Blogging is a great way to share your ideas, opinions, and expertise with the world. 

But how do you make your blog stand out from the crowd? How do you attract and retain loyal readers? How do you turn your passion into a profitable business? 

These are some of the questions that many bloggers face every day. 

In this article, we’ll give you some blogging tips that’ll help you take your blog to the next level. 

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced blogger, you'll find something useful and inspiring in this guide. 

Blogging Tips for Beginners

1. -Establish clear objectives

2. -Find your blogging niche

3. -Analyze your competitors

4. -Pick a blogging platform

5. -Read other blogs consistently

6. -Build a content strategy

7. -Find topics with high potential      

8. -Establish a posting schedule

9. -Rite for your readers first

1   -Use AI the smart way

11 -Make your titles clickable

1   -Make your blogs easy to read

1   -Optimize content for search intent

1   -Share unique research

1   -Collaborate with other bloggers

1   -Include external sources

1   -Edit thoroughly

1   -Distribute and promote on various channels

1   -Guide blog visitors to take action

2  -Track blog performance

2  -Refresh and repurpose your content

2  -Create a quality control process

1.Establish Clear Objectives

Whether you run your own blog or grow a corporate website, setting up objectives should be your priority.

If your company has decided to start a blog, make sure to create a list of business goals you hope to accomplish.

Here are some examples:

·        “We are starting a company blog to increase brand awareness and visibility by ranking for high-volume keywords.” 

·        “We are launching a blog to generate more conversions by sharing product-led content.”

If you are building a personal blog, a business model should still be at the forefront of your mind. 

You can plan to monetize your blog by running ads or offering paid courses to help you set a specific course of development for your blog.

2. Find Your Blogging Niche 

Half the fun of blogging is writing about topics you’re interested in. When you demonstrate your passion for a topic, your readers will be more invested in what you have to say.

It’s also essential to find out whether there’s demand for what you have to share. 

You can investigate the demand for your topic by:

·        -Analyzing the search volume for your topics and keywords

·        -Talking with people in your network

·        -Being active on community platforms and forums like Reddit and Quora

·        -Digging into social media platforms, including LinkedIn and Facebook groups.

In reality, it applies to both corporate blogs and individual bloggers. Always strive to find the spot where your background, your mission, and your expertise intersect with an actual market gap.

If you’re not entirely sure which niche to choose, here are some questions to help you brainstorm which kind of blog to write:

·        -What are your interests and passions?

·        -What are some areas where you can share real-life experiences?

·        -Are there others talking about your same interests?

·        -Which ones have the lowest competition?

·        -Do your potential topics get a lot of traffic?

·        -What are some ways you can monetize your blog?

In addition to offering an integrated learning experience for growing your Etsy shop, they run a blog that covers the trendiest topics in the niche.

3. Analyze Your Competitors

By analyzing your competitors, you can get a deeper understanding of what’s trending in your niche. It’ll also help you see what kind of blog topics and formats resonate with your audience.

·        Identify the key websites creating content in your niche (even if they’re not your direct competitors)

·        Analyze the content categories they have on their blogs, the most popular pages, and the keywords they are ranking for

·        Find out what makes each of them unique and what their differentiation points are.

·        Assess their tone of voice, the visual look, and overall formatting

·        Learn about ways they are monetizing their websites

·        Examine their social media channels

For example, imagine you wanted to see which topics and keywords perform well for GrowingYourCraft’s competitors. 

First, manually inspect their websites to find the most popular/trending blog section or identify topics they seem to target the most.

If you are not sure how to find your competitors, you can start by googling the most important keywords related to your business (e.g. “etsy courses") and analyzing the websites ranking on the first pages.

Then, head to the “Competitors” tab to see the websites in your niche that are competing with yours.

4. Pick a Blogging Platform

Finding the right content management system (CMS) is important. This is the platform you will use to host and manage your blog.

Choosing the best one will depend on several factors, including your budget, your customization needs, customer support, etc. 

If you are launching a corporate blog, you will also need to check whether your existing business website is already being managed via a CMS. If it’s not, think about ways to connect them.

There are many great blogging platforms with varying capabilities. But the most popular ones are:

·       -WordPress 

·       -Webflow

·       -Drupal

·       -Ghost

If you plan on using WordPress, be sure to check hosting sites like GoDaddy, Bluehost, and Siteground for their WordPress website subscriptions. 

Oftentimes, they are more affordable than hosting a website directly from WordPress.

You can also use drag-and-drop type platforms like Wix and Squarespace, which are easier to use and are good for beginners. However, their capabilities can be somewhat limited compared to the other CMS products.

Ensure technical optimization 

Once you have your blogging platform set up, ensure that all potential technical issues are taken care of. 

It’s important to make your website crawlable by search engines and to avoid having pages that are loading too slowly.

5. Read Other Blogs Consistently

Novelists should read more books to be better authors and bloggers should read more blogs to be better bloggers.

When we read other work besides ours, we are exposed to other ideas, other writing styles, other tones of voice. And all of what we read can influence how we write. 

So no matter how much time you have during the day, whether it’s 30 minutes or two hours, spend some time reading through online content that interests you or is related to your niche. 

Even reading content outside of our interests or wheelhouse can be beneficial!

If you’re not sure whose content to read, try reading content by influencers, thought leaders, subject matter experts, publications, and even your competitors. 

6. Build a Content Strategy for Your Blog

Now that you have a platform and a good understanding of your niche and audience, it’s time to start building a content strategy.

Sure, you can aimlessly cover various blogging topics on the fly and see where they stick. But in the long term, that isn’t always the best solution. 

80% of marketers felt their blogs performed better when they had a strategy. With a strategy, marketers can focus on goals more, find areas for improvement, and create more measurable progress. 

A good strategy also helps you establish your brand and story more clearly. That way, your audience knows who you are and what you’re about from the beginning.

Documenting your content strategy will involve listing the following items:

·        Your target audience

·        Primary goals for your blog (e.g., building a contact list and converting those people into paying customers)

·        Metrics you’ll use to track performance (e.g., traffic and newsletter subscriptions)

·        Resources and budget

Next, you’ll move to creating a content plan for your blog that will speak to specific content topics, keywords, dates, promotion tactics, etc.

7. Find Content Topics with High Potential

Now it’s time to find content topics you can cover on your blog. 

It’s important to focus on the high-efficiency topics that have lower competition and an optimal search volume, especially at the beginning. 

Add making sure you have the relevant experience to talk about them, and you’ll find your sweet spot!

You can find high-efficiency topics using the Topic Research tool. Simply enter a high-level idea and it’ll generate dozens of related subtopics.

You can then filter them by topic efficiency. In a nutshell, it means that the tool will show topics that have the best combination of search volume and ranking difficulty.

Once you’ve selected your topics, you can proceed to more detailed keyword research. Ideally, each blog post you plan would rank for more than one keyword. 

So, make sure you have a list of primary and related keywords for each article. To find them, you can use the Keyword Magic Tool. 

8. Establish a Posting Schedule

You want your customers to rely on you. You also want them to be repeat readers as your website grows. 

Posting consistently shows your readers you are dedicated to your website and its growth. It also helps you rise in the rankings much faster.

When you’re setting up your strategy, be sure to factor in not only a writing schedule but also a posting frequency. 

Do you want to post once a week, twice a week, or four times a week? 

Decide which post frequency will work best for you. If doing four posts a week feels like a lot, start with one or two posts per week.

There are a few ways to make sure you’re maintaining your blog post frequency. 

You can:

·        Blog from your phone on mobile apps like Notepad, WordPress, Google Docs, etc.

·        Write a few posts at a time and schedule them weeks in advance

·        Jot your ideas down as they come to you and expand on them later if time is limited

Being consistent, having a schedule, and keeping up with your ideas will help you in the long run. It will also save you more time than being a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants blogger.

9. Write for Your Readers First

Writing for search engines is important because you want to rank. But if you write for search engines first, you risk losing your readers and their attention.

And if you’re writing for yourself, that can also turn readers away. You can still write about topics you’re passionate about while meeting your readers’ needs, though.

Recipe bloggers tend to give a lengthy and detailed history of their simple chicken and dumpling recipe before getting to the ingredient list.

Because of the way they structure their blogs, recipe bloggers as a whole have faced criticism.

Keep in mind, the most important thing is to make sure your reader gets what they came for when they visit your blog. 

They should have something to walk away with, whether it’s a new product, new information, or a deeper inspiring message.

10. Use AI the Smart Way

AI can save you hours of work and lead to better outcomes.

For example, 79% of small businesses and bloggers report an increase in content quality thanks to AI.

65% of them also see an improvement in SEO rankings when using AI.

How do they achieve this?

By combining AI with human oversight. 

Remember: Google does not penalize AI content. What Google really cares about is your content’s quality.

So, here's how to use AI writing tools:

You can use AI to create long-form pieces that will rank—if you do it right.

·        -Leverage AI to brainstorm ideas and analyze your audience

·        -Enrich your AI content with original ideas and expertise

·        -Use specialized tools to find keywords and analyze search intent

·        -Focus on creating a great reader experience

·        -Edit, fact-check, and further refine your AI content

Many AI tools like ChatGPT don't provide real-time data on keywords, search intent and content optimization.

You can either pair them with thorough manual research or use specialized content tools like ContentShake AI.

It combines ChatGPT's capabilities with Semrush's SEO data and a user-friendly blog editor.