Gaining knowledge before creating your blog

Gaining knowledge in your niche will help you understand what your visitors are looking for and how you can provide it.

You will notice that all the successful bloggers out there are people with years of experience. They have been through the blogging scene transformations and gained experience through trial and error.

Gaining knowledge from the experienced can save you a lot of time and in some cases even money. In this article, we will look at how you can benefit from other bloggers' advice and what to look for.

• How to identify the right blogger to follow
• What do I need to know before I start blogging?
• Where to look for blogging information
• How do I start my first Blog?
• What is the format of a blog?
• Gaining knowledge for blogging - Summary

How to identify the right blogger to follow?

There are a lot of bloggers out there and if you are going to try and gain some knowledge from all of them you will never write your first post.

Remember a lot of experienced bloggers have come to realize that they have gathered valuable knowledge and created an online business by selling that knowledge to beginners.

On the other hand, there are a lot of experienced bloggers that will give away the information for free. You will learn through your own experience that giving free knowledge and information is the key to building an audience.

It is this same audience that will pay for your other offers when you monetize your blog. This is like giving snippets for free while the full version can be purchased. There is nothing wrong with this method as there is a lot of work going into blogging and to be rewarded is fair.

In order to identify an informative blogger that you can follow you have to look for the following advantages:

• How long have they been doing it?
• Can they offer the information you are looking for without any fluff attached?
• Look at their blogs and see if they practice what they preach
• Is the information they share good or is it focused on a sales pitch?
• Do they have any information not shared by others?
• Is there any specific area of blogging that they specialize in?
• Do they have a step-by-step routine you can follow?

Most of these criteria will help you to save time and protect you from information overload. Decide what you need at that stage of the blogging process and only focus on information related to that.

What do I need to know before I start my blog?

Starting out you will come across a lot of technical terms, advice, and suggestions. The main question is - Do I need to know all this? My advice is no you don't need to be an expert when you start out but it is helpful to know what can be achieved and how to achieve it.

Starting out you will need to know:

• What will I specialize in?
• What is the best layout for my blog?
• What is the best way to present my content?
• What is legal and what is not?
• How do search engines work?
• How will I boost traffic to my blog?
• When will I have time for all this?

What will I specialize in?

In other words, what are your niche or layman's terms the main point of interest your blog will focus on? Unless you are doing a personal or family blog it is important to focus on one niche only.

This is to make sure you become an expert in your field and you can generate an audience that will return to your website.

What is the best layout for my blog?

There is no best layout and after thorough research, you will see other blogs that have the same strategy that you are planning to apply.

Defining your blog layout and strategy will save you a lot of time and possibly money should you later decide to change anything. Some major changes might mean a reordering of content and this can be a very labour-intensive task.

What is the best way to present my content?

This will all depend on your niche as some information is better received with certain media than others. Once again look at how other bloggers in your niche are presenting.

Some blogs can thrive on just images while others will bring the point across with video better. Even certain combinations will guarantee success.

What is legal and what is not?

As piracy and stealing content from others sources are not ethical ways to start a blog you have to make sure everything you do is above board. You cannot put all the hard work in just to have your site blocked, have a lawsuit against you, or get de-listed from search engines.

Make sure any content and images are paid for or in the public domain.

How do search engines work?

Search engines have an automated bot that crawls all websites on the web. These bots will go through your content and identify what it is all about, what the quality of information is, and how popular it is.

It places focus on keywords, readability, and logical structure so that the search engines are confident you will attract audiences and they can benefit from your visitors as well.

How will I boost traffic to my blog?

There are only three ways to get traffic to your blog and that is organic searches through search engines and paid traffic for advertising.

Obviously, organic traffic is free and preferred by most bloggers. This is where the SEO compatibility of your blog can make a difference. This method is also a hit-and-miss strategy as very seldom do people search past page 3 to find what they need.

Once you can monetize your blog then drive customers to your blog and the offers on it the only way is with paid advertising as you can set up very focused ad campaigns.

The only other way is through social media platforms which can be both paid or free depending on the following you can build around your blog.

When will I have time for blogging?

If it is the only thing you do and can spend the do only focusing on your blog you can do well as it is very time-consuming and hard work. This is if you want to develop it into a full-blown online business.

It is more difficult for you to start it off as a part-time interest but it can still be done with success. It will just take you longer and that is why your planning phases are so important.

Planned well and with determination, you only need to spend around 2 hours a day on your blogging. There is no rush because depending on the niche it can take up to 8 months for your blog to show up in the rankings. This is ample time to develop a lot of great quality content for your blog to feature. 

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Perfect Reading: Gain the information you need to blog like an expert

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Where to look for blogging information?

The web is full of resources on blogging and specifically writing. Look at as many blogs as you can and note the popularity. See what it is that draws the crowds and even better look at how the content is presented.

Ignore all the advertising, external links, and other distractions on the blog. That is all the side stuff you will learn about later. For now, the aim is to notice what grabs the attention of the content itself.

Look and join writing forums, download some topic-specific eBooks, or read through dozens of articles related to what you are looking for. Following my advice will get you into a good position to start blogging the simple way. By doing this you would've gained enough knowledge to start and the rest will come from experience.

The web is loaded with free advice and knowledge but stop yourself from getting sidetracked at this point or you will end up in madhouse mode. Decide what suits you and discard the rest to your "Maybe later" file.

The most popular platforms for growing your blogging knowledge are:

• Youtube
• Facebook groups
• Quora questions and answers
• Google search for experienced bloggers

With all this keep in mind what was said above about being very selective about who you follow to gain knowledge from and also to focus on one step at a time.

How do I start my first blog?

As we are talking about the blog itself and not the blogpost it is as simple as browsing around to find the best deal on getting a domain name, hosting service, and website builder. Although there are free options available I would not recommend it if you are focussing the blog to become a full-time business or income stream.

It is possible to do blogging and monetize it with free blogging platforms but you will always be limited with what you can do with the limited resources.

Here are a few rough but simple steps ( paid strategy) to get you thinking and do the research to gain knowledge before just jumping into it. Believe me, if I say you will only pressurize yourself and give up quickly if you do not prepare your blogging venture properly.

• Establish your niche and content strategy
• Finalize your site branding and colour scheme
• Write at least 10 pieces of content or blog posts
• Find a domain name
• Find a service provider
• Develop your main blog
• Upload your content
• Market your blog

Each step can be broken down into further segments so that you can see what you need in order to gain more knowledge on the topic of blogging. Only when you have a good idea of the direction you are following with your blog.

I will in the future publish more articles focused on each step of the process.

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What is the format of a blog?

There are many opinions on what the perfect blog layout should look like. There is no specific rule but there are a couple of pointers you should follow when doing the blog layout. At the end of the day, it all comes down to quality content that is useful to the visitor.

Components that should be incorporated into your blog layout.

• A brand identification such as a logo or header
• The navigation bar is easy to understand
• At least one side column which offers more content
• Allow ad space for future use
• Self-explanatory header
• Quality useful content organized in a pleasant manner for readers
• Images related to the topic
• Disclaimer in footer
• About Page
• Mobile friendly

As you gain experience you will figure out quickly what is working for your niche and what is not. Your audience pretty much dictates what is acceptable and what is not so it is important to monitor your blog visits constantly.

Gaining knowledge for blogging - Summary

If you are going to start a blog with the intention of growing it into a business then it is important to put a bit more effort into your pre-planning.

You will also need to ensure that your analytics are set up so you are aware of any changes in visitor behaviour. Analytics is what will teach you about the successes and failures of your blog.