In 2022, there are literally millions of blogs and bloggers out there, so cutting through the noise is challenging. There’s a slew of skillsets required, outside of research and writing, that every blogger needs to be successful. Here’s 4 of the biggest ones.
Since blogging came onto the scene 15 years ago, it’s become an essential component of brand building as well as the preferred way for millions of people to share their thoughts, knowledge and opinions.
To gain a serious following though, simply having great content is not enough. You need to develop a suite of other skills to enhance your blog and ensure you reach your target audience.
Whether you want to take your hobby blog pro, or you’re looking to move your brand’s blog to the next level, here’s a rundown of the key skillsets you need to succeed.
#1 – Graphic Design
Blogging is an essential way for businesses to build their brand personality and engage with their audience. Whether a blogger is promoting their individual brand or representing a business, written words can make a huge impression on potential consumers. But, words on a screen are only half of the equation.
Many people learn through visual means. Words can easily slip from our awareness, whereas images stay in our minds and help us understand and remember what we’ve read. As a means of conveying a concept or telling a story, graphics such as infographics are your best friend – they break down the topic in an easy to understand way.
Furthermore, amazing blog graphics are even more important if you want your content to be noticed and shared. Because blog images can make or break your content, taking a graphic design course is more or less essential for any blogger to be successful.
There’s no point spending the time and expense of setting up a blog and filling it with great written content if you don’t compliment it with great custom graphics and photos!
#2 – A Basic Understanding of SEO
Having a successful blog requires a lot of work, especially when it comes to being found in Google searches through the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). SEO helps make your content easier to find, and your blog must rank for the right keywords if you want clicks and visitors.
Optimising each article’s content on your website so that search engine ‘spiders’ can easily digest its content is called on-page optimisation. Your website will rank higher on the search engine results page depending on how user-friendly your content is.
With good SEO practices – like keyword and topic research, you will gain a deeper understanding of your audience and how to appeal to them. Also, it keeps you up to date on current trends in your field which is highly beneficial when you’re looking for inspiration for new, relevant content that will appeal to your intended audience.
To improve your SEO, you can use free tools such as Google Analytics, Keywordtool.io, and Whitespark.
#3 – Having a Working Knowledge of HTML and CSS
Running a successful blog doesn’t mean you also need to be a gun programmer or a web developer. However, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of HTML coding so that you can link images, add text hyper-links, and include headlines in h1 or h2 tags if your platform doesn’t have them built in already.
Thankfully, the majority of blogging platforms such as WordPress already provide users with powerful tools for creating content without having to learn any coding. However, you’ll find that understanding these basics never goes astray if something goes wrong with your website or if you want to implement design or functionality changes.
For example, changing the font, size, and colour of all H1’s on a blog to make it consistent requires you to define how all H1’s will look in your CSS. There may also be slight differences between browsers. Therefore, using a style sheet to define the look of a particular element on your blog will keep the look consistent across browsers and devices. This is where having a basic working knowledge of HTML and CSS comes into play.
#4 – Basic Marketing Skills
The ability to promote a blog comes naturally to some people, but to others, it’s a hard road that must be learned. Unfortunately, the world is not going to be instantly interested in what you present just because you think it’s amazing!
Despite the fact that some bloggers go viral instantly, this is not the case for most. Most bloggers admit that they need to work extremely hard to gain attention and grow a loyal following. Even the best content doesn’t guarantee success without also investing the time and effort into marketing your blog.
There’s no rigid manual that bloggers should follow when it comes to marketing skills, and it’s best to experiment with different ways to increase traffic to see what works best for you.
Using social media, designing a nice blog layout, understanding SEO, networking in your niche, making it easy to share your content, and including email in your marketing strategy will give you the best chance of success.
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