My blog focuses on Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship, and Blogging/Writing. Writing is not just an art form and it can be monetized. If you are a writer, it’s critical that you understand this. The following contributed post is entitled, Realistic Ways to Monetize Your Writing Online.
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Blogging can start as a creative outlet, a way to process life or share something meaningful with the world. But sooner or later, most bloggers realize that passion doesn’t come free. Between buying a domain, paying for hosting, managing your newsletter, designing your site, and sourcing visuals, your blog can start costing you real money. It’s no surprise many of us start wondering, how can I make this blog pay for itself?
If your blog is going to generate any kind of income, it needs the right foundation. That means thinking about what kind of blog you’re building and who it’s for. You don’t need a niche that fits into a neat box, but you do need to write with clarity and consistency.
Content that connects tends to be personal, helpful, or entertaining, and ideally, all three. The layout should be clean, responsive, and easy to navigate. But more than anything, you need to write for your audience. When you understand who’s reading and what they’re looking for, your content becomes more valuable, and valuable content is what opens the door to monetization.
Partnering with the Right Brands
Once your blog has a clear voice and a loyal readership, you can start exploring paid partnerships. Brands often look for bloggers who can authentically speak to a topic and help introduce products or services to a new audience. That could mean writing a sponsored post, sharing a product review, or even hosting a giveaway.
It’s important to be selective. Choose companies that align with your values and interests. Your readers trust you, and any partnership should feel like a natural extension of what you’re already doing, not a sudden, out-of-nowhere promotion that rings false. A good brand relationship is built on transparency, relevance, and respect for your audience.
Becoming an Affiliate
Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways bloggers earn passive income. It works like this: you link to a product or service you recommend, and if someone clicks through and makes a purchase, you get a commission.
This model can work well in posts that are already offering recommendations, like product roundups, how-to guides, or personal stories with practical takeaways. For bloggers in the finance or lifestyle space, joining trusted loan affiliate programs can open up monetization opportunities that align with topics they already write about. The key is staying transparent with your readers and only recommending things you genuinely support.
Selling Downloadable Digital Products
If you want to create something once and let it earn in the background, downloadable products might be the way to go. These can be simple: a budgeting spreadsheet, a list of parenting hacks, journaling prompts, or printable affirmations.
You don’t need to be a designer to make it work. Tools like Canva or Google Docs are more than enough to create something your readers will find useful.
Offering Paid Content or Workshops
For bloggers who want to keep their time commitment low but still offer something extra, consider gated content or small virtual workshops. Maybe it’s a monthly newsletter with deeper insights, or a quarterly Zoom call with like-minded readers.
You can use platforms like Patreon, Substack, or even a password-protected section of your site.
Monetizing your blog doesn’t have to mean turning it into a full-time business. It can simply be a way to honor the time and energy you put into your words. With intention, clarity, and care, your blog can keep being your creative home, and help cover its own bills along the way.
I don’t necessarily need another YouTube channel but I started one. It’s called Big Words Authors76. I started the channel to broaden my reach as an author, and also to collaborate and network with other writers. If you are interested in joining me on this new journey, the first three videos are embedded below. They are an introduction to the channel, a discussion on secrets to getting started as a writer, and finally the concept of writers having natural lengths. With everything happening right now, I will have to determine how regularly I create content for the platform, but with what I know to do and not do as a writer now, I think the conversations I have there will be very educational, fascinating, fun and insightful. Please consider subscribing, leave a comment and smash the like button. Best regards.
Hello. Thank you for clicking on this link, and I hope you enjoy this essay. Writing a book was the genesis of my blogging and becoming a video content creator. I have published part one of my book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. It is currently available on Amazon in eBook, hardcover, and paperback formats. The paperback edition is now also available on IngramSpark. Shortly I will be selling signed hardcover and paperback copies on my online store entitled Big Words Authors. You can place an order now if you want a signed copy. There is also a page discussing the book. Please consider visiting it to learn more about the project and see promotional content I’ve created surrounding the project. And now, on to our feature presentation.
Interviewing Dr. Lee Phillips
I interviewed Dr. Lee Phillips on my YouTube channel entitled, Big Discussions76 Science and Technology in 2024. I worked with Lee for several years at the David M. Brown Arlington Planetarium prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is where we met. There was likewise a lot that I didn’t know about Dr. Phillips which I learned about during our discussion. In our interview, we discussed his science training, research experience, and books that he has authored in the six segments below. I was particularly interested in his experiences as an author, as I am a newly self-published author myself. You can learn more about Dr. Phillips’ books Einstein’s Tutor and Practical Julia on Amazon. Consider subscribing to my science channel if you watch any of the segments below. Best regards.
Three focuses of my blog are Blogging and Writing, and Career Discussions and Workplace Discussions. Your ability to write is one of your most critical skills. It is critical in the workplace and you want to use it to maximize productivity. The following contributed post is entitled, Organizing Your Writing In The Workplace: Top 10 Tips For Enhanced Productivity.
Effective communication in today’s fast-paced work environments is of utmost importance. Writing professionally organized emails, reports, memos or presentations not only shows professionalism but can increase productivity as ideas flow more easily while saving time and preventing misinterpretations of messages – this blog post contains 10 useful tips that will ensure your writing blends into an office setting seamlessly.
1. Assess Your Audience
Before creating any content for publication, conduct an extensive assessment of who your target audience is. Take their needs, preferences and understanding into account when crafting messages tailored specifically for them; whether that involves writing technical reports for colleagues or client proposals – taking this step will make writing much more successful and productive!
2. Craft and Outline
Outlining is at the core of organized writing. Before beginning to draft your piece, take some time to brainstorm key points and structure in an outline that helps keep ideas organized logically while remaining easy for readers to follow; this roadmap keeps thoughts focused and prevents divergences as you compose.
3. Employ Clear and Concise Language
Time in the workplace is of utmost importance, so no one wants to waste it reading lengthy sentences. Opting for concise language which effectively conveys your point will save yourself and others valuable minutes; aim for simplicity without diminishing its message’s essence.
4. Present One Idea Per Paragraph
In order to enhance clarity and avoid reader disorientation, aim at presenting one concept at a time per paragraph. When changing topics or concepts, begin new paragraphs as visual cues for your readers that something has altered.
5. Integrate Headings and Subheadings for Effective Organization
These elements serve two functions. Readers can quickly locate information they seek while significant headings provide focus for writers composing each phase of a project.
6. Proofread and Edit
Grammar and spelling errors can quickly undermine an organized writing piece’s effectiveness; to ensure readers receive clear messages while helping transform ideas into impactful writing pieces, be sure to proofread and edit before finalizing a work. Not only will proofreading/editing ensure readers enjoy ease of comprehension for reading purposes but it can help transform those thoughts into impactful works that engage readers as well.
7. Bullet Points and Lists
Bullet points and lists offer an easy-to-understand format, helping readers absorb key concepts quickly. Furthermore, lists allow us to present multiple ideas or options at once.
8. Take Full Advantage of Technology
Take full advantage of technology! There is an abundance of writing tools and software out there which can assist in organization, revision and collaboration – including grammar checkers or project management platforms which streamline writing processes while increasing overall productivity. You may want to use resources like zoho writer which can be a huge help!
9. Set Up A Review Process
An effective review process should always be in place when working on important documents or projects such as thesis or dissertation submissions, to make sure fresh eyes spot mistakes more quickly while providing constructive criticism that helps develop organizational writing styles and structures more successfully.
Make sure someone from outside your department carefully reviews the document or project in question so as to offer valuable constructive criticism that could enhance organizational writing styles and structures further.
10. Review Your Writing Style Guide Regularly
Maintaining consistency within any workplace setting is of utmost importance; to promote it effectively in yours, consider developing and adhering to a writing style guide which sets forth grammar, punctuation, tone and formatting standards that all writers in your organization abide by when writing across teams or individually for consistent practices and improved team writing results more quickly together than separately.
With consistent styles as an outline to work from team writing can produce results faster together than independently.
Final Thoughts
Organization of your writing in the workplace is an invaluable skill that will mark you out as an effective communicator. Knowing who your target audience is, outlining content carefully, using clear language and employing impactful persuasion techniques are just some of the keys to successful workplace writing! Apply these tips, and watch as both personal and financial benefits accrue through increased written communication! Enjoy happy writing!
“Whether you are writing something creative for yourself or others, you are putting together some material to share with colleagues, or you’re copywriting, it’s vital that you know how to write effectively and what kinds of rules to follow.”
A key focus of my blog is Blogging/Writing. Writing is a craft and can open up numerous doors for you. The key is to grow in the craft to the point where your writing is distinct and where audiences enjoy what you create. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Write Effectively For Any Audience.
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Good writing is a skill that can be enormously useful in pretty much any context. Whether you are writing something creative for yourself or others (learn how to promote your book on Amazon here), you are putting together some material to share with colleagues, or you’re copywriting, it’s vital that you know how to write effectively and what kinds of rules to follow. One of the main things you always need to keep in mind with writing is the importance of the audience. You have to make sure you are writing effectively for the specific audience that you have in mind.
In this post, we are going to look at some of the things you might want to bear in mind to help you along with that. As long as you have thought about the following, you should find that you are able to write so much more effectively for any audience, and that is a great skill to have.
Research The Reader
First of all, if you want to write effectively for your audience, you need to make sure you know who they are. That means you need to research your reader as thoroughly as you can. If you are writing something like marketing material, then this is probably a process you have already been going through, but at other times you might find that you need to really work on it if you are going to know who you’re really writing for. In any case, it’s important to have this down before you get started where necessary.
The clearer a picture you have of your audience – who they are, what they respond well to – the easier it will be to craft writing that they will enjoy or respond well to. So it’s absolutely worth putting the effort into your writing research before you do anything else.
There are a lot of principles you may want to know about if you are trying to write effectively, and it is a really good idea to try and be aware of as many of them as possible early on. Many of these have been in place for many years, and while some are hotly contended, most of them have at least a nugget of truth to them. So you are going to find that they are absolutely worth knowing about, at least – and you can then decide how much you want to take them on board yourself.
So what kinds of principles are we talking about here? One perfect example would be Chekhov’s Gun, named after Anton Chekhov, the famous playwright. This is all about introducing an element only if it will advance the plot of the story – otherwise, leave it out. That applies not just to creative story-telling, but to pretty much any kind of writing you may engage in. If it doesn’t serve the piece, leave it out.
Then you also have principles like showing rather than telling. While not always the case, it’s often better to show the reader what you mean, rather than simply telling them. This also comes from Chekhov, believe it or not! As you can see, these two together put you in a pretty good stead when it comes to putting any writing together, so they are the kinds of principles you should try to be aware of.
If you are unsure whether your target reader will understand a piece of jargon or a niche term, avoid it altogether or introduce the concept to them in a way they can understand. This is important because there is no quicker way to frustrate an audience than by throwing some confusing terms their way, in the hope that they already know them. Sometimes the writer might even come off as arrogant as a result of this, so it is clearly something that you need to avoid at all costs.
It’s much better to slowly incorporate those terms by introducing them properly. This is altogether more respectful and more encouraging, and your reader will appreciate it.
Organize The Information Well
A lot of the time, good writing is really about how you organize the information you are trying to present. You want it to be meaningful and well and easily understood, and most of that comes down to the manner in which you arrange it on the page. Think about what needs introducing first, and then slowly go deeper and deeper. That is the best approach you can take if you are trying to talk to an audience of any kind.
Three focuses of my blog are Business/Entrepreneurship, Blogging/Writing and Video Content/Media Creation. Whether you are an author, a blogger, or a YouTube content creator, you always want to think about improving your content as it will lead to an ever expanding audience. The following contributed post is entitled, 5 Ideas To Improve Your Content In 2022.
With plenty of competition, brands simply can’t afford to produce low-quality content. To remain relevant and competitive businesses need to be consistently improving their strategies. To make an impression with your content marketing, focus on these five areas.
1 . Figure out your goals
When you’re developing a content marketing strategy it’s important to determine your key goals. Common content marketing goals include improving lead generation, boosting customer retention and driving customer loyalty. With a solid understanding of your content goals you can create the best content for that particular purpose. Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness or educate your audience, be clear on your content goals.
2. It’s all about storytelling
Looking for marketing tips for 2022? Well, great content marketing is all about telling stories, by using stories you can engage your audience and provoke an emotional response. Marketing stories can help you to appeal to the values of your audience, and forge a deeper connection. Stories come in many different forms whether it’s brand storytelling, stories about your products, or stories about your employees. There are so many benefits of storytelling including:
● Stories can help to build the trust of your audience. ● Helps you to create a memorable brand. ● Build a rapport with your audience.
3. Collect plenty of feedback
Improving your content relies on analytics and data, collecting feedback can help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses. There are lots of different ways that you can collect audience feedback. Firstly, you can use surveys, pop-up forms or focus-groups. Using these tools you can ask customers how they feel about your content, and what you could improve. Software can also be useful, visitor analytics tools can provide plenty of helpful data, to help you improve your web content.
4. Provide extra value
To stand out in the crowd, you need to provide something extra special. Providing extra value helps you to build a memorable brand. There are lots of ways to add extra value with content, here are a few key ideas:
● Create an engaging podcast, exploring the key trends and news in your industry. ● Offer interactive content, providing an exciting experience for your audience. ● Produce educational content, helping your audience to learn new things. ● Collaborate with similar brands to produce unique social media posts.
5. Get content support
If you’re looking to revamp your content strategy there are plenty of support tools that you can use. Check out tools for content ideas, analytics, graphics, or content writing services. There are plenty of different types of software to streamline your content success. When you automate a few content tasks, you’ll save time and boost productivity levels. If you’re looking for a fantastic content support tool check out GlideSEM. If you’re stuck for content ideas, GlideSEM can produce content for you, including the appropriate keywords.
In five steps you’ll improve your content strategy for 2022. From storytelling to support tools there are lots of ways to take your campaign to the next level.
Two key focuses of my blog are Blogging/Writing and General Education. The ability to write is a critical skill no matter what sector you aspire to go into. The better you get at it, the better off you’ll be. The following contributed post is entitled, 5 Tips To Improve Your Writing Skills.
Writing is one of life’s most underrated skills. Of course, there are many ways to make money from being a great writer. You could craft a Booker Prize winning novel, work as a freelance copyright, or create and monetize your own blog. These are all respectable ways to earn a living, but writing is not just useful as a means to financial success. It is a valuable skill in its own right.
Whatever career you are in, there is a good chance you have to write occasionally. You may have to draft business proposals or create Powerpoint presentations to deliver to clients. Monthly reports, marketing plans, press releases, financial statements: all of these are examples of the written word in which a miscommunication could be disastrous. Even if you are in a manual line of work, you probably still have to send emails or participate in Whatsapp conversations.
Being able to write well makes you more articulate and helps you get your point across in a much more concise and meaningful way. This can benefit you when convincing a client to do business with you, asking for a pay rise, or getting yourself out of trouble. But how do you become a better writer if you’re not naturally talented with the written word? Here are five tips to improve your writing skills.
Read more
The best way to become a better writer is to read profusely. This way, you can absorb different techniques and styles and gain a better understanding of what makes for good writing. Look at things like vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation. Consume a variety of different texts from novels to news articles to scientific journals. Eventually, all this content will rub off on you and you’ll develop a keen eye for excellent writing.
Write a lot
Practice makes perfect, so make sure you devote some time each day to write. It doesn’t have to be public or even meaningful, as long as you make an effort to put pen to paper. Start a journal, publish a blog, or even just scrawl down some random thoughts in a notebook. The more you write, the more comfortable you will become and you’ll soon cultivate your own unique style.
Take a course
If you’re a complete beginner when it comes to writing, it is a good idea to learn from an expert. There are many courses and workshops that can help you develop your writing skills and turn your passion into a profession.
Edit everything
Once you’ve started writing for real, you need to become a perfectionist. It’s not enough to just churn out a blog post and hit publish. Be ruthless with the editing process and scrutinise every paragraph, sentence, and word. You need to be able to get your point across in as concise a manner as possible.
Get feedback
When you’re a writer it can sometimes be hard to see the wood for the trees. That’s why it can help to get feedback from an impartial observer. Ask friends and family to read your material and offer their criticisms and advice for how you could improve it. You’ll soon learn to identify your own flaws and work on them.
This blog post is going to involve the areas of Blogging/Writing, Business/Entrepreneurship, and Technology. As many of you know, I was able to monetize my blogging platform a couple of years ago. With multiple projects, I only have a little bit of time throughout the year to generate pieces here for myself now. Much of the content is generated by customers/collaborators. By the way, my new blog entitled, ‘Big Words Authors’ is now up and running and has a more literary/storytelling focus. Take look if you want to read creative writing narratives, stories, poetry, and my new book project entitled, “The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story”, and the many supporting promotional pieces that are on the way.
This piece, while it will discuss how I monetized my blogging platform, will also talk about two important aspects of starting your own enterprise: monitoring your business receipts and customer service. Over the years I’ve heard that systems are an important part of any successful business, and I’ve found that to be true. I will thus also discuss what happens if some of your critical systems breakdown, compromising important aspects of your business like your customer service.
There are currently numerous documents on the Big Words Blog Site involving blogging. Some were written by me, and some were written by a customer. A year or two after starting the Big Words Blog Site, I unexpectedly entered the business of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I plan to discuss SEO in greater detail in a separate post. For now, however, I’ll just say that I started collaborating with other entities to publish content, for which I’ve been compensated. I’ve worked with several collaborators, and each involved the generation of business receipts and customer service.
Checking Your Business Receipts
In one of my Fathers’ Day posts (2017), I shared a memorable experience where my father reprimanded me for not taking my receipt and counting my change – a life changing experience for me. It turns out there’s a business context for checking your receipts. As I’ll describe in the business context, checking your receipts not only ensures a given transaction was executed properly, but it can ultimately save your business.
In short, I was able to monetize my blogging activities through the area of SEO. I’m no expert in SEO, by any means, but essentially it involves increasing your rank in the Google search engine by being linked to other websites. This is a big thing in our modern digital age and there are companies that specialize in this. The client/company/partner I started working with created short informational pieces of all kinds, linking companies in them.
Our partnership involved my publishing the content they sent to me perfectly, meaning that the final published version needed to match the draft they sent me in terms of content, structure and the weblinks inserted in the original piece. Once I sent them the published link and it was satisfactory, they would send me a receipt letting me know that the piece was perfect. I have partnered with other customers performing the same service, and still others who simply want their links added to specific contents. When the partnership with my main customer started a couple of years ago, I couldn’t believe it. It involved me publishing large amounts of content and it became profitable.
Interestingly, in some instances with large numbers of pieces being generated and passed back and forth, inevitable mistakes occurred. These were either on my end or on theirs. This was understandable as they were generating thousands of pieces (from me and others), and I was publishing as many as they could send me. Occasionally, I would unintentionally leave a link out, to which I’d receive a polite message saying, “Can you please put the X link back into the piece?”. In some instances, they’d send me an apology and would ask me to change something to update it from the draft they sent me – an error on their part.
In some cases, a link that was anchored to text would need to be changed to a naked link (the actual ‘https’ web address), or sometimes the other way around. Either way, the receipts were communications that we were good to go, and that I would be paid, or that a change needed to be made, and typically, quickly. These communications also occurred when I was offered a piece, when I accepted it, and in some instances, when they needed me to delete a narrative for whatever reason. They were very important communications for our partnership.
The Importance of Customer Service in Any Business
Up to this point I’ve discussed an important element for any business/organization without explicitly stating it, Customer Service. Depending on the office in which you work, many federal employees are rated for their level of customer service every year. Simply put, customer service is the proficiency, quality, and speed with which you see to the needs of your customers.
An example from a McDonald’s restaurant comes to mind. Years ago in a McDonald’s Restaurant I ordered an extra value meal. I could taste the food as I ordered it and was set to scarf it down as I picked the tray up from the register. Somehow, I tipped my tray in such a way that my fries all fell on the floor, spilling out everywhere in front of me. Embarrassed and sure that I’d have to pay some more, I turned back to the register.
“Can I have another medium french fry, please?” Within seconds the girl working at the register got me my new fries fresh out of the fryer, and she didn’t charge me for it. This was an example of stellar customer service.
In terms of bad customer service, how many of us have had to call technical support for your cable/internet provider? Maybe you’ve had to call for your new technology device you just purchased. How long did you have to wait on the line and did the person even speak English? Was your problem resolved or did it linger for hours, days and weeks? Depending on your answers, you may have experienced poor customer service and have either complained about that particular business, or you may have never returned to do business with them.
In a nutshell, they say that the reputation of your business spreads by word of mouth. Thus, if your customer service is poor, the word could spread quickly. The same is true if your customer service is stellar. You want to stay in the latter group as it can affect your profits. That goes for whether you’re in the food service industry or SEO.
Business Receipts, Your Business Systems, and Your Customer Service
It is said that the most important part of your business is its systems. When I started the Big Words Blog Site, I set up a Microsoft Outlook account to handle the email correspondence for the site. I eventually downloaded the Outlook app onto my smartphone and upon using it, I could quickly see the notifications my customers sent to me once we started working together. From the palm of my hand, I could see if the published pieces were satisfactory or if something needed to be changed. Outlook and its app allowed me lots of agility, so to speak.
Unfortunately, there is generally at least one technical glitch per year for my business. Earlier this year something disappointing happened. My Outlook account was hacked and I could receive emails, but I couldn’t send them. This threw a major wrench in my operation. If I couldn’t send emails, how was I going to accept and confirm the documents from my customers? Immediately, I had a light-bulb moment and decided to set up a G-mail account to conduct my business while the host attempted to fix my Outlook account.
In short, it worked, but it wasn’t the same. Fortunately, my customers started sending their content to my new G-mail account so that aspect of our partnership continued. One problem I encountered though was the functionality of the G-mail account wasn’t the same as the functionality of the Outlook account. With the G-mail account, I could see when new emails were coming in, but I couldn’t quickly differentiate when an action was needed. Also, when I opened the account on both my PC and my phone, it was difficult to differentiate between the new posts that were sent, when they were sent, and if they were satisfactory.
Because I was multitasking and was a little lax in terms of checking my business receipts, I was slow to accept documents and slow to react to errors in the pieces I published. My response time had become embarrassingly slow, and frustration built for both me and my customers. One issue went unresolved for a week and half, which was unfortunate because my customer worked according to deadlines. This was confounded by the fact that my blogging software didn’t always update in the most expedient way. A customer wrote me back once saying that they would slow down sending content and I came to the sobering realization that I may have permanently destroyed our collaboration.
Restoration Of My Outlook Account, Moving Forward and Lessons Learned
It took my webhost about three months to fix my Outlook account. In the meantime, my troubles using the G-mail account with my business taught me a valuable lesson. I paid much closer attention to every piece my customers sent to me, as they had not abandoned me. I refocused and attacked problems with a renewed intensity. I closely watched my business receipts and responded to customer emails expeditiously. Once my Outlook account was restored, things were pretty much back to normal and hopefully they will stay that way.
Closing Thoughts and Conclusions
I learned several lessons from the entire turn of events. They are as follows:
• Check your business receipts and ratings regularly. • Make sure your customer service ratings are as high as possible. • Have a backup plan should one or many of your business systems go down. • In the business arena, you must remain ever vigilant.
Thank you for reading this piece. For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign up button at the bottom of the announcement. Regards.
Three focuses of my blog are Blogging/Writing, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. As a blogger, there are several aspects to consider. If you want to become successful, you want to have a handle on the technological side of your operation in addition to be a proficient writer. The following contributed post is entitled, 10 Steps To Enhance Your User Experience.
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You’ve decided to start a blog, and now you want to make money blogging. This means that you need users and lots of them. But how can we ensure we reach our desired audience?
User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience with an app, site, or product, whether it’s good or bad. The goal of UX is to make the user’s interaction as simple and effective as possible. Whether you use Cloud Development Environments or entry-level applications, here are 10 steps to enhance your UX:
1-Optimize You Clicks
Users don’t like waiting around, especially when they are used to partaking in tasks quickly. If they click on something and have to wait for it to load, they’re going to get annoyed.
This can be as simple as making sure that links on your site aren’t taking too long to load or as complicated as altering the layout of your page so that content loads faster.
2- Create a Blog That Appeals to your Target Audience
If you’re going into fashion blogging, you don’t want to have a blog that appeals to people who are into technology or sports.
You also need to consider your content; if your target audience is women between the ages of 35-45, you’ll need to alter how you present information so that they’re more likely to be interested in it.
3- Make Sure Your Blog Has a Reliable Host
It doesn’t matter how amazing your blog looks or what information it contains if nobody can access it. Many internet users will immediately leave a site if there is an outage, even if the outage only lasts a few minutes.
This isn’t as easy as getting a hosting service and putting up some HTML code anymore. You need to be able to provide fast, secure hosting to users.
4- Optimize Your Site Search Function
People often don’t like searching around on sites, especially if they’re used to only having the information that’s relevant to them right in front of their face. This means that you need to ensure that your site search function is working properly and that it doesn’t take too long to find the information that a user is looking for.
5- Write Content That People Want to Read
This may sound like an obvious one as it’s something that many bloggers start out doing; however, you need to make sure that you’re offering interesting content to your audience.
6- Make Sure You Offer Relevant Advertising
This might sound like you need to skip adding advertising if it doesn’t make sense for the type of blog you are running. However, it’s important to ensure that your ads are relevant because this can affect your site visitors just as much as slow load times.
7- Optimize Your Images
It may seem like an unimportant detail, but it’s not. Images are just as important to bloggers today as they were fifty years ago with paper magazines. You can use several different tools to add images onto your blog, including free options such as Imgur and more advanced programs like Photoshop.
One of the easiest ways to make your website more user-friendly is by optimizing your images with Photoshop. In Photoshop, there are several tools and features that you can use to improve the quality and size of your images. By following a few simple steps, you can ensure that your images are loaded quickly and efficiently on your website.
Here are a few tips on how to use Photoshop for image optimization:
-Transparent background: When you make transparent background on photoshop, choose the PNG format. This will help to keep the file size down while still keeping the quality of the image high.
-Resize your images: Make sure that your images are the appropriate size for your website. If they are too large, they will take longer to load; if they are too small, they will appear pixelated.
8- Offer Users Their Social Media Links Easily Accessible
Many bloggers may not see this as an important priority, but they must do it. One of the most common complaints people have with different sites is that they’re very difficult to find.
The best websites are the ones that offer users their social media links easily accessible because this allows them to share your content more quickly and with other people if it’s particularly interesting.
9- Organize Your Content Clearly
It doesn’t matter how attractive, well-written or informative your content is if it isn’t organized properly. People expect to find each piece of information on a blog easily without having to read through the whole thing at once.
You can use headings and subheadings to help separate your content into easily accessible chunks that people can check out quickly.
10- Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
Google is now penalizing sites that aren’t mobile-friendly, and the number of people who use their phone or tablet to browse the internet is increasing all of the time.
With this in mind, you need to make sure that your site is set up in a way that will be easy for people to access, whether they’re using a mobile phone or a tablet device. You need to avoid using pop-up adverts, and you also need to ensure that the site doesn’t take too long to load.
For your blog to hope to be successful, it needs to be easy to find, navigate, and use. If it isn’t, you’re likely to lose a lot of potential readers before they ever get started with your content.
Two focuses of my blog are Blogging/Writing and Business/Entrepreneurship. When you start a blog, you have to think about ways to get your messaging out and expanding your reach. There’s a lot more to it than just having insightful and well-crafted pieces. The following contributed post is entitled, The Best Blogger Outreach Ideas.
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Blogger outreach, sometimes known as influencer marketing, is when bloggers and businesses work together to create promotional content. In most cases, the business will provide the blogger with samples of products or services in return for a review, or offer as prizes in a giveaway hosted by the blogger. Sometimes both are done, to maximize the results. Blogger outreach can be an effective part of a digital strategy to build brand recognition.
The type of blogger outreach that you decide to do and that will work best for you will depend on your business, and there are lots of great options to choose from. You can manage your own blogger outreach, or you can work with a company like FATJOE who already has a list of contacts for you to work with, cutting a lot of work out for you!
Sponsored Posts
These are posts that you pay a blogger to write and publish, with mentions of and links to your brand. The amount a post like this will cost you will depend on the influence of the blogger, as well as the kind of post you want. Make sure you agree on terms beforehand.
Remember that the Advertising Standards Authority states that a blogger must always declare when they have been paid for a post, so they will need to use a clear disclaimer on the post you pay them for.
Product Reviews
Another option is to send out your products to bloggers in return for a review, whether in the form of a blog post, photos on social media, or videos. Remember that bloggers will not guarantee a positive review, so make sure whatever you send them is great, so that what they tell their followers about you is good.
Product Features
A product feature is similar to a review. However, instead of reviewing it, the blogger will feature your product as part of a larger post. For example, they might include your jewelry in a gift guide around Christmas time, or mention your walking shoes in a post about a hiking trip they’ve taken.
Giveaways
Giveaways can be incredibly effective for both the brand and the blogger. The brand provides the prize and the blogger will host the competition, which could be on their blog, YouTube channel, or social media channels. Giveaways are a great way to gain followers and exposure.
Blogger Events
If you prefer the idea of real-life to digital, then running a blogger event could be for you. You invite bloggers and other influencers to attend an event that will showcase your brand, such as launching a new product range, in exchange for them covering the event. This is a great way to boost your brand with coverage from a lot of bloggers at once.
You could create event hashtags to give you a clearer idea of what the return on investment is. Blogger events do take a lot of time and effort to organize, but the payoff can be well worth it.