Five Tips And Tricks For Keeping Up A Killer Blog In The New Year
If you’ve stumbled across this article, chances are you’re a blogger – or, rather, you’re trying to be. Now, don’t fret, ‘trying’ is perfectly fine and let me explain why. It’s no secret that the internet is full to the brim with content, and with more and more being added every day, it’s perfectly natural to sit there wondering how on earth you’re going to make your mark. Well, that’s where we come in. When it comes to keeping up a killer blog to rival all other killer blogs, there are plenty of tips and tricks that you can follow to help you get your foot on the proverbial ladder. From ensuring that your content is original and well-written, to picking a unique focus and pouring some of your personality into your work, we’ve listed just a few of the best tips to help you get started on your blogging journey.
1. Create Original Content
‘But I’m already creating original content!’ I hear you cry. Yes, you probably are! But the term ‘original’ can hold a whole variety of meanings. Let us explain. By original, we mean not only writing your own words and checking it all over with an online plagiarism checker afterward to be sure, but it also involves coming up with fresh topics that are less likely to have been written about before. Add something new to the conversation. Chances are, your readers will have read a million articles about ‘the best things you should have bought in the sales this January’, so try and take a different twist on the conventional if you can! This will differ depending on the focus of your blog, so take a look at your competitors and your peers, and think about what you would like to read!
2. Create Regular Content
Keeping your blog regularly updated is a great way to keep readers coming back for more. Look at your schedule; can you post once a week or more? While this is an ideal posting rate, we also know that it can be a risky situation to get yourself into. Don’t, under any circumstances, mention a posting schedule on your blog, especially if you know for a fact you won’t be able to keep it up!
Posting ‘sorry this is late!’ once might earn a good-hearted chuckle from your avid readers, but unfortunately, regular apologies don’t look good, and they certainly won’t draw in any new readers. In fact, it’ll likely turn them away. Post regularly when you can, post confidently, and try to avoid apologizing too much if you don’t happen to get content up “on time.” Consider writing your blogs far in advance; if you can prepare your blogs in advance of the ideal posting date, this can save you falling behind at busier times!
3. Create Exceptional Content
OK, so this might be a bit of a given, but you need to make sure that the content you’re uploading is good. Not only will high-quality, substantial content give your blog a better chance of ranking on Google for your keywords, it’ll also mean that readers come back for more in the future. Skilled, readable content often means a lower bounce rate, and a lower bounce rate means that more readers are staying on your blog and finishing the read!
4. Pick A Focus And Try And Stick To It
You should always have a primary focus when it comes to your blog and the topics that you choose to write about, but there’s still time and room to refine it. After all, while it may seem like a broader topic will draw in readers, a more refined topic will do your blog a world of good. By having a topic, genre or quirk that you can specialize in with the appropriate keywords to match, your SEO ranking for those more specific keywords is likely to go up faster with fewer competitors to go up against.
5. Be Yourself
Most importantly, you need to be yourself – for your sake! Your readers are likely to be drawn to something that they believe to be more ‘real,’ and by putting a bit of yourself and your style into your writing, they’ll be able to tell. Whether you need to do something as simple as writing it all out on paper and typing it up later, or you simply need to find a topic you’re passionate about, you need to work out what’s right for you! Writers who try and keep up with a style of writing that they aren’t used to or interested in are often the type that will drop their blog after only a few weeks, if not less. If you aren’t enjoying your blog, your readers won’t either, and you probably won’t want to keep writing. So, be yourself and be proud of who you are! You’ve got this.
Hopefully, this guide had helped you work out just how to get started on your blog or to reignite that spark you had when you first started writing it! Creating useful, regular and relevant content is a good place to start, but by adding some of your personality and adding something new to industry conversation, you have the perfect recipe for that killer blog you’ve always wanted. So what are you waiting for? Start your blog today!
