14 tips for new bloggers to make their blogs more popular

14 tips for new bloggers to make their blogs more popular

Blogging is the way of life

For us bloggers, blogging is a part, an inextricable component of our lives. IndiBlogger, the Indian bloggers' directory, right puts it as "We blog, therefore we are", as if our existence itself is an effect arising out of our habit of blogging. Blogging is indeed a very healthy habit, so far as we're blogging about something, or anything, useful.

But tremendous competition in the 'blogosphere' nowadays has resulted in many of the new bloggers getting more and more frustrated with blogging itself. That's why, understanding what blogging is and how we can improve chances of our blogs getting read is important.

NOTE: This is written from an informal point of view regarding blogging. I am not a professional blogger, and I don't generate any revenue whatsoever from my blog. So, if you're looking for a list of tips to make your blog (or business) comercially more successful online, you might find a better and more professional article elsewhere on the net. 

So, first of all, what is blogging? Blogging is a social practice of sharing whatever we want to, ranging from our thoughts and opinions to tutorials and guides on accomplishing complicated tasks. Thanks to the (almost) omnipresence of internet, blogging has given us the ability to make our words reach even the other side of the world within a few moments.

Regarding blogging, one thing is to be undestood. No one becomes a very successful blogger with say, 1,00,000 followers within a day, month or even a year. Blogging really requires patience, and no problem if you're getting less pageviews. You can always improve yourself.

Another point to note is that, there should be a primary aim of blogging. I myself blog because I like to share my views with the world, but especially more because I like to add more information to the already information-rich internet. Likewise, you might have your own aim/aims as well. Recognizing your own wishes helps your implement them better.

Here are a few tips that would help new bloggers become more successful and have their blogs read more often:

1. Use Google Plus 

The benefits of google's integration

One of the best features of Google Plus is that, it supports 'communities', i.e groups of like-minded users who'd like to discuss their views and share information on a particular topic, or maybe a set of topics. While more traditional social networks such as twitter and Facebook continue to dominate more market shares, Google Plus has a number of advantages over them, especially Facebook. Firstly, its rate of growth is more than that of Facebook, because of exclusive features such as communities and video 'hangouts', and partly because it has a more refined interface. Secondly, it's far easier to make friends on Google Plus, where it follows a twitter-like policy. Thirdly and most importantly, it is more integrated with Google's other services. Especially if you're using Google's own 'Blogger', you should definitely integrate it with a page, or maybe your own profile on Google Plus.

Be sure to join a number of communities, and share whatever you manage to write in them. But remember, there are a few things to keep in mind.

• Never use too informal language in a community. Usually, communities here have a number of sophisticated users and moderators, who'd really 'mind' if you go on bugging them with a huge number of posts which are otherwise meaningless. 
• Never post too many links in the same community. Give others an equal opportunity ot expressing themselves. 
• Whenever anyone applauds you or +1s your post, be sure to thank him/her in return. This builds goodwill among the members. 
• Be sure to post on the appropriate communities. If you post your 'How to train your cat to use the toilet' guide's link on a Linux community, you're sure to get negative feedback. 
• Be sure to post in the appropriate category. Many communities, especially large ones, employ a number of categorises to better manage the posts. 
• Communities, and people by that extension on Google Plus, are not machines. Hence, you can't expect 100% result. Also, it's not just about marketting your blog, it's about learning new things yourself and making friends. That's why this competitive marketting attitude must be dropped. 
• Be sure to comment back on other peoples' posts when they comment on yours. Feel free to comment on posts by people you don't know, if you like content. That's the spirit of community, that;s the spirit of blogging. 

2. Use other social networks 

Integrating your blog with social networks can really help you get more pageviews. Join a blogger's community on the web, such as IndiBlogger (for Indian bloggers) for example. Many other such communities exist where you can register your blog. In return, you'll not only get more pageviews, your blog will also be 'lifted' in the google search results. Maintaining an exclusive Facebook page for your blog is especially helpful. Be sure to invite your friends, but don't give up or start cursing if they refuse to respond. Sonner or later, someone will definitely read your writing. 

3. Design your blog elegantly 

Thanks to optimized engines and templates, we don't have to be experts to tweak or modify our blogs. Make sure you make your blog good to look at. Widgets should be used, but excessively large number of useless widgets can not only make your blog look ugly, they can also make it slower to load. So, use only essential widgets, such as a search box, a recent posts widget and definitely a social sharing widget. Proper design really matters. 

One thing however should be kept in mind when designing the layout of your blog. While there are not hard and fast rules, you should stick to simplicity if you're new to blogging. From simplicity comes elegance. 

4. Read other peoples' blogs

This is important. Blogging is not only about writing, it's a lot about reading. You should read posts by other people, and definitely give them a big hand by posting a comment or two if you like the content. One should not however stick to flattery, because that can cause a negative impression. 

One common mistake that many new bloggers do is, they explicitly asks other bloggers to visit their blogs and be members there. This should be avoided. Blogging is for passion, it's a nice hobby. So we should learn not to cross our limits. Most blogs allow you to enter your own website/blog URLs when you post a comment or two, that would automatically lead to some people taking a took at your blog.

Remember my friends, blogging is not begging. Always stick to your self-respect and honour. 

5. Originality matters

Learning to type faster will help you
compose articles more quickly

This is essential. Logically, why would anyone read my content if I just copy-paste it from another blog? They can always find the original, because it was alread there before I 'wrote' mine, and search engines such as google would always favour that. Therefore, originality of contents matters. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't blog on common topics such as 'how to make your blog more popular' like I am doing right now (and hundreds of other bloggers have done that before I did). But what I am doing at this moment is, I am simply sharing my views and experience with the world. I definitely checked out a number of other articles on the same topic, and found many of them very interesting. But I am not just copying from any of them and pasting it. Instead, I am writing this thing from my mind as I go, because already I have an understanding of the topic. 

This applies not only to blogging, but researching as well. And some people would really agree that blogging itself is an extension of researching. 

6. Researcher's mentality

This is an important point, because your
words do matter!

This is basically an extension of the previous point. Think, before you write a post. Make sure you already have a good understanding of what you're writing. Read other articles on the same topic, try to build a better conceptual understanding of the thing, and then present it in your own language (this is important). 

Also, justifying what you've written is a good idea. 

7. Stick to the topic while writing a post 

Many people just move away from the main topic slowly. This should be avoided. A basic and easy way to do it is to use a 'point to point' layout, that I'm using at this moment. This should be followed whatever be the case. However, as you become more and more familiar with the 'art of blogging', you'll see that at a certain point of time this would no longer be needed. Most discussions and essay-type blogs are not written in this way. 

However, it's like those additional wheels one uses when first riding a bicycle. 

8. Use elegant, grammatically correct language

This is very important. A blog post with a title like "lolz, windozzz suckzzz n linuxzzzz rulzzz lolzzz xDD" can hardly get many, if any, pageview. Making the reader understand what you intend to say is essential, and nothing can do that better than a sophisticated, formal language. Grammatically correct language also creates a better impression. 

9. Blog routinely, and regularly

It's better to post 1 article every single day rather than write 10 articles each Sunday. This not only keeps the readers interested to visit your blog, but also helps you 'feel' the art of blogging. It helps you decide what your next topic will be, helps you improve your style and gives you enough time to research. This 'research' part not only helps you blog more professionally, it also boosts your wisdom on the topic. 

I suggest reserving a particular time for blogging each day. It's not that you'll have to do that at that specific time, but it helps get things uncluttered. 

10. Quality over quantity 

It's better to have 10 quality articles than 200 ill-formatted, worthless ones. Make sure you yourself appreciate, from a third-person's perspective, your own writing before posting it. Also, you should be ready to accept suggestions and criticisms alike. 

11. Store your blogging notes and ideas on an online note-taker app

Use the likes of evernote and google's keep to maintain a list of notes on blogging itself. I sometimes get a new idea while eating my lunch, or watching TV. Immediately I add it to my list of articles to be posted. This helps make the process of blogging smoother, and additionally gives you the opportunity to decide which topic to write a post on. 

A checklist would be the best, as you'd be able to 'check' if you have already written about a said topic ot not. This also boosts your creativity. Using a smartphone for taking such notes is advisable. 

12. Be sure to use images, properly captioned

A picture can say a thousand things. So make sure you've a few images to include in your article. Additionally, caption them properly to include the context, and explain why you've added it there. Images should also be properly positioned. If you look at my early posts on this blog, you'll notice that often articles are slower to load, and ill-formatted. But as I go on writing new ones, I properly align my images. 

Also, if you have a large image, shrink it first before uploading it. Larger images (with more megapixels) consume more space and, fatally increases the time your pages need to load. Also, using too many images should be advoided. 

13. Be neutral, and do not post articles that are controversial

Blogging is a kind of online journalism (there can be exceptions, though). And in both the cases, one needs to learn to stay neutral. Observing things logically from a third-person perspective is essential. Also, controversial topics such as "why Christianity is superior to every other religion" and "Why all non-Hindus will go to hell", or maybe "Why you should convert to Islam today!!!!!" should be avoided. Remember, all people do not think alike. You're free to discuss and examine the better characteristics of something, but you should do it logically. 

14. Unified, all-types blog vs Individual, topic-specific blogs

Another debatable issue is whether you'd need to stay 'laser focused' as some say, while blogging. You might notice that right here, I blog on a number of different things, ranging from photography and my own poetry to linux tutorials and android app reviews. The opponents of 'one topic-one blog' argument say that life is too small to blog about one thing, and writing on multiple topics gives you more freedom and helps you stay more organized. If you want to blog about a number of topics, you can always create individual blogs for each, but believe me, that consumes more time in managing them alone. While that might generate more pageviews on some of your blogs, others will stay neglected. 

My take on the situation is, unless you're a professional blogger willing to make money from your blog, there's no reason you should use a multitude of different blogs. I am a student, and my primary task is to study. Blogging is one of my hobbies, and that's why I don't want to spend a large fraction of my time in blogging alone. So, in order to stay more organized and minimize the 'maintenance' efforts, I maintain a single blog. 

Previously, I used to run 3 different blogs simultenaously, but I decided to merge them together and customize my blog to house all of them properly, under different labels and pages, so that people would find them easily. And thus it is. 

But this isn't the case for everyone, and so I'd leave it to the readers to consider whether they'd like a single, unified blog or different, topic-specific blogs. 

Additionally, there can be a number of different other points, such as managing your feeds properly, interacting with readers and replying to comments regularly, using more professional templates etc. but I didn't mention them here because they're already mentioned and explained in a thousand places allover the internet. And I wanted my list of tips to look a bit original. 

Lastly, be proud of your blog, because just by blogging about anything, you're making the internet more content-rich. No matter how many people read your articles, continue blogging because blogging itself is a pleasure. :)

Happy blogging.