Disclaimer: This is a guest post by one of my readers.
Blogs became popular network tools to exchange experience and create communities long ago. Many examples motivate people to create their blogs, and the Internet gets filled with new interesting pages.
Once I decided to create my blog too. Of course, as a regular blogger and essay writer for writercheap.com, I couldn’t imagine what would happen to it in 2-3 years.
It is always difficult to start something, and that is why newbie bloggers ask more experienced colleagues for a piece of advice. Here are the most often questions I got:
- How to develop a blog and make people read it?
- How to strengthen a position in a blog niche after that?
So, I gathered 12 tips that I consider quite useful for newbie bloggers because they keep helping me support my website and my image and reputation of an omniscient blogger.
1. Choose the Tree You Need
Come up with an issue your blog should solve. It is okay to create the blog “just because,” but you’ll have to answer this question one day whether you want it or not. The task (or the goal) of the blog will help you remain in certainly required frames while writing it. Plus, you will be able to measure the effectiveness of your blog, basing on how well your posts and audience’s feedback contribute to the completion of the task set.
2. Speak About Your Problems
Determine the topic and style of your blog and follow them in the future. Diverse blogs are not interesting for many people unless they are personal diaries. It is very difficult to attract readers at the very beginning if they don’t understand the topic (not to mention the fact that they don’t know who you are).
They might like 1-2 articles and even sign up for upcoming post notifications. But after they get 2-3 articles touching a completely different topic, they are going to say their last goodbye to you, unless they are your loyal friends.
Determine what you are best-versed. If these are different spheres (say, from fishing to marketing), then you’d better start several different blogs.
Your writing style matters a lot too. People might not know you in person, but regular readers remember your unique blogging style and can even scan your outlook scan through your articles.
So, your blog makes you analyse yourself. This will influence your image later. But at the very beginning, you attract potential audiences.
If you need serious readers, be serious. If you need open and communicative people to join your community, be open and communicative.
3. Remember That Eagles Don’t Catch Flies
Write articles touching useful and relevant topics. Even if you are not a 100% expert in something, become one and write a reliable article! This not only will attract readers but also add to your reputation.
Don’t be afraid to express your thoughts. This is exactly what people could value the most. Why should they read someone else’s thoughts and ideas on YOUR blog? Don’t be too shy to be “the white crow”: this is often the reason why people stay with you.
4. Time and Hunger Wait for No One
The world changes rapidly, and the field of your expertise welcomes new specialists every day. They can organise their instruments to exchange experience or create a community as well and fast as you.
As soon as you stop being interesting, and more useful resources appear, netizens may turn away from you and start looking for new developing things.
If you decided to make your blog popular, then touch global topics, look for trends in your field, and discuss them in your posts.
Besides, nowadays it is difficult to imagine a popular blogger without a Twitter account as well as a blog post without those “Like” and “Share” buttons.
5. Patience Always Pays Off
Don’t expect feedback and result to come at once. At first, you’ll have to put a lot of efforts without getting the wanted comments or anything else. This is a tough period when people don’t know a thing about you. But it is worth gaining patience and go on approaching the goal you’ve set.
6. The Sleeping Fox Catches No Poultry
People like active, lively, and brave creatures of their kind. Show these qualities when writing a blog. Do not just publish articles but take part in competitions and marathons with other bloggers. This will let you get to know your colleagues and gain new readers faster.
Come up with new “features.” What useful things can you give your readers except for your articles? Can you introduce an instrument, a new subtopic of your blog, a quiz, or a giveaway of invitational codes for useful resources?
7. No Man Is an Island
It is very difficult to reach success alone, so you should learn networking rules.
At first, you should gather a community of friends around your blog. They’ll be your support for that time. This group will grow later, but now you need someone to write your blog for. Your friends can do you a favour here. Invite everyone you know and people who could be interested in the topic of your blog, ask them to comment on your new article.
Additionally, you need to have the right social circle. What does it mean?
“Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Remember this wisdom? Expand your social circle but take care not only about the number of its participants. Could you pay attention to their quality too? Your environment directly influences you and the development of your website. Try to attract popular and interesting people to it.
8. Show Yourself
The blogosphere is very wide, and netizens may fail to notice you if you stay alone, even if you have super-unique content. So, it is very important to let people know you and to participate in the process of blogging development actively.
To do that, you need to read and comment on other blogs, take part in discussions and marathons. Being open and communicative is essential. If you don’t have these qualities, then gaining them will be very useful for your blog development.
9. Join Efforts
It is not enough to write useful content; you need to serve it correctly to your audience too. Check where people who may be potentially interested in your materials can spend their time. Share releases and articles on platforms you find. Don’t concentrate on your blog solely, look for like-minders on various resources, including social media. Use guest blogging and content marketing strategies.
10. Calmness Means Wisdom
People will criticise you! Treat criticism consciously, be tolerant. Inadequate perception of criticism will only result in your loss of authority and regular readers. Try to find something common even with most toxic readers. It will be the thrust of your long-term success.
11. Take Care of Your Audience
It is critical to take care of readers: provide them with comfortable reading tools on both the website and the RSS reader, give them the possibility to see other articles, related to the topic (including those on other resources). Just keep your blog comfortable.
Any possible discomfort, such as a captcha to send a comment, an unusual text format, or too bright colours, may significantly reduce the number of your followers.
12. Grow Up
No comments!
I hope this article will inspire you! Wish your blog to be popular and profitable!
