Creating a Successful Blog: 5 Tips

Updated January 13, 2023

One Marketer’s Musings

What are the secrets of creating a successful blog? This is a question I pondered earlier this week as our website achieved a major content marketing milestone: 300 published blog posts. As an online marketing agency, we need to walk our talk. And I think our blog does just that. Here are 5 proven tips to creating a blog that’s worthy of reading and sharing:

Consistency Counts

Creating a successful blog demands consistency. It’s truly a labor of love. It’s never done. The more consistent you publish content, the sooner search engines bots will figure out your publishing schedule. Your goal is to get your content indexed quickly and often. Worried about other’s stealing your content? Well… whoever gets indexed first, wins. For those of us who focus on original and quality content, I know this doesn’t seem fair. That’s just how it (currently) works.

Creating a Successful Blog Requires Organization

If you aren’t using an editorial calendar, I highly recommend it especially if multiple contributors (within your organization or outsourced talent) are writing blog content. Establishing and sticking to a schedule goes a long way toward consistently publishing content. A calendar organizes the status of your content marketing pieces; you can quickly decide where they are in the various stages of completion.

It’s About Them Not You

Hopefully this isn’t a secret blogging tip for you. While your static webpages may be about what your company offers, a successful blog focuses on educating the reader. We’re always on the hunt for a new and trending topic to write about (more on that later) that we can explain with our unique twist or added-value point of view.

If your organization has multiple target audiences, having personas will help keep your blog reader-centric. Your writers, as they develop blog posts, can refer to these personas so they focus on creating content that’s relevant and attention-getting.

Keyword Research & Trends

Creating a successful blog also requires an White Hat SEO strategy, including keyword research and trending analysis. If you don’t want to write for an empty stadium, be sure you are writing about topics that your audience is actually searching for. A blog built upon a solid White Hat SEO architecture will help gain visibility. It won’t happen overnight. However, consistently published content (see tip #1) that’s well optimized will build White Hat SEO equity.

Inspiration Is the Magic Ingredient

Finding inspiration for one blog post isn’t that hard. Finding inspiration so you publish multiple times within a week can be a challenge. Not to sound like a broken record but creating a successful blog requires commitment. Feeling stuck? I’ve summarized several sources where you can troll for ideas that spark the imagination or content tools to curate relevant topics.

Recently I had the opportunity to teach at a UCSC Extension marketing class. All of them were eager to learn how create great blog content. They were surprised to learn that one of the most important tools in my blogging arsenal is Pandora (besides WordPress, of course). I’ve created several “radio” stations that help me concentrate while writing. Caveat: it takes practice to train your brain. However, once you’ve created the habit, the results are amazing. By the way, this trick can be applied to other activities requiring sustainable focus.

Creating a successful blog doesn’t happen overnight. It takes planning. It takes focus. It takes discipline. Writing inspired content is rewarding for both you and the reader.

Now that blog number 301 is done, I wonder what the next 300 will teach me.