Digital Marketing

Advanced blogging with WordPress

Break into the blogging industry with WordPress

If you have a blog of any size or want to grow a large blog, this article is for you.

Simple tool to manage your content stream

Do you work within WordPress and have multiple writers or other people managing your blog content? Instead of messing around with spreadsheets and Google Docs, try the EditFlow plugin for WordPress. EditFlow is a plugin that allows you to do things that, for example, are only visible to editors. Only people who are editors can see the comment. You can have a dialogue within the post! It provides a searchable and sortable calendar so that you can view all the articles that are written in an easy way. You can post “required images” and other comments in the sidebar to manage the flow of your content.

Is it too late to start blogging?

As a new blogger, you might think it’s too late. You might think that the other successful bloggers have too much of an advantage. With blogging, anyone can develop a voice. People who start blogging now are not too late. It’s certainly messier and there are a lot more blogs out there, but this opens up opportunities to network and grow faster. While there are many people blogging today, there is no one who has the exact same set of experiences, stories, skills, and perspectives. Take advantage of what you have that is unique. It’s a great way to break through in the blogging industry.

Techniques to attract and engage your blog visitors

The editorial mix that is used in a successful blog varies. But for the most part, successful blog editors publish a newsletter each week (Thursday or Friday) with tips for the weekend. With a team of writers and a few guest writers, two original articles are published daily. To interact with as many social networks as possible, it takes a long time. So to be successful, you need to strategically plan and schedule your resources. During the week there is usually a “challenge” task for visitors to take home based on the tutorials that were posted earlier in the week.

Blog template:

People are much more likely to read tutorials if they have been inspired to do so. The key things that go into the success of a unique blog include a successful editorial model. Every blog is different, but for the most part this editorial calendar works.

Incorporate three things into the editorial calendar:

  1. Information – 90%
  2. Inspiration
  3. Interaction

This is all free content. Postings four days a week, twice a day, plus a summary newsletter once a week to collect tips and summary information posted during the week.

What is long form content and why does it work?

Long-form content is a trend that is doing very well for blogging. Long form content can be called “more substantial” content. While typical news content includes articles ranging from 500 to 800 words, long-form content is different. The average content of an average blogger was around 1,000 words or less. The articles mainly focused on SEO, including keyword optimization. The only problem with this strategy? Bloggers were getting a lot of search traffic, but not a lot of return traffic, direct traffic, or brand searches, and user engagement metrics such as bounce rate and time on site were quite low.

Long-form content, on the other hand, is not only rewarded by search engines, but also resonates with readers. By creating more extensive and in-depth content that delivers a lot of value to an audience, bloggers’ content strategy has been successful with improved engagement metrics.

Ideal blog content size

According to statistical data, the ideal blog post takes seven minutes to read and is around 1,600 words long. This isn’t an easy read, but it’s worth the extra time and investment because some blog editors report that with long-form content, the average time on site has more than tripled!

Additional content ideas

Contests (with prizes) and polls (or debates) are important. Community and commitment are key. Everything you can get a reader to “do” on your site is important. Second, it teaches you a lot about your readers. At the end of the month, a monthly survey with a follow-up post to revisit the data is helpful to readers. Also, other blogs will find your content to be good research information that they will want to link to.

Forums, although a bit old-school tech, is still interesting to readers. Readers can have discussions and show some of their own ideas. Forums are easy to set up and in most cases your web host will offer you a free tool that is easy to use.

Plugins to improve functionality

With the growth of long-form content, the user scrolls down to read the full article. This causes the items in the sidebar, in most cases, to scroll up or temporarily disappear. The ability to keep some of the most important elements of the sidebar visible and persistent is a great solution to add to an existing blog.

  • Floating sidebar
  • Light boxes
  • Get out of boxes live
  • End of mailboxes appear
  • What do you want the user to see when they reach the bottom of the page? If you can offer something different there, you can increase page views or newsletter subscribers.

Where can I get these add-ons?

Most of these plugins are available on WordPress.com. If you are looking for a more specific plugin geared towards professional blogging, you might consider joining problemogger.com. If you become a member of Problogger.com/download-center, you will find all the plugins they have developed for professional blogging.

Plugins for bloggers include:

  • Facebook tracking,
  • Sticky Top Bar Messenger,
  • Blink plugin to absorb images on your blog
  • EasyDigitalDownloads – Manage all your ebook sales from WordPress
  • WordPress Editorial Calendar – Helps to view all posts that are scheduled and you can drag and drop to change the posting date

Monetization of your website

There are many ways to monetize your content. If you’re limited to a few and can’t spend too much time trying all the monetization options available, you can limit your energy to e-books and affiliate links.

Monetization eBooks

E-books are a profitable source of income. If you release 4-5 e-books a year, it provides you with a good income throughout the years. Writing and publishing e-books is a complete strategy that will be described in a different article. A lot of information is needed to fully explain this monetization strategy.

More monetization ideas

Affiliate promotions, like Amazon links, also provide good income. Newsletter ads and banner ads can also be lucrative as a publisher. Good old-fashioned Google AdSense can be profitable for a blogger if you offer a high-level target with your content. It is hard to beat in terms of direct sales. As with any monetization, be patient, persistent, and use only high-quality original content.

Web hosting for blogs

While most bloggers use WordPress, there are some bloggers who still use b2evolution or other blogging tools. For the most part, all web hosting providers offer WordPress for free. The question of whether you need a low cost web host or a partner that really specializes in WordPress with plugin assistance or help with migration may be a necessary one. Every blog is different and the type of web hosting you use is something for you, the business owner, to decide. Create a brand that advertisers want to align with and even with low traffic, if you have really good topics, you can make a living from your blog.