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Tis the season! It’s Christmas, and it’s my blog anniversary!!
I’m so happy to let you know that I’m celebrating my 5th blogiversary this year. Five years is a long time in the blogosphere, and I’m glad to still be around. 🙂
This proves that I’ve definitely been productive and my blogging strategies have worked for me.
Or maybe, starting my blog on Christmas has been a good omen for me. Since 2010, my blogging career has been filled with many a-ha moments.
If you want to know them, you can find them all in the form of my mentions and interviews. You’ll find more information on this blog’s about page.
But what’s more important to me is my relationship with you.
I’m grateful to you for visiting this blog, reading my posts, sharing your views, supporting me, which makes all the difference to me.
Yes, Aha!NOW would not be here if you were not with me. I look forward to a continued association and another season of sharing information and views.
On the occasion of my 5th blogiversary, I want to share some blogging tips that I feel every blogger should know, to be successful.
5 Simple But Essential Blogging Tips
The tips that I’m going to mention are very simple, and you might be already aware of them.
However, I’m presenting them to you as my understanding of how to make your blog successful, taking lessons from my own blogging career.
I’m sure taking these blogging tips would be productive for you.
Last year, on my 4th blogiversary, I wrote about the 9 lessons on blogging and I suggest that every new blogger should read that post.
I’ve also written about the blogging mistakes that bloggers make, and the realities of blogging. These posts should help all bloggers.
In my endeavor to contribute to blogging and encourage the new bloggers to go for a successful blogging career, here are few thoughts on taking the essential steps to make blogging better.
1. Blog Niche
The first step you take to start blogging is to define or select you blog niche.
The reason I’m advocating to take this step is because I was not aware of it when I started blogging.
Though I was successful in creating a multi-niche blog, it isn’t easy anymore.
It’s wise to first know your interests and expertise and then choose a niche to blog, and help people with your knowledge and experience.
The domain name of your blog matters, but not as much as your selection of the right blogging niche.
2. Blog Branding
Behind every blog, there is a personality, and your blog should have a unique personality too. Your blog needs blog branding.
Give your blog a logo, tagline, a unique color scheme, design or layout – to make it distinct and special.
Let the objective of your blog clearly stand out, so you attract the right audience and reinforce your claim on being an authority or expert.
It’s better to be the king of one trade than to be the jack of all. Having said that, I remain the queen in spite of having a multi-niche blog! 😉
3. Blog Monetization
Yes, if you want to survive as a blogger in the blogosphere and make a career in blogging, you need to think of money and revenue – think of monetizing your blog.
There are five basic ways of doing it. You could rely on advertisement services like Google Adsense, display ad banners, promote affiliates, publish sponsored posts and reviews, or sell your own products and services.
It will help you if you make a blog plan before even launching your blog.
Chalk out the steps you would take to earn revenue from your blog. Remember, being an authority and branding your blog will make things easier for you.
However, do not blog for money or yourself only, or try to make quick money from your blog! Most new bloggers are in a rush to earn, and when they cannot, they give up.
Blog genuinely to help people, and solve their problems. Let your blog mature, fame and money will follow, just like the happiness butterfly that sits on your shoulder after you stop going after it.
4. Blog Content
Did I refer to you as the king? I’m sorry; it’s your quality content that is the undisputed king! 🙂
Stop wasting your time in link building!
It helps, but that would be a futile exercise if your blog has mediocre content. Create quality content and then think of anything else.
When you write a blog post, make sure it delivers value and provides a helpful takeaway.
Check if your content is original; if not, then make it unique by adding your own personal knowledge and experience to it.
Your quality content will make you climb the ladder of popularity in your niche, become a brand in itself, and earn you money directly or indirectly.
5. Blog Promotion
The above-mentioned four tips to successful blogging are not going to work if your blog lives in obscurity.
To get the best results, give a shout out to the whole world. Try various ways of blog promotion, like posts, videos, SlideShare, podcasts, and others. (I haven’t personally tried them all, but it’s good if you do.)
You need to promote your blog posts on social media, develop relationships with your audience, bloggers, and experts in your niche.
Comment on other blogs, reply to comments on your blog, guest post for exposure and outreach, and join blogging communities.
Everybody talks of the Pareto principle, and that’s so true. Devote 20% of your time creating compelling and useful content and spend 80% of your time promoting it.
Niche, branding, monetization, content, and promotion – these are the Hi5 or the five basic elements of blogging that will rock your blog.
The Success Story Of Aha!NOW
I just revealed all my blogging secrets to you! Here’s a bit more about Aha!NOW, if you’re new to the blog and don’t know it already.
It was on December 25, 2010, I co-founded this blog inspired by my father and supported by my husband, Vinay.
We made two blogging mistakes even before we started blogging – did not make a blogging plan, and chose a domain name that had little relevance to the blog niche.
In fact, the blog niche that we targeted was ‘family & parenting’, and the aim of blogging was to create a portfolio of my writing.
Honestly, the first few months of blogging were very frustrating and disappointing.
We didn’t clearly know what to do, we weren’t getting much traffic, and there were no comments on the blog!
I had seen many blogs with lots of comments and interaction on them, but I longed for a single comment on my blog posts.
It dawned on me naturally to make friends and develop the relationship with fellow bloggers. That clicked and worked!
People loved the content so I kept writing more, added related content categories, and began expanding the blog.
I hooked onto to social media and made good use of the social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and even Pinterest.
I developed a penchant for commenting, and it resulted in the blogging fraternity calling me a ‘Commenting Queen’.
So, in short, it’s my quality content, building relationships, blog commenting, and social media promotion that helped me get where I’m today.
Now, I’m in a position to monetize my blog.
We recently started with sponsored post and reviews on Aha!NOW and the response is good.
As I mentioned in my previous post on managing blogging and life, Aha!NOW is now a multi-author blog and if you want your post published on the blog, you can submit your story here.
Do you have any problems getting started, or doubts that stop you from progressing as a blogger? Please feel free to reach out to me.
Thank You
Thank you again for making me a part of your life, and my blog Aha!NOW as one of your favorite online destinations.
I wish you have a great time with your family and friends this holiday season. Family bonding and personal time for recreation are so important for increasing your productivity.
For a change, we are not taking a winter break from blogging this year. In fact, we’ll continue to publish guest posts, sponsored posts, and posts from Vinay and myself.
We are all charged up and determined to get things done, and give shape to our projects. 🙂
I can’t thank you enough because I feel so blessed to have you all in my life. You are priceless. Thank YOU for being a valued reader!
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 🙂
Over To You –
What are your essential blogging tips for newbie bloggers? What are your plans to be more productive in the coming year? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Disclaimer: This post contains my affiliate links. I might earn if you click on them and make any purchase.