Blogging, many entrepreneurs already do it, but many also don't. This is because it takes time, a lot of time, and also requires a certain amount of writing talent. That is at least one of the most common excuses why people don't do it, 'I can't write that well.' Later in this article, I'll also tell you why this is not a bad thing at all.
Getting familiar with blogging
In our internet age, blogging has become a trendy web-based social phenomenon, and this will evolve much further with time. Individuals are creating blogs for both personal and also business purposes. Since the cyber world has become more accessible, more and more people are familiar with blogging and its importance. Indeed, many are using blogging as a means of raising extra income.
Deliciously Ella is a blog that attracts more than 1 million visitors a month. Founded by a lady who overcame a serious illness thanks to healthy eating and started blogging about it.
What is a blog anyway?
Before you can understand all aspects of blogging, you first need to know what a blog is. Generally speaking, blogs refer to websites that contain information on a particular topic with several subtopics. With features like diary-like content, links to other sites and/or articles, or comments. A blog is also a written piece focusing on topics as diverse as sports, business, politics and many more.
Blogging is an elaborate act of writing (creating blog posts) similar to writing a diary. The skills required include writing and editing posts, posting your blog posts on social media, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and marketing. When creating a blog, you need to be as creative as possible so that your content will be interesting and appealing to readers and site visitors. Keep in mind that the kind of content you create and the message you have in your blog can determine what kind of blogger you are and how you position yourself to the outside world. A blog is generally personal, contains a lot of news items and personal stories/experiences, and contains little general information.
This blog post is the very first article on my blog 😉
Why more and more people are starting blogging
The great thing about blogging is that 'normal people' can become known and successful with it. Provided you do the right things, are interesting and have a long breath. You usually start attracting visitors only after a few months, and it is precisely in those first months that it is hard to keep going because you still get very little response.
A great example of a beauty blog is beautylab.nl, a blog with 760,000 unique visitors a month. Can you imagine what such a high number of visitors can do for your business?
There are a number of reasons why you, as an entrepreneur, should start blogging:
- Blogging helps with your online presentation and credibility
- Blogs serve as an interactive and effective tool to interact with followers and potential customers
- Blogging is free and easy to do
- Blogging provides a growing number of free visitors from organic search results in search engines like Google
- It increases the value of your website
- You increase your expert status
- You keep visitors informed about news and developments within your company
So if you have a business, then blogging is a good tool because it helps accelerate success. Blogging is also a way of interacting with customers and solving problems with them. If you are able to produce top quality blogs, you can definitely expect a lot of followers and this means more potential customers.
How can you start blogging?
Any person can start blogging, as long as they choose a good topic and set clear goals. To get started, you need a website. The most common system to create your website with is WordPress. A big advantage of WordPress is that you can use this system for free and the possibilities of adding functionalities to your website are almost unlimited. Next, choose an interesting topic and a catchy title for your blog post. Write your blog posts from within yourself and develop your own style. It definitely pays to write a blog regularly, because you will gain more and more followers provided you are interesting enough and get more and more free visitors from Google.
But I can't write at all
Above all, don't let beliefs you have about yourself limit you. You can learn to write, and the great thing is that you write a blog precisely from within yourself with your own personal style. There are some very good books that can help you, or blog articles (what a surprise, lol) like this one.
Vlogging
You can also start vlogging. Vlogging means video blogging. Anyway, the more interactive and multimedia your blog is, the more value Google assigns to it. So make sure you integrate with social media and use videos, photos, infographics, audios and PDFs in your blog posts in addition to text.
Videos are increasingly going to win out over written text.
Blogging and SEO
It is important to optimise your blogs for search engines like Google. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. With SEO, you optimise your website so that it appears as high as possible in Google's free (organic) results. The internet is growing rapidly and the bigger it gets, the harder it becomes to rank high in search results. Read more about SEO here
Email marketing
Once you attract visitors, you can also start converting some of those visitors into repeat visitors. You do this by using a subscription option to your newsletter. In the mailings you send out, you can refer people back to your website when you've written a new article. It doesn't work to ask people somewhere on your website to subscribe to the newsletter. That does not attract attention. Make it attractive by giving something away for free, like an e-book.
Get started
It is important to start now, because there is still a lot to gain now. But the number of websites that are successful with a good blog strategy is rising fast, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be to beat your competitors!
Good luck, and please leave a link to your blog below, or your question or your own experience with blogging!
If you have any questions or need help setting up your website or webshop, feel free to ask! Contact me here.
