7 Simple Tips for New Bloggers

For those of you new to blogging you will have already realised that it is not easy, especially in the beginning as you are trying to get your blog moving. There are so many people who start to blog but regrettably only a few succeed.

There are millions of blogs in the Blogosphere, but you will find many of them are inactive, left to die by their bloggers, who were once enthused, but at some stage gave up their efforts.

Today, just about anyone can get up and running in the blogging world, but the life of a blogger can be very frustrating at times. Many found out that blogging is much more than writing articles and posting them. There are far more things needing to be done to make a blog successful.

I find it staggering that people can start up a blog, then soon after shut it down without giving themselves any real chance to establish themselves and create success. A common reason for this, is they didn’t write about topics they were passionate about.

Your blog is only limited by your passions. When you don’t choose a subject that you are totally passionate about, you are doomed from the start. It becomes more like hard work. Instead of ideas flooding into their mind, and words pouring through their fingertips on the keyboard, they end up having to scour the internet for ideas and end up rehashing stuff that they find resulting in really poor quality articles.

I’m not saying you have to be obsessed about either your subject or the act of blogging. Mind you, I’d better warn you, it is very easy to become totally wrapped up in the blogging world. There are a few bloggers who blog because it is an obit is very easy to become addicted to it. It doesn’t matter if they make money or not, they just want to blog. They have to tell the world what they think and contribute to helping others through their work. I am in a way one of those addicted. That is why I decided that I had to monetize it when I did. It was the only way to justify the amount of time I spent doing it. It turned out to be a great decision on my part, because now I can afford to be a full time blogger.

I just love passing on my knowledge and ideas so that I can benefit other people. That is also one of the main reasons I succeeded. I wasn’t there from the start to make money. I wanted to offer value to my readers first and foremost. If I can teach you anything when it comes to blogging, I hope it is that if you blog about a subject that you are passionate about you will not only love blogging, but also you will make a success from it.

If you want to not only blog, but build a successful blog, I’d like to offer you a few simple tips.

• Start Small: When you start your blog, commit to posting once or twice a week, and schedule the time that you’re going to do that. Starting with only a few blog posts weekly will put less pressure on you, and will give you the time you need to do other things in support of your blog.

• Write posts in advance: There’s nothing worse than to find that you are approaching the deadline for posting on your blog, and have nothing prepared. Life always throws up interruptions and surprises, and by having a few blog posts already prepared gives you a great safety net.

• Create a list of Blog post Titles: Every month I brainstorm to create 50 or so titles that I can write on. One of the things I hear from a lot of bloggers is they don’t know what to write about. It is very easy to get a block when you are under pressure to write something. By creating for yourself lots of titles, and nothing more, makes blogging a lot easier.
• Content is king: Content matters big style. – write unique quality articles. Make your posts interesting. People aren’t going to come back if they find boring, badly written content.

• Interact with your Readers: Blogs are a two-way communication system. If a reader takes the time to leave a comment, you must reply to it. Only a small number of the visitors to your blog will bother to do this, so you owe it to them to show the courtesy of replying to what they say. I have carried out a little experiment. I haven’t replied to any comments on this blog, and low and behold I am now not getting many at all, despite the fact my traffic has tripled. (The experiment is now over – comment responses start from here).

• Make the most of SEO: Search Engine Optimization is a must do as the Search engines are a major source of visitors for a blog. To get the best results you must optimize your blog so the search engines find you. add titles and description meta tags to all your webpages or articles. Use appropriate keywords in your articles. use meta tags, in fact why don’t you go to my business partner, Neil’s blog: Call the IT Guy, this is exactly the type of stuff he blogs on.

• Get into Social Networking –  In my mind the promotion of your blog is paramount to your success. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin give you a great platform to do this. One of the secrets to a successful blog is building community engagement. Use social media and websites to advertise and promote your blog. You will get the added benefit of making contact and building friendships with other bloggers.

Once you have laid your foundations down in the blogosphere by using these simple tips you will in time see the signs of your blog’s growth taking on a life of its own and now it will go from strength to strength.

If you put the time and effort backed up by commitment and persistence you will succeed in the blogosphere.