Blogging is a way to reach billions of people in a short time, allowing you to add value for prospective clients. In turn, you get customer loyalty, brand credibility, and a strong reputation. Anybody can start a blog; from a novice to an industry expert----all you need is the right set of tools.
If you're just starting as a blogger, check out our quick guide to setting up a blog real quick. Read further as we share practical tips from industry experts to turn your blog channel into a lucrative business.
When you tell someone that you blog for a living, they think of it as something you do for fun. People consider it a no-brainer job, but that's far from reality. Writing and then competing it against millions of other blogs is quite daunting, especially for the newbies.
So, here we have a quick cheat sheet for setting up your blog!
Later in the article, we will discuss how to market your blog and outdo the competition.
These are the five easy-peasy steps to set up your blog within an hour:
You need a domain name representing your business so that people can easily find it. This will be the online address to your blog.
A platform such as Blogger, Wix, and WordPress provides you the space to publish content. They are packed with tools that make writing and publishing blogs easy. When choosing one, consider these few points:
Hosting is a home to your website or blog without which your blog can’t be online and reach billions of internet users. Price, customer support, specs, features, and interface are a few factors that can impact your choices. Typically, hosting companies offer a free domain name, email address, regular backups, and other add-ons for enhanced user experience.
You need a theme for your blog that works as your brand identity. It also impacts the SEO value of your site.
Now, it's time to write and get published! Read below to learn how you can write intriguing blogs and start sharing them.
With more than 570 million active blogs, it is pretty challenging to stand out in the competition. It points toward the exponential power of blogging and the cut-throat competition in the industry.
Although we will be seeing 63 million new blogs in 2021, it is believed that 80% fail to achieve their goal each year. This may sound scary even for the most experienced of us all, while novices contemplate the next "big idea" that could bring millions of dollars overnight.
However, blogging is not always about something new; it's meticulous research, planning, presentation, and marketing effort. So, we took the trouble and researched far and wide to prepare the right recipe for a successful blog!
Even to this day, SEO holds utmost importance in gaining traction to your website (read: blog). Content optimization can rank you higher on search engines and appear for specific keywords and search queries.
Your on-page and off-page SEO, combined, drives traffic and enhances the brand visibility of the site. Nonetheless, keyword research is the most fundamental SEO tactic for blogging. Veteran bloggers and industry experts conduct keyword research and optimization for each of their blogs for successful results.
As a newbie, you should:
Link building is a primary SEO tactic, impacting your website ranking. However, almost 50% of the pages on Google have zero backlinks.
You need to network and build credibility to get organic backlinks to your blog. In the early stages, design your content for those who link to your content. Focus on resource page link building, connect with reviewers, building backlinks, and then work on broken link building.
Quality content is critical for all aspects of SEO, including keyword optimization and link building. It can multiply traffic by more than 2000+%, and therefore, 72% of the marketers count it as the most lucrative SEO tactic.
Most buyers rely on useful information in the early stages of the buying process that can affect their choices and decisions. This shows you need highly personalized content to get your audience into action.
Besides, Google now ranks blogs based on the quality of their content instead of frequency.
Getting the right audience through SEO isn't as easy as it sounds. Therefore, you require rich networking to explore new avenues to market your content. One such way is through guest blogging.
It builds traffic for your website and helps you gain some organic backlinks and credibility. You’re more likely to trust a blog channel that has multiple authors. As a blogger, you should guest post and provide others with guest post opportunities on your channel for increased authenticity.
When guest blogging, choose industry leaders and high domain authority websites. It can give the required SEO boost and increases the chances of attracting prospects.
While social media is a leading remunerative platform for marketing with millions of users, you need to have a strong presence outside of it to build brand loyalty.
Start with email outreach, posting on Q/A sites, and participating in niche-related forums. This will establish your reputation and influence in the selected niche. By responding to the queries of your target audience and helping them find a solution can improve your brand’s genuineness.
You can also gain links and improve SEO for your blog by active participation in community-based forums.
Visual content has surpassed text-based blogs as 80% of marketers use multiple images and videos for engaging posts. Over the years, video content has become the most preferred choice as it drives large traffic.
Moreover, creating high-quality images is easy and affordable. You can add graphs and charts to help readers digest complex data and break the text's monotony. In turn, it can increase the engagement rate.
Few tools that bloggers use for creating catchy images are:
Around 38% of the bloggers regularly update old blogs. If you've been blogging for some time and have an archive of old posts, you can drive 100% more traffic from the same content by just revamping it.
It keeps your blog fresh and attracts Google. Reviving doesn't only mean adding new content, but you can also improve your SEO for a boost in search rankings. It also enhances your blog's integrity and keeps your audience updated with the latest information on a particular topic.
You can use Google Analytics and Google Console to measure audience interaction. With that, you can devise a strategic content update plan that yields higher organic traffic.
As the name suggests, CTA or call-to-action is a phrase that pushes your readers to take action. It could be anything: from a blog subscription or post share to make a purchase from your blog.
It is more important for bloggers, who are starting for the first time, to incorporate CTA in every post. Otherwise, you might end up losing potential leads and sales opportunities.
However, you shouldn't be selling every time in your blog post, but you can ask your readers to share or comment, which will increase engagement on your blog. This will also extend your reach and establish your credibility.
Influencer marketing lets you collaborate with popular social media users to promote your brand/blog. Since they have a large, engaged audience, it can improve your online presence. Did you know 79% of the audience will trust an influencer over a celebrity on YouTube?
This shows influencer marketing builds credibility, and you can also earn almost $5 on every dollar spent on influencer marketing. It seems to be the most profitable and result-yielding tactic for blog success.
However, it is not easy to manually find influencers; thus, you can find tools such as FameBit. Here, you can sort through them as per age, engagement rate, number of followers, and cost.
Your "About" page is one of the must-have pages in your blog to strengthen your brand identity and positioning.
Brands can enjoy a personalized connection with their audience through a well-crafted "about" page. Did you know Neil Patel's "about page" has garnered more than 1,000 comments? You can have the same results on a well-written about page for your blog.
However, the page is not only about you, but it's a personal story of how you help clients resolve problems. Secondly, it should have a photo and a headline with an opt-in form to boost engagement.
Although starting a blog is easy but running and maintaining it could be a challenge. If not optimized and marketed properly, your blog can lose its ranking on the SERPs. Create a mix of the above-mentioned tips to gain traction, improve visibility and build a strong and loyal customer base.
But if you’re a beginner, focus on the basics of starting your own blog that helps you in finding the right domain, hosting services, and platform.
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Eman-e-Zahra is an IT graduate and has helped many businesses especially software development companies with their content marketing. Eman has managed to achieve a global clientele with her work by lending them a hand in the marketing strategy department.
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