How to Become Successful at Blogging

I’ve been asked a few times about how to become successful at blogging. This is a very open question but as I see so many new bloggers (especially in fashion and beauty) popping up I thought I’d share some of my tips.

Of course there are other bloggers who have their own ways of doing things, but I always like to think like a consumer when I invest time in reading something. That’s not to say this post is geared to making money with your blog, but if you strip it down it means; if you have a blog and you want to attract people to visit, comment, and share your blog posts on their blogs, you have to realise that equates to a selling technique.

The process is simple. Let’s hypothetically compare your blog to a product. You want people to see it, invest time looking at it, and in essence you want to sell on them the idea that your blog is worth investing time to visit again, and again.

Regardless of whether you have your blog monetized with sponsor ads, affiliate links, Google Adsense or not you still need to think of your blog as product you deliver to people.

To make things easier you can look at it like this:-

You blog is your product.

Your blog posts are like the instructions of what your product is about and who you are as a person (brand.)

Promoting your blog on social networks is promoting your product.

A person leaving comments on your blog is like customer feedback.

Setting up giveaways and the like equates to rewarding your customers and attracting potential customers.

Collaborating on other people’s blogs is like joint company ventures to equally promote the products both parties have.

Checking your blog statistics is like company analysis of how well your product is doing on the market. And if you check other people’s statistics you are comparing your product against another.

So you get the point. Whether for business or pleasure your blog is like a product you deliver to people and want them to invest time in reading. If you didn’t want anyone to read it you would simply make it private right?

When you break it down that way you can focus better on how to make it successful.

Aesthetics and functions of a blog:

This is where you think not just how nice your blog looks but also how appealing it is for people to visit.

Ask the questions:-

Is it easy to access your blog?

Do your visitors need to adjust their screens to view it?

Is the font big enough for people to read?

Is the colour scheme easy on the eye?

Do you have various ways for your blog visitors to share your blog posts on social media sites? If so check they are working? I know a few well known blogs where the social media buttons work but then they don’t allow for a post title to be auto placed and that means visitors have to copy and paste themselves – that equals time, and more often than not visitors don’t have the time nor can they be bothered to copy and paste.

Do you offer the most options to have your blog read in other ways like an RSS feed? Regardless of what you prefer think of what your blog visitors prefer. My readership for instance shot up once I’d made my RSS feed button much easier to find. I’ve also noticed a RSS subscriber increase since I made my posts full view as opposed to summery in RSS feed. It took me time to get over the mentality of,  ’I want my blog readers to do this.’ Thinking of the bigger picture has most definitely increased my readership levels and my opt-ins.

Are you varying your content? You may have one topic you discuss but if you’re just going to deliver it the same way every time you post then that can be a little samey for the majority of blog readers and will not open up your niche to potential blog readers.

Are you asking for suggestions from your blog visitors about what they like to read?

Are you answering your comments?

Are you collaborating with other bloggers and or companies to deliver interesting unique content? This could be joint giveaways, articles, interviews etc.

Are you jumping at opportunities to have guest posts up on other people’s blogs? For instance a few months ago I asked people to submit articles to my site. Now bearing in mind I have a high traffic blog only a few people did. I wasn’t upset but more disappointed people missed the opportunity to have permanent static back links to their own blogs. Remember your post will be up on someone else’s blog and will give you secure back links back to you. Back links are vital when you’re trying to raise your Google page rank.

Are you submitting old blog posts to article sites to build more back links to your blog and increase the chances of new unique visitors hitting your site? This is something I’m implementing right now and it’s a very trusted and proven method in increasing traffic. You can just change the title of your blog post, edit it and possibly include something that the original didn’t have and then voila – a brand new article to upload to an article website.

Are you making yourself known to big players in your niche? You can either contact them or wait for them to contact you; either way if you are making your blog known to companies and sponsors either by making it prevalent in your niche or directly contacting the company you will gain various things from collaborations with companies or well respected people in your niche. Companies want to connect to as many people who are moving forward and getting exposure with their blog. In a small niche it can often feel like saturation but understand companies want as much exposure as they can, they are money making businesses after all. It’s just the same as if you were to be showcased on three different blogs in a week. There is room for everyone, it just depends how you want to play the game of exposure.

You may be doing all of those things and if you are all you need to do is rinse and repeat.

The Little Things Some Bloggers Forget.

Some bloggers expect people to always hit their site when they put up a new post. They get upset when their blog stats are down. My advice is not to get upset but understand why and what you can improve with your blogging or the way you let people know about new posts.

I always feel personally my blog is a work in progress. Some articles are better received than others and whilst I could concentrate on the most well received post niches it is more advantageous to me as a blogger to actually broaden my content. Eventually you will have several topics that are well received and in turn you will increase your blog’s return visitor ratio.

Try and move elements of your site around. I constantly tweak my blog and with WordPress it’s really simple to shift the side widgets around so they are more visible. There is nothing wrong with showcasing an element you want to be seen. People get used to how a site looks very quickly, but if you change it around sometimes they see things that have been sitting there for a while but not noticed before.

Don’t be scared to be a little controversial sometimes. When I say controversial I mean talking about things you feel passionate about. If these topics spark a debate then that’s really good, not only from a blog success perspective but also for the fact you are allowing differences of opinion to be showcased on your blog. What you should try and do is spread out your controversial posts so it doesn’t seem like you are on a debating / rant fest constantly. That is never appealing, unless you’re Perez Hilton and know controversy brings hits. In my opinion it’s not the greatest thing to do where Karma is concerned.

Don’t be afraid to reply to comments that are less than positive. This is where debate starts. You’ll remember on one of my recent posts someone got upset by what I’d written. Whilst the post was never meant to upset anyone their response comment made me think I really needed to explain things further and how I wasn’t sorry for what I’d written. You may agree or disagree with that stance, but either way I’m not a robot. I have the right to answer comments as I see fit and I noticed that one post got an amazing amount of hits. But my intention with that post was not to get a crazy amount of hits but to touch on something I felt strongly about it was actually that one person’s objection to it and my response (as well as others) that got those hits high.

Don’t view suggestions or critique as negative. You know the difference between a nasty comment and a polite suggestion or critique. Do not take things personally but think of them as positive growth towards a better blog.

Understand there is always room for improvement. No site, blog, company is ever DONE. Growing your brand and blog is a  forward process and should be embraced as a positive rather than a step back.

Be honest with your site visitors and let them know about any changes you’ve made to your site. For instance I recently removed my blogroll and I openly told people why and also said if they wished to remove me from their blogroll that was fine. From my experience I can give the same link love to people through articles, interviews and collaborations (which I have personally found far more effective than long blogrolls) and I wanted to encourage more of that rather than have people on my blogroll that didn’t update for weeks/months or have the blog close completely.

Self hosted WordPress Vs Blogger (or other blogging platforms)

There is no better platform to house your blog than WordPress. There are a few reasons for this.

1. Here’s the biggie. Google owns your content when you have a blogspot blogger) account that means they can shut your account down without warning if they don’t like what you’re writing about. In most cases this will not apply but what a frightening thought knowing that all your content is in the hands of someone else? I hope everyone who uses blogger has a back up of each and every post.
2. Yes it’s free and easy to set up a blogspot account but let me break it down for you. I pay $4 a month for my hosting plan. I pay $8 a year for my domain vanessareece.com and with my hosting plan came a lovely little thing called a Cpanel. I logged into that clicked ‘install WordPress’ and voila my WordPress blog was installed in less than a minute. Once you have it installed you can go into WordPress and upgrade to the latest version if it asks you to. How simple can it be? For $4 a month I’m pretty sure I prefer sole ownership rather than be at the mercy of Google.
3. WordPress has a ton more theme choices than blogger (blogspot) does. By that I mean you know when you’ve hit a blogger site. The themes are simple but not enough to make them unique. With WordPress you can make a blog look like a website if you want to. Take a look at this site http://www.mezzerestaurant.com/ that site is delivered via self hosted WordPress.
4. Tweaking themes in WordPress can be a headache. Yes, if you want to tweak some themes you firstly have to make your theme writable (which I know has some people’s eyes glazing over already) but I have to say that if you keep at it and get the look you want with your theme then it’s worth it. Obviously this is only if you want to tweak your theme. If not you can just leave the coding alone. I’m a geek so I play with my coding a lot. PHP, CSS and I are not best friends but with perseverance and some searching how-to’s I think I have them both working in my favour. J
5. WordPress has some amazing Plugins. Plugins add more functionality to your blog, which is never a bad thing. You can even set up shopping carts and the like in WordPress by using Plugins.
6. Going beyond Adsense for monetization. Of course it goes without saying that monetizing your blog via Adsense when you have a blogger account is a synch because they are run by the same company, but don’t let that put you off using WordPress as your blogging platform. Installing Adsense in WordPress is easy if you want to install it in a side bar but can get a little more complicated when you want to put it anywhere else, as I and other bloggers have done. However this should not dissuade you from using a self hosted WordPress platform. Like I said, the fact that I own this blog and not Google allows me to advertise anything in any way I wish and I don’t just mean sticking banner ads up (which I’ve done before) but I will spare you the details of my blog monetization.

Work in Progress

In closing; your blog should always be viewed as a work in progress. Something you can build upon. All blogs start out small, but it’s up to owner of that blog to make it bigger (if they want to). Some people are just content to have a small readership or share their posts openly but not really with a view to attracting visitors. I think deep down though even they have to admit that they get a buzz when they see their site stats go up or they get someone comment (who’s not a spammer).

Blogging can be incredibly rewarding but if you feel you’ve got nothing to say, or feel like blogging is a chore you need to take a break, or better still let someone put an article up on your blog and ask for a return link back so at least your blog isn’t sitting idle for a month.

Happy Blogging,

V x

P.S My word is not the only one on this subject. Search the internet like I have to find different ways and tools to increase your blog awareness.