As a professional blogger, you have to face a lot of challenges in creating value for current and prospective streamline growth of your blog. Challenges and values depend on your personal measurement, but there is few very common and important strategy (will be discussed later in this post) that provides better outcomes from blogging.
I don’t know how you are measuring the growth of your blog because every blog has its own set of objectives. Some are run by individuals, some by companies and others by a combination of the two. But impression, clicks and lead generation are very important for any type of blog you have.
What Do You Expect From Your Blogging Practices?
If you care about lead generation, it does not matter how often a particular person visits your blog, because he will account for only one lead, making him join you is a challenge here! But, if you care about impressions, click and readership on your blog, you have to think about how to retain that particular person for a long time. So, challenges vary according to your own expectations.
Now the problem is how to overcome this challenge in this highly competitive environment? How to become unique and different from existing crowd? I had faced a lot of similar problems in my blogging career, so I am changing my blogging practices gradually. This post is all about what I am doing now; not 100% but trying hard to do.
If you are a professional blogger and want to drive more traffic, more impressions and more real clicks on your blog, this post is especially for you.
20 Best Blogging Practices: That a Smart Blogger uses.
1. Create Useful Content.
Before writing every next post ask yourself, whether this post is useful and suitable for my loyal audience or not? Will they read, share or take any other desired action? Write for a reason not for just adding an extra post. Your reader expects something that will help them or that will add a value to their knowledge.
2. Understand What Your Readers Want.
Understanding your readers WANT will help you to design content layout of your blog. You can write every blog post in more effective manner, it will also help you in avoiding any deviation from topics you are covering. It is most important for membership blog to avoid unsubscription of your paid members.
3. Write What You Know, Not What Other Are Saying.
Never copy other’s word, write what you know; not what other are saying. Although for inspiration you can use their theme, but write each word of your own. If you don’t know anything about the topic you want to write, spend hours to learn it and then write everything in your own word.
4. Use Data and Statistical Figure.
Relevant data and statistical figure make your post more accurate and useful. It has been found that people prefer post having data, so try to use data and statistical figures to grab extra attention from your reader. Be careful while you use data, take it only from repudiated sources or highly professional institution with a proper source URL.
5. Write Conversational Post, Not an Essay.
Write post just like you are talking to the person reading your post, it makes your reader feel a personal connection with you. Your reader wants a solution, not information. Moreover conversational post have more potential to convert new visitors into permanent readers, while essay is just like “sleeping” information.
6. Keep Watching Your Rivals.
It is now more difficult to sustain your rank on Google search page because nobody knows when Google will apply the next animal update. So to be on the top you also have to make updates and see what your competitors are doing for this. Performing a better competitor analysis will help you to go one step ahead from your competitor’s strategies. It is also important if you want to be different from the crowd.
7. Try Something New.
If you talk about the same thing in repeating way continuously, it may be boring for your regular readers. So, try to convey something new, somewhat different from others or you can publish any new industry update before your competitors do. Trying new things will give a fresh taste to your existing reader, after that they will become more loyal toward your blog.
8. Market Your Blog.
When you create a new blog, it takes some time to become popular or if you have existing blog there are millions of people who don’t know about your blog. So, to build a strong and bigger loyal audience don’t forget to market your blog. Neil Patel has created an ultimate audience building guide. Don’t forget to check out his great job.
9. Use Call To Action Bellow Post.
If a visitor is reading any of your posts completely, it means he is more interested than others who just reads headlines. Moreover, if readers complete the reading process, there is a great chance of undertaking of some action by them. So, use a Call To Action (CTA) button below each blog post to give them an actionable task. You can drive their attention to a landing page, you can collect email addresses or you sell your products etc.
10. Collect Email Addresses.
Use any suitable email marketing service to collect email addresses of every new visitors. There are many advantages of collecting email addresses. In short, it is the most precious gift you get from your readers. So, don’t forget to use email opt-in form on your blog, sidebar, below headers and pop-up are the most popular place to use it.
11. Use Social Media For Extra Traffics.
Social media is most active place on the web, millions of people are online anytime here. It has a great potential to drive an extra traffic to your blog and take your blogging practices to the next level. Create a separate account or pages for your blog. It may be difficult to handle all social networks, but managing Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is not a tough job!
If you don’t have extra time to handle social media accounts of your blog, you can use services like Buffer or HootSuite to manage multiple social media accounts. Buffer is my favourite because it is clean and very easy to use. You can Try buffer to manage your social media accounts, it’s free.
12. Write Guest Post.
Guest blogging is another great opportunity to meet the new audience in your own niche. It helps you in building more strong blogging network and also improve SEO of your blog. Although here SEO is not a big deal, but guest blogging can drive some extra traffic and new permanent readers on your blog.
13. Use Your own Images.
You should either use creative common images or images that you have bought from a Royalty Free Image websites. Don’t use images of other people, it makes a very bad impression of your blog. If you don’t want to buy an image, you should use images from the website who allow other users to use their images.
In case if you are in love with a particular image, you should check terms of use page on owner’s website. If they are loyal you can use that image with a proper credit, but try to avoid this.
14. Write Comments on Other Blog.
Back linking is still one of the most important ranking factors, so you should comment on other’s blogs to get backlinks. Although backlinking is not the main objective of comment on the blog, it helps you to remain popular in your industry. If people see your comment on more than one place, they will start noticing you and finally, they will come to your blog. So, this is another proven technique to get new readers to your blog.
15. Fix Blog Post Publishing Frequency.
Blogging is a continuous and time taking process, if you do not update your blog regularly, it will take more time to show you any result. If you want to get desirable outcome faster, you have to be more active. Fixing a frequency of writing blog post is more effective and proven technique to remain active. It always reminds you to create next post on proper time.
16. Use Professional Design.
Your existing visitors know you well, so they do not care about your design, but a new visitor who doesn’t know anything about your blog will see your design first. If you care about converting new visitors into your reader, you should use a professional design. For WordPress user, this is a very easy task, just go ahead and use a beautiful theme for your blog.
17. Meet Other Bloggers Offline.
Blogging is not only an online job, it becomes more effective if you meet some other people doing the same thing in the real world. During the first year of my blogging career, I did not meet a single person offline. Fortunately, I met Sandeep Singh, then only I could realise that I missed a lot of great opportunities.
The Internet is a virtual world, it cannot replace the feelings of the real world. Offline communication is far more effective than online ways of communication. So to get more from blogging you should meet other people who are doing the same thing.
18. Post Actively in Forums.
Forum posting is another best way to get extra traffic to your blog. It has lots of another benefit like it gives you fresh and trendy ideas for new blog post. It gives you a complete overview of what is happening in your industry and what people are searching for. It is very commonly used technique throughout the blogging community.
19. Talk With Your Friends and Family About Your Blog.
This is very easy way to know what other people are thinking about your work. Especially while writing a new blog post, discussion with them will help you to add some missing points that you could not have added. Your friends and family know you are working hard, so when you talk to them they will feel themselves special. Therefore, as a human, you should do it.
20. Stay Updated With New Insights.
Blogging is a continuous learning process, every day there is something new to learn. If you are completely updated from your industry, still there may be some update in the software you are using for your blog. So, to be on the top, you have to be aware of every new aspect and trends of blogging.
The post 20 Blogging Best Practices Exclusively For Professional Bloggers appeared first on Openthrive.