Blogging for Profit – Part 3

Yesterday, we talked about starting a blog and writing on it –two no-brainers if you ever want to make money blogging! Today
I want to talk about what to write about and how to make your blog more
visitor friendly. Both things are very important if you want to
establish a steady and ever-growing stream of regular visitors.

1. Be yourself.
When you first begin blogging, it might seem daunting to come up with
anything to say. My biggest piece of advice when you first start out is
to be yourself. Share from your own personal experiences and wisdom. Think about what unique perspective you have to bring to the table; do not try to be someone else or to copy someone else’s blogging. Be you!

2. Learn from others, but don’t copy their ideas.
Going hand-in-hand with being yourself, do not start a blog and just
mimic or parrot other people’s blogging ideas. You won’t ever get very
far if you never do anything original.

If you want to be a
better blogger, I highly recommend you spend time hanging around
well-known blogs with large readerships. Observe what they are doing
right and what is working for them. Then, figure out how you might
implement their ideas in your own unique way on your blog. However, as
I said above, do not just copy their ideas on your blog.

It is imperative that you set yourself apart, so don’t be afraid to try original things and find your own voice and niche. It takes perseverance and will likely mean you try and fail on occasion (I’ve certainly been there, done that, got the T-shirt!), but you can’t succeed if you don’t starting by trying.

[And here I must insert a piece of advice to newbie bloggers: Please, PLEASE, PLEASE do not make the mistake of filling up your empty blog by copying and pasting blog posts into your blog from other blogs. You should never, under any circumstance, copy and paste a full blog post into your blog without written permission from the author. Blog posts are copyrighted and copying and pasting them into your blog–even when citing the source–can be infringing on copyright rules.

If you find a post from another blog that is especially helpful to you, you are more than welcome to copy and paste a paragraph or so into your blog, making it clear that you are quoting another blogger, and then encourage your readers–with a direct link–to go and read the rest of the blog post on the original author’s blog.]

3. Use variety.
Variety is the spice of a blog. If you always post the same length of
post in the same way on the same topics, it can get dull very quickly.
A few ideas:

-Write longer posts and shorter posts and freely intermingle the two on your blog.
-Post pictures at least a few times per week.
-Try adding in video or audio every now and then.
-Post about your view of a particular current event.
-Share a quick tip.
-Ask
a question of your readers (wait until you have more than a handful to
do this, though, otherwise it will look a little lonely if there aren’t
any comments!).
-Answer a question from a reader in a post rather than in the comments section.
-Share a funny story about something your child did or said.

Also, don’t
be afraid to stand up on your soap box every now and then. Most of the
best bloggers are those who are not afraid to speak up and speak out on
subjects they are passionate about. And do
join in some of the blogging-themed days (such as Frugal Friday or Works-For-Me Wednesday) on occasion, too. You’ll
usually get a nice amount of traffic as a result, plus it gives you
just another idea to blog about!

4. Use short paragraphs and always leave spaces between paragraphs.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across a blog which was
fairly well-written but a bear to actually read because of these
monstrous paragraphs followed by monstrous paragraphs. Make your blog
easy to read by breaking up paragraphs after every 4-7 sentences or
less and always have a space between paragraphs.

5. Proof-read your posts before and after publishing them.
Need I say more? Read over your post at least once before hitting the
publish button, then read over it again after you hit the publish
button. Don’t know how to spell a word? Look it up on Dictionary.com. Sloppiness in blogging will detract from your
blog and will greatly hamper your blog’s ability for growth.

6. Write your blogging ideas down. If
you come up with a blogging idea as you’re going about your everyday
life, write it down at once. You may think you’ll remember it later,
but if you’re anything like me, there’s a good chance you might not.

I
have a place in my planner where I write down my blogging ideas. I never get to all of them, but the ever-growing list serves to remind me of things I am hoping to write about and when I sit down to blog, I usually have a waiting reservoir of post ideas to cull from.

I’ve
just barely scratched the surface on the subjects of being a better
blogger and coming up with creative blog fodder. What do you think makes a great blog? Why do you visit the blogs you do? What makes you continue to return to a blog or add it to your feedreader? Tell us in the comments section so we can all be enlightened!