If you’ve been thinking of starting a blog, you may already have come across plenty of articles repeating over and over again the same old tired tips and tricks.
In this article, I wanted to “step outside” of the usual BS and instead give you 12 must-know blog writing tips for beginners (coming from my own experiences) to prepare you for what’s to come when you’re:
- Starting,
- Growing – and eventually;
- Making money from your blog.
I will also provide you with some additional blogging resources you may want to check out if you want to grow your blog as fast as possible but for now, here’s a quick look at the 12 blogging tips I will share below.
Starting Your Blog
Starting a blog is easy. It’s exciting and it’s fun.
A detailed guide on how to start your blog can be found here. I will give you just some tips on what to do, how to do it, and what to keep in mind.
Write The Blog You Want To Read
There are plenty of blogs online. So much so that it feels useless to add another one to the mix.
- Will you be able to get readers?
- Will you be able to get noticed?
- Will you be able to be “as good” as the others?
For this, I recommend you take the Time Ferris approach which is, “write the book you want to read” or in this case “write the blog you want to read“.
If there is something you want to share, want to learn or you see something is missing “from the web”, that is what you should blog about. If you know there’s at least one reader (you), then there’s bound to be others as well.
Don’t Stress It Too Much
It will often feel like you’re just not that good at writing when working on your blog. You may also feel the “imposter syndrome” feeling thinking you’re no way qualified to write about your topic.
My advice to you here is, don’t stress your blogging too much. Don’t think you need to create stellar content all the time.
When it comes to blogging, good enough is usually good enough (make sure it’s good, unique content that someone would find interesting).
Also, you don’t have to come at it from the point of view of an expert. If you’re not an expert in your chosen topic, it’s OK.
I’m not an “expert” in blogging, but I’m good enough to have 4 fully matured blogs all earning me a nice income. This qualifies me to be able to blog with the goal of helping others do the same.
Know Who You’re Writing For
One thing that would help improve your writing quickly (apart from writing often) is knowing who you are writing for.
This will help you craft your message accordingly and it will help you reach the people you want to reach with your blog.
It will also help you stand out above the rest with your target audience. This is called picking your niche and the tighter you can make your target audience, the quicker you will see results.
You may want to check out Income School’s Project 24 blogging course. It will teach you how to pick a niche you enjoy and craft the best content you can for your chosen audience.
Keep Your Blog Simple & Clean
This is a simple tip and one you’ve probably heard of before, but please… do not complicate your website.
You don’t want to have too many fancy colors, images, and other sorts of rich visuals. Keep the user experience clean and keep it simple.
This also helps you keep your blog fast to load which will play a huge role in growing your blog, but we’ll talk about that later.
If you like the simplicity of the theme (look) of my website, you can check out the GeneratePress theme. It’s fast, simple, and straightforward to set up and use.
Growing Your Blog
Now that you have your blog up and running, you do want readers, right?
In this section, I will share my best tips (the ones that have worked across all my websites) that’ll help you grow your blog, get traffic (and further down below) – make money!
Google & Pinterest Are Your Friends
When I say “grow your blog”, I mean “getting people/traffic to your website”. The good news is there are plenty of ways you can do this. The bad news is you can’t possibly do them all.
This is why I would recommend you focus on just one or two (maybe three).
My favorite would be making sure your website is search engine optimized (SEO). This will get you indeed and ranked in Google and it’s the best because you will be targetting people looking for the information you’re providing.
I won’t go into how to do SEO here as that’s a whole other topic, but you can see my getting started guide here.
You also may want to use Pinterest as your second traffic source. Even though this can be topic-dependent, Pinterest is a great way to get some traffic coming into your website while you wait for your SEO traffic to grow.
Even though it used to be much easier to get traffic from Pinterest, if you do things right, there are still many opportunities for beginner bloggers.
Your third traffic source is up to you.
You don’t really need a 3rd source but if you have a lot of free time, it’s not a bad idea to spend some time growing on different platforms. Just figure out where your target audience hangs out the most.
Is it Instagram? Twitter? Facebook? Reddit?
See where it is best to spend your time and focus on that, but again, do not spend a lot of time here. Your best chances (as a beginner) will be SEO (and Pinterest).
Write A Little Bit Everyday
To “grow your blog”, you are going to need traffic (people) reading your website.
Of course, the more blogging you do, the more reasons people visit your website.
This is why I recommend you create and stick with a content schedule that will allow you to publish new content regularly without overwhelming yourself and burning out.
The best tip I can give you here is to write a little bit every day. If you can do 100 words a day, that’s ok. If you can do 500 words, that’s even better.
This will put you in the habit of writing “blogging” and when you do write every day, you’ll be surprised as to how quickly you will get better.
Don’t Get Discouraged
Starting out, you’d be filled with motivation and inspiration to blog. Two weeks into it, not so much. This is why many bloggers fail before they ever see some success.
If you’re planning on starting a blog, make sure you get *at least* get 30 to 50 posts published before you take your foot off the gas pedal.
30 posts are enough to get you some traffic and maybe even some monthly income (which we’ll talk about soon).
Just understand growing a blog takes time (6-8 months is the norm to start seeing some results). Don’t get discouraged, don’t let that “zero” bring you down; just stick to it, and you will eventually see results.
Remember, time will pass anyway, so you might as well have the foundations of a successful blog in 6 months than nothing at all.
Use Email Marketing
I would not say email marketing is a must for all bloggers, but if it makes sense for your blog to have an email list/newsletter, it’s one of the best ways to quickly grow an audience you own.
For example, for this website (which is mostly about making money online) it makes sense to have a newsletter, and people sign up to it to get my latest tips and strategies.
On the other hand, I did not bother to create an email newsletter for my website where I review portable ACs, because nobody cares about them so much to want to hear about ACs every day. Does this make sense?
If it makes sense for you to have an email newsletter, try to get this set up and running as soon as possible. The sooner you can start building your email list; the better/bigger it will in the future.
You can learn more about how to start and make money with an email list on Melyssa Griffin’s website here.
Making Money From Your Bog
Finally, I also want to share with you some tips on how to make money from blog writing.
This is how I make a full-time income so if you’re thinking of starting a blog, I highly recommend you keep this in mind because yes – when done right – a simple blog can go on to earn (and eventually replace) your full-time income.
Learn Some Copywriting Basics
Now that we’re on the topic of making money (from blog writing), one thing you should start learning a bit about (even if it’s just the basics) is copywriting.
Copywriting is the art of selling with the written word. You can think of these words as a salesman who’s always “talking” to your readers/clients.
CopyBlogger.com has a great guide on the copywriting basics called “Copywriting 101“.
It will teach you how to craft words that entice people and you’ll quickly understand why/how copywriting is a must-have-skill for blog writers.
Affiliate Marketing & Premium Ads
Next up, I want to share with you how you will be making money from your blog. For that, I suggest these two:
- Affiliate marketing – and
- Premium ad networks (such as Mediavine)
While there are plenty of ways you can make money from your blog, these two will be the best ones to do as both are very-passive ways you can make money.
Affiliate marketing allows you to collect a commission when you sell a product through your website/blog and premium ads will allow you to make money simply by having ads in your content and sidebar. You can learn more about each method using the links provided.
Track Everything (Or As Much As You Can)
If you want your blog to pay you like a business, treat it like a business.
This means run your blog like you would a business; track your profits, your expenses, your month-on-month growth, your earning, etc…
The more you can track, the more you will know about your business and the more you know, the better you can make decisions.
Getting started, you should have Google Analytics up and running and that would track nearly everything but for everything else, I suggest you take a look at this guide here from HubSpot.com sharing the 15 most important KPIs (key performance indicators) for bloggers.
Learn What You Need To Learn
While a simple blog (that makes money) can be started with very little money, as I’ve just explained, if your goal is to make money with your blog, you should treat it and run it like a business.
- Would you start a fashion business if you didn’t know fashion?
- Would you open a restaurant if you had no experience in catering?
- Would you open up a bakery if you’ve never baked before?
Hopefully, you said NO to all three of those questions and hopefully, you also see now that you can’t do blogging as well if you don’t know what you’re doing.
This is why I will close this “12 blog writing tips” guide with a simple but vital tip – get some training. You do not want to be 12 months into blogging only to find out you’ve been doing it wrong all along.
If you’d like to see a great blogging course, which I can all-but-guarantee will make sure you succeed with your blogging, check out Income School’s Project 24 course.
The link provided will lead you to my review of the course, but you can also learn more about what (and who) Project 24 is all about below in this video below.
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