How to Be Successful as a Blogger

What’s In It for Me?

There are more than 600 million blogs today and at one point, a new blog was created every second of every minute of every day. Yet, 99% of blogs fail within the first year. The main reason for this is simply because the content does not connect with the readers.

Readers need blog posts that benefit them in some way. A majority of the content out there misses this mark. People do not want to read sites where it sounds more like a personal journal entry. Bloggers need to think about their audience from their shoes with questions like:

“Why should I you’re your blog?”

“How will you keep me interested?”

“What’s in it for me?”

Adding Value.

An excellent example is a post by John Pham, who runs The Money Ninja, a personal finance blog based in Boston, MA. He showed his readers how they can earn cash back for taking Uber and Lyft rides. It generates attention because it shows how people can benefit financially off of something they may already be using. “The posts that generates the most traffic for me are ones where I give ideas on how people can make more money or save it better” states Pham.

Popular internet marketers like Neil Patel have great blog posts that answer the needs of people who want to optimize their web sites. Patel gives tips on search engine optimization (SEO), link-building strategies, and guest posting to raise one’s brand awareness. The content naturally draws people in who want to be better web marketers.

On the other hand, a majority of bloggers want to monetize too quickly – creating content that comes off as selling something rather than adding value. They also try to fool the audience by creating posts with click-bait titles, but there are only so many times you can fool people before they stop patronizing your blog.

Content is King.

Not only does great content attract readers but it also provides a lift on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) – whether your articles are on the first page of Google exposed to millions of searchers or never to be found on Page 10.

Content with substance, written to engage viewers, and answers people’s problems will naturally add backlinks to your site. Backlinks from Facebook and other sites offer social media signals to Google that your blog is being mentioned and discussed, which can greatly help your site rank and hence expose it to more people.

Engage Your Audience.

A careful look at the best content that ranks high on search engines will show heavy user engagement; for blogs this means comments left by readers. Creating posts that elicits responses enhance the loyalty of readers because they feel like part of the community. The questions asked by the audience also provide the blog owner on the next topic he or she could potentially write about.

Create Visual Aids.

Blogs are best when they combine text with graphics. People gravitate towards content that mixes words with visual aid; whether it’s through images, videos, or infographics.

Infographics refers to the visual informational elements in a blog. Generally, people consume data a lot better when it’s illustrated graphically. It’s a growing trend in the blogging space, especially with blogs that are data-heavy.

Readers relate more to content that also contains use of visual aid because they break the monotony of text. Research has shown that the use of non-text elements increases audience engagement, decreases bounce rates, and enhances brand loyalty. A good example is The Money Ninja where each post contains a featured image and breaks post paragraphs with related pictures and charts.

Not all bloggers are great at creating media. Fortunately, there are a variety of platforms they can leverage to help make these for them. This includes special editors like VideoStudio, Photoshop, and Canvas. By utilizing these types of software, content creators can easily integrate professional-looking YouTube videos, infographics, and graphic banners onto their blogs.

Check the Competition.

Enter a topic you want to write about into Google and examine each site that ranks on the first page; these sites are at the top of search results because Google has determined they are the best at answering what people are looking for.

Once you go through a few of the top-rated pages, see if a theme is common among them. How are they structuring their key words? What types of pictures are they using? Where are links being placed to keep their readers on their sites longer?

Comparing notes, especially to those sites that outrank you, is a great way of knowing what one needs to do in order to get higher placement on search engines. This does not mean copying content. You need to be original and write using your own “voice”, but also address issues better than any of your competitors. This content strategy will be rewarded by search engines placing you higher in their SERPs.

Follow White Hat SEO Practices.

According to webmaster guidelines which are also rapidly changing, writing flowing content helps search engines understand your site structure and the sitemaps. This will hence make your content suggested by search engines to prospective readers. One of the greatest mistakes content creators do is flooding their content with keywords so that they can be suggested by search engines, However, with the new regulations in webmaster guidelines stuffing your web post with keywords is a black hat practice that SERPS will punish and your readers will get bored of the content soon enough.

Blog Design and Presentation.

You might have great content, but the way it is displayed may put off your intended audience. Having a great site design is crucial in keeping your readers around. Even seemingly small things can turn people off from enjoying your blog.

Post structure is a big part of the user experience. According to Yoast, one of the best practices is using a font that is over 12 points. Space out your text with paragraphs to avoid crumping all your content and strategically distribute your post with the visual aids previously mentioned.

Recently, mobile browsing has over taken desktop use as the most popular method of consuming information. 70% of all internet searches are now done on a phone device. In fact, since 2016, having a mobile-compatible site is one of the key ranking factors on Google. A mobile-compatible site means that when users are on your site using their phone, your blog will adapt to their smaller screen size.

It is more common now to have blogs that have two versions: one for desktops with bigger screen real estate and ones for mobile phones and tablets with a smaller screen footprint. If your blog does not have two versions or you do not know how to do it, there are blog themes you can buy that will do this for you automatically.

Follow the Trends.

Another way of adding value to your content is adjusting to the rapidly changing content needs of society. Value is a quality that is created by observing the time. What is important today might be useless tomorrow. Clever bloggers always update their content regularly to meet the rapidly changing market needs and trends. Taking time and always researching your content will always give you a cutting edge and hence make you a top blog writer.