5 Habits of Successful Bloggers

“Depending on what they are, our habits will either make us or break us. We become what we repeatedly do.” ~ Sean Covey ~

 

The definition of success may differ from person to person. Each individual starts blogging with a different purpose and intent in mind. Thanks to the growing usage of the internet, blogging has now become universal. Who would not want to own a successful blog bearing the benefits of working from home, writing on the topic of your interest, being your own boss, gaining popularity, and earning money? 
 
It is not as simple as it seems to be; you cannot just go and put out ideas on the internet and wait for others to come and read them. A lot of hard work, research, time, resources, and patience are required to become a well-known blogger.
 
If you are someone who can write well, have expertise in a particular field, and want to make blogging or content writing your full-time profession; you will have to focus on consistency and discipline. Habits are an essential part of your growth as a blogger. According to a study presented by Entrepreneur, 78% of the goals set do not lead to a change in behavior. This indicates that if you do not inculcate good habits, achieving your dreams will become a challenge. 
 
Habits are the actions that you take every day. Basically, it is a routine that you form over time and practice daily. If you see your favorite blogger today, their habits have made them successful and should inspire you. Continue reading this article if you want to become a blogger and don’t know where to start. We talk about 5 habits that you should implement to develop a behavior that will help you achieve your goals.
 

Habit 1 - Do thorough Research
 
If you are thinking of taking blogging as a profession, just sitting down one day and randomly starting to write will not get you desired results. Before they being to write, successful bloggers always research the following questions:

●       What niche to operate in?
●       What detailed content to put in the articles?
●       Who is their target audience is?
●       What kind of content performs well in the target market?
●       What are the gaps, problems, needs, and expectations of the prospects?
 

Hence, the first habit that one should develop is to always do your research. Whether it is to know about the targeted niche market or knowing your articles' content, remember that you are writing to serve the audience and not for yourself. Successful bloggers research to understand what their target audience is searching for. People ask millions of questions and put search queries every day, leverage those, and answer them.
 
Do not commit the mistake of writing even a single article without doing thorough research. Develop a practice of getting to know the topic in detail and doing good keyword research before writing. These are the research points that one can follow post knowing who their target audience is:

* Use keyword research to understand the needs of the audience

* Relevant hashtags to the topic. It will also help you learn about the people interested in your niche.

* Know the questions that your audience needs answers to. Check various social media platforms to know this.

 
It is okay to spend more time researching the topic and the audiences’ needs than the amount of time you spend on writing. When you research and provide value through your content to your readers, you will become a trusted authority in your niche market.

 
Habit 2 - Stick to Your Schedule
 
Blogging isn’t all leisurely all the time. While blogging as a profession does allow you to have a flexible schedule, remember time is money. Figure out your article writing process, and based on that, make a schedule. Do not rush yourself to finish several articles; focus on quality over quantity always. Hence, allow yourself the time to make detailed, content-rich, and error-free articles.
 
This is one of the most crucial habits to develop as it will determine your productivity and output quality in the long-run. We understand that there are a lot of distractions and temptations of unwanted activities. However, as a blogger, you must stick to your set schedule.
 
The best way to ensure that you follow your schedule is to frame it in parts. Allocate slots in a day for multiple tasks so that you do not just get bored with only writing content. Tailor your timing for researching, planning, content creation, marketing, layouts, designing, etc.
 
Only with consistency in maintaining your timing you will be able to post regularly for your audience. Once you do this, your readers become aware of when to expect content from you. For, e.g., they will know that you post twice a week or every Friday, etc. Hence, from an audience’s perspective, a blogger's set schedule sets the tone for them.

Habit 3 - Write a Lot
 
Irrespective of how often you write, what really matters is your dedication to writing. Ensure that every time you sit to write, you give your best and write excellent quality content. This habit is all about a balance between the quantity and quality of your writing.
 
Ensure that you enjoy what you are doing. Forcing yourself to blog just because it has become a trend and everyone is doing it will only help you reap short-term benefits. Hence, select a niche in which you have your interest to write a lot, and people can catch on with it. You only improve with practice. Write on as many topics as possible. You will see that your skill and style are getting polished, and soon you will be noticed by more people.
 
To stand out amongst the other great writers and bloggers, you have to meet your audience's expectations in terms of enriched content and ensure that they can depend on you. A good relationship is built when your readers look forward to reading your content.

Habit 4 - Keep a Tab on Analytics

Performance measurement is critical for any work that does. Checking your blog's analytics is like getting to know the return on investment for all the hard work, time, and efforts you have put in. Successful bloggers regularly check the numbers of their blogs and take insights from them.
 
What are the elements one should consider when evaluating the metrics of their blog? Well, every famous blogger you know of keeps a check of these essentials’ points:

●       How much traffic is their blog getting?
●       Where does their primary traffic come from?
●       Which of their posts has the highest traffic?
●       What are the significant interests of their readers?
●       What kind of content is getting high engagement from the audience?
●       Which search terms are the most popular?
●       Which devices do their readers use the most to read the posts?
●       Which content is getting the most shares on which social media platforms?
 

Any blogger should at least measure these metrics for their blog. There are a lot more details that one can plow for. However, for starters, these are the minimum analytics requirement that you meet. Develop a habit of regularly checking your analytics tool and noting down the valuable insights from those.
 
Knowing your statistics will help you understand the parts in which you are performing well to optimize those. It will also tell you the points you are not doing well; hence, you can improve and consider those when framing future strategies.

Habit 5 - Be Open to Constant Learning and Improvement

Any blogger or, rather, any profession that you are operating in always has a huge learning curve. One has multiple sources to learn things from, know that you have never learned enough. Habit 7 from Stephen Covey’s book is ‘Sharpening the Saw’ indicates that creating growth and renewing yourself is vital for any human.
 
As a blogger, focus on polishing your skills and work on putting those skills into practice. Your chances of succeeding decrease as soon as you stop learning. Any successful blogger knows that hard work pays off; that is why they do not shy away or compromise on learning and implementing different things.
 
What really matters is your source of learning things. Be careful from where you are gaining knowledge and learning things. Verify the insights from multiple sources. If you are taking advice from a person, check that the person has more experience than you. It means that if a month-old blogger answers your question along with an experienced blogger, rely more on the person who has been doing this for a long time. Do not fall for straightforward advice. You might have to get out of your comfort zone to implement specific advice for good results.
 
Follow your passion, and write what you love. Put in efforts; hard-work always pays-off. Do not make blogging work as a task for yourself; instead, make it fun and consider these 5 pieces of advice. When followed, these habits will not show results overnight, but success is closer to you if you are consistent and diligent about following them. Being persistent and having dedication is the key. Happy blogging!

Written by Hetvi Shah