5 Tips to Bring Your Blog to the NEXT Level

Last Updated on October 21, 2020 by ellduclos

If you are a blogger and have been wanting to take your blog to the next level then this post is for you! I am sharing my top 5 tips that every new blogger can benefit from. Whether it be growing your blog traffic or monetizing your blog, these 5 tips will take your blog to that next level!

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Disclaimer: Affiliate links are used, read the disclosure here.

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5 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level

Build personal connections

The first tip to help you take your blog to the next level is to focus on building connections with your audience. Building personal connections with your readers will build trust which is essentially when it comes to making sales. 

If your audience is communicating with you make sure to do your part to communicate back. It’s great to create a sense of community within your audience. They are reading your content for a reason and it’s Probably because they enjoy it. Make sure to let them know that you appreciate their support and get to know your audience. Find out what they love and what they can’t stand. Knowing more about your audience will help you create new content that your audience will love.

By the way, it’s okay to get PERSONAL. In fact, I find that the more personal I am the more my audience can relate. I don’t know about you but, putting a face behind the words helps to build trust. If I can connect with the author and put a face behind their words, the message becomes a lot stronger.

SO – Don’t be afraid to:

1. Talk to your audience – NEVER IGNORE THEM.
2. Add a personal touch – Whether it be an image of you, or a personal post. (YOU ARE THE BRAND.)
3. Engage with your audience’s content too!

Don’t Let Your Numbers Consume You

I used to let my numbers consume me. I was constantly analyzing how many followers I had and how many blog views I would get every minute of every day. It eventually consumed my time. A lot of bloggers fall into this “numbers” trap!

I know how badly you may want thousands of followers and I know you probably wanted them as soon as you started. GUESS WHAT, It’s not going to happen. Unless you buy them (which is BAD BAD BAD) Please don’t ever buy your followers. You will receive crap followers who could care less about your content, so what’s the point?

Instead of worrying about your numbers, focus on putting out the BEST content you can for those who already follow you! The more you focus on your content and those who already love your content, the more your numbers will grow. You have to remember that success doesn’t happen over night. It may not even happen in a year.

Continue to WOW those who love your content already and the rest will follow. 

PRO TIP: The 2 best ways to grow your blog traffic is focusing on Pinterest marketing and SEO. This course shares strategies that I use to get over 100,000 blog views most months. I also recommend checking out this free webmaster class for SEO. I took his Stupid Simple SEO course and it was a game changer. 

Self host from the beginning

If you have been following my blog for a while then this is something you hear me say CONSTANTLY. You are probably so sick of hearing it. Having a self hosted blog is probably the BEST thing you could do for your blog overall. It’s worth it to learn WordPress. 

When I first started my blog I was on wordpress .com because I didn’t do my research. I ended up researching after and heard about wordpress plugins. The free wordpress account didn’t allow me to have access to plugins so I upgraded to the premium plan. At the time I thought the premium plan would give me access to plugins but, I was mistaken. I wasted money just to find out that in order to get plugins on wordpress .com I needed to have a business plan which was $25 a month!!! 

That’s when I found out about self hosting wordpress (aka wordpress .org) I instantly made the transfer to self hosting through site ground. For just $6.99 a month I had all the plug ins that I needed to make my blog rock! This was WITHOUT having to upgrade to the $25 a month plan on wordpress thanks to SITE GROUND!

If you are on wordpress .com GET OFF! You are over paying and you will still be limited. Self hosting a wordpress allows you to:

Get all the cool plugins like – Yoast SEO (which helps you with SEO), An email list builder (crucial), You can add share buttons (so people can share your blog post to any platform or social media), Add your instagram feed to your blog, and so much more!

You can also monetize your blog however you want when you self host. On wordpress .com your choices are limited because some are against the rules. On self hosting you don’t have to worry about any restrictions.

You can design your blog which ever way you’d like! No restrictions or limited themes. If I remember correctly blogger, wix and squarespace are more limited with their design.

Most bloggers who have made the transfer to self hosted blogs have been impressed and satisfied! The transfer can be a pain which is why I always recommend to start self hosting from the beginning.

Siteground does make the transfer experience easier than most. I reached out to their live chat and they walked me through it.

Still not convinced about self hosting you can check out this post where I share 6 benefits to self hosting your blog.

Treat your blog like it’s your job

If you want to take your blog to the next level then you need to treat your blog like it’s your job already. For example, you wouldn’t take weeks off from your job so you shouldn’t take weeks off from your blog. Those long breaks away from blogging can cause set backs. If you aren’t consistent with the content you put out, your audience won’t be consistent either.

I like to use one of my favorite planners at the beginning of each month and map out what blog post I want to have published by which day. I keep this planner on my desk or bed side and look at it each day to keep me on task and focused. Planning out my posts a month in advance also helps me prevent writers block because I always know what I need to write about. However, if you do struggle with writer’s block then I highly suggest reading this.

If you write about multiple topics you can have a day dedicated to each topic. 

For example:

Tip Tuesday – a tip or life hack

Makeover Monday – Beauty posts

Self Care Sunday – Write about self love and self care

Doing this helps readers to also know when to look for the new posts that relate to what they enjoy reading about. 

I also recommend having a set blog posting schedule and sticking to it. That way your audience knows when to look for a new blog post from you! 

 

Don’t lose sight of WHY you started

We all have a WHY. We all have a reason as to WHY we started our blog. It’s so easy to lose focus. When you start to feel defeated or unmotivated, remember why you started your blog in the first place. Let your WHY take you all the way to the finish. 

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I hope these 5 tips help you take your blog to the next level. 

UNTIL NEXT TIME,

xx

ELL