This is a guest post from Farhan Niazi, an IT professional with expertise in the fields of Web and Database Development. Niazi is the founder of SMB Tech Guide and is currently serving Sarhad University of Science and Information Technology, Pakistan as the Deputy Director of Information Technology.
When I started my first blog about three years ago I didn’t had much idea about how things would turn out to be. But as I progressed, things got more and more interesting and very fruitful! The first blog that I started didn’t do well, and I had to dump it eventually.
But over the years, I have learned a lot about how to get run a successful blog. I thought I should share my own experience with the world so they may benefit from it and get a head start.
1) Choosing the right platform for your blog:
The first thing you need to do is to decide the platform on which you will be publishing and running your blog. There are a lot of platforms available out there but I’ll just stick to the popular ones.
Blogger by Google is undoubtedly the best out there followed by Wordpress (which is a bit advanced as it offers more features and is highly flexible). You can use any of these to start off a blog.
In a simpler language, I would actually differentiate these two on the basis of your interest and the motive behind your blog. If you’re just a hobbyist who loves to blog and likes to keep it simple, then Blogger is definitely for you. However, if the reason behind your blog is business, then I would suggest that you go with Wordpress (as an FYI, this blog uses the HubSpot platform).
2) Choosing the right niche:
This is somewhat controversial but I will mention it anyway. What I’ve learned over the years is that blogs with a specific niche tend to do better than the blogs who are blogging about everything. Unless you’re LUCKY, I personally don’t think you’ll do well if you don’t define a niche for your blog.
Focusing on one niche will also help you when you’re submitting your blog to directories as it gets easier to categorize your blog.
3) Letting the world know about your blog:
Once you’re done with selecting the right platform, the next thing on your to-do list should be to let the world know about your blog. Because if you’re generating worthy content and no one is going to read it, then it’s a waste!
There are different ways to get traffic for your blog, let’s discuss them briefly.
Search Engines:
Everyone uses search engines and they are definitely the best way to get traffic. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and Bing/Yahoo Webmaster Tools. Get your site listed there, so these search giants can find out about your blog. It is a long discussion if we go into the details of these tools, but the main things that you need to know is that you should submit an updated sitemap of your site to these tools and make sure your site is error free, it is not blocked for robots, and that the SEO for your site is done properly. Both Webmaster Tool services will guide you on every step and once you’re familiar with them, you won’t be facing any problems.
Social Media:
Search engines may bring you traffic but in order to retain your traffic, you must have a social media presence for your blog. Besides that, it’s a great medium to get you started initially as you can ask your friends and family to join your page, so they may get regular updates on what’s happening on your blog.
It can be a hectic process to post everything to your social media profile/page so the easiest way to do this is to sign up for a free service that will post your latest blog topics automatically to your profile/page. I suggest using dlvr.it for this purpose.
Word of mouth:
Word of mouth is another way to get your blog noticed. The more the people talk about your blog, the more it’s going to get popular.
Some useful tips:
- Never over-optimize your site
- Never use blackhat SEO techniques
- Never infringe copyrights
- Always generate original content
- Make sure what you write is interesting and appeals to your readers
Final Words:
This is a very basic walkthrough of my personal experiences of running my blogs. I will be posting in-depth tutorials on how to do everything properly, so keep on checking back for more!
If you are already business blogging, but need some extra help, the download our ultimate checklist to great blog article headlines. Blog titles are just as important as the content itself. Click to button below to download the checklist:
