Planning to start blogging? You need to choose a topic, analyze your audience, and… And you will find a lot of typical information on how to run your blog, which starts with choosing a topic and ending with buying a domain. 

But there are some more non-obvious tips beginners should consider for their blog to truly be successful. This article will not dwell on the steps that you’ve already guessed. Here you will find out five rules that will lead to your blog popularity in a short time. Isn’t that what you need for a good start? 

Top 5 Rules for a Successful Blog 

What is so special about a successful blog owner? Almost all of them did not follow the common algorithm when they launched their blog. The typical algorithm worked well when the level of competition was low. The number of blogs worldwide is 600 million so there is an obvious need for a new strategy.  

Still, thinking the old algorithms will work in 2021? Below you will find out the rules by which you can break away from your competitors and take your place in a chosen niche. Usually, these rules are not taken into account at the initial stages of the blog development, but if you do it right away, you can get rid of downtime in your blog promotion. 

“Showing Up Is 90% of Success” 

This expression of Woody Allen is the number one rule for everyone who runs a blog. You should consider yourself as a media person, even if you have only three subscribers. Imagine that you already have a popular news channel that will lose the trust of its audience if it doesn’t go live. 

Try to appear online regularly, and don’t give up shortly. Usually, newbies work hard for up to one month. Everybody tries to publish high quality and super informative content every day. But as happens with many, this does not bring immediate results and then the novice blogger begins to appear in front of his audience less and less frequently. 

This is a problem for all new bloggers, and this is the main reason why potentially good blogs sank in the abyss of information garbage barely sailing from the coast. Regardless of whether your audience has increased today or not, you must continue your work. In order to always have winning ideas for filling your blog up, you can use the following content scheme: 

• Prepare 10 highly informative publications that will meet the requests of both your target audience and search engines. 
• Prepare 5 voluminous publications that can be divided into two parts. For example, on Tuesday you can publish the first part of the article and thereby intrigue your audience with a continuation, and on Wednesday you can publish the second. 
• Prepare 5 easy articles. We are talking about content that is very easy to understand. These posts should be generic, but remember to add facts and at least one link to a research/credible source, depending on the topic of your blog. 
• Prepare 5 humorous posts. Such publications are great for reading either in the morning or on the weekend. Usually, people don’t want to dive into something complicated in the morning and on weekends. 

Ultimately, you will have enough articles for one month. However, plan your work wisely and prevent yourself from creative burnout. If you immediately start bombarding your audience with super useful and informative content, you will simply get tired after a month. The writing process is quite engaging but quite exhaustive at the same time, so keep the “ write my paper” search query in mind. 

Take Off the Mask of Anonymity in Blog 

Most newbies try to hide their identity when starting their blog, perhaps due to impostor syndrome or fear of popularity. However, when the audience knows the author of the blog, especially if there is a share of personal storytelling, this creates a strong and trusting relationship. 

Therefore, if you want your blog to immediately interest the audience, show and tell about yourself. Take off the mask of anonymity and become a real friend of your subscribers. And it doesn’t matter if you create a professional blog or tell stories from your life. As in the first tip, consider yourself as a media person. 

Cooperate with Experts and Influencers 

Invite famous people to take part in your blog development at least once a month to create cool content. These can be both media influencers and not very well-known experts in a particular field. For example, if you talk about the importance of sleep in your publication, it will be great if you add a couple of lines of expert opinion. 

When working with influencers, choose such personalities with whom you will have the same target audience. For example, if your blog is about parenting, then advertising your blog with an influencer in the field of cryptocurrency is not a good idea. 

Use More Visualization and Interactive Elements 

Forget about text-only blog content. Back up your writing with infographics, videos, illustrations, and even slideshows. If you have never worked with such formats, then pay attention to the Canva app which will allow you to create visualizations for your blog simply and for free. Even a novice in graphic design can handle this tool and create good visuals for content. 

Test which formats your audience likes best, and then you will get a strong competitive advantage. Perhaps in a month, your blog will be recognized and frequently cited because of your infographics or funny memes. By the way, unique images are quite good for search engines, (however, don’t forget about their metadata). 

Create Content with Voice Search in Mind 

In a world where voice search has become as commonplace as your morning cup of coffee, your content needs to rank high in voice search as well. In the initial stages of creating a blog, few people think about this point and make a real mistake. 

According to statistics, in 2021, voice search will make up 50% of all types of searches. This means that you need to immediately prepare the optimized content for voice search. Here are a few things to consider when creating every blog post: 

• Use simple, clear language for your posts. The more informative, useful, and simpler your content is, the sooner you can build trust in search algorithms. As a result, it will allow you to win the audience’s favor. 
• Use keywords in the text that will directly match voice search queries. For example, if a person is looking for a recipe for baked fish, then most likely the voice request will be “how to cook a fish in the oven”, instead of “fish in the oven recipe” as it was with test search. Accordingly, if your text contains voice search-optimized keywords, then there is a possibility to reach a featured snippet in Google according to some of the requests. So, try to think carefully about the keywords for each of your articles. Also, keep in mind that in addition to having these keywords, your content should clearly and briefly answer a search question. P.S. Research the real users’ questions relevant to your topic with the help of Answer the Public.  
• Refer to authoritative sources in your publications. This will improve the credibility of your content. 

• Create content with a high level of social engagement. Provoke your audience to like and share your posts on social media. To do this, make sure you have the appropriate social buttons. Ask all your acquaintances and friends to share your content every time. 
• Fall in love with long content. The average word count on voice search pages is around 2,312 words, which means you need to create posts of this size. 

The Bottom Line 

These rules will allow you to break away from your competitors in a short time. Usually, aspiring blog owners think that the results will not come soon and that they have to wait. But if you adopt the above-described rules, then you won’t have to wait long. Why waste your time and do a ton of unnecessary work when your blog can be popular so soon?