33 Essential Blogging Tips for New Bloggers in 2023

Last Updated on May 19, 2023 by Jordan Alexo

While blogging has gained immense popularity, it’s crucial to acknowledge that not all blogs succeed.

Surprisingly, statistics reveal that around 80% of blogs fail within 18 months.

Furthermore, only approximately 81% of active blogs never make $100.

So, if you don’t want to be part of the majority that fails, keep reading.

You’ll discover 33 essential blogging tips you can apply now to improve your chances of success.

This includes establishing clear goals, finding a niche, producing high-quality and original content, engaging with your audience, and much more.

1 – Understand Your Purpose and Set Clear Goals

Before you dive deep into blogging, it’s important to see your blog’s purpose. You should ask yourself:

• What are my passions and interests?
• What do I want to achieve with my blog?
• Who is my target audience?

This will help you set clear goals for your blog and create a roadmap for success. Also, remember your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Goals

These are the main objectives you want to achieve with your blog, such as:

• Creating X blog posts per week
• How much money do you want to earn from your blog after a certain amount of time?
• What products or services do you want to promote or sell?
• Are you going to implement an email subscription list? If yes, when do you plan to grow your subscribers?

All these goals help you stay motivated and focused on what you want to achieve with your blog.

2 – Choose Your Niche and Be Unique

One of the biggest mistakes I made was not having a specific niche. Instead, I started writing content about any product or service I thought was interesting.

However, building topical authority is crucial nowadays. See Google rewards bloggers who have a clear and specific niche. For this reason, finding the right niche is vital for your blog’s success.

You can choose a niche based on your interests, skills, and knowledge. Although if you choose your passion or interest, make sure that it’s a profitable niche.

Also, having a specific niche will help you stand out from your competition and establish yourself as an expert.

If you don’t know what niche to choose, read this post, “How to Choose the Right Niche for Your Blog.”

Once you have chosen one to create unique content, consider the following:

• Share your personal experiences and insights.
• Offer a fresh perspective on popular topics.
• Experiment with different content formats and styles.

Remember, your blog should reflect your personality and voice. Furthermore, be authentic, and don’t fear having a controversial opinion or a unique perspective.

3 – Select a Blogging Platform and Optimize for SEO

Choosing the right blogging platform is essential, as it will impact the design and functionality of your blog. Some popular ones include WordPress, Blogger, and Wix.

Honestly, I only used WordPress because you nearly do anything with it. Besides, over 43% of websites on the internet use WordPress. So, it’s a great option to get started with.

Another advantage of WordPress is that it offers several plugins to optimize your blog for search engines—for instance, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, and my favorite one RankMath.

Using one of these plugins lets you optimize your blog posts for specific keywords to make them more visible on search engines like Google. As a result, you get more organic traffic and readers to your blog.

Also, use proper heading tags, and include internal and external links in your blog posts.

4 – Design an Attractive and User-Friendly Website

Your blog’s design plays a significant role in attracting and retaining readers.

A visually appealing and user-friendly website will encourage visitors to explore your content and return for more. For this reason, consider the following when designing your blog:

• Use a clean, simple, and responsive theme. My personal favorite is the Astra, Kadence, or GeneratePress theme. Although these themes are popular, you have the freedom to customize them and make your blog unique.
• One thing beginners often do is to include too many design elements, like banners and pop-ups, which can clutter the website and detract from the content.
• Make sure people can easily find your older posts by including a search bar, archives, or categories. Later with an email newsletter, you can remind subscribers of your older posts and drive more traffic.

I suggest keeping your blog minimalist, even with the color scheme. Also, sites with strong, vivid colors quickly get tiresome to your readers but distract them from the content.

I try to keep my sites neat, organized, and easy to navigate. Also, something that doesn’t cause visual fatigue because you’ll be spending a lot of time working on it.

5 – Create Quality Content and Prioritize Readability

Content is the backbone of your blog. Your content must be high quality and prioritize readability.

However, high-quality content isn’t the same as having writing like Hemingway or Shakespeare. Instead, with technical writing, you want to focus on clarity, simplicity, and making your content easily understandable.

Furthermore, it should reply to your target search queries and offer value or solve a problem for your readers.

Anyway, here are some tips for creating quality and readable content:

• Prioritize readability with legible fonts (16 pixels minimum) and sufficient white space. You should have sentences with two to three lines at most to make it easier for readers to follow along. Also, consider using simple and engaging visuals like images or infographics to break up large chunks of text.
• Well-researched and accurate. If you don’t know something, don’t be afraid to do your research and verify the information before publishing. You may also watch YouTube videos or attend online courses to expand your knowledge base and improve the quality of your content.
• Clear, concise, and grammatically correct. You may use Grammarly or other proofreading tools to help you catch mistakes and improve your writing.
• Engaging, conversational, and relatable. Use words like “you” and “we,” and write as if you’re conversing with your readers. Also, share personal experiences or examples to make your content relatable and exciting.

One additional tip is to update your older posts regularly.

Google loves fresh content, and by updating your older posts with new information or insights, you can improve their search engine rankings and keep them relevant to your audience.

6 – Develop a Content Strategy and Posting Schedule

A well-planned content strategy helps you stay organized, maintain consistency, and achieve your blogging goals. For this, you can use a Google Spreadsheet or an editorial calendar to plan out your blog posts in advance.

Your content strategy should involve publishing relevant and valuable content for your audience. Also, you should find the optimal posting frequency for you. Or, if you have writers working with you, make sure they stick to a set posting schedule.

However, the more content you publish, the faster your blog grows, so aim for at least two or more posts per week.

7 – Master the Art of Headline Writing

One of the first things that catch a reader’s attention is the headline or title of your blog post. For this reason, it’s crucial to master the art of headline writing.

Here are a few tips:

• Use strong language and emotional triggers.
• Incorporate your target keywords for SEO purposes
• Keep headlines concise and clear.
• Use numbers when possible, such as “5 Tips for Better Blogging.” or “10 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills.”
• Experiment with different headline formats, such as listicles, how-to’s, and questions.

Your headline should be short, sweet, and intriguing enough to make readers want to click and read more.

8 – Build an Email List and Engage with Your Subscribers

Building an email list is critical for any blogger who wants to increase their readership and engagement. You can directly communicate with your audience and promote your content and products.

However, you don’t need to build one when starting immediately. I suggest focusing on content first, and once you have enough readers and a regular posting schedule, you can start building your email list.

To grow your email list:

• Offer an enticing lead magnet, such as a free e-book or exclusive content.
• Use opt-in forms and pop-ups on your website.
• Regularly engage with your subscribers by sharing updates, valuable insights, and personalized content.

You should subscribe to an autoresponder service like Getresponse or Aweber to help you manage your emails. And, more importantly, to send automated messages to subscribers at specific intervals or based on their behavior.

9 – Leverage Social Media and Other Promotional Channels

Promoting your blog through social media is a fantastic way to immediately get more eyeballs on your content. Often with SEO, it may take several months to start seeing some traffic.

For this reason, once you have a few blog posts published, it’s time to start leveraging social media. You should choose platforms that are most relevant to your target audience and where they’re most active.

For example, if you have a B2B blog, LinkedIn might be the best platform to promote your content. On the other hand, if you have a cooking or lifestyle blog, Instagram or Pinterest may be more suitable.

Also, you don’t make the mistake of thinking, “You need to be on every social media platform.” No, choose one platform and learn how to use it effectively before moving on to others.

10 – Monitor Your Blog’s Performance and Adjust Your Strategy

Data, data, and more data! You need to regularly review your blog’s performance metrics to see what works.

Of course, if you have a new blog don’t need to obsess over data too much. But as your blog grows, it’s crucial to monitor your metrics.

You don’t need to use anything fancy or paid. A tool like Google Analytics can give you the information you need, such as traffic sources, bounce rates, time on site, and more.

What do you want to check?

• Which blog posts are getting the most traffic and engagement
• Which keywords are driving the most traffic to your blog
• How long are visitors staying on your site
• Which social media channels are driving the most traffic to your blog

And with a blog, you need to embrace the idea of continuous improvement. Sometimes, things we think will work out don’t, and we need to adjust our strategies accordingly.

Also, you want to see which content works the best. This can be about a specific sub-niche within your blog. If you have a particular topic getting more traction, consider creating more content around that area.

11 – Collaborate With Industry Experts and Influencers

Often these connections naturally happen as you create valuable content and engage with others in your industry.

You may start receiving emails from other bloggers with similar interests, or people may contact you on social media.

Sometimes asking to review their product or collaborate on a project can be a great way to build relationships and grow your blog.

Also, you may get interviews, features, and guest posts on other blogs in your niche.

12 – Repurpose and Refresh Old Content

I spoke briefly about repurposing old content, but it’s worth re-emphasizing.

Often people think their older content is dead and forgotten, but that’s not necessarily the case. You want to update existing content to keep it relevant and useful for your readers.

Besides, this may improve your SEO and make your older content rank higher in search engine results. Consider the following strategies:

• Update outdated information and statistics.
• Add new insights or perspectives.
• Create different content formats, such as videos or infographics.
• Add internal links to newer content on your blog or website.

You want to show Google and your readers that your blog is a source of valuable and up-to-date information.

13 – Engage with Your Audience and Build a Community

You want to build a tribe around your blog, a community of loyal readers and followers who engage with you regularly. You can do this by:

• Responding to comments and messages
• Encouraging discussions and feedback
• Hosting events or webinars
• Featuring user-generated content

Although you always want to expand your blog’s reach and attract new readers. At the same time, you want to find ways to retain your existing readership.

So, they keep coming back to your site and look forward to your new content.

14 – Diversify Your Monetization Strategies

You can monetize your blog in more than one way. The fact is, relying on just one strategy isn’t a great idea, as this can leave you vulnerable to changes in the market.

However, some monetization methods are better when your blog is just starting, while others might be more suitable once you have a larger audience. For instance:

• Affiliate marketing: You promote other people’s products or services and earn a commission on each sale. This way is great for a new blog with a small audience since you don’t need to create your products.
• Selling Digital Products or Courses: Once you have a larger audience, you might consider selling your digital products or courses.
• Google Ads: You can monetize your blog with Google Ads. This will display ads on your blog, and you will earn money every time someone clicks on an ad. However, you’ll need a decent amount of traffic to make a significant income.
• Offering Freelance Services: If you have the skills and expertise, you can offer freelance services related to your blog’s niche.

Anyway, you have other options, too, such as sponsored content, membership programs, and even selling physical products.

You can also experiment with different monetization methods and see what works best for your blog and audience.

15 – Invest in Your Blog’s Growth

If you’re serious about blogging, then like any other business, you need to invest in its growth. Now this may not mean investing a significant amount of money initially.

But with time, you will need most likely invest on:

• Online Courses: Investing in online courses related to blogging, writing, SEO, or any other relevant topic can help you improve your skills and knowledge.
• Tools: Like Semrush, Ahrefs can help you with SEO and content creation, which are critical elements in growing your blog.
• Upgrading your hosting plan: As your blog gains more traffic, you may need to upgrade your hosting plan to ensure faster load times and reliable performance.
• Attend Workshops: Related to your blog’s niche can help you learn more but also connect with other bloggers and industry experts.
• Outsourcing: If you find yourself struggling with specific tasks, outsourcing can be a great option.

It’s not something you need to worry about at the beginning. However, it’s a good idea to keep this in mind and plan for it as you grow your blog.

You shouldn’t be that business owner who doesn’t want to invest in anything has an 80-hour work week, and still sees no growth. The objective is to work smarter, not harder.

Besides, a business is meant to grow to a point where you can outsource most of the work and focus on other aspects.

16 – Focus On Topical Authority

You want to go deep into a specific niche and become seen as an expert. In other words, if your blog is related to the “Paleo Diet,” you should strive to be the go-to source for everything related to Paleo.

Your blog should provide recipes, plans, and even lifestyle tips. It should come to the point that whenever someone searches for information related to Paleo, your blog will appear on the top search results.

It has become increasingly important for Google to see blogs as authoritative sources in their respective niches.

And the way you do this is by having mountains of high-quality content on that specific topic.

This means you don’t want to have ten or twenty posts related to ten different topics. Instead, you want hundreds of posts that dive deep into a specific niche.

This helps your blog rank for relevant keywords more easily and shows search engines that you are a valuable resource in your field.

17 – Focus on Evergreen Content

You want to have several pillar evergreen content pieces on your blog that will continue providing value to readers for years.

Even if these posts target competitive keywords, you may not rank immediately. However, these pillar posts provide topical authority to your site.

Another thing is they can rank for hundreds of other long-tail keywords and continue to drive traffic to your blog long after they are written.

So, this can be your “Ultimate Guide to Paleo Diet” or “101 Benefits of Daily Meditation.” 

Furthermore, you should keep updating these posts with new information and keep them relevant. This post is your blog’s centerpiece, like a city’s downtown area.

18 – Optimize Your Blog for Mobile Users

More people than ever use mobiles to search for information online. For this reason, you want to make sure your blog is optimized for mobile users.

If you’re using WordPress, most themes are mobile-responsive by default. However, you should check these themes on several devices and see if they need any customization to be fully optimized.

I use the Kadence theme for my blog. Although it’s responsive, I still had to make multiple adjustments to make sure it looks great on all devices.

19 – Optimize Uploading Time

Most people don’t have to wait for a blog post to load all day. Even worse with mobile users nowadays. Often these people are on the go and need information quickly.

Studies show that over 50% of users will leave a website after three seconds of waiting.

So, here are a few things you can do to optimize your blog’s uploading time:

• Web Host Provider: Often, budget web hosts will not provide enough server resources leading to slow loading times. For this reason, you may consider changing to WPX Hosting or Kinsta, which are popular hosting providers with high-performing servers and great support.
• Lightweight Themes: Use minimalist themes designed for speed and efficiency instead of heavy themes that can slow down your website.
• WP Plugins: Only install the necessary plugins for your blog. The more plugins you have, the slower your website will load.
• Cache Plugin: Consider using a cache plugin like W3 Total Cache, which optimizes website performance and can greatly improve loading speeds.
• Optimize Images: Large images can slow down your website. You can do this with plugins like Smush or manually compressing images before uploading them to your blog.

Also, sites like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix can help you identify other areas to optimize for faster loading times.

20 – Monitor Industry Trends

A great way to get content with low competition and the potential to gain high traffic is by staying updated on the latest trends in your industry.

You may use Google Trends to identify search terms that are currently popular and create content around them. Sometimes, you may find new products or services you can write about and review or new industry developments that you can comment on.

As a blogger, you want to be on top of the latest trends and topics your audience is interested in.

21 – Have Blog Post Templates

You should also have templates for your blog posts to make the content creation process faster and more efficient.

This doesn’t always work for “how-to” or personal blog posts, but a template can save you time and effort for consistent types of content like product reviews, news updates, or interviews.

If you look at my reviews, you’ll notice that they follow a similar structure. Of course, sometimes, I may add a section or two depending on the product I’m reviewing.

But having a basic template already established makes the writing process much quicker.

22 – Encourage Social Sharing and User Engagement

Make it easy for your readers to share your content on social media by adding social sharing buttons to your blog posts.

Also, encourage people to ask questions, leave comments, and engage with you on your blog.

23 – Write For The Common Reader

You should keep your writing simple and easy to understand for the common reader. Most readers read at the 7th to 8th-grade level.

So you should avoid the following:

• Using overly complex language or industry jargon that may not be familiar to all readers.
• Avoid writing excessively long paragraphs or sentences that can be difficult to follow.
• You shouldn’t try to impress your readers with your writing skills rather than focus on providing valuable content that they can easily understand.
• Making assumptions about your readers’ knowledge or experience with the topic you’re writing about.
• Instead, aim to write clearly and concisely in a way that is easy for the average reader to follow.

I keep in the back of my mind that my readers might not know anything. So, I try to explain everything as it was their first time hearing about that topic. I recommend you do the same thing.

If you look at your reader as someone new to the topic, you’ll be able to communicate your message more effectively and attract a larger audience.

In more advanced topics, you can assume your audience has a higher level of understanding. But it’s still important to provide explanations and context for unfamiliar terms or concepts.

24 – Implement Schema Markup

Schema markup is a form of structured data that helps search engines better understand your content. Also, it can be used to enhance the appearance of your blog posts on search engine results pages.

For this reason, implementing schema markup can lead to increased visibility and traffic for your blog.

25 – Create All The Necessary Pages

Many affiliate marketing websites and blogs forget to include essential pages such as an About page, Contact page, and Privacy Policy page.

For this reason, their site gets penalized by search engines sooner or later, and their credibility begins to suffer. See, Google wants to rank sites that look legitimate and trustworthy.

So, it doesn’t take much time to create these essential pages, and it can make a big difference in the success of your blog or website. Your “About” page should explain who you are and what your blog is all about.

While your “Contact” page should provide readers with a way to get in touch with you. If possible, you can include a business address, phone number, or email address where readers can reach out to you directly.

The other vital page to include is the “Privacy Policy” page etc.; often, you can install a plugin to generate a basic policy that you can customize to fit your specific needs.

26 – Think About Search Intent

When creating blog content, it’s important to consider the search intent behind a user’s query.

You want to see the reason someone is searching for a particular topic so that you can provide them with the information they’re looking for.

For example, “best blogging tips” is a broad search term, but the searcher’s intent might be to find tips for starting a successful blog.

Therefore, writing this post, I need to consider most readers as beginners who want to start a blog and provide them with actionable tips they can use to get started.

Knowing this, I try to create clear, concise, and easy-to-follow content while also providing valuable insights and strategies.

So whenever you write a post, you want to have search intent in mind and aim to provide your readers with the information or solution they’re looking for. In a way, they end their search journey on your blog.

In other words, they don’t feel the need to keep looking elsewhere, as they have found what they were searching for on your site.

27 – Guest Posting

Once you have some content up on your blog, you can reach out to other bloggers in your niche and ask if they would be interested in featuring your guest post.

The idea behind guest posting is to obtain a backlink to your site, which can help improve your search engine rankings.

You have something called “Domain Authority (DA),” which is a ranking score given by search engines that indicates your website’s authority compared to others.

One crucial aspect of improving your DA is obtaining high-quality site backlinks. You want to get links from higher DA websites because it can signal to search engines that your site is a reliable source of information.

You have many strategies to get backlinks. However, guest posting is one effective method as it allows you to showcase your expertise, reach a new audience, and provide valuable content to other blogs in your niche.

28 – Remove All Distraction

If you want to be extra productive while writing, it’s crucial to eliminate all distractions. This means “no” to social media, email notifications, or any other kind of interruptions that can derail your focus.

I like to use an inexpensive app called “Cold Turkey,” which blocks distracting websites and apps for a set amount of time.

If you easily get distracted, this app is for you! Also, it’s essential to choose a quiet space where you can concentrate without external noise or disturbances.

In case you live in a noisy environment, try noise-canceling headphones or playing white noise to help you concentrate better.

29 – Use The Power Of AI

I couldn’t leave artificial intelligence out of the list of best blogging tips. I mean, everyone and their mom has heard about ChatGPT or other similar tools.

Anyway, if you don’t know, ChatGPT is a powerful natural language processing tool that utilizes AI technology to generate human-like text based on prompts or questions.

You can use this tool to help you get the following:

• Fresh ideas for blog post topics
• Write content more quickly
• Create blog post outlines
• Research and summarize information

For this reason, you should consider integrating ChatGPT or other AI systems into your blogging routine. My favorite ones are Jasper AI, Writesonic, and Jenni AI.

These AI writer tools can save you time and effort while improving your writing quality and consistency. Also, it reduces mental fatigue from writing and writer’s block.

30 – Choose Low Hanging Fruit Keywords

When you start a new blog, choosing the right keywords for your content is essential.

The fact is Google doesn’t know you yet. So they won’t rank your site for highly competitive keywords right away.

Instead, focus on low-hanging fruit keywords with lower competition but still an adequate search volume.

If you’d like to learn my strategy, read this post, “How To Find Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords? (4 Powerful Methods).”

31 – Be Extra Patient

Often it takes six months or more to start seeing real results from your blogging efforts.

It isn’t an overnight success story but a gradual process that requires patience and persistence.

So, expect to put in a lot of work over time, and don’t get discouraged if you don’t see immediate results. Of course, you must regularly analyze and adjust your blogging strategy but don’t give up too soon.

32 – I want money, money… No wait!

A big mistake that will kill your blog is to only write with the intention of making money. Of course, we all want to make money from our hard work.

But Google has been recently hitting hard on sites that focus too much on monetization and overlook the quality of their content.

So, as a rule of thumb, for every ten posts you write, ensure at least 7-8 are focused on providing information to your readers. And the other 3 -2 can promote your products or services. This can be “best of” lists, reviews, or promotions.

This gives enough informative content for Google to munch and still allows you to promote your offers and make money.

33 – Internal Linking Structure

Many bloggers often underlook the importance of internal linking. But it can greatly impact your blog’s SEO and user experience.

• It helps search engines understand your site and find new content to index.
• It also helps readers find other relevant content and stay longer on your site.

To improve your internal linking structure, make sure to link related posts within your content.

However, you should have more internal links pointing to your money pages to signal their importance to both Google and your readers.

Last Thoughts

Starting a blog can be an exciting and fulfilling journey. By following the blogging tips I’ve shared, you can create a successful blog that ranks well on search engines and build a loyal readership over time.

Anyway, let’s quickly recap:

First, define your blog’s purpose and set clear goals to stay motivated and focused. Also, choose a unique niche that aligns with your interests and experiment with different content formats to stand out.

You should install WordPress or another CMS to create a professional-looking blog in minutes. I prefer WordPress because of all the powerful plugins available to improve your blog’s functionality and SEO.

Once you have a website up, remember to prioritize content over monetization and use internal linking to improve your site’s structure and user experience.

Furthermore, create high-quality, readable content that provides value to your readers, updating older posts regularly to keep them relevant.

You should develop a content strategy and posting schedule. Whenever possible, engage with your audience through email lists and social media, and monitor your blog’s performance using analytics tools like Google Analytics.

Finally, diversify your monetization strategies, invest in your blog’s growth through learning and outsourcing, and establish topical authority in your niche by deepening your knowledge.

Don’t forget to build a successful blog requires dedication, patience, and continuous learning. Besides, sometimes you may need to adapt them to your circumstances.

If you have any questions leave them below, Jordan Alexo will reply shortly.