This post was written by Sudeep D’Souza
I have been blogging for close to 3 years just for the fun of it without realizing the amount of money you can make. One day while browsing the internet, I stumbled upon problogger.net and suddenly realized the opportunity out there. So I started to blog a bit more seriously and here are 9 tips that I should have implemented to have a successful blog.
1. Have a Consistent URL
The identity you create for your blog lies in the URL. Once you decide on a URL for your blog, do not ever change it. Every time you change it you need to popularize your blog all over again. Besides, the technical problem is that the search engines and articles that reference posts in your blog have links to the older URL and it can create a lot of confusion and hence lost readership. Choose your URL carefully and stick to it.
2. Choice of subject to blog about
Choose the subject of your blog with care and consideration. Your blog should mirror your passion and knowledge on the subject. Identify whether you will be able to consistently post on the subject. Some topics that are search engine friendly and that never really die out are technology blogs, product related blogs, city centric blogs and money making blogs. There is always news to give your readers and also there are a lot of points to discuss on. More challenging blogs to write are blogs on thoughts, ideas, short stories, poems. In these blogs you have to be able to provide self- driven original content whereas in the previous kind there are other websites from where you can draw inspiration and ideas.
3. High Quality Content can get hard to produce consistently
Posting quality content consistently keeps your readers engaged and makes them come back for more. In the initial days posting is easy since you will have a lot of ideas in your mind. However, delivering high quality content to your readers day after day gets tougher as time progresses and ideas dry up. You need to keep innovating and ideating constantly.
4. Marketing your blog is hard work
Once you have content in your blog, its time to tell the world. The challenge is – ‘How do you tell prospective readers that your blog has what they are looking for?’ Social networking sites like stumbleupon, orkut, twitter, facebook and a zillion other websites are breeding grounds for finding prospective readers. Building your network can be a time consuming, never ending task, but it doesn’t end there, you need to make the effort to make your network aware of your blog. The benefits can only be exponential. Getting them to post comments is a completely different ball game.
5. Technical know how is required
Lack of technical know-how can hinder you from tweaking your blog and giving it the finesse and feel that you envisaged for your blog. Serious bloggers will have to dabble with HTML, JavaScript and so on. It is this technology that can give the blog the uniqueness, user-friendliness and functionality that makes it stand out. Be prepared to invest some time in learning web technologies. Being search engine savvy can go a long way in getting the traffic that you are looking for.
6. Research, Read, Reflect
Every post is a brand new post. Don’t be surprised that you would have to regularly research on your topic, as there is always something new out there. Read what others have to say and reflect. It involves a lot of hard work, patience, persistence to read content, assimilate and formulate your own content. At times, you should be ready to dig deep within your self.
7. Expect to ride an emotional roller coaster
Do not expect an easy ride when you blog. You can put in a lot of hard work and then realize that nobody is commenting on your post and on the other hand you will write a one liner and you will have the whole world talking about it. You will have days when you will be banging your head against the wall wondering what to post about and then there will be days you have so many ideas in your head that you don’t know where to start. So be ready to enjoy the ride.
8. Be prepared to sacrifice something in life
Since all this hard work is going to use up your time, you have to be prepared to give up something. For those that have a full time job – your personal life or work life is going to take a hit. Maybe some of your other hobbies or interests will get affected. So you need to decide carefully on the things in life that you are ready to forego in order to become successful as a blogger.
9. Writing a good post takes time and patience
There may be few gifted bloggers out there that can churn out interesting posts easily. Some have this skill from practice, and for some, it is a gift, but for the majority of us it is hard work right from coming up with the title to the way the post is structured to the content of the post. Be prepared to go through many iterations of it before you come up with the post that you would feel proud to publish.
Learn more about how to start a blog in our step by step guide.
Sudeep D’Souza in his blog sudeepdsouza.blogspot.com narrates his experiences in the software world and everyday life in Hyderabad, India.
This is a really helpful post. Thanks for the tips!
I am always looking for ways to better my blog, “9 tips” definately work a bookmark.
Thanks!
This post reminded me to stay on top of writing.
enjoyed a lot the last topic. People usually think that it is easy something great, unique, all the time. It isn’t.
I’m fairly new to blogging. This article has some great tips to get started with. Thank you Darren.
Wow! Very interesting topic. Thank you Darren for this great articles. This tips is good for me..
nice great tips…..very basic, simple but very urgent. focusing from the first time relly help to focus in the business…thanks for great learning
i’m actually searching google.com on “how to start blogging” and came across this post. i really found this article very informative especially for newbies like who want to start blogging but not really sure where to start.
i’m actually searching google.com on “how to start blogging” and came across this post. i really found this article very informative especially for newbies like who want to start blogging but not really sure where to start.
Thanks for the tips! I’m just starting out, and right now the toughest thing for me is design. Here’s hoping I get it figured out soon!
I really like the n° 7. It’s weird actually. I see some nice posts, long posts that have very few comments(some none). Yesterday, I visited a blog that had a post with 3 lines plus a photo and there were more than 100 comments on it.
I think the hardest part of getting started is to keep writing every day. At first it seems that nobody ever reads anything you write, so why bother talking to yourself? Later you will be surprised how many people were listening, you just need to keep up the consistency of posting as often as you can and soon you will start to develop a following. So just hang in there at first.
Very useful tips. I’m just about to start my own blog, but your advice certainly makes one pause and think before just launching into it.
I’m now at the planning stage (something I don’t normally do), but to get the most out of it I really need a ‘road map’ of where I want to go with this, and what I want to achieve.
The hardest part for me is writing, or rather starting writing, but I’ve started noting down the odd sentence/paragraph in a notebook with all the ideas I have. I can then use this as a basis for regular material.
Thank you…”9. Writing a good post takes time and patience”
Writing is the one skill I feel I completely lack. But I also know that I can learn. So it is encouraging to know that I am not alone.
I couldn’t agree more with you, from the first point to the last. Your post was incisive and written with passion and energy.
How I wish I’d realised the importance of a relevant URL when I first launched my blog. I had been keen to secure a domain in my own name, which is unusual enough for me to secured the “dotcom” suffix. However, I now realise that the title of the blog, although listed quite encouragingly by search engines, would be have been placed if matched by the URL.
Moreover, it is the subtitle of my blog, “an occasional writer’s journal” — and which ironically is still available as a domain — that would have really scored if I had used it as my site URL.
Would you perhaps recommend sticking with my established domain but changing the name of my subdirectory to “anoccasionalwritersjournal” — with an autoredirect via my control panel?
Thanks, I am trying to keep in mind these things with my own new poker blog.
Thanks. I’m just in the process of starting my own blog on my site. Will keep all your tips in mind.
In contributing and enjoying the imput of others to comment threads like this, it is becoming ever clearer that one should take steps to control spammers who make banal or auto-generated submissions just to establish backlinks to their own sites. Would the pokerman care to elaborate on his comment?