There are dos and don’ts for making sure you have a successful blog. If not you just praying it will happen… it won’t.

And by successful, I mean people not only read your blog… you make money from it.

In a few short months, my imreviews.co site went from a dozen page views to a couple of thousand monthly page views. Its already netted a couple thousand for me in affiliate commissions.

Check these do's and don't to help you with your blog game.

But it didn’t come easy. There were a bunch of things that didn’t go my way.

But you gotta remember. To not to get down on yourself when that happens.

There gonna be ebbs and flows during your journey.

With out further ado here they are.

DO:

1. Create Epic Content

Pretty obvious yet so many bloggers do not accomplish it. They running their blogs like a 2-bit printing mill. Releasing useless content. Releasing super short posts.  Releasing content with no context. Do you get my drift?

Your audience wants to feel better or have faith they can be better after they read your content. The way you succeed with this if you provide value.  Value that is actionable and ideally measurable.

It is true not everyone wants to read 2,000-3,000 word blog posts. But the ones that do will be the ones paying you down the line.

2. Break up Your Text

This goes hand in hand with writing content.  People get to turned off when they see a bunch of unbroken text.  The natural inclination is to skip it altogether.

By breaking it down it gives your audience some breaks and looks good to the eye as well.

Some popular ways to do this is:

  • Sub-headings
  • Images and/or video
  • Quotes
  • Numbered lists
  • Bullet points
  • Short Paragraphs (2-3 sentence long.)

3. Be Real

Even through text people can tell if you being fake or not.  Be yourself. Put your real personality on display.

Not only will this bring a unique flavor to your blog.  It will match with a certain segment in the niche you’re in. They will gravitate towards you because they relate.

4. Write a Blog and Build a Business.

So often many new bloggers write about their passions.  This is okay no knock against it. But when its 2 years later and you haven’t made a single dime from your blog. This will be why.

You have to admit to your self you hobby blogging not running a online business.

5. Take Website Design Seriously.

This comes into play especially if you entering a very competitive niche. You have to make sure when people come to your site its legit.

And by legit I mean people get the impression you take what you do seriously. And you actually have knowledge in said subjects.

The old cliche is very true here. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”

If you see me in the club popping bottles of Dom in VIP, your first impression might be is this guy is important. (Btw in case you wondering, I’m not lol)

So make it count. Yes, I know you hear the stories of those who succeeded with ugly blogs. But for every rule, there is always the exception.

6. Get Your STamina and passion up.

Blogging is a marathon — not a sprint. So be ready to dig yourself into the trenches. You have to have your end goal in mind to keep your passion and stamina up to see it to fruition.

7. Post on a Schedule.

Once your blog is up and running. You need to come up with a posting schedule. Whether you want to post daily or weekly or even just once a month. You decide and stick with it for a while.

If you realize it doesn’t suit you in your niche or doesn’t work with your schedule switch it up.

Since I work a full-time job (not much longer) while blogging. I post once a week. It works out for me.

I know you hear on the interwebs. You should try to post everyday.  The reasoning behind that is two things. For one it can help you grow your audience faster. Especially if its epic content. And two it will keep you in your audience’s mind.

This is true but quality trumps quantity.

8. Prioritize Quality over Quantity

Your end goal is to make money from your online business. In this case via the medium of blogging.

To do so you need to produce epic content. Content that’s oozing value through the seams.

You want your stuff to be shared and bookmarked. You want it to breathe a life of its own.

So create the awesome sauce. Make sure you work towards being the best in your niche.

9. Share Because You Care.

I get it. If feels nature as a blogger you should be linking to your own content. At all times.

However, this, in the long run, this can hurt your audience. Which in turn hurts you.  Linking to other bloggers shows your audience you truly are in it for them. Even if leads them off your site.

Plus its a win-win. When you link to other bloggers writing great content it increases their link juice.  In turn, if you wrote something great they will be more than likely willing to link to you too.

10. Get to know your audience.

This means making sure you writing content they willingly will engage on. Always taking the time to ask them what’s on their minds.  

What are their current struggles and pains?  Lastly, what else would they like to hear from you?  By doing this well you will build a good understanding of your audience.

11. Stay Learning.

The blogging landscape is fluid. It stays changing. If you plan on being successful you need to change with it.  

This means always brushing up on your skills and honing your trade. Whether it be content creation, marketing or social media. Make sure to plan on keeping up with the trends of your niche.

12. Drive traffic to your blog.

Another newbie mistake. Traffic doesn’t magically appear to your blog. Even magic beans needed water to sprout.  You need to water your blog with traffic. You can use these tactics to drive traffic:

  • SEO
  • Pinterest
  • Paid Ads
  • Many more.

13. Grow and nurture an email list.

The plain truth is your email list is the #1 factor determining your income. So your main intent is to provide so much content your audience will want to keep hearing from you. Every post you write should have the end goal of having people sign up to your list.

The quote among successful bloggers is “The money is in the list”.  

So realize this is one of the more important parts of your business.  I use Convert Kit for my email marketing needs. It checks every box for me.

14. Have a strategy to monetize.

Gotta have a plan in place to make money.  Remember blogs don’t make money businesses do. You have to find out what works for you and the niche your in.

There many ways to make money. Do your due diligence.

15. Give more value than you get back.

The pinnacle you are reaching. Is the point that you giving so much value there is no way your audience can ever give enough back. Once you fully grasp and implement this, you’ll become successful and profitable.

DON’T:

16. Be spammy.

People have a low tolerance for spam. Especially, if it’s coming from you and they know its not genuine. Remember your audience wants to connect with you the real you. So make sure whatever you send them is genuine and valuable.

17. Use Copyrighted Pictures.

This is a big no-no.  A lot of newbies think they can use any image they find on Google. Don’t do this. There are plenty of free sites that you can get stock photos for your blog.

Here is a site that actually collects all the photos from free stock sites on there Libre Stock.

18. Guess Price Your Products.

Pricing is important. Its a place where a lot of people get stuck. Because you don’t want to underprice or overprice your digital products.  Do your due diligence and see what your competition is doing.

19. Be Cheap With It.

Purpose of your blog is to make money. I get it. But some bloggers want to be cheap with the content they provide. Because they want to keep the good stuff for their ebook or course.

But you will understand that the more you share upfront.  The more willing your audience will be to get your paid stuff. Trust.

20. Be a jack*ss.

Blogging is an online thing. But to become successful you going to need to build real relationships with other bloggers.

So the point is to get along with other people!

21. Jack Peoples Content.

I feel like this should be a given. But it’s not. You see it all the time people copying and pasting someone’s else’s content straight onto their blog. With no changes. This is straight plagiarism. Under any circumstance is this acceptable. It’s a douchebag move.

That is blatantly wrong.  However there nothing wrong with modeling that content into a better version from your perspective.

This is referred to as the Skyscraper Technique by Brian Dean.

For example, this post was modeled off a post which had 10 do’s and don’ts.  I boosted it up to 21 to make it better.

In closing

You going to fudge up more than once. But you gotta stick with it. Every blogger worth their lick will have stories for days. Including yours truly.

For example:

  • I linked the wrong affiliate link to page getting hundreds a view per month.
  • I tried learning to code instead of just using a page builder.
  • I outsourced some website work which I ended having to do all over again on my own.
  • I published a blog post that had no content on it.
  • And a few other ones.

Even with these, I’ve been able to start growing my blog. While working my full-time job. If can do it… you can do it too.

For more blogging posts, visit the home page at imreviews.co




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