Essential WordPress Blogging Tips for A Success

Since its inception, blogging has been an excellent medium for expressing your enthusiasm for a topic to like-minded individuals online. Whether your interest lies in cooking, mechanics, SEO, or bird migrations, there’s a community out there eager to share in your passion. Over the past two decades, blogging has transformed from a mere hobby into a viable career path, which is truly remarkable! People are now earning a living by pursuing what they love and sharing that zeal with the world.

We’ve provided numerous tips on starting a blog, establishing an online presence, and expanding your audience in the past. Today, we’re focusing on a selection of crucial blogging tips that you can implement right away to enhance your blog and pave your way to becoming a successful blogger!

Write About What You Know

It might sound straightforward, but focusing your writing on topics you’re passionate about and well-informed on can make a significant difference. When you discuss subjects you’re genuinely interested in, your enthusiasm naturally permeates your writing. This not only makes embarking on a blogging career more fulfilling but also easier to manage.

Should you wish to expand your blog’s content into areas where you might not be the expert, consider bringing additional authors onto your team. Many WordPress themes offer support for multiple contributors, including custom author pages, to accommodate this expansion.

Looking to include authors on your blog without granting them complete control? Consider using a plugin such as the fr ee User Role Editor for WordPress. This tool enables you to restrict access based on different user roles, like admin, contributors, and subscribers, and then allocate these roles to your registered users.

Create Relevant Content

Maintaining a focus on pertinent content is crucial. For instance, you won’t find us at WPExplorer delving into YouTube drama. Just because some bloggers are profiting from specific topics doesn’t mean you should jump on the bandwagon… unless it aligns with your blog’s theme and it’s a subject you’re well-versed in.

Make Your Articles Interesting

Writing about topics you’re knowledgeable in naturally makes this advice simpler to follow: keep it engaging. Readers aren’t looking for dictionary entries, so steer clear of a dry, encyclopedic tone. Discover and refine your unique writing style—there’s no shortage of excellent online resources offering writing tips to help you find your voice. Once you’ve honed your style, explore some of our other suggestions to elevate your articles further.

Use A Good Headline

To complement engaging content, you’ll need an eye-catching headline that draws clicks. Headlines are what potential readers first encounter in search results or on social media. When brainstorming, remember the 4 U’s for craft ing an impactful headline:

Urgent: Whenever feasible, infuse your title with a sense of urgency or a call to action. Offer content that empowers readers to make a change immediately, or highlight a limited-time free offer.
Unique: Originality is crucial – your content must stand out. Avoid copying others’ work outright, as this could not only harm your SEO but also deter readers from returning if your blog merely recycles existing information. Think about what you wish existed to read but haven’t found yet, and start creating that content.
Useful: Produce content that meets a want or need for your audience. Whether it’s home decor DIYs, lessons learned from parenthood, career advice, or a guide to building an outstanding blog, ensure your articles provide practical value.
Ultra-Specific: There’s nothing better than highly practical content. The more detailed your content, the more engaged your readers will be. Bear in mind, highly niche content may narrow your reader base, but a balanced mix of broad and specific topics can help you expand and nurture your audience effectively.

To further refine your headlines, consider utilizing a title split testing plugin. This tool allows you to experiment with different variations of the same headline to determine which one resonates best with your audience. Although not mandatory, split testing headlines, even temporarily, can provide valuable insights into the preferences of your readers.

Add Social Sharing

After dedicating so much effort to crafting outstanding content, you naturally want it to be shared, right? Indeed! The likelihood of your content being shared increases when it’s designed to be shareable. What exactly does that entail? I’m glad you’re curious.

Incorporate social sharing buttons directly into your blog. It’s unwise to assume your readers will use social browser shortcuts or take the additional steps to open their social media accounts just to share your content. People often struggle with decision-making, so the simpler you make the action of sharing your content, the more inclined they will be to do it.

Jetpack by Automattic is an excellent, free option for adding social buttons to your blog. It provides a range of powerful features in one convenient plugin, including social sharing capabilities. Once Jetpack is installed, head to your dashboard and go to Jetpack > Settings > Sharing to activate your sharing buttons and choose where they appear. The plugin supports 10 services, including major ones like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and offers additional options for email and printing.

Moreover, the desire to be part of a group is common among people. Displaying the number of social shares or your total social followers can encourage others to join in. Monarch is a fantastic premium plugin that lets you add social links and sharing buttons with counters. However, if your follower count isn’t quite there yet, you might consider hiding these counters until you’ve built a more substantial following.

Your Blog Should Be Easy To Read

Organizing your content is crucial, but don’t overlook its readability. A swift method to evaluate this aspect is through the Flesch test. The Flesch reading ease test serves as a conventional approach for assessing the complexity of English texts, utilizing a mathematical formula that factors in your sentences, words, and syllables. Though it shouldn’t be the sole criterion, your Flesch score can guide you in crafting content that’s more accessible to your intended audience.

If you’re already leveraging Yoast SEO plugin to enhance your WordPress site’s search engine visibility, you’ll be pleased to discover that the same plugin can also help tailor your posts for better readability. Thanks to its built-in Flesch Reading Ease test, Yoast SEO allows you to evaluate and improve the readability of your content. The Yoast SEO Content Analysis feature provides an overview of your title, meta descriptions, and overall content SEO, enabling you to make necessary adjustments to achieve optimal SEO performance. Feel free to experiment with their real-time content analysis tool on their website for a hands-on experience.

Clean Up Your Website Design

You’ve likely stumbled upon many fantastic blogs that failed to see your return visit, simply because their website design was off-putting. Think about it – who enjoys navigating through fancy, hard-to-read fonts, intrusive flashing ads, or cluttered sidebars? Often, adopting a simpler design approach is more effective. For your blog, prioritizing readability is crucial.

Opt for a WordPress theme that simplifies the reading experience for your audience, yet still offers the features necessary to manage your blog or business effectively. For some, this could involve selecting a straightforward blogging theme like Pineapple. This clean, minimalistic, and free WordPress theme features a centered content layout without a primary sidebar, ensuring that your readers’ attention remains on your articles rather than being distracted by widgets and other non-essential elements.

If your blogging needs are more intricate, you might find it beneficial to opt for a larger, premium theme equipped with a page builder. This allows for the creation of various pages, such as landing, shop, team pages, and more. At WPExplorer, we developed Total with precision and care. It enables you to add endless blog pages, utilize an optional blog filter, select from three primary layouts (masonry, grid, or standard list style), decide on sidebar inclusion, feature multiple authors with avatars, create post series, employ custom image cropping, activate social sharing, and so much more. These features are merely a glimpse into the blog-related capabilities! Additionally, you can customize colors, fonts, logos, etc. Take a look at the demo to discover more!

Regardless of the theme you select, choosing a readable font and size is crucial. American Writers & Artists Inc suggests Arial in size 12+, Verdana at 10, or Georgia for a slightly more formal look, as the best fonts for online reading. They also recommend increasing the font size to at least 14 for audiences that are more mature.

If you’re uncertain about how to incorporate custom code to modify your theme’s fonts, consider using the Easy Google Fonts plugin for WordPress. This free tool enables you to adjust your fonts directly through the WordPress live customizer, eliminating the need for coding expertise. You can easily edit and preview changes to font color, size, line height, and letter spacing across different text elements on your site.

Simplify Your Formatting

Organizing your content effectively can significantly impact its reception. When you’re investing the effort to craft a post exceeding 2000 words, it’s crucial that your readers stay engaged through to the conclusion. Formatting plays a key role in enhancing your posts’ readability.

Not every piece of your writing needs to be lengthy; shorter sentences can serve a valuable purpose, maintaining both your focus and that of your readers. Employ headings to distinctly mark different sections of your article. Main sections should utilize H2 headings, with subsequent lower-level headings (H3, H4, etc.) used as necessary. Incorporate bullets and numbered lists to outline straightforward and concise points within your posts.

Leverage Images to Enhance Your Content

The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds even more truth for your blog, especially when images are utilized effectively. Aim to create or select images that capture attention. With the plethora of free stock photo sites, acquiring eye-catching images has never been easier. Tools like Photoshop or the free online editor Pixlr allow you to enhance these images further by adding text, filters, and more.

Don’t forget to add alt-text to your images when incorporating them into your posts. This information is visible to search engines and optimizing your images with relevant alternative text can improve their ranking in search engine image results, potentially opening up a new avenue for traffic to your website.

Foster Interaction with Your Readers

This is a subject we’ve touched on previously, but its significance cannot be overstated. Your audience is at the heart of your blog, so engaging them actively is crucial. Below are some straightforward strategies to achieve this.

Improve Your Comments Section

Comments are the simplest method to engage your readers. Although WordPress’ native commenting system is quite effective, numerous excellent WordPress plugins can enhance your comment section further. Here are some of the top WordPress commenting plugins (according to us) that can elevate your comment section.

Start A Newsletter

Reaching out to your readers through a newsletter is another straightforward strategy. Newsletters are delivered directly to your audience’s inbox, ensuring they’re aware of your latest updates, no matter their location. Moreover, building your email list offers a fantastic opportunity to share exclusive content with your subscribers, such as special giveaways or contests tailored just for them.

Consider A Freebie or Contest

Providing exclusive giveaways or freebies, whether just for your subscribers or for all your readers, is a wonderful way to show appreciation to your audience. After all, their support is what makes your blogging journey possible! Fortunately, with WordPress, organizing a contest or giveaway is straightforward, thanks to various plugins. Additionally, consider offering free downloadable items (such as WordPress themes, ebooks, PSD files, etc.) or exclusive discounts on products you endorse, as a token of gratitude to your readers.

These suggestions merely scratch the surface of enhancing your WordPress blog, and we hope they set you on the course to success. However, don’t halt your efforts here – there’s a wealth of strategies to boost your blog’s credibility, secure your website, optimize your WordPress SEO, and increase your subscriber count. Continue to explore and educate yourself. Should you stumble upon any other useful blogging advice, don’t hesitate to share it in the comments below!

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