Today, every company can stand out from the crowd by using content to their advantage. However, many businesses struggle to attract enough consumers or viewers to make a profit from their offerings.
Introduction –
We are in a content-driven era where every business can make them visible through content. But many companies face the challenge of engaging more customers or audiences for their products or services. Blogs play a significant role in building a long-term audience through up-to-date content. Blogging also helps the company educate the customers about the brand’s product or service.
Content Management Systems are one of the quickest & effective ways to start blogging about a company’s product or service. Although many CMS tools are available, WordPress plays a significant role in helping brands develop blogs. According to the W3techs survey report[1], WordPress powers 43% of websites on the internet.
However, before leveraging WordPress to start your blog platform, there are some essential tips to consider. This article is a complete walkthrough of the top 18 tips bloggers should contemplate before starting a WordPress blog.
What is blogging?
Blogging is a form of drafting and releasing articles or long-form content on a website.
On this type of website, bloggers (the writers) provide their thoughts, experiences, opinions, or informative content on a particular topic. To provide security on blogging sites, including at least an SSL certificate, which can boost SEO and bring trust among target audiences. SSL can be either wildcard SSL, multi domain SSL or any other type of SSL certificate, which can secure the data between the server and the browser.
18 tips for starting a WordPress blog in 2018
This section will specifically talk about some essential tips bloggers & companies should consider for starting blogging using WordPress.
1. Have a precise plan or blog focus: Everyone should start blogging with a particular focus in mind. If the intentions for starting the blog remain unclear, the content might also remain fuzzy to the target audience. Like a business plan, sketching the intent of starting a blog should be clear. Once the objectives are clear, brands can opt for WordPress CMS for preparing the content.
2. Intense research is necessary: Other than SEO research, analyzing & researching the genre you want to blog is also essential. For starting a WordPress blog, seek inspiration from other bloggers or blog sites in your niche by searching for similar topics. Do not write exactly in their tone. But the research should be on what type of audience the writing targets or what elements other bloggers include in their content.
3. Hook up Yoast SEO: There is a saying that WordPress CMS is SEO-ready. Among all other plugins and tools available in the WordPress marketplace, Yoast is an excellent WordPress tool for SEO. It is easy to use for beginners. It offers numerous features that can help in optimizing the WordPress blog.
4. Schedule time for blogging: It is okay to post a blog whenever you are in the mood to post one. However, audiences and readers prefer those blogs that come with new content after a specific time, let’s suppose, after every two days. If you plan to make blogs a part of your business and drive potential customers through them, schedule a specific day or time duration for every post. Bloggers who monetize their blog also follow a similar approach.
5. Properly use tags and categories: To start a WordPress blog, you must know about taxonomies. Tags and categories for blogs are known as taxonomies in WordPress. Appropriate use of these tags and categories can help place your content for the right audience.
6. Involve yourself (or the brand) in the blogging community: Another beneficial tip to blog using WordPress CMS is to reach out to other bloggers by commenting on their blog posts. Connecting them & collaborating with them to feature your product or service on their blog will increase your blog’s visibility.
7. Stick to the 80-10-10 rule: Following this tip will provide a win-win situation while running your WordPress blog. Share 80% of other people’s content or explain something related to a niche. The following 10% should be your non-selling content & the remaining 10% should be promotional content.
8. Be kind to visitors: Your blog should be easy to navigate. Visitors will leave if they don’t find what they are looking for. Also, if they comment with a topic suggestion, create one such blog or respond to comments accordingly.
9. Do not hesitate to network: Collaboration with other bloggers or hiring them as freelancers for your WordPress blog will help you gain more traffic. It will also help increase brand visibility.
10. Measure traffic: Solely writing about your product or a particular niche is not the only way to grow your WordPress blog. You should also measure the traffic of your blog. Analyze which pages or posts got the maximum number of visitors.
11. Understand whether Google knows your blog: Checking the blog’s health is essential in the context of Google’s search. So, consider adding your site to Google Search Console. It will help keep track of your blog’s health. It also provides information like whether your blog got hacked or is slow in loading.
12. Unique and engaging content is valuable: People will come to your blogs if they are informative, have unique content, and are valuable to readers. Also, including vlogs & podcasts in the blog niche will make your blog engaging and attract more audiences.
13. Decrease bounce rate: If you are an individual creator who wants brand collaborations, you have to keep visitors for a long time on your blog. Audiences will share your articles, subscribe to newsletters, or hire you for services if the bounce rate is low. A lower bounce rate also increases SEO for your blog.
14. Develop promotional materials: Include media kits for your website. It will contain stats and information to allow you to pitch other brand products or services on the WordPress blog.
15. Consider writing sponsored posts: Blogs with high visibility, SEO ranking & popularity get sponsored posts. It includes promotional content about a brand’s product or service. Bloggers can make lots of money and gain popularity through such sponsored posts.
16. Get an SSL: Cybersecurity is of paramount importance. An SSL can help contribute to better SEO. Incorporating an SSL cert will also provide encryption for user data in transit. Hence, visitors will feel safe while browsing. Various websites offer lowest priced or cheap wildcard SSL[2], single domain SSL that bloggers can include in their WordPress blogs to instill trust among visitors.
17. Choose an appropriate theme: WordPress is also known for its “Theme.” These themes work like makeup for your blogging content. Your theme color & images should match the content. Also, it should be user-friendly and load quickly.
18. Keep your day job: Before opting for a full-time job as a blogger, consider not quitting your day job. It is because a blogging site takes time to grow and make money. Your blog should generate as much money as your day job before shifting to a full-time blog role.
Conclusion –
We hope this article catered to a crisp idea of all the essential tips bloggers and individual brands should mind before starting a WordPress blog. We have also encountered how an SSL can boost SEO & instill trust among blog visitors. If you want to provide a seamless navigating & secured reading experience to the visitors, consider adding an SSL certificate to your blog site.
For more information:
References
- ^ report (url.whate.ch)
- ^ cheap wildcard SSL (url.whate.ch)