“You have to have something that motivates you to post.”
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Unlike most of my posts, I never opened my doors to other bloggers. But, recently, I decided to do so and learn different blogging lessons from others who are on the same boat as I am.
Now, I met Camille Deal, one of the inspiring bloggers I came across in one of the Facebook Groups I joined years ago.
She told me that she started her blogger life 9 months ago as she took the first step in building her blogging career.
How To Start A Blogging Career From Scratch?
It starts with an inspiration. It’s like an awakening experience.
“I wanted to write in the lifestyle niche, but I didn’t want to be basic and be the only lifestyle, so I decided to add in my love for small businesses! I had worked for small businesses for 5+ years and I knew of many other ones in my community, so I reached out to everyone and started writing them promotional posts on my website,” Deal mentioned.
Like most of the bloggers out there, blogging was never part of our plans. We had our lives away from the PC or the laptops. We enjoyed our real-life experiences before we turned to isolation and focused on our online stuff.
[su_note note_color=”#e7e7e7″]It all starts with the desire to write something. Then, the desire morphed into a business idea in which she started a professional blog and wrote posts for her target audience.[/su_note]
Like Camille, I was also a full-time high school English teacher; working more than 100 hours per week for a $100 monthly salary.
“I’ve loved writing for as long as I can remember. I started blogging in college but ended up getting married young and pushing blogging to the side. I got back into blogging when the company I was working for announced they were closing our location and laying everyone off. I felt like blogging was a way to positively channel my emotions,” she wrote.
It all starts with the desire to write something. Then, the desire morphed into a business idea in which she started a professional blog and wrote posts for her target audience. That is, without an email list.
To define a professional blog, it is when you purchase a web hosting service from the chosen provider and pay annually for its cost.
You have your .com and a space for your thoughts detectable by Google – not from a free third-party platform i.e. Medium, WordPress.com, Blogspot, etc. It is a reserved online space for you and you own it.
A professional blog is your online property, your asset for making an income as a blogger/writer online. Do you get what I mean?
When To Set Up An Email List As A New Blogger?
Deal never jumped into creating an email list right after her first professional blog 9 months ago. She recently did it as a strategic move after she decided to finalize the overall voice of her site.
Most bloggers, myself included, make this mistake. We think that when we start a blog and make it a serious business, we start an email list right away. But it’s not the way it is.
While writing this and after learning her strategy, I thought, “Wow. I shouldn’t have started mine when I don’t even know the identity of my site.”
The right time for you to set up an email list is when you finally realize the value you want to share with your audience.
Not right after you purchased your blog, not even after you published the first post.
What Are Bloggers Struggling With?
“I had NO idea what SEO was when I started blogging. I thought my stuff would just magically appear in search results (laughs). It’s also hard to find articles about SEO that people aren’t charging an arm and a leg for,” Deal said.
When I started blogging, I also had no idea about SEO aka Search Engine Optimization. If you aren’t familiar with it, imagine this.
You are looking for a nearby barbershop. You searched the town and you found nothing until you accidentally met a friend and recommended a popular one.
When you arrive, you notice familiarity with the location. Little did you know that you passed by the same street several times but you had no idea that it was a barbershop.
The reason?
The shop had no signage.
SEO acts like signage. It’s a tool for Google to detect your site content and recommend it to the results page. And when you successfully implement white hat SEO i.e. keywords, etc., you get the traffic.
Do you understand what I’m trying to say here?
If you want to know how you implement SEO on your site and optimize it, you can read suggested posts here:
- Your Content Sucks. Here’s How To Fix It
- What Is Content Writing? Best Ways To Improve Writing That Sells
- How James Charles Drama Teach You About Writing Epic Blog Posts
- How To Write A Blog Post: Why Storytelling Is The New Blogging?
How To Write An Awesome Blog Post That Converts?
“If the content isn’t good, then why waste time uploading it?”
This is a great remark from Deal during the interview because it reflects my view of blogging. Others suggest publishing more per month but the reality is Google only gives attention to the best ones.
For example, I only have 57 posts in this blog but I earn 18th average position on Google search versus a site with over 800 posts on the 30th. Do you get the picture?
1. Pay Extra Attention To Your Content Writing Practice
According to Deal, to bolster yourself as a brand, you need to pay extra attention to your content writing practice.
She added that she has over 60 drafts of her blog posts set aside but she doesn’t feel the rush to publish them within a short time.
At times, she resumes writing on a blog post written a month ago. “I never force myself to publish content. I like to publish weekly, but I don’t break my neck to make it happen because I don’t want crappy work on my blog,” she said.
Google may provide you billions of information about writing an awesome blog post that converts like crazy but it all boils down to the quality.
Provide the best, fresh, unique, and high-quality content for the site and you’re on the right track. Like Deal, I don’t like to publish crap on my website.
For instance, I could have immediately published Deal’s interview without reviewing it for the sake of publishing it.
But I don’t want to.
During the interview, what I only desire is to give justice to her message and transform it into an epic post, sharing her thoughts about being a blogger with you.
Suggested Post: How To Brand Yourself As A High-Income Writer – As An Author!
2. Consider Your Blog Post Length
Brian Dean of Backlinko taught me the importance of writing epic posts a few years ago. For example, I wrote a post about self-publishing with over 10,000 words.
If you like to read it, you can read it here.
On average, a blog post reaches 1,000 to 1,500 words. At maximum, 2,000 words is already fine.
However, if you want to make it epic and irresistible for bigger sites and for acquiring backlinks from various platforms, you have to be as comprehensive as possible. Thus, you may reach 5,000 words to complete the post.
According to Deal, an average blog post contains 600 to 800 words with a lot of pictures but necessarily too many that it overrides the content.
If you want to try my recommended free tool to make high-quality images for your post, you might want to check this out.
She added that if a post contains less than 600 words, it appears that the author doesn’t have an interest in reader engagement, or the author simply wants to have something to publish on the site.
And if the post has more than 2,000 words, it’s way too much.
In her case, she writes around 800 to 1,500 words for each blog post on an average rate.
3. Plan Your Content
“I try to plan my content a week in advance, but I’ve been known to plan a month out if the baby takes a long nap!”
Planning your content plays a crucial role in your brand and your blogging business. Just so you know, many bloggers created a 6-figure business from their blogs alone. It’s where you plant your seeds and grow it into an empire.
Here’s the thing.
You need to plan your content beforehand to know the direction of your blog. It’s a skeleton of your site which serves as the backbone of your brand as a blogger and your future business endeavors.
Otherwise, you’ll be writing a bunch of topics unrelated to your niche. To avoid this and to make Google love you more, plan your topics ahead.
Suggested Post: Rise Of Writing AIs: When Robots Replace Writers, You’re Done.
4. Create A Blogging System
Planning your topics to write about for this month, for example, to share your post to the audience requires a system uniquely designed for you.
Bloggers take a lot of time to realize this, though. When Deal began her blogging journey, she only started from a small idea of writing her thoughts until 9 months later, she jumped into strategic moves to boost her site and plan to turn it into a business.
A blogging system falls into categories:
- Publishing process
- Marketing process
Publishing Process
During publishing, you start with a monthly plan. You may do further research to expand your ideas for a month or so. That’s your system.
Or, you may do a bit of research and decide to write about it spontaneously. That’s also part of your system.
Every blogger has his or her blogging system. So, it’s best to determine the system that is efficient and convenient for you.
You may need to collect topics while publishing one at a time. Others do a monthly topic plan a month ahead before they start writing one post to the next.
This is what Deal’s blogging system looks like:
“When I first started blogging I wrote a word document with 100 ideas for blog posts. I haven’t had to pull from that list for 2 months into my journey!
Once you get your groove going, ideas pop into your head regularly. I write about things going on in my life on a day to day basis as well as things that are interesting on a national level.
I usually come up with a title and keyword based on the topic, but my title normally changes by the time I’m finished writing the post.
After I’m done writing I add some pictures in and make sure I cite them and include an alternate text in case the picture doesn’t load.
I check back through the article and make sure it flows and has enough space between thoughts. I choose my tags, category, and write a small post description last before I schedule the post to publish!”
Marketing Process
On the other hand, during the marketing process, what comes into the picture is the automation process you implemented on your site.
For example, you installed plugins from your WordPress to automatically share your content across social media platforms.
You can also refer to the Tailwind App, which is my recommended sharing app for Pinterest and Instagram. Once I publish a post, my pins will be shared across Tribes and Group Boards.
Deal uses her Facebook and LinkedIn profiles connected to her WordPress account to share her latest content immediately. For Pinterest, she also uses the Tailwind App.
Suggested Post: Tailwind Review – How My Traffic Boosted 200% Using This Trick
Why Is Blogger Outreach So Important?
“I have secured multiple partnerships and it has helped to keep me on track with my writing,” Deal mentioned during the interview.
She said that her “a-ha!” moment was first realized when she started building connections with other bloggers.
“It is also smart to connect with others because you realize what you want to reformat on your stuff,” she said.
Deal added that one of the two bloggers she connected with was a small business advocated and military lifestyle blogger.
With that being said, she shared how to reach out with other bloggers as effectively as possible.
- Step 1: Join blogging Facebook groups and interact on the forums.
- Step 2: Follow other bloggers within your niche on Instagram
- Step 3: Interact with other bloggers regularly. You need to be supportive of others if you want their support in return.
- Step 4: Make yourself a Pinterest if you don’t already have one & join tribes on Tailwind.
- Step 5: Start adding in pictures that you have taken yourself and not just stock photos. You want your audience to know that you are authentic.
What’s The Best Blogging Strategy?
Deal discovered the power of adding in context titles throughout her posts.
In other words, you need to break the whole post into parts to give readers the information they don’t need and proceed to what they want to know within the post.
“Truthfully, you have to accept the fact that most people aren’t there to read your every thought,” Deal said during the interview.
Conclusion – Deal’s Conviction For Connection
Blogging could be daunting. But if you learn how to reach out to other bloggers effectively, you would eventually enjoy the learning process it involves.
“Generally, other bloggers have each other’s backs and they’re willing to check out a website and provide feedback on posts,” Deal emphasized.
She added that it’s not reasonable to be afraid to do this because, anyway, you want to show your content to others.
So, be open to criticism because it’s the best way to grow and push yourself towards the path you want to be.
“You can’t grow if you don’t know what is holding you back,” Deal stated with conviction.
Blogging involves networking other bloggers regardless of the niche.
You have to be connected with yourself through your writing voice, with your audience through your content and engagement, and with other bloggers for support and growth.
You may be alone in the process but not necessarily lonely. You have the best support you need from a community as long as you desire to connect and be open as a blogger.
For Deal, this is the best blogging strategy could do, especially if you’re just starting.
Now, it’s your turn.
About Camille Deal
She is a blogger who loves to write about lifestyle and small business. When the company she worked for decided to lay off employees, she returned to blogging to positively channel her emotions. Read her latest update on her website.
If you like this post, feel free to share it with your friends and family who are about to start a blog.
If you want to share your thoughts, feel free to write them down in the comment section below. 🙂
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