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The WWW era has opened up opportunities for blogging. Blogging has become one of the easiest and effective ways to share a passion for a certain subject with other like-minded individuals on the web. WordPress is one such platform where people share ideas. However, getting as newbies, building an online portfolio and growing your followers have never been an easy undertaking.
This article highlights some of the essential blogging tips that newbies desperately need to know before embarking on this WordPress blogging. These tips include creating really perfect titles for the posts, choosing a suitable theme for the blog, formatting the posts nicely and formulating social media strategy for the blog. The following are some of the essential tips for a beginner.
1) Telling facts and stories helping in selling the blog
Talking about real life facts and figures is the first step in successful blogging. Every blogger should be ready to explain in detail every aspect of their argument and information. Citing the areas where you also acquired the information really helps in selling the blog post. The key thing that keeps motivating the viewers usually depends on the stories and the real-life experiences you give on each blog post. According to Samantha Cahatol, Content Marketing Director at SolidEssay, talking about how blogging has changed your life and the story about yourself in the introduction gives a thumb up.
2) Putting headlines on what you are writing is a key feature
“The headlines should be very attractive in order to give people the urge to watch or read it,” explains Mark Lockhart, Digital Content Coordinator at Confident Writers. If there are no readers or viewers of your blog, it becomes very difficult to make cash out of it. There is no need of having a blog post that can’t make any benefit; it’s like doing the thing just for leisure or fun as a hobby. Several people are being paid by very big companies just to create an appealing headline for their blogs. The headline should be useful to the reader, should have some urgency and should appear unique and original. Some tools used to analyze the headlines include:
- There is a tool that analyses the headline according to the emotional values and hinders the actual headline known as “Advanced Marketing Institute – Headline Analyzer”.
- Another tool is an easy and comfortable tool to use. It analyses according to the categories the headlines lay. It is known as the “CoSchedule Headline Analyzer”.
3) A solid theme should be extracted
The recommended place to find a theme is the “Divi theme”. It is an excellent place to customize and very easy to use. The place has a nice customer care services and customizing the homepage design is possible on the website. On getting the “Divi theme”, you are also allowed to get into other themes in the market.
4) The blog post should not contain long paragraphs
The blog post should not make the readers bored due to its length. It should be short and straight to the point. “The paragraph should be interesting to sustain the readers and make them want to know more about what you are talking about,” says Lindsay Jackson, Content Developer at SwiftPapers. People shouldn’t get tired of reading through the blog post. The post should contain simple English that can be understood without any overthinking by the people reading the post.
5) The blog post has not to be perfect for people to find it appealing
There is nothing that is perfect when it comes to blogging. “If a post can win the readers’ mind and achieve about 85% then you are good to go,” points out Don Alvarado, Content Strategist at Paper-Research. It doesn’t matter how your page is perfect or how the blog is attractive. Getting comments and lots of people reading the post is an amazing thing. If people do that on your post then you already qualify as an amazing blogger. The mentality of trying to perfect your work should be left aside in order to allow one focus on making the blog post succeed.
6) The content in the sidebar should not be more to avoid time to load on the website
The speed of the website is a key factor. It should not keep the readers waiting for a long time before the blog appears. The lesser the content in the sidebar, the faster the loading of the website. The sidebar is usually composed of links that are related to the blog post, an introductory photo of you, a widget that gives a call to action and maybe some ads. A picture of you can tell a thousand words about you; hence, it is important to always have it on the blog post. It is regarded as an added advantage.
7) Ensuring that the word that comes after the blog name looks better
The word should be as simple as possible, not several words that sound complicated for the reader. Any keyword that relates to the targeted blog should be used to enhance simplicity.
8) Social media should be kept simple at the moment
Social media can be a real discouraging factor. What people talk should not shut down your dream. A lot of negative comments can be pulled out by the readers at first. Starting with the simple social media platform should also be done to allow growth, then moving to the next step with time. The social media idea usually works best on dealing with only one to two platforms at a time; after that, you can use them to raise the other accounts. The comment section on a blog keeps the communication between the blogger and the reader. Asking questions on the blog or after the blog allows communication, hence getting on areas to improve by the readers.
9) The images on the website should be optimized
If you are dealing with the high-quality images, you should ensure that they are optimized. This affects the speed of the website. The more the images are optimized, the faster the website. The steps of optimizing the images include: the images are uploaded to an online editor and shaped to the smallest size possible, compressing the images should follow and finally the resized and compressed image is uploaded to the WordPress media library where you store the stock photos.
10) Always remain motivated, focused and inspired
This involves not giving up, aiming higher and higher despite the challenges you are going through. Following successful bloggers from there, past stories help in staying inspired. Goals are reached by those who keep working towards achieving them and not giving up.
11) The formatting of the blog post should be simple
Formatting of the post enhances the readability of the post. The post should be in a really organized manner to keep the readers in the page and complete what is written. It doesn’t have to be long or short sentences to appeal to the reader. The post should have every type of sentences accordingly. Things such us subheading, bulleting and numbering should also be used. Shortlisting some things also make the blog interesting.
12) The long posts should be sectioned into paragraphs and pages to avoid giving the reader a lot of work of scrolling which can take more time than required
Closing the comment section on old posts avoids comments from spammers who have no useful information to pass through. They are just there to comment nonsense. Publishing related posts at the bottom of the post can also be enhanced using “Shareaholic”. This can really tempt readers and become more interested in your stories. This helps in boosting people viewing the page.
Writing a good blog post
- There must be a goal inside your mind as to why you want to write the blog. The reasons why you want to write it, what you want to achieve on the blog are some of the important factors to consider.
- Choosing the right terminologies to use on a blog post should be done wisely. This means that a word used can be searched and found wherever the site people use.
- When choosing the headline to use, there should be other alternative headlines just in case the one chosen doesn’t work appropriately. Headlines are the main features that make a person attracted to your post. The headline that makes people want to know more about it is the best.
- Outlines are also the key feature of a blog. They assist in clarifying the ideas; i.e. deciding on what to write specifically about the point noted. They also give a post an order of how things should be arranged from the first to the last. They help in ensuring that the post is not long enough to drive away the readers from completing the blog post. Outlines can just be in point form or anything simple that gives guidelines on what to start with and what to end with on the blog post. This also ensures that you don’t leave something out while writing the blog, especially the important points. They give priority to the major points and others can come after. Research about what you want to write is also important. It helps acquire more information or detailed information on what you are to write in the blog post.
Creating and managing a website is very simple with WordPress powerful platform. However, newbies need to learn essential skills such as telling facts and stories that help in selling the blog. They need to know how to take advantage of social media integration and should always remain motivated, focused and inspired in all their posts.
Author Bio:
[thrive_testimonial name=”” company=”” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Paul-Bates.jpeg”]Paul Bates is a freelance writer at BeeStudent, where he blogs about education and writing. Also, he works as a part-time tutor at EssayTask. Paul also contributes to online publications such as HuffPost and BuzzFeed.[/thrive_testimonial]
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