10 Helpful Tips For Newbie Bloggers

Ten

Are you a newcomer to blogging?

And, would you like to know more about blogging?

If you have answered, “Yes,” to those two questions, you have come to the right place.

Unfortunately, a large percentage of newbie bloggers know a minute amount (or nothing) about blogging (That is a normal thing because they are now getting their proverbial feet wet in the area of blogging).

Most newbie bloggers learn from trial and error (And, that process is a time-consuming one; especially when you are approaching blogging without any sort of guidance).

Today, I would like to point you in the right direction — a direction that will help you to understand blogging and become a better blogger.

So, without further ado, I would like you to venture deep into this topic — one that is guaranteed to help out any newcomer to blogging.

1.) Rid Yourself Of Anxiety

Entering into the world of blogging without knowing anything about it is enough to raise the anxiety levels of any newbie blogger.

However, I want you to know, that anxiety has the potential of working against you; which is the reason why you must rid yourself of it.

Do you remember your schooldays?

Once you are not afflicted with Alzheimer’s, there is a high probability of you remembering your schooldays.

The part about your schooldays that I would like you to remember is the time period when you had to do your exams (Exams can be stressful for a lot of students and a lot of anxiety is involved).

Your mind probably went blank when you saw the term paper. You did your best in the area of studying for the examination in advance (But, the studying did not pay off because you were unable to come up with the right answers for the questions that were on the term paper).

When the examination was over, you walked out of the examination room and the answers to the questions on the term paper entered your mind.

Why did that happen to you?

That happened to you because you allowed anxiety to take hold of your psyche when you were in the examination room and when you exited the examination room, you began to relax your mind.

Now, do you see where I am going with this?

Dear friend, if you approach blogging when you are filled with anxiety, you are going to sabotage your blog (And, you do not want that to happen).

You need to rid yourself of anxiety once and for all and you can do that by doing the following things:

• Engaging yourself in deep breathing exercises.
• Engaging yourself in meditation.
• Engaging yourself in physical exercise.
• Reducing your intake of caffeine and sugar.
• Listening to an hour of relaxing music.
• Having an unwavering belief in yourself to get things done.
• Engaging yourself in positive self-talk.

Always remember, that when it comes to blogging, anxiety is your worst enemy (It is responsible for a state of mind that is known as, “Writer’s block,” and as a blogger, you do not want to experience it).

So, make it a daily practice of remaining calm.

2.) Create An “About” Page That You Would Be Proud Of

Newbie bloggers seldom think about creating an “About” page for their blog.

Believe it or not, a lot of readers are interested in the blogger’s “About” page.

Why?

Because an “About” page provides an insight into the blogger’s personality as well as what the blog is based on.

If you are a private person, you can mention that in your “About” page and you can also tell your readers the reason why you chose a particular sobriquet.

Your “About” page does not have to be reminiscent of that of a CIA dossier; no one needs to know the street that you live on and your house number (Your home address is your own business).

Be creative and provide your readers with an “About” page.

3.) Choose A Realistic Blogging Schedule

Yes, my friend, choose a realistic blogging schedule.

A lot of newbie bloggers start off publishing articles on their blog on a daily basis (Little do they know, that only a small percentage of bloggers are truly capable of updating their blog on a daily basis).

And, guess what happens?

A lot of those newbie bloggers end up burning themselves out.

The God’s/Goddess’s truth is that high-quality content takes way longer to write than the average blog post.

Therefore, it is imperative that you choose the most appropriate blogging schedule for you (My article, 6 Ways To Prevent Blogger Burnout, will provide you with further details).

In my case, I have chosen to publish content on my blog on a weekly basis — every Saturday at 19:30 GMT (This is done automatically via the scheduling feature that WordPress has).

In some instances, you would have to experiment in order to find out which blogging schedule is most ideal for you.

Do keep in mind, that it is possible for a person with an extremely busy lifestyle to publish an article on their blog on a monthly basis.

4.) Always Proofread Your Blog Posts Before Publishing Them

Proofreading your blog posts will help you to discover the following things:

• Misspelled words.
• Grammatical errors.
• Punctuation errors.

Unfortunately, too many of the newbie bloggers (and some of the highly experienced bloggers) have developed the habit of pressing the “Publish” button without proofreading their blog posts.

The last thing that you will want is to discover various types of errors in your blog posts after you have published them (Most bloggers feel as though they could hide underneath a rock for the entire week whenever that sort of thing happens).

Proofreading your blog posts before publishing them can save you the embarrassment.

I highly recommend that you check out, Strategies to Proofread Effectively by Richard Nordquist (It will teach you how to proofread your written content).

5.) Make It A Habit Of Proofreading Your Comments

Hey, if you can proofread your blog posts, you might as well proofread your comments.

Now, this is something that I learned the hard way.

In the past, I misspelled people’s names (Some people have unique names — names that are not of the typical Western hemisphere; which requires paying extra attention to).

Some people do not like their names misspelled.

And, other people do not make a fuss about others misspelling their name.

However, we owe it to the blogger to spell their name correctly; especially if we decided to type their name in the comments section of their blog.

So, make it a habit of proofreading your comments from now on.

6.) Never Use Generic Comments

We have all seen the wording, “Nice post,” in the comments section of other people’s blogs.

I would also like to point out that spammers have also adopted the habit of using generic comments.

Therefore, it would be wise to tell the blogger exactly what it is that you liked about their blog post (That proves to the blogger that you took the time to read their content).

In a face-to-face conversation with a friend, you would go into detail on a topic; you can do the same with comments.

Well-thought-out comments have a way of standing out in a blogger’s comments thread.

The comments section of a blog is a place where people are supposed to share their various perspectives on what they read and the usage of generic comments defeats that purpose.

7.) Always Compress Your Photos Before Uploading Them To Your Blog

Compressing photos before uploading them to a blog is the last thing that a newbie blogger would ever think of doing.

For the record, compressing your photos before uploading them to your blog will help your blog to load much faster.

A blog that loads slowly is a disaster.

Why?

Because most people are impatient; they will not wait more than three seconds for a page to load (And, as a matter of fact, they do not deserve to wait that long for a page to load).

Google (and other search engines on the world wide web) abhor blogs that load slowly.

Slow loading blogs are bad for SEO.

Here are some fabulous online tools for image compression:

• TinyPNG
• Compress JPEG
• ImageSmaller
• Optimizilla

Please keep in mind, that you want to attract readers and not lose them.

So, do your part by making your blog load faster (And, that can be done by compressing your photos before uploading them to your blog).

8.) Never Use Too Many Widgets On Your Blog

Using too many widgets on your blog can also cause it to load slowly.

From a logical perspective, it would be wise to only use those widgets that you truly need.

There is really no need for you to use every widget under the sun.

A blogger can clean up their sidebar by deleting widgets pertaining to services that they no longer use (A good example of this is a person deleting their Facebook widget after they deleted their Facebook account).

In my earlier days of blogging, I weighed down my blog with the Alexa widget (which has been depreciated) and a weather widget (I did not need them; I wanted them because they made my blog look cool).

Are you using too many widgets on your blog?

9.) Always Remember That The “Like” Button Is Not A Toy

Dear friend, the “Like” button is not a toy; it is a tool to let your fellow bloggers know that you genuinely liked their blog posts.

Apparently, there are a lot of bloggers who press the “Like” button without ever reading a single word that was posted.

Why do those people engage themselves in that type of unscrupulous behaviour?

The answer is a simple one. They do it to attract our attention.

They believe that pressing the “Like” button on a few (or a large number) of our blog posts would entice us to check out their blog (It is human nature to check out the blogs of those people who engaged with us, but that type of engagement is not the genuine kind).

I will never forget the time when the WordPress notifications on my smartphone went crazy for approximately thirty seconds without any pause in between (Those notifications were triggered by a single individual — someone who wanted me to return the favour of pressing the “Like” button on some of their blog posts).

Some WordPress bloggers went as far as disabling the “Like” button on their blogs to prevent people from abusing the “Like” button.

Never abuse the “Like” button!

10.) Never Give Up On Your Blog

We live in a society where people expect to have things instantly.

We have:

• Fast food
• Microwave popcorn
• High-speed internet

We are used to getting things quickly.

In regards to blogging, success does not come instantly (And, that can cause people to abandon their blogs).

A friend of mine had to wait two years before he could see any major progress with his WordPress blog.

In your case, you might not have to wait the period of two years in order for your blog to be successful; it could happen in approximately six months’ time or less.

In reality, success will vary from person to person.

But the whole point is that most people are unwilling to wait a long period in order to see the signs of a successful blog.

A lot of newbie bloggers would abandon their blogs in approximately two weeks’ time if they realized that their blog posts did not receive a large number of views and a huge quantity of comments.

Dear friend, the truth is that people who continued with their blogging journey are the ones who received the desired results.

If you continue blogging, your blog will eventually gain traction in the blogosphere.

Therefore, it is in the best interest of newbie bloggers to continue blogging; if they give up early, they can kiss their success, “Goodbye!”

Final Thoughts

The truth of the matter is that all bloggers can make gradual improvements in the area of blogging (It requires time, patience and the implementation of the techniques that I highlighted in this blog post).

There is hope for all of the newcomers to blogging.

And, they can have fun blogging while their blog continues to grow.

The nice thing is that some of these newbie bloggers will eventually gain mastery in blogging in the near future.

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