Today I want to look at what makes a successful blog, as it might not be what you think.

There is this idea that a blog needs to be really professional, with everything done perfectly, for it to work well for you. However this not the case. I have deliberately kept this blog very basic in terms of design. There are not even any featured images on my posts yet which is often seen as a big no no!

Yes having featured images helps to get more interest in blog posts in some circumstances, and having a “pretty” blog can attract people too. Yet these things are definitely not a requirement.

There are just TWO things that you blog needs to be successful:

• Useful/Interesting blog post content
• Followers who read at least 1 blog post, and want to read more

Useful/Interesting Blog Post Content

As long as your blog provides useful and or interesting content it really doesn’t matter that much if you have a fancy theme or professional images and design.

People read and follow a blog because of the INFORMATION it gives, and not how it looks. If it teaches or entertains your audience, then they are likely to return. On the other hand, if a blog is very cluttered and untidy, takes ages to load because of “fancy themes and images” and is full of adverts that can be very offputting.

The truth is, a simple blog that provides good information is going to work much better than a fancy theme or adverts that distract your readers.

My advice is to focus on teaching and sharing skills. Think about what it is that people who are interested in the topic you are writing about want to know. Aim to answer the questions that people ask.

If you are not sure what questions people have about the topic you wish to write about, then a very quick and easy bit of research will give you many blog post topics to write about. Spend 10 or 15 mins on a site like quora and you can get enough ideas for 100 blog posts.

You can even use Quora to help you generate more views and followers……

Note to self: set up your Quora account Ellie!!

Followers

A blog post without any followers is useless, but thankfully a good blog will actually start to attract people towards it via search engines. You can literally start writing a blog, do nothing to promote it, and eventually it will get some hits from search traffic.

It is the ultimate “build it and they will come” option for marketing. Especially if you provide useful and interesting content.

Within a couple of days this blog already gained the first visitors from search traffic:

Wooohoooo a whole 2 people came to my blog because they typed something into a search engine…… thats hardly going to keep me in business. However it is the beginning of something quite incredible.

Just 1 day later and I had another visitor from search, and this time they clicked on a link in one of my posts:

Now my blog posts have links that take readers to earning sites mostly. Within just a couple of days I already had someone who came to my blog via a search engine, and they clicked on one of those links. Chances are high they joined the site and I made a commission or earned some ad credits etc because of this.

All I did was write a couple of blog posts, on a very basic blog and hey presto I started getting results like magic.

Now imagine what happens when I keep writing more blog posts…..

MORE people come, they read and they join a site or make a purchase. The more I write, the more searches will link to my blog content.

Focus on writing good quality blog posts, even just 1 day a week, and this will happen for you too.

If you struggle to know what to write about, don’t worry I have a great solution for you. Many of my blog posts are made available for you to copy and paste. Now I do suggest you take the time to adjust them a bit. Remember that I have many people following this blog and if everyone has the same posts it will reduce the search results etc.

In addition, I am going to be providing a lot of content resources, and even tell you how to get other people to write unique blog posts for you!

All of that information is yet to come. Do make sure you have subscribed to my blog post notifications by using the form below so you don’t miss out.

Ellie xx