How to Blog Successfully in an ever Changing World

Blogging is easy.  At least it is if you have any interest in writing.  You don't need any other special skills really...... If you just want to blog.

Blogging successfully is a completely different beast all together.  But, what does that really mean? The idea of being a successful  blogger will differ between individuals.  But, in general the essence of what makes a good blogger is the same.  A successful blogger is one who is able to keep up with the times in his or her own demographic.  One who stays a little ahead of everyone else, in order to produce fresh posts that are different from anyone else on the blog.  A successful blogger understands that there is more to blogging than just writing an occasional post.  In fact, that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Blogging for beginners: Blogging tips from a now seasoned veteran

I have now been an official pro-blogger for about a year and a half.  I have spend countless hours scouring the internet and any other source imaginable for any possible blogging tip or trick you could even begin to think of.  And for the most part, I have given many of them a test, to see what works and what does not.  To see if there are any blogging shortcuts.  Any way to convince the search engines that I deserve first place is SERP amongst the most competitive keywords.  And Amazingly enough, I have nothing to report, other than write, write, write, write, until your mind hurts and your fingers bleed.  then write a little more.  Then backlink, backlink, backlink, until everyone under the sun is completely annoyed by you.
This may or may not get the job done.  Real "Pro-Bloggers"  don't do that much work anymore.  A real "problogger"  does not need little blogging tips or tricks to take their blog to the next level, because they succeed at this point by sheer numbers.  They may or may not write anymore, many of them are now nothing more than a vessel for guest bloggers to post on their site.  And they use a team of well trained individuals to strategically place links all over the internet.  And they have this down to such a science, that the chance of us, lesser bloggers to achieve their success in their particular niche is virtually impossible.

I know, I spend an awful lot of time nay-saying on this blog.  Telling you how you can't do this or that, that you will never succeed with this or that.  And I do not mean to squash anybody's hopes or dreams here.  I am just dishing truth.  This blog, the one you are reading, blogging for beginners, is just over a year old, it has something like 50 blog posts on it, and it does fairly well, for an array of search terms.  But, none of the very most important search terms.  And it never will.  And as long as certain "pro blogger" individuals are up and running, I can confidently assume that I will never hit number one in the terms I started this blog for.  And I am ok with that.  With time comes a form of complacency maybe, but also the reality of what it would really take.

And that brings me to my number one blogging tip for all who stumble upon this blog.  Every topic, niche, keyword, or keyword phrase has a scalable amount of success attached to it.  And there are enough tools out there in the world web, to figure out how much effort it will take to achieve certain levels of success.  To work as hard as you can, and to be a realist about what you are doing. To not get disappointing, because you sometimes need to let a blog age and marinate before it will actually start to build steam.  And to cut your losses if no success comes.

I have started built and walked away from dozens of blogs.  And at this point in time, I have learned to accept the fact that some ideas will work while others will wallow and fail.

I have learned that passion about a particular topic helps.  But logical keywords choices well outweigh passion.  And for every niche or keyword that has a PROBLOGGER, will also have about a million other bloggers following in his or her tracks to pick up the scraps. 

So, to all you budding bloggers out there.  If you have not been able to figure out my cryptic blogging tip from this mess of a post.  I can sum it up to a single statement.

Do your Keyword Homework

And write to entertain.  Not just to teach.  Writing can be a colorful and magical painting if you choose your words write and if you write them with style and grace.  I am not telling anyone to do or to write like I do, because I really do not know how much my style is enjoyed.  you all may find me annoying, I really do not know.

As some final author notes.  I am still looking for guest bloggers.  I am surprised that I have not really had any interest.  Maybe I am overvaluing myself, but I feel that guest blogging is a really good way to build awareness. 

And also, I am working on a very large and involved project, I hope you will all check it out soon.  I is going to be something a little different than anything I have ever done before.  It is called the Books of Lineage.

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, and I hope you have found something about blogging tips in my random ramblings. 

Understanding Keywords and Phrases for Beginner Bloggers

Understanding Keywords and Keyword phrases is a very important factor when we are talking about online content.  Although quality content is king, if we do not correctly use keywords and keyword phrases, we will be left without any pages views.  For some of you that will not matter, but for the majority of Bloggers out there, it is of paramount importance for us to be found and read.  And found for the correct niche topic.

So what are Keywords?
Keywords are describer words that search engines will use in order to properly categorize your content within the search engines result page.  What this means is, words like Football or Fishing, or a billion other possibilities are basic keywords.  And if your Blog has a specific niche, you will need to be conscious of the fact that some of these keywords will need to be in your content.

Then, what are keyword phrases?
Keyword phrases, also known as longtail keywords are statements, questions or other groupings of words to help describe your Blog or website.  Phrases tend to be much specialized or focused.  For example, Fishing is a very broad term, but river fishing is much more focused, and river fishing for beginners, is even more specific.

So why use keyword phrases?
If you try to search the term “Fishing”, some very heavy competition is going to show up.  Competition that a beginner Blogger is not going to be able to compete with.   But a term like river fishing for beginners, there is a word with much less competition.  One that a Blogger is going to have much better luck with ranking well in search engine results.

So, how do I find Keywords and Phrases?
Google just so happens to have a very useful tool called Adwords Keyword Tool.  With this tool, you are able to punch in your basic keyword, and from that, Google is going to generate for you, how many times that keyword is searched, and will also give you a whole list of alternate keywords and short phrases, with their traffic values.

So, how does this all work?
Ok, so you now have a basic understanding of what keywords and phrases are, but how are you supposed to use this information?  It is tricky.  I will explain how I usually use keywords as best as I can.

When I start a new Blog, I have a specific topic in mind.  Let’s take this blog for example.  This blog is about blogging.  But the keyword Blogging has way too much competition; I would not be able to compete with that.  So I narrow it down.  I make my blog about blogging for beginners, there is much less competition there.  So, I make sure that all my posts draw some focus to the fact that the overriding factor here is “blogging for beginners”, or, my alternate keyword “blogging lessons for beginners”.  So, The majority of everything I write about here will go back to those basic keywords.

But every post is not going to be called Blogging for beginners or blogging lessons for beginners, that would just be ridiculous.  But it will always come back to that.  In this post, I have focused on “Understanding Keywords and Phrases”, and those are my primary keywords for this specific post, all the while referring back to my primary keywords for the entire blog.

Does that make sense?  It was not something I just learned overnight, and it is not something that people really explain in detail.  For one reason or another, since we are all on the Internet competing with each other in one way or another, some tricks are not completely explained.  Understandable, but it makes it very difficult for beginners to learn what they need to know in order to become productive.

So…What did I learn today?
You learned that understanding your goals and Niche topic is very important when establishing keywords.  That there are tools available to us in order to find good core keywords for our blogs, and for out posts.  And you have learned that it is important to include your keywords within your content, in order for search engines to know how to classify your blog.  If you’re writing about fishing you do not want to somehow show up in off roading or something. 

I hope this helps you and gives you a basic understanding of keywords and phrases.  And come back soon to get more blogging lessons for beginners. (See I squeezed it on one more time, and it’s not too forced)

Blog topic Ideas – Niche Blogging

One of the first steps for any new blogger will be to brainstorm for BLOG TOPIC IDEAS, or NICHE BLOGGING.  It will be something you will spend a lot of time doing through your entire blogging career.  For some of you, it will probably become an obsession of sorts.  For others, it will be like pulling teeth.  It is monotonous, time consuming research into words that relate to the overall theme of your blog. 

This is a huge topic for new bloggers.  It is an important thing to consider from the moment you decide to make a blog of your own and it is something you will always need to consider, if your goal is to get steady, organic traffic from search engines.  And it is your first lesson, in not only how to blog, but general SEO tactics most bloggers employ in order to develop a popular blog.

Being that the topic is big, I am going to attempt to break it up into sections on the process I would use when deciding on Keywords, Topics, niches and themes for my own blogs.

Bright Ideas can become great niche blogs

Step #1-Why do you want to blog?

The first course of business when starting a new blog will be to decide why you want to make a blog.  Will it be for personal use, similar to a diary, maybe a place for your friends and family to come and see what is happening in your life, if so, you can stop reading right there, this post is more about the importance of laser like focus surrounding a specific group of people that you would like to be able to find your blog, using conventional search engine phrasing.

If your goal is to get pull readers to your blog from search engines, whether that is just to share information, or with the expectation of monetizing your blog and earn extra income, will be your choice. 

First step out of the way, now we can begin learn how to decide what to blog about.

Step #2-Deciding what to blog about, or choosing your niche.

This step is still tough for me.  Most people that teach blogging will tell you to brainstorm all your hobbies and interests, things that take up most of your time, and choose from them your topic to blog about.  It’s a good game plan, but it was rather humbling to me when I first did this and found very little of substance that I would like to spend countless hours, writing about.

Another option in finding blog topic ideas is an approach I favor.  Find something that interests you, but something you are not necessarily pursuing currently.  It will make your work much harder, you will have to learn and become proficient in your topic.  It will require countless hours or research, and it surely is not for everyone.  But for me, a researcher at heart, find it to be a rewarding experience.

The important thing to remember when choosing your niche is that you will be studying the topic from every different angle you can imagine, and attempting to find topics within your topic to write about on your blog.  And you will be writing and writing and writing, so your subject should be one you really like.  It will become very tedious to continue with a blog, if you reach a point where you have no interest left in the topic.

Step #3-Focus your Topic into a Micro Niche

This is where you will start to utilize some online tools in order to attack your topic with laser like accuracy.

I will use an example:

Say you want to start a blog about cars.  First off, there are millions upon millions of niches within that single word that you need to consider.  The truth is, you will have little chance of ever ranking in search engines with such a general term.  So let’s start to pinpoint that topic a little bit.

If you are having trouble at this point, I would suggest a few different options to get some ideas:

Google:  If you put the word ‘cars’ in the search bar in Google, before you hit enter, it will give you some alternative options to the term.  Do any of these ring true with you?  Maybe one of those are a better place for you to start.  If not, hit enter, and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.  At the bottom of the page is a list of suggested related terms.  Maybe one of these are more interesting to you.  Grab it if you want.

Keyword Tool:

There are tons of keyword tools out there.  If you have a Google Adword account you can use the Google Keyword Tool.  If you don’t, or you do not like it, there are other options.  Keywordtool.io is one.  It’s not going to give you search volumes though, only suggested keywords for your broad term keyword.  It will give you a list of more focused keywords you can use for your blog niche.

If you would like something a little more powerful, I suggest Jaaxy.  It is part of the Wealthy Affiliates network, which, I have to disclose, I am a part of.  You can set up an account with Jaaxy and it will give you 30 keyword searches per month.  It will give you monthly searches and estimated traffic, along with some other useful information.  Along with a list of suggested related keywords to the one you enter.

As a rule of thumb for all this, you will want a keyword, or Blog Topic idea, or Niche that isn’t too high, I would say, under 3,000, remember, this is for your overall theme to your blog, all your posts will be best if they tie back to this major topic in some way or another.

Another thing to look at during this process is your competition.  If you search your topic in Google, using “” around the words, you will find sites with exact matches to that search term.  You want this number to be low.  I like a quantity of under twenty percent of your total monthly searches.  This means I would like to see 60 sites or less turn up if the monthly searches are 3000.  This might be difficult with general keyword terms of one or two words.  More than likely you will be looking for terms or three to 6 words long.

With these tools, I am hoping you can find a niche that suits you.  Personally, if I was looking at the broad term, ‘cars’ my final choice would have ended up being something like ‘Car Engines’ and the name of my blog, would run along the lines of something like, How to Repair Car engines. Or Something like Saturn Car Engines.

Step #4-Deciding on Blog Post Topics, Niches within Niches

Now that you have the basic foundation laid for your blog topic idea, you can begin compiling a list of topics you want to write about on your blog.  Generally, I like to grab a fairly substantial list and try to write a post for every keyword I decide on.  You can use the same steps as above, using the keyword tool of your choice to start drilling down into the keyword to find more focused topics.  Here, you will want to find words with little competition, that also have monthly search totals of 50 or more.  The number seems low, and it is.  You are just starting this blog and you will want to start small if you want any early success.  With time you can look for tougher keywords, but I would recommend you start with the small fries first.

Blog topic ideas can be difficult to come up with

In Conclusion

That is the basic process I go through when I am searching for blog topic ideas, and in the bigger aspect of Niche Blogging.  It is going to be important for you to start small when you are new, and looking for things to blog about.  It takes time to build authority, and it takes more time to compete with blogs and websites that are in your blogging niche and have been around for years. 

Blogging is easy, but lifting an engine is easy,  but both require tools and planning if your intent is to be successful.

Thank you for reading.
(This Post has been edited on: November 24, 2015)