Blogging…the great form of getting your thoughts onto the web while being informative or entertaining, or both! If you’re new to the whole blogging scene and want ideas before you start your blogging adventure, keep reading because there’s some simple, yet effective steps.
1. Consistency Is Key
The more consistent the better. Posting content at a minimum of once or twice a week is when Google and other search engines will start to notice your activity and start to rank you. If you are lazy and just publish whenever you want, Google won’t be so sure of that and won’t rank you anywhere near as much if you were to be consistent.
Quick note, to be consistent means to still have great content. Don’t get sloppy because not only will your readers notice but guess who will notice? Yes, Google. This is the first step and one of the most important steps to becoming a good blogger.
2. Links Don’t Always Mean You’ll Rank
Don’t just put in any links because it’s a “source” and fills out your blog more. Linking out can sometimes damage your rank, not improve it, even if it’s relevant, and here’s why! The reasoning is because you need to make sure the website your referring/sourcing back to looks established and professional.
Another reason is that if you go onto a blog and see links left, right, and center, it looks like spam and unprofessional, not to mention it looks like you haven’t put any effort into your own content and just found relevant content and spammed them into your content.
“If you want to continually grow your blog, you need to learn to blog on a consistent basis.” – Neil Patel
3. Spread the Word
In this day and age, with the greatness that is the internet, spreading the word about your blog hasn’t been easier! Pinterest is one of my favorites. Using Pinterest is one effective way to quickly gain a lot of attention, and here’s what I do to increase traffic looking for related blogs and content that I’m putting out.
As Pinterest is considered a search engine and not as much of a social media platform, it generates a lot of organic free traffic. Additionally, it’s super easy to use. The beauty of it is that you can link back to your website from posting great looking pictures/graphics to appeal to an audience searching for relevant content.
To put into perspective how great Pinterest is, I’ve had Pinterest up for around 1 month and have been posting pins back to my website here and there, not putting in as much as I should actually. Want to know how many people I reach organically? 2,600 organic people will see my own pins I have put on Pinterest that link back to the relevant blogs on my website and that’s just after 1 month of putting a few pins on here and there using Canva for the great looking pins. I would advise you to look into some YouTube videos on Pinterest too before it gets too saturated/competitive.
Quora is another one of my favorites. Quora is a Q&A type of website, where people will ask questions they want answered. As long as you have an account, you can answer those questions. So, how does this benefit you? As long as you provide a great answer to someone’s question, you can link back to your website/blog that will be relevant to your content.
For example, let’s say your blog is about photography and there’s a question about which is the best starter DSLR camera for a beginner. Great, you have a blog that is relevant to that question, go in and answer it, give your opinions on a few cameras and then you can mention, “hey, I’ve done a full-blown blog on this topic which would be more informative for you here”. Then, link it in as a hyperlink so it looks cleaner than just posting it as a full link.
Now that you’ve posted the link in your answer, anyone who searches for an answer on Quora about the best beginner DSLR cameras and comes across the original posters question will see your answer in the answers section. There’s a possibility they will click on your link over to your blog, and there you have it, more FREE organic traffic.
4. Guest Posting
Guest posting is where you find a website similar to yours that has more authority and traffic than yours. Check to see if the website you’re interested in accepts guest posts (usually you will find a link in the header or footer for this). Once you know they accept guest posts, write an article that you haven’t already published and if they accept your guest post then you will get their traffic laying eyes on your post.
The beauty of this is that you can link back to your website through the article you submitted on their website or in the Author Bio section and once their traffic reads through your article, if they like it, they will click through to your site to check out the other content on there.
You will have traffic stumbling upon your post that links back to your website, which can lead to more traffic on your website and then you gain more authority through that, which means higher ranking in the long run.
This means that the website you guest posted for gets good, relatable free content for their visitors and you get free traffic to your article and website. Everyone ends up happy.
“The process for finding, creating, and consuming information has fundamentally changed with the advent of the web and the rise of blogging.” – Ryan Holiday
5. Repeat
This is as important as all the above steps combined. To be consistent, you need to repeatedly keep posting your content. To get your website name and content out there, you need to link out. (although still be cautious as stated above).
You need to be active and repeat what you do on the above-mentioned Pinterest and Quora within your niche. Additionally, you need to get those guest posts out there, even if you get one a week because that’s going to add up to a lot of exposure in the long run. Repeat, repeat and repeat.
This is not a “short cut” guide to become a successful blogger, it is steps to continuously grow your content far and wide, so that all can find and enjoy your content you put out.
