I have failed countless times in all my years as a blogger (and a human being), but so did Thomas Edison, right? Many of you are reading this right now because you want to build your own blog but are fearful of failing. It’s easy for millionaires to write about how failure is only the doormat to success in their best-selling books, but it doesn’t mean you have to eat dirt before you achieve success. For this reason I am giving you the 5 most important ingredients to building your blog from scratch to save you from this distasteful dirt. Oh, just in case you’re worried, this is not a technical type of article. Enjoy!
Ingredient # 1: Passion
When speaking of building something, it’s common that the first thing to come into mind is a solid structure such as a house. Now, a concrete structure and a blog are entirely different, or so that’s what any person would commonly think. There is, however, one common factor that these two share and it’s a very significant one: an architect. No good building can be built without someone making the proper and necessary actions to make it a sound structure – and there is no sound structure that was ever built without a passionate architect. You are the architect of your blog. Build it with passion and you will have as solid a foundation as there ever was. Without this virtue however, your blog will but crumble down and eventually spend eternity in limbo.
Passion is in all of us and it manifests in different forms. Know what you are passionate about, if you don’t already, before even attempting to start your own blog. Then write about it!
Ingredient # 2: Dedication
As a parent is dedicated to children and an entrepreneur to his business so should a blogger be to his blog. Dedication as the owner of a blog means you give it as much attention as you can. A good way to start is to create a criterion of success or a goal, and dedicate you to attaining it. For example, make it a goal to create an article that will reach out and have a positive effect on at least a thousand people within a few days. You can gauge your success through the interaction that it generates – the positive reactions over the negative ones.
Another way of being dedicated to your blog is by making sure that you are hands on every day. Your first few posts might not generate great traffic or even none at all but in the event of someone reacting or posting a comment on your article, respond — to all of them! Think of this as building a brick wall – one brick (readers reaction) on top of another (your response) and soon enough you have a wall so strong that Google will want to have their logo written all over it.
Ingredient # 3: Creativity
Building something is text-book easy. Building something great on the other hand is the product of creativity. As a blogger, it is an absolute necessity to be as creative as possible or else die (figuratively). For example, take flash and its conversion to html5. That is what being creative is all about in a nutshell.
A good way to showcase your creativity is by creating cornerstone content. That is an entirely separate topic but to put it simply: cornerstone contents are those that are of significant importance to people. It’s those articles that will actually make someone’s life more meaningful as well as those that help them solve their problems. Again, passion comes into play here. Also, as a tip, avoid writing about things you don’t really know or are not an authority of in the subject.
Ingredient # 4: Originality
The internet is already plagued with thousands upon thousands of generic content from generic bloggers. These people do not create their own content but instead take already published articles and recycles them. This is the poorest excuse to being a blogger. In building your blog you have to have you own niche or else fade into the abyss of genericism (yes, I invented that word).
Having your own niche means being your own individual intellectual being. Sure, you might not have the most interesting niche in the entire galaxy but it doesn’t really matter. There will always be that group of people that will find what you have to say interesting. And more often than not, their numbers will surprise you.
The trick to being original and having your own niche, whilst being successful as a blogger, is to determine who your target audience is. Stick to your niche and write for your readers. Start original and the blog you build will never fall into the generic category.
Ingredient # 5: Be Entertaining
Ingredient number five is the simplest of them all. Entertain your audience… or else die (again, figuratively). Nobody wants to read boring materials so don’t give them any of that crap. The best way to approach entertainment is by speaking out your mind. Write genuinely about your feelings toward a certain topic and watch how people flock to the comments section just to tell you how much they agree – or how much of an insane lunatic you are for even having your own opinion. As the great Aristotle once said, “haters gonna hate!”
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did in writing it. Now it’s time for you to mix these ingredients together and build your own blog from scratch!
