Being successful at blogging is not as simple and easy as it was a couple of years ago. With millions of blogs online, competition among blogs of the same category or theme is indeed high. Then there is the ever dynamic and progressive Internet algorithms that have to do with search engines like Google. For the year 2015, there are top 7 tips for blogging that a person can follow to create a website or blog that is truly successful.
1. Passion is the Key – But Is It Enough for 2015?
A great number of SEO gurus or blogging experts stress on how important passion is for successful blogging. Indeed passion is important to be successful at practically anything including blogging. But is it enough? Defining your niche well is vital too.
Considering the great deal of competition among blogs of the same category, theme or whatever, a well-defined niche is imperative to stay ahead of your competitors. For example, if you have a cooking blog, gluten free baking can be your niche. The key is to choose something that you love to blog about in addition to something that is your forte.
2. Doing Some Research on Your Competitor’s Success
Allocate some time and energy to find out what makes your competitors’ blogs successful. What are their social shares, back-links and Google rankings? This is not to say that you mimic your competitor but by understanding and having information about their success, you can make the necessary improvements for your blog.
In relation to this, understanding your audience is important for your blog’s success. Find out what kind of problems that your audience have and how you can solve them via your blog. The purpose is to attract traffic to your blog.
3. Measuring the Success of Your Blog
Before you can measure the success of your blog using metrics, you need to have a purpose for your blog. Is your blog meant for content, commercial or community purpose? If it is for content, then search traffic might be your blog’s metrics. Conversions and leads might suit as a commercial blog’s metrics.
A commercial blog normally has a link to the company’s website. Consistent relationship with the blog’s readers can serve as metrics for a community blog. For keeping track of each post’s success, an editorial calendar such as Google Docs spreadsheet might come in handy. Keeping track of each post’s status, date, target and more is possible.
4. Is Your Blog’s Design Attractive?
Some bloggers tend not to focus much on the blog’s design or layout. But having an attractive blog design with proper layout presents a good impression on a first time site visitor. The design should also be in accordance with the blog’s purpose. For example, if the blog is about baking, consider creating a design that has lovely cake images in it.
Also Read: Change your blogs look with Fame Themes
Easy navigation of the blog with no black hats would help too. Some bloggers tend to create the same colors of text as with their blog’s background. This is deemed as a black hat by Google. A site visitor may not find such a design conducive for reading the posts either.
5. Accuracy and Exclusiveness of Content
With the recent introduction of Google’s Panda 4.1 search algorithm, aspects like accuracy and uniqueness become important. Google is strict about fluff or unnecessary content not to mention keyword stuffing. For gaining Google’s favor and reaching the top SERP or search engine results page, write posts that are informative, accurate, exclusive and written well. The content should provide true value to a reader. Copying from another site in any way is not at all advisable.
6. Length of Each Blog Post
Some bloggers tend to keep it short, very short in fact. Creating a post that is around 100 words and posting it on your blog is not advisable. A blog post should preferably be 300 to 400 words at the very least. With the entry of Panda 4.1, the length of each post is more vital than before. Panda 4.1 targets posts that are around 100 words or so and flags them red.
7. Grammar and Spelling Error Free Content
As mentioned earlier, the launch of Google’s recent search algorithm, Panda 4.1 is to provide real value to readers. So Google does not take kindly to blog posts that have grammatical mistakes or spelling errors, intentional or otherwise. Some bloggers spell keywords wrongly for the purpose of SEO. This kind of tactic is not advisable any longer. It only ends up in Google punishing the said offender harshly by bringing down his blog’s ranking or flagging the post red.
The key to a truly successful blog for 2015 is creating error free, exclusive, informative and accurate posts that provide real value to the site’s visitors. Considering the great deal of competition nowadays, measuring your blog’s success and analyzing your competitor’s success for improving your blog is another smart move.
Great.
its very impressive content. i like the way of your writing. thanks for providing this type of information. its very helpful for me.
The best thing which I like most in your articles is that your articles are so easy to understand because it was written in so easy language and it really helps newbie bloggers like me.
Hi amar
Your tips would help us more in 2015. Mainly the tips shared in your article were really appreciable. I like to follow those tips and also recommend my friends to read this article.
Yes I totally agree that Passion is the most important factor in any blog success.For writing great content your should be very passionate about that niche.By the way great post Amar!! Really liked reading it.
Hi Amar
I always notices that your blog posts are so unique and well explained with deep information.
The best thing which I like most in your articles is that your articles are so easy to understand because it was written in so easy language and it really helps newbie bloggers like me. It really sound great when you read such a post which is totally helpful to you and your mostly doubts has been cleared after reading that post and your post is of that kind.
I would must recommend it to those newbie bloggers who need it the most. May this post will also helpful to them as it helped me
Hi Amar
I always notices that your blog posts are so unique and well explained with deep information.
The best thing which I like most in your articles is that your articles are so easy to understand because it was written in so easy language and it really helps newbie bloggers like me. It really sound great when you read such a post which is totally helpful to you and your mostly doubts has been cleared after reading that post and your post is of that kind.
I would must recommend it to those newbie bloggers who need it the most. May this post will also helpful to them as it helped me. What you say, Am I right or not? 😉