Top 5 tips for Writing a Successful Blog

As you can see, I only started this blog yesterday - so please don't take this post as me saying that I am the expert on writing successful blogs!  I just thought I'd share with you the best five tips I read whilst researching writing a successful blog.

Why do people write blogs?  Some people write a blog simply as a kind of public diary, letting people read about what is going on their life.  Although this can be pleasant to write, and to read - it rarely leads to success financially.  If it is for finance reasons you are writing a blog, then you really have to be offering something to your readers, to give them a reason to keep coming back.  I personally believe that somewhere between these two styles would be a happy medium.

So without further ado, here (in no particular order) is my top 5 tips for writing a successful blog.

1)  Write catchy headlines which include the key words of what you're writing about.  This will attract more readers and help you get higher up on search engines when they search your topic.  For example, a reviewer of hip-hop music making a list of his favourite hip hop albums of all time could write his headline in many ways.  'Some hip-hop albums I like', could also be written as 'The best 10 hip-hop albums of all time' - which do you think will attract more attention and get more hits from search engines?

2)  Interact with your readers.  This helps you build a much closer connection between you and your followers and will lead to them being far more loyal to you.  So how can you interact with your readers?  There are many ways, but perhaps the most common are through the use of contests, polls, and asking them for feedback.

3)  Be extremely useful to all your readers.  If you are consistently giving your readers useful information which is helping them to have success in a particular area then you can expect far more followers to appear in no time!  Try not to stray too far from the main topic of your blog, as this could lead to people losing interest.  The people following you are doing so based on what you have written so far, so continue on that path.

4) Stamp your personality on your blog.  There is nothing more boring than reading a soulless piece of writing which has no personality or heart in it.  When you're writing make sure to be yourself, and give them personal information to help them feel rapport with you and your writing.  I'm not suggesting you detail each visit to the toilet, but I think you know what I mean!  A great way to take this to another level is to have an 'about me' section on your blog like I have.

5)  Give them a reason to keep coming back.  This can simply be consistently writing useful posts which help people, but another way to do this would be to have a weekly feature that people log in every week just to read.  You can also use regular contests or free giveaways to keep people coming back for more.

I hope this has helped you, these are the points that I found most useful when doing the prep work for this very blog.  But there is lots more out there on this topic so have a google.  If you've got any other tips for me or any other readers out there, then please leave it in the comment box - I may include them in a future post...