Have you ever wondered what makes big bloggers so special? Anybody can start a blog but only a small percentage of bloggers become successful and actually make enough money to quit their day job. Why? Read on to learn 8 blogging secrets that big bloggers don’t share:
Secrets from Super Successful Bloggers
#1.) Blogging is a JOB
Have you heard this before? You might have read this in blog posts and brushed it off but it’s true. If you want blogging to truly be your job, you have to treat it that way. This means being professional, work to improve the blog regularly, continue to educate yourself, continue to make content, and promote like crazy!
Do these things and see your blog start to flourish, almost immediately! Here are some tips to help:
- Get organized: Tools are your friend. Use a calendar, use apps, write things down, etc. It’s easy to forget projects or put things on the back burner without even knowing it if you’re not organized.
- Invest in yourself: Don’t be afraid to pay money for something that will help you with your blog. This can be a course or ebook, paid tools, even a new laptop. It puts you one step further to treating blogging like a job and not like a hobby.
- Get a separate email: Make sure to have a separate email address and if you can have a domain email, even better! This means, instead of lucy (at) Gmail (dot) com, your email will be lucy (at) lovemyblog (dot) org. Make sense?
#2.) Don’t ignore social media
Social media is an amazing source of traffic and readers for your blog. You may not want to hear this but you have to treat social media like a day job too! It may seem like fun to tweet, post, like photos all day but there truly is an art to raising an audience on social networks.
First, you want to brand your blog. Each social network you create must have your blog’s website URL, blog logo photo or photo of yourself, and a keyword-rich description to tell visitors what the blog is all about.
Next, you MUST BE ACTIVE! This is a given. Every single day, make sure to touch your social media. This can be posting an update on your Facebook fan page, pinning a niche-related pin, or tweeting a message to your followers. If you really want to be a rockstar, you will do multiple activities on each network daily. Here’s an example of what this looks like:
- Pinterest: Schedule 50 pins using Tailwind
- Facebook: Schedule 3 Facebook fan page posts throughout the day
- Twitter: Post a tweet and use Facebook groups to have your post retweeted by others
Our favorite tools: Tailwind
#3.) Network
Networking is SO BIG! Make friends with other bloggers, join groups, chats, and masterminds. This makes a difference. After all, it’s not what you know, it’s WHO you know, right? This is so true with blogging.
What has networking done for me?
- It’s helped me land a four figure monthly freelancing gig, from Facebook
- It’s gotten me immediate acceptance into some elite blogging groups and masterminds
- It has given me a heads up on some big changes happening in the blogging world
- It’s helped my blog posts go viral
- It’s helped me reach nearly six figure page views on a brand new blog!
- It’s helped me earn five figures in less than 60 days!
Where to start? Social media. This can be Instagram pods ,Facebook groups, Twitter chats and more.
One of my favorite networking guides: The Ultimate Guide to Networking with Bloggers
#4.) It’s ALL ABOUT video
I’ve known this for a long time but haven’t had the chance to execute it yet. Video is where the money and traffic is. Reading a blog post is fine and dandy, but watching a video is a truly interactive experience and let’s face it, many people would rather watch a video than read, don’t you think?
How to rock at video?
Get on YouTube, create a channel, and make videos. You can create videos of your blog posts, you can do episodes, interview experts, you can start a podcast and record it, etc. There are so many options!
Trust me on this one! I can rattle off a bunch of BRAND NEW bloggers that are now BIG BLOGGERS, in part because they are on video!
It’s not just YouTube either. This can be Facebook Live, Snapchat, and more! Don’t miss out on this.
#5.) Sell Products
If you want to make big money blogging and become a profitable, big blogger, it’s all about selling products. This can be physical or digital products.
Most bloggers go the digital route and sell ebooks or courses. There are some awesome platforms like Teachable and Sendowl that make delivering digital goods super easy.
This blogger is known for her Amazon affiliate income and her ebook she wrote on it, exploded! It earned her $1,200 super quick! It’s just $20 and a great read, grab your copy here.
#6.) SEO Matters
SEO is often ignored by bloggers because it can be really complicated to wrap your head around. It’s a lot easier than you think.
First, get Yoast plugin (for WordPress) and follow the suggestions. This alone will help you big time!
Recommended: The 10 Basics of Blogging Search Engine Optimization
SEO isn’t really all that bad. It helps you get found in search engines for key terms. It’s another form of traffic and definitely one of the more stables forms of traffic. We won’t dive too much into the ins and outs of SEO here but there’s tons of great info in the Yoast SEO blog.
#7.) Publish A LOT of content
This is debated. Some say you don’t have to publish a lot of content to be successful, others disagree. My take on it? I actually did a little experiment called 30 posts in 30 days, where I published a new blog post every single day in November, last year, yes, even on Thanksgiving.
My results? Almost 5,000 additional page views. And, during a time where blog traffic is usually down (holidays is a slower time of year for bloggers).
What do big bloggers have in common?
They publish a lot of content. I’m talking a new post every day or nearly every day. Some of the bigger blogs even put out as much as 3-5 posts per day! Many of those sites do have a team of writers to churn out content. If you’re going at it alone, aim for 5-7 new posts a week and watch your traffic and income transform!
#8.) Make it Pretty
The way your blog looks DOES MATTER! You need a beautiful, professional theme, organized layout and eye-catching graphics.
Recommended Themes: Elegant Themes, Studiopress, Bluchic
Use stock photos in your blog and in blog posts if you aren’t able to take photos yourself. There are a ton of free stock photo sites available. Here’s a quick roundup of some favorites:
Looking for feminine styled stock photos? 18 Places for Free Girly and Styled Stock Photos
Final Thoughts
There you go my friends, secrets revealed! Are you a blogger with some wisdom to share? Don’t be a stranger. Please comment down below so we can all learn together!
Thank you for sharing all these great tips! Now I need to start writing and getting social more!
Really great tips! have you checked out http://www.rawpixel.com? We give away loads of beautiful images and illustrations for free to bloggers. We would be so happy if you could add us to your list of tips. 🙂