Would you like to become a renowned blogger?
The only reason I started blogging because it was fun and it was something I enjoyed doing. Perhaps you are also one of those budding bloggers who is blogging for the passion, or maybe you are trying your luck in the field of blogging to earn money or to make a name for yourself or your brand. Whatever your reason is for blogging, what’s important is how well you are doing.
If you are spending two hours a day on your blog and the results are not up to the mark, it’s time for you to re-think your strategy. If you are not motivated, then you should read this blogger motivation guide which will surely make you feel refreshed and will help you to get your blogging mojo back.
What is important when blogging is to always learn something new and share it with others for whom it is new information. This article will give practical insights and motivate you to leave your amateur seat and blog like a professional blogger. So let’s see what you can do to blog like a professional blogger!
Why should you blog like a professional blogger?
One thing we should always keep in mind while doing anything is to make the most of it – do it to the best of our ability.
If you are just one out of millions of mediocre bloggers, it’s time for you to take action and move forward. In this post I’m sharing tips that I have learned in my 6-year blogging tenure and if you follow these tips, in next 30 days you will become a better blogger than you are today.
1. Confidence
First, remember that people are unlikely to take advice from a non-confident person. If you are sharing information without confidence, nobody is going to believe it. Always remember that you can build credibility by not losing it.
Consider the qualities that give you trust in a person. When it comes to blogging, your physical presence is not a factor. It is your words that matter most. The question is – how can you become (and give the impression of) a confident blogger?
- Your posts and writing style: Your ability to communicate in writing is the biggest factor at play as a blogger. When I am writing a blog post, I imagine that my reader is sitting on an empty chair in front of me, and we are having a conversation. If your blogging has a conversational tone, you are more likely to leave a footprint. Notice the number of times I use the word “you” in this article. That is because this article is for you and you only. It is written for just one person, and that is the person who is reading this article – you! Another way to improve your blogging style is by using “I” instead of “we.” Sometimes writers who continually use the word “we” are showing us that they avoid taking responsibility for their work. If it’s a one man show blog, why do you need to use “we”? Open these articles in a new tab: 10 tips to improve your writing skills and 11 effective tips to boost article writing skills.
- Your blog design: I’m sure you must have been to a restaurant where your impression of the waiter was created by what he was wearing. I’m more likely to tip a waiter who is in a uniform than one who is not. When you are working online, it’s your design that is the suit, and you are the waiter. If your blog design is unpleasant and doesn’t leave a good impression, then you are not likely to get a tip, i.e., turning the one-time visitor into a subscriber. So get rid of all mumbo-jumbo from your blog, and have a neat and professional looking design that reflects your personality and that of your blog. Remember, your blog design is the first point of content, and a first impression lasts forever.
- Come out of the closet: How many popular bloggers do you know of? If you know even two or three of them, ask yourself why and how do you know them? It’s because they didn’t hide in the closet like you are! All of these successful bloggers have given a face to their brand along with their name, and you can clearly see that on their blog. Isn’t it easier to connect to a person rather than a brand? It’s time for you to make some changes to your blog and to introduce us to the person behind that awesome blog! Add an author box, add few details about you in your blog’s “About” page, and add your profile to the blog’s sidebar. Add a quality photo and an intriguing bio. Tell us about yourself in a way that allows people to relate and connect with you.
- Be honest, and don’t doubt yourself: “Honesty is the best policy” is a “life rule” that we all learned in kindergarten, but with time we all learn that it is not easy to live by that rule. How many times in a day do you lie about little things? When I asked myself this question, I realized that I sometimes lie unintentionally in small and seemingly inconsequential ways. We lie because we want other’s to be happy, or we don’t want to hurt them. But lying always has a consequence. For instance, when we lie to please people, we turn ourselves into people-pleasers. Take this as a challenge, and for the next seven days trying to be completely honest. Be honest in your offline and online life, and let me know how this changes your life. I started this as an experiment myself, and within seven days I started to feel the difference. I have now been doing this for a month, and apart from two or three instances when I lied, my life has improved significantly. As a bonus, being careful not to lie taught me how to say “no,” and my confidence level has gone up ever since. Once you do this, it will also have a positive impact on your writing and your online presence. I invite you to read, how being completely honest for seven days changed my life.
2. Become an Authority in your niche:
No matter how much you know about a subject, your opinion is not respected until you have established yourself as an authority, and your blog as an authoritative blog.
The question is- how can you become an authoritative blogger?
If you make the changes suggested above, (leading to your increased confidence), then you are more likely to become an authoritative blogger.
Now it’s time to leverage the power of social-media and establish yourself as an authoritative person in your niche. Let’s start by updating your social media profile details, thus improving your social-media presence. Ensure that your social media profile is like your resume and that it also reflects your personality. Use the same profile image everywhere (Twitter, Instagram Quora, Facebook, Google+, Gravatar, etc…) to stand out and make it easier for people to remember you.
Always share your opinion on the hot topics in your niche or trends around the globe. Your opinion may not be as valuable as that of an industry expert, but it will still be more valuable than the opinions of many people who follow you.
3. Put others before you:
One of the most common attributes of a successful person is that they give credit to people for their work. A superficial person will neither talk about the outstanding work that others have done nor share it with others. If you are one of those people who dislike to pay tribute to others for their work, you need to take a look at it and work to change it.
Honouring those who deserve it is another expression of self-confidence and a sign of professional respect.
4. Don’t just create quick connections – get into their inner circle:
You must have heard that networking is the key to success and that it’s important to build a powerful network of people around you. This is one of the most important things you can do in every aspect of your life, online or offline.
When networking, gaining respect and working to become a part of someone’s inner-circle makes a substantial difference in your connections. Some of you may have read a lot about successful people and you may even have some in your social media network, but you are not a part of their inner-circle.
You are just one among thousands of people they have “friended” on Facebook or have met at a blogging event. Your goal should be to establish yourself as part of their inner-circle and become an important connection in their arena. This will only happen when you put some time and energy into working on building a meaningful connection.
5. Smart work rather than hard work :
No matter what niche you are working in, smart work takes you forward. Hard work is important, but working smart is even more important.
If you spend two hours every day writing blog posts and not working to promote your work, you will be in the same situation a year or two later as you are today. Maybe your blog will grow to some extent and you may even get more traffic and earn a little more money, but you will be behind the crowd moving forward at a steady pace and you will never be everything you can be in this area.
There are people who have only recently started working online and are already making million of dollars because of their smart work and great ideas. Without a good idea, no amount of work will pay off optimally.
With regard to starting to work smart, I suggest that you start by choosing the right set of blogging tools, work on time-management to become more productive. Maintain a good balance between your social and personal life, because if you want to succeed, you have to be a happy person. That will only happen when you are satisfied with your life in 360* (in all aspects of your life).
6. Value your time and have a team
If you are a regular reader of ShoutMeLoud, I’m sure you must have heard me saying “Time is money”, and I will keep repeating it until you email me and tell me “Yes Harsh, I have learned that time is money!”.
You may have 30-40 great ideas, but implementing these ideas alone takes a lot of time and effort. If you have a team of people who work, you are more likely to turn your good ideas into reality.
You need to upgrade your role from blogger to infopreneur/solopreneur. This will only happen if you have a team and start delegating work to others.
If you are someone who lives in a remote place, all you need to do is create a virtual team of your own. You should check out these two articles from Srikanth, where he has shared everything you need to know about virtual assistance.
- How a virtual assistant works : FAQ and everything you need to know
- 5 places where people find virtual assistant jobs (You can these resources to hire one for yourself!)
Perhaps the most important take-away from this article is this: Leave the conventional way of working, and work like an “Internetpreneur”. When you are working online you are limitless, and you can achieve anything you want.
In this article I have shared many important points which will help you to grow strong and achieve your dreams. Focus on the points which you believe will improve your blogging career and turn you into a successful professional blogger.
Feel free to let me know which of the above tips you will be working on, and how are you planning to start. If you need help with any of these points, feel free to ask me via the comments section below.
As always, if you find this article useful please consider sharing it on Facebook and Twitter.
Hi,Harsh sir thank you for a such a great post,really i scared of blogging and i thought myself can i become a pro blogger? even i also planned to stop blogging because of no idea and what about to blog,but you gave me the confidence and motivation to continue in blogging,sure i will follow yours step by steps to became a pro blogger myself
once again thanks 🙂
Every blogger wants to write a stunning blog post that the visitor attract their blog. You have given some points to write stunning blog. There are very helpful for blogger. You covered all point regarding how to write professional blog post. Thank you so much for sharing. Have a nice day!
Hi Harsh,
Thanks for this wonderful article, I’m recently entered into this blogging. Your article really motivates me. Once Again Thank Very much. Good Job.
Harsh,
Thanks for sharing this. Sometime I lack of topics to write so I have started reading more and as you have mentioned its helping me as its giving me more topics.
I will definitely gonna follow all other tips you mentioned !!
🙂
Reading should be part of your daily activity. I use this app call Zite on my smartphone, which let me discover new and interesting content about the topic I’m interested in. I would suggest you should give it a try and you might get addicted to. Another app you might find interesting is, News360 and Pocket. Thanks for dropping by and for your comment.
Yeah that was really motivating. The quality will surely lead a blogger to become a professional Blogger. These are the things newbie bloggers lack and finally quit. Thanks for the share.
As usual your writing inspire other bloggers. It is always good to hear your experiences. You have rightly said about mediocrity – when you aim for mediocrity – you end up being less than a mediocre. We should aim higher. I have redesigned my blog recently – though it looks much better now but I have lost significant traffic because of change in the url’s. Hopefully it should improve. Thank You.
Hi Harsh
Another excellent post from you. Totally loved the idea of sitting on a conversation chair and trying to explain to a person in-front of you. Will surely audit some of my post on this parameter.
Hi there
Thank you harsh for such an inspirational post and to promote thousands of people to make blogging their part time carrier. Even i was one of them who started blogging after reading almost half of the Shoutmeloud. But still one thing is troubling me that even writing according to you am not getting the desirable traffic. After doing so many researches and using my 4 to 5 hours in writing a post. Am not still getting more than over 20 visitors per day. So please help me sort it out.
Thank you so much
@Subodh
It’s hard to diagnose what’s one thing doing wrong which is affecting your blog traffic. You can drop your question at http://shoutersland.com and I will look at your blog and suggest some changes to improve things.
Thanks for dropping by!
Hey Harsh, loved the post. I can eespecially relate to the part of coming out of closet and interacting with people. Not only Problogger but there are a few people like Amit Shaw and Rahul Kuntala who have developed quite a following on social media sites by reaching out and interacting. Good one
Harsh ! i went through this article fully .You have given me all the advice for a newbie blogger to become a professional blogger.I hope i will follow them 🙂 🙂 Thanks for this mind blowing articles 😛
To be successful in blogging, we need to improve upon ourselves.We might start as amaeteurs but with time we need to be more professional.You have written a nice post.I have also redesigned my blog and launched it today only and then I found your post which is very encouraging…
Hello Harsh,
Just gone through your article…
Wonderful experience you shared with us.
Thanks a lot !!!
But Please tell us how you maintain this passion of blogging as we guys eespecially I facing a lot of problem to get regular with it.
Hi harsh
I really inspired form this article this is awesome. And i like that the way you are writing article. This style made me to read everything even i can’t skip a single line. I like that “Honesty is the best policy” this is essential one who wants to be a pro-blogger.
Hello Harsh,
Very Informative post indeed. Being a newbie to blogging I required some tips like this. Yes you are very right that smart work is much better than hardwork. I am blogging from 6 months and I must say I learned a lot with this short experience by reading your articles. When I started blogging I knew nothing about social networking. Just working day and night writing ultimate articles.. but still no shares and comments. Then after reading your articles and bio I learned lot from Shout Me Loud.
Believe me I am the biggest shouter ever. 😛
Thanks for sharing these ultimate guides. Do you write E-books. If yes, then I want a copy.
Hi harsh,
I read all this factors to make my blogs like a pro blogger and I do agree with those factors and also apply to my own blogs. I hope this all factors give us more traffic soon.
I will tell you soon what the effect of these factors.
Warm regards
Sam singh heera
I’m a newbie in the bloggingsphere but I’ve already experienced the benefits of networking. I now have mentors who are able to help me out every now and then. I love your point about smart work compared to hard work. Isn’t it interesting also how active one can be without really being productive?
I agreed with all those points mention above…And one of the best point which I liked the most is ‘come out of closet’ Yeah! It’s true that one must come up with their full profile and picture in public so that people can recognize them clearly and can’t afford to forget. 🙂
Hard work really make us leaving but smart work makes our future
Hi Harsh, your articles are always so inspiring and most of the times they have saved me quite blogging. one specific thing about your articles is that they are so long and elaborated, I usually write on tech niche so don’t need to write such lengthy articles but whenever I have to I just get disconnected after writing 700 words or so. How do you manage to write such lengthy articles most of the times ? Do you write them in one go or in parts ?
I agree that time is money and I am not a professional blogger but developer and same in that field that you have lots of ideas in your mind but you can’t do any of them alone.
Hello Harsh – Thanks for the great insights you have provided. They are so true and you have covered all the areas in depth that a blogger needs to focus to become a pro blogger. When you say Value your time and have a team do you mean by creating a guest post team who can provide value to our blogs?