went to google and I searched for how to write an amazing blog post, it returned back these searches right after AdWords
Or at the end of every Google search page result
This will provide you with great ideas on writing long post which is informative and covering everything about your topic
Think about attention grabbing title
According to Forbes 59% of readers share articles on social media based on the titles
Without even reading them so coming up with the right attractive title increases the chance of readability and sharing on social media
Adding images to your blog posts will make your contents look visually appealing
As a picture is worth a thousand words
Sometimes investing time to pick a high quality images can decrease your bounce rate
Also images increase your image search engines traffic but you have to optimize few things like Alt text and providing a meaningful name for your images
Attractive images can bring you more social media shares for users who love visual content
And this helps to drive more traffic just from social media sites
Reminder to optimize every image size you upload to your blog to get a better Google page load speed
Adding lot of images with their original sizes can hurt you website in terms of page load speed
I always use W2E Image Optimizer (no affiliate link) to automatically optimize all my images once I upload them
Don’t forget to check my resource page for the best places to download images from stock images and graphic design tools
Write nice introduction before you dive in (don’t forget the Lead In)
It is really nice to write an introduction before you list all your bullet points
Try to make your introduction acts as a teaser by raising some concerns and asking questions before you start
There is no specific word counts
But keep in mind that you have to put the Lead In if writing a post with lists (like this one) by saying something like Now below are … or let us start the list with …
List all your main points in your blog post
Here is what I do when writing any blog post
I put the title not the final one
But the once that keeps me focused on what I am writing my content about
I skip the introduction for now and I start with the list of all my main points
Then I search the internet to see if I can increase my lists
For example in this post, I collected all my bullet points and I found no more points to add
So I updated my title to be 10 Steps on How to write your first blog post
Be useful and informative
Always try to provide useful links even if they are not affiliate links remember you are blogging to keep good impressions on your readers
And being the good Samaritan will benefit you if readers share your blog posts only when they feel like you are really providing values to them
Do you best to illustrate your content with images especially if it is a tutorial of any kind
Optimize your blog post for SEO
This point itself can be a separate blog post
But I will try to make it concise and clear under the following points
Do keyword research
By using Google Adwords Keyword Planner you will be able to depict what your blog post keyword(s) will be about for example
I changed this blog post main keyword from write an amazing blog post to write a great blog post although the word amazing is better (I believe) but if users use the word great then I will use it
Go for long-tail keywords
Go for long tail keywords which consists of 5-6 keywords as 1-2 keywords are very highly competitive
Plus they are not reflecting the users’ intention behind them like “SEO” is very tough to pursue and it is not like “Small business local SEO”
Choose your post title well
Always come up with very attractive title that makes the readers eager to click on your blog post, if you are not able to come up with a post title
Try the 5 types of questions (How, When, Why, Where and How)
Include the keyword in your URL
Assuming you are using WordPress as your blogging platform
If so this will happen automatically if you include your keyword in your post as your post will be the URL for your post
For example your URL will look like this doyourblogwithme.com/how-to-write-a-great-blog-post
Optimize your headings
Headings as known as H1, H2 and H3 in WordPress not only makes your blog post easy to read
But also it divides your post into logical sections but also adding keyword’s alternatives can also help you with SEO
Use your image text
2 things to consider when using images on your website
Always rename your image file to your blog post title or any long tail keywords from your Tags so for example instead of using image called PN1S4RT.png rename it to be write-a-great-blog-post.png plus don’t forget to add image alt text as shown below
Update image alt text
Use relevant internal links
Whenever you are writing a new blog post, think about your existing old blog posts and link to them
Actually it would be better if you link to them using their target keywords
Do it in a way that it is totally making sense
For example if you write before about how to choose your web hosting and then you are writing now about steps for building a successful blog
It would be one of these steps is how to choose your web hosting then make the previously bold phrase hyperlinked to your old post
Write a Meta description
Meta description will affect your website ranking
It is just showing 2 lines of what users see when they found your website on the list of searches
So writing a strong description with your target keyword included will encourage users to click on your link to read your post
To add Meta description to your blog post then I recommend to use WordPress plugin called Yoast SEO
Where you will be able to scroll down at the end of your post to specify the Meta description when you are editing your post
Image of Meta description (Not ready yet, I have to make it)
Link to new posts from your old posts
Same like when I asked you to link your new posts to old posts
You can do the other way around by linking your visiting your old posts and look for opportunities to link keywords to your new posts
One way to do this, by going to search for a keyword or synonyms of your target keyword in your post list page (as shown below)
And if you find old post written earlier go ahead and edit it by linking the keyword which you found to the new post
Choose Tags and Categories wisely
Tags and Categories help in grouping related posts together; every Tag and Category which you create will create a URL for you and it will be indexed by SEO
It is better when using tags to avoid keyword stuffing
But think carefully about few tags that can represent what is your blog post about
Target your blog post to be more than 2000 words
I don’t write my blog posts and look at the word counts
It comes naturally that I come close or exceed the 2000 words if I am writing a post about how to, top 10 (it can be any number) or whatever my long post is about
I research it very well to make sure that my article covers my topic better than the top 7 to 8 searches on Google plus Bing as using different search engines bring more ideas
Don’t forget the conclusion
Writing conclusion can benefit you in many ways
It increases your blog post word counts (this is the least benefit to think about it this way)
Also it helps readers to take notes
Sometimes because of how your conclusion is recapped well, it increases your social media sharing
Plus it helps you to create an infographic to share it on Pinterest
Make it actionable
Be very careful when asking readers to take actions
If you are writing about specific product asking readers to buy it looks pushy But asking them to share it for the benefit of others is acceptable
You can also place your subscription right below your blog post
This helps to take advantage of readers getting notified when the price goes down
Summary for this article and conclusion
To summarize what I wrote above regarding the 10 Steps on How to write a great blog post
Consider your audience in advance (generate your idea)
If audience is generalized then long post is recommended, if specialized then write only about the topic
Think about attention grabbing title
Readers can click to read your blog post based on the title as they don’t know what is written inside
Plan your images ahead
Adding images will make your blog post visually appealing
It will increase SEO traffic if Alt text is provided so add meaningful name to the image filename
Also attractive images and infographic increase your chance for social media sharing
Write nice introduction before you dive in
Introduction acts as a teaser by raising some concerns and asking questions to your readers before you start
List all your main points in your blog post
Always collect all the bullet points (solution to the problem) and then go finalize your title
Be useful and informative
Try to provide useful links and leave good impression to your readers
Optimize your blog post for SEO
Do keyword research
Go for long-tail keywords
Choose your post title well
Include the keyword in your URL
Optimize your headings
Use your image text
Use relevant internal links
Write a Meta description
Link to new posts from your old posts
Choose Tags and Categories wisely
Target your blog post to be more than 2000 words
Don’t pretend to count the words and add irrelevant content
if you research your topic well, you should be writing more than 2000 words
Don’t forget the conclusion
Conclusion for readers who don’t read the entire articles and you can build infographic from it
Make it actionable
It is not acceptable to ask reader to buy your product
But you can ask them to share it on Social media
Bonus tips to remember before publishing your post
Finally if you are starting your first blog post, just follow my instructions above, Now please share it with your friends using social media to the left hand side or bottom (mobile)
Wondering how to create a successful blog and make sure you are on the right track
Even if you have started before building more than one blog And unfortunately you failed as you spent more than a year or two with barely 50 to 100 visitors maximum a week
I will ask you to forget the bad experience Leave it behind your back and start reading this ultimate guide on building a successful blog
How to create a successful blog
Forget your fears and frustrations
Now pay attention, I am going to show you how to make sure you are on the right blogging track
At least compare what I am telling you below to what you were doing
I will not sell you any course or refer you to any course to invest more money in
Everything here is completely free, it is up to you to believe what I am showing you below or play the reluctant role being scared to go to the same experience of building another blog where you are being afraid to get stuck again with no traffic and no visitors
I totally understand how you feel, may be you developed a hard shell around your head that no new bloggers are able to penetrate the blogging world
When sitting with your friends and they discuss the internet marketing money making schema, they relate it to con artists and gimmicks low standard people that sell a dream promising you of building successful blog
You cannot defend the fact that there are really bloggers making money not from making money niche
You stay speechless because they refer to you as an example of someone who spent gazillions time on his blogs where he should have invested that previous time into upgrading himself by taking new course in his career or study new field
Shortcuts on how to create a successful blog
This epic post is intended for audience who want to start their first successful blogs without moving through multiple sites to collect all they need to know
I cover every aspect related to how to create a successful blog Starting from thinking about starting a new blog Whether if it is your first blog or not
At least, I am doing my best here
You can help me by writing your comments below on what you think I did not cover
Definitely I will add it right away
If you don’t want to go through the entire guide You can click on each icon below and It will take you to the required step Continue reading till you see a link that brings you here again
Search for a nicheChoose your web hosting and domainInstalling WordPressWriting contentMonetizing your blogGenerating traffic
Introduction to Starting a Successful Blog for those who lost trust in blogging
When thinking about how to create a successful blog, Usually you don’t know from where to start There are tons of information over the Internet That you have to read and understand You try to apply what you learned
Then you feel like you are stuck as every blogger has his/her own opinion/training Ask 5 successful bloggers on how to create a successful blog You will get back 100 different answers Trust this guide and you will realize that everything makes sense here
What is the bad news about this ultimate guide
The bad news is, this guide will not take you by hands Force you to follow my every single step listed below To start a successful blog, you have to act on what is on this guide
That’s why if you have failed before on your existing attempts Then it happens that you come to this guide without any previous blogging experience, most probably you will not take it seriously
That’s because every blog on the Internet talking about how to create your successful blog especially if you are blogging for money
They all talk about the technical part Like how to install WordPress on your web hosting Yes I am blogging with WordPress or which plugins are highly recommended for you to use
As if the technical part is the only blogging challenge They do that because they earn affiliate commissions When you purchase your web hosting through their links
Me too, I will earn commission without any extra cost to you If you purchase the web hosting which I recommend through my affiliate link But it doesn’t mean that I will alluringly deceive you into believing that blogging for money is just a bunch of steps you put together and that’s it
Save your effort and look for something else to do I did not say save your money Because web hosting is around 5$ per month Blogging is the cheapest business investment Yes it is a business, if you think about it as a business
What is Successful Blogging
A Blog is an abbreviation of the term Weblog, it is a site with blog posts sorted in chronological order
Successful blogs should imply the follow focused objectives
Grab the visitors attention to click and land on your blog
Keep their attention and make sure they move from one blog post to another
Convince them to subscribe then purchase from or become a customer
Number 1 is all based on your titles because to grab attention you have to start with the title
Your visitors did not read your blog post yet, they are just reading you titles only
You can practice to write titles that bring Shock, Scarcity, Time Sensitivity, Exclusivity and Fear & Anxiety
Number 2 is the hardest one because you have to practice many things to learn how to keep their attentions
Please understand your audience what are their gains and pains
Just build imaginary person to talk too and target all your blog posts to him/her
You cannot be everybody to all different audience, just stick to specific person and this person represents a group of similar people whom you can target
Number 3 is all about doing 1 & 2 correctly, if you manage to do number 2 in a way that all blog posts connects seemingly and to cover all the stages of customers’ awareness starting from
Different levels of customers’ awareness
1. Most Aware
2. Product Aware
3. Solution Aware : customers are ready to join your mailing list
4. Problem Aware : throughout your blog posts about current problem and challenges facing your current audience
5. Unaware : throughout your blog that targets specific audience
Why do you need to blog
Question is why are you Blogging Most bloggers starting a new blog hoping to make money from it Not to deny the fact that few bloggers are blogging for fun Or they blog to extend their Networking and exposure
While many bloggers are trying to promote their business or brand For any motives from the above, keep in mind that Your blog promotes yourself You blog to solve problems
You blog to attract the kind of audience Who are looking for answers to their problems Who can evaluate your value provided to them
If you add your profile picture – you should to your blog Your audience will visually imagine you behind your blog
Ask for their feedback and comments Accept criticism as they act as your faithful mirror People comment when they say “WOW – This guy made a perfect post”
Check again with other bloggers on social media Facebook has tons of groups for bloggers helping each other Ask them for their opinion by reading every blog post
You have to state what is your Audience’s problem and Which Audience you are targeting (Beginners, Intermediate or Advanced)
Blogging can help you meet someone Who can impact your life or Whom you can really have an impact on his/her life All can happen just through your Blogging style (writing)
Can you create a successful blog for free
Yes you can if you are blogging for the above mentioned reasons like Blogging for fun, Networking and exposure …etc Then go ahead and create your blog on Medium.com, Blogger.com or Tumblr.com
Ask yourself this question Are you treating your blog as a business or hobby Don’t say I will start as a hobby and if it works for me I will turn it into a business
You cannot do that because when you are doing Blogging for free, you have limitations with monetizing your blog Because you don’t even own your blog If it gets shutdown, your effort is gone
Why bloggers choose to pay for hosting their blogs
Simply bloggers choose to pay for self hosting their blogs because
1) It is not expensive to pay for Web hosting It can be around 5$ a month, maybe less depending on where you are web hosting your blog
2) Full flexibility to choose your domain name You don’t have to pay for your domain as Most web hosting let you choose your domain name when you pay for their web hosting
3) Full control over your blog You can do whatever your like with your blog Nobody dares to shut down your blog
What are the outlines for starting a successful blog
You have to dissect your Blog building process into 4 phases Planning phase, Building phase, Content creation phase and Promotion phase
Under planning phase
You should develop what I call your new Blogging skills You are starting a successful blog to either get traffic or build an Audience
Building an Audience for beginners are really hard Because you have to focus all your effort on building Authority site You cover a specific focused niche and write everything about it Link all blog posts together to make your Audience bookmark your site
Can I do both directions together? Like getting traffic and building an Audience Short answer is yes but not at the same time
For beginners, You have to start a successful blog By getting the traffic that can generate full income for you Then by applying to Ad network like Mediavine or Adthrive To apply to Mediavine, they require at least 25,000 sessions per month
When you get your desired traffic Then you can start a successful blog By focusing on your Audience
You start by checking your Google Analytics Analyze the demographics of your blog then Build your blog posts to be an Authority site for specific Audience
For starting a successful blog focused on Audience Under planning phase you need to work on MINDSET, WHY, PROMISE, AUDIENCE and EMPIRE I will discuss below each one of these 5 Blogging skills shortly
Planning Phase Advice
Please if you are new to blogging, don’t start with building Authority site focused on your Audience because you will not be able to know and write about a topic more enough to make your website the one that visitors are hunger to bookmark it
Start your successful blog based on increasing your traffic then you can monetize your blog easilykeep it as a very honest advice I hope you trust it
Under Building phase
Very straight forward steps, you do it once with due diligence You master it, you don’t need to touch it again You choose your web hosting carefully, you don’t need to change it unless it is a bad choice, also for domain name, not recommended to change it as you will lose all your existing traffic Even if you did not have any existing traffic, no backlinks to your blog You will lose your Google’s indexing of your blog and start again with Google
Stop wasting time by reinstalling your WordPress or plugins There is no reason to do so as you can only change your WordPress theme or design If you need to test different theme or design – very little impact on your blog
N.B. If you are planning to switch to different WordPress theme Take a copy of all your Widgets code in notepad file or whatever You lose them when switching back to your old theme
Under Content creation phase
If you understand the plan phase properly I guarantee you a great success in this phase You will learn below the different types of blog posts I will show you how to create a great blog post
Under Promotion phase
If you have not missed anything from the building phase and you created great content to promote Promotion should not be tough you just need to know all about the different methods to reach your audience
Developing your Blogging skills
MINDSET
Yes it is a marathon not a race but I can make it online other successful bloggers don’t possess special talents but only determination and will MINDSET of yes I can learn new things down the road but that does not stop me from starting right now MINDSET of not falling into the Analysis Paralysis
You keep doing your investigation/research and not take any action Fearing of not being perfect so you defer “I will take action now” Now after MINDSET, comes the WHY
WHY
Always strengthens your MINDSET, I will explain it below Why are you starting a successful blog? for getting Traffic or for your Audience ?
If getting traffic then you have to think about each blog post separately Each blog post you write should be a master piece People wanted to read it, I will show you how below You write it in the best version possible
If for building your Audience Your Audience know that you want to make money online through them They will stick around if they feel that you are solving their problems Don’t entice them and offer a solution to their problems in a paid product
To simplify it with an example I created my WHY for this blog because I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to learn the tools that will empower their lives Although I covered all the technical steps for starting a successful blog in previous posts It was not enough and that’s why I started this post
PROMISE
The reason WHY strengthens your MINDSET Because every time you lose hope Ask yourself and look at your previous writings Have you really put your best effort to make each blog post the best version or to solve your Audience problems
After defining your WHY, proceed with the PROMISE Promise yourself that every post you write keeps up to your WHY
Now you have the MINDSET, WHY and PROMISE It is time to look for your
AUDIENCE
Looking for your AUDIENCE in some niches are easy Like “Weight Loss after pregnancy” or “Paying student loans for young people aged 25-34” If your niche is not targeting any demographics due to being followed by broad AUDIENCE You can find it later when you start analyzing your traffic Which is coming to your blog through Google Analytics
After AUDIENCE comes your EMPIRE The EMPIRE here is how to create a successful blog even if great source of traffic falls Your EMPIRE does not collapse
Finding your passion
I want you to start a successful blog You need a passion for something you love to talk about Let me call it a niche You don’t have to be an expert in your niche If this is your first time blogging I recommend not to pursue a niche that you are not interested in
At least you should have a passion that keeps you reading about it You read a lot from favorite blogs Where you can find missing content to write about For example, I love reading about making and saving money, budgeting, financing and blogging
Should you take your new niche to a new blog
If later on I find that DIY is a popular niche and has tons of traffic I can add it to my list of niches under the same blog or create a separate blog website for it
This decision should be yours I will not tell you If it is right or wrong to create a separate blog or expand on your existing blog
If you think that you can build a blog with hundreds of blog posts Covering only the DIY niche then you are moving into building an authority site If this is the case then definitely create a new blog site for DIY niche
Then you build a gigantic knowledge that you start teaching others about what you know This is when you start building courses or creating eBooks Before doing that you provide all you know to your audience Don’t keep secrets or hidden knowledge for your paid products
I know what you have been thinking What if your passion is about niche that does not make money Like Astronomy or breeding a spider then forget about it This is where the next step comes below
Researching within your niche
Well, do you like or enjoy reading about any of the following
How to make money Health and Fitness Personal finance Beauty and fashion Relationships and personal development Lifestyle like survival, gardening, Women’s lifestyle..etc.
If so then you have a winner, pick one from the above broad niches Dig more inside to find what sub-niches you still love to pursue For example, in the Health and Fitness, you can tackle “Weight Loss” or “Hair Loss” Weight Loss by itself is a still big niche, you can narrow it down to “Paleo Diet”
You can start with narrow niche like “Paleo Diet for Athletes” Then who knows you can scale it up to cover everything about “Paleo Diet” Start narrow then scale it but not the other way around
What if you have multiple interests on different niches How to choose between multiple niches for your blog Yes it happens to all of us We have multiple interests
There are tons of blogs covering multiple niches Stay at home moms write about Parenting, Blogging and Fashion That is totally fine to pursue multiple niches if you want
Why researching niche when starting successful blog is critical
Read this section below carefully In order for any blog to survive online It requires to get its traffic through search engines I will call it Google throughout this post Because Google is the master of all search engines Google is very slow when it comes to ranking your new blog
Pinterest is the next winning horse for traffic With Pinterest you can get traffic from day 1 I will use both Pinterest and Google to get all of my traffic Let me start with Pinterest and optimize my blog for the Google long term plan
I cannot use YouTube because majority of bloggers including myself We don’t have the right talent to create rich and enticing videos That can bring thousands of views per month By default it ends up that Pinterest and Google are the only sources of traffic
I know what you are thinking I forgot social media, No I did not Social media can be a good supplementary source of traffic But not the main one to rely on
Your blog will never be like Buzzfeed Where you create very attractive headlines You write about every things in all niches Sometimes fake news about celebrities that attracts readers like magnet
You have to consider in any niche you pursue that it is always Not seasonal and evergreen plus it gets tons of traffic
Validating your niche for the right amount of traffic
By using the common sense You realize that niche like weight loss is evergreen But I mentioned earlier that writing about Weight loss is not the right choice You have to be more specific
1- Validating you niche using Google trends
I would say this step is a must to do on Google trends Even if you decide to narrow down your weight loss Without using Google trends You act as someone shooting in the dark
For example, I searched for different types of diets without Keto I use United States and one year – Past 12 months with traffic type as web search Mediterranean diet is the winner
Wait, I added Keto diet and here is what I got
Keto diet outcomes all the other diets What about the 5 years long term plan
Wait again, Mediterranean and Paleo diets are steady for the last 5 years I would say it is really hard to predict how Keto will perform Start tackling both Keto and either Mediterranean or Paleo diet at the same time It will be tough to keep writing on Keto only
2- Validating you niche using Pinterest
You need traffic from day one You cannot wait for Google to love your blog After validating Google trends Validate that your niche has footprints on Pinterest
Not all niches are the same on Pinterest For example, blogging is the worst niche to drive traffic through Pinterest To prove this, when you go to Pinterest to create a new account Blogging is not even there at all
To validate that your niche drives good traffic You have to look for all pins and see how many repins Unfortunately Pinterest started to hide number of repins from desktop But it is still available on Pinterest mobile app and other chrome extensions I will discuss different chrome extensions later
The above pin got 71K This is a crazy number People are interested to read topic and repin it
Take it to the next level by following this tip Since this domain has one pin with 71K Copy this domain to Ubersuggest and search for all blog posts
Below you got all blog posts with total number of repins Now export your result to Google drive to keep them on Cloud You can check them from your mobile phone too
Keep exploring and expanding your list You will collect a list of blog posts to write about
3- Validating you niche using keyword research tool
While collecting your data from Pinterest You have a mission to write your blog post from the eye of Google too Google needs a long tail keywords to write your blog post about I tend to look for low competitive keywords By using a keyword research tool called Keysearch
I use keysearch to hunt for low competitive keywords with high volume My first task is to look for the main keywords around my Pinterest blog post It is easy to spot it from the title or if this blog post is not optimized for SEO Yes it can happen, then I suggest to use Google keyword planner
Export all keywords which you collected from Google keyword planner Copy them to Keysearch to search for all keywords volume and competition
Also you can come across a very low competitive keywords related to your niche Take a note of them by saving them to your Keysearch list
4- Validating you niche using Google
It can happen that Keysearch tool suggests few low competitive keywords Don’t trust the tool but go to Google and do your due diligence
5- Validating you niche using YouTube
This step will help you find what users are interested to watch Remember watching is not like reading People go to YouTube to watch product reviews
YouTube will give you a sense of similarity to Pinterest
For example the search above showing saving money on low income This is similar to Pinterest pins to save money or pay debts Even if you are on low income
6- Collecting all the related blog posts
If you remember earlier under how to create a successful blog
I mentioned the 5 stages of customers’ awareness where you have to write all blog posts to cover different types of awareness
Most bloggers that fail they create separate blog posts not connected to each other and they expect to see significant result from their effort
Don’t fall into this trap, putting an effort worth more than 1 year of writing contents should be done in a way that rewards you of your effort, but how?
I will continue with the Save Money, I need to get all the LSI which stands for Latent Semantic Index
I found a free LSI website called lsigraph.com just type Save Money and you get a list of articles to work on
I will not act here as other bloggers Who claim that their web hosting is better than others I am currently hosting this blog on Siteground Now this question to you
How to choose a reliable web hosting
There might be other web hosting companies equal to or better than Siteground But You should consider the following before buying your web hosting
1) Server reliability (Up-time scores and security)
Compare all your web hosting companies which you are interested in by uptime scores I don’t think this piece of information is hidden to the public With Siteground, I did not experience for the last year even one single downtime
2) Customer Support
How long they keep you on the phone for an agent to answer your calls I wait always around 2 minutes for agents If I use the chat, it is around 1 minute But I prefer speaking to a live agent over the phone
3) Availability of site backups
Actually when I switched to Siteground I did not know that they keep a backup for one month You can go back in time to any day during the last 30 days I consider this a great add-ons
4) Maintenance cost and renewal fees
There is no maintenance cost only renewal fees Maybe Siteground is little expensive than Hostgator Bluehost Again it comes for so many reasons
5) Ability to add domains
Almost most web hosting companies allow you to add multiple domains Exclude any web hostings that don’t
6) Account Limitations
I will not limit it to specific features When I switched from Hostgator to Siteground I noticed that Siteground has built in Cloudflare
If you are not aware of what is Cloudflare it is a US company that provides something called Content Delivery Network Service It boosts your web site page loading speed Protects you against any attacks .. and many more
That’s why I had to switch my web hosting from Hostgator to Siteground
Choosing your domain name
I already wrote before about how to choose your domain name Keep in mind, if you plan to do multiple niches Don’t choose a domain name that is restricted to one niche
A trend started some time ago Where you get a domain name with your nickname + blog Or any variations of family name (if unique) + blog e.g. MarcelloBlog.com
Installing WordPress
Actually a week ago before publishing this blog post I thought that WordPress and Drupal are the only popular Blogging platform I found there are so many CMS on the Internet that I haven’t even heard their names before Read more on frequently asked questions to know what is WordPress Also I recommend looking for WordPress Tutorial for beginners on YouTube to help you get started
How to choose your blogging platform
I have never thought about using any other CMS for Blogging except WordPress I am biased here to using WordPress As every wish of a component I dream about I found it in their plugins
WordPress hosts around 30% of all Blogging sites Nowadays most web hosting made it very easy to install WordPress Last thing you would worry about is the technical part I am not saying that because I know the technical stuff (I am a computer programmer)
There are millions of places including YouTube that show you that Once you install WordPress on your web hosting It becomes no brainer Check out this post below on How to setup your blog using WordPress
Configuring your WordPress theme and plugins
So many opinions about plugins I even get confused if my list of plugins are suffice If you are in doubt about which plugins to install on your WordPress blog Take it back to the PROMISE and AUDIENCE You promise to provide your audience great contents Then you need to measure that
You need to install Google Analytics Plugin Enhance the performance with W3 Total Cache Increase the security with Wordfence security The rest is up to you
You may think why I added this extra step here after configuring WordPress theme and plugins Well, now you have your theme ready and plugins installed, next is You have to arrange how your theme will look like Keep in mind that every theme has its own features Some are completely optional but few are mandatory to keep Below this is what I recommend to have
How to design your WordPress blog
You need to add/configure 4 things and you are ready to start Blogging
1) Your WordPress Must Do pages which are “About Me”, “Disclaimer”, “Privacy Policy” and “Contact”
Notice, I use the ME as you are trying to be personal This tone is acceptable as you are not a corporate
2) Your WordPress blog menu
Most WordPress themes make by default the home page as a collection of blog posts in chronological order From your WordPress Menu, create a map or structure of how you want your audience to use your blog
Like most bloggers create a menu that is called “Start Here” or “Courses” You can link your “Start Here” page to all your blogs posts under one category But I prefer to create a WordPress page so you can build blog posts that look like a course
3) Your WordPress sidebar
Sidebars are the right, left or both margins on every post, page and homepage Some WordPress themes can let you configure where you want your sidebars to show up
On homepage, specific or all pages/posts Anyway it is highly recommended to have it everywhere (I don’t see any valid point of restricting your sidebar on specific post/page) I also highly recommend to have a profile picture, few words about yourself Your social media icons to make it easy for audience to connect with you
I will not cover which affiliate offers or ads to add to Sidebars You have to test these things to see what works and what doesn’t It all starts to work for you once you get traffic rolling to your blog
4) Your WordPress footer
Some bloggers miss configuring their WordPress footer I recommend to check what you can add as widgets to your WordPress footer Just an advice, if your footer is close to the end of your blog posts You can add a call to action underneath your blog posts
Like subscription to your newsletter or any other call to action Also add contact information if possible Organize your footer links into columns, if possible Include a copyright notice Use graphic elements (like as soon on CNN…etc)
Reading thoroughly on your topic (understand each types of blog posts)
Even if you have excellent knowledge about your niche Still you need to look what other bloggers wrote about it The best writer is the one who reads a lot Now let us make a habit of taking bullet points of all the topics That you plan to cover in your post to create a useful content
What are the famous types of blog posts you can write confidently
You don’t have to be an author Your audience are not looking for authors
Learn these blog post types Then you are ready to write on your blog
LONG list as known as the Skyscraper :
LONG list when you list items/things with little contents This was before Brian Dean invented the Skyscraper method If you find a long list of how to solve xxx problem You list a longer detailed number of things and to solve same xxx problem Like 101 Ways to Drive Traffic to your website
How to and Tutorials :
You create a guide or white paper on a product or tool
Very good if you are busy writing other blog post contents All you do is send your question(s) to fellow bloggers Wait for their reply back and create a post around it Most of these blogger should be very well known in your niche
Cheat Sheets, Checklists and To-do’s :
I found Cheat sheets, checklists and To dos are suitable for sharing on social media Think how you can summarize tutorials or long posts to create Cheat sheets
Reviews :
Reviews are good for writing about a product or tool Your honest review will appeal in your writings
Infographics :
It a new type of image You illustrate your blog post by an image Before thinking this is not for me
There are many website offering easy tools to create fancy and attractive Infographics like Canva, GetStenciland Snappa
Interviews :
Find an authority person in your niche Build a relationship through social media Invite them for an interview No need for face to face just web cam, chat using Facebook Messenger or any chat tool
What is your blog’s tone or voice
What is your writing style Don’t pretend to be someone else If you read a lot for fellow bloggers It can happen that you like one for the others Maybe he/she is writing in a sarcastic voice
If you are not a sarcastic person You act always serious Just be yourself You should have your own personality
Tell a story about your weakness When you are relating your audience’s problem to yourself What are the steps taken to overcome this weakness You have to be a real person “human being” You should have your own point of view
Writing your contents
Now you understand all types of blog posts, you know your voice (tone) You are now ready to start writing your blog posts
How to create a great blog content that attracts your visitors like a magnet
1) Understand your audience
Any blog post becomes a great content If it resonates with your audience’s mind about their problem Always target very specific audience If it is for beginner, continue as a beginner guide
2) Start with an Introduction
Don’t just right away to the solution Although this is what your audience look for But at least remember to grap their attention Make them agree with you that you also suffered their pain
3) Make your contents navigational
Long contents even if they have separated into proper paragraphs Still very daunting to skim it to read what you want Please make sure to create table of contents Add a recap to the end of your blog post
4) Add media files to your post
Adding spices to your post Nobody likes long text with no images Always use the proper images or infographics That can easily help to illustrate your words
5) Add Call to Action
A lot of bloggers do great job in providing values They just forget including myself to include the call to action After having your audience read your blog post What actions do you want them to fulfill If you want them to subscribe to your newsletter Don’t be afraid to say so
Before I hit my point for planning your blog contents I assume that you have read the famous types of blog posts in the previous section
Based on what I have said before on the WHY, PROMISE and AUDIENCE It is very clear when you start a new blog If you are targeting beginners in your niche you need a lot of Ultimate guide (something similar to this blog post) How Tos and Tutorials when you start
Don’t refrain yourself in pursuing other types of blog posts Just keep in mind to stick to your PROMISE and AUDIENCE
1: Set Goals for Your Blog
When you start your new blog How long you plan for content creation Take a look at the below image for all types of blog posts
How many How Tos, Ultimate Guides or Tutorials do you really need If you can write down all your planned blog titles categorized based on their types This will help you estimate the amount of work load required from your end
I know when building a new blog, you work all by yourself Content creation should be your number one priority
2: Create Audience Personas
With keeping up the PROMISE and AUDIENCE Things can go not as you expect How would you know Checking your audience under Google Analytics I found that I am targeting 83% of female
3: Revamp your old blog posts
Do your best to create all different types of blog posts Final judge is your audience interaction on your website If you go to the traffic coming to all your blog posts As shown below, audience decided that not all your blog posts are created equally They like some of them over the others
Analyze your top blog posts that got the highest traffic Revamp each blog type either by creating another type of it Or even making it way better than what it was before By adding Infographics, creating Cheat sheet from its content I know you got the idea
Almost all bloggers including myself we monetize our blogs from day one This is not practically wrong but I came to this conclusion I want your opinion about it in the comment section below
If for fact, the first few months – 6 months to a year You gain almost zero or few cents if using advertisement network like Adsense Why don’t we ignore monetizing our blogs for the first 6 months
Focus only on writing your blog contents that reach out to your target Audience Again this is not an advice, I can call it a hint or conclusion That it has an impact completely on starting a successful blog
Anyway let’s say you are ready to start monetizing your blog So the question now is
How to monetize your blog
I don’t want to waste more words here as these items below are self explanatory But I will put few words for each one
1: Advertisements :
Displaying advertisement on your blog where you get paid if your visitors click on the ad like Google Adsense
2: Affiliate marketing :
You recommend a product or service with an affiliate link that indicates that it is coming from your blog You get paid if visitors make purchases through your link
Making money from your list of email subscribers if they buy your eBooks/Courses or through your affiliate link You have to build your email list and it has a learning curve by itself
4: Selling ebooks :
Creating your own eBooks, it can be a PDF file Most bloggers create a lucrative affiliate system to get use of other bloggers’ traffic
5: Selling Courses :
Similar to eBooks but can be delivered using a third party system like Teachable or Thinkific
6: Selling digital products :
Not limited to eBooks but any sort of multimedia like selling Video series to teach something
7: Selling coaching (consulting) services :
Sometimes you need to sit an hour with an expert that can be hard to find in eBooks or eCourses
8: Selling memberships :
Paying once or recurring payments for getting a service or consultation hours
It is about getting and increasing engagements to your blog
Don’t obscure your content
Focus your blog contents on your target audience
Ask questions in your blog posts
Choose your titles and headlines carefully you can ask for suggestions on Facebook groups like which title to choose title A or B and put all titles there
Focus to write appealing introduction to every blog post
Add visual contents to your blog posts
Ask for engagement nothing is wrong about it
The Real Truth About Starting a Successful Blog
According to a survey from ProBlogger 49% earned under 100$ 23% earned over 1000$ 16% earned over 2500$ 9% earned over 15000$ These numbers don’t add up to 100% There are so many details That’s why I included the full chart from ProBlogger blog
Credit for this survey image goes back to ProBlogger
Yes you can follow the niche discovery tutorial above But still not make any money Now it is either you give up or look back and see what went wrong
One of the main reason for failure is Doing small actions so you feel you wasted a lot of time like a year with no benefits Having people around you who know you are currently blogging On every occasion like Thanksgiving or Christmas You hear funny comments about how nerd you are with your blogging – waste of time thing
Is Blogging dead or You can still make Money With your Blog
Yes you can, so many bloggers make 4 to 5 digits per month This is not a myth, it IS a system not a secret That’s why it is available for everyone Yes It is a very long road that needs all your patience and strength If you have not built up any experience Keep in mind to
* First unleash your ideas within you
Everything you are going to write about has already been written on the Internet The key ingredient here is to add your unique experience, your own distinct voice Your own personality will attract others similar to you looking for a solution to their problems But if you focus on your audience problems, you are shooting the moon Look for your audience where they ask questions on Quora and Reddit to find solutions Even you need to write the exact same questions they ask in your blog post
* Enjoy your niche like crazy
If you don’t love your niche, it will show on your writing Actually this is true to a great extent Because if you know well about the topic then you need to write it from your audience point of view You will come up with ideas on creating digital products, revamping your blog posts content, writing eBooks
* Build a very strong relationship with fellow bloggers
This is number one success factor A lot of work can be done for each other Like commenting on each other blogs Asking them to guest post on your blog (if you are busy writing) Share your blog posts on their social media sites Don’t be afraid to ask questions to other bloggers Even if it is a simple questions We are not created all equal in all Blogging skills
* Expect a year of dedicated hard work Blogging before making money
During your first year, you can still make few bucks If you hear bloggers making significant money during first or second month Maybe They are not lying but they are Gurus Who failed before and have an excellent learning curve
* Don’t give up no matter what
At first, you will not get any visitors Just focus on writing your appealing contents that touch your Audience problems Never forget why you started Blogging in the first places Keep it on mind and hold tight to your dreams
How to arrange your Blogging schedule
The most successful key aspect to Blogging is consistency with writing You have to stick to a schedule of when you will be able to write every week Let’s say you will stick to Wednesday and Friday of every week at 7 pm for one hour
If you are writing using a mobile application There are so many mobile applications that let you focus and stop being distracted They block you from receiving phone calls or text messages Same features if you decide to use desktop/laptop applications
Remember I said stick to writing schedule I did not say stick to publishing schedule Meaning you cannot force yourself to publish a blog post once or twice per week This will be too much pressure on you
You need to stick to writing schedule Knowing that you don’t spend so long for one blog post If you are writing a long blog post (Skyscraper) You can arrange for another blog post that does not take long time from you Remember those that are able to push through things are the ones that succeed.
Promoting your blog
I know you have been waiting for this moment to read about How I promote my blog In fact, I am a very lazy person when it comes to promoting my blog
Assume that you have already completed setting up your blog and you wrote between 20 to 50 blog posts (each is 1000+ words) It took you an average of 6 months to do all of that and because content creation is an ongoing process
let me say that you managed to start promoting or you started promoting earlier When you were writing your initial blog posts
Time passes by, I will say another 3 – 6 months and seriously no sales at all or at good one or two If you give up, I won’t blame you but before you give up I will review thoroughly your blog and ask you few questions like
Stop and check your why, promise and audience
Do you remember the WHY, PROMISE, AUDIENCE Check your WHY if you say yes I stuck to the WHY Then I would say I will be your audience and I am visiting your blog I want to learn about gardening for beginners
I come to your blog post on How To Start Gardening in 2 weeks Very catchy title and promising to teach me in a short period of time So I keep reading You sprinkle affiliate links for organic fertilizers from Amazon I may click on the link to check the item but I will not buy Because you did not teach me Gardening in 2 weeks as promised
I still need to know lot of things like what is Best soil to use / best pots for gardening / best time to water your seeds …etc
Affiliate marketing is about CAT which stands for Context, Authority and Trust In few words, you did not promote something highly relevant to the topic (missing context) If it is about an Amazon book about Gardening for Dummies (I may buy it)
You did not cover your blog post in deep (missing authority) Don’t misunderstood authority by having a blog like Wikipedia At least authority to cover every aspect in your blog post That help me solve my problem You did not educate me enough which happens mostly through email subscription
How to know If my blog idea Is a good one
I will repeat again this part If it happens that your blog covers one or more niche
This means that even if you tackle this niche from different angle What they call it an idea
So come up with a new idea within these mentioned niches Again regular idea in popular niche, better than a brand new idea in unknown niche
Go ahead and unleash your ideas You are completely covered
I will give you an example In Personal finance niche You can come up with an idea To help household save on utility bills
I just came up with this idea As I found blog posts for saving on electricity So I said to myself Let me make it a little bit broad
I just wanted to show you How easy it is to come up with ideas within your niche
Are Audience in my niche willing to spend money
Everyone in this world cares about Wealth, Health and Relationship That’s why the above niches Work all the times
People are willing to spend money In order to lose weight (Health) or trying to bring their Ex back (Relationship) To invest in future (Wealth) You got the idea
Is my niche too broad or too specific
Think about it this way If you are going too broad It is very hard to write on all topics Plus it will be very hard to compete with authority sites
On the other hand side If you have the above idea about Saving on electricity bill Then you went too tight
Is my desired niche saturated
I don’t believe in niche saturation What I believe is competitive niche Where you will put extra effort and time
The good news is that The more competitive niche The more it indicates that There is money to be made
Is planning phase always required, what if I am currently making money with my blog without even knowing about it
Yes it can happen that many bloggers are not building a solid WHY, PROMISE, AUDIENCE and they are still able to make money from their blogs
Does this prove that I am wrong
No, look at the image below and try to understand that There are so many blogs which were built without the planning phase
Like Review sites, Lifestyle blogs and Mom blogs Where the latter addresses topics related to Blogging, Cooking, Parenting and Travels
They manage to spend more time on traffic Especially the right traffic like Pinterest Which works best for Cooking and Parenting They promote very highly relevant contextual affiliate programs
Golden Rules on blogging and contents creation
Blogging is not a rocket science, it is all about being patience, writing great contents, learning basic skills for creating media files like images/videos and keep learning about marketing and social media presence with a solid plan to start SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and link building from day one
Starting a new blog is considered a very long journey meaning expect 1-2 years of hard work with no significant return
Always evaluate your contents, are you really targeting your audience by answering all of their problems, I am afraid you waste 1 or 2 years for nothing (refer to previous bullet point, be on the right path, write useful contents that solve problems)
Focus on one niche and start a successful blog on solving the main problem for your audience with ultimate guide, take it from there and expand to cover more problems and include more blog posts to cover extra topics very highly relevant to your main problem which you are solving
Focus on the content creation when you start, you cannot do everything at the beginning, you will be distracted, even if you think about expanding your brand to social media start only with one (highly recommended to start up with Pinterest first)
Golden Rules on affiliate marketing and relationship with bloggers
Always start from the beginning to build strong relationship with other bloggers who own blogs relevant to your niche
Affiliate marketing comes second after writing great contents as you solve problems first then recommend to your audience the best affiliate tool/program/course that can help make their life easier (don’t do it the other way around by finding affiliate programs and then building contents around them – big NO)
Not everyone around you will understand what you are doing so stop talking about blogging to negative people or those who don’t share the same beliefs
Please do yourself a favor and stop procrastinating your ideas, focus more on content creation and don’t be picky on your WordPress theme or current designs as all these things can be changed later (You don’t marry your theme)
Recapping on how to create a successful blog
At the end of this post, I don’t really consider it an end as I will add more details on certain topics from those listed above, I won’t leave you confused but at least I need your help by commenting below of what you think still missing or you still need to know about or
Finally if you learned few things on how to create a successful blog, please share it with your friends using social media.
