Welcome to Part 2 of my, How to start a Gwinnett Blog, series. If you have not read part 1, and you are new to blogging, I highly recommend reading that post to learn some important basics. There are some great tips in that post, and just to summarize it, in that post we discussed:
- Why you should start a blog in Gwinnett
- Buying Domains – My favorite place to purchase domains and things to consider
- Hosting Providers – This is extremely important. I gave you two great places to get hosting from
- WordPress review – We talked about WordPress and why it is great for bloggers.
- Website Theme – I gave you some great themes to look into and even a marketplace where you and find new ones
If you need information on any of those topics, then definitely go check out the first post. Afterward, make sure to come back to read this one and continue to grow your knowledge as a blogger!
Blogging Strategies – Part 2
For the second phase of this tutorial process, I want to go into some of the fundamentals of blogging. You see, once you have your website up, there is still plenty of work to do. In particular, you need to then start working on your website ranking right away.
Website ranking, otherwise known as domain authority, is extremely important. This is what determines how you are ranked against other websites, how much exposure you receive organically, how often google scrapes your website (checks it for new posts), and how you appear in searches.
Quickly check your websites domain authority here at Ahref’s free backlink checker.
Google Search Engine Ranking
Your domain authority is determined by the amount of traffic your website gets over time, to show growth performance. It is also determined by the amount of backlinks your website has and gets over time, and the amount of content on your site that you rank for.
The reason there is an “over time” at the end of those sentences is because of all the black hat SEO people that boost websites. Historically, you could just backlink thousands of sites to your site and immediately get a huge domain ranking. Although, Google has gotten smarter and changed their algorithm to weight links and traffic over time higher than spikes in links and traffic over shorter periods.
Therefore, it is best to grow your links and traffic over time organically to not get penalized for huge spikes in these areas that make your site look inconsistent.
What Are Website Backlinks
Let’s take a step back though. What are website backlinks?
Backlinks are basically links that take people back to your site from other places across the internet.
For instance, if you post a link on your own website to my website, you are providing me a backlink. (Thanks boss!) The weight or relevancy of backlinks are determined by the site that is actually backlinking to you, the correlation to that site’s content has to yours, and that sites own domain ranking.
Let’s break this down.
Let’s say you own a website about puppies. Oh, everyone loves puppies.
Well, if someone like the humane society backlinks to one of your articles or your website for your great work with puppies, then you will probably get a small boost in your domain authority from this.
Now, say the casino down the street (assuming you live in Las Vegas…. just go with it) backlinks to your puppy site just because they thought something you posted was funny or meme worthy.
This backlink (from the casino) would not help you as much because the casino’s content is not relevant to the keywords YOU rank for (which in this instance would be puppies not something like poker chips for the casino’s site).
The back link still helps you getting a high domain authority over all, but not as much as the humane society. This is because the humane society ranks high for keywords like puppies similar to your own site.
What are Website Keywords
If you read closely, I was using the term keywords.
Keywords are anything that someone can search in the google search bar.
For instance, I can search for “Tasty Donuts Nearby” or I could search for “Wooden Tables for Sale“.
Both of these examples are considered keywords. You create your site’s keywords by using header tags throughout your text with H1, H2, H3, H4, and onward tags. These header tags will essentially be your keywords that you rank for. To see one of MY keywords or header tags, scroll up and read the large text like “Blogging Strategies – Part 2” or “Google Search Engine Ranking”. These are keywords that this post specifically will be ranking for.
There are tons of strategies on how to rank better, but the simplest method is to create long-tail keywords.
What are Long-Tail Website Keywords
Long-tail keywords are just like normal keywords, except you add the word tail at the end. Just kidding, that is not what they are.
Long-tail keywords are simply just keywords with….more words. For instance, let’s use the examples above.
To make the keywords above into a long-tail keyword format we can add more specific words that we want to rank for.
If you are searching for “Tasty donuts nearby” in Maine, then simply make your header,
“Tasty Donuts nearby in Maine”.
Likewise, if you are searching for “Wooden Tables For Sale” in Georgia, then change your header to say,
“Wooden tables For Sale in Georgia”
What this does is decrease the competition your website will have when ranking for these keywords. You may not get as much traffic, but this is how you slowly start to build up your organic traffic of your website. You will in fact get more traffic through long-tail keywords starting off then short-tail keywords because you can not possibly out rank all the other sites competing for those words.
Long-Tail Keyword Research
A difficult thing to do is find the best long-tail keywords to rank for.
Although, there are plenty of useful tools to help you in that endeavor. My two favorite are:
Both of these sites can help you find out what the best keywords are to use. Ideally, you want to find high volume keywords that have low competition and high volume. These are the best headers to include in your blogs relative to the content you write. Although, make sure to post every blog you write on your social media platforms to gain even more exposure than organic reach.
Social Media Influence For Bloggers
Now that your site is up, you are starting to rank organically, and you are doing the necessary research, its time to develop a social media following.
Over time, your posts will organically start to become ranked and found naturally through google search, but the fastest way to gain traffic and increase exposure is to gain social media presence. This is also the easiest way to get your posts to go viral, get helpful tips, and meet some amazing people.
Blogging on Facebook
The first platform I would utilize is obviously, Facebook. You probably already have hundreds of friends on this platform, and usually people like to click on things and share them.
For Facebook, I would start a page for your blog. Invite people to like it, post your new blogs there, and share them through your personal profile. Add as much life and character to the page as you can! Over time, the likes will accumulate and more people will end up finding your website through Facebook!
Twitter For Bloggers
Twitter is the second platform I would use. Although, it is important to know each platform is different from the other.
Twitter is more about engaging. Specifically, engaging on other people’s posts. Therefore, you can post your blogs, but make sure to retweet other blogger’s posts, and similar topics that you blog about. This will make the Twitter community of that topic start to notice you over time. Remember, comments are the most powerful tool on Twitter. leave meaningful and engaging comments on as many posts relative to your topic everyday that you can.
Slowly, you will start to gain influence and Twitter will give your Tweets more exposure and ultimately your blog. Twitter is probably the best chance a blogger has of going viral organically out of all the social media platforms. Speaking from experience here.
Pintrest Blogs
Pintrest is one of those, either you get it or your don’t platforms. I suggest trying it out regardless.
People who are successful on this platform can generate tons of traffic from it, but it really takes care, dedication, and understanding of the platform. Sadly, I am not an expert in anyway on this platform, but I have seen its potential from friends blogging.
Linkedin Pages for Bloggers
Linkedin is another great option that most people probably do not consider.
On Linkedin, you can create a page for your business or blog. You can then market your posts from the page and again share them from your personal profile. A great thing about Linkedin is you can add almost anyone and send plenty of friend requests.
Find the people in your industry or relevant to your topic you blog about, then add them and share your posts. I easily get extra views on this platform since I have over 4000 connections. Remember, social media is all about opportunity. As a new blogger, you need to take every opportunity you can to get recognized.
Instagram Influencer Blog
The last platform I will recommend using is Instagram.
Almost everyone around the globe is familiar with this platform, and Instagram has changed the lives of thousands of people by giving them exposure they could not get on other platforms. Like Facebook and Instagram, you can create a page specifically for your blog. Since you will probably use a cover photo for each blog post, this is a perfect place to duplicate the photo and post it.
Make sure to put your blogs link in the information section at the top, and like Twitter, start engaging with other people in the same industry as you.
Blogging Strategies in Gwinnett
I hope this post about blogging strategies in Gwinnett has helped you in some way. If it has, make sure to share so that other people can learn, grow and develop their skills.
In addition, there will be a part 3 to this series, so be on the look out for that! Now, go start that Gwinnett Blog and start growing your sales, following, and impact.
