With the advent of the World Wide Web, multiple mediums of information, knowledge, communication, and business have opened up. Now people are closer to what they need and can get what they want whenever they want!
One such medium of information is a blog. And, for that matter, bloggers are an essential part of the internet, making our lives easier and keeping us informed. If you want to become a part of the growing blogger community and don’t know how? You are in the right place.
To help you kick start your blogging journey, we will take you through 7 key factors you need to know about blogging. But first, let’s explore what a blog is.
What is Blogging?
The term blog comes from the term “weblog” which means keeping a record of ideas, opinions, experiences, and knowledge online, in a certain order. A blog is a website that may include videos, text, photos, audio, etc.
Let’s take the example of some blogs. Apartment Therapy is a popular blog on interior design. It has all the info you need, related to the topic in one place. Smitten Kitchen is another famous blog where the chef shares all her experimental recipes.
Things to Consider Before Starting a Blog
Below are some important factors you need to think about and thoroughly consider before making blogging your career. We have enlisted these factors based on expert recommendations and their popularity in the blogging world!
1. What are the prospects?
Before you dive into blogging, you must know what you are headed to. Earning good money through blogging is surely possible as many popular blogs are earning millions of dollars. Such blogs include HuffPost, Moz, Mashable, etc.
Yet, competition is also growing faster with over 500 million blogs in 2021. The competition makes it tougher to rank higher, tougher to get noticed by people, and tougher to reach the right audience. Thus, you need to consider the growing number of blogs and how you can stand out of the crowd before you get started.
2. Set a niche
After you are aware of opportunities in blogging, try to choose a niche for yourself that will become your goal! When you are focused on a specific goal, you can achieve it faster and in a better way. If you are vague about what you want to do, you will not only waste time but will also put yourself in stressful situations that can otherwise be avoided.
Thus, write down your skills, what you want to learn, and what areas are profitable. While you might love to write on a topic, it might not prove very fruitful, considering your target audience.
Thus select a popular niche, you can rank for and which inspires you! For blog inspiration, we recommend you check out BlogPakistan. It is an emerging blog containing information from the IT sector to the automobile industry. It also covers the latest news, lifestyle trends, information related to prize bonds, etc.
Another example can be PricesPakistan which contains information related to home appliances, mobiles, product listings, ways to use various apps, etc.
3. Gain skills other than writing
When you are writing a blog, there is a lot of effort that goes into writing alone! But the hard truth is, it’s not enough. The writing needs to be good but to keep readers hooked, you should add pictures, audio, and videos too. With time competition is becoming brutal. To stay afloat going the extra mile is necessary.
You can add videos from your YouTube. You can take nice shots and add photos to your blog too. Plus, using your photos instead of Google images will improve the performance of your blog. Another skill you can work on is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is a set of techniques to improve your content to rank on Google.
About SEO, it is a deep sea, with multiple areas so we recommend you dive deep into it before you start writing your blog.
4. Choose a platform, to begin with
Before you start blogging, choosing a platform is important. There are many options out there but it isn’t that simple. To publish your content on a website you need to know about websites and how they work.
Firstly you will need to learn what web hosting, domain name, and content management systems mean. Web Hosting is like buying a house in a city. You need to buy it to be found online. A domain name is a name your website will be known for. E.g. “Wikipedia” is a domain name that the famous website is known for.
About content management system (CMS), it is an interface with tools and packages that lets you manage your content online. A popular example of CMS includes WordPress. It powers 42% of websites and is a great option for people who don’t know how to code.
5. Blogging requires consistency and patience
Everyone keeps talking about consistency and patience as vital skills. While they are essential for everyday life, blogging is something that will teach you the actual meaning of these qualities. Blogs can take years to rank and may not even rank if you are not on the right track!
Sounds discouraging right! While it is a work of patience, you can work your way up if you keep working hard. The point is to know the dynamics of search engines and the timeline of your work before you start. Don’t expect overnight success because that’s not how blogging works.
6. Consider multiple channels
Before you start blogging make sure you are clear about the platforms you will use. Many people use only one channel for their blog but using multiple channels can improve blog traffic. So ideally you should start with one platform like blogger, word press, square space, etc., and later share it across platforms like Medium and LinkedIn.
While you might think Google will penalize duplicate content, it won’t do that to your content, therefore using multiple channels to repost your content is a great idea you can consider before you start.
7. Consider strong marketing strategies
When you are done writing, what can you do to promote your blog? You can market it! While blogging may seem like just plain writing it also involves marketing and displaying content well. If you are just starting out, consider the following marketing strategies:
- Email marketing
- Quora marketing
- Facebook ads
- Reaching out to people in the blogging community etc.
Make sure to have a strong profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Build connections before you start blogging so you know people in the field and they know you as an authentic blogger!
Conclusion
In this article, we went through 7 things you should think about before you start blogging. While it may not seem profitable right off the bat, it has strong prospects that are very promising. If you want to make millions like the many popular blogs out there start with a niche. That way, you will have a stronger focus.
Work on skills like graphic designing, marketing, SEO, and of course, writing. Afterwards, choose a platform to publish your content and consider multiple channels to market your blogs. Most importantly, make sure to work hard and be patient, as blogging isn’t something you can do overnight.
Also, consider learning content marketing, ad promotion, social media promotions, and build contacts to become a leading name in your particular niche. We understand all these steps are very overwhelming but, take them one at a time, and you will be good to go.
Lastly, study blogging further and keep learning with time as it has much more than what meets the eye! s