A big round of applause to you for deciding to become a blogger!
The world of blogging takes you through a wonderful journey. Blogging has moved on from being an online personal journal to a medium of earning a six-figure sum every month. The initial phase of blogging is taxing. You have to don multiple hats such as being an administrator, writer, link builder, networker and conducting advertising outreach.
Sometimes the initial phase of blogging makes people quit because they cannot keep up with the necessities.
If you find yourself in such a situation, don’t quit just yet. Check out these 6 ways to dramatically improve your blogging even if you’re just starting.
Also Read: [button href=”http://productivityliving.com/how-to-be-a-better-blogger/” align=”center” color=”blue”]10 websites to visit if you want to be a better blogger[/button]
1) Become a Time Management Ninja
“Procrastination is the foundation of all disasters”, said Pandora Poikilos.
Why did I quote this? Bloggers are big time procrastinators. We decide things and then put it off interminably. By the time we realise, we have not only lost time but money as well.
It is essential to practice time management. Managing a single blog can take up whole day. Imagine what can happen if you have multiple blogs to manage!
The best way is to follow a routine. Use Google Calendar, a notepad or even Microsoft Excel to identify and schedule tasks.
2) Excessive Focus on Data
Unless you’re starting an event blog which are always a short-term endeavor, you need to stop, really stop logging in to Google Analytics every couple of hours to check traffic.
I understand the eagerness and excitement to see people visiting your blog but over-indulgence in any form is bad.
Set up a time every week to check traffic and analyse it. Stop checking daily. It won’t increase traffic, right?
3) Focus on Brand Building
I assume that you’re into blogging for the long haul. If not, blogging is simply not for you. Blogging is one of the best ways to create a brand. Look at Labnol.org, BloggingTips.com and JohnChow.com. They are brands and over the years, they have become one of the most popular and known bloggers.
Brand building should be the focus of blogging. Even if you have just started out, create a blog plan for the next six months to one year, and most importantly, follow the plan.
Visit popular blogs and check out what they did to become a brand. Often, it will be such that they attended seminars, conferences, events, did a lot of guest blogging, they were covered in print media and a whole lot of networking made them what they are today.
Therefore, from Day 1, focus on brand building.
4) Create Linkable Content for Blogging
Content creates a brandable blog. A blog thrives on content, be it textual content, video or an infographic.
Your constant focus should be on creating content which ranks organically in search engines and reaches out to the masses.
Link acquisition is an important aspect to blogging. However, as a blogger, you don’t have the time or money to engage in paid link acquisition campaigns. The only alternative is to create content that is linkable.
When your blog gets quality links, the content starts to rank and the presence of the blog automatically improves.
Learn to create pillar content.
5) Network with Bloggers
New bloggers often miss out on this small trick. They are either disinclined or aren’t aware. Networking will take your blog to new heights.
Use social platforms like Facebook and Twitter to find bloggers in your niche and connect with them. Don’t be afraid to reach out because being an anonymous blogger doesn’t help at all.
Meet with bloggers if you can or just connect online.
There are several advantages to this:
- more people get to know about your blog
- your content is easily shared
- you get advertising deals automatically
- you get content contribution offers
…and more!
5) NoFollow and DoFollow Difference
Learn the difference between nofollow and dofollow links early in blogging. Often, bloggers accept paid advertorial content in exchange of dofollow links. Search engines like Google can easily catch this activity and penalize your blog. As a result, the blog loses 90% of its ranking juice and believe me; it is really tough to get back into Google’s good books.
What I can recommend is this post which clearly explains the dofollow and nofollow connection.
6) Learn On-Page SEO
If you have been blogging for few weeks and still not getting any search engine ranking for any of the blog posts or not as much as you would like to, then there is something wrong with your on-page SEO strategies.
For WordPress content management platform users, Yoast SEO is THE recommended on-page SEO plugin.
Check out this post which goes into great detail explaining the top 7 on-page SEO factors for any blog post.
Endnote
You can turn blogging into a source of immensely satisfying passive income. Pat Flynn is the testament to the power of blogging and passive income.
All you need to do is take the right steps and maintain focus and discipline.
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