Here at Roller, we've been blogging for over 5 years now! Our blog, and our agency, has gone on such a long journey since our very first post, and we're so proud of the direction we've taken. So as seasoned blogging veterans, we thought we would share some of our favourite tips for blogging, to help others bloggers and businesses achieve their own milestones online!
We've got everything covered, from SEO ratings to web design to content creation, so grab a big cup of tea, settle down and start taking some notes - because trust us - this post is a long one!
Finding An Audience
- Do your research into the audience you want to target.
- Look into Twitter hashtags, Instagram Pods, forums and feeds relating to your niche.
- Try to look into existing blogging communities, and take notes on how they retain their audiences.
- Locate and identify the ideal characteristics and interests of your target audience
- Think about how you want to start cultivating your relationship with your audience
- Try to eliminate the kinds of audiences you don’t want to engage with
- Make a list of the inspirational bloggers you like, and how they interact with their audiences
- Avoid coming across desperate for your audience, and try to inspire a natural relationship with them
- Continued communication across all platforms is going to help refine your audiences impression of you
- Be open and honest about your goals, and how people should interpret your blog and posts
- Always take 20 minutes to respond to all comments on your blog
- Make sure to dedicate some time to social interaction, replying to messages and commenting on posts
- Try to convey your honest, most open tone of voice
- Avoid speaking down to anyone who comments on your blog, or making them feel like embarrassing fangirls
- Always be thankful and grateful to those who interact with you online
- Try to inspire further exciting conversation, rather than created closed dialogues
- Get to know your audience by asking questions, offering help or providing related topics of conversation
- Try not to alienate your audience when interacting with them by straying too far off topic
- For every comment someone leaves on your blog, try to leave an equal amount on others blogs
- Where possible, give public praise and private conversation. Don’t swamp notifications with personal chats, but motivate and inspire through public compliments.
- Use retention as a scale of how effective your content is as an influential platform
- Measure your retention rate through your stats and figures at the end of a series of posts
- Don’t worry if your retention rates start low to begin with, they’ll grow with frequent and high quality posts
- Consistent and frequent posting on social media will help to boost your retention rates
- Consider investing in some sponsored or promoted social media posts to help spread the word about your content
- Utilise existing audiences and engage with them to help build up steady retention rates
- Use calls to actions and in-content instructions to guide retention e.g. ‘come back next time’ ‘in my next post…’ ‘like and follow my blog for more... ;
- Make notes of your retention rates per month to help determine which strategies are effective, and which ones aren’t over time
- Positive audience engagement and interactions will also drive retention rates as readers will feel rewarded for their dedication
- Measure other bloggers’ retention rates and try to adopt some of their methods to create a good quality profile for yourself
- Choose a niche you have an actual interest in, and knowledge about
- Try to consume as much material about your niche as possible to help you speak about intelligently
- Connect with other bloggers in your niche to build up good relationships in the community
- Make a list of potential blog topics in your niche to create a solid bank of content
- Brainstorm new ways of approaching your niche to avoid repetitive or unoriginal content
- Try to factor your niche into your blog design using colours, templates and branding
- Clearly identify your niche from the first interaction e.g. ‘I’m a beauty and fashion blogger’ or ‘I’m a baking blogger’ across your About Page, meta data and social media
- Head to #BloggersWanted on Twitter and find some good guest post or collaborative opportunities for your niche
- Take some generic photographs of objects, products, outfits, etc… that fit your niche and use them liberally across social media - even if they don’t relate to a specific post.
- Before choosing a blog design platform, read reviews online for the best sites for blogging
- Don’t under-, or over-estimate your own level of blog design. Some sites require a higher level of experience and skill than others.
- Check out which sites and templates your favourite bloggers use, and try to pick up on some of their personalised touches.
- Decide on your sites purpose before selecting your platform, as different sites can help with different goals.
- Look into the budgetary requirements and limitations of different sites, as all plans can come at different price ranges.
- Try out a range of templates on each site before committing to one, as it’s always better to experience every option first.
- Decide on some base branding ideas i.e. fonts, colours, logos, etc.. and then make your choice based on whether these features can be used on your chosen site.
- Evaluate how much time you can commit to working on your site or blog, as this can help determine which platform can be the most time-saving.
- Look into the available domain names, storage facilities and feature options for each platform, and make a list of pros and cons for each site.
- A Macbook isn’t always the best option for bloggers. Other slimline laptops and desktops can be just as reliable and adaptable to blogging technology, so don’t feel like Apple products are your only option.
- A mobile phone with a high quality camera is always going to come in handy for blogging on the go, or in the absence of your camera.
- Try to invest in as much wifi-friendly technology as possible in terms of cameras as it’ll save a lot of uploading and storage on your computer
- High value editing software such as Lightroom and Photoshop aren’t the only ways to edit your photos. The Mac inbuilt photo editor is just as good, and other sites such as Canva, Piccy and apps such as VSCO and UNUM all have good quality photo editing features.
- There are lots of blogging apps out there for both iOS and Android that can help you to manage, write and organise your blog, as well as schedule your social content for frequent uploads!
- Many bloggers find that travel and portable working is a frequent occurrence so stocking up on portable chargers and devices is a must.
- Good quality headphones are also a nice bonus for those hours spent editing, writing and sharing!
- When working with a client, brand or collaborator, Google Docs is the most accessible writing platform as it allows for universal editing - meaning no awkward conversions or Microsoft downloads.
- Scheduling sites like Hootsuite and Buffer are great for planning your weekly content output across social media.
- Ipads and tablets are definitely viable options for photo editing, however some bloggers may find them a little restrictive in terms of storage and long post writing, so consider investing in an external hard drive and plug in keyboard.
- Make sure that your writing style is consistent across all posts to avoid conflicting messages and voices.
- Try to aim for a similar length across posts to help readers become familiar with your content.
- Writing a block of blog posts at the same time can sometimes create a more fluid writing style than sporadically sitting down to write.
- A positive upbeat and super-bubbly tone sounds great on paper, but if it feels fake and un-authentic to you, then try to adopt a more natural voice.
- When reviewing products, it is not a requirement to like everything. Many readers will value honest opinions over brand-pleasing statements.
- Being adventurous with your descriptive language is always a pleasant surprise to readers who are used to the word ‘nice’ being overused in blogging.
- Try to avoid replicating the same writing style as other bloggers as it can be off putting to new readers.
- Matching your photography and branding to your writing style is key to making your entire blog feel synchronised.
- Carrying the same tone across social media posts, Instagram captions and Facebook posts is also going to help readers to identify you on online.
- Never be afraid to try a little humour in your posts - your true personality is what people will admire and enjoy, rather than a false front for the camera.
- Invest in a good quality planner for the year, and spend a couple of hours planning out the biggest events you have coming up.
- Make sure to copy these into your online and mobile calendars as well.
- Write up a big list of post ideas you want to create in the future, fitting them to each month, season or holiday.
- Try to evenly spread these across your calendars - factoring in work, school, other commitments, and free time to avoid overwhelming yourself.
- Look into some blogging events and meetups that you would consider attending your local area, and jot these into your planner as well.
- Block out some time for photography and photo editing as well.
- Try to imagine the days you will feel at your most creative, and your most uninspired to help work out the most effective schedule for yourself.
- Planning a few co-working days with friends, family, a partner, etc… can help you feel more motivated to get work done.
- Content planning can be a very aesthetically pleasing activity, so make sure to snap it and Instagram it throughout your journey.
- Make your next post ‘How I Plan My Blog Content’, and you’ve already got your best post idea yet!
- Scroll down your favourite blogging feed, i.e. Instagram, Twitter hashtags, Wordpress, and mentally take note of the most overused blog titles.
- Do the same with product reviews, writing styles and photography styles.
- Take a look at your blog, and think about what makes both it, and you, original.
- Try to emphasise your unique style on every platform you post, from social media to your blog content.
- Take some time away from your computer to make some pen and paper notes on blogging ideas, to avoid distractions.
- If you love an idea but feel like it’s unoriginal, try to take some quirky photographs or use an imaginative title to make it feel unique
- Original content is extremely marketable, so make you promote your creativity when you promote your posts
- Find inspiration in small, unexpected things, and try and see how much content you can get out of them as a practice run for your next big post
- Choose a few featured posts as your ‘fallbacks and favourites’ to share with people you want to impress, and make sure these contain some of your most original content.
- Original content doesn’t have to just relate to the blog content - it could be centered around the photographs you take or the way you share it on social media.
- Be as clear and concise as possible when writing metadata
- Try to use meta descriptions throughout every page of content
- Don’t forget to write meta captions on every image you use on your site too
- Avoid replicating meta descriptions as this can badly impact your SEO score
- Take care to determine what is public meta information, and what is private, to avoid sharing anything irrelevant or personal
- Leave out stop words such as ‘and’ in your slug, or shortened page description
- If you are using Wordpress, download the Yoast SEO plugin for accurate guidance on perfect SEO
- Guest posts can lead to backlinks, which can be really positive for SEO purposes
- Try to avoid hosting too many external links on your pages as it can confuse your metadata
- Match the tone of voice of your blog to your meta captions where possible.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://rolleragency.co.uk/blog/100-blogging-tips-400th-blog-post/