What Is A Blog? – Everything You Need To Know About Blogging
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What exactly does a blogger do? Keep reading if you’ve been curious about that. In this article, we’ll go into detail about what a blogger does and how to become one.
Finding out what it takes to become a blogger is crucial if you’ve been considering starting a blog.
And since you’re just starting, you probably have many unanswered questions, such as: What is the function of a blogger? What knowledge and abilities are required to blog? How is money made from blogging?
You’re in the right place, so don’t worry. This article will address all your inquiries regarding what a blogger does and how to start one.
What Is A Blog?
A blog is a specific kind of website where a writer or a group of writers express their opinions on a given subject. It may be used for either personal or professional purposes.
Blogs are frequently updated with new content, and the posts are typically arranged on the page in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent ones.
Are you ready to start your blog today?
Now that you know what a blog is, let’s review what bloggers do…
What Does A Blogger Do?
What you do as a blogger depends on your goals. If you want to start a blog for fun or to use it as an online diary, then you really only need to do one thing:
Write.
But, if you want to make money from your blog and turn it into a part-time or full-time career, there are other tasks you need to do. Some of these tasks include:
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Selling products
Additionally, numerous administrative duties include keeping an eye on your website analytics, updating your site, answering comments, and much more.
This is not a complete list, but let’s review some of the most important aspects of a blogger’s job now.
1. Write Content
A blogger’s main responsibility is to create content in the form of blog posts. The purpose of blog posts is to give readers useful information that is both free and simple to read. It’s the first step in earning readers’ trust so you can eventually convert them to paying customers.
For example, if you have a food blog and write blog posts about your favorite recipes, your readers will find value in that free content. Then, in the future, those readers will be more likely to buy your cookbook.
It’s up to you what you write about on your blog. The internet has blogs on almost every topic imaginable, including travel, health & wellness, finance, religion, gardening, video games, and more.
But it’s best to stick to one particular topic, also known as a blog niche, to draw in a committed audience.
As soon as you’ve chosen your topic, it would help to start regularly posting blog entries. You can use our guide to blogging frequency to determine how frequently you should publish new content. Now, let’s get to the actual writing part.
There are several tasks that go into writing content. You’ve got to:
- Brainstorm topics you want to write about
- Research the topic online and look at competitors’ posts
- Take notes and draft an outline
- Write the blog post
- Add images for visual engagement
- Optimize your post for SEO
As you can see, writing content isn’t just about putting words on a page.
If you’ve never written a blog post before, don’t worry. Many bloggers are self-taught and pick up writing skills along the way.
Writing is the foundation of a successful blog.
But, if you want to make money from your blog, you must do more than write…
2. Recommend Affiliate Products
One of the most common ways bloggers can earn money is through affiliate marketing. It entails incorporating product recommendations into your content for readers. You receive a sale cut each time a reader clicks on your affiliate link to purchase your suggested item.
Additionally, if you write a solid product review, that article will continue to bring in cash for you.
Just be sure the affiliate products you endorse on your blog are ones you genuinely use and support.
They ought to be pertinent to your audience as well. A travel blogger shouldn’t suggest kitchenware or auto parts, for example. For your readers, topics like luggage, travel insurance, and hotels would be more pertinent.
3. Email Marketing
Blogging and email marketing go hand in hand. By communicating directly and frequently with your readers through email marketing, you can create a more intimate connection with them.
Additionally, you can send information directly to your subscribers’ inboxes whenever you want to promote a new blog post or product. This will increase the traffic to your blog and maybe even increase sales.
Starting an email marketing campaign is simpler than it seems.
Converting website visitors into subscribers is simple with the amazing lead generation tool OptinMonster. You can easily create beautiful email optin popups by using the expertly designed templates and drag-and-drop builder.
You can also automatically offer a lead magnet, like a cost-free ebook, to anyone who joins your email list, just like in the aforementioned popup example. Most people are more than happy to provide their email addresses in exchange for a free gift.
You can quickly expand your email list with OptinMonster and forge enduring connections with your readers.
Aside from building relationships with your existing readers, it would help if you also attracted new visitors to your blog…
4. Self-Promotion
Self-promotion is another thing you’ll have to do as a blogger. After all, you need to advertise your blog if you want new readers to find it and read your posts.
However, this does not require purchasing advertising space or launching a significant marketing initiative.
You can promote your content on social media.
Because they are free and simple, social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are ideal for promoting your blog. Additionally, the majority of people these days use social media, so attracting your target audience won’t be difficult.
By consistently promoting your content on social media, you’ll be able to get the word out about your blog.
Promoting your blog on social media is easier when you have a large following that will engage with your posts and share them with you.
So, to grow your social media following, try embedding social media feeds on your blog. This will introduce your social profiles to website visitors and encourage them to follow.
There are many lite versions of the plugins that you can try out for free.
5. Sell Products
By selling their goods, many thriving bloggers expand their businesses. So, to increase your blogging income, you should also learn how to do this.
Since digital goods are much simpler to produce than physical ones, most bloggers sell them instead of the latter. Additionally, creating a digital product only needs to be done once, after which you can sell it repeatedly.
Now, you might wonder, what kind of digital products can you sell as a blogger?
An ebook is a digital product that’s both easy to create and sell.
An online course is another well-liked category of digital product you can sell. Online courses are an engaging way to educate your audience about a particular subject.
And don’t worry, create and sell an online course. You don’t need any prior teaching experience. All you need is some familiarity with the subject you want to base your online course on and some relevant experience.
We advise using MemberPress to create online courses.
A user-friendly online course builder is part of the all-in-one membership plugin for WordPress called MemberPress. This means that you can use this tool to make a membership website and create and sell online courses. You can charge visitors to your membership site a monthly subscription fee to view your blog posts.
For detailed instructions, refer to our article on building an online course with MemberPress. After reviewing the key components of what a blogger does, let’s discuss some additional tasks they might complete throughout the day.
A Day In The Life Of A Blogger Checklist
The following checklist is an overview of all the tasks you need to do as a blogger.
Of course, this list will vary depending on the blogger, but it will give you a general idea of what bloggers do on a typical day.
Let’s take a look:
- Brainstorm and search online for new blog topic ideas.
- Plan out your upcoming content using an editorial calendar.
- Write new blog posts 1-5 times per week, depending on your publishing frequency.
- Do keyword research so that your posts can rank higher in search results.
- Search for images to use on your blog or take your own photographs.
- Write and send your email newsletter, typically once per week. You can use an email marketing service like Constant Contact.
- Share your content on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
- Manage and reply to new blog comments.
- Oversee the back end of your website. This includes fixing any issues, keeping WordPress plugins updated, etc.
- Optimize your website for search engines. Find out how in our beginner’s guide to SEO.
- Keep track of your website analytics to see how many visitors your site gets. You can do this with a plugin like MonsterInsights.
- Answer emails and reply to people who have contacted you via your contact form.
- Spend time reading articles, listening to podcasts, and taking courses to improve your skills.
- Network with other bloggers on social media.
- Collaborate with other bloggers by guest posting, usually 1-2 times monthly.
- Join affiliate programs for products and services you can promote on your blog.
- Create lead magnets to grow your email list and digital products like ebooks that you can sell.
- Do any bookkeeping tasks, especially if your blog is a business.
