You may have come across random blogging tips such as:
- Focus on your passion or hobby
- Express your emotions in your writing
- Choose the right domain
- And much more
While these blogging tips are valuable, solely relying on them will not guarantee the success of your blog.
You may be successful in pushing visitors to your blog,the true value lies in your ability to engage them and encourage them to consume your content.
In this blog post, I will share some of the essential blogging tips that helped grow our blog.
Blogging tips for beginners
While blogging about your passion is not bad, there are some blogging elements you need to focus on if you really want to build a passive income blog.
Some of these elements include becoming a better writer, understanding how to promote your blog and so on.
Here are the best blogging tips for beginners who want to build a successful blog.
1. Don’t be jack of all trade
If you choose to be a tech blogger, focus on 2 to 3 subtopics in the tech niche.
Rather than going too broad.
For instance, instead of publishing articles on topics like AI, gadgets, computers, automobiles and so on.
Focus only on subtopics such as AI writing tools, and AI marketing tools. This will help you become an authority in this field.
But going for broad topics at your startup stage will limit your chances of growing because your blog cannot compete with websites like TechCrunch or Pcmag.
These sites are already an authority in the tech niche. So no matter the amount of articles you publish every day your new blog cannot win them in the game.
After you have successfully dominated that niche audience, you can move on to other subtopics.
2. Produce valuable content
To get blogs to link to your article.
It must provide quality value or it is something that nobody has published before on the internet.
For example if you check backlinko.com on Semrush, you will see the website has thousands of quality backlinks.
The reason is because Brian Dean the owner of the site produces valuable SEO articles on the blog.
When you are starting your blog for the first time don’t focus on the number of articles you will be posting everyday.
Rather, focus on writing insightful blog posts that help your readers solve their problem.
The type of blog post that attracts quality backlinks is statistics blog post.
Statistical blog posts attract tons of backlink because it takes extensive research to produce this type of article.
Many journalists and professional bloggers are looking for information to back their claim. So if you can publish articles such as “Tiktok market statistics”, “Social media growth in Africa” and so on.
If you can produce content similar to the examples above based on your niche. You will have tons of blogs referencing your article.
So focus on producing quality articles that will attract writers to insert your blog post url as a reference in their article.
3. Find informational keywords
In today’s digital age people go to Google and other search engines like Bing and Yandex to search for information.
As a blogger you can utilize these opportunities by writing informational articles targeting specific keywords.
For example, you can go to Semrush, select “Keyword magic tool”.
Then change the difficulty to “Easy”, after that enter your seed keyword in the search bar.
For instance, let’s say you are a food blogger, you can enter a seed keyword like “ How cook”.
Semrush will generate a list of easy to rank keywords such as “ how to cook chicken sausage “, and “ how to use oster rice cooker” the list goes on, you can see the keyword monthly search volume and difficulty.
Another type of keyword you can search for are “idea keywords”, blog posts targeting such keywords generate lots of blog traffic.
For example you can enter an idea keyword like “kitchen idea” in Semrush. You will get results for keywords like “remodelling kitchen ideas”, “bakery food ideas” etc.
Focus on finding informational keywords and write blog posts targeting them. Pick keywords with a decent amount of monthly search volume like 800 and above.
Also make sure you target easy to rank keywords, for new blogs the KD should not be above 30. Especially blogs with domain authority below 20.
4. Create “best” blog post
Creating “best” content such as “best cooking utensil”, “best laptops”, and “best iphones” are good for generating affiliate revenue.
You can create, “best” blog post by looking for products in your niche and create a listicle reviewing those products.
For example articles like “10 best laptops for gaming” will have affiliate links, so when the readers click on the link and make a purchase you as the writer will make a commission.
You can go to Semrush, enter “best” keywords like “best gaming laptop”, and pick easy to rank keywords for that search term.
Most people believe that ranking for this type of keywords is difficult but there are a lot of opportunities there.
Based on your niche use keyword research tools like Semrush, Ahrefs and KWFinder to find low difficulty keywords.
5. Choose broad term domain name
When choosing a domain name, avoid generic names.
For example, if you want to create a blog that talks about cooking meat, you might go for domain names like “cookingmeat.com” or “Howtocookmeat.com”.
Going for such generic names is okay in terms of SEO but not a guarantee the site will dominate in SERP.
The bad side of this type of domain name is that they get you stuck in a micro niche, meaning you will not be able to expand to other subtopics in the cooking niche like “cooking utensils”, “cooking gadgets” and so on.
Another bad effect of generic domain names is that you will be limited to products to promote if you are monetizing the blog with affiliate links.
It is advisable to choose a domain name with broad terms, instead of choosing “cookingmeat.com”. You can go for names like “thecookingguy.com” or “cookingbase.com”.
Broad term domain names gives you the ability to navigate to subtopics in the cooking niche while maintaining your initial blog topic.
6. Start with cheap hosting package
Most beginner’s get confused when choosing a hosting service and hosting package.
You see, there are plenty of web hosting reviews on Google search engine. But most of them focus on affiliate commissions rather than helping the reader make the right choice.
You may come across review articles that suggest dedicated, cloud or dedicated WordPress hosting providers for hosting new blogs.
As much as this type of hosting package provides multiple extensions, security and control, managing it as a beginner is costly and a waste of money.
Because you are paying for extra hosting services that are not needed at your blogging early stage.
Based on my experience, I will recommend new bloggers choose affordable shared hosting packages for their new blog.
For example, if you are using Hostinger you can pay for their Premium Shared Hosting Package which allows you to host up to 100 websites.
You can choose high hosting packages like dedicated or managed WordPress hosting service when you start getting high visitors to your blog.
7. Blog like a startup
To be successful as a blogger, you need to have a startup mindset.
The startup mindset is all about pushing through every obstacle to see your blog get to the spotlight.
If you start a blog because you can write or you have the passion of becoming a blogger, you will not see all the opportunities that surround your blog.
But if you think like a startup, you will be able to draft proper business plans that contain all the step by step processes you have to follow for the blog to be successful.
Before you decide to quit your job for blogging or choosing it as a full-time career. Make sure to equip yourself with the necessary knowledge and mindset.
Blogging is not just about writing, it is a legitimate way to build a business that generates money from the internet.
8. Learn how to write blog post
Blogging has come a long way, a lot of us have experienced many changes.
Especially in the areas of content writing, SEO and so on.
With the widespread use of AI writing tools, a lot of jargon has been published everyday on the internet in the name of blog posts.
I know before the emergence of AI a lot of people have been posting scrappy articles on their blog, some even go as far to use automatic scraping WordPress plugin to copy and publish other people’s articles in their blogs.
Which is known as plagiarism, the act of taking a person’s original work and presenting it as if it was one’s own. Though in most scenarios it is not illegal in the United States.
But on the internet, if the content owner did not sue you, Google search engines will penalize your website because their system is designed to fight plagiarism.
So to write a money making blog post, focus on target keywords and search intent.
You see, your blog acts as a middleman between search and person’s interest.
When someone goes to a search engine and searches for something, they are looking for information on how to do something or how to solve a certain problem.
If your blog post is able to satisfy the searchers intent, then you will rank higher in the search result page. Which leads to more blog traffic and blog revenue.
Instead of copying and pasting other people’s blog posts or randomly using AI to generate poor content.
Focus on learning AI Prompts that will assist you write better content and also make sure to fully know and understand the topic before writing.
So you don’t just depend on AI to write the whole blog post, in case you don’t know in most scenarios AI generates outdated information that is not valuable in the present world.
9. Learn the basic of SEO
If you want your blog post to rank on search engines, then you have to Love SEO.
I know many beginners hate SEO because no matter the type of blog post they publish, it will not rank in SERP and attract organic traffic.
The problem is not the search engine, the problem is that you are doing SEO the wrong way or you are not doing it at all.
Following simple SEO rules such as writing great content, adding keywords to blog posts or making sure your web page loads fast, does not guarantee you will outrank other blogs in SERP.
To build a successful SEO strategy for your blog, learn and understand these basic SEO terms ( On-page SEO, Building Backlinks, Keyword research and technical SEO ).
Learning and understanding the basics of SEO takes months or even years, it requires applying various SEO techniques on your blog before you know what really works for you.
There are many SEO services on Fiverr, Upwork or other freelancing platforms that promise these SEO jobs.
Some of the freelancers in these marketplaces may apply SEO techniques in your blog that will generate short term results or you may land in the hands of the ones that will do black hat SEO which your blog may never recover from Google penalty.
Learning basic SEO will help you know the pros and cons of various aspects of SEO and also equip you to know where you need the help of SEO experts.
It will also help you to prepare your website for SEO and improve it along the way.
10. Focus on humans, not robot
SEO is very important but always know that search engine bots are not human beings.
Their job is to analyze your content to be sure it follows their ranking guideline.
One of the secrets of successful bloggers is that they all focus on solving people’s problems through publishing helpful contents on their blog.
Instead of focusing on Blackhat SEO tricks like keyword stuffing, duplicate content, buying backlink, content farming and so on.
So that your article will rank fast on the search engine result page. The truth is that you may trick the system but you will not trick the readers.
For example, consider a blog about home gardening. Instead of stuffing your content with keywords like “best gardening tools”.
Create an in-depth guide on “How to Choose the Right Gardening Tools for Your Needs.” This not only appeals to search engines but also genuinely helps your readers.
Another example, If your article’s title promises “10 Essential Tips for Healthy Eating”, make sure the content lives up to that promise.
Offer practical tips, include supporting evidence, and engage your readers so they stay on your page longer to avoid pogo-sticking.
In case you don’t know what pogo-sticking is all about.
Pogo-sticking is a term used to describe when users quickly click back to the search results after visiting a webpage. Search engines interpret this behavior as a signal that the webpage didn’t provide the information the user was seeking.
This can negatively impact your rankings. The human-centric approach minimizes pogo-sticking by ensuring that your content is engaging, relevant, and fulfills the user’s intent.
It’s essential to remember that search engines are not the end-users, real people are. By adopting a human-centric approach.
You can create content that genuinely addresses your audience’s needs and concerns, resulting in higher rankings, increased organic traffic, and a loyal readership. So, put your audience first, and the search engine success will follow naturally.
