Today I want to share with you the top 5 things that I personally feel are the essentials for blogging success. Before I share my blogging essentials, I want to share my own blogging story with you. If you already know it, feel free to skip down.
Just to let you know that I have included some affiliate links in this post. I only ever recommend things that I personally use. You will never pay more by using my links and with some things, you’ll get a discount or bonus.
My blogging success story
I’ve been blogging for many years, for a long time that was as a part of my coaching business where I’d add the odd blog post to attract clients to my business.
In 2016, I realized that I actually loved the blogging side of the business much more than the private coaching, so over the next 12 months, I focused on building a blog revenue that I could easily live off.
As a single mum to a grown adult in full-time education, I need my blogs to pay. At the start of 2017, I was able to stop coaching and become a full-time blogger and content creator.
Now, I want to be totally transparent. I’m not yet making a whopping 6-figure income. I’m definitely not there yet. When I decided I wanted to focus on blogging as my main income stream, I worked out the amount of monthly income I needed to make to cover my budget (to include a moderate lifestyle).
I was able to achieve that in 2017 and have managed to push that up a little since then. I am very clear about the life I want and that for me includes lots of time freedom, which I definitely have in abundance and love it.
So, that gives you an idea of where I’m at with my own blogging journey. I tell you this because I think so many new bloggers have false expectations of how quickly they will start making big money.
From my own experience, it’s not a get quick rich project but the money does come in at a reasonable level over time and from my experience is still increasing.
Read more about why I swapped coaching to be a full-time blogger and to find out how I personal monetize my blogs, read 4 ways I make money from blogging.
Now, you know a bit more of my blogging history, I’m going to share the 5 things that I consider to be essential to create a successful blog. Other bloggers will no doubt have extra must-haves and if you are a blogger and want to add to this list, please let us know what your essentials are in the comments.
1. First Class Hosting
Excellent blog hosting will save you so much stress and the support a great hosting company can give you is absolutely priceless.
I have to be completely honest, I’ve had some hosting nightmares over the years and I wish I’d have had someone point me in the right direction at the start of my own blogging journey as it would have saved me so much stress and money.
A great blog hosting company will support you in creating the blog you really want and they’ll give you the tech help you need.
I host all of my blogs with Lyrical Host and I can totally say that they are amazing.
I encourage you to read my blog post Cheap WordPress Hosting That You Can Rely On (they do provide hosting for other platforms too but I’m using WordPress.
If you decide to buy hosting with them, add my discount code BLOGESSENTIALS at checkout to receive 10% Discount at Lyrical Host (It’s my referral code).
3 Reasons I love Lyrical Host
- They give me such incredible support – Both blogging support to make my blog the best it can be and tech support that is so much more than I’ve ever received before. Having reliable hosting is so important
- They’re very reasonably priced and very upfront about the price (no hidden extras)
- They’re a company I’m proud to be involved with. They give back to customers and to really important charities. I feel good about my money supporting this business.
GO TO LYRICAL HOST and use the DISCOUNT CODE BLOGESSENTIALS for 10% Discount
2. Pinterest & Tailwind
I know this is technically two things but they are a power duo and work together. Pinterest is a free visual search engine. It’s not social media as many people think. People go there specifically to search for things they are interested in.
Tailwind is a paid scheduling service that I could not be without and have the level of traffic I have. I would never get anything else done. Here’s my referral code for TAILWIND. This will get you a free trial and $15 credit to your account when you buy the plan.
Pinterest is by far the biggest driver of traffic to my blogs (although, Google traffic is nearly a match now at the time of writing this post). I use Canva to create my images.
I use Canva Pro which gets me some really nice images. Lots of the free images are great but I find I have a better choice with the Pro plan. At the time of writing this post, it’s £10.99 after the free trial.
I recommend SIMPLE PIN MEDIA – Blog and podcast for the best and most up to date Pinterest advice. As a minimum, create vertical, good quality images with clear image text and make sure you add a description, alt text and title.
I personally add 1 pin (occasionally more) to my blog post and then I’ll create more (a total of 5) pins that I add directly to Pinterest and schedule out over the next few weeks. I use a different image or change the in-image text slightly. Different images appeal to different people.
Pinterest isn’t like social media. I have pins that I created years ago that still drive traffic to my site. And don’t be under the illusion that Pinterest is just for women who cook or like crafts. It’s for all kinds of people with all kinds of interests.
Recommended reading – Pinterest tips for bloggers
Tailwind
In my opinion, Tailwind is a must if you ever intend to actually create any content for your blog. Without it, I would spend a ridiculous amount of time on Pinterest. It’s predominantly a scheduling service but it’s so much more.
You can find out how boards are performing because you don’t want to be pinning to poorly performing boards and other insights. But, the thing I love most is TRIBES.
They’re very similar to boards on Pinterest but they tend to be much more beneficial. My advice is to find some niche tribes that are performing well in general and see how they perform for you.
You’ll easily be able to see how many repins you’re getting. I go into tribes once a week and schedule loads of pins that I like from each tribe always making sure that I repin more from the tribe than I add to it. Then I add 1 or 2 of my own pins to relevant tribes daily (most days).
Recommended reading: Tailwind tips for bloggers
3. SEO
Okay, I’m kind of cringing as I write this one because I’ve only recently embraced SEO. But I’ll let you into a secret. It used to completely overwhelm me and totally confuse me. For ages, my successful blogging friends have been telling me that I need to focus on SEO but I just didn’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong, I do totally get how important it is to rank high on Google for our chosen keywords but I didn’t know how to do it. However, I have now found a fantastic SEO COURSE that actually makes sense.
It’s by the hosting company that I mentioned earlier so the support is amazing. All I can say is that SEO is definitely worth spending time learning. I wish I’d have focused on this right from the start of my blogging life.
GET MY FREE BLOG POST CHECKLIST
4. A can-do, determined, committed attitude
Do not skip this section whatever you do. Seriously, mindset is an absolute essential for long-term blogging success. Without a can-do, determined and committed attitude you will fail in this blogging world. I have it, some would say it has been sheer arrogance believing that I could do this blogging thing.
But I can tell you that there have been many days where I have questioned myself, my ability, my sanity!!! There have been tears and tantrums along the way. But, there are so many people who hit the first hurdle and give up. I’m telling you right now that there will be hurdles, there will be many but it’s worth it. Stick with it.
5. Constant Content
You’ve got to be creating constant content to build a successful blog that attracts new readers and keeps people coming back. Now, here’s the thing.
It’s so easy to focus on Social Media, Pinterest, SEO (all great) but the priority task for your blogging life needs to be creating great content consistently.
This doesn’t mean churning out daily posts that have little value. It means really putting in the time and effort to create great content that will really help your readers.
I’ve definitely fallen into the trap of focusing so much on the other things and not creating content and I see lots of other people who are struggling to build a successful blog do it too. Constant content. I’d say at least one really good post a week as a minimum, especially when you’re in the early stages of building your blog.
Here’s a fantastic freebie from my friends over at Elite Blog Academy – 120 AWESOME BLOG POST IDEAS
A take it or leave it addition – Email list
Okay, I didn’t add this as one of my essentials because whilst I definitely see that there’s a huge value in having an email list connected to your blog, I don’t have a list at all for one of my blogs and currently don’t have an opt-in for this blog though I do have people on my mailing list.
I’ll be changing that soon. Some people will tell you not to bother, others say it’s a must. I’m on the fence with this one. I’ve had a real love-hate relationship with emails over the years.
My advice is to do your own research. I personally didn’t feel it was worth my time or worth spending money on at the moment because I wasn’t committed to it. If you are going to be committed to it then definitely do it.
Essentials for blogging success roundup
Okay, so let’s do a little recap of my blogging essentials for success.
- Get excellent hosting that offers amazing support
- Use Pinterest and Tailwind
- Learn SEO
- Create a positive, can-do attitude and don’t give up
- Constantly create content
I do put a lot of my blogging success down to my training with Elite Blog Academy. I encourage you to read my ELITE BLOG ACADEMY REVIEW and be sure to get on the EBA waitlist as they only open their doors for new members once a year for just a few days.
You’ve got this. I’d love to hear about your blogging journey so far and what you’d like to achieve over the coming year.
Get My FREE BLOG POST CHECKLIST
Happy Blogging – Please share this post wherever you can as that really helps me to grow my blog. Thanks always.
