Are you having trouble improving the quality of your blog? Do you find it difficult taking your blog to the next level? The time and effort that is consumed to create and manage a single blog post is a struggle that bloggers know all too well. Blogging just isn’t as an easy feat as it may seem.
Whether you are beginning to write your first blog post or looking to improve your 50th blog, developing the necessary skills to write a quality blog is key to maintaining a profitable website. Here are seven skills that are essential to develop into a great blogger and stand out from the WordPress community.
You are what you write
The content is the foundation of your blog. This means you must ensure your writing is a reflection of yourself, your interests and experiences. Consider what topics you wish to share and deliver to your targeted readers. Are the subjects relevant and relatable to your readers? Are they following any specific recent events or occasions? Select topics that are appealing by aligning themes to your targeted audience. Ensure that your content is specific to the topic of the blog and not vague. Your writing must be engaging and interesting by focusing on topics that are original and unique. Look out for new emerging trends within your area of interest as inspiration to develop new and innovative blog topics.
Most readers will be seeking articles for assistance or inspiration, so it’s beneficial to provide recommendations and suggestions that add greater value for the reader. Incorporating personal experiences will also increase the relevance and relatability of your blog post, creating a ‘human’ element to your blog.
It is important that before writing your blog, you conduct research on the area of the topic. Not only will this increase the quality of the content but also allows you to gain a broader understanding on the topic and to check whether your ideas and recommendations are accurate and true.
Know your stuff
Be proficient or at least relatively proficient in coding languages. Even understanding the basics will be greatly beneficial for amplifying your blog. Learning codes such as HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript, will ease your process of editing and decorating the text, images, layout, and design of your blog in a way that you desire! Take an online course through Upskilled, to develop and refine your tech skills and attain certificates and qualifications following your course.
You can also ensure that you are optimising your website for SEO by developing the skill of using key search words within the titles of your blog. This will generate more clicks for your website and increase the likelihood for your blog to be viewed.
Developing your tech skills is also a great opportunity to learn how to analyze how well your blog is performing. Look out for content that is the highest source of traffic and any opportunities for growth through deriving insights from analytics.
Flare your writing flair
Your writing style should align with your audience and content topic. Determine whether your writing tone is conversational and friendly and should use colloquial language, or if you are informative and targeting experts, where it would appropriate to use jargon within your area of expertise. Also, ensure that your editing skills are refined to avoid any spelling or grammatical errors that can decrease the quality of your work.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Use images as a visual break from the text-heavy written content throughout your blog. Select relevant images that are appropriate to the theme and ensure that all the images that are selected correspond well with one another. Whether you decide to use clipart images or photography photos, this can impact the sophistication and mood of your blog. You will require photo editing skills by cropping and resizing the photos to meet the size requirement on your blog post.
Spread it like wildfire
To improve traction on your blog, take advantage of the shareability of social media. Share your blog post on multiple media platforms to boost reach and generate virality.
You should also be active on social media, making sure to include links back to your site. Involve yourself in discussions that are made by responders in the comments section, where it is a perfect opportunity to foster new topics for your next blog! Give suggestions as replies to retain your followers’ interest to you personally as a blogger. It is also important to promote yourself on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to increase the popularity and reputation of your professional personal brand which will then lead to increased views of your blog.
Network, network, network!
Reach out to influencers and brand representatives that are related to your blog topic. Increase shareability and awareness and promote their products, where they will then link to your article and you will be exposed to their followers. Connect with bloggers within the WordPress community to assist one another to grow and develop as a community.
Those within the WordPress community can bounce their ideas off each other to foster new innovative and creative topics.
Let’s get started!
Motivation is the absolute key to remaining successful as a blogger. As an independent blogger, you do not have particular deadlines to create and post content. You may be potentially swayed by the ease of the process. However, uploading content on a consistent basis is integral to retaining your audiences appeal and consistently gain traction.
Further, the more you content that you create, the more you will be able to make money from your blogs. You will also be able to gain more practice in writing and marketing skills and make noticeable improvements.
Cassie Phillips
Jade Anderson is an experienced In-house Editor at Upskilled. With a background in online marketing, Jade runs some successful websites of her own. Her passion for the education industry and content is displayed through the quality of work she offers.
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