Blogging can be a great way to share your life with others, while offering them ways to better their lives. It involves telling your story, while contributing to the lives of others. Read the tips below to learn more about getting started in the world of blogging and begin telling your story.
Make sure the amount of time between each of your blog posts is similar. This helps readers know when you’ll be posting your next post. On the other hand, if you post two blog entries two days apart, then don’t post another post for a week, people will get out of the habit of reading your blog.
Make sure that you have SEO friendly themes, plug-ins and templates. This will allow your blog to load very quickly. The faster something loads, the more people are going to be willing to look at it. If a page takes to long to load, more than likely a visitor will just close the page.
Always be available to your readers. Try communicating frequently, and make it a habit. When you’ve made a connection with your readers, they can expect you to be present. You should remember that you have many readers who will be disappointed if you decide to quit blogging.
Create a themed blog according to what you are writing about. For example, if you have an agriculture blog, build your colors and theme around country roads and corn fields. Colors that seem out of place will be more likely to turn people off from reading and enjoying your blog.
Once your blog is established, have some guest posters write posts for your blog. This gives readers a fresh new perspective on your niche and allows you to benefit from knowledge you might not have. If you use your blog for marketing, you can use guest blogging as a promotional tie-in. Ask to guest post on other popular blogs in exchange for promoting your blog, while allowing others to do the same on your blog.
Making comments on other blogs in your niche, is a good way of getting new visitors to your own blog. If you have a Google Reader account, create a folder for blogs in your niche that provide high-quality content. Visit these sites regularly and, when you do, leave comments.
When you are writing, make sure that you stick to what you already know. You want your articles to be written with some level of expertise so that people will take you seriously. If you have to spend a lot of time researching, it will come out in your writing that you do not know much about the topic.
Make your blog a primary source of information on the topic. With a simple read through your site, your viewer should feel like they have a thorough understanding of your niche. This will ensure that your readers will come back to your site when they have more questions on the topic.
When you start blogging, you might be doing it for marketing reasons. While this is perfectly fine, you need to make sure that your focus is on your content, not your marketing. If people believe that you are just giving them one sales pitch after another, they will not come check out your blog.
Make sure you utilize tags in your blog posts in a careful manner. A misplaced tag on your site can be as damaging for your readership as a good tag is helpful. You need to do your research and place tags in an intelligent and thoughtful way to improve your blogging endeavors.
Keep up with what the other bloggers in your niche are doing, and make sure to stay one step ahead of them. It can only help to know what the blogging competition is up to. On the other hand, if your blog is successful, they will be doing the same thing. Consider it a compliment.
Ask open-ended questions in your blog. This will invite people to comment often, and will encourage more back and forth conversations with your visitors. Just make sure that you respond to the comments that are left, and if they ask questions to you, be sure to take the time to answer them.
While it is important not to use an extreme amount of graphics, you do want to include some images in your blog at least. How many you choose to use depends on the type of blog as well. While the text is the most important part of a blog, images help attract readers as well as elaborating on the meaning behind the blog.
Consider finding sponsors for your blog. Sponsors give you money for one of two reasons. They either want to support the message you are broadcasting or they are benefitting by putting their own name or product in front of the reader. Either way, you have control of what your reader sees and this is definitely an advantage.
Aim to make use of a photo gallery within your blog. People love to check out pictures. Because of this fact, a photo gallery is an excellent addition that you can make on your blog. If you’re a Flickr user, then consider downloading the Flickr Photo Album plug-in that is used in WordPress.
Create a good blog design. Too many bloggers today build a blog that is far too cluttered and difficult to read. You want your blog to be simple and one way you can achieve this is by having simplicity in your side bar. Whatever you add to your side bar such as a widget or advertisement, you should ask yourself if someone would actually click on it. If not, then do away with it.
Now that you have a better idea of what it takes to start a blog, you will be able to get online and begin blogging! Use the tips you’ve just read to begin telling your story and offering your personal knowledge to others who may be interested in what you have to say.