Blogging Tips

When I first started blogging, I had no idea what I was doing. After nearly 20 years in the writing business, I had just launched myself as a freelance writer. I got myself a website and someone said to me: you should get yourself a blog. It sounded like a good idea, so I added a blog to my website and started blogging about any and everything. These days, when I start a new blog, I do it completely differently. Here are some of the lessons I learned as a new blogger.

Choose A Niche

I know people are divided on whether you should have a blogging niche or not. All I can say is that I first started to build up readership when I picked a topic I knew and blogged about it. Because I was knowledgeable, I was able to sound authoritative, and I used my experience of teaching to explain concepts in ways that were easy to grasp. Deciding on a niche was the start of increasing my readership, a process that has continued to this day. There’s no reason why a niche has to be narrow. My niche is writing, which covers a wide range of sub topics. But it means that my blog is focused, which is good for readers – and for me.

Use SEO

These days, even newbie bloggers have heard about search engine optimization. Plugins make it easy to do this on a WordPress blog and even if you are using another platform, the rules are there for anyone to see. When I started, I knew nothing. It was no wonder that Google ignored my first blog for years. On the second site I blogged on, I met a buddy who educated me about the use of keywords. I learned to do keyword research before starting a new blog and to use relevant terms when writing posts. Not keyword stuffing, but keyword targeting. This made quite a difference in making my blog more visible both to search engines and to potential readers.

Reach Out To Others

When I started my very first blog, I was blogging in a vacuum. I wasn’t reading a lot of blogs at that stage and I certainly wasn’t commenting. That changed on the second site I blogged on, where I became part of a blogging community and discovered the joy of communicating with others about topics we were all interested in. That changed my blogging habits forever. Reading and commenting on other blogs makes you part of a wider community and helps you find new things to write about.

Invest In Design

If you’re going to use your blog as a promotional platform or as a launch pad for a blogging business, then it pays to invest in it. Think of a theme and header image as an interview suit for your blog. It helps to create the right impression and make people want to see more. I didn’t have any design skills, so once my blog started making some money, I reinvested the income in a logo and premium theme. It made the blog more attractive and appealing to my readers.

What lessons have you learned since you first started blogging?