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Blogging – we hear this word a lot in this digital era. What does the term blogging mean? Why there are many blogs on the internet nowadays? Why does this blogging have a lot of hype? There might be many questions like this running in your brain right now. In this beginner’s guide, we will be dealing with all these topics like
What a blog is, how to do blogging, and everything about blogging This guide gives you the full knowledge about blogging.
What is blogging?
Blogging is nothing but a simple way of conveying your thoughts about something. It might be about your personal life or trendy topics on the internet. Blogs can be used to increase the popularity of the products and services of the business. So, blogging is an article to share information with the public like journals or personal diaries.
Blogging has been around since 1993 and is an essential business marketing tool. Currently, the blogging industry makes up one-third of the web sources and there are more than 600 million blogs on the internet. It can be used as a medium to share stories, posts, tips, ideas, articles, photos, and other forms of content by bloggers. You can also have a high level of customer engagement by creating blogs. There are many websites like Wix, Hubspot, and WordPress to create blogs effortlessly.
What are the uses of blogging?
Blogging has different use cases based on the blogger. Blogging can be done by any business sector or independent bloggers to meet their needs. The use cases of the business blog differ from the individual bloggers.
The business sector uses blogging for the following purposes:
- To increase traffic to their websites
- To promote their business products or services
- To strengthen brand recognition
- To help the business improve long-term SEO, and so on.
Using blogging, the business sector aims to increase its possibility of beating its competitors in search traffic. Let’s imagine you run a company supplying some products and have a competitor that sells the same products. You analyzed that even though the products are the same, you don’t have a good sales streak compared to your competitor. While researching this, you found out that your competitor has a blog page that gets updated regularly about their products and sales whereas you only have a website for your company. So, the answer to your company’s low sales streak is that your product isn’t popular compared to your competitor’s. Even though your product is good and reliable, for marketing, the popularity of the product is more important. And blogging can help you achieve that.
In blogging, independent bloggers also have a lot of advantages in the business sector. Through blogging, bloggers can express their thoughts. Blogging also helps to find job opportunities for the bloggers in the stream they are looking for.
Can anyone start a blog?
Yes! That’s a definite yes!!
Anyone can start a blog. You just need good writing skills and better content to start blogging. In the early days of blogging, people used coding language to create and update the blog. But nowadays, we have a handful of websites to create blogs easily and efficiently.
How to start a blog?
Now let’s see the step-by-step procedure on How to write a blog.
1. Choose a blogging platform and pick one
Many blogging platforms provide free or paid services to create and publish a blog. Some of the free blogging platforms include Wix, WordPress, and Hubspot. These platforms also have free templates to create a blog. Choose one of the platforms that suits you best and start making your blog.
2. Find the right niche
A niche refers to the topic that you feel comfortable with. While writing the blog, the important thing is to make content on topics you are comfortable with. So, go through all the trending things available and find the topic that suits you and makes you feel comfortable. Finding a specific area where you have expertise or a unique perspective can help your blog stand out.
3. Select a blog name and domain
This part is all yours. Selecting your blog name and domain can be done according to your preferences. A good domain name is reasonably short and easy to read. It can be unique too. For the blog name, start with a keyword or two. Having a unique blog and domain name makes you stand out among the crowd and build a strong brand for your blog.
4. Set up and design your blog
The designing part of the blog can be done out of your creativity. The blogging platforms are filled with a wide variety of templates and you are free to use their templates or edit them according to your wish.
5. Brainstorm blog topics
Once you have finished designing the looks of your blog website, now it’s time to create the blog content. If you have already selected the topic, then it is important to find the keywords and their popularity at this stage. But if the topic is still not selected, you can surf through the internet and find a trending topic that suits you. You can also use Hubspot’s Idea Generator to find multiple ideas that can develop into awesome blog posts.
6. Write your first blog posts
After choosing the post’s topic outline the post’s structure then list the flow of your post. Ensure you have listed all the things you will add to the post so that you won’t miss the flow. While writing the content, ensure that there are no grammatical mistakes or any other errors in the content. The content has to be easily understandable, with the use of simple words.
7. Create an editorial calendar
An editorial calendar is a calendar that schedules the process of content creation. Without a predefined work schedule, anyone would find themselves in a pile of missed deadlines, unedited blog posts, and a fair amount of team tension. So, to avoid all these troubles, an editorial calendar would work. When to finish your work? When to upload your post? How often do the blogs have to be updated? Within which timeline the blog has to be updated? All these data are timelined and can be used to finish your work without delay.
Regularly updated blogs become more popular and attract many readers since the content is fresh and up-to-date.
8. Make money blogging
Many monetization strategies can be followed to convert your traffic rate to money bills. Some of those strategies are:
- Affiliate Marketing
- Sponsored content
- Selling digital products or services
- Displaying ads.
Developing your income streams can contribute to the sustainability of your blog business.
Tips to remember when writing blog content
Blogging may look easier. But to make your blogs appealing and interesting for your readers, here are some tips that one can follow:
- Research your audience
- Learn what people are searching for
- Topic selection
- Use keywords strategically – Title selection
- Start with an outline
- Structure your blog by category
- Churn out content regularly
- Amazing body
- Images
- Develop powerful linking strategies
- Prioritize long blog posts
- Conclusion
- Monitor your blog analytics
Research your audience
Before creating a blog post, research the readers who will be reading those articles. Bloggers will express their thoughts and knowledge about the topic in the articles. But if it doesn’t reach well, it would be like someone speaking in French to someone who doesn’t speak French. So, it is always important to research to whom you are writing the article and frame it accordingly.
Learn what people are searching for
Nowadays, we have blogs and blog posts for everything. But still, people might be searching for some information over the internet. Even though all the information is readily available, not everyone can understand it. So, people or the readers might still have some topics where they wouldn’t have found the answer. You can use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to create an eye-catching article. It brings out what the readers’ are looking for. The Google Keyword Planner analyses the readers’ needs. It gives you a detailed review of various word combinations, their monthly search volumes, and the level of existing competition. This is something you shouldn’t guess but rather check.
Topic Selection
After analyzing the trending topics over the internet, list out the topics that you are interested in. From the list created, choosing one won’t be hard. However, there are things to analyze before selecting the topic. You can choose the topic you are confident about. Or choose the topic that is trending among the readers.
Use keywords strategically
Keywords can also be known as the title of your websites. They are called keywords for a reason. Let’s say a user is searching for his studies and types – ‘how to do homework’. The search engine takes those words as keywords and searches content based on them. Assume that there is a blog with the same title. So, the search engine brings that content and showcases it to the user. This is how keywords are used. The Title Maker tool is efficient and gives you a lot of catchy blog titles. All you need to input is a couple of words about your blog and you have a range of eye-catching titles for your article.
Start with an outline
Before writing the content for your blog, it is best to outline the article. Your outline should contain three main elements: Introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction and conclusion are the opening and closing paragraphs. Whereas the body is the main course of your article. This outline is common and can be used for any type of article. Including the outline, and having data-rich content also helps. It increases the chance of readers loving your article and making them your followers.
Structure your blog by category
Let’s say you are doing a blog on meditation and have enough resources to write your blog. Meditation is a vast topic and there are many resources about it. So, before writing your blog, list the things you want to mention in your blog. After you have listed them, arrange them in a readable order and start writing the blog.
Categorizing the topics before writing makes you write the blog easily. You will have a continuous flow while writing it. If you don’t categorize them and continue writing the topic, there is a possibility that you may collapse and miss the flow of the content.
Churn out content regularly
As said before, blogging is a dynamic website. So, your content has to be up-to-date. Continuous publishing is a sign that showcases the voice of authority in your field. To stay in the current trend and increase the readers’ view, update your blog content regularly
You can use Buzzsumo or Google Trends to help you keep track of trending content. Buzzsumo is a content discovery site. It delivers insights on content relevant to your interests. It can also track the social performance of your articles. Google Trends is a tool that gains meaningful insights into today’s interesting, educational, or entertaining content.
Google’s Algorithm rewards blogs that publish frequently. Publishing articles daily is hard, but 2-3 times a week works. While starting a blog, committing to a realistic, achievable publishing schedule is important.
Amazing body
The body of the article should be clear, concise, and short. Instead of writing the stories, it is best to shorten the sentences. For instance, instead of saying “More and more students are using ChatGpt nowadays”, say “About half of the students are using ChatGPT now”. Instead of using an infinite phrase, use finite phrases in your sentences.
And, as you piece the ideas together, research to find statistics that support your claim. Doing original research and interviews helps you create original content that the online world will turn to for authority and expertise. Tools like Grammarly help you in creating error-free content.
Images
Even though your content is good and the way you went through the content is interesting, readers may get bored by seeing the text scripts. So, adding images to your content makes it look even more appealing and attractive to the readers. It is proven that mixed-media posts outperform text-only posts.
Media like images, videos, links to webinars, or downloadable e-books can be used in your articles. You can also link podcasts related to your article within the post. Articles get shared twice as much when they have any type of media per paragraph or 100 to 150 words. It breaks the large paragraphs of text and visualizes what you mean in your article. So, be sure to use high-quality media to create a professional piece. Tools like Adobe Express Photo Editor, Pexels Image and Fotor’s Photo Editor will be of great use to create amazing images and add them to your article. For videos, consider using flexclip, an easy-to-use video editing tool that allows you to create professional-looking videos in minutes, even if you have no prior editing experience.
You can also use alt text to images to add a short description about it. Adding the description would optimize them for SEO. Instead of plain text, use keywords in the description since it explains the images to the search engines and screen readers.
Develop powerful linking strategies
To develop powerful linking strategies, three main types of links can be used in your article –
- Internal links are links within your blogs that connect to the other pages. The pages that are connected, are the pages that are available in the same blogs.
- External links are also within your blogs but those connect to the third-party websites.
- Backlinks are from the third-party websites that connect to your website or blog.
Prioritize Long Blog posts
The blog posts don’t have any size limits. The blog post may be a small or a long one. It ultimately depends on the blogger. But the blog posts between 1500 – 2000 words are performing well. They also get more shares on social media. On average, the most effective length of the blog posts in 2020 is 1890 words.
It is found that many users prefer long blog posts better. Because those posts allow readers to explore the topics in-depth, providing them with deeper value. It also lets you establish your expertise and build your authority in the field. The longer posts also give you space to add important keywords which results in better performance for SEO.
Write a conclusion restating the topic
The conclusion describes a summary of what the whole article says. The conclusion is always short and it contains CTA and FAQ. CTA or Call To Action words are tiny, actionable phrases that get the reader to interact more with the blog publisher. They are also used to move the readers closer to making purchases. Examples of CTA are “Start my free trial” or “Follow me to get exciting post updates”.
FAQ is known as Frequently Asked Questions. This section answers some of the questions readers may get while reading the blog. At most, the FAQ contains 5 – 7 questions and the publisher answers those questions.
Monitor your blog analytics
The process of blogging doesn’t end after publishing it. The post-upload process starts after the publisher uploads the blog. The post-upload process includes promotion, monitoring the blog analytics, and taking advantage of monetization opportunities.
Promotion – A simple and free way to promote is by sharing the articles on social media and creating newsletters. The newsletters are articles that contain updates since the last issue and are sent on a schedule. You can also give microblogging a try to catch your audience’s interest. To help you manage your blog, tools like Trello can be used.
Monitoring the blog analytics – Evaluating the data is a fundamental part. The data include the count of people reading the article, the number of shares, and the interesting topic among the readers. Evaluating this data teaches you where you need to improve and where to replicate your services. Tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics help measure the blog’s performance.
Monetization opportunities – The bloggers can turn the blog’s traffic into revenue by following the below suggestions:
- By offering paid subscriptions with member-only access to exclusive content.
- Affiliate marketing.
- By getting paid by companies to write sponsored content.
- By adding adds to your blog.
- By selling your brand merchandise.
Summary
This document is a beginner’s guide to blogging. It covers topics such as what blogging is, its uses, things to know before starting, and how to start and write a blog. The guide explains that blogging is a way to convey one’s thoughts about interesting topics. It can be personal or business blogs. This guide explains everything a person needs to start blogging. Blogging can be seen as an easy task. But every field has its difficulties and struggles. Blogging too has its ups and downs. A person who understands the tricks and basics of blogging and SEO has a successful line in the field of blogging.
