BLOGGER TIPS AND TRICKS

                    BLOGGER TIPS

However, if you find one site in the top 10 with a lower Domain Rating (under 60), that’s a good sign you can compete over time with high-quality content.

Lessons I Learned: Choose your niche not based on your passions but on business factors.

I didn’t know exactly where to find a writer, so I posted a job opportunity on job boards like ProBlogger. Use exit-intent pop-ups to build your email list.

Common blogging question: How do I build my email list?

When I launched my blog, I knew I needed to build an email list.

Sharing your posts on social media.

None of these tips are wrong – I just want to stress that it’s not the quickest way to accelerate your traffic growth. It’s funny to look back and think of how much time (and money) I spent on all of that planning.

Getting a guest post published is primarily done via email and you need to follow a number of steps:

First, you need to find the sites you want to write for. If an article of yours on a certain topic ranks well, write more content on related topics.

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t try to be everything at once. In most cases, the earliest a pop-up should appear is your average time on page, divided by two. These list posts should quickly give the reader what they’re looking for and make content easily accessible with a table of contents and links that go down the page.

The higher your initial rankings, the more subject matter expertise you have in that area according to Google.

Pivot your content and link building efforts to be more aligned with these topical areas.

One reason I quit other blogs in the past was because I pigeonholed myself with a narrow domain name.

So for this blog I did the exact opposite. There is also typically a mix of list posts and how-to guides. Make sure you’re using H2 and H3 headings in your content to tell search engines what’s important. And with 95% of bloggers failing, I politely reject this common advice.

My “Rebel Peak” website above was something I was really passionate about – outdoor adventure.

I started to get some traffic, but my email opt-ins were low (and the opt-in form didn’t look that great).

Guest Blogging

Think about it. My focus shifted from perfectionism to vulnerability.

Lessons I Learned: Don’t get bogged down in the planning phase. Plus, well-planned formatting gives you the best possible chance to get featured snippets (position zero).

Again, I started with Squarespace (first mistake), then I migrated my site to WordPress in January 2019 with help from a developer buddy of mine, (Ruben).

For instance, being lost in the wilderness camping with your friends is completely different than sitting in front of your computer writing about being lost in the wilderness camping with your friends.

To start a successful blog, you need to both enjoy writing and understand digital marketing. After quickly realizing its limitations, I migrated to WordPress.

Only after all of this planning did I decide to start a blog on the site to gain a following.

This goes against common niche site advice, but go with me here.

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t choose your niche based only on your hobbies. In fact, it’s not even one foot out of the starting gate. Blogs are like living, breathing documents and can be changed over time. Even if you perform the best keyword research, analyze keyword difficulty scores and competitor data, and craft the perfect content, some articles will simply do better than others.

This isn’t to say you should write about totally unrelated topics or throw a bunch of blog posts at the wall to see what sticks. And more importantly, you need to find a suitable niche that has the potential to make you money:

How to Choose Your Blog's Niche

I believe that passion is fueled by success – if you start making money with your blog, you’re more likely to keep going.

Which niches are the most lucrative?

If you need niche ideas and how to drill down into individual blog categories and article ideas, I recommend you check out this category page on G2.com. keywords and offer comparison charts to compare options.

To recap, new bloggers that want to start a blog in a lucrative niche should plan their keyword strategy based on list-posts, how-to guides, and comparison posts. I often think, “If I only knew then what I know now.” There are a ton of things I wish I knew before I started blogging. Finding a good writer is truly a 1:1 interview process much like finding a job candidate.

Let’s take NerdWallet for example.

They have a high-level list post targeting the keyword “best credit cards.” Within that pillar post, they link to their other related posts covering credit card sub-topics like travel, cashback, rewards, balance transfer, etc. On the high end, the writing is usually pretty good, but expensive. Publish, hustle, and tweak your content later.

There are also a ton of design options when it comes to building popups, pages, and templates. Google crawls these links and builds a trusted flow of semantically related sites to understand site authority.

However, sometimes actively taking part in a passion and writing about a passion are two totally different things.

In 2016, I created a dropshipping website to try and sell outdoor adventure gear.

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t skimp on your email marketing provider or stay with a free option for too long.

Mistakes to Avoid: Don’t expect to get consistent and ongoing writing help from platforms like Fiverr. I didn’t see early results, felt like I was stuck in one topical area I wasn’t passionate about, and quit. In fact, the opposite is true – it’s successful because I learned from smarter people who knew more than I did.

These “best” keywords are great for affiliate income because people are looking for long-form review posts from blogs.

How do you do this?

First, you start by doing keyword research and choosing a target keyword. Startups scale their website traffic quickly by hiring and outsourcing work to accelerate the amount of content they publish and links they receive.

To manage their blogs, startups typically hire:

Content Managers

SEO Managers

Outreach/Link Building Specialists

Freelancers for writing guest posts

As an individual blogger, common advice tells you that you have to wear all of these different hats: writer, digital marketer, web designer, web developer, SEO guru, outreach specialist, etc. While free tools like Mailchimp are good for new bloggers with little traffic, there are plenty of better options out there.

Based on my OptinMonster analytics, I get the majority of my email subscribers from these exit-intent pop-ups:

This strategy works because exit-intent pop-ups hit your readers exactly where they are at the right time.

I quickly realized that it was much harder to rank for these keywords because I didn’t have subject matter expertise in this area in Google’s eyes. It’s a number on a scale from 0 to 100 that predicts how well your site can rank compared to other websites (not to be confused with Ahrefs DR, a similar metric). auto insurance B.” These articles rank for these vs. Marketers spend an average of 1-2 hours for every 500 words. I found that freelance writers charge per word, and prices range from around $0.03 per word to $0.30 per word.

Here are the main spots to place your target keyword when creating a blog post in WordPress:Only after all of this planning did I decide to start a blog on the site to gain a following.

This goes against common niche site advice, but go with me here.

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t choose your niche based only on your hobbies. In fact, it’s not even one foot out of the starting gate. Blogs are like living, breathing documents and can be changed over time. Even if you perform the best keyword research, analyze keyword difficulty scores and competitor data, and craft the perfect content, some articles will simply do better than others.

This isn’t to say you should write about totally unrelated topics or throw a bunch of blog posts at the wall to see what sticks. And more importantly, you need to find a suitable niche that has the potential to make you money:

How to Choose Your Blog's Niche

I believe that passion is fueled by success – if you start making money with your blog, you’re more likely to keep going.

Which niches are the most lucrative?

If you need niche ideas and how to drill down into individual blog categories and article ideas, I recommend you check out this category page on G2.com. keywords and offer comparison charts to compare options.

To recap, new bloggers that want to start a blog in a lucrative niche should plan their keyword strategy based on list-posts, how-to guides, and comparison posts. I often think, “If I only knew then what I know now.” There are a ton of things I wish I knew before I started blogging. Finding a good writer is truly a 1:1 interview process much like finding a job candidate.

Let’s take NerdWallet for example.

They have a high-level list post targeting the keyword “best credit cards.” Within that pillar post, they link to their other related posts covering credit card sub-topics like travel, cashback, rewards, balance transfer, etc. On the high end, the writing is usually pretty good, but expensive. Publish, hustle, and tweak your content later.

There are also a ton of design options when it comes to building popups, pages, and templates. Google crawls these links and builds a trusted flow of semantically related sites to understand site authority.

However, sometimes actively taking part in a passion and writing about a passion are two totally different things.

In 2016, I created a dropshipping website to try and sell outdoor adventure gear.

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t skimp on your email marketing provider or stay with a free option for too long.

Mistakes to Avoid: Don’t expect to get consistent and ongoing writing help from platforms like Fiverr. I didn’t see early results, felt like I was stuck in one topical area I wasn’t passionate about, and quit. In fact, the opposite is true – it’s successful because I learned from smarter people who knew more than I did.

These “best” keywords are great for affiliate income because people are looking for long-form review posts from blogs.

How do you do this?

First, you start by doing keyword research and choosing a target keyword. Startups scale their website traffic quickly by hiring and outsourcing work to accelerate the amount of content they publish and links they receive.

To manage their blogs, startups typically hire:

Content Managers

SEO Managers

Outreach/Link Building Specialists

Freelancers for writing guest posts

As an individual blogger, common advice tells you that you have to wear all of these different hats: writer, digital marketer, web designer, web developer, SEO guru, outreach specialist, etc. While free tools like Mailchimp are good for new bloggers with little traffic, there are plenty of better options out there.

Based on my OptinMonster analytics, I get the majority of my email subscribers from these  quickly realized that it was much harder to rank for these keywords because I didn’t have subject matter expertise in this area in Google’s eyes. It’s a number on a scale from 0 to 100 that predicts how well your site can rank compared to other websites (not to be confused with Ahrefs DR, a similar metric). auto insurance B.” These articles rank for these vs. Marketers spend an average of 1-2 hours for every 500 words. I found that freelance writers charge per word, and prices range from around $0.03 per word to $0.30 per word.

Here are the main spots to place your target keyword when creating a blog post in WordPress:

In the title of your post (the earlier the better).

In the URL slug.

Within H2 headings.

Within the body content.

For example, let’s say you want to rank for “affiliate programs” like my post hereAfter placing the target keyword in my title and URL, I start with some intro paragraphs. You publish 20 blog posts about customer relationship management (CRM) software and related topics. Don’t stray too far from your niche.

Common blogging question: Should I write about topic A or topic B, or both?

Once your niche is chosen, you need to maintain your subject matter expertise in one area. You can read about my top four business factors and how to choose your niche in my 15,000+ word guide on how to start a blog here. They don’t have to manually find an email sign-up form somewhere on your blog.

You need to make Google’s life easy so that they understand your page structure. You’re often more passionate about actively taking part in the hobby than writing about it for years. Don’t stuff too many keywords into your content either – that doesn’t work for SEO anymore and your content should be easy to read.

8. You can’t be a travel, business, and marketing blogger and rank well in all three categories.

Next, you need to find contact information for the right person to reach out to.

After you find this contact information, you send a guest post outreach email.

I found three good candidates in the $0.05 to $0.10 range and sent them a brief outline as a paid assignment so I could gauge the quality of their work.

But if you want to treat your blog like a business, you can’t do it all.

I got 8 blog posts published in 15 days and you can read the results of my study here.

How do get quality guest posts if you’re just starting out and haven’t built a following yet?

This is one of the toughest aspects of starting a new blog. Write more guest posts to build credibility (and backlinks).

Common blogging question: How do I get guest posts if I’m a brand new blogger?

A lot of common blogging advice tells you to launch your blog and then focus on your own content by doing things like:

Maintaining a consistent writing schedule.

Writing X number of blog posts per month.

Creating lead magnets to build your email list. It was a big ridiculous; I was making $80,000/month and using a $60 WordPress theme. I also still write a lot of posts myself, like this one).

Any other notes and information on what to include, like stats, comparisons, product features, etc. This can improve your bounce rate and average time on page, which is good for SEO.

Mistakes to Avoid: Don’t always use Fiverr or similar platforms for graphic design services.

When a search engine like Google crawls one of your blog posts, it needs to understand not just the words on the page, but also which words are most important. They updated my logo, redesigned my lead magnets, and started to create infographics for my blog – you can check one of them out here.

Lessons I Learned: Web design and user experience (UX) are crucial for your blog, so invest in a high-quality WordPress design as soon as you have the money to do so. On the low end, you find that the quality of the writing is typically poor. If funds are tight, you can start with a free tool and then upgrade to OptinMonster and ConvertKit once you start generating traffic.

You just sign up for an account.