Every newbie blogger wants to know how to they can achieve success in the shortest time possible.
Getting to grips with what you have to do to succeed in blogging can be quite challenging.
The Internet is filled with ways in which you can succeed in blogging, from a THEORETICAL point of view.
The best way to learn is to listen to tried and tested PRACTICAL tips from bloggers who have actually made it in the industry.
This article brings you a list of blogging success secrets, gathered from some of the best bloggers in the world.
This information will help you start a blog in the right way, and if you already have a blog, the tips will help you reach greater heights.
We will divide this list into 4 different categories
Blogging Success Secrets Part 1: How to Launch Your Blog
Blogging Success Secrets Part 2: How to Grow Your Blog
Blogging Success Secrets Part 3: How to Monetize Your Blog
Blogging Success Secrets Part 4: Resources and Tools to Grow Your Blog
Let’s get started and see how these bloggers handled each of the stages listed above.
Blogging Success Secrets Part 1: How to Launch Your Blog
One of the first things you hear as a newbie blogger is “Start right now”.
However, many new bloggers are “scared” of starting right away.
They seem to hold off the launch until they feel more confident. This is one of the reasons why many blogs have never seen the light of day.
Take action right away, no matter how small your blog is. This is the only way you will be able to enjoy the benefits of blogging as your blog grows over time.
Here is what some of the top bloggers have to say about launching a blog today.
#1: “Figure out what you stand for personally and jump right in. You can hone your voice as you go.” – Gaby Dalkin from What’s Gaby Cooking
Gaby started off as a Personal Chef to famed crooner Jessica Simpson.
She started off blogging as a side hustle while still working for Simpson. However, she slowly built a huge number of loyal followers, who loved reading and trying out her amazing recipes and enjoyed the photos she made of her culinary creations.
This is the advice that she has to share with you:
“Figure out what it is you stand for, what message you want to share, what you want your story to be. Make sure that it is authentic, and then go for it.”@whatsgabycookin Share on X
Lesson Learned:
Don’t be scared to start a blog. Once you have decided which niche you want to enter, simply create content and launch the blog. You can slowly change the tone of voice you use in your content as your blog grows.
This way, you will eventually come out with a voice that rises above the noise and build a profitable blog around your topic of interest.
#2: “Treat your blog as a brand. See what you can do to make it stand out from the crowd.” – Brian Dean from Backlinko
Brian believes that for a blogger to succeed, he or she has to treat the blog like a product or brand.
You have to find out what it is that makes your blog stand out from the rest.
Read Also – Brian Dean, Who Is Respected Globally For His Advice on SEO
For example, a blog talking about fitness should try and find niches that are not covered in other blogs. It can specialize in showing corporate CEOs how to stay fit given the little free time they have.
Or they can show people who used to be fit and lost their fitness, how they can become fit once more.
“What is going to make your blog stand out from the others in your niche? Concentrate on your positioning.”@backlinko Share on X
Lesson Learned:
You should put a lot of effort into your positioning when you are launching your blog. You have to get it correct right from the beginning.
Take a look at what others in your niche are doing and see what angle you can use to get an edge over their blogs. This can be done by focusing on a section of your niche that is underserved.
#3: “Get ready to make huge sacrifices as you spend time getting your blog a firm foothold in your industry” – Michelle Schroeder from Making Sense of Cents
Michelle says that she spent a lot of time trying to get a meaningful traction in her niche.
Michelle says that she used to spend 20 to 40 hours a week working on her blog, and at this time it was just a hobby and had not yet become a side hustle.
When the hobby ballooned into a full side hustle, she used to spend a minimum of 40 hours a week on her blog.
“The biggest sacrifice I’ve had to make over the years has been using almost all my time towards growing my blog, especially earlier on.” @senseofcents Share on X
Lesson Learned:
As you launch your blog, ensure that you are mentally prepared to spend a lot of time trying to make it relevant in your niche.
Getting traction in your niche, when your blog is still young requires a lot of effort. Be prepared and you will prevail.
Once your blog has attained the necessary attention, you can cut down your hours, although, you will still find things that will continue taking up more hours.
#4: “Set realistic expectations, build smart habits that lead to your goals; embrace an experimentation mindset” – Ryan Robinson from RyRob
Blogging will not instantly propel you into earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. It will take time and dedicated blogging to even make your first $1,000.
If this is your first blog, then a business plan will help you set your expectations in an achievable manner.
Ryan says that his blog now generates over 6-figures in revenue, but it took him 6 years of blogging while holding down a full-time job to get where he is today.
“Set realistic expectations. Create smart habits that connect your goals. Experiment a lot.” @theryanrobinson Share on X
Lesson Learned:
You must be realistic about the time and effort it will take to start making money from your blog.
You first have to get loyal readers before you try to monetize your blog. You have to be creative to keep up with the ever-changing search engine algorithms.
Learn how to experiment and see what is best for you. This applies to the content you are creating and the tools and resources you adopt to help you improve your blog and get more readers.
#5: “Devote the early part of your workday to your blog” – Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income
This is advice that most bloggers have heard. Working on your blog early in your workday ensures that you do so when your mind is fresh and highly effective.
Pat says that time stretches and you may find yourself involved in activities that have no relation to your blog for the rest of your day.
Read Also – Pat Flynn – A Guy Who Built A Million Dollar Business
Always give your blog the best part of your day, when you are refreshed and motivated.
“Before giving your time to somebody else and their dreams at your day job – give it to yourself first. Work on your blog in the mornings when you can be more productive.” @patflynn Share on X
Lesson Learned:
If you have several tasks to do in a day, first attend to the tasks related to your blog
For example, you may get up in the morning, have breakfast go to work, work through the day, get back home, have supper and spend some time with the family, and then go to attend to your blog as the last task.
There is no way you will be motivated to create engaging content for the blog; exhaustion will dull your creativity.
To overcome this trend, wake up early in the morning, attend to your blog, then go to work, come back home, have time for your family, and before you go to bed, check on the performance of the content that you created in the morning.
Blogging Success Secrets Part 2: How to Grow Your Blog
The only way you can get people to trust your blog and subscribe to it is to form real connections with your audience.
Forming lasting connections is not just about creating great blog posts. You have to find ways in which you can diversify your traffic sources.
This is where you call on your social talents and use platforms such as social media and YouTube to bring people to your blog.
When you form these great connections, people will help you expand your reach by reposting your work and sharing it with their friends, family, and other networks.
Here are actionable tips on how you can grow your blog’s audience.
#6: “Invest in building an email list right from the start.” – Alexis Grant from The Write Life
Alexis has been in the content marketing game for more than a decade and has a lot to share.
Alexis operates “The Write Life” and was instrumental in creating the content strategy that propelled the finance website “The Penny Hoarder” to earn millions in revenue and reader traffic.
She also built a content marketing agency and was a journalist for U.S. News & World Report and the Houston Chronicle.
What does she want to tell you about what she has earned from her extensive blogging experience?
“Your email list is more valuable than any social platform because you are the owner of the channel.” @alexisgrant Share on X
Lesson Learned:
You have to start creating an email list right from the beginning. You own the email list and this gives you a private channel to talk to your existing and potential customers.
People get communications from you directly to their email inboxes, which beats logging into Facebook and posting about your products and services to whoever has the time to read.
Having an email list gives your communications a personal touch, which many readers adore.
#7: “Don’t wait for your readers to approach you. Determine where they spend their time and reach out to them and cultivate great relationships.” – Poornima Vijayashanker from Femgineer
Poornima started a personal blog talking about her adventures running software engineering teams for startups in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Once her audience grew, she started giving online education to people who were interested in building careers as software engineers.
What does she have to tell you about growing your blog?
“It’s all about consistency. Keep publishing content and find resources and networks like medium and promote your material. Once you gain momentum, keep up the consistency.” @poornima Share on X
Lesson Learned:
There are many channels and resources that you can use for gaining more readers. You don’t have to wait on your blog for people to find you using the search engines.
Find other platforms where your potential readers like to hang out.
Social media is a great place to start, but you can also use resources such as Medium, Reddit, and Quora to start meaningful conversations with your target audience and leading them back to your blog.
Keep doing this consistently and your blog will grow in leaps and bounds.
#8: “Find ways to differentiate yourself from your competition and give more value to your readers.” – Garret Moon from CoSchedule
Garret Moon is a co-founder of CoSchedule, a popular content marketing, and editorial management too suite. He has also authored a book called the 10X Marketing Formula.
If you want to be a successful blogger, you have to think in simple frameworks which create repeatable results and repeatable success.
One great framework is creating competition-free content, which means looking for ways to differentiate yourself to reduce competition in your niche.
“Examine your competitor’s content and look for ways you can differentiate yourself and provide more value to readers.” @coschedule Share on X
Lesson Learned:
When you want to grow your blog, you need to look at what your competitors are doing and finding ways to address issues that they have left out, thereby creating competition-free content for your blog.
Carefully examine how they address their readers’ needs, the content they are using to do so, whether the content is informative or actionable, and then find a way to do the same thing but in a different manner.
For example, if your competition is using written content, you can adopt video marketing and reach the same audience in a differentiated way.
#9: “Stick to a Schedule. Don’t pay much attention to early individual results. Create habits that eventually lead to success” – James Clear from JamesClear
James Clear has carved a niche out of the problem-solving blogging niche. He shares thought-provoking ideas and solutions on a wide range of topics such as Productivity, Decision-making, Self-improvement, Creativity, among others.
He primarily creates email courses that gout to an email list of over 400,000 readers. He has also written a book called Atomic Habits that has become a New York Times Bestseller.
So, what advice does James Clear have on how to become a successful blogger?
“Stick to a schedule. Don’t worry so much about the individual results you get in the early days. Focus on creating habits that set you up for success in the long run.” @jamesclear Share on X
Lesson Learned:
When you are starting out, don’t worry about whether the article was good or bad, whether it had the desired result or not, whether it was long or short – instead, focus on regularly creating content for your blog on a schedule.
You should never negotiate with your schedule. Sticking to a schedule creates a healthy habit that will prepare you for success as a blogger in the long run.
#10: “Know that every time you are communicating, you are selling something.” – Hiten Shah from FYI (Now Nira)
Hiten Shah is a founder of FYI, Kissmetrics, and others. Primarily he creates long-form, high-quality blog posts, designed to drive a high volume of potential customers to his products.
Today, FYI, originally a document search tool for finding documents sent as attachments in your email, has evolved into Nira, a security product that protects documents from unauthorized access when uploaded to Google Workspace.
Hiten is a master of creating a vibrant community around his products.
Although he does not advise you to use salesy language, he advises you to understand that every piece of content you create is selling your knowledge, advice and ultimately you should leverage this to generate income on your blog.
Here is what he says about becoming a successful blogger:
“Every time you communicate, there’s something that you are selling. If you are not adding value first, then nobody will listen to you” @hnshah Share on X
Lesson Learned:
Imagine that every time you write a piece of content, you are asking your reader to think and think differently. You want them to see your blog differently.
For that to happen, you must first add value to the reader.
If you do not add value to the reader, then you offer no incentive for the reader to ditch their current source of services and products in your niche, and come to yours.
Blogging Success Secrets Part 3: How to Monetize Your Blog
When it comes to monetizing a blog, most bloggers simply activate their AdSense accounts, place some advertisements in the blog, and hope that they can earn a great living from visitor interaction with the ads.
This should not be the case.
You should start thinking of how to leverage your content to earn more money from your visitors.
You can do this through affiliate blogging, creating sponsored content, or even creating your own digital products that readers will buy from you.
Here are practical tips on how to monetize your blog from the experts.
#11: “To be successful as a blogger, you must get out of your comfort zone.” – Nathan Barry from ConvertKit
Before he founded ConvertKit, one of the best email marketing tools today, Nathan was an avid blogger, who earned a 6-figure income from selling online courses, eBooks, and other digital products.
Nathan says that when you finally start earning money from your blog, you get addicted to it. You finally realize that all the hard processes you went through were well worth it.
To do so, you must overcome your fear and get out of your comfort zone; learn to be a salesperson, make big partnerships and even talk at conferences.
“Being successful at blogging requires you to get outside of your comfort zone.” @nathanbarry Share on X
Lesson Learned:
Fear, or getting complacent once you have a comfortable stream of income can hinder you from reaching greater heights as a successful blogger.
You need to conquer these fears and aim higher, no matter what level you have achieved.
Many bloggers have the required volume of readers to start making huge incomes but are paralyzed by the fear of selling.
You must be ready to knock down resistance from the hardest customers in order to make monetize your blog.
#12: “If you want your blog to be successful, treat it like a real business.” – Preston Lee from Millo
Preston Lee is a successful blogger writing insightful content about the freelancing industry.
He is very creative when it comes to monetizing a blog.
He notes that many people start blogs as a hobby or a pastime, but they can start earning real money when they start treating their blogs like businesses.
This may seem like a straightforward issue, but many people get hung up trying to figure out how many times they should post blogs, what they should write about, their logo design and color scheme, etc.
To be a successful blogger you have to stop dwelling on these items and start thinking about generating income.
“Focus on actually treating your blog like a business. If you want to generate money, you need to spend time on activities that drive revenue.” @prestondlee Share on X
Lesson Learned:
If you want to monetize your blog, you must embrace activities that generate revenue. Become a salesperson for your products and services.
Stop thinking of your blog as a fun way to make some money, and start thinking of it as a business; that way everything will change for the better in terms of generating revenue.
#13: “Figure out how you want to monetize your blog, then create content that will get you there.” – Tim Soulo from Ahrefs
Tim Soulo got his first big break when he got into a bet with a friend to see who could generate the highest volume of traffic within the first six months of launching a brand-new blog.
This experiment generated a highly motivated audience for Tim and just as he was starting to monetize his blog, he was recruited to lead the content marketing team at Ahrefs.
Read Also Dmytro Gerasymenko – Journey to Growing Ahrefs to Beat Google
What does Tim have to impart to you when it comes to becoming a successful blogger?
“If you launch a blog as a business, go backward, figure out how it’s going to make money FIRST, and start creating content that will get you there.”
@timsoulo
Lesson Learned:
Try out a minimum viable product and see if it will attract a focus group. Then see how you can create content to sell that product. This way, you can start monetizing your blog much faster.
It’s simply figuring out how to create a content funnel that will push people to buy your product or service.
#14: “Figure out how to leverage your skills and experience to charge more for your products or services at the beginning.” – Adam Enfroy from AdamEnfroy
Adam made it as a successful blogger thanks to his knack at guest blogging and affiliate marketing.
He made his first 10,000 dollars within 90 days after launching his blog. This is an amazing feat, right?
Adam has done more in one year of blogging than most who have been blogging for years.
So, what great secret of being a successful blogger does he have to share?
“Figure out how to leverage your skills and experience to charge more for your products and services right out the gate.” @adamenfroy Share on X
Lesson Learned:
When you start blogging, you don’t have a lot of traffic as yet to start monetizing, right? Wrong!
Find out how you can use your skills to consult for your audience at a fee. Find out if you have an idea that you can monetize right from the beginning.
Once you have the product or service pinned down, you may now charge up to 10 times what you would otherwise charge when aiming at making passive income from a blog.
#15: “Have a clear idea about who your ideal customer is.” – Adda Birnir from Skillcrush
Adda spent a lot of time trying to have a deeper understanding of who her ideal customers were. She wanted to know how to draw in people who would be interested in paying for her boot camp coding courses.
By understanding her customers properly, she was able to create the kind of content that eventually drew them in and they paid for the coding courses she created.
You may have a great idea in your head, but this can only be called a project and not a business. Just like an artist who creates a beautiful piece and then waits for someone to buy the piece.
What does she have to say about becoming a successful blogger?
“A business is about identifying ideal customers, understanding their problem, then solving that problem. Having a solution in search of a problem is a common mistake to make.” @addabirnir Share on X
Lesson Learned:
90% of people who start blogs or online businesses believe they already have a solution, then they go looking for people who have a problem that can be solved by this solution.
This leads to frustration and burnout.
First focus on your ideal customer, understand what kind of problem he or she has, then create the solution that they are looking for.
Blogging Success Secrets Part 4: Resources and Tools to Grow Your Blog
Blogging is a solo undertaking and you have to find ways to make the task easier using the right blogging tools.
The technologies that you use to improve the performance of your blog are not all you need to do well, but they play a very crucial role in achieving success as a blogger.
These tools can be used to get content ideas, traffic sources, revenue channels, and a lot more.
Don’t rely on a single tool or technique to drive a high volume of readers to your blog. You have to diversify your approach as much as you can.
Dealing with all these tasks can be difficult and that is why you need resources and tools that help you put some of these tasks on autopilot.
Take a look at the tools and resources that the best bloggers in the industry use to multiply their efforts and earn more revenue.
#16: “My blog business is founded upon three simple online tools.” – Mike Pearson from Stupid Simple SEO
Mike is a side hustler in the blogging industry. He leveraged his experience in marketing and SEO to build a rapidly expanding niche blog.
He once made more than $55,000 in one week from an online course he created after releasing an in-depth online SEO class.
He shows that you can quickly monetize your blog when you focus on developing high-quality solutions for your audience.
He used three online tools to develop a substantial blogging business – ConvertKit, Teachable, and Thrive Architect.
Here is what he says about the tools and resources you need to become a successful blogger.
“My entire blogging business is built on using three simple tools.” @Mike Pearson Share on X
Lesson Learned:
Many are the ties when bloggers adopt a wide range of tools to drive traffic to their blogs.
Borrowing from Mike’s experience, it is best to look for the few tools that will help you achieve your goal.
If you are not creating blogs every other day, then you probably don’t need a tool for automatically scheduling your blog post releases. You could simply have a routine of writing on Mondays and Fridays.
#17: “Read quality, all the time, every day and then get good at writing.” – James Altucher from JamesAltucher
Although James has had a make-and-break relationship with some of his blogging endeavors, he has always been great at writing.
He is the owner of a very popular blog, a podcast ranked among the top10 in iTunes, which reaches millions of listeners every month, generating a tidy revenue stream for him.
In order to become a great blogger, you have to read a lot and make sure that what you are reading is of high quality.
This is how he has been able to get a knack for writing great content and infusing the same great delivery in his podcasts.
What makes him so different from other successful bloggers?
“Read quality, all the time, every day. Then get good at writing, yourself.” @jamesaltucher Share on X
Lesson Learned:
One of the resources that you can use to become a fantastic blogger is to read quality content from all sorts of sources.
You may find ways of expressing your ideas that people will love and visit your blog regularly to consume your content.
James says that he loves reading from Seth Godin, since some of his ideas interact with his.
Read from the experts and slowly develop your own unique style of writing that sets you apart.
#18: “Give and give more, show people love and respect, link to their stuff, then make an ask of them.” – Aaron Orendorff from iconiContent
Aaron has raked up a lot of experience working for companies such as Shopify, Intuit, Facebook, SalesForce, and more.
He is a blogger on his own and a consultant for Fortune 500 companies, and he has managed all this due to one simple principle – creating real relationships.
Here is a profound statement that he makes to people who want to become successful bloggers:
“Give, give, give. Show people love respect and link to their stuff as much as you can before asking of them. That is how you build a real relationship.”
@AaronOrendorff
Lesson Learned:
Share and comment on everything. If you are following a successful blogger, share his or her posts, comments on every one of them, then they will definitely notice you; once you get his or her attention, make an ask out of them and they definitely oblige.
This is a great way of getting an opportunity to write as a guest blogger in a high-ranking blog and earn a lot of traffic to your site.
#19: “Take the marketers approach to making sales on your blog.” – Sujan Patel from Mailshake and Web Profits
Sujan Patel is a prolific blogger handling a wide range of projects. He primarily focuses on his sales email software, Mailshake, and his content marketing agency, Web Profits.
Sujan is exceptional at creating a personal brand that lands him a lot of sales.
He writes information about problems that people have and the solutions to overcoming them.
He advises people who have difficulties in writing sales copy, to do what marketers do. Create informative and engaging content that eventually leads to a sale.
Here is what he has to say:
“If selling doesn’t feel natural to you, then take the marketers approach to sales – by delivering incredible content time and time again, the asking for the sale.” @sujanpatel Share on X
Lesson Learned:
If you are not a salesperson, then become a people-pleaser, Make sure that your readers are happy with your content and they will not be too difficult to sell to.
With great content, a small direct CTA at the end of your piece can elicit a better response than writing a bad sales email to your email subscribers.
#20: “Learn how to use re-marketing to make money on your blog.” – Brian Jackson from Woorkup
Brian Jackson has carved out a niche for himself, offering low-cost hosting plans, Building plugins, Scaling traffic for clients, and launching blogs.
He manages this by using re-marketing to the thousands of readers who visit his blogs.
Re-marketing is the technique that involves writing posts on social media like Twitter or Facebook, to catch the attention of people who have not clicked on an ad on your blog.
For example, you may have an ad aimed at generating leads on your site, but when people visit, they hardly glance at the ad.
Go to the social media channels that you visitor spend time on and then re-market to them in a manner that will convert them into leads.
He quips and says;
“Re-marketing is one of the most effective and underrated ad techniques for bloggers to employ today.” @brianleejackson Share on X
Lesson Learned:
If you are not good at lead generation ads, they can be quite costly, and going the AdWords route can also be very expensive.
It is by far cheaper to re-market to people who visited your blog but did not convert on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
The conversion rate is also much higher when you use re-marketing as a backup for your lead generation ads.
Jackson says that re-marketing has worked very well for them at Kinsta, one of the best cheap hosting providers on the Internet today, and he believes it can work for bloggers too.
Blogging Success Secrets: Closing Thoughts on Becoming a High-Flying Blogger.
There are a lot of secrets to blogging success that you can use from these 20 tips shared by some of the best bloggers today.
It may seem to be a bit too much, but you can implement some of these secrets with time and see what results you get in return.
You can bookmark this page and use it as a resource when you need clarity when creating a blogging strategy that will bring you success in the shortest time possible.
These are tips that can be employed in a wide range of niches.
As your blog grows and you come across a challenge, there should be something in these tips that will help you overcome them. Feel free to customize the tips and see how they fit best or your own individual blogging needs.
If you have not developed a blog yet, then take one of the first tips that we shared with you in this article:
Jump right in and start your blog right away.
