“Depending on what they are, our habits will either make us or break us. We become what we repeatedly do.” ~ Sean Covey ~
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
Great content. It cleared the cloudy confusions that I have had about making a career out of blogging. Thanks.
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