Often, newbie bloggers have this doubt
Where can I learn the skills that are required to make my blog a success? Any profession or business needs some skills and how do I master those skills that are required to make the business of blogging work out for me
This doubt comes when you are just starting to blog. It is a fair doubt and you will get over this doubt as you walk the walk and “get” how all of this works
Broadly speaking, these are the following 4 skills you need to master to make your blog a successful business
- Writing and copywriting skills
- Knowledge of your niche
- Search engine Optimization
- Business and networking skills
Writing and Copy writing
When you start a blog, you are selling content. The content that you create or curate is a decisive factor, since it is this content which will attract visitors to your website. These visitors are potential customers who will either click advertisements on your blog or buy products, or click on affiliate links that you promote.
So it goes without saying that you need to master writing, copywriting and communication skills to a great extent. This will automatically happen as you keep exploring, keep writing and keep learning new things.
Remember, good writing comes with lots of practice and you will have to dedicate a lot of time and write a lot of content. Merely reading blogs or taking copy writing courses will not help you get there, so the most effective way to master this skill set is to keep writing on a regular basis. It all comes down to the drive you have and how much passionate you are about the subject you absolutely love.
Knowledge of your niche
Knowledge of your niche is critical, since it is this knowledge which attracts and keeps customers. When you are writing a blog, you are actually passing knowledge to your visitors and if this knowledge is of little or no value, your customers will abandon you.
You will have to keep exploring your niche all the time and learn new things to ensure you are updated on the subject you are talking about. Not only you have to write about the things that people want to read, you will also have to add something extra which is exclusive to your site alone. I will share some examples
- If you write a blog on “Recipes”, ensure that your recipes are tried, tested and works well in different conditions. Average bloggers will only compose the recipe and publish but a good blogger will write the recipe, test it out, prepare the meal, write all the Pro’s and cons, list out all the use cases and offer a wider perspective to his readers.
- If you write a blog on “Sports news”, ensure that your posts are current, true and offers something which readers are desperately looking to read. Don’t just read other sports news websites and re-blog the content which is already available. Instead, you should make connections with specific players, publish interviews, get the inside scoop on a story and then offer a narrative which is nowhere on the internet and which people want to read.
In short, knowing what you are talking about is very important and you will need to go the extra mile and do something which other bloggers aren’t doing. This will take a lot of hard work and eventually you will understand what works and what does not work.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO takes care of the distribution part of your business.
Having a good product is important but equally important is its distribution. If potential customers can’t find your offering, you just do not exist for them and no matter how great your product or service is, if it is not dicovered by the potential buyer, it does not exist.
So you will need to master SEO skills to some extent and ensure the following
- Can Google and other Search engines crawl my site?
- Can Google and other search engines index the content I have on my site?
- What problems Google and other search engines are having on my site? How can I solve them?
- How can I ensure that my website loads really fast, regardless of the internet connection speed and device the end user is using to access my site.
- How can I ensure that the content I write on my site is optimized for search engines?
- How Can I write better titles and headlines?
- How do I win links from other sites?
There are tons of resources on the web for good seo but I will share a list of websites which you should follow to improve your knowledge of SEO.
Business and Networking Skills
Running a business requires some business and networking skills, which you will need to master if you want to make your blog a success.
This will come with time. You will have to walk the walk to understand how you can gather business and networking skills and I am convinced that nobody in this world can teach you how to network, unless you start doing it yourself.
One thing will lead to many things. You take up a job, you meet people, you make connections. From these connections, newer connections will emerge. From those newer connections, more connections will come. This is how you spead your network and get known online and offline.
Also, when you read blogs and sites, it helps to leave useful comments on other sites and interact with bloggers and other influential people on the web. The more you interact, the more you become a “Known face” and the more you become known, the more are the chances that your efforts will succeed.
The Best Way to Learn
The best way to learn anything is just start doing it and keep doing it, without worrying whether you have the hard skills to achieve the task at hand.
The biggest mistake most people make is to wait for the perfect time and opportunity to start something. You don’t have to have all the skills in place to start something. But once you start it, you will acquire skills along the way. This is true for anything you are going to start, not just blogging.
I remember starting my blogging business when I had no knowledge of WordPress and how the web worked. But as I walked the path, I kept discovering the secrets and eventually things fell in place. My writing was outright horrible back then (and it still is) but as I kept writing more and more content, it improved.
It started making more sense when I completed 500 articles. It made even more sense when I completed 1000. Improvement and skill development will automatically happen, provided you keep working on it. You will keep discovering the skills as you walk the path.