Blogging can be loads of fun for expert or intermediate bloggers who have had to learn through a lot of trials and errors but for any beginner, the path is full of regrets and often just confusing.
How do I take my blog from zero to 10,000 visitors in a day? How do I monetize my blog? Do I need SEO? What are some of the best plugins I need to use? Who can help me grow my blog and how much do I need to start a blog?
This and many more challenges they face every single day. So I decided to compile the top list of questions I get asked about blogging and seek experts in each field who can give accurate ever green answers to these questions.
Bookmark this page and share it with friends struggling to succeed at blogging.
To a Successful blogging career!
Name: Helen Datsenko
Website: www.blog.ahrefs.com
Twitter:
Question: We have all heard it being said over and over again. Publish as many times as often as you can. From your experience how often do you have to update a blog and what are some of the guiding factors to help determine frequency? – Helen blog ahrefs?
“Publish as many times as often as you can.” – To begin with, I would not agree 100% with this statement as it is.
I believe, when it comes to blogging, it’s more important WHAT you publish, not really HOW OFTEN.
Frequency of posting depends on what you want to achieve with your blogging efforts and what kind of a business you run.
For instance, some businesses can publish newsy content on a daily basis or even more often, keeping clients up to date about their own updates, as well as all the latest news in the industry, and ensuring this way constant flow of traffic to their blog in the first place by the quantity of content they share.
Some can release great elaborately written and content heavy studies, researches, expert round-ups once or twice a month and reap tons of traffic and social love due to the high quality and value of created content.
Ideally, the perfect mix of both would guarantee you success: a couple of high quality posts (both newsy and research-type) shared every week + interesting infographics, quizes, etc. might do the trick. And surely, don’t forget to be consistent with your blogging efforts: create a content calendar and stick to it all the time. Frequency of posting is not that important, but if you chose to share content on a daily basis or twice a week, keep it like this all the time, and don’t miss the time of posting.
Thus, to succeed, just mind variety of types of content you share, be consistent, and always produce content your readers would love and care about. For that, put yourself into their shoes, find out what they like, need or want. Remember, happy well-informed and entertained readers = successful blog.”
See Also- The Morning Routine of 14 Successful SEO Experts and Learn How They Start Their Day.
Name: Andrew Lankman
Website: http://yourhelpfulelf.com/
Twitter: @yourhelpfulelf
Question: Blogging can appear scaring to some people. What advice would you give to any beginner?
If you’re an absolute beginner, and you haven’t done so much as register a domain name, then you need to find out if people even want what you are planning to offer. Too many newbies get disheartened and quit when their first project fails to generate any traffic. Even if you do only the most basic keyword research before starting a project you’ll save yourself from staring at poor traffic results while the salt from your tears taints your beer.
Name: Yaro Starak
Website: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/
Twitter:@yarostarak
Question: Personally, 90% of the people I know who wants to start blogging are thinking of how much money they can. So how can you make money as a blogger?
Yaro is a firm believer that anyone with an accumulated resource of information can create a successful, monetized blog by sharing their information and he has helped plenty of people to do this.
There is one crucial element needed to make money blogging however.
You must research to find out what people will pay for in relation to the information you are sharing.
If you have an audience that will pay for something related to your topic, making money from your blog is certainly possible.
Here is a link to an article Yaro wrote in a blog post about profitable blog topics –
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/15754/blog-topic-profitable/
The link below is an article that Yaro wrote which discusses several of his most successful Blog Mastermind students.
These case studies will provide you with some examples of how other people have chosen blog topics that they have monetized by selling something to their audience that their readers wanted and are willing to pay money for:
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/3136/how-to-make-money-with-your-blog/
Name: Adam Connell
Website: www.bloggingwizard.com
Twitter: @AdamJayC
Question: Blogging is not for everyone and even sometimes there might come a time when you just have to quit. What are some of the tale tell signs?
This is so true. Blogging definitely isn’t for everyone.
You need the right motivations to get started and if you don’t have them then you should reconsider whether blogging is right for you.
3 of the key signs are:
A) You’re blogging to pay your rent – Blogging can be a great way to make money but that takes time so if you need money fast, blogging isn’t the right way to go.
B) You don’t enjoy the topic you’re blogging about – You need to choose a niche that vibes with your passions and what you know. If that isn’t the case then you probably shouldn’t quit but you should consider switching to a niche that vibes with your experience and your passion.
C) You don’t enjoy blogging – Blogging is something you should enjoy above all else, if you aren’t enjoying it first consider why you aren’t enjoying it. You may be able to adjust your approach to ensure you actually start to enjoy blogging. If that doesn’t work, consider whether blogging is really a good fit for you.
Name: Jeff Bullas
Website: http://www.jeffbullas.com/
Twitter: @jeffbullas
Question: What are your 3 top blogging tips for newcomers.
1. Discover a niche you are passionate about as that will be the fuel to keep you going when the going gets tough.
2. Create the best content you can that solves problems, educates and inspires people
3. Build your content online distribution from day one on email and social networks.
Name: Cory Collins
Website: www.linkarati.com
Twitter: @Coryrcollins
Question: SEO and blogging goes hand in hand. But understanding how SEO can impact your blogging effort is sometimes quite a challenge for most bloggers. How important is SEO to blogging?
SEO is extremely important to blogging.
Many bloggers hear this and roll their eyes – they don’t want their wonderful writing to be tarnished by SEO keywords, formatting, or best practices.
The reality though is that incorporating SEO into your blogging maximizes your opportunity for success. Why on earth would you put time, energy, care, and resources into blogging if you’re not going to take it seriously? If you leave SEO out of your blogging, you’re limiting the lifetime value of each and every piece of content you create.
Sure, you can ignore SEO in blogging and still be okay some of the time. But when you don’t optimize your content for search? You’ve just severely limited the traffic and visibility potential of your blogging. If you’re blogging for yourself, that might be fine. But if you’re blogging to build an audience, improve visibility, and disseminate ideas, thoughts, and messages? You need to stay on top of SEO.
That doesn’t mean blogging for Google instead of humans. Your content still needs to be incredible, speak to a specific audience, and add value to the conversation. But you need to keep search in mind as you blog.
Name: Ian Cleary
Website: http://www.razorsocial.com/
Twitter: @IanCleary
Question: A blog without the right content is like a desert which will usually dry up and coming up with blogging ideas can be quite a daunting task. What are some of the best way to generate blog content fast.
The best way of coming up with ideas is using an editorial calendar for your blog an every time to you come across an idea that may be good enough for a post add it to the editorial calendar. When you sit down to write you’ll have many ideas to choose from. Some may end up as posts, some will be discarded and some will give you inspiration for other posts. If you’re on WordPress CoSchedule is a great tool for this.
Name: Adegboye Adeniyi
Website: www.vtnssolutions.com
Twitter: @legendcrest
Question: Traffic is today’s online currency. What are the things a beginner needs to do to build traffic on their blog?
As the online landscape get more competitive, “’build it they will come mentality do not just work anymore” especially when you as a beginner is just starting out. The more traction you can get for your website especially in the early days of launching the better. Complementing the various online channels will make it easier to draw traffic to your website so focus on:
1. Never ignore SEO – Most blog lacks this basic technical factors and thereby they lose out on 60% of free traffic they could have gotten
2. Building a robust social media presence where your audience are is a must
3. Google Adwords not compulsory at your early stage
4. Email list building should be the second most important thing on your mind as you start driving traffic to your blog
Name: Sue Anne Dunlevie
Website: http://www.successfulblogging.com/
Twitter: @SueAnneDunlevie
Question: I want to start my own blog & I don‘t even have any idea of what to blog about.
“Before you create any type of content, you need to take a step back and ask yourself, “What problem do I solve for my readers?” By getting in touch with the frustrations and challenges your potential readers have, you’ll be able to discuss these issues and make your posts hit home every time.
So what do I recommend? To send a one question survey email to your subscribers. (If you don’t have a list yet, ask the same question on Twitter or on the groups you belong to in Facebook) The question? “What is your biggest challenge with __your niche____?
For example, one of my clients, Pam, is a wedding planner. So she sent out the question “What is your biggest challenge with planning your wedding?”
She got some great answers, ranging from “my family is interfering with my plans” to “my budget” to “I’m stressed out because there is too much on my to-do list”. Once she got her answers, she figured out which of these frustrations were repeated the most often. There were 3 issues that kept reappearing with most of her survey participants.
I then coached her to make up 3 personas, one for each main challenge her readers described. So, we came up with “Sally, a 40-year-old, 2nd time around bride whose budget is lower than she wants it to be”, “Monica, a 33-year-old first time bride whose family is interfering with her wishes” and “Samantha, a first time bride at 27 who is stressed out by her huge list of things to do”.
Now that she had her 3 typical readers (and ideal customers), she could focus on talking about their problems in her blog posts. When a new reader that was worried about her budget landed on the post Pam wrote about DIY table centerpieces, she felt right at home. The reader felt that Pam was talking right to her.
This process makes it easier to create blog posts that you know will resonate with your readers.”
Bonus Question: What are some of the most recommended plugins for a blog
Answer: As I prepared this question, I came across this list of experts who have answered the question. You can read the whole recommended list here but WordPress SEO, WordPress Editorial Calendar and the social media share pluging Digg Digg carried the day.
Thank you everyone for taking part in this expert insight into blogging. I am certainly sure beginners have enough insights to begin to make informed decisions that can help them grow their blog.
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