I have been blogging for around a year now and I have learned a lot of things about it since I started. Blogging is not an easy work and it takes a lot of effort to produce content and market it well. Blogging is not only about writing great content but also engaging with audience. It  is also about connecting with people in a thoughtful intelligent manner.

Here is what I learned about blogging in this year - 

Your blog should have a focus

Even though you write about your personal life, it should have an element of consistency. That means if you write about music that you hear, your blog should mostly talk about music only. You may go out of the topic once in a while but for the most part you need to stick to a topic.

This is because with time you develop an audience which got attracted to you because they like one topic that they have interest in. Talking too much about other things may cause them to lose interest.

Traffic comes slow and steady

First few months, if you are new to blogging, are the most horrific months. You basically keep on building the content without seeing the traffic. For many months in my blog initially there were only a few visitors. In the last couple of months, I have been consistently getting more than 100+ visits every few days. Though not a huge amount it has gotten much better than before. Traffic builds at slow and steady pace.

There are only two ways of getting traffic (majorly)

Google and your comments on other blogs. For getting traffic from Google, write meaningful, interesting and useful articles. Google with time will then send traffic to your blog without you making any effort. Engaging with bloggers in your area Is another source. This not only helps you to gain their readers who come to your blog but also you build partnerships. If they like you and your blog, they will promote it on their site as well without you asking for it.

Social media is a great source but not good for conversion

Conversion happens when you sell something. The best way in my opinion is to get organic traffic and then get sales out of it. Social media is great for increasing numbers and getting people to your blog but then you make money only when they are really looking to buy from your site.

Strong engagement on social media

I often chat with my friends on twitter. Why? Because it makes a lot of sense. I have just shared their content and they often say thank you. It is a great starting point for a discussion to build personal relationships. Ask them how their day was, what are they doing? Other friends of yours watch this conversation and probably start liking you.

Really don’t worry about making money, build relationships first

People don’t come to you because you want to sell something. They come because they want to hear from you. They want to learn. Share your thoughts, your ideas. I am sure you will never exhaust them. Then once you bring out your eBook or course material, they will purchase it without a thought. Talk to them, make friends and then see them buying things you recommend.

Speed up your webpage

A slow loading web page will kill your blog. Make sure that your webpage gets delivered fast. Buy from a good host; keep scripts and images to a minimum. Tag your images properly. Use Yslow or pagespeed to improve your page load speeds.

Choose the right topic

There are three considerations for choosing topic for your blog. It should be searched enough, not extremely competitive and be the one where you can deliver content for a long amount of time. It’s not easy to find but you can start working up from finding what you are passionate about then find out if it is really searched. If it is not, find a topic closer to topic you know and then writing on it.

Have a lot of patience

Blog is like any other business. Instead of a lot of money you spend a lot of time and like any other business it grows with time only. So have a lot of patience, do right things I talked about and with time see your traffic move upward consistently. Have patience and do not get frustrated.

You may differ with these observations and you have your opinion about them. This is just my opinion based on my experience in blogging. I would love to hear yours.
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This is a guest article from Ashvini Kumar Saxena. Ashvini is an entrepreneur, blogger. He writes on entrepreneurship, leadership and motivation. You can find some really good articles on entrepreneurship at his site http://aks-blog.com