82 Expert Tips on How to Start a Successful Blog

Blogging is a terrific way to get attention for your site and build your status as an authority in your industry.

However, finding new topics to write articles about can be difficult. There is a way to make great content easily and that is doing audio interviews with text transcripts for your blog.

Text transcripts of interviews you do with leaders in your topic focus are a terrific way to get keyword-rich content on your site. Most bloggers have a difficult time creating long-form blog posts that have the right percentage of keywords that will be indexed highly by Google. The beauty of transcripts of an audio conversation is that they will naturally have a lot of the keywords you want to rank for and you don’t have to manually insert them into blog posts in a way that might seem forced.

You can find people to transcribe your audio on Fiverr (make sure they are native speakers of the language your audio is in) or a service like CastingWords.com. Then use a service like SoundCloud.com to embed the audio and post the full transcript below.

The transcript is what works so you can even consider not posting the audio at all and use just the transcript. I have used transcripts to create keyword-rich blog posts for many years. It’s a fast way to get a site ranked higher in Google and keep the attention of your audience as it grows.

Tim Bourquin – Afteroffers.com

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My best tip for finding blogging success is to follow your fun. We all have access to the best practical tips through top blogging blogs, through courses, eBooks, videos, forums and all types of other tools. Yet 81% of bloggers never make more than $100 online. Why? They don’t follow their fun. They try to GET before GIVING. They’re caught up on outcomes, attaching to stats and money.

I built a way cool lifestyle and inspire my readers to do the same by advising every blogger to follow their fun. Your fun, passionate energy will make you shine like a lighthouse in a dark, stormy harbor, and when you’re just having fun with your blog the creative ideas, successful, influential bloggers and yes, money, tend to flow your way with increasing ease. You’ll act inspired, you’ll listen to intuitive nudges and you’ll do freeing but sometimes uncomfortable stuff by genuinely pursuing a blogging niche that is really, really fun for you to explore, to learn about and to blog about.

Ryan Biddulph – Bloggingfromparadise.com

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When I first started blogging, I found myself quickly becoming tired and saddened by not seeing anyone coming to my site. It wasn’t until I realized that content promotion was more of a factor than my actual content creation, that I started to find success with blogging. Once you have an idea of what your audience is looking for and how to cater to their needs, the concept of blogging and finding success becomes much more clear.

A perfect example of this, is to re-work your content creation strategy. Instead of posting new content daily, just focus on creating original content once or twice a week in longer length and of higher quality. With this extra spare time you have (not writing), you can then focus on building more reference links, social shares, media mentions and promotional efforts back to your site.

Follow this same content creation and marketing strategy, and you too will find success with a blog of your own!

Srish Agrawal – Srish.com

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The cornerstone of a successful blog is content.

You’d think that should be obvious, but judging by fact that mediocre content seems to be taking internet into a chokehold, it’s not.

A successful blog is not about not whom you know, who knows you, how many social media followers you have, how well-optimized it is… All those things are important, but they can get you only that far without worthy content to support them.

Plenty of posts were/are/will be written revealing the ‘formula’ to successful blog post writing. If you ask me, there’s no such thing… unless you want to write ‘me too’ content, of course.

Here’s what I’ve learned about creating content that resonates with your readers – not a formula, but a few suggestions to help you along the way:

1. Read a LOT. Read blogs in your niche, outside your niche. That’s the best way to see what works, what doesn’t, and how you can make it better.

2. Don’t create content faster that you can do it WELL. One well-written post trumps 5 mediocre ones.

3. And just when you think you’ve got it… you’ve found your voice… you know what great content looks like and you can write it in your sleep… be prepared to start all over!

Audiences change, the ways people consume content change, your niche trends change.

That’s the blessing and the curse of running a successful blog – constantly staying ahead of (or even just keeping up with!) the curve.

Ana Hoffman – Trafficgenerationcafe.com

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Blog on a topic that you’re passionate about. Blogging is a long term business. If you’re not passionate about your topics, you won’t stick with it long enough to build a readership. Readers can also tell if you’re not into your topic, and won’t stick around.

John Chow – Johnchow.com

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The biggest success tip in blogging niche is, becoming master in one niche. I see people jumping from one niche to another very frequently without even understand their current niche completely. Blogging is a psychology to understand the readers at a deeper level and serving them the thing which they want.

Being a blogger, our main duty is to solve the problems in the society, which can be done by understanding your niche completely.

So be focused in one niche, understand your audience and find all the methods to sever the community in a better way, soon you will be a successful blogger.

Kulwant Nagi – Bloggingcage.com

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My best tip to create a successful blog is be devoted to having your blog posts as focused as possible. Make sure you thoroughly understand what your Ideal Reader is struggling with, and make your post remarkable by being extremely helpful. Blogs that are all over the place don’t make as much of an impact unless they have an underlying thread that runs through the content that is created. This is why it’s so important to understand your Ideal Reader, as they may have many interests, but they’ll also have specific things they need help with.

Elizabeth Bradley – Elizabethkbradley.com

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Choose a Topic, a Niche, Something Specific You Want to Blog About

Like when I was starting out a blog, I know my strengths and I was doing a job in digital marketing, so I decided to start a digital marketing blog, because that my strength. I see many people start blog without analyzing their strengths. I bet on my strength and got success at a huge level in blogging. You’ll center the blog you are about to create around one of the three ideas you like. The remaining two topics, you can use to start the other 2 niche blogs months down the road. For now, just pick one niche idea and start.

Continue coming up with article titles around the same niche topic. This way you will have more than 50 unique article ideas to write on when you launch your blog.

My blog BloggersIdeas became an instant success and I went on to establish my own Digital Marketing Agency called “DigiExe”. Based on my core principles of living on my own turns, working on what I love and making the maximum effort every time, “DigiExe” has leaped forward and helped major online brands generate increased worth.

Jitendra Vaswani – BloggersIdeas.com

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Be yourself.

It seems that way too many bloggers are looking to find that perfect formula. But that’s not what blogging is about. Blogging is a very personal medium. Sure, add in keywords and images and set your promotion on autopilot if you think those things will help make money from your blog. But when it comes to writing, be yourself.

Picture this. You are at a business reception. There are some drinks on one table and some pastries, fruit and cheese on another table. You meet various people and you shake hands with them and engage in small talk. But there’s this one guy who shakes hands just perfectly, like he was trained in how to shake hands. And he speaks very carefully, saying just the right things. Afterwards, you’ll say, “He was really impressive.”

There is also this one guy who greets you in a very friendly manner. His handshake is nothing special, but he seems genuinely interest in you. He laughs from the soul. He confesses to being shy about something or having failed about something just because it fits into the conversation. Afterwards, you’ll say, “Let’s do lunch next week and talk business.”

Don’t be the blogger who writes everything just right and impresses people. Be the blogger who writes everything authentically that people trust.

David Leonhardt – SEO-Writer.ca

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To master the skills of being a blog ninja master, you must first understand the foundation of your blog and why you are blogging in the first place. We all know there are millions of blogs on the internet today, so if you were going to try and compete or create value, you need to be able to stand out from the crowd and also create Value Inn contents that is better than what is currently out there. For this reason my young grasshopper, you must focus on your niche and continually niche down as much as possible.

For example, if I wanted to create a blog on ninja weapons it would be best to focus on one individual ninja weapon, then every weapon out there. A good example of this would be ninja stars, and writing every single thing there is to know or purchase in reference to ninja stars.

In short, you need to master the art of your content and audience down as much as possible. Once you know exactly what your audience wants you will then know the type of content you need to create which will then lead you to actually knowing when, where, and how to promote your blog in the most effective way possible. Follow the expert ninja tips and you will soon become a black-belt blog ninja.

Ninja Master of BlogNinja.com

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One of the most important things I have done to create success for myself, my blog, and brand is to build relationships with others in my industry. By building relationships with others, I have created my own tribe who is willing to share my content on a regular basis. By spreading my reach more people recognize my real estate content. This leads to more exposure, links that help SEO and brand awareness!

Bill Gassett – Maxrealestateexposure.com

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My best tip for finding success with blogging is all about unique content through the substance itself and the personality behind it. Whether you’re blogging for yourself, as an organization, or on behalf of a company, it needs to be differentiated enough to stand out in today’s content-saturated environment.

Make sure the content you’re producing is truly one of a kind. There will always be similar content out there, just as there will be competitors for a business. But during ideation, take the time to check out similar content. See what’s working in SEO, see what’s working in distribution channels, and most importantly, read the content yourself. You’ll arm yourself with enough knowledge to make your content successful, but also know what’s been done before so you can stand out in the crowd.

Harris Schachter – Optimizepri.me

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For people to be successful with blogging–or any type of content marketing–first and foremost the content they are creating must be in total alignment with their personality type. Far too often I see entrepreneurs forcing themselves to write, or create video, or design images, when it just doesn’t match who they are. I call this content misalignment, and I’ve created a tool that helps people determine their top two content personality types. When business owners are easily creating custom content that brings them joy, magic happens. They attract their ideal clients. They don’t get burned out. And most importantly, their content is authentic and keeps prospects and clients coming back time and time again.

Shannon Hernandez – Thewritingwhispherer.com

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The best way to find success with a new blog or an existing blog is to FIRST know what you want to write about, what will your blogs topic be.

Once you know that, it will make it easier for you to write targeted content that is on point and “around” the topic of your blog.

It will also make it easier for you to find targeted people on Social Media that you want to put your content in front of every day.

To put it into a plan I would say:

1. know your topic
2. write content closely targeted to that content
3. find keywords to use in that content “your dong the work, you might as well try to get some free traffic from Google”
4. then share that content across all the Social platforms that BEST fit your blogs target
5. share that content 2 -3 times throughout the day.

JohnPaulAguiar.com – JohnPaulAguiar.com

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Building a community is very important in blogging. You need to have a group of loyal followers who are happy to share your posts to their friend at their own will.

As a blogger, being trusted by your audience is heart-melting and once you have this relationship level with your audience, you can finally say your blogging career is a success.

You can do this by doing the following:

1. Actively participating in discussions where your audience are.
2. Continuously providing them factual, inspirational and valuable information.
3. Always listen to their feedback no matter how harsh or tearful these are.

Joseph Gojo Cruz – Rankingelite.com

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To really succeed with your blogging efforts you need to keep your connection to audience foremost in your mind, and think how you can connect them to the information they want, while guiding their path closer and closer to your ulterior motive.

It’s nothing nefarious, behind every blog there is a deeper motive. For businesses, your deeper goal is to access a wider potential list of people who may end up purchasing products or services. If you’re a hobby blogger or enthusiast then your deeper goal is to access a wider net of people who you hope may share your interests.

Either way, you should take some time for self examination. Look at your business, product, service, hobby or topic of interest and think it through. What is unclear? How would I explain this in a new way? What questions would people possibly be asking to Google that I can answer that is closely related.

Connecting to that deeper purpose, you can ideate unique content, engage visitors and move them along the path closer and closer to your goals.

Jeremy Rivera – Jeremyriveraseo.com

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Focus exclusively on writing content that people actually want to read.

Your aim when you start your blog and you’re writing your first content piece (or any future content pieces for that matter) is to focus on writing something that is the best version of that topic on the Internet.

Avoid trying to write a hundred mediocre articles as quickly as you can. Rather slow down, take your time, do the research and put together something that will truly blow away a person that reads the article.

Make it so good that if a new person was to come across your article, they would immediately be hungry for more.

This is how you create a blog where your readers are true fans, and once you have true fans that is when they will devour any content that you create whether that be free or paid (as long as the quality remains high of course!)

If you’re wondering whether the content piece that you’ve just put together is really any good then simply ask yourself, if you came across the article for the first time would you be impressed, is this article solving a problem you have. If no, then you’ve got work to do to make it better.

Of course in this day and age where things are moving so quickly, you will find that your article may become outdated very quickly. Well, obviously this is no good. There are two ways to combat this. 1. Try to write content pieces that are evergreen in nature. 2. Always keep your articles up to date. This is where focusing on having a few high quality content pieces becomes beneficial. Instead of having to constantly update 100 mediocre pieces (which no one will care about anyway), you can focus on making sure that your handful of articles are always up to date with the latest developments. This way you’ll always be ahead of the competition and people will keep coming back to your blog to read and refer to your content again and again.

Naturally all of the above entails that you’re willing to put in a lot of hard, hard work. You need to appreciate that results will take time and that you are going to have to initially focus on giving a ton of value before you even think about getting a little back. However, if you’re able to do this long enough then you’ll find that success as a blogger is very rewarding, not only financially but also in terms of fulfillment because you are actually getting the chance to help people every single day with the articles you write and that is something worth far more than money 🙂

Robert Mening – Websitesetup.org

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Recently I attended the Tribe Writers Conference and that experience made a huge impression on me how important relationships are to blogging.

Spending time with the influencers was worth the trip alone. Whenever you go to a conference, I recommend investing in the premium ticket or pay whatever extra there is to gain access to the successful people you admire and respect so you can meet them and listen to how they think “off camera.”

Also, when attending a conference be open to meeting and making connections with folks who are at your level. These connections can open amazing doors for your business, too.

And don’t ignore the people who are “below” your level. You can make some great friends and find devoted fans if you treat people with respect.

Yes, the purpose of a conference is to learn, but if all you do is take notes listening to speakers, you are missing out on a huge key to blogging success–relationships.

Matthew Kaboomis Loomis – Buildyourownblog.net

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My best tip for finding success with blogging is the writing well-researched content keeping SEO in mind because you need SEO to get people to your content, and you need great content to make those people read it. If they like the content, you will get hell lot of social shares, naturally placed backlinks, better credibility and much more. All of these, help you succeed in blogging.

Atish Ranjan – Atishranjan.com

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To become a successful blogger, you need to put in a lot of hard work, and it takes time. Follow the next ten tips, and you will have a great start:1. Identify the niche you want to focus on your blog.

1. Identify the niche you want to focus on your blog.
2. Buy a domain name that is relevant and also buy another domain name for your name. Use .com, .net or .org extensions.
3. Choose a fast, high-quality hosting for your WordPress site. If you are building an eCommerce store, then check here what are the best eCommerce platforms.
4. Pick a nice theme that loads fast.
5. Create an opt-in for your blog and offer a gift to your readers in exchange for their email address.
6. Find out what info your target audience is searching online and write valuable content on that topics. You can use keywords planner to check the competition for the keywords that you want to rank.
7. Keep a regular writing schedule. It’s not alright to publish in one week five posts and then not post anything for two weeks. Also, pay attention to the format of your posts. You can read this article to find out what is the ideal structure of a blog post.
8. Extensively promote your articles on social media. Find out where your audience is hanging out online. If you have more visual content, like fashion, food, home decor, gardening, etc., then Pinterest and Instagram will be the primary traffic source for you. If your content is based more on written info, then Twitter and Facebook groups may be more appropriate.
9. Reply to all the comments on your blog and also comment on other blogs. It will help you bond with your readers and build relations with other bloggers.
10. Launch a product or a service. It can be anything from an eBook, a video course, coaching, etc. Create something that is going to help people get the results they want.

Minuca Elena – Minucaelena.com

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The secret to finding success with your blog is to decide what you are going to sell when you are creating your blog (or soon after).

The easiest way to decide if what you want to blog about will work is to ask these two questions. If the answer to either one is yes, then your idea will work and you can make money.

1) Is there a problem you’d be solving for your readers?
2) Will you be blogging about an expensive hobby?

Then blogging will be easier for you and, as you build your list, you will make sales from your course or product.

Sue Dunlevie – Successfulblogging.com

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My best tip for EVERY blogger who wants to find success is to, as quickly as possible, find your niche!

It’s easy to think that because your interests are varied that your audience will appreciate a wide swatch of topics that you might write about.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is, your audience will appreciate it more (and grow more rapidly), if you’re focused on very specific topics that are all related.

First, each time you write a new post and begin to attract some readers, they’ll be more likely to discover and be interested in some of your other posts if they’re within the same overall topic.

Second, the more often you write within that specific topic, the faster you’ll accumulate targeted content AND keep from creating content that doesn’t help your overall site and audience.

For instance, when I was getting my blog started, I thought it would be helpful if I created content that any business would appreciate. That included marketing articles, of course, but also technology and business overall. And it was too broad. My technology and business articles languished in my archive, while my audience was far more appreciative of my marketing advice. In fact, I needed to refine my scope even further to only include Content Marketing and related aspects (blogging, social media, etc.) and exclude other kinds of marketing.

Refining your niche will make it easier for you to determine what you’re going to write about, and your audience will appreciate that. Here’s one of the best articles I’ve ever read on how to do that.

Mike Allton – Thesocialmediahat.com

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Creating content is really a tough job if you let it to be. If you run a blog, you should be aware of your strength, your plus points against your competitors in the market and what your audience is looking for online.

This knowledge will help you in framing an article that is both compelling and converting for your readers.

Now that you have something to write on, I would say search the whole keyword or idea on Google itself. Before writing for your reader, get in their shoes and see the existing scenario through their eyes.Read the top ranking pages, see what points they cover. As a reader, now gauge what they left out and what info other readers left through the comments, if any. Now take this as

Read the top ranking pages, see what points they cover. As a reader, now gauge what they left out and what info other readers left through the comments, if any. Now take this as cue and create a post that covers everything you expected to read when you visited the top ranking pages. There are a lot of content creation tools that can help your content stand out. Make sure to leverage them.

Spice up your posts with meaty content, resourceful citations (google scholar can help) and multimedia attachments to make the content engaging.

For example, when I had to write my Flywheel hosting Review, I knew a lot of articles are ranking for it. However, I found most of them had only boring text or were truly sponsored posts for the sake of writing. So, I decided to write my review based making it data-backed (I researched various metrics on hosting niche) and took demo test sites, gauzed Flywheel’s performance on those, also I collected Flywheel’s performance track record from research sites and then published it. The result is, the post now moved from nowhere to the 10th position of first page in no time. This is the power of creating effective content.

Swadhin Agrawal – Swadhinagrawal.com

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My best tip is to be aware of the latest news in SEO, social media, content marketing area. It helps me to understand what topic is in trend at the moment. In this way I know exactly that this post can get good number of views, likes, retweets etc just because everyone is looking information about it.

For example, last week Google officially announced that Penguin algorithm now part of core search algorithm. Just 5 days ago it was announced and many posts appeared for such short period of time. My main task as SEO blogger is to create a good post about Google Penguin and tell what this change means for site owners. Of course I have to do a good research because it is not enough just rewrite information from Google Webmaster Blog. It is much better to remind about Penguin algorithm, what kind of sites it affects, is it possible to recover from a penalty, how to avoid a penalty etc.

Evgeniy Garkaviy – MarchesHour.co.uk

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There are two pillars to success in blogging:

The first one is to have something unique to say. And to be able to say something unique, you have to get some unique experience first. In other words: do something and blog about it.

I mean you can’t start a successful travel blog if you’re not traveling all the time, right? You can’t start a successful food blog if you don’t know how to cook.

This is the #1 mistake I see new bloggers make. They want to start a blog, but they don’t really have anything meaningful to say, so they just copy what other bloggers said. And this has almost 0 value to the world.

The second pillar is dedication. The odds are you ain’t going to become wildly popular from your very first article. Some people fail to get traction even after publishing a hundred articles.

So the trick here is to keep pursuing your goal, learning from your mistakes and refining your strategy towards success.

If you’re lucky – your blog will get traction in just one year. But usually I would aim at 2-3 years of dedicated work until you see that your blog has become popular.

Just make sure that you’re not doing the same stuff over and over – “what got you here, won’t get you there”. You should gain experience and evolve all the time – so will your blog.

Tim Soulo – Bloggerjet.com

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Find your niche. When we started the SuperOffice blog, we knew that there were hundreds of other amazing CRM blogs and so directly competing with them by producing the same type of content wasn’t going to work. We had to do something different, and so early on we decided to only publish highly practical strategies that were backed by data-driven research. We’ve been taking this approach since 2012 and has been key to helping us grow from 0 to 70K monthly readers. If you want your blog to be successful, start by finding your niche.

Steven Macdonald – SuperOffice.com

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Create relevant and timely content for your audience in a fun and engaging manner.

Use graphics, videos and be different.

Try new things as your audience craves novelty.

Don’t worry about results. Worry about showing up every day and being consistent.

If you focus on the effort, one day you’ll see people can’t ignore you any more and start craving your content.

If it were easy, we’d all have blogs bringing in passive income…

Focus on the value you can give your audience and then deliver deliver deliver.

If you aren’t taking risks, you aren’t working hard enough. (Just like skiing… if you aren’t falling you aren’t skiing hard enough)

Think big and then 10x that goal.

Now it should be exciting to work on that goal.

Mark Podolsky – Thelandgeek.com

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We have a blog at Level343, as you know, and most of our clients have blogs. What really sticks out to me is this: when we’re consistent, we do well. When we aren’t, we don’t.

So, my best tip is to be consistent:
– put your blogs out the same time every month
– always have a picture
– try to provide the same length of articles

In other words, let your readers know what they can expect of you and stick to it!

Gabriella Sannino – Level343.com

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For lead generation, give them more.
If the goal of the website and blog is to drive leads, you’ll need to give your readers more than just the blog post. For each blog, make sure you have one CTA (call-to-action) that relates to the blog topic. For example, if you’re writing about content management, offer a template for a content calendar. This helps the reader put the information into action and it helps you grow your email list and continue to engage and nurture the relationship.

Brenda Stoltz – Ariadpartners.com

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Probably one of the hardest things to do is come up with new ideas to write. As a writer, I know the challenges of trying to maintain a daily blog. Here is a simple tip to make the process much easier. Remember the SEO. SEO specialists create content with the purpose of target new keywords. Google’s keyword tool provides a huge list of terms people use when searching. These keywords become great article topics that people want to read because they are searching for them. By following this tip you create content people want and drive more search traffic to your blog.

Allan Pollett – Allanpollett.com

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To me, it’s audience. The web is too crowded with content right now for beginners to break through the noise. The key is to know who your audience is and create content that caters to them. That means finding a sub-niche and learning everything there is to know about them – what social networks they use, what websites they frequent, do they prefer to watch video over reading, what slang / terms do they use, etc. Knowing this helps you tailor your blog better and come off as authentic, not just “Top 10 Ways to Do [The Same Thing Everyone Else is Writing About]”.

Ryan Stewart– Webris.org/locations

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The best way to find success with blogging is to network with other bloggers in your niche.Once you are involved with other bloggers and start making a name for yourself, everything else you do (SEO, guest posting, email marketing) is 10x easier.

Once you are involved with other bloggers and start making a name for yourself, everything else you do (SEO, guest posting, email marketing) is 10x easier.

Dom Wells – Humanproofdesigns.com

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Create Keyword-Targeted Content Assets
The quality of your content will make or break your blog. That’s why you need to focus on creating evergreen content assets that continue to drive traffic forever. The best tactic is to create a content asset around a keyword. The best places to find keywords are in forums, the Google Keyword Planner, and UberSuggest. If your blog is new, then you should target long-tail keywords because they will be easier to rank for in Google. That means targeting keyword phrases that are three or more words in length. After you’ve identified your target keyword, you need to create the content asset.

There are two ways to create content assets that perform well in Google:

1. it has to be significantly better than what is currently ranking on the first page of Google.

2. it has to be significantly different than what is currently ranking. A combination of both is most effective.

Nathan Gotch – Gotchseo.com

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If you want your blogging to operate like a real business it must be treated that way. Think of it as a funnel with three components: a) traffic, b) content, c) product/service. First create a target persona and identify the #1 place your perfect customer spends time online. You’ll want to generate traffic from that source with laser focus on only that one channel. Then choose one medium/type of content that works best for you (articles, videos, infographics, etc.). And finally, after engaging with your readers/prospects and doing additional R&D to identify their pains, develop your solution and deliver your product or service.

Arman Assadi – Armanassadi.com

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I’ve found having an true understanding of what you are writing and why has best served my blogging traffic, leads and sales since 2009. I’ve found that working backwards has helped me in generated the needed high quality clicks.

I don’t necessarily go for high traffic but more quality targeted traffic. So so let’s say I’m selling a specific affiliate product then the next step would be to do research. Research is always done before any single word is typed. A 10 min keyword research session can quickly help me decide the angle of how I’m going to approach the keyword and if it might get google organic search traffic. Cause even if it won’t rank well on Google it can then be used for other funnels for retargeting or social media traffic.

The ability to look for a goal, research the keyword, then allocate the resources to it has helped my business grow from a part time gig to retiring me from Engineering in 2012.

Lawrence Tam – Lawrencetam.net

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My top tip for finding success with blogging is understanding that less is almost always more!

When bloggers start out, it’s all too tempting to spend their time writing large numbers of short word-count posts, however this is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes most commonly made.

There are more than 1.59 million posts each day published on WordPress alone and this means that any piece of content has a lot of competition in order to be seen and generate engagement!

As a general rule, no post should be much shorter than around 2,000 words and that each must cover a topic in-depth. There’s no benefit to be had from churning out 300 word blog posts and in order to be taken seriously as a blogger and build a community, it’s important to be seen as a thought leader.

Each post should then be focussed around earning rankings around a target keyword and variations and promoted, promoted and promoted some more! In fact, you’ll find that the likes of Brian Dean from Backlinko adopt the 80/20 principle. That is, they spend 20% of their time writing a post and 80% promoting it!

If you’re going to spend that much time promoting a post, it has to be good!

Adopt this mindset and you’ll struggle to go wrong; so long as what you’re saying is great and your promotion strategy is right!

James Brockbank – Jamesbrockbank.co.uk

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My best tip would be to keep consistent with your voice. What your true nature is, or that of your business. If you are good at telling stories, wrap stories into all of your posts. If you are good at simply referencing a wealth of information that is valuable on a single topic, make that a key part of your content strategy. People like consistency, they like coming to a blog knowing sort of what to expect. It’s how they start telling their friends that your blog “is the best for x.” So just solve for X and let your audience grow.

Sean Smith – Simpletiger.com

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Find the right balance between things you are passionate about & what your reader needs.If you write content which is desired by your target audience, your success in blogging is inevitable.

If you write content which is desired by your target audience, your success in blogging is inevitable.

Harsh Agrawal– Shoutmeloud.com

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Blogging success comes when you put a unique twist on the topic and content. Along the years, I discovered that content that has a friendly and fun approach gets more engagement and countless shares on social media. For a blogger to be successful, research is very important, especially for analyzing the keywords that people use to perform searches in Google. I also like to see what others wrote about the topic that I’m covering, and then make my content three times better.

Felix Tarcomnicu – Cross.promo

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Creating relevant, interesting and informative content, consistent content promotion and networking with influential bloggers in your niche is the 3 key elements for successful blogging.

Before creating content, first, understand who your target audience is, as it is only then that you would be able to come up with an engaging post or an article that will resonate with your readers. Also, don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of content – List Post, How-to guides, or Infographic, as this will only help you build authority in your niche.

Similarly, have a consistent content promotion strategy to get better traction for your blog posts. Share content on Social media platforms, try Guest posting, email marketing etc. Also, find, connect and interact with influential bloggers in your niche through social media or outreach and ask them to share your content. This will help boost your blog’s visibility and get you the targeted traffic.

Nirav Dave – Capsicum Mediaworks

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My answer is simple – you should try to help people achieve their goals. If you can provide real value and help people in some way then you are strategically on point and then everything else can be layered over this strong foundation. Of course there are two key components here – the first to help people but the second and equally important factor is that the help you provide should be aligned with your own business objectives so you can monetise the traffic. Once you have got the common sense side of things dialed in then consider looking at any tools that will help with your content marketing efforts – we have a big list on our blog that should help.

Marcus Miller – Bowlerhat.co.uk

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Ask your readers what they want to read, then write your awesome content to answer those questions, rather than trying to be too clever, and writing what you *think* they want to read. Of course, build on this to add in the points that they would benefit from and they wouldn’t necessarily think to ask about, but make sure your headline reflects their needs and wants and desires, rather than your own.

Ellen Bard – Ellenbard.com

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My best tip for finding success with blogging is to create unique lead magnets for as many different articles as possible. If you’re trying to build an email list, then having a boring “join our newsletter” opt-in on every page of your blog just won’t cut it anymore. Instead, customize your lead magnet or opt-in offer to the content of each blog post. If this sounds like too much work, at least try to make your lead magnets unique to each major topic or category on your blog. You’ll find that visitors are much more likely to opt-in if the offer is closely related to the content that attracted them to your blog in the first place. This is one of the best ways to immediately increase your conversion rate.

Nicholas Scalice – Earnworthy.com

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If you are not creating narrow focused quality content you are out of business.

And for those of you doing so, the best advice I can give you is this:

Expand the reach of your content in your niche through automation.

Automate the syndication to social media and then automate you social presence growth.

There are a bunch of free or non-expensive tools online like TwitterFeed and Twitfox for Twitter to name a few.

Gabriel Roitman – Gabrielroitman.com

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My best tip for blogging success comes in three parts. First, work hard to identify your audience’s biggest pain points. Second, provide helpful solutions to alleviate them. Third, do it in a way no one else is.

Amy Lynn Andrews– Amylynnandrews.com

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Be certain to target appropriate blog content. If a blog is being followed/read by your target audience, then success will happen – even if the audience is small. If a blog doesn’t target your audience, but has a million readers, for example – you may not see any new business or traffic. For SALTOPIASalts.com, I target blogs that offer healthy, gourmet cooking experiences and recipes that incorporate sea salts. My audience is bound to be there because we sell naturally harvested sea salts!

Kimarie Santiago – Saltopiasalts.com

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The one thing I find that most blogs lack, is readability, but not just from the point of view of how well researched or written it is, but from how engaging the article is.

With the likes of WordPress so readily available with some nice free themes, there is no reason not to make your blog stand out. Use big, bold headings, sub categories and a defined structure that is going to help the reader understand what they can expect to find as they work their way through. I would also research using ‘bucket brigades’ (use of words and phrases that makes someone want to read on) to help keep people further engaged.

I find a nice way to ensure people reach what they want, is to start with a summary and a bullet list of what the post covers – you can even go one step further and change your bullet list into anchor links so they can click and be taken right to what is of interest to them.

Remember that there are millions of blogs and pieces of content all vying for reader attention, so you need to do all you can to make sure you stand out. You only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention, so make it count.

Andy Drinkwater – Iqseo.uk 

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If you can meet some of the pressing needs of your readers through your resources the readers will come back again to read your post and I am sure they will spread the good news about you and your activities among their friends via their social media and other means. Above all, make a good relationship with your fellow beings, especially the bloggers who visit and share their feedback on your page. Do not neglect them to respond to it or to visit their pages and show some love. Do not miss this by any chance. Also, another vital tip I can share is to get into the company of influencers by various ways and if possible do roundup posts by including such influencers. I am sure most of them say a word or two about you and your activities through their sharing of such posts and that way you spread your wings and reach to various unknown destinations with lots of other benefits attached to it.

Philip Ariel – Pvariel.com

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My best tip to find success with blogging is to write content that matters. If you do SEO or promotion really well, you’ll get readers who read and then never want to come back if your content is awful – which makes it hard to continue scaling. Those things are good (and very much needed when there are millions of posts going out daily around the globe), but if the content is subpar, you will never build an “audience” – a group of people that are actually listening/reading your words, a group of people that are subscribing and waiting for the next article they can read and share.

William Harris – Elumynt.com

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When my clients are blogging, I suggest that they start by writing customer profiles for each type of customer that they serve. For example, a fitness brand for women may serve three distinctly different types of customers: women who are trying to balance career and home life– while still finding time to work out, new moms getting their body back during naptime, and women over 50 who are facing a slowing metabolism and various other fitness challenges. By writing about these different customer’s lives, interests, and what matters to them, creating content with them in mind becomes easy. From there, you can create one blog each week that appeals to each of these different types of customers and create social posts and newsletter items that appeal to those customers.

Brittany Bearden – AtlargePR.com

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Any great blogging strategy needs multiple components to be effective — from search engine optimization to standout graphics — but for individual brands nothing is more important than having a unique voice and using it to provide valuable content. The connected nature of the Internet facilitates groupthink in almost every industry; providing a unique lens and voice can help differentiate your blog and your brand from the crowd.

Adam Toporek – Customersthatstick.com

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There’s one thing you need to do when creating a successful blog:

Offer value.

Whatever you do (outreach, writing content, creating a product….), you need to offer value. Very simply put, that’s how you stand out and get a following.

Obviously, there’s more to blogging, but if you’re just starting out and are puzzled about what you need to do, offering value will slingshot you far ahead of your competition (including more seasoned bloggers!). Just start reaching out to blogging peeps and offer to help them in some way. You’ll be surprised how far that’ll get you

Camilla Hallstrom – Influencewithcontent.com

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The best thing you can do for your blogging is to survey, interview, and talk to your readers and customers as much as possible. Bloggers complain about finding good content ideas — this solves that. Bloggers complain about not knowing how to promote posts — this solves that, users will tell you where they hang out online. Bloggers complain about not knowing how to monetize their blog — this solves that, users will tell you what they desperately want help doing.

Devesh Khanal – Growandconvert.com

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If you want success in blogging you have to know what your topic is and how your audience are. That means picking a focused niche and then doing the appropriate research.

One way you can do this is with keyword research. This helps you find out from Google what exactly people are searching for, and whether there is any volume (ie. searches per month). After all, it is a balance. You need a focused enough niche that you stand out, but wide enough that there is an audience you can serve for years to come. So, grab yourself a Google adwords account and start checking in keyword planner!

Ashley Faulkes – Madlemmings.com

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My Three Favorite Blogging Tips

#1: User-Friendly Navigation: Keeping your blog easy to navigate with intuitive category labels will help people find the information they seek much faster. Also, make it easy for readers to leave comments and share your posts on various channels that will help lead others back to you.

#2: Commenting on Other Blogs: Look for other blogs in your industry that have a good amount of traffic and comments, and contribute a comment, but only if you think you can add value to the conversation. Be careful not to promote your blog here; just add some insight, and do it on a regular basis. Make seeking out and commenting on other blogs a part of your daily activities. The more you contribute to the conversation happening around you, the more you’ll be seen as a thought-leader (and people will click on your link to check you out).

#3: Syndicate, syndicate, syndicate… share your content via all social channels always including Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, which also makes it easy for others to share. And don’t be afraid to do it more than once periodically sharing old posts via your social channels, especially those that were well received. Also let others freely repost your content with a link back to the original post.

Ted Rubin – Tedrubin.com

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The blogging success formula can be different for bloggers depending on many factors. For me, quality post content, lively engagement on the blog, and interactions on the social media worked perfectly. SEO using keywords too helped but that hadn’t been my primary focus. And, of course, you cannot ignore the importance of creating a good user experience for your blog readers to make your blog successful.

Harleena Singh – Freelancewriter.co

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The biggest tip I can give anyone wanting to find success with blogging is to make those all important connections. It’s all about the connections.

You can be the most prolific writer in the world.
Your content might be the most amazing, compelling thing since sliced bread.
You might have the most dazzling website design ever.
But if no one is actually coming to read, comment, engage and interact, or share your content then your blog might as well not exist.

I’ve met many bloggers with more traffic than they can handle, yet still see no comments or engagement in their blog post.

Connecting and interacting with other folks from other blogging communities, blogs and social media sites is the key to finding blogging success I think.
You’ve got to build your own community.
You can’t just sit behind your blog and hope that something will happen. Or worst still, just sit behind your blog and never respond to a single comment left for you.

You’ve got to get out there, meet, connect, engage and interact, genuinely help others. Just be the person of value and I guarantee you, you’ll find blogging success.

Fabrizio Van Marciano – Magnet4blogging.net

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First question to ask yourself is why are you doing it? Is it for the love of the subject, is it to try and monetise your site? Whatever the reason you have decided to embark on blogging, write for yourself first. If you write passionately with authority on the subject matter and showing that you care people will engage with you more, link, like and share your content and most importantly come back to hear what you have to say next.

As you build your audience it is important to understand them, in doing so, it will make your content better. Yes, you’re writing for yourself, but, you’re writing content that will resonate with your audience. As you build you’re understanding of them, engage them more and get ideas from them on what content they would like to see from you.

Giving your knowledge, your experience, your expertise will be valued by the audience but it’s up to you to make sure that you’re getting the return you need, whatever that is, credibility or financial. Don’t forget whilst building your audience to build your touch points with them, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram the others and of course email. Your email list will help you promote your new content to your audience directly as anew blogger this takes away the pain of worrying about search engine optimisation, ranking factors etc.

Content will be key to your success; this is what your audience will engage with. Research your pieces to make sure they will resonate, promote them and learn from each piece you produce, helping to make your next post even better.

Be true, be unique, be you.

Barrie Moran – Hitreach.com

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I think that great blogging is ultimately a mix of awesome content that is properly optimized for search engines and promoted in all the right places. That said, none of it would be possible without the content. As bloggers, I believe our main focus should be on creating the best possible content for our audience. Think of your readers before and as you write – is it something they would be interested in? Is it something that would provide value to your target audience? After all, even if you’re the first result on Google searches the traffic won’t help you much if visitors leave your blog in seconds because of bad content!

Lilach Bullock – Lilachbullock.com

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Treat your own blog like a client. Have an editorial calendar, commit to writing on a certain schedule (under-committing is better in the beginning) and take those deadlines seriously! Also, keep in mind that most blogs stall out within the first six months – so make it your goal to be diligent and consistent for at least six months. What you’ll find at the end is that blogging for yourself is now habit.

Gina Horkey – Horkeyhandbook.com

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I attribute most of my blogging success to the connections I’ve made. Without the amazing friends I’ve met and collaborations I’ve done, I’d still be stuck at square one.

If you’re just getting started or waiting for that big breakthrough moment, I encourage you to start reaching out to others. Reply to peoples’ posts on social media. Share their content. Comment on their blog posts. If you’re consistent, you’ll find that many of these simple communications will begin turning into friendships and leading into collaboration opportunities. I know it can be scary, but it’s 100% worth it!

Krista Rae – Kristarae.co

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Consistency and Variety! I have been blogging for over 15 years. Blogging is a journey, you must follow it over time and continue blogging through the ups and downs.

One key to making it fresh over time is to realize that you have a variety of reader types, different personas. Create different formats, sizes, and styles on the same topics. Try videos, infographics, long copy, short copy, detailed analysis and humorous approaches. You will find you can create different ways for your readers to engage with you.

Bryan Eisenberg – Bryaneisenberg.com

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My one best tip is never be afraid to ask for help. The blogosphere is a very friendly supportive place. There are lots of people out here ready and willing to offer their time, information, and experience if you are ready to put yourself out there. But you have to get past the fear of embarrassment. You have to shed the myth that successful people know it all and never have to ask for help. And I came to a conclusion about this topic that has helped a lot of people get past this mental block. Think about the other person. When you fail to ask, you are robbing the other person of the joy that comes from helping another human being who can do nothing for them but say thank you. We all know how good we feel when we help a neighbor or do something nice for a friend or family member.

There are people out there with talent, skills, knowledge, experience, and even time who are just waiting for someone to put their hand up and say hey you know so much more about this stuff than I do would you please help me understand it. There is an old line about how when the student is ready the teacher will appear. I Have been blessed to have many teachers in my career so far. I’ve also been blessed to inspire and educate others.

Are you ready? The websites and blogs of the other amazing people who contributed to this article are a great place to start. Read some posts, leave some comments, ask some questions, share some posts, and begin building relationships with the people who could be your teachers.

Maxwell Ivey – Blindblogger.net

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Quality, consistency, SEO, and other factors are common and important spots to concentrate but there are other ways to help your blogging see more success. Social schema is a piece most overlook but it can give a huge boost to the success of your content on social along with having other SEO benefits.

Social schema helps your posts look the most appealing when shared on social media. Much as we craft our own meta descriptions to increase the likelihood someone will click on us in search results, social schema allows us to make our posts appear with optimal preview images, headlines, and descriptions when shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks.

If you don’t provide social schema most social networks will still attempt to display a preview using other information they can gather, but why leave it to chance? You have the ability to make your posts appear the way you want, use it. Take the time to add social schema to your posts (a simple task with WordPress plugins like the popular Yoast SEO) and you’ll increase the chances of people clicking and sharing your more targeted content.

Ben Brausen – Benbrausen.com

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It’s pretty simple…

DON’T BE A D*CK

Seriously.

Your success in blogging (or any area of your life at that), will hinge significantly on how many people like you in your industry/niche.

And how do you do this?

By helping them: commenting on their posts, retweeting them, spotting error’s on their site or writing AWESOME guest posts for them.

If you do this consistently… you will find success come your way… both faster and in greater quantities than you ever thought possible.

Tom Hunt – Virtualvalley.io

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Every person who starts blogging hopes to find success with it — the challenge that so many run into is being able to define what exactly success looks like.

Is it being able to monetize your blog? If so, how much do you intend to earn? Is it generating leads for your offline business, or driving downloads for your new app? Is it to create exposure for a particular cause, charity, or political agenda? Is it simply to develop a creative outlet or to meet new people across the world with similar interests?

When a new blogger begins scouring the world wide web for tips on building a successful blog, the results can be nothing short of overwhelming. Thousands upon thousands (millions?) of self-professed gurus are ready to share (often at a price) their best practices for successful blogging. The real truth of it is this — before you get too caught up in trying to implement every idea from every ‘how to’ article you find, spend a bit of time soul-searching and figure out why you started blogging in the first place.

Without understanding why, you’ll never be able to define what success will look like for you.

Brent Jones – Brentjonesonline.com

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My best tip is to promote, promote, promote.

Promoting your blog comes before any other aspect of blogging. If no one knows about your blog, you could have the greatest content in the world, but no one will come to your blog to read it.

I recommend promoting on social media sites, joining Facebook groups that allow for self-promotion, participating in forums that allow you to leave a link, commenting on other blogs, and guest posting. In short, do anything you can to get exposure to your blog.

Janice Wald – Mostlyblogging.com

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Listen to your readers. If you don’t have readers yet, virtually eavesdrop on people you wish were your readers! Notice the ways they talk about their challenges or frustrations. Use their words–not your expert perspective–to inspire your posts. You’ll see more organic growth and a lot higher level of trust much faster.

Tara Gentile – Taragentile.com

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In order to succeed with your blog, you need to think of it as your platform to build a following and become an expert in a niche. Don’t try to approach blogging as a short-term make money activity, because not only you’ll pick the wrong niche, but you’ll be dissappointed very quickly. There’s nothing more frustrating than a blog that doesn’t make you any money. Instead, try to use your blog as your long-term launchpad, create a tribe of people trully excited with who you are and what you have to teach. This takes time, but the results are amazing. Just think on Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin. They started putting out content and one of the reason they are so succesful right now it’s because of their blog and their patience. So model their approach and take the long-term route.

Hernan Vazquez – Hernanvazquez.com

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Being a social media addict, I find my connections and social media profiles the best way to reach my target audience. The most important suggestion I can give for blogging success is to build good relationships with people of your niche, as I believe they are the most important part of business.

Erik Emanuelli – Erikemanuelli.com

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1.  Answer the questions your audience is asking you. By talking about topics your audience wants to talk about, you have a greater chance of getting feedback and generating a discussion.  It is why it’s important to be interactive & listen to your fans.
2.  Say something each time that helps your readers do something differently or better.  That way they feel like they accomplish something productive by reading the blog,
3.  Have a call to action within the blog. i.e. follow you on Twitter, sign up to your mailing list or even giving something away, like a free chapter or tips to keep them interested.

Jeff Stoller – YouWantToBeAnEntrepreneur.com

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My best tip is to write or create constantly. You become a better writing by writing. You become a better video blogger by filming videos. Reading more, waiting on the sidelines or waiting for the miracle tactic won’t help you be successful blogging. The only thing that will make you more successful is to get out there and blog.

Greg Rollet – Ambitious.com

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We provide well-written, quality content focused on a specific target audience. We never vary from this. I write to that audience and only use guest posters who do the same. We insert pictures with descriptions and ensure we meet SEO standards. Content is pulled from interviews, books, journalist inquiries, Quora questions, and articles to remain fresh and timely. Pick a target audience within a niche you love and write to them. Focus on their needs and wants; use photos and engaging content. You can outsource SEO from the beginning but don’t outsource your content until you’ve connected with your audience.

Tiffany Wright – Theresourcefulceo.com

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My advice to bloggers would be to make the most out of their WordPress plugins. Blogs are meant to bring traffic through to your site and build your email list. So make sure that people searching any given topic related to your site can find you through a Google search. Install the SEO plugin Yoast, and give each of your blog posts a relevant page title and write a compelling meta tag description that utilizes keywords. Second, look into other useful WordPress plugins to build your email list with forms, popups and ebooks — such as Sumome, Content Upgrades and Gravity Forms. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP is another personal favorite because it keeps track of your analytics such as bounce rate, page views, and provides you with other web traffic source details. Here is a full list of 27 top rated WordPress plugins I recommend to scale and optimize your blog.

Matthew Capala – Searchdecoder.com

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How to be a better blogger?

If you want to have massive success from blogging, the first step is to identify who your target audience is. Demographics; age, gender, location, interests etc. If you don’t know who you are talking to, then how do you know they’d be interested in what you have to say?

Second I don’t believe you can be all things to all people.

Today I’m going to challenge you to think about your niche in a way that makes you stand out. This is not an option☺, this is mandatory if you want your audience to pay attention to what you have to say.

Third, taking this approach will help you get a leg up on your competition by setting you apart from the rest but also it helps you to connect and build relationships.

Forth, and from a pragmatic perspective this approach makes it’s easier to create content.

As a Pinterest expert my blogs are about helping bloggers and businesses get more traffic and sales to their blog and website using Pinterest. I feel strongly about helping people and if you start with the mindset of helpfulness your creative juices will flow and you’ll develop great ideas on how to accomplish that.

Avoid limiting yourself to blogs that only focus on your products. Instead also use the indirect approach of helping vs. the direct approach of selling or promoting because no one wants to be sold to. People can tell if all you want to do is sell your stuff. Think helpfulness.

Pinterest is a unique platform and people go there looking for help so it only makes sense to create posts that my target audience will find relevant, interesting, informative, and ultimately they will take action on. If my audience only reads my posts but they’re not taking action on it then I’ve failed. (Meaning I haven’t helped them)

If you are not sure what content to write check out what your competition is writing about. I’m not suggesting you copy them but observe what people are saving. To find that out use this URL www.pinterest.com/source/yourcompetitionURL.com you can easily find out what they love by checking your Pinterest analytics and Google analytics once a month. The analytics will reveal what content your audience is likes best. People like to consume content in different ways. For example, if your target audience loves eggs, don’t assume they all like scrambled eggs. Offer them options like hard boiled eggs, poached, sunny side up, over easy, and so forth; you’ll get more shares that way too!

What that means for bloggers is repurposing your most popular content into other formats such as; infographics, how-to’s, cheat sheets, checklists, guides, an e-book, and so forth to get more people sharing your stuff. Remember that the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it does text so always include images in your blog posts every 100 – 300 words.

Time is money. Take a course on how to blog versus reading every blog out there. Invest in yourself. I’m glad you’re reading this blog post and getting inside tips from influential bloggers. However, at some point you need to sit down and create a strategy and map out your tactics on how to get more people to read your blog. You do that by taking a course from someone who has already made all the mistakes, has done all the thinking & research for you. It will save you a ton of headache, time and money.

My last tip is to share your blog posts on Pinterest. The shelf life of a blog post on Pinterest can lasts for years. On Facebook, they are around for only a few hours (if you’re lucky). I still have blogs from three years ago that are still being shared. No other social platform can do that for me. In terms of ROI, that’s phenomenal.

In Summary:

● be clear about who your audience is
● don’t be all things to people
● think helpfulness
● don’t just talk about selling your stuff
● check out your competition for ideas
● repurpose your best content into different mediums
● use lots of visuals
● invest in yourself by taking a course
● share your blog posts on Pinterest (with images)

Anna Bennett – Whiteglovesocialmedia.com

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Learn from my mistakes! If I had to boil it down to just a few things:

– Have a clean website with zero clutter.
– Learn SEO/audience building from Brian Dean (http://backlinko.com).
– In regard to content creation, focus more on quality than quantity.
– Build a relationship with 3 bloggers in your space and get on a ‘mastermind’ call with them once every other week. You need like minded friends!
– Choose 1 or 2 social networks and get as big of a following on them as possible.

At the end of the day: Focus and Quality.

Ryan James – Startupsavant.com

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I grew my blog traffic from 700 to 25,000 pageviews in a single month, despite having been a Huffington Post blogger for almost three years prior, with one single strategy – Pinterest + Boardbooster. I didn’t just join Pinterest, I used Boardbooster to set up an entire Pinterest strategy and keep it running, and I only spend one hour a month on Pinterest. And, I started with Boardbooster for free.

Kara Gorski – Karagorski.com

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I have 3 tips actually:

1.)Be yourself – Every blogger has their own unique story and people follow you because they like you or resonate with you. So don’t pretend to be someone else. Find your own voice and be consistent with it.

2.)Engage with your audience – Make it your priority to always respond to every comment on your blog. it’s just a way to show people that you’re a genuine person and you do care about your audience. People will notice and they will engage with you more in return.

3.)Network with other bloggers – Relationships are key to any blogger’s success. So make time to visit other blogs, comment on their posts and outreach to them via email. You need to make friends who you can learn from or share experience with. A strong network of blogging friends will surely help you succeed a lot faster.

Tung Tran – Cloudliving.com/

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At Paper Anniversary by Anna V., we help couples commemorate their love story- through custom designed first anniversary gifts . We sell solely online, so blogging and content marketing have been a core part of our marketing strategy since day 1. When doing research for content creation, we really put ourselves in our customer’s shoes… what questions may they be asking Google, around the time they’ll be searching for an anniversary gift? Our posts are structured around useful long-tail keywords. For example, our informative post “Why is Paper the Traditional First Anniversary Gift?” generates a large chunk of traffic and sales for our store each month! We use Canva to create beautiful graphics (specifically, our graphics with romantic anniversary quotes have gone viral on Pinterest!) We’ve had success finding ghostwriters on Upwork.

Anna V – Paper-anniversary.com

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The first step is to define exactly what success looks like for your blog. In most cases, it will be monetization. But, there are a lot different ways to make money through blogging.

You can do it with ad revenue, affiliate marketing, lead generation, product sales, and many other ways. Each one demands a slightly different approach to achieve success. For example, let’s say you want to make money through affiliate marketing, writing in-depth reviews and case studies featuring different tools is a good strategy. If you’re looking to make money through a CPM ad revenue model, you’ll target high volume informational keywords.

Regardless of the end goal, one thing I always recommend to other bloggers is to focus on building an email list from day one. And, really think about segmentation. The more targeted you can be with your list segments, the better chance you’ll have of monetizing the audience, whether it’s through affiliate promotions, product sales or lead nurturing. I wrote a monster tutorial covering 25 list building strategies I used to grow my email list over 15,000 subscribers with just 20 blog posts here. Start implementing those tactics and you’ll be off to a fast start.

Robbie Richards – Robbierichards.com

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When starting a blog, most people immediately jump to tactics like SEO or A/B testing web design. That’s definitely important, but the biggest “win” to get your blog to break through the noise is developing an angle that makes you different.

If you look at some of the biggest bloggers out there, they’ve all got their “thing.” Neil Patel invests a lot of time and money (sometimes up to $30k) into creating free guides. Tim Ferriss writes long form content about experiments he’s running in his life.

You don’t necessarily have to be better than everyone else. You just have to find an angle that makes you different.

Eric Siu – Singlegrain.com

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My best recommendation is to be on the forefront of content marketing and blogging. There are wonderful resources such as bloggingtips.com and hubspot.com. In fact Hubspot offers Inbound Marketing certifications. It is important that all of your creative team members and outside vendors have a strong educational foundation and are speaking the same language when it comes to creating content that fits your buyer’s persona, journey, and content marketing methods.

Don Lardizabal – 1hourbreak.com

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To be a successful blogger you have to find content that resonates with your audience and answers a particular queries intent. Meaning, if someone types in “how to do x” you need to create content that clearly answers that question in a fashion that your audience will understand and find helpful. You’ll want to review your competition to see how other bloggers are answering the question and provide better content than them. The Internet becomes more and more saturated every day so it’s essential to create content that doesn’t just meet a particular word count but actually answers the problem in the most beneficial way possible.

Chris Dreyer – Attorneyrankings.org

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First, knowing the audience you’re trying to reach is very important, so your posts engage them and keep them coming back for more; therefore it’s very important to write only about a specific niche e.g. if you write about fashion and style your blog should be relevant to it.

Second is to equip your readers with the information they are searching for, it’s possible with the help of Google’s people also ask” boxes, all you need to do is search a question that relates to your particular niche and Google will suggest you similar question the people are searching for another way is to utilize the help of public forums like Quora, Reddit, and Facebook group.
The third is to make your article interesting with the help of info graphs, gifs, images, and subheading people usually scroll through the content before reading it and literally no one enjoys reading huge paragraphs of text from the beginning till the end.

Promotion is the key

Promoting your articles is just as important as creating it and the best place to promote it are social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Use popular hashtags to reach maximum people in your particular niche, if your article is good enough you are most likely to get a lot of shares. However, posting once on social media is not enough. You have to build and continue to be active and engaged in your community.

Building a relationship with influencers of your industry plays a vital role in the success of your blog; you can share their article or mention them in your blog as well as drop an honest and insightful comment on their blog but make sure it’s not something like “great work” or “nice” but rather something more meaningful, they are most likely to notice you and promote your work in the future.

Ronald D’souza – AngelJackets.com

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There is a secret sauce for success with blogging and it’s this: Stroke people’s egos. Seriously. That’s it. It’s not a new concept and it feels like it shouldn’t be that simple, but it is the secret sauce. What this means is you need to visit the blogs of the people you admire and of the influencers in your space—and comment on their articles. When they eventually come to your site to read and comment on your articles (and they will), you respond to them, engage them in conversation, and make them feel good about spending a small part of their day with you. I know, I know. The criticism is that if you stroke people’s egos for the sake of blogging success, it’s fake. The trouble with that criticism is, if you ARE fake about it, you’ll be spotted a mile away and it won’t work. You have to be genuine. You truly have to appreciate those who spend time with your blog. Because of that, it’s very hard work and it won’t happen overnight. But you will have blogging success if you follow this simple rule.

Gini Dietrich – Spinsucks.com

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For me one of the keys is to try to write in series on a focused topic, rather than to write scattergun about a variety of topics. That way you build credibility quickly in that topic.

So, for example for one topic I might do posts along the lines of:
– A “Biggest Mistakes” list post: – a long, comprehensive post covering the biggest mistakes people make in the field I was covering. Lots of examples and links to external resources
– A “point of view” post – my own, unique take on what it takes to be successful in the field. The point of view would, of course, address the biggest mistakes from the previous post.
– A “case study” – and in-depth review of how I or a client had succeeded using the approach from my point of view post.
– A “how to guide” – with in-depth instructions on what to do to implement the approach from my point of view post.

Doing your post sin series like this that tie together really establishes your expertise and takes your readers on a journey from discovering the problems about a topic to your specific solutions.

Ian Brodie – Ianbrodie.com