My Tips for New Bloggers

I have been blogging for a little over two years now and when I first started I was such goober when it came to all things blog related. I didn’t know all the jargon and the Google rules for example. If someone said DA I thought they meant dinner appointment! I honestly read some of my first posts and just cringe. And the photos. Urrggghh.

I have written two posts before about what I wish I’d known when I Started Blogging (you can read them here and here) but I thought I’d add a few new points for newbies as I get asked it a fair bit from friends and people that are thinking about starting a blog. I also look at newer blogs and just want to say to them ‘use keywords’ or ‘share your post on Twitter’, when I see that they aren’t doing that – not to be super annoying but just to help – I would have wanted someone to tell me those types of things when I was starting out.

What I

  • Get Your Own Domain & Self-Host
    • I started out on the free WordPress and purchased a vanity URL, which was great to start building up my content and a bit of a following but the options for making money are basically non-existent due to WordPress’s terms. So then I became self-hosted. I didn’t really know this at the start so if you are just starting out, I’d recommend going self-hosted from the start.
    • If the idea of self-hosted is really scary to you, I’d recommend using Blogger and getting a vanity URL as you can start making money straight away then. But overall, I much prefer WordPress.
  • Work on Building up Your Domain Authority
    • Basically, DA is a number from 1 – 100. the higher your DA, it means that you have strong traffic and a high rank. I have found that PRs use this as a metric to see who they will work with so it is important to work on improving it.
    • You won’t have an actual / reliable DA if your URL contains .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com – you need your own domain or a vanity URL.
    • Ways to improve your DA is to get rid of bad links and to work on improving good links. Bad links can be deleted or requested to delete. Good links come from:
      • Creating lots of linkable content and use internal links (see what I did there) 😉
      • Guest post on bigger blogger’s sites, comment on other blogs and join in with linkies – all ways to get good backlinks for your site.
      • Make sure your SEO is on point – think about word count, tags, keywords etc. I had no idea that posts should be over 300 words long to be the most effective for SEO.
      • Be patient! A big score won’t happen overnight but being aware of it and being proactive will make it improve faster than those that do not.
  • Social Media
    • If you want your blog to grow, you need to be on social media.
      • Interact with other bloggers and comment on other people’s posts.
      • Join in with blogger chats on Twitter.
      • Share and link other blogger’s Facebook content.
      • Join groups and communities on Google+ and Facebook to share content and discuss topics.
      • Make ‘pinnable’ images so that they can be pinned and repinned on Pinterest. Use the right hashtags on Instagram. The list is endless and it all helps to improve your blog and get new followers.

I’m by no means an expert but just sharing some of what I have been learning on the way – there is more to share and more I need to learn too!

What would you add to the list?

Rebecca x

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