Imagine having tons of traffic on your blog, ridiculous amounts of followers on social media, fans that adore you because you’ve changed their life for the better, more money than you know what to do with and the freedom to do whatever you like. That would be pretty awesome, right?
But here you are just getting into blogging, nervous and a little overwhelmed with all the things you have to learn and do well, to reach your goals.
Or perhaps you have been blogging for a while, with next to nothing to show for it. And you feel pathetic, when you’re manicly updating your traffic stats, hoping for signs of life. But all you get is an occasional blip, on the flatlining graph – which only makes it look like the electrocardiogram of a person in coma.
But there is a way to fast track your progress towards the success you deserve.
You Don’t Know What to Do
Here’s the thing. You don’t know what it takes to become a successful blogger.
You probably have a lot of assumptions about it, but they’re most likely inaccurate at best. And decisions based on flawed assumptions aren’t going to give you the results you want.
So even if you try to fix it, by making changes to the design of your blog, how you promote it or your style of writing – you’re still groping in the dark. And you could be wasting a lot of time on things with little to no value.
It Requires Experience to Know What to Do
But don’t beat your self up about it.
Successful blogging is a complex art and it takes both time and practice to master – just like anything else. And you wouldn’t expect yourself to become the worlds greatest violinist overnight, if you just started playing the violin, would you?
Most bloggers who have made it, have spent years testing what works and what doesn’t, they have gotten huge amounts of feedback, they have been thinking about blogging (and probably even been dreaming about it), they have discussed blogging ad nauseam with their blogger friends and they have kept going when they wanted to give up.
Copy What Successful Bloggers Do
The good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
You can take advantage of all the hard work successful bloggers have been doing. You just have to carefully observe what works for them and start doing the same.
Imagine for a moment that you want to build your own house, but you don’t have any prior experience with building houses. Would you just start building and expect everything to work out like a charm? Probably not, but that’s actually what most starting bloggers do.
A much more reasonable approach would be to figure out what it takes to build a house, first. You can do that by talking to people with experience, read books about it or hire professional help. In other words you would copy tested and proven approaches, to maximize your chances of success.
8 Keys That Most, if Not All, Successful Bloggers Use
Below you’ll find 8 keys to blogging success that are both tested an proven. Use them to get your blog on the right track and into the fast-lane towards success.
1. Stand Out From the Crowd
Why should someone read your blog instead of the millions of other blogs out there? Take your time to figure out how you are different and what you have to offer your readers, that no-one else does. And having a blog that’s all about you, your opinions or what you ate for breakfast doesn’t count (there are already too many of those littering the internet).
For more information check out Corbett Bar’s article about finding your unique selling proposition over at Think Traffic.
2. Pick a Good Domain Name
One of the most important aspects of your blogs brand is the domain name. A good domain name is easy to remember and gives your readers an idea about what your blog is about before they visit. And using your own name probably isn’t the best idea.
See my article if you would like to know how to choose a good domain name.
3. Create Amazing Content
Content is the reason people read blogs and if you want people to come back, share your work or even just read it. Then it has to be good. There’s no way around it, and it should be the cornerstone of your strategy to success, just like any popular blogger.
Another great piece of advice from Corbett Bar is to write epic shit.
4. Use Compelling Headlines
The most important part of a blog post is the headline. A great headline will draw people in and the different between a good and bad headline can be huge amounts of traffic. And just like the secrets to blog success, you can copy what works for others.
Jon Morrow from Copyblogger have a free ebook, with 52 headline hacks that you can use to get started.
5. Utilize a Proven Post Structure
When you’ve caught people’s attention with your amazing headlines, you need to guide them gracefully through your post. You need a way to get people to want to read every word you have to say, instead of getting bored and moving on before they get to what you have to offer.
Derek Halpern, from Social Triggers, have made an infographic about how you can create the perfect blog post.
6. Get in Front of Potential Readers
No blog is an island, and the build-it-and-they-will-come strategy doesn’t work. You have to get in front of people or they wont know that your blog exist, no matter how great it is.
There are many things you can do to get noticed. You can be active on social media like Twitter, Facebook or even the more obscure places like Triberr. You can comment or guest post on other blogs. Or you can use the big search engines like Google, YouTube and iTunes to get exposure.
The trick, as Pat Flynn from The Smart Passive Income Blog like’s to put it, is to be everywhere.
7. Build Relationships With Your Visitors
When people finally find your website, you’ll want them to comment on your blog, share your content, sign up to your email list, buy what you have to sell or what ever it is you want them to do. They way you do that is by building relationships with your readers.
And Danny Iny, from Firepole Marketing, have gotten 30+ A-lister’s perspective, on what works and how to go about, it in the book Engagement From Scratch (available for free as an e-book).
8. Own Your Website
A self-hosted WordPress website is the way to go. It’s the most powerful and flexible blogging platform available. And it allows you to be in full control of the design and functionality of your blog.
If you need help getting started, then I’d love to show you how to make a website from scratch.
Over to You – Observe What Works for Others
It isn’t possible to capture all aspects of what it takes to become a successful blogger, in a single article.
And the best thing you can learn from this article, isn’t any number of specific tactics, but the ability observe what works for others and implement it, on your own blog.
So to practice that skill, take a moment to think about what else successful bloggers do? And let me know what you come up with by leaving a comment – thanks!
Tune Seidelin is an entrepreneur who enjoy showing people how to make websites. Sign up for Tune's free killer website tips if you want practical advice and tips about how to make successful websites.
"You’re such a smart boy!" were his first accolades heard. So, it’s no wonder that this phrase became the title of his business, Smart Boy Designs.