Seven tips I wish someone shared with me as a beginner blogger, plus three different misconceptions I had about blogging.
This blog started as a side project with the hopes of earning some income from Ads & Affiliate marketing. It has since turned into a passion project - sparking my career change into becoming a content writer. As a beginner blogger, I wish I had tips on the importance of keywords, marketing a blog, and writing for the reader (and search engines). I was so focused on the website’s design and colors that I should have focused on the content.
But hindsight is 20/20- right?
Well, that’s what I want to share with you. You awesome, courageous, and soon-to-be blogger.
Here's a look back at my first year of blogging and seven beginner blogger tips I wish I knew from the start. Plus, three things I thought was legit about blogging, but I was completely wrong about.
1. Research the Blog Topic
OK, so you’ve decided to write about topics that interest you - awesome! But before you open that word doc, my first blogging tip is to spend time researching the topic first.
Blogger Tip #1 Research topic space
What do you mean by space?
What I mean is, what articles have already been published and who is writing them? Why is this an important first step? It will help you understand how articles in the same subject matter are formatted and produced.
Let’s say your topic is about healthy eating, and you find that most of the articles are a mix of educational content and how-to guides. This observation will help you in two ways:
- Format your articles similarly- why fix something that isn’t broken?
- Test a new way of delivering the topic (there is some risk...keep reading)
Just a side note, since you are a beginner blogger, it might be a wise idea to stick with a proven type of blog format so it has a chance to show up as a top search result. But sometimes taking a risk can lead to a reward, right? But, just be mindful of your timing, maybe save the newness when you are an established blogger.
2. Blogging Tip: Learn about SEO
I wish I had invested more time learning about Search Engine Optimization before I started writing blog articles. Knowing how to write with SEO in mind could have given each article a better chance to rank on Google search results.
If your #1 goal for your website is to drive organic traffic (and who doesn’t want that?!), then understanding how search engines work in relation to writing blog articles is vital to hitting this goal.
Learning the importance of keywords, picking them, and placing them within an article could make the difference of getting minimal views to hundreds, even thousands of views on your article!
Yes, selecting the correct keywords can make a world of difference in your article’s view count.
Now, I’m not saying every optimized article will automatically drive a ton of traffic to the site (more factors come into play, which I’ll go over a little further below). But an article written with SEO in mind will have a greater chance of getting in front of a larger audience through search engine results.
A helpful article about SEO I refer to is MOZ’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO. I love how it starts with the basics and then breaks into different chapters on practical and technical ways to optimize your website.
3. Blogging for the Reader- Not You
When blogging first became a thing, it was known as opinion or personal experience writing. But these days, the writing has shifted from your point of view to the reader or prospect—blog articles are written to address a reader’s pain point, challenge, or curiosity.
Today’s bloggers write for the reader, not for themselves.
The best way to make sure you’re always writing for the reader is by developing a reader persona.
4. Develop a Reader Persona
A persona (also referred to as an avatar) is a semi-fictional character of your ideal reader. Developing a persona covers the character’s basic information and general demographic, but the development goes further by identifying the character’s struggles, feelings, and goals they face.
Developing a reader persona will help you produce topics relevant to the reader seeking answers online (See how it’s all connecting? So essential to know how search engines work).
Need help creating a reader persona? I got you!
Three free online resources to build your reader (or customer) persona:
5. Pinterest will be Your Blog's BFF
Did you know that Pinterest is a search engine for content? The most recognizable difference between Google and Pinterest is how the search results appear. Pinterest uses images, which they refer to as “pins.”
Let me further explain for those who’ve never used or been on Pinterest.
Imagine landing on a home page with a search bar and typing a search query on a topic or product. Instead of the search results listing website links, the relevant results are an assortment of rectangle images linking to specific website pages.
In addition to Google and Bing, Pinterest is another search engine platform that can help your blog articles get discovered.
Close to 40% of this blog’s organic traffic comes from Pinterest, and my first wave of new and unique traffic to the site (other than family and friends) came from Pinterest before Google.
How is that possible?
Pinterest uses different criteria for how they rank their results compared to Google. To rank on the first page of search results, Google puts a lot of weight on a website’s authority; and for a new blog that takes time to build. With Pinterest, the quality of the pin is based on the image, text, and keywords - these three factors come into play before a website’s domain authority.
But I do need to warn you....
There is a learning curve with using Pinterest - setting up boards and, most importantly, correctly designing pins. I had to purchase several online courses to help me understand how it all works.
I highly recommend checking out courses and YouTube video tutorials by Heather Farris.
The way Heather breaks down Pinterest marketing strategies is like no other (and trust me, there are a lot of other instructors!). When I started implementing Heather’s Pinterest techniques, I saw the organic traffic to my account grow by triple digits!
5. Be Active on Social Media- Your Blog will Depend on it
You’ll write your initial blog articles and then... crickets…
Thank goodness for your family and friends, but they may only drop by the blog once or twice. And the Google or Pinterest juice hasn’t produced any traffic yet because it can take up to three months for search engines to crawl, index, and rank your content online.
So what do you do until then?
Drop the idea that you can be an anonymous blog writer.
It’s time to get on social media and build an audience there to direct them to your blog.
As a beginner blogger, you might choose to use the social media platform you visit daily or are most comfortable posting on. That is the wrong way to decide which platform to market your blog.
Remember your reader persona?
You have to direct your marketing efforts to your persona, not where you hang out the mostly on social media.
For me, my reader wants to learn about changing careers in midlife - so my persona turns to LinkedIn as a resource.
LinkedIn was the social media platform I spent the least amount of time on and had less than 300 connections.
I was incredibly scared to post on LinkedIn.
The fear of being judged and not looking perfectly professional almost stopped me from building a presence on this platform. But I had to get over my fears of posting on LinkedIn and focus on:
Driving traffic to the blog
Helping people make a successful career pivot
I learned everything under the sun about LinkedIn. I knew the best times to make a post and experimented on the different content styles for the LinkedIn audience. I spent my mornings on the site (like 3-4 hours!), and eventually, I cultivated a highly engaging audience and community.
Almost every LinkedIn post is linked to a blog article. It was the only traffic source to the blog at a certain point, but now traffic from Pinterest and Google is kicking in.
Point to this blogger tip? Get on the social media platform where your ideal audience hangs out. Your blog’s traffic will depend on it!
6. Setup Website Analytics ASAP
Your website will never achieve its goal of bringing in organic traffic without tracking its performance. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two free tools to help monitor how your site is ranking and which articles are bringing in readers.
So, what is the difference between Google Analytics and Google Search Console?
Do I need both of them?
Yes, you do. Let me share the differences.
Google Analytics provides information on the website’s visitors and their interactions on the site. It will report data on your reader’s demographic, the type of device your audience uses the most, how long a reader stays on your site and when it gets the most activity.
Google Search Console provides information on how your website comes up on search results and if search engines have found an error on the website. It reports which articles get the most views from search results and where they rank on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Basically, Google Analytics reports how website users interact with your website, and Google Search Console reports on how search engines interact with your site.
These two tools should be reviewed once a month to help you achieve the website’s goal of gaining more organic traffic.
Beginner Blogger's Perception vs. Reality
I couldn’t end this article without sharing my initial points of view about blogging and how it has changed so dramatically a year later.
Top 3 Misconceptions About Blogging
1. Blog Writing is Your Main Focus
“Content is king, but marketing is queen, and the queen rules.”- Gary Vaynerchuck.
This is my all-time favorite quote from Gary V. because it pretty much sums up what it is to have a new blog. The amount of time I spend writing pales compared to the time spent on marketing an article on social media or creating pins for Pinterest. Until your articles ranks on the first page of search results, expect to spend a lot of time marketing your blog.
2. All You Need is 20K Views
I remember watching in awe of different bloggers on YouTube showing their monthly income reports - making thousands of dollars a month from affiliate marketing and Ad placement revenues. The possibility of making this amount of income seemed attainable - all you need is 20K views.
I didn’t think launching a blog was an easy project to pull off, but I grossly miscalculated the number of steps and time it would take to get readers to my site.
I am sorry that I may be bursting your blogging bubble, but hitting 20K views on your blog will take longer than you think. You need to factor in the time to learn how to write for the reader, SEO, marketing, and content distribution. After a year of learning all of this through trial and error, I finally feel confident with my blog strategy and writing.
Don’t expect to hit 20K views in one year. Expect to learn how to run your blog first.
3. Ads and Affiliate Marketing is the Only Way To Monetize
When I watched those bloggers’ YouTube videos about the possibility of making thousands of dollars blogging, all the ways of monetization were pointing towards Ad placements and affiliate marketing. But the tricky little caveat of being accepted to an affiliate marketing program or online Ad agency is, you guessed it, you need a minimum of 10K monthly views. Not impossible, but not a realistic expectation of your first year of blogging.
Heck, you may not even hit those numbers in your second year!
So you need to get creative and stay open to different ways of monetizing your blog.
You can sell your services, sell an online course, offer digital products, or create a monthly membership with exclusive content for your community.
There are many ways to monetize your blog.
You don’t have to stick with the status quo of selling Ad space, waiting for the views to come in. Take your valuable content and figure out a way it can help you create opportunities towards monetization.
Conclusion
I hope these seven tips were helpful for new bloggers beginning their journey of creating content online. Remember, it takes time to build an audience, gain traffic, and it will take a great deal of effort to market your blog.
Be patient with the process and give yourself some grace, you are writing and sharing your ideas with the world, that is pretty amazing and should not be overlooked.
