Blogging success can seem like a distant dream when you start out. You aren’t quite sure what to blog about. The choice of technology can be overwhelming. Then learning to use the features and functions of your blogging software is a maze of confusion and confronting choices.
What plugins do I choose? How do I optimise for search engines? What are widgets and how do I use them?
Then you start and draft your first post.
Then more doubt sets in.
How do I write those awesome headlines that will draw attention? What marketing tactics should I focus on to achieve the best results?
Then the killer doubt.
Why would anyone want to hear what “I” have to say?
So you push past the fears and you hit the publish button. You tweet and share it with your 500 best friends on Facebook. You have started.
Six months into your blogging journey more nagging fears arise. Yes, I have a few readers. People are starting to leave comments and I am attracting some attention.
But world domination is felt to be more a fantasy than reality.
Persistence is key
This is maybe what you don’t want to hear. You need to persist. Success is almost never overnight but a journey of a thousand steps.
It is a matter of keeping the faith in yourself. Friends and family can be your worst enemies. Passion, purpose and belief need to come from within.
Press on.
My secret sauce recipe
So what’s worked for me?
What has sustained me and kept me ahead of the blogging curve can be summed up with three words, reading, writing and doing. Mundane but necessary.
- Read as much as you can offline and online. Blogs, news and books. Watch TED talks.
- Writing drives discovery and research so it accelerates the learning process. The art of expression facilitates in structuring and making sense of the incoming information.
- Doing is where the rubber hits the road. My blog is my social media, marketing and digital laboratory. Helping other brands both corporate and personal keeps also keeps me real and connected.
A trait to be treasured
But there is one small human trait that is sometimes overlooked.
Curiosity.
Will that headline work? How do I grow my Twitter followers? How do I make this blog rock?
Stay curious.
Marketing tactics for blogging success
So what are some tactics that you need to start applying to achieve blogging success?
Here are some of the key nuts, bolts and tools to put in your blogging marketing toolbox. This is maybe the longest infographic in the world but it has some awesome tips to make your blog rock.
Infographic by DigitalPhilippines
What about you?
What doubts did you have before you started blogging? What made you push past those self doubts? After starting blogging did you consider stopping?
When did you start to realise that it was working? Was there a tipping point?
Look forward to hearing your insights and stories about your blogging journey in the comments below.
Want to learn how to be successful at blogging?
My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 182,000.