You have probably read the stories online. You may have even thrown the idea around. What am I talking about? Blogging. It’s the dream job, isn’t it? Blog, make a billion dollars (kidding) working in your underwear while sipping champagne.
That’s how it works, right?
Not really. Yes, there are some very successful blogs that make a pile of money, but those are few and far between. Most blogs fail to make any money at all and end up costing money to run, from the annual domain registration fee to monthly website hosting.
While you might not create the next million dollar blog, you can create something special and turn it into a little side project, and if you follow the tips below you might just be the next blogging rock star.
KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)
You don’t have to go over the top in the beginning. Keeping your blog simple in terms of layout, design, and features is the smart play. You want to make sure people that visit your blog can read the content easily and interact with your content without issues.
This means using a simple theme, font that is easy to read on any screen size, and making sure the theme has a good responsive layout. Too many people think they need to blow the reader away with a fancy design, wild font and all kinds of bells and whistles. That’s not the case at all.
If a blog becomes wildly popular it’s because of the content, not the design.
Publish Often
The frequency that you publish content will grow alongside your blog’s readership and popularity. But, you have to be prepared to post often once you start to gain traction.
You might be able to post once a week in the beginning, but once your audience grows you need to give them more content to dive into or they will get bored and look elsewhere.
You want to walk the fine line between boring them and overwhelming them with too much content for them to humanly consume. Knowing your audience and your website stats will help you figure out how often is the sweet spot for your blog.
Be Laser Focused
The best blogs are ones that stick to a topic and don’t drift too far away from that main topic. If you start a blog about the New York Mets as a side business, then you need to just blog about the Mets and not go off topic and start writing blogs about other teams.
It’s much better to command 100% of the attention from 10,000 visitors than 5% of the attention from 25,000 visitors.
Look at this blog for a minute: https://www.achrnews.com – what do you notice? It’s a blog about AC, heating and refrigeration news. It’s a very niche subject, but that is why it’s popular. They stick to one segment and set out to be the best blog for that specific topic.
Be Patient
This is where most would be bloggers hit the wall and give up. They want their traffic numbers to be off the charts. They want to be rolling in cash. It doesn’t happen like that and if it happens at all it takes a long time.
You have to understand it takes a long time and be willing to blog your butt off with zero expectations. You never know what could happen. A post could go viral. It could be shared by an influencer. A media outlet could share it. If that happens, great.
This is why it’s so important to pick a topic you enjoy writing about, because you are likely to be writing for free for a very long time.