11 simple and random tips for professional blogging

Managing a blog provides an opportunity to promote your brand, share your knowledge and passions - or just make money.

Many of us pick up the practice as a get-rich-quick scheme, but it requires hard work. Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are crowded with abandoned websites whose owners have come to realize this fact.

In truth, there are many ingredients for cooking a successful blog. Time, consistency, and originality are among the non-negotiables. Yet oftentimes, bloggers focus more on writing for search engines and using black hat SEO practices than creating original content.

The pitfalls of this strategy include compromising your Domain Authority and higher bounce rates. If you want to avoid these common mistakes, here are some blogging tips for creating high-quality content and generating organic traffic for your blog.

Define your niche & target audience

A blog that addresses everyone speaks to no one, which is one problem choosing a target audience and niche solves. The former is the market or industry you aim to address, while the latter is a much smaller and specific segment within your target audience.

For example, your target audience can be tech-savvy individuals, while your niche narrows down to tailoring mobile guides for Android or Apple users.

In first-person shooters, and real-life too (if we're going to be that violent), you have to aim at a target otherwise you're just spraying bullets and hoping it hits the enemy. It's the same with your blog.

It's easier to identify your audience’s challenges and create the type of content that resonates with their goals when you know who exactly they are.

If you're struggling with this process, use the following tricks:

• Think of an industry you're passionate about writing for. E.g., Food, Fashion, Finance, or more.

• Consider how much knowledge you have in that industry compared to others.

• Research on the demand. Use SEMRush, Ahrefs, and other SEO tools to get ideas on what people are searching for. You'll also learn if the industry has shifting trends that can impact your blog's performance.

• Gauge the balance between profitability and popularity. Search for online statistics to estimate your audience size and how much money it can rake in. You want to make sure that it's well-known, but not so much that your blog drowns in a sea of similar ones.

Go Evergreen

Trendy posts improve visibility, but not if you're looking at the long term. Such posts go out of season, which means the moment people move on from a topic, your post becomes irrelevant. For example, news or fashion articles and statistical reports.

On the hand, Evergreen posts are timeless, and you should consider using them in your content strategy. These are articles that will always have importance, regardless of the date of publication or season.

You only need to make minor information and grammar changes in the future to maintain the quality. An example of Evergreen posts is the one you're currently reading. Another example is this post on how to create great content.

You earn bonus points if you make your posts long in structure. According to Neil Patel, content spanning from 2,000 words and above has been attracting backlinks and organic traffic from Google since 2012.

Also, they provide more opportunities to advertise products, make a sales pitch, interlink to other blogs, and showcase your knowledge without sounding pushy.

Perform thorough content research

Content research involves every process you use to collect information before writing posts. For example, brainstorming and gathering post ideas from existing content online, using SEO tools for keyword research, and creating a unique strategy based on your findings.

Besides increasing your word count, research gives content credibility, especially when you gather information from reputable sources and interlink to them. Without it, your post is only a compilation of assumptions and your opinion.

Sadly, these factors aren't enough to convert clicks to leads. When sharing information or giving advice on a problem, you want to provide concrete insights on how and why it works so readers can make informed decisions moving forward.

Here are some ways you can improve your research skills:

• Examine the first page of Google SERPs. Look at what the competition has written on your topic, and what's missing.

• Observe the engagement. The comment section is a good way to know how readers are receiving competitors' posts.

• Interview industry experts. They have witnessed the processes your topic involves, and so have real-time experiences that are beneficial.

• Use keyword research tools. Ahrefs has a free keyword generator you can use to assess keyword difficulties and volume for your topic. You could always upgrade to a paid plan when your blog grows, and you need more functionalities.

• Search for relevant statistics. Use them to back up points.

• Compile your findings. Gather and review them in note-taking apps or a jotter before you start writing.

Understand searcher intent

After performing keyword research for your topic, understand why people are searching for those phrases. Doing that helps you know how to create a piece of content that’s relevant to such search queries.

Google says that:

When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the highest quality and most relevant to the user's query.

The queries can take four different forms, such as:

• Informational queries: the searcher seeks answers to a question or wants to learn more about a topic. For example, "What is blogging?" and "Difference between blogging and digital marketing".

• Commercial queries: the searcher wants to make a purchase, but needs more information about the product first. For example, "Samsung Galaxy S23 vs Galaxy S22" and "Google Pixel 7 Pro review".

• Transactional queries: the searcher is ready to make a purchase. For example, "best Samsung Galaxy S23 deals" and "Galaxy A23 price New York".

• Navigational queries: the searcher is trying to find a particular web page. For example, "Twitch sign up", "Slack", and "Twitter sign in''.

Use outlines

Rambling is acceptable during the research and drafting stage of your blogging process. Afterward, you should make an outline before writing the main copy. It helps you make sense of the scattered research ideas you noted down earlier, organize texts, and give content a better flow.

Considering that not every visitor may read your post in full, outlines also make it easier for them to scan through content and jump quickly to the information they need. You can use Google Docs to make an outline and edit content texts before moving them to your Content Management System (CMS).

Get to the point

As nice as it is to tell a story and try to be relatable, don't forget that you're not writing a personal biography. You should consider bounce rates. Bounce rates refer to the number of visitors that will immediately leave your blog a few seconds after visiting it.

The rates vary depending on the website and can range from 20% to 60% or beyond. Many factors influence it, some of which include slow page speed and poor content quality.

A high bounce rate is usually an indicator that visitors are not engaging with your site as they should. But it could also mean that a visitor got their answers immediately and decided to leave. So you shouldn't rely on this data completely when creating blog content.

If want to lower the percentage, use the following tips:

• Write shorter paragraphs to drive your point home.

• Use white spacing to make paragraphs easier to read and look less intimidating.

• Use bullet points to break long paragraphs into actionable solutions.

• Insert headings and subheadings to separate your points into smaller sections.

• Use the bold, underline, and italicize features to make points stand out.

Take time to edit posts

Once your content is complete, it's time to refine your ideas and remove grammar errors. This part sounds easy, but it can be the hardest. It's where the perfectionist syndrome kicks in, and you start to feel like your post needs to meet a high standard.

There's no crime in wanting outstanding content. But if you're not careful, your editing rampage can produce the opposite result. To edit like a professional, start with identifying what the content lacks. Then categorize and mark them off one at a time.

For example, if you feel the flow is off, set a goal to use more transition words and enhance it. If the central idea is confusing, task yourself to use simpler words, more examples, and visuals.

Next, practice reading the copy aloud, or even backward. You can get other people to do it too. This way, they spot errors you didn't even notice. Use Grammarly to fish them out, and also scan for plagiarism.

Once you're done, hit the publish button. If you missed any mistakes, you can always update the post in the future.

Use SEO best practices

Successful blogs use white hat SEO techniques to improve content visibility. They include in-depth keyword research, guest posting to build organic backlinks, image optimization, and quality content writing.

Some bloggers prefer to use deceptive black hat tactics instead, such as excessive link exchange, inserting hidden links into content, and keyword stuffing to boost rankings.

Over the years, Google's algorithm has evolved to crack down on these activities as it violates their spam policy, so you may want to avoid them.

One basic SEO practice includes using long-tail keywords and their variations. They have lower competition and are easier to rank for. You can add them to your meta description, URL, and image alt texts without stuffing the content.

Try self-hosting

One way to improve user experiences is to migrate from cheap hosting providers or free website builders to self-hosting. Wordpress, Wix, and other platforms are good choices for beginners who want to test the waters or unserious bloggers with inconsistent posting strategies (case in point, me).

But as your blog grows, it'll be harder to scale them. Why?

Think of them as a rented apartment with a strict landlord. You have limited room for customization, even though you're paying for the space.

With a self-hosted site, you’d have unlimited control in setting up and maintaining the website with its resources. You will have room to explore numerous themes, plugins, templates, and more features to enhance your blog's capability. But let's be honest, it's costlier and requires technical expertise.

If you want to start a personal website, check out these top web hosts.

Use content calendars

A content or editorial calendar is a customizable table that displays your blogging plans. It helps you visualize upcoming posts, pending edits and updates, promotional strategies, and other efforts toward consistent posting.

You can mark these activities on calendar apps or use more personalized solutions from HubSpot and other brands.

That said, content calendars only serve as road maps. In the end, you have to make a conscious effort to follow them and put out content. If you struggle with procrastination or burnout frequently, here are some tips to help you overcome them:

• Set reminders on your calendar app.

• Prepare and schedule posts in advance.

• Jot down random ideas. They may become useful ideas in the future.

Analyze your KPIs

The amateur blogger stops at publishing blog posts, but the successful blogger thinks progressively. They measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with tools like Google Analytics to see how well their content performs over time.

This data tells you whether your current strategy is effective or if you need to revise it.

Some common KPIs you should look out for include:

• Page views and page views per visitor: how much traffic a webpage on a site is receiving, and how many web pages each visitor views.

• Bounce rate: the percentage of visitors that leave your website or one webpage to another soon after opening it.

• Time on Page: the duration a visitor spends on a webpage.

• Source of traffic: the direct, referral, and search channels visitors use to access your website.

• Scroll depth: how far visitors scroll on a webpage.

• Conversion rate: the percentage of visitors that completed a desired goal. E.g., purchased a product or subscribed for a plan.

• Cost per click: how much you pay for each click a visitor makes on your ads.

It's okay to ask for help

Blogging is overwhelming, especially for beginners. You may be easily intimidated when you see how much progress your competition is making. But it's alright not to know everything at once. Building a successful blog doesn't happen overnight, and beating yourself over your pace doesn't make it happen any faster. If you can't cope with the pressure of doing it full-time, get someone to manage your blog while you take a break.