The 8 great habits of highly effective bloggers
Blogging is interesting and blogging is hard. Despite everyone can become a blogger these days, not everyone actually can succeed in it. Some people manage to become insanely popular, turning their hobby into a permanent job. Some, however, abandon their blogs quickly enough, feeling like they aren’t progressing at all.
So what does differ the first ones from the second? Of course, the most obvious thing is persistence – it takes a lot of it to keep blogging no matter what. However, there are many other important things that make bloggers popular and effective.
While there’s no standard recipe for blogging success, it is still useful to try learning from the best. By analyzing the habits of effective bloggers and making them your own ones, you’ll be able to become a better writer and increase your chances to succeed in the field of blogging. So let’s move on to these habits.
1. They know what they write about.
Though one doesn’t have to be an expert in something in order to start blogging about it, one still has to know a lot about the subject and be willing to learn even more. In order to become popular and draw the audience attention to your blog, you have to deliver valuable information to the readers. You also have to know how to present this information so even the people who don’t have much experience in the field could understand it.
2. They make the content useful.
It doesn’t matter if a blogger writes about wonderful but cheap essay writing or about makeup – either way, the information they offer will be useful if researched well and presented right. However, the best bloggers don’t settle with offering some information only. They are also willing to share their experience, creating tutorials or sharing personal tips. Moreover, they aim to deliver something truly fresh and unique to their audience, writing on the hottest topics in their niche.
3. They have their own writing style.
Though the usefulness of the content matters, the blogger’s style is just as important (and sometimes even more important). There are plenty of similar blogs that can be found online and so often it’s not about the information the bloggers offer – it’s about the way they present this information. Unlike corporate blogs, ordinary ones have the more personal approach, which many people find more appealing. And so it is important for bloggers to try making their writing style as unique and appealing as possible.
4. They stick to a schedule.
How to distinguish a professional blogger from an amateur one? It’s very simple: professional bloggers are more responsible. They have a schedule and always stick to it.
The benefit of having a schedule is obvious: your readers will always know when to expect something new from you and you will look more reliable too. This will also make you more organized as a blogger as you’ll have strict deadlines and fixed amount of content you have to deliver each week or each month.
5. They have a content strategy.
Developing a content strategy is crucial for any blogger who wants to become successful. If you are a beginner blogger, such strategy could be an effective tool for niche testing. For example, if you are able to come up with 15 or more topics about certain niche right away, this will probably mean that you know this niche well enough and won’t struggle with working in it in the future.
For experienced bloggers, a content strategy is a way to assure the content will be delivered no matter what and that this content will be not only valuable but diverse too. People get tired of the same topics eventually so it’s important to keep such strategy close to check what you’ve been writing about during the previous month and what you’re going to write about during the next one.
6. They think about their readers.
This might seem like an obvious thing to many but actually, it’s not. There are plenty of bloggers who start blogging with the only intent to make as much money as possible. They keep looking for the ways to make their posts as SEO-friendly as possible (which is a good thing) and coming up with stuff like writing attention-dragging headlines that have nothing to do with the contents of the post (which is definitely not).
Good bloggers value and respect their readers, coming up with ways to engage them in communication. They also listen to them, writing about topics on request and trying to come up with topics that seem the most interesting. This is what makes the readers not only come to your blog but actually stay with you for a long while.
7. They are passionate.
The passion about a certain subject is what usually makes the posts so interesting and engaging. This passion is also the thing that encourages the bloggers to learn more about their area of interest, to monitor the latest trends constantly, and to have their own opinion about the newest and the most controversial topics.
8. They are self-starters.
Yes, most of the successful bloggers are. And, of course, that’s not easy by any means. A blogger has to do a lot of things besides writing: choose the right hosting, learn how to work with plugins, have good design and SEO skills (or at least work on developing them). This could be insanely hard when you aren’t paid for that yet and when you have no boss to watch you.
However, that’s what makes such bloggers so successful. When you work so hard to make your blog interesting and valuable, you become very organized, responsible, and learn how to manage your time as effectively as possible. Basically, you’re turning your blog into a business and start running it like a person would run every business – consistently and wisely.
Sure, all these habits might seem hard to build. However, building them is not impossible, especially if you love writing and are truly passionate about the whole concept of blogging. So if you’ve been thinking about starting your own blog for some time, why don’t you give it a try – or at least try developing these useful habits?