Pro Blogging Tips to Take Your Blog To The Next Level

AD| So you want to be a professional blogger and you’re looking for some pro blogging tips? You’ve come to the right place! I’ve been blogging for 10 years. This started out as a hobby. After a couple of years, I started making money here and there. Now I make a full-time income from my blog.

Isn’t blogging dead?

With the rise of social media such as Instagram and TikTok, many people think that blogging is now dead. A lot of marketing money is being ploughed into UGC (user-generated content) on social. But it doesn’t mean that blogging is dead. It’s just different.

A few years ago, people would follow blogs. Now they follow people on Instagrammers. Many people have stopped blogging and migrated over to social media. But making money from blogging is still a thing. I know because I do it. About 85% of my income comes form this blog alone.

Let me tell you why you should be starting a blog:

• You own your website. Social media can be hacked, or deleted and the algorithm can change and destroy your reach.
• Web-based reviews and content on blogs last longer. A social media post has a life span of a few days, whereas a blog post is searchable and can rank on Google for years. Many brands still want this kind of coverage.
• Google search!
• With everyone wanting to be an influencer on social, that means there’s less competition on blogs for campaigns!
• With a blog, there’s less pressure to share as much of your life and update constantly.
• It’s great for those of us who are not comfortable talking in front of the camera.

Pro Blogging Tips

So if you want to be a pro blogger, here are some of my biggest tips.

Just start that blog

Firstly, if you’re still on the fence about starting your blog, just do it!

Domain names generally cost less than a tenner per year and you can get hosting for a couple of pounds per month (I use and recommend Stable Point, where I can host 10 sites including the SSL certificate for £11 a month).

The customer service and live chat functions that hosting companies have are so useful if you are struggling with buying a domain, hosting and installing WordPress. Many will do it for you while you’re on live chat with them.

If you don’t want to pay anything, then opt for a free WordPress.com blog or a Blogger one. You can migrate over to self-hosting at a later date.

But the main thing is to get started!

SEO ASAP

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and means writing content in a way that tells Google what it is about. This means that it has a better chance of ranking in Google Search for relevant search terms. Things like titles, headings, meta descriptions, URLs and alt text are so important!

You can check out some beginner SEO tips here to get started. If you are doing this from the start, it means out won’t need to go back and edit it at a later date.

Invest in a template

Although there are free templates available for both WordPress and Blogger, you are often restricted with how you can customise them. I always use Etsy to buy my WordPress themes. They are usually around £30-£50 and have many features that you can make your blog look different to any other using the same theme.

Here are 9 beautiful WordPress themes to get you started.

My theme has changed so much over the last 10 years. Check out this post to see how my blog has evolved. It’s completely normal for it to evolve over time and as you grow as a blogger, you will learn more about how you want your blog to look as well as what’s visually attractive to readers.

Branding is key

I use the image in the sidebar as my profile photo across all social media. I also use the same colours and when I make graphics, I stick to similar fonts.

If you get yourself a free trial for Canva premium, you can use the background remover tool to remove the background of a picture of yourself like mine. I think this makes it look more professional than having the original background which is my kitchen!

User-friendly content

When you are creating content, make it user-friendly and accessible to all.

How do you do this? Write in clear and simple sentences. When proofreading, take out any words that are redundant. Blogging isn’t about using fancy words and complicated sentences. It needs to be simple, clear and easy to understand.

You can also use online tools to help you with this. Grammarly is a great tool for checking spelling and grammar on text content. If you are recording video content then these screen recorders for Windows 10 will help you take demonstration videos or video game streaming to the next level. Don’t forget to include captions on videos and audio for those who need them!

Hang out on Twitter

Bloggers still hang out on Twitter! Twitter is a different experience from Instagram and TikTok. With Twitter, you can discuss things with others, join conversations and network. Whereas Instagram and TikTok are more about individual posts and content. This makes Twitter the BEST place to meet other bloggers, connect with PRs and even apply for some paid work!

Share ideas

Now you’re on Twitter, you will start to form relationships with others. Connect with these people privately and help each other! Share tips, experience share, bounce off ideas and help each other get work. Networking is key in this game! But remember it’s not just about using someone for your benefit, a relationship works both ways and they should also benefit from it.

Be cautious with online courses and coaches

There are a lot of people out there that try to profit off of other people’s desires to make money online, be bloggers and influencers. This means that there are lots of online courses, ebooks and even coaching services that will promise to help you. Please approach these with caution as the majority of these people don’t have any qualifications or real experience behind them.

A lot of the knowledge they share is already online so you can find it yourself with a quick Google search.

There are no shortcuts or secrets to becoming a blogger. It’s all down to a bit of self-learning and a lot of hard work, time and being consistent.

Always write the best article out there

Quality content always wins. It gets the shares on social and rankings on Google. That means that you should always aim to write the best, most comprehensive blog post that you can.

If you don’t have time to write quality content regularly, then be realistic about how often you can publish a blog post. It’s better to write your best blog posts and publish once a week or month than to churn out rubbish content a few times a week.

Remember that you want to be seen as an expert in your field so you should give each article the amount of time it needs.

Images

Every blog post should at least have one image and these images should be bright and clear. If photography isn’t your strong point, then take a bit of time to get better at it. You can take great photos with just a phone these days!

There are also many free stock websites you can download images from and you can even buy stock photos on Etsy – like the ones in this post!

Always ensure you have the right to share any photo before you publish it on your blog. There are actually companies out there that search for people using copyrighted images and then threaten to take them to court if they don’t pay a hefty fee!

So there you have it – my pro blogging tips. Do you have any to share?