Blogging Advice From 16 Bloggers on How to Improve A Blog
16 Bloggers Share Blogging Advice on How They Improved Their Blogs
So you’ve started a blog.
You’ve built it to the best of your abilities, have written a couple of posts and even announced your blog launch to the world.
But what now?
You want to be able to grow your following, but you’re not sure what to do first.
I’ve been there, and so have many other bloggers.
One of the biggest challenges new bloggers and even some established bloggers face is how to grow and improve their blogs.
It’s not easy too with having to write posts, take photos, edit, re-write, proofread, do keyword research and the like.
There are so many blogging tasks to tackle.
Many things can take up your time, so what should you prioritise to grow your blog?
A few weeks ago, I posted on Twitter asking if other bloggers wanted to collaborate on a post sharing their tips for new bloggers.
And the response was amazing!
In this post, I’ve collaborated with 15 bloggers to reveal what was the one thing that helped them grow their blogs.
And the juicy bit is that I’ve also asked them to give you actionable tips that you can implement.
Let’s get into it!
Blogging Advice From 16 Bloggers on How to Improve A Blog
Collaborating with others by:
Joining Blogging Threads on Social Media
The one thing I wish I knew when I started blogging is that the blogging community is amazing and that I should have got involved sooner.
Everybody is so genuine and happy to help with any questions that you have.
It is also a great way to promote your blog and your posts.
I had no clue that the blogging community is most active on Twitter, so it was key that I made a blog twitter account.
Actionable tip:
I would recommend you try and join in on blog comment threads.
I upload a blog comment daily thread where I get between 50-100 bloggers leaving their blog links and comment on each other’s post.
There are also twitter accounts dedicated to retweeting your blog post links on twitter.
I regularly use the hashtag #bloggerstribe so that the account @bloggerstribe can retweet my link so look into these types of accounts.
There are so many so make sure you find the active ones.
– Amber of The Unpredicted Page
Reaching out to others
Having other people who wanted to start writing alongside me and starting to reach out to brands to work with helped me grow, but I’ve still got a long way to go.
Actionable Tip:
Reaching out to people and doing that soon.
– Shelby Hall of Venus Rising Blog
Connecting with bloggers on Facebook groups
I joined a ton of Facebook groups that helped me connect with other bloggers, and that has offered so much free advice about being a blogger.
Actionable Tip:
Connect with bloggers (via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) that are in similar niches to yours.
More often than not, they are willing to share your content and maybe even collaborate.
– Alaia of Being Alaia
Engaging with bloggers
One thing that helped my blog grow was engaging with others on Twitter and their blogs.
There are lots of blog promotion accounts which have community feeds daily.
There are great places to meet new bloggers, share ideas and gain traffic.
Engaging with others is key to growing your blog.
Actionable Tip:
I would recommend commenting on other blog posts, replying to blogger’s tweets and engaging in twitter feeds aimed at bloggers.
The more you engage (without becoming spammy), the better.
Make sure your tweets and comments are meaningful and not just “great post” or “well done”.
Commenting on posts can also increase your DA score!
– Em from Love Em
Joining relevant blogger groups
When it came to growing my blog, I joined a bunch of different groups for my niche (lifestyle).
There are tons and tons of groups out there, on Facebook, Twitter and even WhatsApp.
These groups are full of advice on everything from the best plug-ins on WordPress to how to create a better PR deck to send out to brands.
They are extremely helpful if you have questions or just need some motivation.
I wish I had joined these sooner myself as they really kept me on track and helped me grow.
Actionable Tip:
If you are looking to grow your blog, despite just starting, I would research groups in your niche and join some general blogging groups.
Each group is different, but going a few will give you a good sense of community and provide support for anything you might need.
– Jupiter Hadley of Life with Jupiter and Dann
Connecting with like-minded bloggers
Finding like-minded people is a must!
When you first start, no one will know your blog exists, and there might be some hard moments.
However, having a friendly community of other bloggers can make a huge difference.
They can support you, answer questions, and give you feedback.
I have gotten to know so many amazing people through my blog, and I have even met some of them in-person.
Don’t try to do it all on your own; get involved in the community!! PS Blogging community is the best!!
Actionable Tip:
Join a lot of groups on Facebook (related to your topic).
Participate in sharing threads on Twitter.
Comment on other people’s blog posts, share other people’s content and just get involved in the community.
Be very active on social media and make a lot of friends.
– Travel Addicted Unicorn
Networking and sharing your blog to others
Seeking out like-minded people and being open to making connections anywhere and everywhere.
Actionable Tip:
Do you think you have a particular post that will help someone with an issue they’re having? Tell them about your blog!
Did you vibe super hard with the waitress at your favorite restaurant or the receptionist at your dentist? Tell them about your blog!
Even if they don’t read blogs, chances are they know someone who does!
Keep yourself open to making new connections with like-minded people and don’t be afraid to talk about your passion.
As long as you’re genuine, there’s no shame in connecting with people through mutual interests.
– Renata Leo of Buffalo Sauce Everywhere
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Doing market research by
Looking at what people are asking about in relevant groups
What helped me grow my blog was two things:
- Surround myself by people who were super supportive
- Join 3 Facebook groups that had my ideal audience in, but three different groups so that they all gave their unique thoughts and questions.
Using these questions asked formed what I should be writing about on my blog and then write content using my perspective.
Actionable Tip:
Writing a blog about starting a freelance business and being a freelance writer I chose these 3 group types
- Entrepreneurial Mindset
- Freelance Writers
- Local Business Networking group
If you go down the route of choosing 3 Facebook groups that have the same people, then you won’t have as much insight into what your ideal reader’s problem is right now.
After choosing your three groups, research what questions are being asked.
There is a search box that you can use to search for individual posts.
Type in #ask, #help, or #question, and this usually brings up results of what group members are asking.
Dive further into the question being asked. Look for keywords and context to the question they are asking.
Do some keyword research, to see which has the greatest search volume, and write a blog around this.
– Alison Wolf of Freelancer Lifestyle
Publishing quality content by
Focusing on giving value
The one thing that helped me stand in my niche and build an audience is the content.
Most new bloggers feel overwhelmed with so many things that they neglect their content.
Focus on the value of your content.
Brainstorm and plan the blog posts.
Think about your reader’s problems.
Even if your blog posts take the most of your time, that should be ok.
Remember that you are building the foundation of your new blog.
I even wrote an entire ebook explaining evergreen content and what amazing results it guarantees.
Focus on your content.
Actionable Tip:
Take out time every day to write better.
Focus on your writing skills.
Don’t just write a post and forget it.
Ensure that you have optimised it well.
As a new blogger, you might be missing important elements in your blog posts.
Learn from others.
Ask for feedback.
– Arfa Nazeer of She Means Blogging
Focusing on quality over quantity
Social media is key to growing your blog’s reputation.
Getting links with other bloggers via Twitter and Instagram, for example, means that it’s possible to reach worldwide audiences at the drop of a hat.
I’d also say that the quality of a blog comes before quantity.
Some bloggers go all out for publishing content on an extremely regular basis.
I don’t buy into that viewpoint.
I think it’s better to spend time producing quality content that explores things in depth rather than just a whirlwind of blogs that don’t say anything worth reading.
You may get initial clicks, but people will stop following soon after.
Finally, do your research on your subject and be knowledgeable.
No point saying things that are not true nor interesting.
Also, check your grammar.
There is far little that is harder on the eye than a poorly spelt piece of writing.
Sloppy work is an immediate turn-off.
Actionable Tip:
First of all, sign up to your preferred social media channels (Twitter for me is a must) as your blog.
I think it’s best to appear as professional as you can from the off.
Secondly, take your time.
Write about what you know and love and don’t be afraid to reference other work (although don’t steal it either).
Set yourself a goal for what you want to say and layout your blog on paper (a basic layout I mean) before getting in front of your keyboard.
Finally, make it fun.
If it’s fun for you, then it’s hopefully going to be fun for others too.
– Steve Kennedy of World Complete
Having a content strategy
The one thing that helped me grow and scale my blog was prioritising content and having a content strategy.
It involves:
- Knowing who I’m writing for( who is my reader, what are their pain points, how can I serve them/ solve their concerns?)
- Knowing how to deliver content in the format that best suits the reader, the topic and the time (will it need long-form content or a series of posts spread out over a course? Maybe Ebook format?)
- Next up, it’s having a strategy in place to deliver that content to my reader, so it meets them where they’re at. There no point in pushing a blog post about targeting long-tail keywords if the reader doesn’t even have a blog set up.
Actionable Tip:
Being aware of the stage your audience or reader is at in their journey is essential.
How can you gain this insight?
By asking!
Via your own back and forth in your email marketing, on Twitter or in your Facebook Group, by checking which of your posts get the most engagement in GoogleAnalytics.
With blogging, knowing your reader is crucial.
– Renee of That Little Blog
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Finding Your Blog Purpose
I think the one thing that has helped me to grow my blog is understanding why we blog in the first place.
And why is that, I hear you ask.
Well, for me, it’s so that visitors to our website will enjoy reading the blog posts that we make.
Don’t write in the style of the old textbooks from your school days. How much did you enjoy reading those?!
Reading your blog posts should be a pleasurable experience.
If it is then your readers will come back to read subsequent posts.
They may even sign-up for your newsletter, and they will feel more inclined to like/share/tweet your content on their social media platform of choice (which may then generate more readers of your posts).
There are many things that you can do to make reading your blog posts more enjoyable.
I think one of the best ways is to create a “Table of Contents (TOC)” for every post.
This will allow your readers to get an idea of the structure of the post but will also make it easier to skip to a particular section.
Imagine that you searched in Google for details of the offside rule in football (that’s ‘soccer’ for those of you in the USA).
Google spits out its answers, and one of them is your blog post explaining ALL of the rules of football.
Do you think that your reader will happily sit and wade through every rule hoping to find the offside rule?
If you have a TOC and the offside rule has its own section, the reader can see where it fits into the overall rule structure and can click the link to go straight there.
You may be thinking that the reader could use CTRL & F to ‘find’ the offside rule. Yes, they ‘could’.
But they could also decide that they can’t be bothered and click the back button to look for another post (and never visit your site again).
Make it easier, not harder, for your reader.
Another advantage of using a TOC is that it can help Google to understand the purpose of your blog post and may even result in the TOC being used in a Featured Snippet.
You know, those posts at the very top of a search that give more detail than all the posts below.
This is a huge win – having your post at the top of the list is the ultimate goal in SEO.
Actionable Tip:
In terms of implementing a TOC, you have two choices:
a) A plug-in. (EG: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/easy-table-of-contents/ )
b) Learn some HTML and CSS and make your own. (EG: https://www.internetingishard.com/ )
The choice will depend upon how much time you have available and whether you wish to learn a little of those languages.
If you want a ‘quick fix’ and don’t want to learn those languages then go a). If you do have the time and want to learn how to customise your TOC then go for b).
– Richie Sills of Richie’s Room
Investing in your blog by
Allocating a budget to spend on your blog
You have to spend money to make money.
When I first began, I was super hesitant to pay for services that would help my blog because I didn’t want to throw money away.
I quickly learned those services were a huge help in saving time and resources to help grow your brand and therefore worth the money.
If you want to take blogging seriously, consider allocating a monthly budget to spend on your blog.
Actionable Tip:
The best blogging tool I have purchased is Tailwind. This is a monthly subscription that assists with scheduling Pinterest Pins.
I get a huge amount of clicks from Pinterest straight to my blog, and Tailwind helps me optimise when to post.
– Lisa of Wanderlust with Lisa
Going self-hosted
There is a lot to look at; there is a vast array of posts online with help, guidance and tips for new bloggers.
The one main big thing that has helped me and is still providing the best use is going down the route of being Self Hosted.
I started blogging through WordPress.com, which looking back now is quite expensive to try and get the best from your blog but also is very restrictive.
The lack of ability to use certain key plug-ins is one of the main reasons.
Being self-hosted with WordPress.org has given me the freedom to have my blog how I want it and utilising key plug-ins has and still is helping me grow my blog.
Actionable Tip:
I’d recommend looking through the various blog platforms that there are available out there. WordPress, Blogger, Wix are a few to start with.
Sort yourself a domain name so, from the beginning, you can look to build your DA and online presence.
Along with these is going self-hosted. There are companies out there for this with great packages.
No drama for you either as they should do all the legwork and have it set up for you.
This is what gave me the freedom and ability to grow my blog and online presence.
– Eddie of Yorkie.. Not Just For Dads
READ: BENEFITS OF A SELF-HOSTED WORDPRESS BLOG
Purchasing the right tools and resources
Investing in the right tools & resources from the beginning.
Actionable Tip:
When it comes to growing your blog, I’d say that investing in the right tools and resources from the start takes more than half of the load off your mind.
New bloggers mostly choose to go with the free options which hurt their growth in the long term.
And once their blog growth becomes stagnant, they feel discouraged and often give up.
If they invest in the right tools, then those tools do the work by themselves saving bloggers a lot of their time, and they can utilise this time by creating + promoting quality content and doing other money-generating tasks.
– Rahul Choudhary of Blog 2 Brand
These are a lot of valuable tips that I wish I had read about back when I had just started blogging.
And of course, I’ll share my tip too, which coincides with the topic of investing in your blog.
Treating it like a business
Even before launching this blog, I had a mindset of that of a business owner, meaning that I treated this blog as a business.
I wanted to be able to set up my blog with the intention of monetising it right away.
I knew the importance of investing to help me set up my blog strategically so that it could make money even from the get-go.
It’s just like when you open a business, you need capital to start.
So I invested in a blog host & domain so that I could have a self-hosted blog, a premium WordPress theme, an email marketing provider and later on I even invested in legal templates to protect my blog.
And the amazing this is that I made back my investment before I launched my blog.
I adopted a business mindset that helped me grow my blog because I would always ask myself if a particular investment would help me improve my blog.
Actionable Tip:
If you want to be able to grow your blog, don’t be afraid to invest in the right tools and resources.
You can start with asking yourself what your vision for your blog is and if you want to monetise it.
If you want to monetise your blog, how will you do this?
There are so many ways you can monetise your blog, and depending on which methods you’ll be making money, you may need to invest with a tool or resource.
For example, if you want to sell a course on a teaching platform, you have to pay a monthly fee to use a particular platform.
Because there are so many tools & resources out there, you have to do your due diligence and research if a particular tool is a right fit for you.
Compare the options you have for a specific type of resource depending on its cost, benefits and disadvantages to make the best decision for your blog.
And remember, you can always upgrade or invest as you grow your blog or increase your blog income. It doesn’t have to be all at the same time, especially if it’s out of your budget.
– Izzy Matias
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In summary, these are the tips that can help you improve your blog:
- Collaborating with others
- Doing market research
- Publishing quality content
- Finding your blog purpose
- Investing in your blog
And now over to you: what blogging advice can you give to other bloggers that helped you grow your blog? Let me know in the comments below.
Want to advertise your blog? Check out the Ultimate Advertising For Bloggers Directory to find out which blogs you can advertise your blog with and grow your visibility
I just started to writing my blog, thanks for sharing these tips, hope we both be better !
So exciting you just started blogging! Best of luck!
Reallly Great Post….it helps me a lot
Thanks for sharing..???
Fantastic post! I’m a new blogger and it can be hard to attract the right people to your blog. Thank you for sharing all those great tips! Pinned for later
Thank you, Shany!! So glad you found it helpful 🙂
I am so bad about using the retweet hashtags! Thank you for the reminder! I also need to join a few more relevant bloggers groups.
Facebook groups are super helpful! One of my favourite groups is the Boss Girl Bloggers group 🙂
Great post! This will be so helpful
Thanks, Kat!! 🙂
Excellent post, Izzy
(and I’m not just saying that based on my tip!)
You’ve managed to pull together a lot of useful information here and I’m sure many bloggers will find at least one thing that they can implement.
Thanks so much, Richie!! It was a fun post to work on and I learned new things as well from other bloggers
Such brilliant advice for bloggers old and new! Thank you for sharing.
I’ll be following some of these tips x x
Thank you, Claire! Let me know how it goes after implementing some of the tips 🙂
As a new blogger this post is super useful! I think learning from others is so important and I have learnt so much already 🙂
Thank you for sharing Izzy!
Em x
planningwithem.com
Yay I’m so glad to hear that, Emily!! Thank you 🙂
So much information and useful tips from all these bloggers. Thank you so much for sharing it.
Great post! Very informative, thanks for sharing this advice.
Thank you so much, Mamta! 🙂
Wow what a great guide, fantastic tips! They will be really helpful!
Thanks so much, Chris! 🙂
Hey Izzy, thanks for collating this list of advice! I am just curious whether you or anyone else here can point me to some writing Facebook groups. That would be very helpful. Thanks and have a great weekend! 🙂
You’re welcome, Ming. And thank you too for checking out the post. To find writing Facebook groups, I type a keyword like “writing” or “writers” or you can even add your location to find local writing groups. Maybe you could start here? I hope that helps! 🙂
Loving this post – there’s so much valuable information!
Thank you so much, Lisa! And thank you too for contributing to this post 🙂
This is a good post with amazing advice. There are things that I hadn’t considered, but I’ll definitely keep these suggestions in mind.
Thank you, Dominique!! Which of the tips will you be implementing soon? 🙂
These are all good tips. I’m happy that I already did most. These tips does help me to improve my blog. Now I want to connect more with like-minded bloggers and joint affiliate programs.
Thank you too, Fadima! So happy to hear that 🙂 And yes it’s never too late to connect with other bloggers and join affiliate programs as well 🙂
A great post with some fantastic advice. It’s always great to read posts like this with words of advice and knowledge from other bloggers, it’s a great way to learn more.
Thank you too for contributing to this post, Eddie! And it’s so true that it’s a great way to learn more from others 🙂