Not satisfied with your blog yet? Looking to improve and optimize your chances of blogging success? Need inspiration for how to get your blog to the next level? This is a list of 58 simple things that you can do to improve your blog today.
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Get a domain name
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Include keywords in the domain name
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Install self-hosted WordPress
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Don’t be just another WordPress blog
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Focus on a niche topic
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Be SEO friendly
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Write a new blog article
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Write catchy how-to and top-list headline
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Include links to internal pages in your blog article
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Include a Related Posts list at the end of your articles
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Activate Akismet
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Be focused
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Make your blog harder to break into
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Consider a premium theme
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Be consistent in your branding
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Brand your blog with a header image
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Move your RSS feed to Feedburner
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Let your visitors subscribe via email
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Allow visitors to subscribe to comments
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Sign up for Google Analytics
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Build a sitemap for your blog
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Make your content scannable
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Declutter your blog
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Backup (just in case)
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Verify your blog in Google Webmaster Tools
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Include at least one picture in each article
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Be self disciplined
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Register at StumbleUpon
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Remove broken links
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Comment on one other blog
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Respond to a reader comment
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Write a guest post for a popular blog
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Need inspiration for the next post? Just read
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Be active
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Think outside “text-is-king” box
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Connect with another blogger
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Learn a new skill
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Make it easy for people to contact you
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Have a media kit ready for advertisers
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Make a video
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Don’t be passive, promote your blog
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Thank your visitor
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Write an ebook, give it away of free
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Promote a comment from a reader into a full blog post
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Do not make assumptions about your readers
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Unclutter your workspace
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Need sponsors? Go out and grab them
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Going on a holiday? Don’t let your blog die
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Automatize your blog comments moderation
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Register for a Twitter account
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Add a Tweet This button to your articles
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Read a book
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Don’t be a quitter
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Throw away the television
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Follow the probloggers, and learn from them
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Don’t just consume blogs, produce blogs
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Write an ebook, sell it
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Stop planning, go blog it
Forget yourname.wordpress.com or yourname.blogspot.com. Get a domain name for better branding, user-friendliness, search engine optimization and a more professional image.
You can try to go with your full name, but if you are not a household brand like Seth Godin it won’t work. It takes years to build a brand. Search engines like keywords in the domain and will rank you.
WordPress.com is a light version of WordPress. See how to install WordPress.org for full customization possibilities and the full freedom to make your blog truly your own.
Think of a catchy tagline, include it in your blog and let it brand your blog.
It is much easier to attract visitors if you have a very focused blog topic. You brand yourself as an expert within that field and your readers know what to expect from you.
Search engines can send you a lot of traffic, allow them to do that by changing your blog permalinks to include your post keywords in your URL.
Write the best article you can, share your experience and know-how and publish it.
Write “how to” and “top list” type of headlines. They work the best for getting the attention from readers and are very shareable.
Always make sure to link to at least one older article of yours in the new post your are writing. Blog internal linking makes your blog more sticky, it increases page views and introduces your visitors to some older articles.
Allow your visitors to easily discover relevant articles from your archives. This brings you more subscribers, more page views and longer time spent on site.
Akismet saves you a lot of time and protects your blog from spam comments. Activate it, relax and let is do the dirty work.
To succeed in blogging you must have a goal, and you must stay focused on reaching it. Work constantly towards it for a longer period of time without losing the focus.
Do not use the generic admin username. Create your own unique username and delete the admin one to keep your blog more secure.
Premium themes build on top of WordPress software and give you even more possibilities for customization. This blog utilizes Thesis theme.
Use the same avatar, same nickname, same logo wherever you are spending your time online. Make it all consistent with your blog to get the best branding effect.
Create a unique blog header image to brand your blog better. It is the most prominent position on your blog and the first thing visitors see.
Feedburner gives you more options with your feed, you can see subscriber stats and offer your feed as an email newsletter as well.
RSS may be great, but many people still do not know how to use it. For many e-mail is the preferred way to subscribe to content, so make sure not to neglect them.
Allow your visitors to subscribe to comments on your blog and get notified when a new comment has been posted. It makes them return back to your blog and comment again.
Get Google Analytics to track and learn more abut your visitors. Analytics offer a wealth of data that can improve your blog.
Build the XML sitemap for your blog to allow the search engines to easily find and index your blog archives.
Majority of Internet users do not read word by word, they scan the text. Make your articles scannable by using sub-headings, short paragraphs, bulleted lists and so on.
Do you have too many social media buttons? Do you have too many widgets in your sidebar? Think of the usability and user-friendliness and remove the unnecessary once.
In case someone hacks into your blog, you may lose all your articles and comments that you have built. Make sure to avoid that and do a regular backup of your blog.
Verify your blog in Webmaster Tools and let Google tell you what to improve on your blog.
Adding images to your blog articles is the simplest way to grab the attention of your readers, make your blog articles easier to read and make your blog look better.
To succeed in blogging, you must be disciplined, write blog posts regularly, and work consistently over a longer period of time even without seeing the big results.
Join StumbleUpon, start sharing the articles you are reading and start connecting to stumblers interested in the topic you are writing about.
Search engines do not like broken links, your visitors do not like them either, make sure to remove all the broken links from your blog.
Just read a good article you agree with? Just read an article you do not agree with? Comment on it, share your opinion and experience.
Read through the reader comments on your blog and respond if there is something interesting, or if someone has a question or an insightful thought.
Contact the most popular blogger in your niche, send him a great article you have just written for him and let him publish it on his blog in exchange for a link back to you. See how to guest blog.
Read as much as you can, take notes and get inspiration and ideas for your future blog articles.
Take the stairs, bike to work, run in the weekends. Live an active life and it will improve your energy levels and will keep you and your mind sharp.
It is not all about article of blocks of text. Can you say something by using pictures? Can you say something by pasting a tweet into your article? Think outside the blog is text only.
Reach out and establish new contacts with other bloggers. You can exchange experiences, write guest posts for each other and so on.
Be open-minded and be on the lookout for new things that can help you improve, learn and build new skills.
In case someone wants to get in touch with you, you must make sure it is easy for people to do so. Have a contact page with your details and a contact form.
If you are looking for advertisers, make sure to have a blog media kit ready to send them where you inform them about your blog, your traffic numbers and other details.
Even if your blog is in a very saturated niche, you can differentiate your blog by basically making videos of all the information that everyone else is competing for with text articles only.
Get out there. Find your target audience. Connect with them. Show that you are the expert. Promote your blog wherever you can, whenever you can.
If someone comments on your blog, or shares your article on StumbleUpon or tweets it, make sure to thank them for the support.
Ebooks are great for attracting attention and getting visitors, subscribers and links to your blog. So put your best tips on one topic and give it away for free, do not even ask for an email address.
If you find a very insightful comment on your blog, publish it as your next blog post, style it, give the credit to the reader and share your thoughts on the subject.
Simplify your blog writing, explain obvious things. You might know all about the subject but there are thousands of people who have never heard about it and to whom your article might introduce the topic.
Clean up, throw out useless things, unclutter your workspace to help you focus, keep you inspired and make you more productive.
If you’re having trouble attracting sponsors to your blog, get out there to the relevant companies, get in touch with them and explain how you will help them spread the word about their product and sell more.
Plan in advance, write some good posts before you go on a holiday and schedule them to be published while you are away. This way you keep your blog active while you are away.
Don’t waste your time moderating your reader comments, let a spam filter do it for you. Once in a while it might let a spam comment go through, but it is easy for you to delete that instead of having manually to approve each comment. Trust Akismet.
Go on Twitter, search for people in your target group, get in touch, connect to them and win them over one by one.
Tweet This works so much better than Digg This or Email This. It brings you instant results and spreads your blog to new people.
Don’t just spend your time online, you can also get inspired offline. Pick up a book, read it and let it inspire your online work. Reading a book will give you a different and fresh perspective on online topics.
Blogging takes a lot of hard-work and it can take a long time before you start seeing the results. So do not quit after just a while.
Cannot find the time to write for your blog? Stop watching TV, stop wasting your valuable time. Be productive and start creating that next blog post which will introduce your blog to many new users.
Follow probloggers, see how they write articles, when they write them, how they style them, how they tweet. Don’t necessarily only listen to what they say, but analyze how they say it and why.
Don’t just read blogs whole day long, it is important to take time and work on your own blog articles.
Publishing an ebook is the easiest method for a blogger to monetize his blog without using the banner ads. So write a great book on a topic you know a lot about and sell it via your blog.
Stop reading and planning, get out there now, publish the best post you can and go promote it to your target group.
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{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }
Great List. I personally think #57 is amazing (you’ve got great experience with this) and also #58. Too many bloggers are looking at blogs and not getting their blog traffic and money. You are doing a great job. Any projects coming up in the future?
Thanks! The consulting thingy really takes a lot of time, so nothing worked on at the moment. Any ideas?
Excellent! This list is great for beginners and those with existing blogs alike. I really appreciate how you link to more information for each tip so people can dig deeper into things they want to know about.
Sure, internal linking is one of the 58 points as well. Always introduce visitors to relevant articles you have written in the past.
Great list – lots of advice I recommend to my blog clients, and a few new ones. Nice job!
Great post…easy to use as a blog health checklist!
Wow man! really nice list!
I strongly agree with #54 “throw away the TV”
it just takes too much to to watch TV without any real meaning and adding advantage to your life. Thats why i quit watching TV since years ago
and as Seth W said, making ebook and selling it is also a really nice idea. something that i will try in near future, maybe this year!
You should create one, it is a great experience no matter how well it sells. And by watching less TV you will have more time to figure out your book!
Excellent! post , it will surely help to get success in blogging, i am following most of point and it will improved my blog day by day
Well compile post , all the points very useful for bloggers. Ccreating identity on social network like twitter and facebook also important.I bookmarked it.
Great list and I think you have summed it up good. The most important parts is to remove all distractions, create a plan and start writing.
I was going to write an article just like this one. Now I don’t have to. I don’t know if I’m annoyed you stole my idea or relieved that I don’t have to put the work into it…
This is a great list.
Pt.8 Write “how to” and “top list” type of headlines. I think every blogger does on his/her blog.
That’s is same reason why Cosmo magazine sells. They write so many articles on how to have s.. even though people know about it.
Great compilation of personal and technical tips! I enjoyed reading them. Well, I must admit you almost mention all the stuffs I read from other blogs these past few months. In fact, I’m ready to do number 54 but my siblings might kill me. Not that I always watch TV but I’m easily get irritated with the noise it creates whenever I write. I also have a thought for number 41- narcissistic or simply ignorant bloggers think that even without promotion their blog will get the spotlight. I guess they should read your post. ss
Yeah, I see that with bloggers I am in touch with as well. Too many think about small design aspects of the blog, or colors on the blog or similar, while in the end it is all about how well you go and promote the content you have written to your target audience.
Excellent list!Very useful for new bloggers.It can be used as a checklist to make sure we are going in the right direction.
Looks like an awesome list and sound advice if ya ask me! Don’t know that I have much else to add…
Marko, I wish I had this list when I first started blogging
Actually it even makes for a good review list to go back and see if I’ve covered all the bases. Great post. Thanks.
One other suggestion I might add is to read a book about improving ones writing skills such as “The Copywriter’s Handbook” by Robert Bly.
Thanks Mike! I reviewed another book about writing the other week; Elements of style.
Amen to #49. I think it creates a bad commentator experience when a reader takes the time to leave a well though out comment only to have it go into moderation. So they have to check back later to see if the comment was approved. It’s much better to let them see their comment right then and there right when they make it.
Definitely! Plus it saves you a lot of time and it encourages more comments faster as people see there are comments instead of there being 0 comments until you manually start approving them.
Not to mention it can be a pain checking your blog constantly to approve all the comments in moderation.
I don’t think throwing the television is a good idea.
LOLs, anyway great writeup. I do hope newcommers in blogging would bookmark this list as it can greatly help them in the long run
Great article Marko. Your ideas are always creative. Thanks for the good stuff!
Amazing post! You have basically covered up all the essential details in very easy steps for building up a good blog. There are many essential things that I have discovered through your post that I was missing in my blog. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, I am glad the article was helpful!
Hi Marko,
Several friends posted this list on Facebook, and I found it thorough, illuminating, and inspiring. I’m right now switching from Blogger to Wordpress, which is pretty exciting, and from what I’ve read on your site, I’m ready to give you some money and buy Thesis. But do I have to be a geek to customize it?
Robbie
Thanks! Thesis has some options that you can customize without changing the code, such as the number of sidebars, the position of sidebar vs content area, the size of font, the font itself and few others. See this video where I show how it looks inside the Thesis interface.
For more advanced changes you would need to insert new codes, and many of them you can find in my Thesis blogging tips at so it is simple copy / paste.
WOW. This is an awesome and exhaustive list. I have a good blog but need to take it to the next level. Thanks for this…though I feel a little overwhelmed about the work I still need to do to make it extra STICKY and SEoptimized. THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Really nice list, great effort…post is now bookmarked!
Hi Marko, what a wonderful list. The only thing I would add is to be careful and mindful when watching how A-listers do things. They do things differently than new bloggers simply because of their “fame” and volume of followers.
For example, A-list bloggers typically don’t respond to each comment in their comment section like most normal bloggers do. For a new blogger, that wouldn’t necessarily be good advice.
Yeah, it feels sometimes as “do as I say, not as I do” when you look at some a-list bloggers. Responding to comments in your blog regularly is a must, but you do not need to do it for every comment if it is not really necessary. I don’t like it when I see blogger having the “I respond to every comment mindset” and then you get a lot of one line “thanks” responses from him. Not necessary really. Respond only when needed.
The more I read 58 points you have listed, the more I think I should write simple, short and basic things on the blog. Twitter has made me realise what you can communicate in 140 characters.
Tip 21 Make your content scannable
Tip 51 Add a Tweet This button to your articles
and above Tip 12 Be focussed
should help to succeed.
Thanks.
I don’t think 140 characters would make a good blog post, but yeah, as long as you do less blocks of text, more headlines, subheadings, paragraphs, lots of space and so on, your posts will thrive.
Thanks for this helpful list. It made me feel good when I could say “I already do that” while reminding me of much more I still need to do. I copied and pasted several points to print and keep.
Re: TV. I regard most TV-watching a waste of time, but two of my most enjoyable blogs (on basking sharks and surfing snails) were inspired by documentaries — one from the 1930’s, and the other one a PBS show. It’s like reading books (and blogs!) — it pays to be selective.
Glad you liked the article! Sure, when you can make your TV watching into some productive / creative habit, I guess it is more than fine. The problem with majority of TV watchers, they just sit there and stare passively without using it for anything at all other than killing the precious time.
What a wealth of information – I shall take full advantage of your efforts to share and educate. Thanks for doing the groundwork for me.
Thanks for this great post! I follow most of these tips already, but activating Akismet didn’t occur to me yet. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for this really nice list.
As allways, some of the items you point out are obvious but they are therefore priceless.
Another thing I would mention every two or three lines is to write for your readers and not to satisfy your ego. Readers are the ones who are important.
Thanks Cedric! Definitely agree that writing with your readers in mind is a must when wanting to write great articles.
Thanks for the great list! As a new blogger, I am going to use this a checklist to make sure I am doing all I can early in the game to have a successful site.
Dustin
Wow, really great information, this page is bookmarked and ready to refer to any time I need it!
Great list. I’m starting to implement a lot of those that you mentioned. I had installed DISQUS commenting system which had subscribing to comments along with a lot of social media options however people were emailing me saying they couldn’t comment which was a bit upsetting.
What comment system do you use? I like it, it’s very simple nice big submit button and you can subscribe to comments which I really want to set up.
Your point about getting people to subscribe to comments so that they return to your blog is a great one!
Sitemap is another area I want to work on also. As well as the ability to easily navigate around to ALL my blog posts.
I’m going on holiday in a couple of weeks for so I will need to plan for that! Already thought of a few ways and will be a great test to try out ‘working remotely’ with a bit of automation set up. I’ll still hang on twitter
Shall be fun!
Great list and the tips are not to long to read
All these tips are thoughtful and these have to be followed by a blogger.If a person wanna start a new blog he should read all these carefully.For fast growing a blog all are precious.
Great post, very informative. I am a beginner and this is exactly the type of how-to list I have been hoping to find. Thanks!
It is very important guidance to make the blog more attractive and getting more traffic,
These are important, useful and must-read guidelines. Thanks for sharing.
Great information for the beginners who want to build their blog and make their own brand. After reading this post any layman can start building their blog from scratch. You made tough task to simple one. I know many of the points which you mentioned but, I also learn’t other which I don’t know and are important. Thanks for posting nice information.
Fantastic article Marko. Being fairly new to blogging there are so many great tips here and I’m pleased to see that I’m already doing quite a few of them but you’ve inspired me to work harder. Love your posts!
Great list out 58 I like 5 & 6 step. It is necessary to write niche topic and optimize in right ways according to major search engine.
I must say this is a really good list, every last one of them hit on point and I use most of them at my blog and even found some I didn’t pay attention to until now, keep up the good work bro.
I should follow your #56 advice
wow thanks Marco I started blogging very recently and this is helping me a lot thanks and great blog too I’ll be around to read your helpful posts thanks again