Look on any of the biggest blogging websites and you’ll see posts that include tips, tricks and tools. These posts do well because that’s what people are looking for when they want to learn about blogging.
It’s natural for us all to look for understanding on topics and the words tips and tricks and secrets all seem appealing. We want to believe there is a quick way to learn about something and then get to work on it right away, but it’s almost always not the case.
Now, I don’t want to say that posts including tips and tricks are not useful. You’ll find plenty of posts with tips right here on the GBW blog. There are ways to make your blogging better by learning tips like general post formatting, research and things of that nature. What these tips really are though are suggestions for improvement of the overall blogging strategy.
Blogging is Work
Every person knows that blogging is about strategy. That is not really a tip, but just in case it’s important to know that blogging is a strategy. From there the rest becomes work including experimentation. There really are no shortcuts to creating a blog post.
What most budding bloggers, including business bloggers, seem to underestimate is the research required for a post. Not only is there research involved for a specific post, but you really need to be a reader of all things in the world including books, blogs and other websites. You need to understand and know what is happening in the world that relates to your industry. These general themes will play a large part of the blog you’re working on even if you don’t realize it at first.
For example, last week was Black Friday, but I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about the importance of the other 364 days in the year. Posts like that require an understanding of current events because your readers are looking for input on how current events will impact their businesses and lives.
Blogging is very much about expectations. The two biggest areas where expectations are out of whack with a new blog are the work required and the time it takes for a blog to gain traction.
We already touched on the work involved.
For gaining traction I really like this example from Rand Fishkin from the deck Don’t Buy Your Marketing. Earn It. The deck includes this image of traffic for his wife’s blog The Everywhereist.
That just about says it all.
So set your expectations at the beginning.
There are no tips or tricks to blogging. It’s like everything else – it’s about working, experimenting and struggling until you find something that works. Those that persist are the ones that will succeed.