How to Start a Successful Blog (Don’t do these things)

How to Start a Successful Blog (Don’t do these things)

It seems that everybody nowadays wants to know how to start a successful blog.

Blogging can be an effective content marketing and lead generation strategy, when done right. Whether you have just started your blog or you are thinking of starting one, your chances of succeeding largely depend on how well you execute your blogging strategy by adhering to best practices.

Each blog is different depending on your niche and your target market, but beginners usually make the same mistakes when getting started. Here are some of the things you absolutely should NOT do.

Writing only for the search engines

Naturally, all first time bloggers are concerned with reaching their audience and gaining visibility in the search engines as soon as possible. This results in ‘over-optimizing’ blog posts using popular keywords. While search engine optimization is a worthwhile strategy to pursue as part of your content marketing efforts, it should not be an end goal in itself.

The problem with focusing too much on optimizing content using keywords is that it could result in bland blog posts that do not offer any value at all to your audience. And in no time, you will also lose favor with the search engines if your articles do not read naturally.

Lacking a specific audience

It is tempting to want to write for ‘all the artists out there’ or ‘all the moms’ or to target ‘millenials’. New bloggers start with a grand vision of writing and reaching thousands and millions of readers. Noble as this goal may be, it is not feasible for your blogging success. In fact, the most successful bloggers write for a single person. This means they have created a very specific profile of their reader—their needs, wants, pain points, characteristics, dreams, and goals. Do you know who you are writing for?

With such a specific profile of your reader, it becomes possible to create content that your audience can connect with and use to solve their problem. On the other hand, lacking a specific image of your target audience would result in generic blog posts that do not help you to stand out from the vast blog-sphere.

Tackling topics that are too broad

Just in the same way new bloggers have the grand goal of writing for a wide audience, they also have the goal of writing on big, grand topics.

Here’s the truth:  There is no topic that has not been written on. There is no idea that has not been explored.

However, there are endless opportunities to look at these topics and ideas from a different perspective. In fact, your audience is not looking for new information; they are looking for information that speaks to them and helps them to solve problems in a creative or innovative way.

So instead of writing on blog topics as wide as ‘How to be successful,’ you could add a focused and interesting spin to the topic by showing your audience ‘6 Mistakes to Avoid When Trying to Be a Successful Marketer.’  When choosing your topic, think about the solutions that you would like to offer your readers.

Failing to promote your content

When you get started blogging, the focus is primarily (but mistakenly) on churning out as much content as possible. After all, no one wants to have a blog that looks a little bit too sparse.

Regular and consistent content creation should certainly be your goal. However, many new bloggers forget to promote their content or to even formulate a content promotion plan in the first place.

It is not enough to generate brilliant content that is not visible to the people that matter the most—your target audience; the people who are looking for your wisdom, insight and creativity.

There are millions of blogs, and new ones keep coming up each day. The most successful bloggers are those with a solid plan for promoting their content with the goal of reaching a specific audience.

If you have always wanted to know how to start a successful blog, here is a big tip. You have to promote it as much as you produce content for it.

Not inviting readers to take action

There is a reason why you are looking to start or have started a blog. Other than simply giving your readers information, advice or a source of entertainment, you want to offer them something more that allows them to put the information into practice and to experience specific results.

Sometimes, a blog post alone is not enough to cover a topic comprehensively, so do not leave your readers hanging. It is important either to direct readers to a landing page or to issue a call to action that allows you to collect your readers’ contact information so you can organically build an email list so they can either receive an offer of value and/or access more of your exclusive, special content.

It is likely that one of your goals for starting a blog is to monetize your business; but how would you be able to do that without collecting email addresses through a deliberate call to action?

How to Start a Successful Blog

Without a doubt, the blog-sphere expands everyday with the inclusion of new blogs and bloggers. There are still promising opportunities to build a successful blog that caters to the very specific needs of your target audience. What’s most important is to fully understand these needs and to offer valuable solutions seen from a different perspective.

Why did you start blogging? Leave a comment below.