To become a professional blogger could be a daunting task. From the outside it seems to be easy but if you take a plunge into blogging then you could find it very difficult. And it appears more difficult when your goal is to be a successful professional blogger. So lets first understand who is a professional blogger and how can you be?
Who is a Professional Blogger?
A professional blogger is who expert in particular niche and having much enough capability to deliver it nicely to their blog readers. They having creative thinking to present their content differently, they don’t copy others, people copy from them. They know how to build online relation with blog readers, how create money and much more.
To be honest blogging is not for everyone. Let me clear one thing more here blogger and professional blogger are two different things. If you spend some time on the internet you will get a feeling that blogging is just a cake walk and there is no big deal.
Well! That may be true if you just want to post photos or videos having fun with your friends then it is fine. However if you want to make serious money from website then blogging is nothing like that.
So we decided to write some tips to become a professional blogger and which must possess before you venture into blogging.
Even if you know and learn following 12 things it may not guarantee you a success in blogging. However you have to consider them as perquisites or bare minimum that you need to start with. But you must know these things in order to succeed as a professional blogger.
12 Secrets to Become a Professional Blogger
1. How to Write
Well how to write doesn’t mean how to write your name or home address. It means, you must have good knowledge of English and you can write at least 1000 words essay.
Although blogging is more than writing an essay but you must know how to put words together and make a statement that makes sense.
If you don’t know to write and find it difficult to write even a paragraph without grammatical mistake then you can’t become a professional blogger.
2. Imagination and An Idea
This is one of the most important things to have if you are blogging. As I said in earlier paragraph that blogging is something more than writing an essay.
You need to have imagination that you can express through a blog. If you don’t have something new to present then your blogging will not go anywhere.
Coming out with a new idea is blogging. Time has changed and you need something new.
3. Experience in One Particular Niche
Before you even think of starting a new blog you need to work on your niche. Today blogging has changed a lot. It is so tough to get first position in Google search engine.
The reason is Google will only index you if you have something great to offer. Visitors on your blog must like your blog and only then you have any chance of success.
So you need to have some experience in what you are writing about. If your blog is about music then you need to know everything about it.
You have to build a great narrative and have to become expert if you really wish to become a professional blogger.
4. You Should Know Branding
Then comes branding! I will repeat again blogging is not as easy as it was 10 years back. In order to stand out from rest of other professional blogger you need to know about branding.
Branding necessarily does not mean you have to become a brand like Nike or Apple. But your blog must stand out from the rest.
You have to work on logos, design, one liner or motto or mission statement and more importantly your writing style.
That is how you get to build a brand of your own.
5. Tools used for Content Research on the Web
As a professional blogger you have to face millions of competitors. Every single niche has millions of blog running.
So, why people would read your blog only? What is special in it?
The answer to that would be your content. And to write great content you must know how to do proper research on the Internet.
You have to get familiar with various tools like Google Trends, Digg & various other tools that can help you in creating great content.
6. Basic and Advanced SEO
If you wants to become a professional blogger you should know. As I said in last paragraph competition is very tough and you got millions of other bloggers competing for same keyword that you are.
How good your content may be but it is of no use if you don’t get people to read it. Google will not rank or index your blog post if you know nothing about SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
By SEO I do not mean advanced SEO but you need to know basic SEO otherwise no one would know that your blog actually exists.
Follow the blogs like Backlinko where Brian Dean provides great SEO techniques.
7. All kinds of Marketing Skills Not Just Writing Skills
Next you need to know is about marketing skills, I mean not advanced but very basic.
You need to know about email marketing to promote your blog. Marketing is very important for promotion just like SEO.
You can’t overlook marketing otherwise your blog may not succeed. Marketing and branding are two important things that bloggers tend to ignore.
8. Working with Social Media like Twitter and Facebook
Social media is an integral part of blogging. It is one of the most important parts of promoting your blog.
You must know how to engage people on Twitter and Facebook. You can draw traffic from these social media platform directly into your blog.
However you must be serious when you are on twitter or facebook. You can’t just post same thing again and again and expect people to follow you.
9. Basic WordPress and Web Hosting Knowledge
Now a day’s blogging has become very technical. Just knowledge about writing, SEO, branding, marketing and even social media is not enough.
You are expected to know more. If you don’t know how to work with WordPress blogging platform then blogging is not for you. You need to know about various themes, plugins and other SEO tricks associated with WordPress.
Similarly you also need to know some technical knowledge in web hosting. Try to know each & every details while you are creating your blog.
10. Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Web Analytics, Google Adwords etc
As I said in earlier paragraphs you have to be technical if you want to be succeeding in blogging.
The basic idea of Google Adsense is very important for monetizing your blog. Similarly you also need to know about Google Analytics to know health of your website.
You have to be technical so that you can understand the dynamics of blogging. Similarly Google Adwords is another program you need to learn.
11. Vocabulary for Your Niche
We have thoroughly debated all the technical aspects of blogging that you need to know in order to become a professional blogger. So in this paragraph we shall talk about developing your vocabulary.
Your blog post should not only be readable but also very interesting to read. There is thing called bouncing rate when it comes to web traffic.
If you want to reduce bouncing rate of your blog then you must write great articles that are witty, satirical and even filled with researched data.
Therefore you need to know about new words to make your writing enjoyable.
12. Patience, Consistency and Perseverance
The final thing that you must have is things like Patience, Consistency and perseverance.
Blogging is a long overhaul. You cannot imagine being successful professional blogger without patience. You will be learning many things on your way to become a successful blogger.
Do not expect an easy way out when it comes to blogging. Prepare yourself because you are going to learn new things from diverse backgrounds.
I hope now you understood, what are the most important factors in order to establish yourself as a professional blogger. I hope you enjoyed this article.