AWARENESS
Creating awareness is one of the most important parts of blogging.
You can have the best content available on the Internet, but if people aren’t aware you exist than you aren’t truly adding or receiving any value.
What makes the top bloggers so successful other than their top-notch content is that everyone is aware they exist.
They know who the top bloggers are because of awareness.
It doesn’t matter how great you are if you aren’t growing your awareness and promoting your blog.
Promote your blog by writing great content, using SEO, writing guest posts, interviewing, advertising and taking advantage of social networks.
BRANDING
Whether or not you are aware of it, your blog is creating a brand.
It doesn’t mean you have to sell something unless you want to, but it does mean that people will recognize you and your blog by its brand and/or personality.
A brand creates a vision in the mind of your readers about who you are and what your blog is about.
Take advantage of the power that branding can create and use it to build a memorable blog readers that loves and want to share.
COMMUNITY
Building a community is very important.
In-fact once you’ve built your community you can build the purpose of your blog around it.
Communities create a sense of life and get your word out, it also helps you to do your best by getting direct feedback on whether or not what you are doing is worth pursuing or not.
Another aspect of having a strong community is that they will go the extra mile to make sure what you have to say is being heard by proactively marketing your content for you, whether sharing your content with their friends by tweeting and liking your content or by word of mouth.
DESIGN
Having a good website design will go a long way in showing others that you care about your site and want them to enjoy their experience.
A poorly designed site on the other hand is not only difficult for your readers to navigate it’s also visually unappealing, dull and boring.
You want your readers to feel welcomed to your blog and understand what you topic is about immediately.
Use your design to guide them to what is important and appeal to their visual curiosity as well as giving them the content they seek.
You want to make sure that they will be happy to spend their time on your site and not be turned of by a lack of color or a bad color scheme.
ENGAGEMENT
The more you can engage yourself with your readers the better.
You don’t have to respond to every comment and/or email you receive, but you want him or her to know that you care and are willing to take the time out to help him or her reach their goal.
The more your readers feel appreciated the more likely they are to return the favor and help you when you most need it, whether it’s sharing your content with their friends or purchasing your new product.
FUNDAMENTALS
Never forget the fundamentals of blogging and keep it simple.
Be consistent in producing content. Don’t let your site go for weeks without being updated.
Actively share your content through guest posting, community sites, forums, comments and other forms of promotion.
Respond to your readers, especially when you are first starting out.
And spend more time promoting your blog on other sites in the beginning than you spend on your own blog.
Once you’ve written your content you need to promote it and get it out there!
GOALS
Set goals and use analytics to track your performance.
Without goals and analytics you can’t tell if you’re heading in the right direction.
Every blog has a goal. It could be to have one hundred people per day read your content, to or spread an idea or make money.
Whatever it is be sure you understand your goals clearly and then use analytics to measure how close you are to obtaining your goal.
Analytics provide a great foundation letting you know if you are moving and the right direction and where you need to focus your efforts.
HABITS
Develop good blogging habits. Start with one goal, which could be to write a new piece of content on a daily basis or to join weekly community discussions.
Whatever you choose make sure you develop the habit of doing it on a consistent basis.
Once it becomes a habit move onto developing a new one. Over time you will have creating several habits that will help you become a significantly better blogger.
It can be extremely difficult for bloggers to follow through with everything they want to do so start small and gradually increase your habits and focus over time.
The better you become at developing strong blogging habits the better your opportunities for success will be.
IMAGES
Images add another dimension and layer of depth to your blog.
Images can be used to attract a visitor’s attention, display information that can’t be explained in text, and guide your readers to where you want them to focus.
You can definitely be successful without images, but the power a picture has over our feelings and the immediate attention it commands can have a great impact on your readers experience.
JOURNEY
Blogging is a journey not a destination.
Finding a powerful reason to write something worth sharing every day is invaluable.
There will be days when you don’t want to write but you need to.
If you want to be successful you need to put your effort into finding something worth saying and getting out it in front of people, even on days when you don’t feel like it.
Blogging isn’t a one day event, it’s for the long haul so make sure you enjoy what you’re doing and enjoy the journey.
KNOWLEDGE
Education is extremely important.
Find several resources that can provide you with great insights and help you grow your field of knowledge so that you can share it with your readers.
Even if you feel like a novice there are those who know even less than you and can gain a lot from you.
The more you are able to help and teach others the better you become at finding more opportunities to help others grow and an audience.
LONGEVITY
Blogging isn’t something you do for a few months and then abandon, its something that lots of effort, writing and most of all patience.
Those who are most successful at blogging have been doing it for years and understand that it’s a constant learning process.
If you can come into this field with the mentality that you’ll be doing it for a while than you won’t get as stressed out when things don’t work out as quickly as you’d like, and believe me they won’t always work out, but if you keep at it you can eventually meet the goals you are trying to reach.
MEANING
Does your content have a meaning and/or a purpose?
Is it there to enrich your reader’s lives in one way or another, or is it created just for the purpose of creating more content?
Without having a meaning most content is just wasted effort and time.
When you write something be sure that it adds value to your readers and adds meaning to their lives.
Maybe it answers a question they may have or maybe it makes your reader feel a little more inspired.
Whatever you decide to write make sure it’s worth sharing.
NAVIGATION
A big part of creating value is allowing your readers to find your most valuable content easily.
By allowing readers to access your most valuable content you raise the value of your blog, your authority on your topic and your reader’s interest.
Don’t link to unimportant and non valuable content. You want your readers coming back for more and be highly interested in what you have to say.
Understand the purpose of your navigation system and tailor it to meet your readers desire.
OPPORTUNITY
Take advantage of the opportunities that come your way.
One of the best ways for you to create opportunity is through creating value, sharing it with as many people as possible and being consistent.
Guest post, participate in groups and join discussions.
As your opportunities continue to grow so does your recognition and support from others.
Eventually you may get noticed by highly established bloggers, which would only increase your opportunities and chances for success.
PERSONALITY
Personality is what separates your blog from thousands of others that have similar content.
People go to your site because they know, like and trust you.
If you can develop a strong sense of personality you can grow an audience that shares the same emotions and values as you, and that’s what will make your blog successful.
Don’t be afraid to show emotion over sounding generic.
In the beginning before you have a ton of fans you’ll have those who read your content because they know, like and trust you.
After you’ve developed a strong readership you can focus on taking your blog to the next level.
QUIT
Quit spending your time on unproductive, time-consuming activities.
It’s very easy to spend one or two hours on something that seems important, but adds no real value at all.
Find out what the most important activates you need to focus on are and spend your time on those.
Also figure out what adds little or no value to your blog and eliminate those tasks.
RELATIONSHIPS
Blogging is about building strong foundational relationships.
Being able to connect with your audience and build relationships with other important bloggers will go a long way in helping you succeed.
If you aren’t building relationships than you aren’t growing.
SIMPLICITY
The easier your content is for your readers to understand and be able to take something away from the better.
Don’t over complicate things that shouldn’t be complicated.
Make it easy for them to get where they want to be with as little effort as possible, and let them decide if they want to take further actions on their own.
It isn’t about the length of your content it’s about the value. (Eliminate any content that doesn’t add value)
TRUST
I don’t think I have to elaborate on how important trust is.
Without trust it can be nearly impossible to reach any of your goals, but if you can build a lot of trust within your community you gain authority, connections, relationships, fans and much more.
USEFULNESS
The more useful you are to your readers the more likely they are to come back to you and share your site with their friends.
Being useful can be anything from helping your reader overcome a challenge to making him or her laugh.
Filling a need that your readers have creates an emotional bond and makes you invaluable in their eyes.
Focus on being as useful as you possibly can.
VALUE
The more value you can provide to your readers the better.
Understanding what your audience really wants and being able to provide a solution to them is one of the best ways to grow your blog and your business.
Value serves a purpose and helps your reader reach a goal, be entertained or find a meaning that is important to him/her.
In other words think of your blog as standing for something that your readers believe in and enjoy, because that is the reason they are reading your blog to begin with.
WIN
Celebrate the small wins. Whether you are just starting out or have been doing it for years it’s important not to forget to celebrate the small victories that you have accomplished.
The more you can appreciate the small victories the stronger your level of joy and pleasure will be and the easier it will be to follow through in the future.
Also known a crossing sign. It means slow down and use caution.
When you write make sure that you take the time to proof read your content.
Look for errors and mistakes, get rid of content that doesn’t add value or have purpose, and tailor your writing to your readers.
It can be very tempting to paste something together in the hopes of meeting a deadline, but you have to take your time and make sure it’s valuable and not a waste of your reader’s time.
Nobody likes having their time wasted.
YOURSELF
The more you’re able to be yourself and bring a human element into your writing, the more people will be able to connect and relate to you.
Everyone enjoys reading something that feels genuine and connects with who the writer is so don’t be afraid to be yourself.
You don’t have to share all of your private life with everyone, but let them know you are human and this is who you are.
Sometimes being yourself means polarizing your content and sharing your opinion.
Some people will either love it or hate it, but those faithful followers you gain in the process will feel connected to you on a personal level and feel like they are reading not some generic content made to appeal to everybody and connecting with no one.
ZONE
A big part of writing is being able to get into a zone that lets your writing come effortlessly or at least easier than most other times.
Create and/or find multiple areas where it’s easiest for you to brainstorm and write without feeling distracted and locked down.
One area may work well when you feeling creative but not when you feel confused.
Everyone has at least one location that creates an atmosphere where they can be at peace with their writing.
For me it’s in my bedroom, at Starbucks or parked somewhere quiet and away from everything.
Each place has its own ambiance and appeals to different moods that I’m in which helps keep me focused regardless of how I feel.
Eliminating distractions by moving to a location that gives you few choices but to think can be very helpful for getting your creative juices flowing.