The Best Blogging Advice
I pretty regularly perform searches for things related to blogging and entrepreneurship. I do it because I usually end up learning something new, but also because it helps motivate me.
Whenever I feel like procrastinating or delaying my writing or content creation, I look for things (often blogger success stories) which help me keep my larger vision of running a blog with a large readership in mind.
I was doing that sort of motivational searching today and found a few great videos that share some great advice to bloggers about how to grow and find success. I started my search in YouTube for Yaro Starak.
Yaro Starak is an online entrepreneur and blogger who helped a lot of other bloggers get their start by teaching them how blogging and monetizing a blog can work through his "Blog Profits Blueprint". That Blog Profits Blueprint is a free e-book that he gives away in exchange for joining his email list.
I mostly know about Yaro because of his podcast, The Entrepreneurs-Journey Podcast, which was rebranded to The Yaro Podcast. In this podcast he interviews internet entrepreneurs, often bloggers, who have found a way to make an income on the internet. This podcast is something that often motivates me to take action on my blogging goals.
Today, I decided to search YouTube for Yaro Starak, hoping to find something inspirational. I found a clip from some conference he was speaking at where he talks about how to build what he calls "Pillar Content". Pillar content is the best, most useful stuff you've got to share on your blog, the sort of stuff that attracts readers to you. In the video he talks about what kinds of content can work as pillar content, and how to attract a following/readership.
He talks about the sorts of posts that tend to do very well in attracting readers. He mentions these types of content: How To, Definitions, Lists, and Opinions. This advice is helpful because it shows you many possibilities for ways to write content that will satisfy readers.
Another point he touches on is that people prefer content in different forms, and if you want to satisfy the greatest number of people possible, you've got to produce content in multiple formats. He calls this multimedia. He says that from a single piece of content you can produce a video, a podcast or audio, and a written blog post. Each of those sorts of multimedia will be the preference of someone, and you also increase your total content output.
His last point is my favorite. He says to publish content EVERY DAY. That is such an important thing to remember and commit to. While every day is a possibly unrealistic goal, a goal of publishing content regularly is critical. Search Engine Optimization and attracting an audience is best accomplished by building a huge body of work.
I've read somewhere (I can't remember where now) that the way to look at each blog post you write is as a door to your blog or business. If you publish only one or a few posts, then you only have a tiny number of doorways for readers to find you. If you publish hundreds of posts, then you have lots of possible doors for people to find your content.
So, while lots of people giving out blogging advice will say that quantity isn't really important because it is all about quality, you must remember that quantity is what will ultimately bring you readers and traffic, so you've got to follow a schedule if you want to build that body of work.
So publishing content regularly, daily if possible, will help you achieve your blogging goals!
I stumbled upon another video as a suggested video to the one I just talked about. This video was about blogging tips from someone who has made it as a full time blogger. This seems super interesting, so I was enticed to click.
The video is by someone I'd never heard of. The channel name is Carly the Prepster.
In the video she basically just talks about the things she would advise new bloggers to do or think about. She says she has been blogging for nine years, and so she's got some relevant perspective to share.
The first thing that really jumped out at me and made me want to listen to her was that she said you can, and maybe should, start with a free Blogger/blogspot blog in the beginning. She also mentioned using Squarespace or Wix as other free options.
This is in such stark contrast to most people talking about blogging and teaching people how to blog. Most people have an affiliate relationship with hosting companies, where if they can convince a reader to purchase website hosting through their link, they receive a payment. So, given that incentive, most bloggers say you should start with a paid blogging setup, and that might be good advice, but always seems a little self-interested to me.
She explains that your blog won't be likely to make any money early on, and so paying to run a blog that earns nothing might not be feasible. Starting on a free hosted platform will allow you to get started without having to pay any money or cover any costs. And getting started is just so important to gaining momentum.
Carly says that for the majority of her time blogging, she used a free Blogger blog, and that she had only a couple years ago switched over to a paid, self-hosted Wordpress blog.
Using a free blogging platform didn't hold her back from achieving success, and so it shouldn't be a sticking point for others.
She also talked about the importance of simply getting started. She jokes that it seems too simple, but that it is incredibly important to do it. Just start. Start creating content. It takes practice to get better at writing and crafting headlines and writing with SEO in mind. And you don't get practice until you start practicing.
And SEO and ranking in search engines often takes a lot of time, so the sooner you get started, the sooner you will see results.
And Carly, like Yaro, talks about the need to produce LOTS of content. She said that people often say to focus exclusively on quality, but she said to work on quantity as well. You must have a large amount of content to get a readership of any size. Publish content regularly. Have publishing consistency.
I next found a blog post and video where a guy named Victor Pride, author of the Bold and Determined blog, talks about what he would do if his whole blogging business disappeared. He also restricts this thought experiment to a situation where he wasn't allowed to start another blog, so he focuses on creating videos for YouTube, but I think this strategy works just as well if being applied to a blog.
Victor is a bit abrasive in his sharing of strategy and advice, but the content of his advice is good quality.
He said that if he lost his blog and wasn't allowed to start another blog, he would start a YouTube channel. He would record and publish a video EVERY DAY.
He said that for a full year, the first year, he wouldn't worry about quality. He wouldn't worry about poor editing or bad sound or even grainy video. He said that if it was possible to avoid bad quality, he would do it, but the priority is to amass a bulk of content that viewers could find, consume, and connect with.
After producing a video per day for a year, he said he could slow down and improve the quality of the videos he publishes, because at that point people would actually be finding and following his channel.
Then he talks about monetizing the traffic you've built by writing a book to sell and becoming an affiliate marketer.
My biggest take away from this video, though, is the urgent need to constantly produce content, to build up lots of content, because that is the source of building traffic.
This video was embedded in a blog post on his site where he talks about how to build a business and make money by being yourself on the internet.
The content of that page went a little beyond what the video talked about.
His idea to make money by being yourself reminds me a lot of the Youpreneur model that was created by Chris Ducker (I encourage you to look into it if you've never heard of it).
The key of Victor's blog post was to create content (whether that be blog articles, podcasts, videos, or whatever) that essentially documents your life and your reality.
You don't have to pretend to be something you aren't, or to inflate your personality.
People will be interested in you exactly as you are. You just need to share who you are so that people can find you.
Write about what interests you, what you do, what you like.
Again, it's about creating lots of content.
He says that it might sound like a cliche to say "Consistency is Key", but that is because it is true. Creating lots of content is the only way to find the success you seek.
With the power of the internet, anyone can be a celebrity or a media company. You just need to craft a message, create content, and share it. You will make money by sharing lots of content.
I thought each of these three videos were very motivational and helped push me to continue work on my blog. I really want to share them with you so that you may pick up some great blogging advice and strategy and feel driven to take action towards your goals! And certainly follow check out the original videos so that you get the full content and don't miss anything, because I really just summarized what they talked about.
Whenever I feel like procrastinating or delaying my writing or content creation, I look for things (often blogger success stories) which help me keep my larger vision of running a blog with a large readership in mind.
I was doing that sort of motivational searching today and found a few great videos that share some great advice to bloggers about how to grow and find success. I started my search in YouTube for Yaro Starak.
Yaro Starak on Creating Pillar Content
Yaro Starak is an online entrepreneur and blogger who helped a lot of other bloggers get their start by teaching them how blogging and monetizing a blog can work through his "Blog Profits Blueprint". That Blog Profits Blueprint is a free e-book that he gives away in exchange for joining his email list.
I mostly know about Yaro because of his podcast, The Entrepreneurs-Journey Podcast, which was rebranded to The Yaro Podcast. In this podcast he interviews internet entrepreneurs, often bloggers, who have found a way to make an income on the internet. This podcast is something that often motivates me to take action on my blogging goals.
Today, I decided to search YouTube for Yaro Starak, hoping to find something inspirational. I found a clip from some conference he was speaking at where he talks about how to build what he calls "Pillar Content". Pillar content is the best, most useful stuff you've got to share on your blog, the sort of stuff that attracts readers to you. In the video he talks about what kinds of content can work as pillar content, and how to attract a following/readership.
He talks about the sorts of posts that tend to do very well in attracting readers. He mentions these types of content: How To, Definitions, Lists, and Opinions. This advice is helpful because it shows you many possibilities for ways to write content that will satisfy readers.
Another point he touches on is that people prefer content in different forms, and if you want to satisfy the greatest number of people possible, you've got to produce content in multiple formats. He calls this multimedia. He says that from a single piece of content you can produce a video, a podcast or audio, and a written blog post. Each of those sorts of multimedia will be the preference of someone, and you also increase your total content output.
His last point is my favorite. He says to publish content EVERY DAY. That is such an important thing to remember and commit to. While every day is a possibly unrealistic goal, a goal of publishing content regularly is critical. Search Engine Optimization and attracting an audience is best accomplished by building a huge body of work.
I've read somewhere (I can't remember where now) that the way to look at each blog post you write is as a door to your blog or business. If you publish only one or a few posts, then you only have a tiny number of doorways for readers to find you. If you publish hundreds of posts, then you have lots of possible doors for people to find your content.
So, while lots of people giving out blogging advice will say that quantity isn't really important because it is all about quality, you must remember that quantity is what will ultimately bring you readers and traffic, so you've got to follow a schedule if you want to build that body of work.
So publishing content regularly, daily if possible, will help you achieve your blogging goals!
Carly the Prepster on Blogging Tips
I stumbled upon another video as a suggested video to the one I just talked about. This video was about blogging tips from someone who has made it as a full time blogger. This seems super interesting, so I was enticed to click.
The video is by someone I'd never heard of. The channel name is Carly the Prepster.
In the video she basically just talks about the things she would advise new bloggers to do or think about. She says she has been blogging for nine years, and so she's got some relevant perspective to share.
The first thing that really jumped out at me and made me want to listen to her was that she said you can, and maybe should, start with a free Blogger/blogspot blog in the beginning. She also mentioned using Squarespace or Wix as other free options.
This is in such stark contrast to most people talking about blogging and teaching people how to blog. Most people have an affiliate relationship with hosting companies, where if they can convince a reader to purchase website hosting through their link, they receive a payment. So, given that incentive, most bloggers say you should start with a paid blogging setup, and that might be good advice, but always seems a little self-interested to me.
She explains that your blog won't be likely to make any money early on, and so paying to run a blog that earns nothing might not be feasible. Starting on a free hosted platform will allow you to get started without having to pay any money or cover any costs. And getting started is just so important to gaining momentum.
Carly says that for the majority of her time blogging, she used a free Blogger blog, and that she had only a couple years ago switched over to a paid, self-hosted Wordpress blog.
Using a free blogging platform didn't hold her back from achieving success, and so it shouldn't be a sticking point for others.
She also talked about the importance of simply getting started. She jokes that it seems too simple, but that it is incredibly important to do it. Just start. Start creating content. It takes practice to get better at writing and crafting headlines and writing with SEO in mind. And you don't get practice until you start practicing.
And SEO and ranking in search engines often takes a lot of time, so the sooner you get started, the sooner you will see results.
And Carly, like Yaro, talks about the need to produce LOTS of content. She said that people often say to focus exclusively on quality, but she said to work on quantity as well. You must have a large amount of content to get a readership of any size. Publish content regularly. Have publishing consistency.
Victor Pride of Bold and Determined Talks About Strategy
I next found a blog post and video where a guy named Victor Pride, author of the Bold and Determined blog, talks about what he would do if his whole blogging business disappeared. He also restricts this thought experiment to a situation where he wasn't allowed to start another blog, so he focuses on creating videos for YouTube, but I think this strategy works just as well if being applied to a blog.
Victor is a bit abrasive in his sharing of strategy and advice, but the content of his advice is good quality.
He said that if he lost his blog and wasn't allowed to start another blog, he would start a YouTube channel. He would record and publish a video EVERY DAY.
He said that for a full year, the first year, he wouldn't worry about quality. He wouldn't worry about poor editing or bad sound or even grainy video. He said that if it was possible to avoid bad quality, he would do it, but the priority is to amass a bulk of content that viewers could find, consume, and connect with.
After producing a video per day for a year, he said he could slow down and improve the quality of the videos he publishes, because at that point people would actually be finding and following his channel.
Then he talks about monetizing the traffic you've built by writing a book to sell and becoming an affiliate marketer.
My biggest take away from this video, though, is the urgent need to constantly produce content, to build up lots of content, because that is the source of building traffic.
This video was embedded in a blog post on his site where he talks about how to build a business and make money by being yourself on the internet.
The content of that page went a little beyond what the video talked about.
His idea to make money by being yourself reminds me a lot of the Youpreneur model that was created by Chris Ducker (I encourage you to look into it if you've never heard of it).
The key of Victor's blog post was to create content (whether that be blog articles, podcasts, videos, or whatever) that essentially documents your life and your reality.
You don't have to pretend to be something you aren't, or to inflate your personality.
People will be interested in you exactly as you are. You just need to share who you are so that people can find you.
Write about what interests you, what you do, what you like.
Again, it's about creating lots of content.
He says that it might sound like a cliche to say "Consistency is Key", but that is because it is true. Creating lots of content is the only way to find the success you seek.
With the power of the internet, anyone can be a celebrity or a media company. You just need to craft a message, create content, and share it. You will make money by sharing lots of content.
I thought each of these three videos were very motivational and helped push me to continue work on my blog. I really want to share them with you so that you may pick up some great blogging advice and strategy and feel driven to take action towards your goals! And certainly follow check out the original videos so that you get the full content and don't miss anything, because I really just summarized what they talked about.
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