Adela Belin

The blogging space is extremely rewarding, but also very challenging.

With the increasing competition, it is not easy to gain and retain followers for your blog. If you are serious about it and want to become a successful blogger, you need to stay ahead of the curve by continuously learning and upgrading your skills.

How do you do that?

Source

Let’s take a look at these eight essential skills to become a successful blogger.

1. Content Writing

This one’s a no-brainer!

The only way your blog will succeed is if you know how to write quality content and deliver value to your readers through your blog post. Only through unique, engaging, and useful content can you have a thriving profitable blog.

While you don't have to be a published author to compose a blog post, it is critical to have basic knowledge about how to write the content for your blog, such as word usage, writing style, citations, and length of the post.

Moreover, you must know how to use transition words, break paragraphs, write in a fun engaging way, add statistics and examples, use appropriate language, tone, and information to come up with a post that is authentic and is a valuable read for your readers.

2. Photo Editing

Humans are more attracted to visuals than paragraphs of text-heavy content, as with visuals it’s to understand the ideas behind the blog post and makes the information a lot more engaging and interesting to read.

Visuals have the potential of going viral on social media and are very useful to increase the overall search ranking for your blog on Google.

If you are sourcing images from websites, learn how to cite your images correctly to avoid plagiarism, or pick out appropriate images from Creative Commons websites without any copyright restrictions.

Possessing basic photo editing skills is highly necessary to manage a successful blog.

The good news is that there are tools such as Canva and SparkPost that are easy-to-use and beginner-friendly.

3. Networking

One of the most important skills a blogger should possess is to know how to network with other bloggers.

Not only does it help form a relationship with other bloggers but also increases the chances for more traffic on your website and conversions from reader to customer.

You can join relevant social media groups on Facebook and LinkedIn or also Slack channels where you’re likely to meet like-minded people in your niche.

Using social media marketing for your blog is ideal as it’s the best platform to distribute information, and having a good social media presence will connect you better with your followers and monetize your blog.

4. HTML and CSS

Learning how to “code” a bit for your blog post might sound extremely daunting and scary for newbie bloggers who aren’t very technologically advanced. But don’t stress about it!

You don't have to be a web developer to understand the necessities of using codes on your blog. Having basic knowledge about HTML or CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is always an extra advantage for your blog to run smoother and faster.

Although various blog hosting websites like WordPress will let you create content without any coding involved, it is good practice to know simple elements like how to interlink images and hyperlink texts, add alt tags, include H1-H2 heading tags, etc.

Using these codes will help your blog look professional, neater, and structured. You can add additional widgets and plug-ins to your business blog, and pitch to readers or investors to increase your blog’s marketability.

5. SEO and analytics

To earn a solid revenue through your blog and make it successful, it needs to rank very high on search engine result pages. To do this, specific SEO keywords or the most searched words related to your topic are added to the content to make it optimizable for it to run on the first page of Google.

Through this, your blog is deemed as an authentic and authoritative source for information.

Writing great headlines and SEO-rich meta-descriptions, using internal linking, and choosing a smart URL for your blog will give it a high click-through rate on Google, sending it to the top of the page.

Similarly, Google Analytics tracks blog traffic, site visitors, and the number of conversions that have taken place through your blog.

Even though most blog hosting websites have SEO and Google Analytics plug-ins, it is always a better approach to use these tools manually. Through SEO and Google Analytics results, you can understand how well your blog is doing, what improvements you should be making, and what you must avoid for having a successful blog.

6. WordPress knowledge

As a new blogger, it’s recommended to use WordPress as your blogging platform. Even though learning how to use and upload blog posts through WordPress can take some time and practice, there are many resources online in the form of YouTube tutorials, video walkthroughs, forums, blogging help centers, and more, that are available to help start blogging on WordPress without any difficulties.

That’s why, it is pivotal to know the basic ins and outs of WordPress management, some that include:

• picking a good hosting company (eg. BlueHost);
• choosing and registering a domain name (related to you or your niche);
• using an appropriate theme for your blog;
• learn how to customize your blogs using plug-ins, widgets, and other in-built tools;
• learning how to embed or add images, videos, graphics, gifs, etc.

7. Art of selling

The number one rule and the most desired skill you can acquire for anyone in marketing or business is to know the art of selling. After all, blogging is a business.

Avoid sounding like you are making a general sales pitch, instead, be genuine and think like an expert. Take advice from professional bloggers and learn by looking at how they close their deals and sell online.

Read books or articles about marketing, business, psychology, and how you can hone your selling skills to get better at showcasing your products and learn how to sell like a pro.

8. Understand your target readers

One of the biggest challenges of blogging is to understand and research your niche subject and your target audience.

If you become an expert at knowing who you are selling to and defining your target audience, blogging and marketing your products through writing will become a much easier process, as well as add to your strengths.

By understanding what your target audience wants from you, you can tailor your content and market your blog according to their likes, dislikes, pain points, and other emotional triggers. This will eventually lead your audience to turn into customers and further monetize your blog.

Conclusion

Blogging about your niche or even just about anything else will require you to be creative and an analytical thinker -- dedicated and curious to learn. Be creative and innovative in the ways you present your information in the blog post.

What’s important is to keep practicing, and using these skills in your everyday blog posts to get better each day. With time, you’re sure to become a successful blogger.