Blogging has become a profession of its own, replacing “traditional” careers such as law.
Blogging isn’t a demanding career because it is flexible and it is easy to adapt it to your needs. You just need to create your own spot for writing (at home, the office, a café, etc.). Then prepare your mind to unleash your inner world. But you may ask: how can I live from something so personal?
The bright side of this challenge is that many people worldwide share the same interests as you. People are looking for inspiring stories that will make them get out of their chairs and start doing what they have always dreamed about. And if you can add a monetary value to that, that’s even better, right?
Today we are going to review the best practices you can apply to help your blog to develop. By doing so, you are also securing your path to success.
1 – Create your own niche
Even if you want to express every single idea that comes to your mind, that doesn’t mean your blog has to host posts ranging from gardening to photography or cover both motorsports and ballet. That’s madness and will certainly drive visitors away from your site.
Take two to three days and think carefully about what your very own passion is. After that, you can start writing about it, as well as topics related to your passion. You can even write about out-of-niche topics as long as you relate them to your blog’s theme.
If you find creative ways to gain an audience, then you certainly are going to secure loyal visitors.
2 – Engage your audience
Now that you started building your audience, it’s time to invite them to interact and to keep them anticipating what are you going to do next. In my personal opinion, there’s no better platform for this goal than Instagram.
Instagram allows us to communicate through images, which are immensely appealing and valuable. But also, given its latest updates, Instagram also helps us to dialogue with our so-called “followers.” And yes, people are following what you have to say, so keeping the one-post-a-day recipe is the first step to success.
By keeping an eye in your personal stats (follower count, post count, likes), you can determine the best strategy for maintaining and growing your fan base. Tools like Gramblast are indispensable for having an accurate knowledge of your follower count because Instagram doesn’t show the exact number after 10k followers.
Keep an eye on your image quality: avoid any kind of pixelated images! Nothing expresses the term “unprofessional” more than that.
3 – Get some extra help
Guest posting is a practice well-known by many bloggers. The idea behind guest posting is to use the reach of authority websites in your own niche to help you grow your visitor count.
How do you do that? First, you need to reach the authority site’s admin/editor and do a proper proposal. Many websites ask for a fee in exchange for sponsored posts or visual advertisements (some of them on a monthly basis!). Others require you to include advertisements from their sites or to give them a product you sell—in case you happen to host a store as well—in exchange for a spot on their site.
This is where you need to play your cards well: refrain from doing self-promoted posts. Both admins and users hate that. But do tell your story through the article you’re giving to the host site. Any links you include in your post should be natural and be educational to your readers.
You can learn more vital practices on how to pitch your guest blog post from this infographic by Infobrandz.
Infographic Courtesy Of Infobrandz.com
4 – Don’t post too often
As bad as it is to neglect a social media profile, doing the opposite is just as bad, if not worse. Those who post around four to five times per day on a platform such as Instagram or Facebook are only scaring off their audiences. Posting so often looks like an information bomb that has no unique content.
Keep an editorial schedule where you organize your blog posts, but also sort the blogs you post on places like Instagram and Facebook. Twitter works differently. You literally need to tweet your way through the ranks, and the more the merrier as long as your tweets are relevant and not spammy.
5 – Keep healthy SEO practices
From well-written titles and metas to adding tags to your images and posts, giving SEO the attention it deserves is crucial. SEO is the fastest way to grow your website’s authority. There are several guides around the net that summarize the essential elements of SEO, but overall follow these points:
- Naturally add keywords throughout the text
- Do interlinking (adding links in your blog to internal pages of the site on which you’re posting)
- Remove plugins that slow down your website and don’t upload large images—page load time is crucial
- Always fill in alt-tags for your images
- Link to authority sites
By following these tips, you are taking the first step towards becoming a blogging star. However, keep in mind that this is a step-by-step job, and you can’t expect success overnight. With time and dedication, your efforts will pay off. Good luck!
The post A Much Wanted Impact: Best Social Media Practices for Blog Growth appeared first on Growmap.
A Much Wanted Impact: Best Social Media Practices for Blog Growth