Are you hoping to start your own blog and gather followers from around the world? If you enjoy writing, it’s a great hobby to have, but you will have some thinking to do before you launch into blogging for fun and maybe even for profit. The first thing to do is to choose a niche. There are “everything” blogs, but the wider your range of topics, the harder it will be to compete in any one of them.
With that done, you need a blog design—WordPress templates are usually versatile enough to handle your needs, hosting, and a domain that reflects your niche. With these basics done, you’ll find these tips useful in taking your blog from being completely unknown to having a growing following.
1. Create Unique Images
People visiting your site will see the newest items in your blogroll as a title, a cover image, and a few lines of text. What few people know is that unique images improve SEO, and that means avoiding cheap and free stock images that just about every other blogger is already using. You can use a background remover online to change stock images or to add a bit of extra spin to your own images. Don’t forget to add alt text that will appear if images fail to load properly.
2. Size Matters
Bigger is definitely not better when posting images on your blog. Overlarge images will increase loading times, losing you readers who get bored waiting for your page to load and just move on. That’s going to hurt your search engine rankings too, so always resize. A header image should be 1048×250 pixels, and a featured image will be 1200×900 pixels or 900×1200 pixels depending on whether it’s oriented as a landscape or portrait.
3. Make Headlines Interesting and Relevant
Have you ever come across a blog post with a title that gives no clue as to the content of the article? Chances are, you didn’t read it. While being creative with titles is a good idea, don’t overdo it to the point where the topic becomes unclear.
Try to keep it at 70 characters (including spaces) or fewer. Consider the terms you’d have searched to find the kind of information you’re featuring and try to include these words in the title. To make your heading interesting you can use ChatGPT which is recently come it the market. If you like at a place where using ChatGPT is not allowed then you can use the VPN for ChatGPT that enables access in your location.
4. Use Your H2 Headers
Subheadings (like the one above) help your reader to see what information you’re covering at a glance, making skimming through your article easy to find the information they really want. They’re also great real estate for telling search engines what’s in your blog post—so those search terms that might lead people to your blog also belong here. Don’t get over-enthusiastic about including keywords, though. “Keyword stuffing” is used to improve search engine results, but overuse of this technique has led search engines to downgrade posts that are wall-to-wall with keyword repetition.
5. Become Active in the Blogging Community
Becoming part of a blogging community can be a lot of fun. That means not only posting your own articles but also finding other blogs you like and following them. Interact with other bloggers. Be inspired. Follow blogs you genuinely like, and don’t follow so many that you can’t keep up. Being an active member of the community will draw more readers to your blog, but it’s also fun and interesting.
6. Post Frequently and Get Mileage
If you want to have a lively blog that draws in readers and followers while keeping search engines happy with your level of activity, you’ll be posting at least twice a week. Be consistent. Sometimes, posting is going to feel like hard work. We can’t feel inspired all the time. The best way to get over writer’s block is to write. Hiring writers or featuring guest posts is a good idea, but be sure that they stick to your standards. A different voice can add interest, but it shouldn’t seem out of place.
Use your socials to promote your blog and if you’re doing a newsletter, be sure to link your latest posts. Likes and shares on social media will help you to grow your following. More traffic brings better rankings, and that brings you even more readers.
These basic tips are by no means all you need to know to have a successful blog site, but they’ll certainly get you off to a good start. Enjoy your journey!
