For every blogger, there are times where the motivation to write that next blog post is gone. Or you are stuck for ideas on what to write. As a blogger myself, I can certainly vouch for that. But fear not – there are ways to make blogging easier, more fun and more productive! Check out these top blogging tips for beginners (and experienced bloggers) to help you along the way.
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Write For Yourself
First and foremost – write for yourself. Yes of course, it is important to also have your audience in mind, but think of yourself first. If you do, you will find that the writing is easier and chances are you will write more and publish more often too. Focus on your thoughts, ideas and opinions – and simply put pen to paper (or start typing, I should say). Be yourself – and write in a way that comes naturally. I believe the readers will appreciate that (and please correct me if you disagree).
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Understand You Audience
Well, as I mentioned, it will always be important to have your audience in mind. Understanding your audience is important as you’ll have a better idea of what they like and want to read and learn. You can also get some great blogging ideas from your audience. If you have a following in social media – why not ask them directly what they want to read in an engaging tweet or facebook comment?
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Build Your Email List
I wish I had started building my email list a lot sooner, I really do. In fact, I have just recently set up my email list using aweber (please do sign up for my blog updated to the top right of this site), and I’m already reaping the rewards from it. If you have an enticing give-away for people who sign up, then that’s great. However, if you don’t have anything to hand out, that’s ok too. Building your email list allows you to promote your new posts directly to your audience email inbox.
As I mentioned, I personally use aweber for the automation and management of my email list. I asked around in my online community, and everyone seemed to recommend aweber. So far, I can highly recommend them too.
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Call-To-Action
This is important, both in order to increase your return visitors and, for the blogger looking to earn money online, to actually get some commissions earned on your affiliate programs. I recommend that you always finish a blog post with some kind of call to action – it can be asking for comments or feedback on your post, sign up request to your email list or social media sites, or to check out other blog posts you have published.
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Be Consistent
Consistency is key. First of all; Google likes it – and will ensure your content gets indexed quicker. Secondly; you put in all the work to build your audience and get traffic, and so you don’t want to lose it all quickly by not ensuring consistency. If you have the time and opportunity to blog daily – perfect! If you can only lock down one new post per week, publish it on the same day each week. Consistency. The beauty of web-building sites like WordPress is that you can schedule the time for publishing, so you don’t actually have to remember it on the day.
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Be Patient
Rome wasn’t built in a day. The same goes for your blog – please don’t expect to see a huge return overnight; you are then setting yourself up to fail. But please don’t be discourage – just keep chugging at it, and you will soon see results in terms of ranking and visitors.
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Awesome Headlines
You know all too well how ruthless we can be when googling for something – and why and how you decide what link to follow. So needless to say, you should keep your headlines interesting, captivating and on topic. You should always aim to use great keywords too, to increase your google ranking.
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Keep It Short
As I am writing the 685th word of this blog post, I am telling you to keep it short. The posts really don’t need to be much longer than 400 words to get indexed. Of course, keep going while it feels natural, but don’t feel pressured into writing massive essays for the sake of it. (I say this hoping that there are still a few people reading these last sentences 😉
As always, I welcome your feedback. Do you have any other amazing blogging tips? Would love to hear them! And please sign up to our mailing list if you want to keep on top of new updates.
Have a lovely day!
Cheers,
Karina
Hi
Thank you for the article, I like the tip about writing for yourself. I usually have a difficult time getting started and my articles sometimes are a little boring. Recently I have taken the concept of writing like I am discussing a topic with a friend. That article was of much better quality. One time I am trying to have is patience, as a newbie is difficult because I am trying to learn so much.
I am saving you tips to continue using them and hopefully my writing will improve and I will have more visitors and readers.
I do have something I do which is set aside time for my research and writing. On that day that is all I do. I set a time twice a week for research and writing.
I still don’t understand how to build a email list, but will soon work on.
Thank you,
Lady Esther
Hi there,
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment! 🙂 Are you with Wealthy Affiliate or another affiliate program? If you’re with WA like myself, then just stick with the training provided and you’ll gain so much knowledge on this business
thanks again
Karina
Hello Karina, very thoughtful tips. Not only for the beginner, but those of us that have been around a while and need that refresher. Two things that stood out for me are writing for yourself and keeping the target audience in mind. I find reading anything, except manuals, that is written from a personal perspective is always more trustworthy. With the many types of people that are on the internet I think it is crucial to also keep the audience in mind when preparing a post. Good job.
Thanks Harvey! both for the feedback and your insights – really appreciate it 🙂
Hi Karina, these are awesome tips that bloggers should keep in mind. Lately, I have gotten so focused on keywords that I have caused my titles to become boring. I need to work on that. I also liked your tip about writing for yourself. Although I have always tried to keep my audience as my top consideration; it seems like writing for yourself could help pull me tthrough the lulls.
Which one of these tips helps you get through the times when you are most challenged to blog consistently?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Sondra,
Thanks for the comments. I’m finding staying true to my style of writing makes it easier. Coming from a Norwegian background (but living in Sydney, Australia), English isn’t my first language and I find that if I try to sound to “smart” or academic, then I get stuck easily. I need to write how I think, if that makes sense 🙂
Have a lovely day!
cheers,
Karina