Thursday, November 21st, 2024
Blogging has generated the attention of the masses in every industry, in this virtual digital age that we now live in. Everybody and anyone who appreciates journalism, the written word to express their viewpoint, to get their opinion across, now wants to engage in this new online word-of-mouth medium that is blogging. So what many are wondering is, how do I create a blog?
The playing field for your voice to be heard is now level, and as a result, the popularity of blogging has been devouring multimedia, through the contributions of the literary advocate.
It?s a done-for-you webpage that’s jam packed with journalistic compositions, as well as discussions regarding various agendas.
It’s a combination of having an online diary with compact topics, peppered with rants or the promotion of affiliate marketing products.
The role that it now plays, has become a vital cog to cyber society.
Weblog You Blog
Blogs are usually updated on a regular basis, at times several times a day, often weekly.
It’s arranged in chronological order, where the first post is the newest, the freshest, the most relevant.
Categories are organized for easy identification. There’s archives to commentaries, from blogrolls to the feeds.
The Blogs Content
Usually, the blog?s content varies greatly depending on the topic or the niche, that it?s dealing with.
If you?re marketing something, such as apparel, perfume, or vintage automobiles, you can feature a catalog showcase of the products, and a “Buy” button.
Personal blogs consists of observation, daily occurrences and happenings, comments about another comment.
Schools and company blogs, can feature posts regarding their historical background, mission statements or sports teams.
Regardless of the blogs theme, the key is that it should be updated often, which gives the readers reasons to keep coming back for more.
This to feed the human mind that gets bored easily, so it seeks something that’s new and stimulating to perk it up.
A Platform For Feedback
Feedback and comments are always welcome, needed and expected, as blogs are a platform designed for conversing. To discuss the musings.
So come one, come all, as everyone is welcome and encouraged to interact!
What’s needed is social proof that whatever you wrote, had enough awe inspiring quality, enough to arouse opinion to merit it.
Be glad once you get a comment, as it’s a reward. At least someone has read your post.
The Mechanics Of Blogging
Blogging can get a tad technical if you allow it to, if you don?t understand how the basic mechanics of how it works.
What in the world is an URL, blogroll, plugins, RSS feeds and all that jazz mean? How can I use them to my advantage?
Easy access to a blog always doesn’t mean easy manipulation. It needs to have certain concepts and tools, to make it possible.
Writing post after post is one thing, but how to capture the attention and the imagination becomes the objective.
Creating Your Blog
If you don?t have a blog yet, and you?re thinking that it?s difficult to create one as you don?t know how, then there’s no need to worry.
Creating a WordPress blog is now an easy process. By the end of this, you?ll have your own blog, without needing to touch a single line of code!
There’s an easy way how you can create your own WordPress website. You can do so by using a self-hosted version of WordPress.
Before you begin, it?s best to grab your own domain name first.
Why? Because if your website URL is something like MyBusiness.blogspot.com or Mybusiness.wordpress.com, then it?s not going to look very professional at all.
Domain names are relatively cheap. You can get a .com domain for less that $14/year.
GET Your Domain Here
It?s a worthy investment. If you?re serious about your business, then you need your own domain name.
Preferably, it should be a .com, that matches your brand or company name, so it?s easier for people to remember it.
Using WordPress For Your Site
Setting up your own blog may sound scary to some, but using WordPress as your content management system (CMS), makes it easy.
What you get is immediate control over your site. You can pretty much turn your core blog into anything that you want.
This thanks to the plethora of free themes and plugins, that are available for self-hosted WordPress websites.
The good news is, Affiliorama can help guide you through how to set up your WordPress blog easily, step-by-step.
In the past, you had to go to WordPress.org, and install the software and the database manually yourself.
But all that you need to do now, is to just use the 1-click WordPress installer.
In just a few minutes, you?ll have your own WordPress blog installed, and you can start tweaking it.
Add Plugins And Themes
There?s a default theme for every fresh WordPress install, so changing it is absolutely essential.
There are some themes (especially the premium “paid” ones) that offers features that are not found in the free or default themes.
Plugins are a different story. It?s a must that you install the right WordPress plugins to help you with your content marketing efforts.
Plugins are similar to how Apps work on your mobile phone.
Content Creation – Blog Posts And Articles
At this point, you’ve got your blog set up, and your content calendar filled out.
What is a Content Calendar?
It?s time to get to the meat of your content marketing strategy, by creating the actual content itself.
What you first need is an outline for your content. Create a skeleton and then flesh it out. Make it as detailed and as informative as possible.
You?re wondering how it?s possible, to write a sufficient number of high-quality articles in say a week?s time.
Well, the answer is yes it is possible.
Even if you write everything yourself, you can still finish your content target on time. The key is to keep yourself motivated.
7 Steps To Write Perfect Content
There are ways to keep your productivity levels high, once you follow the process.
1) – Work When You?re Most Productive
Many prefer writing during the regular daytime working hours, such as in the AM. Others like working at night with a sip of wine.
Whatever your preference, it?s best to write content during your most productive hours.
If you force yourself to work on your non-optimal hours, then you could be wasting valuable time.
It might take you longer to finish an article, and the quality of the work may probably suffer as well.
Whereas if you work on your most productive time periods, you can complete that same article in half the time, and to higher standards as well.
2) – Remove All Distractions
Before you get down to work on your content, make sure that you?ve set your phone to silent mode (or turn it off completely).
Close all non-work related tabs on your browser. Exit all non-relevant apps on your computer. You need to focus on writing, and writing only.
If you work in an office environment, you should probably look into investing in a good pair of quality noise-canceling headphones.
Doing so will help you block out all the unnecessary noise, and force you to focus on your work.
3) – The “Pomodoro” Technique
One technique that you can use to keep your productivity levels high, is known as the Pomodoro technique.
What this involves is using a timer on your computer, or an app on your phone.
What you do is you set the timer to 25 minutes (one Pomodoro). Within this set time frame, you give yourself undivided attention to the task at hand.
If your phone rings, just ignore it. Don’t check your email or social media.
When the 25 minutes are up, take a 5-minute break. Then set the clock for another 25 minutes and start writing again, followed by another 5-minute break.
After 3 or 4 – 25-minute segments (or 4 Pomodoros), then reward yourself with a longer break, for around 20 or 30 minutes.
Try this technique, and see if it works for you!
4) – Try Write 1 to 2 Articles Per Day
Creating content isn’t easy. But since you’ve previously created outlines for your content, you can work off of them.
Know that what’s on your outline isn’t set in stone. You can improve or add to it as you go along.
However, the point is that the titles and the outlines you’ve created, will help you save time.
If you?re targeting at least 2,000 words per article, then finishing 1-2 articles a day should be doable.
If you know the topic by heart, then you can easily write off the top of your head without needing to go on Google, to do research.
All you need, is to just focus and concentrate on getting the most work done as fast as you can.
5) – Doesn’t Need To Be Perfect
Many established writers use the following technique, to avoid getting hit by writer?s block, especially if they’ve got a deadline breathing down their neck.
They simply write first and then edit later.
It’s not the time to obsess about your typos or your grammatical errors, when writing the initial draft.
At this point, you just want to get as many articles written up as possible. So don?t worry if your work is far from perfect.
You need to transfer your ideas down from your head onto your Word document. Worry about making the corrections later.
If you keep on pausing and going back to make small changes, then you’re probably not going to finish all the articles you’ve scheduled in your content calendar.
You?ll just be distracting yourself, and your ideas are also going to stop flowing.
6) – Save The Editing For Last
Write freely and write rapidly. Using https://wordcounter.net is an excellent free platform to use.
Doing so gives you the time to create as much content as possible, so that when you finally launch your content marketing campaign, you?ll have the ammunition to sustain it.
Depending on your preference, you can edit your content at the end of each day (but make sure you take a break first).
Content Editing Tips
Your content?s first draft, is definitely not going to be presentable to the general public.
Follow these guidelines to make sure that your content is ready for the limelight:
• Tweak The Content Structure First – Does your content flow easily? Does the end of one section transition easily to the next one? If you need to, don?t be afraid to remove some sentences or even entire paragraphs, if they don?t make sense in the content.
• Refine Your Title – Even if you?ve previously come up with a title, you may still need to tweak it a bit. Your title is the first thing that people are going to read, so make sure that it explains and solves their hurt. Make your title awe inspiring, make it present a problem and then offer a solution. Don?t go for “clickbait” titles, as you won?t come across as a professional brand in your target audience?s eyes.
• Edit Your Introduction – After reading your title, your visitor is going to skim your introduction next. This is where they’ll decide if it?s worth continuing to read further into the main content, or if they?re better off spending their time elsewhere. Make your introduction interesting, to hook your reader into the next section of your article.
? Place Yourself In Your Audience?s Shoes – If you can?t decide if your content is going to match your readers needs, then you probably need to clear your head, and rewrite it a bit. Take a break if you need to.
Ask yourself how your audience would respond by asking yourself these questions:
• Do I like what I’m reading?
• Can I relate to the content?
• Does it hit my pain points?
• Do I find it valuable?
• Does it solve my issues?
If you say “no” on any of these points, then take the time to edit your content until you finally get the right message down.
7) – Proofread, Edit And Format Your Content – Now that you?ve got your title, introduction and content structure all laid out, then it?s time to tie up all the loose ends.
You can use a tool like Grammarly (https://www.grammarly.com) to help proofread and edit your content.
Although it’s highly accurate, nothing still beats the human editor. So grab a cup of coffee and go over your content with a fine-tooth comb.
Make sure that everything flows well, and that it captures your audience’s attention!
Call To Action
Don?t forget to add your content?s most crucial piece ? your call to action!
Without a call to action, your audience will be unsure on how you want them to proceed.
When reviewing your content, make sure that your call to action is clear, and that the content is in line with your marketing goals.
Mix Up Your Content
A blog post that just has text only, makes it too bland, boring and monotonous.
So make sure that you add bullet points, images, videos, graphics, etc. to your posts to break it up.
What your readers want is variety, and what the search engines love is fresh content.
So you need to entertain when writing every article, and you need to publish new articles regularly.
Start Publishing The Content On Your Blog
Now that you?ve got all of the essential ingredients for your content marketing campaign in place, it?s time to get the ball rolling!
With WordPress, uploading and publishing your content is easy.
Simply log into your WordPress dashboard, go to “+ New” on the top of the dashboard and then click “Post.”
You?ll then be presented with the default WordPress editor.
It’s visually easy to work with, as you can format your content without too much trouble.
You can upload all your content all at once, and save them as drafts.
There may be a few tweaks that you want to make, such as text formatting, adding videos and images, etc.
Then it’s show time… Hit the Publish button!
CLICK Here For My No#1 Affiliate Marketing Recommendation
Howdy! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I really enjoy
reading your blog posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that go
over the same topics? Thank you so much!