It’s one thing to own a blog, it’s another to make it successful. I must admit that running Fashion & Style Police has not been easy. In fact, far from easy. It has gotten harder and harder to continue to create unique, quality content every day. I put in long hours of work to make it what it is today, and it is still a work in progress.
I still remember what I had to sacrifice to keep my blog up and running. Of course, I made mistakes along the way, but it has all been part of my learning experience, and I won’t trade any of those mistakes for anything. I wrote about a few mistakes I made in the early days in my book – How to Cash In as a Blogger, so download a copy if you haven’t done so already.

Now I want to share tips with you on how you can run an established, successful blog –

1.    Develop a plan
First of all if you want your blog to be successful, you need to take it seriously. Running a successful blog is hard work, so you have to be mentally and physically ready for it. You don’t update your blog daily this month, and barely update once a week next month. You have to consistent and focused.
Clearly state your vision and mission for your blog and outline the steps you need to take to make it happen. Plan out how you want to achieve your goals.

2.    Create great quality content
Great content keeps your readers coming back and keeps them engaged. Everyone loves quality, so quality content will get shared and reshared, which may lead to your post going viral.

There are different types of quality content, and they mean different things to different people. But for me, quality content has pretty pictures. Quality content is relatable. Quality content informs, educates or entertains. Quality content is written in clear regular english. Minimal swear words and slangs, if needed.

The key to great content is value. Give content that is well researched and useful to your readers. Let the aim of any piece of content you put on your blog be to help someone. And remember you can help people in a variety of ways. You can put a smile on a face, make someone laugh out loud or just be a source of inspiration or entertainment on a boring day.

3.    Optimize your blog
If your blog is SEO-friendly, it helps increase your blog’s visibility. Use the right keywords in your blog posts so your blog comes up in search results.
Increasing the loading speed of your blog and optimizing your images also helps increase your search rankings. Google knows that slow pages are annoying, I find them so annoying, so Google ranks sites that give their readers a better user-experience higher on the search results.

4.    Engage with your readers
Your blog is nothing without your readers. So take time to respond to their comments when you can, and interact with your followers on social media.

5.    Consistently develop your knowledge and skill
You need to always be up to date with information on your niche. After all you’re putting yourself out there as an expert so you have to do your part by making sure you are informed. In the long run, this improves your blog content and you’ll be seen as the go-to resource for information in your niche.

6.    Publicize your blog
Do all you can to let people know about your blog. Share your blog posts in relevant groups on social media, use the relevant hashtags, write guest posts and network with other bloggers in your niche.

7.    Be consistent
Consistency is key. Whatever strategy, routine or plan you have for your blog, stick to it. Have a schedule to help you track what you post, when you post and how often you post your blog posts.

Having a successful blog takes time. Do not be discouraged if you don’t start to see results immediately. It took me 4 months of blogging to get a sponsored post offer, and the offers only became regular a year ago, after blogging for 2 years steady. Keep doing what you are doing, and you’ll get there. Good luck, and do share any extra tips you may have in the comment section below.

Happy Sunday.