Finding your voice, then, should be your first concern for without it you will never have a successful blog. Some writers and even advertisers refer to it as a ‘hook’; without it any new reader will not be reeled in by your text. This is why you often find people talking about great first lines in novels, such as:

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.”

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”

“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new”

From passion, to despondency to a humor darker than a moonless night, each of these lines has something in it that compels you to read on. Capture this well enough and your readers will keep on coming back to you like they’re addicted to crack. So how do you capture your voice and distil it into your blogs? Forget voice as you normally know it; your voice might be like Mickey Mouse’s for all we know but no one can hear your voice, so you’re safe (for now). What you should focus on more is the voice readers feel they hear when they read through your work. What shines through should be distinctly you and distinct in itself. It’s a very abstract concept and hard to capture, but once done it’s the most powerful tool in a writer’s arsenal.

Forget about blogs and think about your favorite writers instead for a moment. There is always that one quality about them that is so appealing, ranging from such things as Hemingway’s simplicity or Ludlum’s picturesque thrills. It’s that inescapable beauty that you must look to capture. Here’s how you can go about doing likewise.

Be spontaneous

Your inner chi flows most freely when you pull out the plugs in the dam that holds your soul. Okay, maybe it doesn’t but it is fun to make stuff like that up from time to time. Be spontaneous and just give air to your inner writer without judgment. Give yourself a three minute timer and just write, don’t think about it. Review yourself after three minutes and you’ll be surprised how freely your mind can paint a picture when you cut loose your inhibitions. What comes across will be quirky, will be authentically you and in the process, you can discover your voice.

Write as you’d speak

This is the truest test of your writing voice; is that writing on a page really you speaking? If it isn’t, re-work it until it is truly representative of you. If that confuses you, just sit back and ponder what is essentially you, words and phrases you might use and so on. You’ll see a difference come across instantaneously.

No norms

From a young age, we are drilled in the classical styles of writing and told to write in a standard style that conforms to norms. Sometimes, however, it is better to just break free and be you. The point of writing is to communicate a message and to that extent you must follow the written code. But feel free to experiment and use literary license on other occasions. In other words, feel free to explore yourself if you feel it’ll improve the quality and clarity of your message.

Just be brave in whatever you do and be yourself, a bit of sincerity and yourself reflected in a piece of writing goes a long way in endearing yourself to a reader.

Coming up with a headline that works is very straightforward. Ask yourself this; how much would you read as a headline? Humans have an attention span that is at its peak only for a short period of time, and beyond that interest rapidly wanes away. Normally, in terms of reading a headline it extends to a few seconds. It shouldn’t drone on and it should be like a good potato chip; crisp and delicately to the point. Try this for size:

“The six mistakes ignorant investors make when it comes to approaching investment and what you can do to avoid it.”

Now while this headline sums up the spirit of the article perfectly it’s a bit long-winded to say the least. Perhaps you might have even lost your train of thought somewhere along the middle of it all! Brevity is the soul of knowledge, and that soul has been sold out and whored out several times over in the course of that headline. I doubt you can even remember what that headline was exactly at this point in time (don’t peek, we know you want to). That headline is a mish-mash of too much happening all at once. Peruse instead these great book titles:

“Don’t stand too close to a naked man”

“Where the Wild Things Are”

“By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”

“Kinky Friedman’s Guide To Texas Etiquette, Or How To Get To Heaven Or Hell Without Going Through Dallas-Fort Worth”

You would have not noticed a certain succinctness with each of these titles and memorability to each of them. The last one is far longer than the rest, but still memorable. “But it’s long!” you say and you are correct, but it is the punctuation that saves it. Punctuation is in fact the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandpa!” and “Let’s eat Grandpa!” How to punctuate something is entirely up to you, but it can make a sentence much easier or much more sensible to read because of the mental pause it affords. Let that be a lesson to you.

Some will look at it as being frivolous and unnecessary, but some will relish the change in tone. Just as it is in the real world, you can’t please everyone all of the time but you can most certainly at least make sure that you are having a good time while you’re at it. This idea struck me while I was peering in at a class full of kindergarten kids busy with some art classes creating what I would at best (or worst) call modern art. Most of those kids were less busy trying to create a work of perfection and more intent on just having a whale of a time and slathering the walls (and occasionally the paper in front of them) with all sorts of colors while doodling all kinds of unrecognizable shapes.

Amazingly, even at such a tender age, some of them displayed a remarkable capacity for intricacy and quality in their work and looking back I realize that those were the ones that were having the most fun while they were at it. Over time, as I observed this intrepid bunch of kids more and more, I noticed subtle variations and distinct improvements in the way these kids used a brush or even their fingers to paint an image and the more they tried something new, the more evolved their art became over time.

And then it struck with the force of a thousand Elephants stampeding through the Savannah; how is it any different for blogging?

As you pick up and drop styles of writing and experiment, you will stumble upon some that stick and work for you while there will be those you discard and this is true for you and your readers. Your personal experiments could range from satirical styling to sardonic ranting to even using a third person writing style. There are no rules other than those that you impose on yourself, but there is one overriding rule; it has to be impactful for you and your readers, otherwise where’s the fun in trying something new?

1. Write a lot

   This is really important because when you write over a period of time, you get to know all the mistakes that you have done in the past. Your writing too gets better after a period of time. You should also put plenty of posts in your blog as you will get more juice from the search engines. If there is plenty of content pouring in, readers will visit your blog more frequently to read your write ups.

2. Be concise

   

   This is acknowledged by all successful bloggers. People visit your blog simply because they wish to learn something new. No one reads blogs just for the blabber or fluff. Practice writing over a period of time and develop a skill where in you catch people’s attention with the first line itself. The reader should be left begging for more.

3. Be analytical

   Study the readers and know what they want to read online. Your articles should give what the readers want. I spent lots of time on the Internet studying where people came from, what search terms, what search engines, what sites, etc. I even studied about where the people come from. See what kind of articles people are looking for and write accordingly. Headlines must be really attractive because it is the first thing that the reader notices. It should make the person go through the entire article. Then just tailor the content to suit the research that you have done. Don’t forget to put appropriate images for the posts.

4. Be consistent and focused

   The mantra here is first choose a topic and then stick to it. You should write consistently on the subject that you have chosen. I have observed this amongst big bloggers. They do write off line articles occasionally but eventually it relates to the overall theme. This is a bit hard to achieve but it is not impossible.

5. Plan ahead

   Successful bloggers first make a master plan and then stick to it. They are open to constructive criticism or feedback but they always have a vision in their mind. Stick to the plans and don’t get derailed.

And so, as it is with mortals, we make mistakes. I too have erred on several occasions, and noticing these errors and learning from them is what is needed when you will inevitably mess things up. Not every art work is a masterpiece and not everyone gets things in their lives right the first time out. Here are a list of the cardinal mistakes I have made and hope you make a mental note of it somewhere in the recesses of your mind so that you too do not follow the same mistake-laden path as I.

I let my URL expire

Mind you, I didn’t let this happen on purpose.  It was a lapse which no one wanted to take the blame for, and I most certainly didn’t. When I changed hosts mid-way through the year, I assumed (in my eyes, correctly) that I would get a reminder before the expiry of the contract in question. After all, I get them for my other bills, why not this one? It takes a simple e-mail at the very least. So imagine my surprise when the contract lapsed and I was not aware of this, with both hosting services later playing a game of blame-pong with me in the middle. It was dubbed a case of caveat emptor and I had learnt my lesson. Trust no one (or companies) with an IQ that is room temperature. Get a longer contract if you are truly committed and just pray like hell someone has the common sense to remind you when it’s near expiry.

I got into an online fight

Everyone has an opinion, that’s the beauty of it and the internet, with its conduciveness to anonymity, is the perfect playground for anyone to be bold and come out and say stuff they would never dream of saying in a social setting. You know how it goes. You say something innocuous, someone gets offended, someone calls the other person a derogatory word of some sort and before you know it, wham! World War III is upon us.

In my defence, I was not the aggressor. No, honestly, I wasn’t. It’s just that you cannot expect a human being to be a docile cow. Your views, while inoffensive, will rub someone the wrong way in some remote corner of the globe. And the internet is perfect for getting your otherwise inoffensive opinion to that special someone waiting for you at the other end of a computer.

I attempted to write a post on grammar

The vast, electronic seas of the internet are awash with people with more time on their hands than can be measured by any system man has devised and god forbid you try to correct someone’s grammar. Only do so if your own grounding in grammar is rock solid, like mine. At least I thought mine was, until I wrote a post on typos with two typos. No biggie, right? Wrong! All the grammar Nazis came crawling out of the woodwork with their jibes and taunts, pointing out the delicious irony of it all (I suspect they would have found my salty tears delicious too). It was a free for all, and the comments thread even had a few internet memes and cats laughing at me. Humbled, I offered up an apology, but it had another typo present in it. It was a dark day with no hope in it, and I hope you experience nothing like it.

I ticked off a fellow blogger

Meet the internet. It’s a wonderful place to sound off and generally piss people off more than you might normally and just as it is normally in life, someone’s ego and big mouth cheeses you off so much you wish you could shove a keyboard down their pie hole. I know I did. It’s at times like that you should rein in that anger and channel it in other productive ways. Neighbour’s got a pesky dog that doesn’t stop barking? No problem, dust off that shotgun. Kids meet a new bully at school? No problem, fire the bully in question so badly that he’s a whimpering, simpering pile of snot and tears. Just do not, under any circumstances get into an online fight. Want reasons why you shouldn’t? Look two points up, you reader with a goldfish’s memory, you. No, I refuse to fight with you on why I feel you’re a Goldfish while you say you’re not.

Be a quitter…not.

It’s an irresistible urge…you just get a feeling to leave it all altogether and walk away from your site. Here’s a piece of advice. Don’t do that. Instead, just keep at it one word at a time, piecing together posts you might feel a bit cumbersome and bothersome. The thing is once you’ve stopped contributing to a blog it is as good as dead in the water, it needs constant food for thought to keep it happy and kicking at all times. At a later point, if you feel that you want to blog again (as you inevitably will, it’s a vicious cycle) you will have to start all over again from scratch and it will be a painful process re-acquiring your readership and building a blog up again. Keep things interesting, or as interesting as you can, and keep at it.

Interact

Man is a social animal, and he hunts people down while craving constant communication. Talk to your readers, or at least the ones who pop in every now and again to say hi or even lambast you. It’s critical you establish a connection or a rapport with your readers because they are the life-blood of your blog whether you like it or not (no, it’s not your witty jokes. No one visits you for that. In fact, they’re not even that witty). Talk, poke, tweet, chirp, warble or do whatever else it is you want to…just don’t lose that connect no matter what.

Do not post jokes

Never ever post jokes online. At least the kind that I do, anyhow. You’re not meant to be the second coming of Benny Hill. If you are like me, you are meant to write about effective story-telling and how to get better at it, or how to get published and stuff like that. Taking things in a jocular vein comes nowhere into the picture, even if you feel so strait-jacketed on some days that you just absolutely have to joke and make a mockery of things. Doing things like I do and giving a fake name to the telemarketer or shopping assistant is only funny at a personal level. Don’t try and work your humorous charms online, it can be the very antithesis of all that you want.

In summation

I wish you don’t make the mistakes I did and that these help you, and that somehow your blogging learning curve is reduced exponentially because of me in some small way because everyone, everywhere has something to learn. And what better way to disseminate information than through a blog? It’s got all the thrill of public speaking and none of the sweaty palms it induces. Or maybe it just does that to me, I don’t know.

Give Your Opinion

Instead of writing very specific, informative article, give your opinion about it. People like to read blogs because they aren’t written by companies selling their products, but by an average individual with many things in common to them. Tell people what you think about the topic, and ask for suggestions.

Provide Resources

If your aim is to educate your readers as much as you can, provide useful resources in your post. Provide links to web pages that has more information on the topic. This will bring the visitor time and again on your blog to search for information and additional resources.

Write Less

If you can explain something in 400 words, don’t unnecessarily make it a 1,000 word article. People forget long post easily because they hardly read it. However, shorter points with proper sub-headings are more effective and attractive. Provide knowledge quickly at the speed of sound to your readers.

Write Attractive Headlines

If headlines are attractive, people will certainly look into the content of the post. However, this wouldn’t work if you don’t have relevant content inside. So, write a brilliant post, and use whatever you have to develop an attractive headline.

Have Convenient Format

Instead of letting people search for information from bunch of words and sentences, arrange them in proper manner. Don’t write essay-type posts, but posts with many headings, sub-headings, and bullet points, where finding relevant information would be easy.

Be Consistent

People subscribe to your blog because they like your writing style. If you are inconsistent in your style by providing information in random way, they will unsubscribe in seconds. Create your own style and be consistent.

Use Keywords

Jot down most-searched keywords in your niche and use them in all your posts. Put them in sub-headings, headings, headlines, and in the body. However, make sure it looks natural and don’t over use them.

Edit

Every time you edit the article, you improve its quality significantly. Before you click on ‘submit’, re-read your content and remove unnecessary information. Check for grammar and spelling mistakes.

1. All Right & Alright

Incorrect Usage: Sam wasn’t keep well until last night, but he is alright now.
Correct Usage: Sam wasn’t keep well until last night, but he is all right now.

Although ‘alright’ is being widely used in place of ‘all right’, it’s still a grammatical error.

2. Accept & Except

Incorrect Usage: Kindly except the gift.
Correct Usage: Kindly accept the gift.

Except means to exclude something, or with the exception of. On the other hand, accept means to receive something. The team visited every room except the King’s private room. In this sentence, the usage of ‘except’ is correct.

3. Advice & Advise

Incorrect Usage: He didn’t take my advise.
Correct Usage: He didn’t take my advice.

Advice is a noun, whereas, advise is a verb.

4. Its & It’s

Incorrect Usage: Keep the book back in it’s place.
Correct Usage: Keep the book back in its place.

It’s = It is. So, you cannot put ‘is’ after ‘it’s’. Besides, ‘its’ is a singular possessive adjective, used to show something that belongs to the noun.

5. Quiet & Quite

Incorrect Usage: It was a quite evening.
Correct Usage: It was a quiet evening.

Quiet, an adjective, means peaceful or without any activity. However, ‘quite’ means to a significant extent. For instance, the children are quite happy today, is a right sentence.

6. Then & Than

Incorrect Usage: Sam has more money then Andy.
Correct Usage: Sam has more money than Andy.

‘Then’ is used to indicate time. For instance, Sam opened the door, and then slammed. However, than is used to make comparisons.

7. Every Day & Everyday

Incorrect Usage: He goes for a walk everyday at seven in the morning
Correct Usage: He goes for a walk every day at seven in the morning

Everyday, as adjective, means daily. On the other hand, ‘every’ is a simply phrase that’s used before the noun ‘day’. For instance, He goes out every day. But people striding on the pathway, is an everyday occurrence.

You realize the significance of your post, hence you send an email to all the top bloggers with a link to your post. You then simply wait back for links to flood in.

However, nothing happens.

You don’t receive any links days after sending the email. You don’t even receive any reply from any of the bloggers you sent the email. Worried and anxious, you check your blog’s statistics, and you realize not many even clicked on the link that you had sent them.

Yes, they have ignored you. And you also realize that no one is even paying attention to your blog. You wonder is it practically possible to exchange links from top bloggers?

Yes, it. You simply don’t know the right method. Let us discuss why doesn’t your blog attract links and how you can get them.

Biggest Blogging Myth

‘Content is King’

Theoretically, it’s right. If you write a remarkable piece of content, readers should ideally be attracted and links should flow in.

It worked practically too, but many years ago. The internet is now much better place than it was years ago. It’s full of remarkable content, and bloggers don’t really have time to read them all, let alone linking it.

If you want links, especially in times like this when competition is much beyond your imagination, you need something more than just great piece of content.

How To Build a Popular Blog

This wouldn’t have been relevant to blogging industry years ago. However, it is very much true today: ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’.

If you are an exception writer with no online blogging friends, it will take years for your blog to become successful. On the other hand, if your friend is a mediocre write, but friends with Technorati Top 100 bloggers, he will be popular much faster than you.

Why?

This is because most bloggers link to their friends more than any one else. If you have written remarkable content, and if they link to you, it may not because of the content, but, simply because they know you personally.

So, the secret of building a great blog is not just writing great posts, but having good connections.

Is there any way to be friends with popular bloggers?

Traditional method asks linking to popular blogger’s post, and wait for them to notice your blog. If they like your blog, they may link to you as well. It may work for you sometimes. However, I believe you will need more creative method. Here are some tips that might help:

• Write guest posts for top blogs that receive many comments and lots of traffic
• Go to conferences that talks about ‘Who’s Who’ in your niche. This might help you get started.
• Actively vote or digg any articles they post on social media networks
• Send them emails asking irresistible questions. Ask questions that sparks a healthy discussion
• Post many comments, most of them should be really useful and memorable
• Interview them and ask intelligent questions

Give More to Receive More

Most top bloggers aren’t self-sufficient. They too have problems like everyone else and they need someone to help them. If you can help them resolve any of their problems, they will remember you for a long time.

The key is to find ways to be useful to them. Once you have established a reputation in their eyes, use it for your benefit. Yes, it involves lots of hard work and patience. If you put effort in building relationships as much as you do for writing content, your blog would become popular within no time.

Besides, you will be friends with few of the best minds on the web.

Yes, Google has a lot of influence over online business right now. However, with tremendous increase in number of bloggers and webmasters, it will eventually lose its power.

Since the beginning of BloggingWithChris.com, I have never bothered much about search engines. It’s not that I have something against them or I don’t entertain people coming through search engine. Not at all. It’s simply that I don’t rely on search engine for the success of my blog.

You obviously get some traffic from search engines. But you also need to realize you get most accurate traffic through direct links, and that’s where you need to focus in order to get remarkable results. Simply pretend that search engines doesn’t exist as far as your blog’s traffic is concerned. Instead, work towards building sources that no one can take away from you.

Here are three things you can do to eliminate the Google (or any search engine, for this case) Syndrome.

Focus on Subscriptions

Don’t worry about search traffic or page views. Instead, simply focus on getting more number of subscribers. After all, that’s our ultimate goal. As an online publisher, getting the right people to spend time reading your content is the greatest gift you can get. Try every possible way to get more subscribers. But avoid trying to please search engines.

Social Media

Instead of trying to please search engines, try to get direct traffic from social media networks like Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Sphinn, and so on. You will get more targeted results through these sites than search engines.

Instead of writing more everyday and targeting specific keywords, take time to write quality content. This is a sure-shot way to attract traffic from social media network. You will generate amazing results by writing less but unique content.

Selling

Most bloggers who try to please Google have their income coming in from Google AdSense. In most cases, however, the income is very low, unless you are among the top ten blogs.

When you target increasing number of subscribers through social media network, you build trust among your subscribers. And if they trust you, they can buy products sold by you online. You can sell e-books, start affiliate marketing programs, or simply have paid subscription. You will surely earn money once people start trusting you.

This is how you can eliminate over-dependency on Google and become an independent blogger.

Besides, only knowing optimization techniques doesn’t mean your blog will get enough exposure. You have to inform search engines the material you provide is exactly what people are looking for. SEO is this simple.

Before you start with on page optimization, here are few things that need to be in place.

Accessibility

If the content on your blog cannot be accessed by search engine due to erroneous codes, your page wouldn’t be indexed. Thus, it would never be ranked high with search engines regardless of how much you try to optimize.

Content

After having codes in place, focus on what people really want: content. Write outstanding content and share knowledge with your visitors. Links will automatically follow.

Enhance User Experience

Keep your site simple and easily navigable. Most people don’t want to visit a site that create barriers, is cluttered, and looks pathetic.

Marketing

There are several ways to promote your website online and offline. The more your market your website, the more traffic you will attract.

When these things are in place, you need to focus of five significant elements of SEO copywriting. Here they are.

1.    Title

Based on the niche area you are targeting, gather few keywords that are highly searched on the web. Use these keywords in title of your posts to increase it exposure. Also, it’s more effective if your title starts with the keyword.

Let’s consider an example here. Say you own a blog that helps people with making money online, and the keyword that you are targeting is ‘Make Money Online’. Instead of writing the title as ‘5 Remarkable ways to make money online’, you can write ‘Make Money Online Using these 5 Remarkable Ways’. Although it may not be as attractive as the former, it’s very effective from SEO’s perspective.

2.    Meta Description

Meta Description is a small description of your article that’s visible in search engine results just below the title. Whether or not you will get a click depends on how well you have written this description. Again, you need to infuse targeted keyword in your meta description, but make sure it’s not stuffed with it. Simple summarize your article in around 165 characters, and make it as attractive as possible.

3.    Content

If you want to impress most search engines out there, create unique content and update your blog frequently. For better optimization results (and reader friendliness), make sure you generate content that talks only about the topic, and circles around the keyword.

Very short articles make it difficult for search engines to rank your page. Try to generate post with more than 300 words.

4.    Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency is the count of targeted keywords in your post. If you have used ‘Make money online’ 3 times in your article, the keyword density is 3. Keyword density, on the other hand, is the ratio of umber of times keywords used to rest of the words. It should be around 2% of the total number of words. If it exceeds 5.5% of the total words, you may be penalized by Google for over-stuffing keywords in your article.

Keyword frequency affects your search engine optimization process significantly. Using keywords 3 times in an article is much better than using just once or twice.

5.    Page Links

In order to get your blog optimized effectively, you need to link your web pages with others on the web. Here are some effective tips to get SEO-friendly links on your page:

• Link your page to relevant web pages early in your post
• Approximately after every 120-150 words link your page to other relevant web pages.
• Paste links to your internal pages as well.
• Link with relevant anchor text

There are many other things you can do to make your content search engine friendly. This includes like using keywords in images, categories, tags, and so on. However, if you perform the above mentioned five points effectively, you would cover basic and highly efficient ways of optimizing your content.