How to become a successful blogger

What is the secret to becoming a successful blogger?

First you need to define what successful means to you. Everybody has a different idea of what success means, for some it means having blogging as their career, for others it is getting paid for their blogs or having a consistent schedule or it might just be to have a following.  Define what success means for you and then you’ll know when you reach that goal.

For me, I never thought of my blog as successful. My blog is my place to express myself, it wasn’t until I returned from my long hiatus that I realised, hey my blog might just actually be somewhat successful. Whilst I took my 8 month break, my blog continued to grow and my viewer statistics stayed consistent every single day despite me not posting any new content. Seeing this, I realised that I had a consistent and loyal following and people liked to read what I had to say. Which made me feel successful, I had always worried about my blog being boring and unpopular but the statistics don’t lie. People were coming here to read about something.

The secret to becoming a successful blogger is simple. In-fact there are two parts to it, firstly its scheduling. The magic of scheduling content is truly a saviour. Having consistent and regular content means that you can build up your audience. People follow your blog because they like hearing what you have to say.  Don’t panic about writing tons of blog material in advance, you can schedule popular and easy blog posts in-between too such as Top Ten Tuesdays. These are simple to write and create, and  they have fun topics which are easy to read. It breaks up your reviews, hauls or other content you wish to push.

Whilst scheduling takes away the panic of ‘I have nothing going out on my blog,’ it also has its downsides. Its easy to get caught up in scheduling, you feel better knowing you have things going out and then before you know it, you have 3 posts that have been published and tons of comments to reply to. Which leads us onto the second part, engagement.

You can’t become successful without engaging with your audience, they are your greatest asset. Reply to comments, read other people’s blogs and comment too. Your audience will value quality so make the effort. If they pose a question or a request, then reply and jot down what they would like to see. This not only gives you a bank of ideas but it shows you are listening and want to provide quality and useful content to your audience.

Blogging isn’t as easy as it seems, it takes real time and effort. Your audience will be able to tell when you are genuine and honest so do that. Be honest in your reviews and be yourself, you’ll find it a lot easier to grow and develop your blog than you would if your trying to keep to a trend of what’s popular in that moment.

What do you think the secret of blogging success is?

Let me know in the comments, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.