10 Steps to a Better Blog

I think we all know how powerful a blog can be in helping you to establish yourself in your niche and build a relationship with your readers. You can post as often as you like and deliver as much content as you’d like to share. But there is a fine line between building a successful blog which boasts high readership and social interaction and one which gathers dust on the web with little or no traffic or discussion.

So in order to help you get the most out of your blog I decided to do a bit of investigating and see is there a secret formula to blogging success? or some steps that you can take to improve your blog and start to gain traction in your market? Below I’ve listed 10 Steps to a Better Blog which I’ve found while browsing the web, each only scratch the surface but I think they will provide you with enough information to get you going.

from “How to Improve Your Blog” by Mike Michalowicz

1. Get Involved with More People

The hardest thing that you can do when starting a new blog is to “go it alone”. Instead seek out a group of bloggers and get involved with them, this will help you keep focused and moving forward when times are hard because you’ll be part of a team and will have plenty of help and support if you need it.

2. Identify and Claim Your Expertise

Don’t be afraid to claim your expertise, you are already an expert on your chosen niche – how else would you be in business? You may even be surprised by how much you already know and can offer to people through your blog. So open up and share your experiences, tips and tools!

3. Give Them What They Want

Regularly survey your readers by asking for their opinion or send an email to your list asking what area’s they would like help on. When you get their answers simply sit down, do some research and deliver the best content on this subject that you can. Do this and you’re on to a sure winner because you are giving your readers exactly what they want.

4. Create a Discussion

The internet is like one huge, never-ending conversation…And your blog should be no different in that regard. Ask questions during your posts and interact with your readers. For your blog to gain readership you really need to focus on creating discussions and get your readers involved. Make them feel that their views are important to you and that you are interested in what they have to say.

from 6 Actionable Tips to Really Improve Your Blog

5. Start Guest Blogging

Connect with other bloggers in your niche and inquire about the possibility of writing a guest post for them. Start small with this and write your best content with the aim of attracting more traffic to your site. As you become more successful you can approach bigger blogs and see the results of your efforts gaining momentum all on their own. For example a guest post on ProBlogger.net would easily see your site see an extra 2k visitors in a couple of days…very powerful stuff indeed.

6. Optimize Your Blog’s Design & Speed

Having a good looking blog is a necessity but so too is having a blog which is properly optimized for increased performance and functionality. There are endless amounts of things you could do to improve this with one of them being improving your blogs loading speed. A simple way of doing this would be to remove any plugins that you are not using or are not essential for your site. This will allow your blog to load faster and reduce bounce rates.

7. Don’t Neglect Your Email List

You should always have an opt-in form on your blog to allow your readers to easily subscribe and connect with you. This is like gold to you as it gives you a direct line to your target audience which allows you keep them updated of any new posts and build the all important relationship with them.

from 58 Ways to Build a Better Blog by Marko Saric

8. Include Links to Other Posts in Your Article

Always include at least one link in your article to an older post. This will make your blog more “sticky” and entice your readers to spend longer on your site reading some of your other articles. This little tip takes only seconds to do but will greatly increase the number of readers who stay on your blog instead of just clicking away when they’re finished with the post they are reading.

9. Make Your Blog More Secure

The first thing you need to do when you install your new WordPress Blog is to change the default password to something unique. Those generic passwords are very easy for hackers to break and could increase the risk of your site being attacked. So do the smart thing and change your password to something more secure and update on a monthly basis.

10. Include a “Related Post List” at the End of Your Article

This is something that I’ve only recently become aware of…that is to include a “Related Posts List” at the end of your article, much like the one which you see below. Again it just gives your reader a chance to check out some of your other work and keep them on the site longer. The longer you can do this the greater the chance that you will turn those one-time visitors into long term readers.

So there you have it, 10 Steps to a Better Blog… I hope I’ve highlighted a few tips for you that will help improve your site overall and move closer to becoming one of the super successful blogs on the web that receive 10k visitors a day. I know for a lot of you this may seem like a lofty ambition but remember, all those bloggers started at the beginning just like many of you. The thing is they started to incorporate many of tips that I’ve mentioned above and overtime their blogs grew into the successful sites you see today.

Do you have any other tips to building a better blog? Please share them with us below so we can all learn about them and put them to good use 🙂

Want to read more posts like this? Then you’ll enjoy these posts from the archive…

How a Hot Girl at the Gym Saved My Online Business

How to Position Yourself as an Authority Figure in Your Niche

The Entrepreneurs Achilles Heel

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P.S. I’ve finished the Zero Sum List Building Report that I mentioned a few weeks back. If you’re interested in checking it out you can grab your copy HERE.