As of 2023, there are more than 600 million blogs out there. Some blogs earn their founders millions of dollars per year, while many more earn nothing at all. So, how do you stand out from the crowd and make your blog a success, and what pro blogging tips can help you on your way?
The 15 pro blogging tips that I’ll cover in this post are all geared to help maximize your chance of success in the highly competitive but highly rewarding world of blogging. From SEO to Google Analytics, these tried-and-tested professional blogging techniques and blog monetization methods are essential.
I’ve been blogging for over 2 years and have learned a huge amount, both by trial and error and by studying the blogging techniques used by successful pro bloggers. Today, I’m excited to share with you some of the most important (and practical) blogging advice I’ve picked up along the way.
Pro Blogging Tips For Success
If you’re looking to take your blog to the next level, this post is for you! Here are 15 top pro blogging tips and tricks to help you become a more successful blogger and turn your blogging hobby into a potentially lucrative career.
1. Identify Your Niche and Target Audience
Identifying your niche and target audience is one of the most important, foundational pro blogging tips. It’s the first step in creating a blog that will resonate with your readers (you need to know who they are!), appease the Google gods, and stand out in the crowded online arena.
Understanding who you’re writing for, and the unique perspectives you can offer, is vital no matter what stage you’re in of your blogging career. Don’t make the mistake of trying to blog about everything, or whatever random things take your fancy. You need to be targeted in your approach.
Knowing your audience allows you to craft useful content that will genuinely appeal to them. If your readers are into backcountry skiing, they probably didn’t come to your blog to read about your chihuahua’s doggy grooming routine. They want to read about backcountry skiing.
Tailoring your content to a specific, identified audience, helps increase engagement and loyalty and also allows you to implement targeted marketing strategies. It’s also good for SEO (more on this below) and will allow you to carve out content silos and focus on specific keywords.
2. Develop a Unique and Authentic Voice
Getting your blog to stand out from the noise isn’t just about the topics you write about. It’s also about how you write. Be sure to develop a unique and authentic voice.
Your voice is your blog’s personality, your brand, and an important asset. It sets the tone (literally) for everything that you write about. It’s what makes your content relatable and memorable. Your readers want to know what you have to say, and they also want to hear it in your voice.
Make sure you’re authentic, too. Authenticity is key when it comes to establishing trust and credibility. When your audience feels like they’re reading words written by a real person, not just another generic blog, they’re more likely to engage with it and come back hungry for more.
It goes without saying that your blog should be enjoyable to read – it’s not an academic textbook. So, embrace your unique style, let it shine through in every post that you write, and – crucially – keep your audience entertained. Otherwise, they’ll probably look elsewhere.
3. Familiarize Yourself With SEO (Essential for Pro Blogging!)
Whether you like it or not, getting comfortable with the fundamentals of SEO is a non-negotiable part of blogging professionally. If you blog for fun and don’t care about making any money from your website, it’s less important. But that’s not why you’re here, right?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is by far the best way of driving organic traffic to your blog. This means: getting as many people as possible to visit your site, for free via Google (or any other search engine), whether they’ve heard of you before or not.
The overwhelming majority of my blog’s traffic comes from SEO. That’s why I’m careful to tailor my content so that it’s attractive to search engines and ranks as high as possible in the search engine results (SERPs for short).
SEO is a huge topic and you don’t need to be an industry-leading expert in the subject to achieve success as a pro blogger. But you need to understand (at least) the basics of SEO to ensure that your content gets seen. It might feel like a steep learning curve at first, but it’s worth it.
4. Invest in Paid Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research is one of the key elements of SEO. As a pro blogger, you want to drive as much targeted traffic to your blog as possible. Keyword research will help you find search terms that (i) have a good amount of search volume, and (ii) aren’t too difficult for you to compete for.
Essentially, it’s all about picking the right topics to write posts about, and determining which terms and phrases to use when optimizing each one of your posts.
For example, a post about things to do in Thailand will target the keyword “things to do in Thailand”. This is certainly a popular term with lots of traffic. But it’s also a fairly competitive term, so might not be a great keyword to chase unless your blog is already well-established as an authority site.
There are various ways to do keyword research. Some are free, others cost money. Paid keyword research tools like KeysearchKeysearch offer deeper insights into what your target audience is searching for; giving you access to valuable data that will help inform your content strategy.
5. Create High-Quality, Engaging Content
Whether you blog about budget travel, luxury clothing, fishing, punk rock, or Japanese anime, creating high-quality, engaging content is absolutely vital to your success as a blogger. It’s what captivates your audience and keeps them coming back for more.
These days, Google is taking the quality of content into account more and more. SEO is still very important, but your content also needs to be top-notch too. This means it should be informative, entertaining, long-form (usually), original, and add genuine value for your readers.
Remember, content is king. Consistently publishing high-quality posts helps to establish your credibility and authority in your niche.
Including personal stories, practical tips, and writing in a direct, conversational tone will make your readers feel like you’re talking to them personally and will help to keep them engaged with your content. Try to use the active voice more than the passive voice wherever possible.
6. Invest in a Blogging Course
Investing in a blogging course is a smart move for anyone serious about blogging. There are hundreds of courses available online covering everything from the fundamentals of blogging to advanced monetization strategies and specific skills like email marketing.
Learning from experts who have achieved real-life success with the methods that they teach is a great way to fast-track your own blogging journey. A good blogging course will teach you valuable insights, help you avoid common pitfalls, and give you all the tools you need to set yourself up for success.
However, it’s important to pick your course wisely. With so many different courses out there, it should come as no surprise that some are considerably better than others. Be sure to do your research, including reading customer reviews and testimonials, before parting with any money.
I can personally, wholeheartedly recommend this course by Nick from Goats On The Road. It’s a really great, easy-to-follow, and comprehensive course and it taught me most of all I know about SEO today. It gives you access to a fantastic and supportive Facebook group too.
7. Prioritize Affiliate Marketing for Monetization
There are several different ways to earn money with a blog. For many bloggers, affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative. When done right, affiliate marketing can be a significant and steady source of income. And the more traffic your site gets, the more money you can make.
Affiliate marketing essentially involves recommending and promoting products or services on your blog and receiving a commission for any sales/revenue that you generate by doing so. In practice, this usually means including so-called “affiliate links” on your site.
Whenever a reader clicks on one of these links and then makes a purchase (e.g. a hotel on Booking.com, or a tour through Viator), that website records the fact that your website was the one that recommended it. Then, you get a commission, which is often a percentage of the sale.
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can often integrate it seamlessly within your content. By recommending high-quality products and services that are relevant to your niche and that add value to your readers, everybody wins!
Remember, successful affiliate marketing is all about trust and relevance. Your audience trusts your judgment, so it’s crucial to only recommend high-quality products and services that are relevant to your readers. Don’t recommend garbage just to get a commission, or you’ll risk losing your audience’s trust.
8. Diversify Your Income Streams
Ensuring that you have diversity in your income streams is sound advice for any business – and pro blogging is a business, with investments and returns. It’s about not putting all your eggs in one basket to avoid becoming overly reliant on one source of revenue.
By creating multiple methods of monetization, you create multiple revenue channels, which can lead to a more stable and sustainable income. Say, for example, one of your major affiliates goes bust. You don’t want that to mean game over for your business too.
When it comes to pro blogging tips, diversification can include a healthy mix of affiliate marketing (and recommending several different companies within that), being paid to host ads on your site, publishing sponsored content, selling digital products, or even creating and selling online courses.
Each of these revenue streams comes from different sources and can help you reach a different segment of your audience. It’s a smart strategy that not only boosts your earnings but also safeguards your blog and your business against future uncertainly and market changes.
9. Engage with Your Audience Regularly
As a blogger, you might spend the majority of your time creating top-notch content to satisfy your readers’ needs and interests. However, it’s not just about posting new content. Regularly engaging with your audience is another important part of professional blogging.
“KLT” is a commonly-used term in marketing speak that stands for “Know-Like-and-Trust”. You’re more likely to buy a product or take a recommendation from a brand or person that you Know, Like, and Trust than from a randomer on the internet, right?
Interacting with your readers through social media, responding to blog comments, and sending out a regular email newsletter are great ways to build the KLT factor with your readers. This engagement also helps you understand your audience’s needs and preferences, which can guide your future content.
Remember, keeping your readers happy, engaged, and well provided for is crucial when it comes to creating brand loyalty and success when blogging. It’s the thing that converts casual readers into regular fans and (hopefully) customers.
10. Optimise Your Blog for Mobile Users
Nowadays, an increasing number of people browse the internet using smartphones, rather than desktop computers or laptops. This means your blog needs to be mobile-friendly and properly optimized for mobile users.
In practice, this means that your blog needs to load quickly, appear properly formatted on a mobile device, have content that’s easily readable without needing to zoom in, and have easy-to-navigate menus and interfaces.
These things are all crucial for making your blog accessible and user-friendly for people who visit it on their phones. It helps keep mobile users engaged and should help to reduce the “bounce rate” (i.e. the number of people who leave your blog immediately after arriving on the first page).
Optimizing your blog for mobile is largely about user experience, but it also affects your SEO rankings. Google has explicitly stated that it prioritizes mobile-friendly websites, a practice that it calls “mobile-first indexing”. Any blogger who ignores Google’s advice does so at their peril!
11. Use Google Analytics to Understand Traffic Trends
Getting familiar with using Google Analytics is another important piece of pro blogging advice and a top pro blogging tip. Google Analytics is a powerful free tool that provides a range of insights into how visitors interact with your blog, the demographics and location of your readers, and various other trends and useful data.
Analyzing this data can help you make informed decisions about your current and future content. It tells you what’s working, what’s not, and which areas you should prioritize going forward.
For example, say you discover via Google Analytics that 60% of your readers are aged 50+ and live in the USA, while another 20% are aged 30–49 and live in France. This is crucial information to know and will help you tailor your content for these readers going forward.
Being able to effectively target different audience segments using data and analysis is an important pro tip in blogging and will allow you to intelligently craft an approach focusing on content that resonates with your audience. It’s much smarter than shooting in the dark.
12. Regularly Update and Refresh Old Content
Another of my favorite pro blogging tips is to regularly update and refresh old content. I don’t know about you, but it takes me a pretty long time to write a brand-new blog post, format it properly, add photos, and links, and get it published.
Updating existing content, on the other hand, is much quicker. I can probably update at least 10 old posts in the same time as it takes me to create and publish a new one from scratch. There are a few reasons why it’s a good idea to do this.
Some of my best-performing blog posts are posts that I wrote more than a year ago. And a lot can happen in a year. Tour companies go out of business, hotels and restaurants change management (for better or for worse), and sometimes even laws and regulations can change.
To help keep your blog as up-to-date, accurate, useful, and relevant as possible, it’s important to regularly review your old content and keep it current. I try to do this once every 6 months, and at least once every year. It’s also good for SEO as Google favors up-to-date content.
13. Network with Other Bloggers
Networking with other bloggers is an important part of growing your blog. Engaging with fellow bloggers has helped me in various ways, including opening up opportunities for guest posting, co-authored posts, other collaborations, and even social media shoutouts.
You can learn a lot from the successes (and failures) of other bloggers too. If you’re struggling with something to do with blogging, the chances are that other bloggers have been through the same thing before and may be able to offer you support or advice; most are generally happy to share their own experiences and pro blogging tips, do’s and don’ts.
Blogging can be a lonely career, but it doesn’t have to be. Overall, at least within the travel blogging community, I’ve found that most people are friendly, helpful, and supportive. Networking with other bloggers can be a source of inspiration and motivation too.
If you put yourself out there in an honest, sincere way, it’s not difficult to connect with others who are keen to join forces and work together to help grow your respective blogs.
14. Use Social Media for Wider Reach
I won’t lie: I don’t like social media much. I find it addictive, distracting, time-consuming, and at times, downright toxic. However, it’s undeniable that social media can be a powerful tool when it comes to blogging.
In general, smart use of social media helps when it comes to building a solid, visible brand and a multi-dimensional online presence.
More specifically, social media is a great way to achieve a wider reach. Promoting your content on one or more social media platforms can help it be seen by more people; enabling your blog to reach a larger audience.
Social media can be a powerful way to connect and engage with your audience too. Whether it’s through Twitter, Instagram stories, or Facebook groups, these platforms all make it very easy to forge connections with your readers, which helps a lot with the KLT stuff I mentioned above.
Facebook groups are also particularly useful when it comes to networking with other bloggers. You’ll find a ton of different blogging groups out there across virtually every niche imaginable. I’m not a social media fan, but its usefulness when it comes to blogging is undeniable.
15. Keep Up to Date with Blogging Trends
Blogging is a fairly fast-moving industry. Google updates, technology shifts, and the emergence of AI are just a few of the things that have caused significant changes – and that’s just in the last 12 months!
Therefore, my final pro blogging tip is to understand the importance of staying on top of the latest news and trends when it comes to blogging as a business. At the risk of sounding cliché, the digital landscape is constantly evolving and strategies that worked yesterday might not be as effective today.
Staying informed helps you adapt and innovate, keeping your business above the waves and one step ahead of the competition. This might involve exploring new content formats, understanding changes in SEO best practices, and even shifting social trends.
In Closing
Remember, becoming a successful pro blogger is a marathon, not a sprint. Success doesn’t happen overnight, it takes months (sometimes years) of hard work, smart strategizing, and consistently pushing out high-quality, engaging content. Blogging is a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work.
Invest as much time and effort into your blog as possible, through a mixture of content creation, SEO, learning, and networking, and you will almost certainly reap the rewards down the line. It takes time, but it’s more than worth the wait!
Following all of the pro blogging tips and hints I’ve described in this post is a great way to give yourself the best possible chance of success.
