1. Get ideas from your audience
Create blog posts that answer the most interesting questions from people you engage with on social media.
Dave Larson, founder of @tweetsmarter
2. Understand your audience
Understand your audience better than they understand themselves. It takes a lot of upfront research, and often means being a member of the very tribe you’re trying to lead – but it pays off.
Brian Clark, founder and CEO, Copyblogger
3. Write for yourself first
Write for yourself first & foremost. Ignore the fact that anyone else will read what you write; just focus on your thoughts, ideas, opinions and figure out how to put those into words. Write it and they will come.
Adii Pienaar, founder of PublicBeta
4. Build your email list
Start building your email list from day one. Even if you don’t plan on selling anything, having an email list allows you to promote your new content to your audience directly without worrying about search rankings, Facebook EdgeRank, or other online roadblocks in communications.
Kristi Hines, freelance writer and professional blogger
5. Love your existing readers
Love the readers you already have. A lot of bloggers get quite obsessed with finding new readers – to the point that they ignore the ones they already have. Yes – do try to find new readers but spend time each day showing your current readers that you value them too and you’ll find that they will help you grow your blog.
Darren Rowse, founder of ProBlogger
6. Focus on building an amazing call-to-action
I screwed up for years. I’d blog and blog. Some of my posts were doing very well on places like Hacker News, but I had such hard time getting return visitors. And very few people bothered to follow me on Twitter.
Don’t rely on people to do the work to find your Twitter account. Don’t rely on them to do the work to find your details in a sidebar. People are blind to sidebars. Thanks banner ads!
Finish your blog post with some kind of call to action to signup for an email list or follow you on Twitter. When I started doing this, I immediately increased my Twitter followers by 335% in the first 7 days.
Nate Kontny, founder of Draft
7. Give stuff away
Give away free content that adds value to people’s lives “until it hurts” and they will love you and become loyal fans.
Jeff Bullas, blogger and author of Blogging the Smart Way
8. Be consistent
Consistency is one of the most important things that bloggers tend to forget. It’s much easier to lose your traffic than it is to build it up, so make sure you consistently blog.
Neil Patel, founder of KISSmetrics
9. Give away your knowledge
Don’t be afraid to showcase what you know. Too many bloggers hold back the good stuff out of fear of giving away the “secret sauce.” There is no secret sauce in a world where everyone has high speed Internet access at all times. Today, you want to give away information snacks to sell knowledge meals.
Jay Baer, author of Youtility
10. Be true to your voice
Stay true to yourself and your voice. People don’t care to follow sites so much as they care to follow people.
Chris Pirillo, founder and CEO, LockerGnome
11. Give it time – This is why
Plan to invest in blogging for a long time before you see a return. The web is a big, noisy place and unless you’re willing to invest more over a greater period of time than others, you’ll find success nearly impossible. If you’re seeking short-term ROI, or a quick path to recognition, blogging is the wrong path. But if you can stick it out for years without results and constantly learn, iterate, and improve, you can achieve something remarkable.
Rand Fishkin, CEO of Moz
12. Give your email list priority
If you’re blogging to create a business, a movement, or to support a cause, then you need to build an email list. It’s not an option. I don’t even consider my blog to be my community, my email list is my community. Caring about these people, writing for them, and delivering value to them should be your number one goal.
James Clear, entrepreneur, weightlifter and travel photographer
13. Write catchy headlines
No matter how great your content is, it won’t matter unless you have an amazing headline. People have a split second to decide if they should click on your post, and your headline will make them decide. The headline is also essential in making it easy and desirable for people to share your post. Keep your headlines SPUB: simple, powerful, useful and bold.
Dave Kerpen, author and CEO of Likeable Local
14. Be Yourself
There isn’t one specific set of rules to be successful in blogging. When I started blogging, I had the opportunity to learn from experienced and successful bloggers in the industry. One of the best lessons I’ve learned from them is to simply be me. I didn’t have to be too “professional” or use “big words” to impress others. I had to simply be me.
By being me, I enjoyed writing and the process more. It had me writing more than I usually would too. If you look at the the most successful writers like Seth Godin and Chris Brogan you’ll notice that they are different and unique in their own ways.
Aaron Lee, social media manager, entrepreneur and blogger
15. Keep it short
Biggest lesson I learned in my past year of blogging. Keep it in the 1–2 minutes read-time length.
Derek Sivers, founder of Wood Egg
16. Make it worth referencing – here is how:
One thing I always try to keep in mind before publishing a post is would anyone want to “cite” this for any reason? Just like interesting research is great because it leaves you with a fascinating finding or an idea, I like for my posts to be the same. That doesn’t mean relying on research, but simply making sure each post has an original lesson or actionable item, making it “citable” on the web.
Gregory Ciotti, marketing strategist at Help Scout
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