Quicksprout.com founder Neil Patel is guy who definitely knows his way around a blog, but he wasn’t born a content guru.
In a recent posting titled, 11 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Blogging, Patel shares some tips that would’ve made his early days a lot easier.
Here’s a few that every would-be blogger should know before posting content.
Make it Social
Social media is an effective marketing tool and can drive huge traffic your way. Patel recommends spreading your social efforts across a number of different, but relevant, networks to get the most traction.
Dominating social media also means staying active on social media. That’s nowhere near as time-consuming as your might and tools like Hootsuite make it a lot easier.
Be Consistent
How often you blog is not nearly as important as how consistently you blog. If you’ve can only come up with three blogs a week, come up with three blog postings every week. Patel, and plenty of other bloggers learned the hard way that inconsistent posting is blog poison.
Content Lives Forever
Publishing content on the Web is easy, maybe too easy. That means that bloggers sometimes post up content that’s not quite ready for prime time. Remember that all those posts stick around forever and the bad ones can reflect poorly on you when clients are looking at your work.
Develop a Good e-Mail List
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, e-mail and e-mail newsletters are still viable traffic generating tools. Of course the more people you can get those e-mails out to the better off you’ll be.
Don’t ever miss a chance to harvest e-mail addresses, just don’t abuse the privilege. When used sparingly, e-mail still has incredible power.
Spend a Little Cash
You can definitely do a blog on the cheap, but if you really want to take it to the next level, you’ll need to shell out a little bit of cash. Professional grade blogs are built on professional grade WordPress themes, graphics and code.
Patel spend a lot more on his blog than most of us ever will (around $20,000 a month) but even small blogs require some capital investment.
Focus on Retention
Getting that initial surge of traffic is actually pretty easy, keeping it is pretty tough. Retaining readers through surveys, community building and e-mail harvesting can help your figure out how to become a real destination.
Don’t Hesitate
Content trends move with lightening speed, so either jump one the bandwagon right away or don’t jump at all. Patel says he missed out on Infographics entirely and won’t hesitate when the next big thing rolls around.
Keep it Conversational
Did you really think you’d make it through this whole article without getting lectured about quality content, did you?
Patel suggest using a conversational tone whenever possible and we agree.
Finally
Whether you’re a content guru or not, crafting a successful blog takes time and you’ll definitely make some mistakes along the way. If you want to be successful like Patel, you’ll learn from those mistakes.