When I was still practicing as a nurse way back in 2012, I had a very busy life. I’m taking care of my patients, assisting on medical procedures, and following doctor’s orders. Literally nursing is my world. Not until my boyfriend(now husband) introduced me to the world of blogging. You may find this funny, but the idea came from a serving of lasagna which my husband and I ate in one of our dates back then… and the rest is history.
At first, it’s not that easy because aside from thinking of topics that I would be writing about, I still have to set up everything. Social media accounts, email, blog logo, my own hosting and domain for my website, the design of my blog site, and of course the name of my blog. The first few years of of maintaining my blog is quite hard(no income coming in yet) but it’s ok since I really wanna write about my thoughts on anything. Years after that, brands, PR companies, even local and international clients, started to notice me and contacted me for writing projects, ex-deals, event invites, partnerships, and collaborations which made me really think, “Wow! All the years of hard work in building up my blog is paying off.”
So how did I do It? Here are my 4 practical tips:
1. MAKE YOUR WEBSITE USER AND MOBILE FRIENDLY
Your blog site is also considered as your face online. Maybe you would say, “it is my writing that all of my readers want and interested at, not the look of my website”. Yes, your readers may find your articles interesting and worth reading, but you have to remember that people are visual, and a good looking-blog can add to the total reading experience. Make your website presentable in such a way that it is easy to view and easy to navigate. Choose a web design that is pleasing to the eye. Do not overcrowd it with unnecessary tabs, texts, galleries, and ad placements(i know you could potentially earn from this, but don’t overdo it), that can ruin the overall aesthetics of your blog site design.
More importantly, make it mobile-friendly. You have to consider that most people nowadays are into their mobile phone. According to Statista, in 2021, the number of smartphone users in the world is now 3.8 Billion, that’s about 48.33% of the world’s population owning a smartphone. Knowing these numbers, it is a must to choose a theme that has a responsive mobile optimization where it can adjust to the display size of any mobile device. That way, your blog site will become more readable and accessible to mobile devices.
And lastly, do not use Flash. Flash is already an outdated technology which doesn’t display properly on any mobile device. If your blog site is still Flash-based, I suggest that you switch to a more compatible technology like HTML.
2. WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING THAT YOU LOVE
One thing that I learned through the years in blogging is to write about topics that suit my interest and topics that I’m passionate about. I love pets, music, movies, food, travel, technology, health and beauty, maybe everything under the sun. That is the reason why my blog is a lifestyle-type.
When writing a blog post, as much as possible, make it experience-based, personal, and creative, so that your readers will feel that they can relate to you because they have experienced it(or want to experience too). Use a conversational tone, as if you are telling a story or talking to someone. Create good contents because this increases the chance of shareability.
If you are getting ideas or excerpts from other blogs or resource materials, please, please please, make sure that you cite them well as source in your blog. You don’t want a plagiarism suit right? So give credit to whom credit due.
And just in case your materials will come from a press release or from a guest post, at least tweak it a bit(yes, they usually allow you to edit it) to match your blogging style and voice. If not and if required to be posted as is, make sure that the topic really falls under your niche. Don’t just post to have content. Choose topics that you love and would fit your blogging style.
3. USE THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
As of 2019 and 2020, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 145 minutes per day, up from 142 minutes in the previous year.(Source:Statista.com)>
With people getting hooked to social media, it is now evident that different social media platforms are very important nowadays to maximize and build your online presence. May it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or any channels, be consistent and active in posting good quality and timely content. By combining or linking your blog to your social media channels, it would help increase traffic to your site and would also improve overall engagement to your blog. Don’t forget to to put clickable icons in your blog which directly goes to your blog’s social media accounts.
Use the power of social media for your blog’s advantage. Aside from blog promotion, make it more fun and exciting by treating your readers and followers from time to time with giveaways, surprise raffle, and other exciting online activities.
4. OPTIMIZE YOUR CONTENT
In order for your blog contents to be more discoverable to people on search engines, you should learn how to optimize your blog. This is important because Search Engine Optimization(SEO) method will increase the chance of your content to land on on the top page of any search engine. When that happens, your blog site traffic will potentially increase as well. How to do it? Here are some suggestions.
- Keyword Research and Analysis: By doing this, it will help you determine which keywords your target audience is interested in based on search engine data you collected. Through this, you can now think of topics that are more relevant because it’s what people are searching for.
- Include your keyword to your title:The title of your blog post is the first thing that is being determined by search engines. Always include the keyword in the first 60 characters of your title because usually, search engines like Google shortens the title in the page result. Search engines also use blog post titles to determine the relevance of its content and suggest it based on search query.
- Use internal links: Place a link of your own content to your blog. It’s like you are suggesting the reader to also read your other article for more details. This way, it will help your readers to navigate other pages in your blog.
- Use backlinks from other credible sites. As much as possible, place a link to a specific URL that is relevant to your content. This will send trackable traffic to the source and there is a higher chance or possibility that they will share your post since they are in it. Search engines will see this and would consider your content valuable. This could improve your ranking in search engines where your contents are more likely to appear in search results on specific or related topic.
So that’s all for now. Up to this day, I’m still learning and exploring on how to improve my blog more. It is a continuous learning process. I hope that these 4 simple and practical tips will help you improve your blog as well. If you have other tips, you may share it to the comment section below. ????
