Blogging provides a forum to not only air your opinions, share your expertise and connect with people from across the world, but it can also help you generate a healthy income when executed well. Whether you’re a talented writer, an avid adventurer or simply someone who wants to engage with a variety of readers, to ensure your success online, read the following blogging advice for beginners.
Pick the Right Blogging Platform
Running a website doesn’t need to be complicated if you choose the right blogging platform. If you’re looking for a hassle-free content management system, WordPress should be your first choice. It’s the biggest blogging platform in the world, as it accounts for approximately 60% of the market share. To put this into perspective, its closest competitor, Joomla, only accounts for 6%. This incredible comparison is because WordPress offers many free templates, customizable plugins, and infinite ways to design your blog.
Choose Between a Self-Hosted or Free Platform
If WordPress is your blogging platform of choice, you will need to choose between WordPress.org (self-hosted) and WordPress.com (free platform). You will be able to take full control of your website with WordPress.org, as you can add various plugins and themes to your site, and you can also add advertisements to generate a profit using Amazon Affiliates or Google AdSense. What’s more, you can incorporate Google Analytics to track traffic and onsite behavior.
However, if you choose a WordPress.com blog, you can receive a free service with limited features, or you can opt for paid hosting to increase your file space. You also will not make any money from the advertisements on your website. You can learn more about wordpress.com vs wordpress.org on trusted websites.
Register the Perfect Domain Name
Once you have decided the best CMS option for your needs, you will then need to pick the perfect domain name. This is not only your brand, but it is the URL of your website, so it must be easy to remember so people can find it in the future. It’s essential to choose wisely as the wrong decision could result in people clicking away from your blog. So, register a name that’s not only easy to remember, but that reflects your blog and image.
Design Your Blog
Once you have chosen your hosting and registered your domain name, the fun can start. Choose a theme by visiting the Appearance section in WordPress and installing a free or premium theme to make your site your own. Select a theme that reflects your branding, content, and professionalism, and it should be easy to customize. Remember, if a visitor doesn’t like what they see then they’ll click away, so give them a reason to stick around.
Write Great Blogs
If you’re going to become a blogger, you will need to have a passion for the written word. If you can’t write, you will fail to engage with your readers, and your efforts will be fruitless. If you believe you have a firm grasp of grammar and sentence structure, you should start writing great blogs that will capture your reader’s attention.
There are multiple blog ideas you can write to get started to capture readers’ attention and increase traffic in the search engines. For example, a reported 36% of people stated they prefer list-based headlines. Not only are they attention-grabbing, but they are often jam-packed full of information to quickly and easily educate your readers.
Utilize SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is not just for digital marketing experts. Bloggers should also learn more about the tactics to effectively increase their ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs), which can drive traffic to your blog. For example, keyword research can help you to identify common keywords or phrases people write in Google, so you can deliver content to match their needs.
Naturally, you should incorporate the keywords and phrases in your blog posts to increase your ranking so that you can drive a flood of visitors to your pages. This is essential if you want to incorporate advertising into your blog posts, because the more traffic you receive, the more profit you can generate. You should also learn more about other SEO methods, such as PPC and guest blogging.
