Blogging is a great way to share your passion with others and has the potential to become a full time income if you are serious about it. But it’s not going to happen overnight and you will need to be in it for the long haul if you plan on making some decent money from your blog. To get from A to Z, you will need a good blog, some beginner tips and a lot of patience to make it happen. Here are my top 5 best blogging tips for beginners.
These blogging tips for beginners are a compilation of the best tips from some of the top bloggers and webmasters out there. They have had success so heed their advice and apply their wisdom from years of experience to your own blog for maximum results.
1. Be Consistent and Write Original Content:
To be successful in blogging you will need to consistently write original content for your readers to enjoy and keep them coming back. Content is the cornerstone of your blog and the thing that will separate you from everyone else. This is one of the best blogging tips for beginners.
These two things are vital to the success of your blog. You must focus on writing original content on a regular basis that no one else has or at least improve upon content that is already there. Lilach Bullock, a content marketing expert, speaker and social media specialist said this was one of her best blogging tips for beginners.
The obvious answer would probably be to write great content. After all, without great content you can only get so far. But, I think that’s pretty much a given. Like someone else said here, consistency is extremely important – so I guess that would be my number one tip to give to a new blogger.
She states that following this advice you can increase your monthly readership, build a big following and eventually start to make some cash flow from your blog.
“Content is King”
If you have any experience with blogging, you have probably heard the saying “Content is King.” While some people have grown sick of the phrase, it does hold true.
The term was coined by Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and was published on their website in 1996.
The content of your blog will be the driving force for gaining and retaining future customers. If the content is no good, people will not have any reason to stay on your blog.
Focus on writing original evergreen content that will have staying power and relevancy for many years to come.
Follow these tips for writing fresh and original content:
- Write original content that no one else is writing.
- Create articles that are at least 1500 words, ideally 2500 words.
- Include high quality images in your article.
- Space out your sentences to improve reading.
- Use charts and graphs to help visualize information.
- Link to other bloggers and reach out to them with your article.
- Optimize your article for the search engines.
- Write evergreen articles that will be relevant ten years from now.
- Include numbers in the title like “Best Blogging Tools For Beginners – Top 10”
Consistency pays off:
If you write original content on a regular basis it will eventually pay off. Stay consistent and don’t give up.
Write at least one 1500 to 2500 word evergreen article a week preferably more. I like to write them ahead of time and schedule them in WordPress.
You can also use services such as Fiverr to hire someone who can help you write more articles. Member Saadatique will write 30, 500 word blog articles a month for $220.
He also said that he would customize the word count. In other words he would also write 15, 1000 word articles a month for example.
2. Be Patient and Stick With It:
Focus on the long term. As many bloggers will tell you, success will not come overnight or even the first year or two. To be successful in blogging you will need to be very patient and willing to stick it out for a few years.
Patience is a virtue when it comes to blogging. Many people start a blog expecting to have success quickly. Once they realize the amount of time it takes to be successful, they give up. Theo J Ellis from TheoJEllis.com had this to say about the high turnover rate in the blogging world.
I wish there was a statistic for the amount of bloggers who DISAPPEAR overnight on a regular basis. But there isn’t.
Theo saw several bloggers vanish over the years since he started blogging but he stuck with it and eventually it paid off. He was featured in top 100 personal development blogs back in 2016 and 2017.
The bottom line is you must be patient and willing to stick with writing your blog for several years to really make an impact traffic wise and monetarily. There is the rare chance that an article or social media post goes viral but don’t count on it.
Longevity is where it’s at and Pinterest and Search Engine traffic is where you should focus your energy.
How long does it take to get traffic to your blog?
This of course depends on the traffic source and estimates will vary. Many factors will play a role.
You can get instant results via social media but usually big numbers take time to start rolling in. Setup a scheduler to make the most of this traffic source.
Search engine traffic normally takes three to six months to see some small traffic gains and up to a year to see significant traffic gains depending on your backlinks.
Tips for speeding up the traffic to your blog:
- Write quality blog posts that are a minimum of 1500 words.
- Be consistent and post at least once a week.
- Work on building quality backlinks from relevant websites with a high PR.
- Update older blog posts to keep them relevant.
- Use Yoast SEO to optimize blog posts for focus keyword phrase.
Consistency pays off so as long as you keep posting and writing fresh content on your blog, it will eventually lead to steady traffic. Just keep your eye on the prize and don’t give up like so many bloggers do.
3. Build An Email List From Day 1:
An email list is an integral part of any blog and can be invaluable to your growth and sales. A newsletter is the perfect way to keep your audience up-to-date and current with all of your articles, promotions, products etc.
According to Ahfaz Ahmed, the co-founder of Pixify and owner of AhfazAhmed.net, you should start building your email list from day 1.
“No matter how small your blog is, start building an email list right from the BEGINNING.”
This means that you should go ahead and setup your email opt-in form and campaign while you are setting up your WordPress blog. If you already have a blog then go ahead and setup your newsletter asap.
Email list are #1 when it comes to engagement and converting customers to sales, even surpassing all social media platforms. OptinMonster, a popular email marketing WordPress plugin, has done a lot of research on the effectiveness of email list and how they compare to social media networks.
Here are some of the stats comparing email list to social media platforms:
- 6.05% of people converted to paying customers via email compared to just 1.9% on social media.
- 58% of people check their email first in the morning compared to 14% on social media.
- 60% of consumers subscribe to an email list for promotions compared to 20% following social media platforms to get deals.
The stats are compelling and a good reason to focus your attention on gaining and retaining loyal email subscribers.
There are several different WordPress plugins for building an email list. OptinMonster is one of the best but costs $9.00 a month.
If you are just a beginner starting out and building your very first email list, I recommend a free plugin such as Mail Poet.
It is simple to setup and has plenty of features to customize the look and feel. If you need any help setting up the plugin, you can find the tutorials here.
There are some important things to know after you are done setting up your email newsletter. You will want to make sure you are retaining the maximum amount of customers.
Follow these tips for optimum performance.
- Setup a welcome campaign to introduce yourself and your blog.
- Setup a blogcast to inform subscribers of new articles or content.
- Make sure you send at least one new article a week maximum.
- Make the emails as personal as possible as if you were sending it to just one person.
Don’t overdo it. Sending too many email to your customers can lead to them flagging your emails as spam. A study by coschedule.com revealed some of the reasons people may flag your emails.
Reasons why subscribers flag emails as spam:
- 45.8% Too many emails
- 36.4% Didn’t subscribe on purpose
- 31.6% Content was irrelevant
- 10.4% Emails weren’t personal
- 18.6% None of the above
Use these stats to your advantage and make the most of your email marketing campaign. Remember to be consistent and keep your customers up-to-date on your latest relevant content.
4. Make Sure Your Blog Loads In Under 2 Seconds:
This is one of my own best blogging tips for beginners. The load time of your blog has a huge impact on your audience and retaining readers. People are very impatient in this day and age so a fast loading blog is crucial to your survival in a sea of bloggers.
Don’t give them a single reason to want to leave your blog! A slow blog is one of the most common reasons that readers will jet before they even get to read the blog article. Aim for a loading time that is under 2 seconds. That shouldn’t be a problem if you have a good hosting company.
To understand just how important loading times are here are some stats:
- 47% of readers expect a website to load in under 2 seconds.
- 40% of readers leave a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
- A delay of just 1 second can reduce conversions by 7%.
To put this into perspective, if an e-commerce website makes $10,000 a day, that 1 second delay could end up costing them $250,000 in lost sales a year.
Hosting is key:
A fast host is key if you want a quick loading page that doesn’t turn away customers. There are a lot of tweaks you can make to a website to improve loading times but if your hosting is slow, it won’t be enough.
I recommend Cloudways Managed Cloud Hosting Platform. Their hosting is unique because it uses multiple servers to serve up your blog or website closest to the area your reader is in. They only charge you based on the data you use which means it is good for beginners who are starting out and don’t use a lot of bandwidth. It can be pricey if you get a lot of traffic.
You will need a good foundation and guaranteed fast hosting times for your blog to insure customer retention.
Here are some tips and tricks for speeding up your blog or website:
- Fast hosting is key! Cloudways can load WordPress sites as fast as 37ms.
- Use a CDN or Content Delivery Network like Cloudflare to speed things up.
- Use a Cache plugin for WordPress to improve speed.
- Optimize your images and try to keep them under 200kb.
- Limit WordPress plugins and themes, too many can clutter the server.
- Test you site speed at GTmetrix and dial it in with their suggestions.
- Use a fast WordPress Theme that is clean and simple for optimum performance.
This was Red Fox Blog’s GTmetrix score at the time of writing this article. As you can see I scored a 99% performance with an LCP or largest content element time of 834ms.
The most important stat which was the fully loaded page time isn’t pictured in the screenshot but was 901ms.
Most of the quickness as I mentioned earlier is due to my lightening fast web host. I also use a clean and simple Neve WordPress theme. It is very straight forward and doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles to slow down your blog. For other quick loading themes check out this article “11 Fastest WordPress Themes in 2021.”
5. Write About A Topic That You Are Passionate About:
This is one of the best blogging tips for beginners period. To make in the blogging world and have a successful blog, you must be passionate about the topic of your blog.
One of the main reasons bloggers lose steam and end up giving up on their blog is they don’t have the motivation to keep writing on a certain topic. This is especially true if they are uninterested in the subject matter of their blog.
For this reason, it is of the utmost importance that you choose a topic you are passionate about in real life. When you choose to write about something you love, it will show in your blog articles. Don’t be just another blog regurgitating other blogs in an attempt to score clicks and sales.
Once you have a topic you are passionate about, start writing about it. If however you have a topic but aren’t sure what to write about, there are some great ways to find topics on the internet.
Eugene Lata, who is the Vice President of Marketing at Serpstat, had this to say about bloggers finding the right topics.
New or old, bloggers inevitably run into one problem – lack of inspiration as to what to write about next.
Here are some of the best ways to find good topics for your blog.
Calendar:
A calendar is a great way to find interesting and seasonal topics for your blog that you might not think about.
Find out what noteworthy events are coming up and use those topics to write some blog articles assuming they are related to your niche.
Seasonal articles will help to keep your blog relevant and up-to-date with current trends.
There are several online calendars to help you find some new topics.
Here are a few to get your started:
- Days Of The Year – See what’s coming up by browsing the next few weeks for current and upcoming events.
- National Today – A list of National Holidays categorized neatly by the month.
- On This Day – Another great tool that lets you search important events on specific days.
- Wikipedia – One of the most extensive online calendars with events searchable by the day of the month.
You will have to do some research and find relevant topics that you can use.
Keyword Research Tools:
Keyword research tools are one of the most popular ways to find good topics for your blog. I use Google Keyword Planner to find topics for new articles.
I will normally type in basic keyword combinations and sometimes include words like how or can which will find keyword phrases in the form of a question.
This is great for articles. People are hungry for answers so anytime you can provide an answer to a question they have, is a good opportunity.
There are plenty of other great keyword research tools to take a look at including:
- Google Trends – Find out what topics are trending around the world.
- MOZ – Keyword explorer with over 500 million traffic driving keywords.
- SEM Rush – A popular all in one SEO tool with keyword research and tons of other tools.
- SerpStat – The growth hacking tool for marketing used by many large established companies.
Play around with these tools and see what you can come up with. You should be able to find plenty of keyword phrases for topics that are relevant to your blog.
Use filters such as average monthly searches and competition level (low, medium or high) to narrow down your search results and choose the best keyword phrase.
Quora:
Quora is a great tool for finding topics that you might otherwise miss.
It is a gathering place for people that have questions and need answers on specific topics.
This presents a huge opportunity for bloggers to find relevant topics to use on their blog articles. Simply plug in your keywords into the search bar and go.
The results will include the top questions pertaining to your keywords. Click a question and find the top answers submitted by users on Quora. In fact, I found a lot of the information for this article on the best blogging tips for beginners on the platform.
In Closing:
I hope that these best blogging tips for beginners really helped you in your blogging journey! These tips are only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many good blogging tips out there. Stay tuned for more tips as I will be updating this post in the future to add five more of the best blogging tips for beginners!
Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think!
Do you have any blogging tips that you would like to share? If you had one tip for beginner bloggers what would it be? Mention below and let us know what it is!