Ten Pro Tips For Creating A Great Blog
Blogging has become one of the most popular online activities with almost 80% of the current blogs having come online in the past five years1. This growth in the number of blogs means that the blogosphere has become a very competitive place. In order to succeed your blog has to be great, not mediocre. There are many pro-bloggers online that give advice on how to create the sort of blog that will rocket to the top of the SERPs and attract a huge following of devoted readers, but in the end it all comes down to the same list of strategies.
1. Plan Your Blog
The first thing that every blogger needs to do is to work out what they want to do with their blog, what they want to say, and then to devise a practical plan for achieving that. Planning your blog will make it more easily and consistently updated.
2. Write for Your Audience
Think about your intended readers and what they are looking for when they visit your blog. If you are sharing your experience or expertise, write in an authoritive voice to establish yourself as a source of valuable information.
3. Optimize Your Content
Make sure that your page is as easy for the search engines to read as it is for your human visitors. It is very important that you include clear keyword tags and use internal links to older posts to show the crawlers that you have valuable content all the way through your site.
4. Promote Your Posts
Posting links to your blog on social media and bookmarking sites is one of the most important parts of building a successful blog. While it may take months to attract much traffic to your site from the search engines, it is possible to direct a lot of traffic from social networks in a very short amount of time.
5. Engage the People that Leave Comments
Blogging is all about interacting with people and the ones that have taken the time to leave a comment on your blog posts are interested in what you have to say. Replying to these comments will bring visitors back and encourage other visitors to add their opinions as well.
6. Read and Engage with Other Blogs
One of the most important activities that all bloggers should do regularly is to read other blogs and leave comments on them. This is not only a good way to keep up with the conversations in your niche, but it is also a practical way to leave links to your blog while meeting other bloggers who may like to swap links or write guest posts for your site.
7. Include RSS Feed and E-Mail Subscription Options
Make sure to give people the opportunity to read what you have to say every time that you make a post to your blog. Including an RSS feed widget and an e-mail subscription form will build your audience and expose your blog to more potential readers.
8. Track Your Statistics
Blogs come with an array of statistics that you can obsess over, and while this can be fun, it can also give you important information about where your traffic is coming from and which keywords and links they have used to find you.
9. Include Subsidiary Pages
Adding extra pages to your blog like an About Me page and a blogroll adds depth to your website for the crawlers, while giving visitors more to look at on your page which keeps them on the site for longer periods of time.
10. Invite Guest Bloggers
Ask other bloggers to write for your blog to expose your website to a wider audience. Using guest posts also helps to build your network in the blogosphere and builds your online reputation.
