How To Be A Good Blogger: 5 Tips

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“Where did I go wrong?” This question torments a lot of bloggers. As hard as you try to make blogging work, things never really happens the way you want. Every time you think about your blog, you wonder if you could have been a better blogger.

In contrast, there is another blogger next door who is putting in lesser effort than you do and he seems to have succeeded. Admittedly, it is not easy to sleep at night with this kind of thoughts, but there are basic principles that can help.

I know you probably wanted to read the usual articles about the need to “find a niche, start with Blogger platform, do not copy and paste”. But that’s not the point, too much attention has been given to issues like that and a lot of bloggers have used that to create countless articles. I know I have written articles too in this regard but I want to redirect your mind to what should drive your blog to previously unseen heights.

Let us consider some of principles that have turned terrible bloggers to outstanding bloggers.

5. Make Time For Your Blog

As a blogger, how do you show your blog that it is important to you? Surely, there are many things you can do including the sacrifices you make to ensure your blog is in perfect shape. You wouldn’t do such things if your blog was not important to you. Yet if you do not spend much time with your blog, it might conclude that you spend your time in other things and you start to see decline in traffic or get totally annoyed altogether.

To whom much is given, much is expected. You can’t expect to spend 20-minutes on your blog and expect automatic success. The point is this; as a blogger aspiring for success, you must spend QUALITY time with your blog, fixing bugs, increasing load speed, checking for little detail that require improvement.

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I will tell you the truth, there is no week something isn’t done on my blog, although you don’t get to see it in the front-end, I am constantly trying new things to make both humans and bot happy. This consumes a large chunk of my time but it’s a sacrifice that has to be paid if one ever wishes to be a good blogger. The bottom line is to constantly research your niche and follow the trend.

4. Good Bloggers Are Good Communicators

In order to communicate effectively with your readers, you must be a careful writer. You need to cultivate the ability to write without unnecessary whining. A lot of bloggers have set their standards to 500-1000 words per article. This can really be annoying especially when you have nothing more to write. And then, you begin to add extra load of junk that don’t matter to your readers.

You know what? Readers are smart and can tell if you are feeding them with low-quality articles. Once they realize, you would be amazed how love can be transferred to someone else with ease. If you lose one reader, you lose 10 readers sir. That’s how it works. The point this; treat blogging as an extension of your voice. Write like you talking to humans; add a little bit of emotions. Smiley’s works like a charm and gives your readers a reason to appreciate you more.

Treat your commenter’s like kings, read their comments carefully. Your reply should show that you are genuinely interested in them. They will in turn be far more likely to share their precious thoughts and feelings on your blog.

3. Learn Search Engine Optimization

Now, you have given more quality time to your blog and know how to communicate with humans. How about the bots? This is where Search Engine Optimization [SEO] comes in. SEO has been hyped like the second of coming of Christ but I have fallen for they hype. I am pro-the-content and that doesn’t make me ignore the importance of SEO, but everything must be done moderately in relation to SEO.

Alot of bloggers have manipulated search rankings with SEO and unbelievable  low-articles. Google  Penguin  update was deployed and still being deployed to combat bloggers who spam the web with fake contents. You want to be a good blogger? Then you must balance SEO with quality contents.

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Know the principle of keyword targeting; this simply means what people are searching for on the internet. The next thought should be on how to make search engine users notice your blog. Using eye catching titles so that even when you don’t make the top spot which receives 70% of conversion, you can still get juice from the remaining 30%. Also know that some keywords get more searches than others. Some are high, medium while others have low competition. You can use Google Webmaster Tool to have better insight. SEO is something I will really talk about some other time as it outclasses the scope of this article.

2. Be Specific And Unique

If you are blogging entirely about entertainment, then it would be out of place then to make a post of Leo Messi vs C.Ronaldo. If you don’t stay focused, your visitors would be confused. I have had several offers and plea for sponsored post about things that are very dissimilar from what this blog is all about. But I am not entirely a money mindset blogger so I have the will to always decline the offer. Its hard, but you just have to train yourself.

When I started this blog, the foundation was built on very similar niche. So anyone who wants to become a reader obviously knows he is going to only get blogging tips, tech info and gaming. Forgive me if you suddenly see an article about peace in the Middle East. 😀 That’s not going to happen anyway, so you just have to decide what will be in your blog and what won’t be from the foundation. You suddenly found love in Sports and want to blog about it? Create a new blog. Its that simple

1. Promote Your Blog

You will need to promote your blog, don’t just sit there and expect your blog to hit unbelievable heights. You need to spend money, participate in Google Adword and experiment with Facebook ads. Join forums with members actively discussing whatever niche you find yourself. Start submitting your blog to directories, exchange links with others sites and make a blog roll. Its that easy, trust me.

Take A Break

I know you love blogging and you are willing to spend all the time with your PC. But hey! You need a break. Everyone does, you have to create a system that works for you.

Every Sunday, I don’t attempt to publish  a post and I never will. There can be exceptions though, maybe when the annual gaming conference continues over the weekend, anything other than that, you can’t really see any post published here on a Sunday. I have equally started managing my online life and offline life, I am trying to make a balance and regain my original social life. Blogging can really consume your time you know, so you must work with time management. Play some games, hang out with friends, go to a gym and all that. Don’t just sit in front of your PC everyday because you want to be a good blogger. Everything requires a balance. Blogging and social life must be balanced as well.

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Your Turn

I know I am not a good blogger but I don’t think I qualify for a terrible blogger either. You have read so much and I honestly didn’t plan this. My articles are usually moderate but I couldn’t find a way to make this any shorter. So here’s the deal, drop what you think can make one a good blogger on the comment box and let continue the learning cycle.

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