Let’s Talk Blogging!

I'm a bit of a blogger junkie, truth be told. So many buttons and tools to play around with. My advice, choose the one thing you love doing most because that is also known as your "profitable niche". Why? 

Because when you love what you do then it will be impossible to give up. You have to decide on one niche or topic per blog. And you will eventually end up having more than one blog, trust me. When it gets you it grips you. SEO however is the time consuming, failure overcoming part of blogging, 

I think your idea for a money saving blog is great, but it's also an extremely competitive topic. Basically anything to do with saving or making money had sadly become quite saturated. But if your content is truly outstanding, you will stand out. Use your content to create curiosity, make your reader want to know more. 

Allow me to invite you to my blog for some more info on SEO and strategic keyword placement tactics to rank in search engines. I have been able to reach Page Rank 3 thus far, working my way to the desired Page Rank 1. 

Easy online blogger jobs

I was a professional blogger for eight years for a mental health website.  Some of what I learned:

1)  Have a social media presence and use it--this is an easy way to build up readership.

2)  Know how SEO works.  I hated this because it meant an end to my creative headlines--I have a journalism degree and know you have about one sentence to get your readers' attention--but a creative headline can't be searched for as easily as one that tells the reader exactly what they're looking for.

3)  Grab your readers'  attention as quickly as possible.  My background is in print, so I knew that most readers decide whether or not to read the article after the first sentence.  In terms of blogging, you have about four seconds.

4)  Find a way to stand out.  My angle was I was a mental health consumer writing for other mental health consumers--someone who had an insider knowledge of the proverbial system.

Good luck to you!

BeckAtsila posted:

I was a professional blogger for eight years for a mental health website.  Some of what I learned:

1)  Have a social media presence and use it--this is an easy way to build up readership.

2)  Know how SEO works.  I hated this because it meant an end to my creative headlines--I have a journalism degree and know you have about one sentence to get your readers' attention--but a creative headline can't be searched for as easily as one that tells the reader exactly what they're looking for.

3)  Grab your readers'  attention as quickly as possible.  My background is in print, so I knew that most readers decide whether or not to read the article after the first sentence.  In terms of blogging, you have about four seconds.

4)  Find a way to stand out.  My angle was I was a mental health consumer writing for other mental health consumers--someone who had an insider knowledge of the proverbial system.

Good luck to you!

Thanks for the added value, and advice. I think I may have to look into your 4 second tip with blogging. I have to admit that you have quite a bit more experience therefore, may I ask your opinion on my blog?

I would love to get into blogging but don't know how to start.  Would be grateful for advice on subject.  

Blogging is definitely a huge subject and something I am personally researching and learning a lot more about.

I have played around with blogging for some time now but just recently I started a blog that I plan to get serious about and actually build it into something.

I have found lots of helpful videos on YouTube from successful bloggers sharing great tips about how to get started.

I have been thinking about starting a blog and had the thought to focus on mental health life. I am a mental health consumer with a few "labeled" conditions. The blog would be related to me and my life trials, tribulations, successes, experiences and how I handle the situations that I encounter. 

I'm curious to know what your are on this subject. How successful were you with the blog you had related to mental health?? 

I was working as an independent contractor for an already-established website, so I had a bit of an advantage.  I was with the website for about eight years and by the end of the gig I was earning about $20 per post flat rate.  I don't know how many readers I had, but the website itself had about 1 million visitors per day.  My advice is to freelance for other websites and build up an audience, and in the author bio to direct readers to your website.  WritersMarket.com usually has a good list of who's buying what when.

Deon: You've got potential, but your openings aren't very attention-grabbing.  However, they're excellent for SEO, and given the choice between the two, I would recommend going for SEO because that's what drives traffic to your blog.  I don't know where  I heard the four-second bit, but I've found it to be true.  You've got a good niche, and you cover your topic very well.  My advice would be to have an SEO first sentence, and an attention-grabbing second sentence.  Give the reader a reason to read your blog instead of the others on this subject.

@BeckAtsila I have focused a lot on SEO and I agree that it does help to drive traffic, however, it is not always so great at getting the readers attention. I find personally that when I focus too much on SEO, I tend to write a lot less personally and end up with a sub-par written piece.

Lately, I have been trying to focus more on being more personal and writing my blog posts as if I am talking to someone. That way, I focus more on providing value and less on the SEO.

Don't get me wrong, I still try to do some SEO but when it comes to capturing attention, I think providing value is the most important thing to focus on.

I also have been looking into Pinterest a lot more. I have heard of many bloggers who get their visitors mostly from Pinterest. One even gave the advice to focus on optimizing for one platform only so that you can completely out-do the competition.

Because they get most of their traffic from Pinterest, he said he simply focuses on optimizing his blog posts for Pinterest and doesn't really focus on doing SEO for Google at all.

I personally thought that was an interesting way to approach it as all I have ever heard talked about is the importance of SEO optimizing for Google.

BeckAtsila posted:

Deon: You've got potential, but your openings aren't very attention-grabbing.  However, they're excellent for SEO, and given the choice between the two, I would recommend going for SEO because that's what drives traffic to your blog.  I don't know where  I heard the four-second bit, but I've found it to be true.  You've got a good niche, and you cover your topic very well.  My advice would be to have an SEO first sentence, and an attention-grabbing second sentence.  Give the reader a reason to read your blog instead of the others on this subject.

Thanks for the kind words, I'll be working on those openings. Appreciate your honesty, and do agree with sticking to SEO. However, you're quite right with the opening as it turns a visitor into a reader. I may have neglected the opening of post content a little. But I shifted focus on the post featured image, which is also the first thing displayed as social posts for instance. 

Just a tactic I'm testing, to create curiosity through graphic design. Thus far I have to admit seeing an exponential increase in reads.

Ann Josiah posted:

I would love to get into blogging but don't know how to start.  Would be grateful for advice on subject.  

Hi Ann,

There are many people stuck in exactly the same position, not sure exactly how to start. But the steps are fairly simple I can assure you. Blogging is not all that difficult but rather time consuming. Because it's a sequence of tiny objective steps in the right direction. Starting with discovering your profitable niche. 

Allow me to invite you to my blog (Easy online blogger jobs) for some in depth guidance to get you started. But I have to warn you, blogging is addictive once you get the hang of it. And once you understand SEO a little better, even more so. 

Moore Income posted:

Blogging is definitely a huge subject and something I am personally researching and learning a lot more about.

I have played around with blogging for some time now but just recently I started a blog that I plan to get serious about and actually build it into something.

I have found lots of helpful videos on YouTube from successful bloggers sharing great tips about how to get started.

YouTube is an excellent place to collect knowledge. In fact I'm contemplating starting a Vlog. I too am currently playing around with a single blog, until I'm happy with the results. And then it will definitely be game on for 2019 with blogging and video SEO. 

I have discovered a tool called Lumen5 for creating videos, and also convert blog posts to video. Hence contemplating the Vlog.

 Lumen5 sounds like an interesting tool, I will have to check it out. @Deon Christie

What do you use for your graphics? I use the free version of Canva and find it works really well.

Moore Income posted:

 Lumen5 sounds like an interesting tool, I will have to check it out. @Deon Christie

What do you use for your graphics? I use the free version of Canva and find it works really well.

I think you will find Lumen5 extremely useful, especially with turning blog posts into videos. But do try and keep videos between 1 and 2 minutes, while focusing on key points. You may find that uploading a high resolution (1920 x 1080) thumbnail sometimes doesn't work with YouTube because the file will exceed the maximum allowed 1 Meg. 

For that I use Canva, and after designing the thumbnail you just download it as a JPEG file. This way the image does not exceed the allowed 1 Meg.

I'm using the upgraded version of Canva, for around $12 - $15 per month if memory serves me right. I also use Canva for creating info graphics and social post images along with book covers. 

If anyone has a blog on financial tips, saving money, crushing debt...feel free to send me the link...I would love to check it out!