Write about what inspired you to start blogging.

As I have mentioned before I used to write in a journal/diary for a few years starting when I was 15 years old. At that time I never even imagined that we would be doing it online. By the time I was 22 I started getting into using the internet around 3 to 4 times a week (yes those dreaded days when I didn’t have broadband at home and the internet was still expensive and therefore you went to internet cafes for a couple of hours). I started reading blogs at that time.

I remember a couple of the first blogs that I started following and still have contact with them both, though mainly online on Facebook & Twitter. The first one, he is still blogging a lot, though mainly he posts the podcasts that he does very successfully, but there are other posts too. The other one stopped blogging a long time ago. But it was reading their blogs that made me eager to start my own.

Within a few years, 2002 to be exact, I did move temporarily away from my hometown for training and then work and it was the perfect time to start a blog and capture the moments, events and thoughts at that time. It just naturally flowed in to what it has become now, 20 plus years later.

Prompt from 130 Blog Post Ideas (and a Process to Find More Topics) at WordPress.com

How did you choose the WordPress theme for your blog?

I like white background themes with 2 columns and if possible some splash of colour. I usually go to Google and search for free WordPress themes with white theme and 2 columns. Sometimes I look at the images section and then find one that I like and try to download it. I usually try to find 3 to 4 such themes and then use Filezilla to transfer these themes onto my website’s server and then try it out to see how it looks like.

I like the simplistic and clean look of this theme over here. I like adding colours in terms of images and logos or anything that add that brightness to the blog. And that white background serves that purpose. Plus I look for larger blog post areas and alignment of words on the paragraphs, which makes it look neater and easier to read. Once I do find such a theme, I will use it and stick with it for a while. Now it has been almost 2 years with this theme so I might look for a new one.

Prompt from 130 Blog Post Ideas (and a Process to Find More Topics) at WordPress.com

1. Using the wrong name for your blog

Sometimes, companies try to be clever and create a blog that appeals to them. The problem with this is it’s not appealing to their audience. As a result, they quickly bounce off the page — that’s if they even click on it at all. When designing your blog, be sure to choose a blog name that is interesting, identifies who you are, aligns with your brand, and is easy to remember. Also, strive to provide readers with an inkling of the kinds of topics they can expect to find when they land on your page.

2. Choosing the wrong topics

The fundamental purpose of blogging is to answer your customer’s questions. Unfortunately, many businesses that fail at blogging do so because they neglect to anticipate providing the information they want to know. Ask your sales team what types of questions customers most often have — these are all great potential blog topics. Once you learn what top inquiries your company gets, aim to provide your audience with answers through steady blog posts. Better yet, anticipate what they want to know and then give it to them before they ask. With enough blogging experience, combined with your industry expertise, you’ll learn how to provide the perfect topics people actively want to read about.

3. Not using a variety of content

Crafting words together is a key component of constructing a good blog post, but it’s not the only type of content businesses should be sharing. Breaking up posts with a variety of content types can go a long way toward developing an appealing blog that people want to return to again and again. For instance, imagery is an increasingly important type of content and generates more than 90% more views than blogs that have text-only. To vary your content, use words, but augment them with video, photos, and infographics. This not only breaks up the page but also helps keep content fresh and audiences engaged. Interactive video is steadily becoming a vital part of blogging. But remember to use videos and other imagery strategically and not as a replacement for your content.

4. Writing blog posts without proper formatting

Blogging is much more than typing your thoughts into a webpage, but you already knew that. Here are some strategies to make your content perform well and look great.

Write about one topic per post: Each blog post should cover one specific topic. Ideally, the main idea should be a keyword that you found using the tools listed in the previous section. It’s important to provide the most thorough content possible without unrelated digressions. For example, if you’re writing about how to bake a cake from scratch, create the most detailed article you can about making cakes, but only cakes. Don’t add a section about pies and tarts. Stick to only one topic per post.

Format posts for easy reading: When formatting your post, use headings and subheadings so readers can skim easily. Break up paragraphs so they’re only a few lines long, and include eye-catching media like images, infographics, and videos.

Always proofread your posts: Before posting, remember to edit and revise your posts. Consider running your articles through a proofreader and grammar checker like Grammarly. This tool can also check for plagiarism on the pro plan. That said, proofreading tools can’t replace human editing. It’s always best to give your post a readthrough with your red pen or have someone else take a look at it before publishing.

5. Skipping social media promotion

Publishing a good blog post can be exhausting, but your work isn’t done yet. You also need to promote your content. Truthfully, this is an area that we still struggle with sometimes. After finishing a blog post, I’m ready to take a nap. The last thing I want to do is come up with a catchy social media post to match. But 70% of high-earning bloggers actively promote their new blog posts, and admittedly, I do notice increased traffic when I consistently share articles on the right social media platforms. 

For me, Pinterest marketing has been the most successful platform for blog promotion since Pinterest is a visual search engine, but this can vary depending on your niche and audience. When asked where they prefer to share their work, 42.91% of bloggers said Facebook , and 21.07% said Instagram. Networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, or TikTok are also popular places to promote your posts.

1. To share their passion

When you are passionate about something, you want to share it with the world. Whether it’s a passion for fishing, photography, or marketing, blogging is an excellent way to share that passion. When you blog about something you are passionate about, it opens the door to connecting with those around the world who speak your language and have the same passions.

2. You will improve your writing skills

The more you do something, the better you will become at that skill. Writing is no exception. Even if you don’t set out to study writing, your writing will improve the more you do it. You can even invest in grammar checker tools to help you with the writing basics, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, and style while you write.

3. You will connect with new people

One of the greatest benefits of blogging is connecting with others. You don’t just grow some followers on social networks or email lists. You build genuine relationships. You make friends with people you wouldn’t have met otherwise. Something that surprises many people is that they develop a fan base through blogging. If you attend events in your industry, you will get recognized by people you’ve never met. They will thank you for all the great work you have done.

4. Keeping friends and family updated:

If you live far away from your friends and family, blogging can be a great way to keep them updated on what’s going on in your life. You can use your blog to share news, photos, and stories with the people you love.

5. You Will Have a Healthy Emotional Outlet

This is especially true if you are looking to blog for personal purposes. While your blog may not be meant as a “secret diary”, it can still serve as an emotional outlet. Studies have shown that writing helps people heal emotionally after a traumatic experience. Even if your experiences may not be considered especially traumatic, writing can serve as a way to overcome mental and physical hardships in life.

What tips would you give someone who’s just starting a blog?

Find The Perfect Domain name

Choosing the right domain name is very important. I had a wildly successful blog called List25.com which had over 2.3 million YouTube subscribers and over 500 million video views. But in hindsight, I wish I didn’t add a number in the domain because it restricted us to only 25 items in a list.

Here are some quick tips on choosing the best domain name for your website.

• Stick with .com domain extension
• Choose a domain name that is easy to pronounce, spell, and as short as possible.
• Use your keywords and brand name in the domain name. For example, stargardeninghouston.com is more search engine friendly, than stargardeningcompany.com

Always Keep Regular Backups

Often users don’t think about backups until it’s too late. In the early days, I chose a cheap web hosting provider that wasn’t very well-known, and they had a hardware failure. I lost my entire website because I didn’t have a backup. Many hosting companies offer limited backups. However, these backups are not guaranteed, and a hardware failure can cause you to lose data as well as the backup.

Backups are your first line of defense against brute force attacks, hacking, and data theft. They are the first step to improving your WordPress security and keeping your website safe. There are plenty of reliable WordPress backup plugins that allow you to schedule automatic backups and store them in remote locations like Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and more.

Pay Attention to Image Copyrights and Licenses

Often beginners just copy and paste images from the internet. This adds liability as your site grows. Don’t just use images from Google because you might have to pay thousands later in image copyright infringement fees. The copyright owner can also report the page displaying their work and ask Google to remove it from search results. Considering these costs, it’s worth paying for a Shutterstock license to get high-quality vector images to use on your website.

However, if you are just starting out and don’t want to pay for licenses, then you can find several websites offering cc0 images. These images are royalty-free, and you can use them on your website. Another way to add images to your website is by creating your own. However, most beginners are not graphic designers. Luckily, there are online tools like Canva which enable you to create professional images to use on your blog.

Consistency is Key

You don’t have to post every day. But you have to be consistent in your schedule. Post once a day, 5-7 days a week. Some popular blogs publish several new posts each day. Choose how frequently you will publish and then stick to that frequency. If you are just starting out, then you can start with 3 posts per week and then gradually increase your pace. If you’re not disciplined, then it’s easy to slip and this is how most blogs die. You need to keep yourself motivated and don’t get distracted from your goals.

Prompt from 87 Blog Post Ideas That Will Never Fail You (2023) at Blog Tyrant

1. Not Publishing Frequently Enough

If you’re going to blog then you need to keep it up. One of the biggest blogging mistakes to avoid is to write and publish a blog post, only to leave it a month before you publish another one. If you’re publishing blogs sporadically, or going through bursts of content creation only to follow up with an extended spell of nothing, your blog isn’t going to achieve the results you want. The more content you publish on your blog the more chance you have of keeping readers engaged and interested. Regularly publishing new content is also a great way to help search engines find and rank your blog posts, ultimately driving more traffic to your blog. 

2. Poorly Formatted Posts

Your blog post could be the best written and most informative piece of content online, but if it’s poorly formatted you don’t stand a chance of achieving blogging success. Nobody wants to read blog posts that aren’t displayed in a user-friendly way on the screen. It’s all too easy to concentrate on the content of your blog post and forget about formatting the post in a way that’s easy to read.

3. Forgetting To Optimize for SEO

Blog posts are a mainstay of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and for good reason. They provide a great opportunity to add keywords and position yourself as an expert in your field. A common mistake that people make when writing blog posts is forgetting to properly optimize their content for search engines like Google. Not doing so can cost you a major amount of potential traffic. The better you optimize your posts for search engines, the more chance you have of appearing high in the search results for your target keywords. 

4. Not Linking to Other Content

Once a reader has landed on your blog and finished reading their chosen post, what do you want them to do next? Read some more of your content, of course! The best way to encourage readers to stick around on your website, and explore more of your blog, is to include links to other content within each post you write. Often, once a reader has completed reading a blog post, they’ll want to go on to conduct further reading on that topic, so you need to be sure to direct them to your content. Not including links to other content in your blog posts will simply lead to readers leaving your website and finding the blog posts they’re looking for elsewhere.

5. No CTA

A key feature of any blog post should be the call to action (CTA) at the end. Readers need to know what you want them to do next. A CTA can be anything from directing readers to another article to read, asking them to follow you on other platforms, or encouraging them to leave a comment with their feedback on the article. All too often, blog posts won’t clearly lay out the next action for users to take which can lead to them leaving the website and dropping out of your ecosystem.

Well, I guess I am due for a good clean and update of my blog. I last changed my WordPress Theme 2 years ago and I haven’t updated my Blogroll that I have on the sidebar – I don’t even read half of the blogs or other websites that is one there and ofcourse a lot of them also have stopped maintaining their blogs.

I have tried out a few WordPress themes in the interim but none of them were ones that I liked as much as this one. I might try to see if I can find another new and nice theme but this one is alright. The thing is I don’t want to pay for a theme especially as it is in dollars and that in Indian rupees is more than what I want to pay. If find an Indian website that makes a decent blog theme that I can afford to pay, I will get them.

I am sad thought that most of the blogs in the blogroll will have to go. 80% won’t have been updated in years and no posts would have been published in atleast 5. Most of the bloggers have moved to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram I guess. Anways, I will set aside some time on Sunday to do this.

Prompt from 30 BLOG POST IDEAS FOR APRIL at The Network Niche

Well it’s not that complicated. Look at my categories – I don’t limit my blog to a niche, instead I try about anything that fancies me. I have several interests and I blog about them. I write about personal things, food & drink, things that happen in sports, music, movies, tv and sometimes on the internet.

I write about famous people who pass away, I write about facts about certain things and places. I write about the world and about special places and as well as from the universe – well I collect facts and information from here & there and I put them together for a blog post.

I dunno what to tell you. I just post about what I like. I hear about something and if it tickles my fancy, I will write about it. I sometimes get inspired or atleast a topic that I have most of the points about and the idea flows. Other times I have to use prompts or look at other things that I can write about and see if that inspires me. Anything as long as I get a post from it.

Prompt from The Ultimate List of Blog Post Ideas and Prompts at The Life Of A Glasgow Girl

1. Choose a blog niche : When creating a blog as a beginner, you need to have a specific focus or niche in order to attract readers. Ideally, you’ll choose a single, broad topic that you’ll be able to explore in-depth. But how do you decide what to focus on? First, think about your goals. Do you want to promote your business? Share information or explore your passion? Make money from your content? Whether you’re aiming to write about your industry, dive deep into your personal interests, or monetize your site, contemplating your overall objectives can point you in the right direction.

Whichever blog niche you choose, it’s going to become the defining feature of your online presence. With that in mind, make sure to focus on an area you’re experienced in and genuinely excited about. Based on your experience, you may want to niche down even further to cater to a specific audience. For instance, within the niches of European travel or cooking, you may opt to focus specifically on budget travel or vegan food.  If you’re unsure of what niche to choose, browse these blog examples to help guide you.

2. Structure your blog by category : Just as you’d organize your closet by category, you’ll want to take a similar approach with your blog. If you’re just starting your blog, format it in a way that makes it easy for readers to find what they’re looking for. For instance, you may want to add overarching topic categories to the navigation menu. Google also appreciates this structure – in fact, its algorithms take website structure into account when determining which posts to rank among the top search results. So, having neatly organized blog categories is beneficial on all fronts.

3. Use a variety of visuals : Your writing is the core of your blog posts, but it’s not the only element to include. It also helps to add visual elements to your articles. In fact, articles get shared twice as much when they have one image per every 75-100 words. With that in mind, break up large blocks of text by incorporating images and videos. This keeps your readers’ attention on the page for longer and prevents them from getting bored or intimidated by so much text. Be sure to use unique, high-quality images to create a polished and professional piece. If you’re not able to use photographs of your own, you can get free stock photos from sites like Unsplash and Pexels. Once you upload the images to your blog, add alt text to optimize them for SEO.

4. Develop a powerful linking strategy : If you’re just learning how to start a blog, it’s crucial to understand the importance of links in your blogging strategy. In general, there are three main types of links you’ll need to pay attention to:

• Internal links: Links within your blog posts that connect to other pages on your website or articles on your blog. This type of linking improves the SEO of your articles, and compels readers to further explore relevant pages on your site.

• External links: Links within your blog posts that connect to third-party sites. These come in handy when you want to cite an important study or statistic from an external source.

• Backlinks: Links from third-party sites that connect to your website or blog. This is a core part of building your blog’s SEO. The more backlinks you get from high-authority websites, the more credible your own site is in the eyes of search engines.

How do you build relationships with other bloggers on your niche?

This is something that it kinda good for people even when you do not have a blog. Just connecting with like minded people online is good for your to share ideas and create a community online. Now for bloggers it is also pretty easy to create that kind of community and forge relationships and friendships.

The thing that you do is first find similar like minded bloggers who have topics along the likes of yours. Mine is a lifestyle / general topic blog and I do not want to be pigeonholed in a particular niche. So I usually to look for similar blogs and bloggers and when I find a blog that I like, I comment and share my details via their comment section. This gives them a chance to look at my blog posts in return. Once you comment a few times that gives them an idea that you are a regular reader and curiosity will make them want to check out your content.

Once they do and start commenting it’s a matter of sharing ideas and links and well you can also move onto other areas like Facebook or Twitter or Instagram and promote each other’s content. This mutual positive thing is very benefital for all concerned, gaining you more traction and readers/followers.

Prompt from 87 Blog Post Ideas That Will Never Fail You (2023) at Blog Tyrant

1. A CAMERA FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHY LOVER

Here’s the deal with having a blog these days: no matter how great your writing is, how amazing your ideas are or how many readers you have, it’s hard to keep up with all the other blogs out there if you don’t have stunning photos. When starting out, a point and shoot camera might do the trick (I’ve been there). But if you want to take your blog to the next level, a DSLR camera can make a world of a difference. So if you know a blogger that’s just starting out or wants to go full time, the best possible gift you can get them is a digital camera.

2. BLOG HOSTING FOR DEDICATED BLOGGERS

If you have a friend or family member who was started blogging on a free platform and you want to encourage them and support their dream, there is no better gift then offering them the option to go self-hosted!

3. PRACTICAL DESK EQUIPMENT FOR THE OFFICE MOUSE

Bloggers tend to spend a lot of time in chairs, at desks and in front of computers. And I can’t think of a better gift but one that would make our lives easier when we have to spend hours in the same place. So while they are not traditional items, a good office chair, a seat cushion, an ergonomic footrest or a mouse pad with wrist support can make a huge difference in the day to day activities of a blogger.

4. QUIRKY MUGS FOR THE COFFEE LOVER

If you always find yourself doing little blogging tasks with a cup of coffee (or tea) in hand, then you are going to love these blogging related mugs from Blogging Mode! With an entire collection of quirky (yet practical) mugs that range from blogging humor, to daily inspiration for bloggers or entrepreneurs, these mugs make the perfect personalized gift for any online friend!

5. A BLOG THEME FOR THE NEW BLOGGER

A necessity that all new bloggers have and that could radically transform the appearance of their website (even if they have 0 coding or tech skills so far) is a stunning blog theme. A great website theme can really showcase your content in the best light and differentiate you from other bloggers and I know that a blog theme was one of the first major investments I took on for my blog.

6. USEFUL WORDPRESS PLUGINS

If you’re a blogger, you know that it takes more than just a pretty theme to run a website. That’s why I encourage you to give someone the gift of a useful plugin!

Here are a few practical plugins every blogger should invest in:

• Social Warfare – a social sharing buttons plugin
• Elementor PRO – a page builder plugin that is great for building custom pages
• Updraft Plus – a back-up plugin that helps bloggers keep their content safe
• Short Pixel – an image optimization plugin that helps with increasing website speed