How to write a successful blog step by step

I, Carolyne Eismann, took a course on Udemy last week. Udemy is a learning platform. There are many videos, so-called learning content, which mostly teach you about job-related topics. I watched a learning content about blogging.

I am responsible for our website www.mjss.ch. We sell high quality mermaid tails from the brand Sun Tail in America. Currently I am in the third and last year of my apprenticeship as a commercial assistant. My responsibilities include designing and writing blogs. My goal is to write good and interesting blogs so that readers will enjoy reading and maybe even shop with us. I watched this learning content to help me do just that. The video is very intriguing and if you know a little English, it is easy to understand. It has subtitles though, so you can also read along if you don't follow along.

The video lasted 3.5 hours in total and was divided into several parts. At the end of a course you will receive a certificate of completion. You can download it as a PDF. Certificates of completion of such courses are welcome in job applications! Now let's get to the content of the learning content:

Writing successful blogs is not a piece of cake. However, there are a few tips that will help you get there step by step.

To write a successful blog, you need the mindset of a blogger. That is, with the right thinking and the right mentality. There are a few questions you should ask yourself before you start writing. Blogging doesn't mean to just write wildly, but to create a strategy and a concept. 

Why am I doing this? It's good to know why you started. It may sound a bit cliché now, but it is important to think back to the beginning of this journey. It is also important to think about a long-term vision.

What do I want to achieve with the blogs? To blog, you need a lot of motivation and a certain level of commitment. There will be days when you can't wait to write. But there will also be days when you'll think to yourself, "There's no point to any of this"! And that's perfectly normal. The important thing is just not to give up. Because only by writing and practicing regularly will you become better. You should also think about what kind of value the blogs have or what they do. There are several things that can motivate you to write blogs:

The most important element of a blog is the content. The layout of the blog and the design are also important, but come only second. In the best case, the reader should realize within the first sentence that this blog will provide him with the desired topics and information. Blogs usually start with a short introduction. This section should already catch the reader's eye. In the concept, you should think about what kind of target audience or customer audience you are going for. Preferably one that is concerned with your chosen topic. Based on these 5 characteristics, you can determine your target audience:

• Demographic characteristics. Here, the reader's age, gender, and place and area of residence are analyzed.
• Socioeconomic characteristics. Here, attention is paid to the reader's education, as well as occupation and salary.
• Psychographic characteristics. By this I mean analyzing hobbies, interests, different opinions and motivation of different customers.
• Buying behavior. This refers to the behavior of customers on the website. Advertising reactions, price reactions as well as search history and order history.

Once you focus on a target audience and don't try to create content for everyone at once, you'll grow as a blogger and your blogs will become more successful faster. After you've determined a targeted audience for your blogs, you should now think about what you like yourself. "What do I like to do"? "Where do my interests lie"? 

To find out your interests, you can track many steps you take in your daily life. If you shop online a lot, for example on Amazon, you can look at your order history. Maybe a certain pattern emerges in the things you buy that reflects your interests. The same goes for books you read or YouTube videos you watch. You can do the same with your free time activities, though. "What do I do for fun in my free time"? Whether that's taking pictures, going to concerts, playing video games with friends, etc. It is also helpful to look at your school background. Profession, diplomas and certificates you've done, school subjects you enjoyed, career path you chose, and more. You can also, instead of one topic, cover several topics at once. This is more for the readers with great interest in business, and readers with a certain worldview.

A blog should be structured so that the reader understands a certain sense behind it. Structured and in a not too difficult language. Finally, it should also have an impact. The content of a blog should be consistent. There are four points that you can include in your blog:

• Entertainment. Logically, that's entertaining content that makes readers want to keep reading.
• Education. Educational content that allows you to provide useful information to readers. Who knows, maybe you'll learn something new yourself.
• Point of view. You argue on a certain topic and also on different opinions about it. You try to convince the readers in the blog and report from your perspective.
• Conversion. This is not understood in marketing as an actual conversion. But rather the suggestion of a reader to take action. Whether it's with a link on the blog or a button to click on that will take them to the article or product they want.

Now the question is, how you should name your blog. Whether you should use your own name, or rather generate a separate brand name. Your own name for the blog is more open and can evolve with the author, but a separate brand name is better to create sellable assets and extra value. Or even if you feel that you will become successful with the blog and even have business partners later. But the name also comes only in second place. In the first place still comes the content of the blog. To collect name ideas for his blog, there are several options:

• You create a list of words that fit the theme of the blog, but also the target audience. You can then put these words together until you come up with a good name.
• Random adjectives you like can be thrown in at www.thesaurus.com. Thesaurus will then return various synonyms and antonyms that might fit again.
• It's also helpful to look at other people's blogs for your target audience and see what names the other blogs have.
• At www.wordoid.com, you can drop in the words you've written on the list, and the site will generate a few names on its own that might even fit.
• At www.buzzsumo.com you can see blog topics that are popular with your target audience.

The name of a blog makes the first impression. You should therefore name your blog very specifically. The reader should be able to tell from the name of the blog what he will read. The name should be helpful, but also unique.

The SEO is very important when it comes to positioning your blog on Google or other search engines. It makes a big difference if your blog is found on the first or second page. In fact, it can mean losing the chance to get new impressions, page views and potential customers every day. A study by Chitika showed that there is already competition on the first page. First search results get just 32.5% of daily user traffic. Second search results only 17.6%.

• The keyword density of a blog is 0.5% - 2.5%. The more text you write, the more keywords you have to include. Keywords are search terms in the text that readers search for on Google or other search engines. These are then found in the text.
• SEO is a long-term thing. You can get a lot of backlinks with other types of legitimate advertising.
• On-site SEO is the optimization of one's website code to maximize search engine visibility.
• There are many factors that affect the positioning of the blog and a website. You can't control all of them.

The name of this learn content is Blogging Masterclass: How To Build A Successful Blog In 2022 and it is in English. Check out this content and have fun blogging!