Creating a personal or a commercial blog is a great way to make some additional income. Unlike in the recent past, or rather in the distant past if we are talking in internet years, blogs are very easy to create. You no longer need any technical knowledge to create your own blog, but of course, the more informed you are about the way the internet, websites and search engines work, the better. There are a myriad tools that will help you get a blog up and running within a couple of hours, from scratch. This is a wonderful opportunity for anyone interested to start working on a little something on the side. It’s always nice to have a backup plan, or in the very least, a couple of hundred dollars extra every month. And in return, it costs almost nothing, except for the time that you should be willing to invest in the beginning.
Creating a blog is easy, but creating a blog the right way is a little bit more complicated. You can’t expect to have thousands of visitors swarming on your blog minutes after you launch it. Or maybe you can, but you really have to do everything right, and believe me, there are way too many things to consider. But don’t let this discourage you. I’d like to share a few of the most important things that you need to keep in mind if you decide to start a blog, or draw some more traffic to your existing one.
1. Social Media Platforms
Social media is slowly taking over our lives for good or for worse, but when it comes to the success of your blog, it is the number one source of hits on your blog. Social media is all about marketing and that is exactly what you need and it is a good idea to create all of the necessary Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and even LinkedIn accounts even before you get the blog up and running. I know it sounds like a lot of upkeep work but social media management tools exist exactly for this purpose.
Do not limit your exposure to a single platform. The more ways content can be delivered to Internet users, the better.
2. Content, Content, Content
Content is the main purpose of your blog, regardless of the topic that you choose. People will not visit your blog to see just how nice it looks, even though that helps keep them on. You need to have plenty of content served to your visitors that will make them stay longer on your site. But quantity is not everything. Your content needs to be engaging and original. Of course, you’re allowed to take inspiration from other blogs as much as you want, but the more original and interesting content you can offer, the more users will return to your blog. It’s all about finding a balance between quality and quantity.
3. Support mobile devices
Times have changed and most of the Internet users today are actually mobile users. In the past, you could’ve gotten away with no mobile versions but in the age of the smartphone that means death for your blog. Spend the extra cash if you have to but make sure that you have a responsive mobile-friendly theme behind your blog that can serve content to the biggest audience that you’ll get.
4. Catchy headlines
The headline of your articles is what will draw the most traffic to your blog. It doesn’t matter how good your content is if people don’t get to it, and if the headline doesn’t make them interested in visiting your blog, then they won’t be able to enjoy the articles that you’ve spent most of your time working on, so spend a couple of minutes to create a headline that is going to increase the chances of someone clicking on the link to your blog.
5. Search Engines and Optimization
There are two ways to generate tons of traffic to your site, the first one is social media marketing and the second one is obviously search engines such as Google. To put it simply, you want your blog to be among the first results that Google offers to its users. Of course, this sounds a lot easier than it is to achieve, but it is not impossible and if you follow the previous guidelines, you will be ahead of those who go blindly into the world of blogging. However, it is SEO that you should be looking into. In other words, Search Engine Optimization is a set of guidelines that can help you make your content rank higher in Google searches. There’s quite a lot of reading so I suggest you spend a couple of hours to inform yourself about how SEO works and how to use it to your advantage.
