You think blogging could be a great idea? Could making a WordPress Blog make you money? What are you looking to achieve from blogging? Who are you aiming at? Why do you want to share your words with the wider public?
These are all vital questions you need to answer before you commence your blog. However, below are our top tips to creating an effective and successful blog whatever your motivation is!
- FIND YOUR SUBJECT MATTER
The first thing you need to determine is what you want to say and, more importantly how you are going to say it. Say something original… or at least say it differently! If you can put a fresh spin on a subject, whether informing, educating, entertaining or all three, your writing will be compelling to read.
- FIND YOUR PLATFORM
Choose a platform that can offer a vast array of themes and feature-rich packages, such as solostream.com. This will give your blog a real professional shine. They also provide themes that are fully compatible with mobile browsing. Many people choose to read blogs out of home. Whether they are commuting to and from work or stopping for a coffee, your reader should be able to access your blog across all mobile devices.
- FIND YOUR VOICE
The internet is not short of bland and passively written blogs so don’t add to the list! You have an opportunity to bring your voice to life so allow your personality and passion to shine through all your posts. The best blogs can make people laugh or cry because the reader is rooting for the blogger. Many of us like to live vicariously through the exploits of others so take your reader with you on your journey and keep them coming back for more!
- FIND YOUR AUDIENCE
This is not so easy to do. How do you make sure you are not going to be sat in an empty room talking to yourself?! Well the good news is that a site like solostream will ensure your blog is SEO ready (fully optimized for search engines and able to generate the highest traffic). This will allow you to focus on writing a blog people will want to read.
- GRAB ATTENTION
In journalism the role of a headline writer is a very specialist function. It really doesn’t matter how well written a piece is if the headline does not hook the reader in. If you are going to email your blog to your own distribution list, make sure you make a splash with your subject line or you will never hook them in!
- KEEP THE READER ON YOUR PAGE
Now you have found your readers and brought them to your blog you want them to stay and read your post in full. Make sure you do not waste words. Never post a first draft you have written. Edit your post so it says what you need it to say – no more, no less. You want every sentence to have some impact or resonance with the audience. Don’t ramble on aimlessly or your reader will quickly drift away!
- ENGAGE WITH YOUR READERS
It can have enormous benefits for the blogger if they make themselves accessible to the readership. Invite comments on your posts. Always be polite and respectful and take the opportunity to add that extra personal touch! This will enable you to build audience loyalty.
- MAXIMIZING OPPORTUNITIES
The internet is a bountiful, never-ending landscape of opportunities. For bloggers these take the shape of sponsorship and affiliate marketing. If your content is drawing in an audience from a particular demographic, let’s say, 25-34 year olds with a keen interest in health and fitness; that will allow you to form affiliate marketing connections with product suppliers who will appeal to those readers.
As a blogger you can earn money from purchases made that have originated as a click through from your blog. Other businesses, able to see the traffic you generate, may approach you with offers to provide banner sponsorship of your blog pages. Solostream has a world class support team who can advise you on this.
- TIMING
You should not under-estimate the importance of timing. You want your blogs to always be relevant and ‘of the moment’. If you are writing about the best places to visit in the UK, it is better to do this before the peak season rather than just after! If you write on sport then those that preview major events or events in progress, will have much more appeal than post-event pieces.
- LOVE WHAT YOU DO
The question posed at the start was, “what is your motivation?” However you answer this it has to include ‘for pleasure’. It is key that you enjoy writing your blog and get satisfaction from the process. It should never feel like a chore and should always resonate as completely authentic.
When constructing your WordPress blog, it is very important to consider the wide range of plugin options available. Plugins are downloadable software that improve specific functional aspects of a WordPress blog. Every business must take great care in creating a plugin portfolio that works with their WordPress theme, and the combination of theme with plugins in the secret to a successful website.
Here is a list of 7 plugins that you cannot ignore. These classic tools will augment SEO, improve security, develop strong social networks to help grow your brand, and much more.
Yoast SEO
Yoast offers Page Analysis, which double checks your article length, keyword cohesion, and relevance of the meta tags and subheadings. Yoast also offers exceptional XML sitemap functionality, making it easy for Google and Big crawlers to decipher site content.The last thing to note about Yoast is that it has a Breadcrumbs feature, making site navigation easier for users and search engine alike.
Browse here for compatible themes with Breadcrumbs.
Google Analytics by MonsterInsights
Google Analytics provides the framework for WordPress blogs to compete for traffic, and MonsterInsights provides an easily downloadable plugin that keeps you up to date on your outbound links and downloading trends. MonsterInsights only works with self-hosted sites, so you must change your WordPress site from .com to .org.
Google XML Site Maps
Much like Yoast, Google XML Site Maps focuses on making it easier for the search engine crawlers to mine your sites contents. On top of creating a complete XML site map for your blog, it will stay up to date, informing search engines of your next blog post. This is another must-have plugin. Also see Bluetooth waterproof headphones
iThemes Security
Hackers know that WordPress sites are great targets, especially because users do not properly secure the contents of their site. iThemes Security offers a solution to this problem. It operates on four fronts: protection, detection, obscuring, and recovery. Every single activity that you, or someone you authorize, does on your site will be monitored by iThemes Security. Another nice feature is that is utilizes Google reCAPTCHA to keep out spam!
MailChimp
If you’re in the e-commerce business, then MailChimp is for you.
This little tool sets up an email subscription for the admin, which you can then provide as a sign-up option for your customers. It’s the best way to keep your customers interested in your product, and luckily, MailChimp integrates into numerous other plugins, making it very user friendly.
EWW Image Optimizer
Images are one of the most important marketing tools in the game. If your business relies on its captivating image content, then this plugin is for you. EWW Image Optimizer takes care of all the technical problems involved in posting images. Images created in the WP Image Editor will be automatically optimized, as well as any folder that the site admin chooses. Here is an example of a theme that EWW Image Optimizer would work well on.
Live Chat by Oggflow
Live chat is the only way to stay in constant contact with your customers, and Oggflow is the best plugin for this service. Oggflow streamlines all social media and customer service support into a customizable interface, and this is especially important given the increasing amount of mobile traffic reported by Google. Most of the themes available on solostream.com have a responsive design framework, making it easy to install and utilize Oggflow to its potential.
To conclude, plugins offer such a wide variety of tools that you really need to have a strong theme before you can begin choosing plugins. The best place to start looking for a theme is at at this website, because the demo and detail information helps you understand which plugins work best with which themes.
WordPress is an inexpensive, easy to use website building option used by millions of people around the world. There are a number of uses that users have found for WordPress, some more traditional and some unexpected.
Connect Remote Workers
In the digital age, a company is no longer defined by one building or a collection of physical branches. The global marketplace and the advancement of technology has made working remotely from home more an more common. Without a single, central physical location, companies have a need for solutions to connect remote employees, communicate, collaborate and upload work. A good, quality WordPress theme can help companies build a “social media” site for their employees. Employees can use the site to communicate, post journals with project ideas, collaborate on projects, and post finished work.
Wiki Site
Want to share information about a topic? Want to show off your knowledge of your favorite games franchise, TV series, or book series? Some WordPress themes and plugins allow you to turn your WordPress site into a wiki with pages for different aspects of your chosen topic. You can control who can share information on the wiki site.
Donation Hub
Do you run a non-profit or charitable organization? You can use WordPress as a hub for donations. Donors can look at your WordPress site to find information about your charity or organization. They can then make a donation and see their name displayed on a list of donors to thank. You can also display graphics to indicate desired donation level and how much of the level has been reached.
Portfolio
Are you an artist, musician, or designer? You can use WordPress to create a portfolio of your work. You can display a bio indicating your background and past accomplishments. You can also post examples of your work for potential customers. Some themes will allow you to have contact methods for customers to make custom orders from you through your portfolio website.
Ecommerce
You can also create a WordPress site dedicated to selling items. You can display works you have currently for sale and give customers a way to order them. You can also link your shop website to a portfolio website and link your portfolio to a shop.
Review Website
You can use WordPress as a place where users can post reviews of items and services. You can dedicate your site to one single topic like reviews of restaurants or set up a review hub that branches off to review pages for different topics like games or movies. You can also set up a blog style review page where you give your own impressions of items or media either alone or with a team of reviewers.
Photoblog
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. You can blog about important events in your life or topics and events you find relevant through posting a series of photos with brief captions that express the message you want to convey. There are a number of catchy, attractive WordPress themes for setting up a memorable photoblog.
WordPress could be a great way for you to develop your online presence. If you’re new to this particular field, this article will shed some light over the extensive area that is web development. However, if you’ve spent some time looking through different options, you’ve surely come across free WordPress themes. While they might be a great way for someone to introduce himself to the world of internet blogging, they surely won’t do you much good if you want to establish yourself as a professional entrepreneur. They’re just not crafted for this. Premium themes, on the other hand, are something else entirely. You might think that the difference isn’t that big and that it’s not worth investing in a premium theme. Well, the truth is that you can’t be more wrong. Here’s why.
Take Your Webpage to the Next Level
If you decide to go with a reputable and reliable premium theme shop and we most definitely advise that you should, you’d surely receive a product of superior quality. However, defining quality when it comes to a web template could be rather hard. Well, to put it in simpler words, you will get a unique, distinguished and most importantly – recognizable design. This would allow your particular website to stand out from the crowd.
However, a quality premium WordPress theme is also going to ensure the required responsiveness which is incredibly important. You should keep in mind that the standards of the web are constantly changing just like the capabilities of our browsers. Premium WordPress themes are set to ensure a pleasant user experience, which is ultimately the most important thing that you should aim towards.
Functionality, Security and Regular Updates
Unfortunately, a huge amount of the available free WordPress themes are indeed packaged with malicious codes. You can probably see how this might hurt your blogging experience. Developing your web presence on a premium theme, on the other hand, would ensure that your site is safe and sound.
Another huge disadvantage of free themes is that they are not functional. It takes forever to make a minor alteration to your theme and even longer if you aren’t a tech head. Well, premium themes take care of that. They are generally designed with functionality as a top priority.
You should also expect to receive scheduled updates, provided you decide to go premium. Getting updated is a lot more important than what you might think. This means that your website will stay relevant, regardless of the changes that go around. This would enable you to have a consistent presence, which will further your prospects.
Small Investment for a Great Value
Ultimately, you would have to spend a few bucks if you want to get a premium WordPress theme. This is one of their main characteristics – they are paid for. Usually the subscription is going to be for a year, during which period you can take advantage of all the perks of the premium theme.
In any case, premium themes also comply well with plugins, which are essential for your business. Plugins can help you track activity, rank you higher in search engines and a whole lot more. There is a wide range of them that you might want to integrate and this particular article covers the ones that you most surely must have.