It’s said that everyone has at least one book in them. The same could be said for blogs. If you’re thinking of starting a blog or are in the early stages of doing so, you may wonder where to start.
If you’re an amateur blogger, there’s no need to be intimidated. You don’t need to have a degree in English or journalism to start a blog that people will want to read. There are a few simple tips that any amateur blogger can follow to create informative and engaging content.
I started my first blog in 2015, and since then, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to be a successful blogger. If you’re just starting, you’ll find some helpful tips to help you get on the right track.
But first, let’s take a look at what amateur blogging is.
What Is Amateur Blogging?
Amateur blogging is creating and sharing internet content without professional experience or credentials. It’s the act of writing about your interests, experiences, and observations without any formal training.
Anyone can be an amateur blogger. You don’t need to have a college degree or years of experience to start a blog. All you need is a passion for writing and a desire to share your thoughts and experiences with the world.
Most amateur bloggers are also known as hobby bloggers. They blog for fun and don’t necessarily generate any income from their blogging activities.
However, there’s no reason why you can’t make money from your amateur blog.
Many hobby bloggers have turned their blogs into successful businesses. If you’re interested in making money from your blog, keep reading to learn more.
Amateur Blogging Vs Professional Blogging
It’s important to distinguish between amateur blogging and professional blogging. Both activities involve creating and sharing content on the internet, but there are some key differences between the two.
Professional bloggers are making money with their blogs. They may have sponsorships, sell advertising, or promote affiliate products. Professional bloggers typically have years of experience and often started their blog a while back. Their blog is their full-time job.
They might not have credentials or long studies in journalism, but they managed to earn their living from their blogs.
On the other hand, amateur bloggers aren’t necessarily looking to make money from their blogs. They’re usually blogging for fun or to share their experiences with the world. While some amateur bloggers do make money from their blogs, it’s not their primary goal.
Now that you know the difference between amateur blogging and professional blogging, let’s take a look at some tips for amateur bloggers who want to become professional bloggers.
Tips For Amateur Bloggers
If you’re an amateur blogger, you can do a few things to improve your blog and make it more professional. Keep these tips in mind as you continue blogging.
1. Choose A Niche
One of the most important things you can do when starting a blog is to choose a niche. Your niche is the topic or focus of your blog. It’s what sets your blog apart from other blogs on the internet.
When choosing a niche, it’s essential to consider your interests and expertise. What are you passionate about? What do you know a lot about? Answering these questions will help you narrow down your options and choose a niche that’s right for you.
It’s also important to consider the needs of your audience. Who are you writing for? What kind of information are they looking for? When you know your audience, choosing a niche that appeals to them is easier.
2. Find Your Voice
Your voice is the personality of your blog. It’s what makes your blog unique and sets it apart from other blogs on the internet.
When finding your voice, it’s important to be yourself. Write as you would speak to a friend. Be honest and authentic in your writing. And don’t be afraid to show your personality.
Your voice will evolve over time, so don’t worry if you’re not sure what it is at first. Just keep writing, and eventually, your voice will start to shine through.
3. Write High-Quality Content
One of the most important things you can do as a blogger is to write high-quality content. Your readers will only keep returning if they get valuable information from your blog.
When writing content, it’s important to be clear, concise, and helpful. Write in a way that’s easy to understand. And make sure your content is relevant to your niche.
It’s also important to proofread your work before you hit publish. No one wants to read a blog post with typos and grammatical errors. Take the time to edit and revise your work so it’s the best it can be.
4. Engage With Your Readers
Another important thing you can do as a blogger is to engage with your readers. Connect with them on social media, respond to their comments, and answer their questions.
When you engage with your readers, you’re building relationships with them. These relationships are what will keep them coming back to your blog.
5. Be Professional
If you want to be a professional blogger, you need to act like one. Being professional means that you should treat your blog like a business. That means setting goals, creating a schedule, and being organized.
If you want to be taken seriously as a professional blogger, you need to act the part. Keep these tips in mind, and you’ll be on your way to success. Learn how to improve your blogging mindset.
6. Be Consistent
One of the most important things you can do as a blogger is to be consistent. That means posting new content regularly.
If you want to build an audience, you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. And the best way to do that is to provide new content on a regular basis.
Aim to post new content at least once a week. And if you can, try to post even more frequently than that. The more often you update your blog, the more successful it will be.
That said, if you’re limited on time, you should always focus on quality over quantity.
7. Learn SEO
If you want your blog to be successful, you need to learn SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it’s the process of optimizing your blog for search engines.
Optimizing your blog makes you more likely to rank higher in the search results. And when you rank higher, you’re more likely to get traffic from search engines.
There’s a lot to learn about SEO, which can be intimidating. Check out some resources on SEO and start implementing what you learn. The more you know about SEO, the better off your blog will be.
If you wish, you could join our blogging SEO course (super affordable and packed with value).
8. Promote Your Blog
For your blog to be successful, you need to promote it. There are several ways to promote your blog, and you should be using as many of them as possible.
Some of the best ways to promote your blog include social media or guest blogging. Use these strategies to get the word out about your blog and drive traffic to it. It’s a good stepping stone at the beginning to start having traction. That said, I really believe SEO is the best strategy to gain traffic.
9. Be Patient
Building a successful blog takes time. It won’t happen overnight, so you need to be patient.
Don’t get discouraged if you’re working hard and not seeing results immediately. Just keep at it, and eventually, your hard work will pay off.
If you wish to learn more about blogging, you’ll be happy to know that we have a dedicated section about blogging on Nomad Life 101. You can dive deeper and learn more about blogging.
Now that you know a little more, let’s talk about new bloggers’ most common mistakes.
Common Amateur Blogging Mistakes
You should avoid these things if you want to make your blog a success.
1. Not Posting Regularly
One of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make is not posting regularly. If you want to build an audience, you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. And the best way to do that is to provide new content on a regular basis.
Aim to post new content at least once a week. And if you can, try to post even more frequently than that. The more often you update your blog, the more successful it will be.
That said, posting regularly is not just about your current readers. It’s also about getting new readers. For example, each blog post is a new opportunity to rank on search engines. And each time you rank, you have a chance to get new readers.
The more content you have, the more readers you can get.
You can learn more by reading our guide on how often you should be posting on your blog.
2. Not Promoting Your Blog
Another mistake that new bloggers make is not promoting their blog. If you want your blog to be successful, you need to promote it. There are several ways to promote your blog, and you should use as many of them as possible.
Some of the best ways to promote your blog include social media or guest blogging. Use these strategies to get the word out about your blog and drive traffic to it.
Even if you’re not planning to use social media often, use your profiles to link to your blog. Backlinks are important!
3. Not Learning SEO
Yet another mistake that new bloggers make is not learning SEO. Search engine optimization is vital if you want your blog to be successful.
There’s a lot to learn about SEO, and your learning journey might be long. But…. don’t publish content if you’re skipping keyword research or optimization.
4. Not Creating Engaging Content
The content you create is one of the most critical aspects of your blog. If your content isn’t engaging, people won’t want to read it. And if people don’t want to read it, they will not stick around for long.
When creating content, always ask yourself if it’s something you would want to read. If the answer is no, then chances are your readers won’t want to either.
5. Not Building an Email List
One of the best things you can do for your blog is to start building an email list from day one. An email list gives you a direct line of communication with your readers.
And if you’re not building an email list, you’re missing out on a lot of potential traffic and engagement.
So if you’re not already doing it, start building an email list as soon as possible. It’s one of the best things you can do for your blog.
4. Not Being Patient
One of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make is not being patient. Building a successful blog takes time. It won’t happen overnight, so you need to be patient.
If you’re working hard and not seeing results right away, don’t get discouraged. Just keep at it, and eventually, your hard work will pay off. You need to trust the process!
5. Not Using Analytics
If you’re not using analytics, you’re missing out on a lot of valuable data. Analytics can tell you a lot about your blog and how it’s performing.
And if you’re not using analytics, you won’t be able to improve your blog over time.
So make sure you’re using some form of analytics. I recommend installing Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Google Analytics is a free service that will track all sorts of data about your blog. Google Search Console is another free service that will track your blog’s search engine performance.
Both of these services are essential if you want to be successful with your blog.
6. Not Treating Your Blog Like A Business
Another popular mistake new bloggers make is not treating their blog like a business. If you want to be successful, you need to treat your blog like a business.
That means creating goals, setting deadlines, and working on your blog daily. It’s not enough to just write when you feel like it. You need to be consistent and treat your blog as a job.
…unless you want to remain an amateur blogger.
7. Not Indexing Your Content
Another common mistake made by new bloggers is not indexing their content. Indexing is extremely important if you want your content to be found on search engines.
If you’re unsure what indexing is, it’s basically the process of telling search engines like Google where your content is so they can crawl and index it.
You can index your content directly in Google Search Console.
8. Not Going Self-Hosted
Finally, another mistake made by new bloggers is not going self-hosted. Self-hosting is extremely important if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger.
If you’re not sure what self-hosting is, it’s basically when you host your own blog on your own domain name.
For example, if you’re using WordPress.com, you’re not self-hosted. But if you’re using WordPress.org, you are self-hosted.
I highly recommend going with a self-hosted platform like WordPress.org. It’s more professional and gives you much more control over your blog.
To start, you’ll need to sign up for hosting. I recommend using Bluehost. They’re one of the world’s largest hosting companies and an official WordPress partner.
And best of all, they’re extremely affordable. In fact, you can get started with Bluehost for as little as $2.95 per month.
If you can avoid these mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a successful blogger. Just remember that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint.
So don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away. Just keep working hard, and eventually, you’ll start to see the fruits of your labor.
Now, let’s take a look at my own story so that I can share my experience with you.
My Story: From Amateur Blogger To Successful Blogger
When I started my blog, I had no idea what I was doing.
I didn’t know anything about blogging or how to be successful at it. I just knew that I wanted to start a blog and see where it took me.
I was very dedicated and spent all my spare time working on the blog. I started looking at successful bloggers and at what they were doing.
And slowly but surely, I started to see results.
As time went on, my blog started to grow. More and more people were reading my content and subscribing to my social media channels.
Eventually, I got a lot of traffic because some of my blog posts went viral on Facebook. But… the problem with virality is that it’s not sustainable.
And when the virality died down, my blog traffic returned to normal. I was getting around 10,000 pageviews per month, which isn’t bad… but it wasn’t great either.
I knew I could do better.
So I kept working hard and experimenting with different strategies until I finally cracked the code.
I spent hours educating myself about SEO. I implemented all the latest strategies and tactics. I tested different approaches and different techniques.
And eventually, my hard work started to pay off.
When writing these lines, my main blog gets over 130,000 pageviews per month. And it’s still growing every month.
I quit my job in 2016, and took on some freelance jobs to keep me going until the blog made enough money to support me.
In 2019, I got an SEO gig that taught me even more about SEO. The gig is in a very competitive niche, and I’m getting great results for the client.
As it pays well, I could reinvest more into my blog and start other websites.
Up to this day, I still take on a few SEO clients here and there, and I have a team helping produce more content on some of my blogs.
You can take a look at my blog income reports to see how much I make every month with each website.
My blog has been my full-time job for a few years now, allowing me to live the life I want.
At the beginning of my amateur blogging journey, I had a lot of doubts because English isn’t my first language.
I was wondering if I could ever make money blogging or even write well enough to get people to read my blog.
But all these doubts and fears didn’t stop me from trying. And eventually, they went away as my blog started to grow.
Nowadays, I’m very confident in my writing skills, and I know that I can write well enough to earn a living.
Apart from that, I also believe anyone can be a successful blogger, regardless of background or language skills.
Anything is possible if you’re dedicated and willing to put in the hard work.
So if you’re thinking about starting a blog but are unsure if you can be successful at it, just remember my story.
I’m proof that anyone can be a successful blogger, regardless of their background or language skills. So if I can do it, you can do it too.
All you need is dedication and hard work. Just keep pushing forward, and eventually, you’ll start to see results.
Final Thoughts On Amateur Blogging
Blogging has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. It’s allowed me to quit my job, work from anywhere, and live the life I want.
I’m proof that anyone can be a successful blogger, regardless of their background or language skills.
If you want to go from amateur blogger to professional blogger, just remember these three things:
- Be dedicated and willing to put in the hard work.
- Educate yourself about SEO and implement the latest strategies.
- Experiment with different approaches until you find what works for you.
Keep these things in mind, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a successful blogger.
Now it’s time for you to take action.
Need help with blogging? Read one of the following blog posts:
