New York City.
This is a guest post by Moss Clement at Moss Media.
What are the best blogging tips for a beginner blogger? How can you start and successfully grow my blog faster? Are you relating to these questions? If you are that person, this article is right for you.
I get asked several times for the best blogging tips for newbie bloggers by friends and followers who want to start blogging, or already have a blog but are struggling to grow their small business blogs.
And on many occasions, I give some actionable tips and then refer them to a relevant blog post that deals on the subject. However, I believe the best way to offer help is to provide a practical blueprint that will add value to the reader.
Hence, in this article, you will learn seven practical steps you can apply today and grow your blog faster than you imagine.
1: Define Your Blog Audience
Blogging is fun, but to be a successful blogger, you need to define your audience or target readership. Your ideal readers are a set of people who will respond positively to your content piece and regularly interact with your blog.
You can identify them based on several factors, such as:
- Location
- Demographic
- Age
- Interest
- Etc.
Being able to understand your audience better will enable you to create content that connects and generate more engagement. For example, interactive content such as quizzes and surveys is one of the best methods to use to engage and learn more about your website visitors. All the answers you collect can help you segment and understand your audience better. And although it takes effort to find your ideal readers, the result is worth the effort you put into it.
However, to make it easier for you, use Google Analytics to define your audience. Use the tool to know where they are, what content materials interest them most, how they consume content, etc. The following information will give you a good start as a beginner blogger.
2: Write Catchy Headlines
I have always emphasized the need for writing compelling headlines for your blogs because visitors only have a split second to decide whether to click the article or not. Thus, even if your body content is exceptionally high, it makes no sense to your target audience if your headline is not catchy enough to make them click.
In other words, your headline is the deciding factor whether your blog posts get read or not. Moreover, your title also plays a vital role in how well users share your content across social media.
Therefore, it is a win-win venture if you spend time crafting catchy headings for your blog posts. It will help you get more clicks and increase social media shares. For example, I ran a test on several titles for this post and settled for the one that got a top score mark of 72, which is fantastic.
Nonetheless, a little more tweaks can raise the score to 75 or 80. But 72 is okay, so I took it. The idea is to help you find the best headings that will get you more clicks to your blog posts.
Pro tips: Create about four to five different headings for each blog post and run test on them to find the best one for your article. You can use a tool like “Coschedule Headline Analyzer” to test your titles and define the right one to use.
3: Create Blog Posts That Attract Your Ideal Readers
Although the competition is intense, you can still outshine your competitors by creating content that stands out. Thus, try to provide value with quality blog posts that will attract more readers to your blog and direct them to your landing page, a call-to-action (CTA), or lead magnet where you can collect their emails and build a community around your blog.
With a blogging tribe or community in place, you are sure of consistent traction on your blog; which is good for SEO. And it would result in more leads, increase conversion rates, and improve sales.
Accordingly, the best way to create content that connects is to identify your target audience’s needs. In section one, I highlighted the need to define your blog audience since it will enable you to understand their needs better and wants.
Use the associated data to your advantage to brainstorm the best posts your audience loves to read. In light of this, you may want to consider a few essential questions to help you figure out what blog posts your readers would enjoy.
There following questions would help:
- What type of content does your audience engage with the most on social media?
- How can your blog post connect with my readers?
- What pressing issues are they dealing with, and how can you solve them?
- What is your ideal reader searching on Google?
These are a few questions to consider to help know how to create posts that will attract and engage your readers. However, you must make sure to harmonize your blog objectives with the needs of your target market.
In this way, you will attract and build a loyal blogging community who is willing to buy what you offer.
4: Be Consistent and Blog Regularly
Consistency is a vital blogging factor that many bloggers, especially beginners, always ignore. They fail to understand that when you’re actively blogging, your blog will attract more readers and grow your traffic quickly.
But more importantly, it enables you to build trust with your audience and establish yourself as an expert in your industry. Moreover, did you know that you can lose valued traffic to your site much faster than you can generate it? Yes, you will lose your traffic if you’re not blogging frequently.
In fact, a study shows that blog account for over 430% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links.
Source: Demand Metric
Furthermore, blogs are considered the 5th, most credible source of detailed online information.
So, logically, the more blog content you publish, the more you enjoy the following benefits:
- Boost your online reputation
- Improve inbound links
- Attract new readers
- Increase website traffic
- Generate more leads, and
- Grow your business blog
5: Invest In Your Business Blog
Why do bloggers and other marketers always encourage readers to invest in themselves? It is because they want to help you profit faster from your blog. Technically, it means investing in your blogging business in to cut the learning curve.
In this way, it’d seem more like someone holding you by the hand and walking you through blogging best practices using the right tools available. For instance, Ryan has published e-books on blogging.
And when you add the make money blogging section of books, freelance writing, branding, etc., you get more than a 100 books published. They are useful blog materials that will assist you on your journey to becoming a successful blogger. You can also take a look at his blogging course materials.
Therefore, buy these books to help you grow your small business blog faster and thrive online. And the best part is that you don’t have to spend a fortune on the books.
6: Engage and Build Bonds With Other Bloggers
To become a successful blogger, you must play along with others in your niche. It is not a one-person playing field; you need to engage with other bloggers and build bonds with them. The relationships you establish with pro bloggers will help you scale your blog quickly.
You can view it as a collaborative effort with bloggers in your industry. Such collaboration which starts with commenting on their blogs and sharing their posts on social media sites can set you up for the long run.
For example, I built a mutual relationship with Ryan, such a bond that he invited me to contribute a post on his site. He also mentioned me, or shall I say featured me on his YouTube video. And when he opened the doors for guest posting once again, he emailed me about it.
How did it all begin? Ryan would say it started by being generous! Yes, I shared his posts, commend on his blog, engage on social media, etc. There are several other exciting bloggers I have build bonds with; relationships that have helped me a lot.
Some of them are:
- Neal Schaffer
- Donna Merrill
- Lisa Sicard
- Gaurav Kumar
- Saurabh Tiwari
- Lorraine Reguly
- Dexter Roona
- Janice Wald
- Enstine Muki
- Nikola Roza
- Cori Ramos
- Arfa Nazeer
These are only a few influential bloggers I could mention, and they have been a great support to my career. The point is that connecting with other bloggers goes beyond your website. So start connecting with other bloggers to build a community around your blog.
7: Start Collecting Emails (Build Your Email List)
If you have not started building your email list, start now. Your list gives you an avenue to connect with your audience on a personal level. It also helps you to nurture them to qualified leads and paying customers.
Moreover, not many of your site visitors will return, but with a customized email, you can bring them back to interact with your posts. Not only that, your emails could transform them into new clients.
Wrapping Up
Building a successful blog takes time and effort; it is a gradual process. However, with the right tips and planning, you can scale your small business blog faster. And while there are several other tactics for beginner bloggers, these seven techniques will put your blog on the map.
About the Author: Moss Clement is a b2b freelance writer & blogger at Writers Per Hour and the founder of Moss Media. He is working closely with B2B marketers – helping several startups grow their online presence in the digital marketing space. By delivering highly informative content pieces, he has assisted small & medium-size businesses to build their online reputation and connect them with their buyer persona.
