In News

How to kick-start your first data blog?

May 28, 2020 No Comments

This is probably the most common question I got asked beside “How did you land your job in Data Science/ Data Analytics?” I will write another blog on my job hunting journey, so this will focus on how to get the industry exposure without that gig yet.

I gave a talk on this topic before at DIPD @ UCLA — the student organization dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion in the fields of Product and Data that I co-founded. However, I aim to expand this topic and make it accessible to a broader audience.

And there it goes, I hope this post will potentially inspire more and more data enthusiasts to start their own blogs.

This may be a tough time for many of us, but it’s also a prime time to turbocharge and level up your skill sets in data science and analytics. If your employment got impacted at this time, treat the unfortunate as a great opportunity to take a break, reflect and kickstart your personal project — things that are luxurious when time does not allow.

“When one door closes, another opens” — Alexander Graham Bell

Hardship does not determine who you are, it’s your attitude and perseverance that define your values. Let’s get right into it!

Where to start?

Start small and scale up

Before we start any project, first narrowing down your interests. This is your personal project so you will have full autonomy over it. Find something that makes you tick and gets you motivated to devote your time!

There will be a lot of challenges along the way that may discourage or sidetrack you from accomplishing the project, the thing that keeps you going should be the analysis topic that strongly aligns with your interest. It does not have to be something out of the world. Ask yourself what is important to you and why should we care about it.

When I first started, I knew that I wholeheartedly care about mental health and the ways to gain more mindfulness. So I dug deeper into analyzing the top 6 guided meditation apps to understand which one will be most suitable for my preferences.

Getting inspirations

Photo by Road Trip with Raj via Unsplash

Read, read, and read!

One of the most important key factors that I learned through my research assistant position at CRESST UCLA is to balance the workload between analysis and literature review. What this means is that we need to find what has been done in the past and figure out which additions or unique aspects you can contribute on top of the findings. My reading sources vary from Medium, Analytic Vidhya, statistics books to any relevant sources that I can find on the internet.

Take my Subtle Couple Traits analysis for example. There has been some work done in the space of music taste analysis via Spotify API, but no one has really delved into movies yet. So I took this chance and discovered the intersection of our couple’s cult favorites for music and movies.

Finding the right toolbox

Photo by Giang Nguyen via MinfulR on Medium

Now you get to this step where you need to figure out which data to collect and find the right tools for the job. This part has always resonated intrinsically with my industry experience as a data analyst. It’s the most challenging and time-consuming part indeed.

My best tip for this stage of analysis is to ask a lot of practical questions and come up with some hypotheses that you need to answer or justify through data. We have to also be mindful of the feasibility of the project, otherwise, you can be more flexible in terms of tweaking your approach towards a more doable one.

Note that you can use the programming language that you are most comfortable with 🙂 I believe that either Python or R has its own advantages and great supporting data packages.

An example from my past project can crystalize this strategy. I was curious about the non-pharmaceutical factors that correlate to the suppression of COVID-19 so I listed out all of the variables I can think of such as weather, PPEs, ICU beds, quarantines, etc. then I began massive research on the open-source data sets.

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” — George Box

Since I did not have a background in public health, building predictive models for this type of pandemic data was a huge challenge. I first started with some models I’m familiar with such as random forest or Bayesian ridge regression. However, I discovered that pandemic typically follows the trend of a logistic curve in which the cases grow exponentially over a period of time until it hits the inflection point and levels out. This refers to the compartmental models in epidemiology. It took me almost 2 weeks to learn and apply this model to my analysis but the result was extremely mesmerizing. And I eventually wrote a blog about it.

The process

If you are working in the Data Science/Analytics field, this is not new to you — “80% of a data scientist’s time consists of preparing (simply finding, cleansing, and organizing data), leaving only 20% to build models and perform analysis.”

The process of cleaning data may be cumbersome, but when you get it right, your analysis will be more valuable and significant. Here’s the typical process I take for my analysis workflow:

1) Collecting Data

2) Cleaning Data

Many more…

3) Project-based techniques

(NLP) Sentimental analysis, POS, topic modeling, BERT, etc.
(Predictions) Classification/Regression model
(Recommendation System) Collaborative Filtering, etc.

Many more…

4) Write up insights and recommendations

Connecting the dots

This is the most important part of the analysis. How do we connect the analysis insights into a real-life context and making actionable recommendations? Regardless of your project’s focus, whether it’s about machine learning, deep learning or analytics, what problem is your analysis/model trying to solve?

Imagining that we build a highly complex model to predict how many Medium readers will clap for your blog. Okay, so how’s this important?

Link it to potential impacts! If your post receives more endorsement from claps, it may get curated and featured more often on Medium platform. And if more paying Medium readers find your blog, you can probably earn more money through the Medium Partner Program. Now that’s an impact!

However, it’s not always about profit-driven impact, it could be social, health, or even environmental impact. This is just one example of how you can make the connections between technical concepts with real-world implementation.

Roadblocks

You may hit a wall at some points during the journey. My best piece of advice is to proactively seek help!

Besides from reaching out to friends, colleagues, or mentors to ask for advice, I often found it helpful to search or post questions on online Q&A platforms like Stack Overflow, StackExchange, Github, Quora, Medium, you name it! While seeking for solutions, be patient and creative. If the online solutions have not yet solved your problems, try to think of another way to customize the solution for the characteristics of your data or the version of the code.

The art of writing is rewriting.

When I first published my first data blog to Medium, I found myself re-visiting my post and fixing some sentences or wording here and there. Don’t be discouraged if you notice some typos or grammar mistakes after releasing it, you can always go back and edit!

Since it is our personal project, there’s no obligation on whether you must finish it. Hence, prioritization and disciplines play a crucial role throughout the journey. Set a clear goal for your project and lay out a timeline to achieve it. At the same time, don’t spread yourself too thin since it may cause you to lose interest.

Understand your timeline and capacity! I often push my personal project in a sprint of 2 to 4 weeks to finish during break or the weekends. In order to organize your sprint and track your progress, you can refer to some Agile framework that can be found through collaboration software like Trello or Asana. As long as you make progress even the smallest one, your success shall flourish some day. So keep going and don’t give up!

Closing Remarks

The first step is always the hardest. If you don’t think that the project is ready yet, give yourself some time to fine-tune and share it!

Nothing will be perfect at first. But by shipping it to the audiences, you would know what to improve for later projects — I adopted this principle wholeheartedly from product management perspectives.

I used to be not good at communicating my thoughts structurally and clearly (which I’m still trying to improve), but by pushing myself out of the comfort zone, I have gone extra miles from where I was. I hope this will, to some degree, inspire you to start your first data blog. Believe in yourself, be brave and reach out to me or anyone in your network if you need help along the way!

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” — Martin Luther King

Photo by Glen McCallum via Unsplash

By Giang Nguyen

Sourced from towards data science

In News

9 Unconventional Tactics To Accelerate Your Blog’s Growth

August 29, 2019 No Comments

By Adam Connell

You want to grow your blog faster…

… But try as you might – your analytics are still looking like a ghost town.

Sound familiar?

Here’s the good news:

In this post, you will learn 9 unconventional tactics you can use to accelerate your blog’s growth.

These aren’t vague tips like “post your content on social media” or any of that junk – these are specific and actionable.

And I’ve included advice to help you implement each of these tactics – Just so you don’t end up with that “oh, ok – now what?” type feeling.

Let’s dive right in:

1. Scrap generic opt-in forms and use category targeted opt-in forms

By now, I’m sure you’re aware of how effective email marketing can be – the ROI beats any other marketing channels.

So, if you want to accelerate the growth of your blog, you need to be building an email list.

Here’s the problem:

Building your email list is hard work.

Now, you can add site-wide opt-in forms and get some good results but what if you could improve your email sign ups by 300-400%?

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it’s not – I did this for the marketing agency I used to work for.

Here’s what I did:

I streamlined the blog’s categories to make them more focused and I ensured every post was assigned to a category in WordPress.

Then, I created a freebie (or lead magnet) for each of those categories.

I used a WordPress plugin called Thrive Leads to create targeted opt-in forms for each of those categories.

For example, I’d have in-content forms, after post forms, sidebar opt-ins, and popovers – if a visitor was reading a post in the email marketing category, they’d see forms tailored that category, and it’s accompanying lead magnet.

Here’s why this works:

Relevance matters. And when someone is reading your blog, they’re far more likely to join your email list if your offer is relevant to what they’re reading at the time.

Just don’t forget the important part – the content you create will have a significant impact on your email sign up rates. The better your content and the stronger your offer, the more mileage you’ll get out of this tactic.

2. Use conversion-focused landing pages to promote your lead magnet

A landing page can have a few different meanings.

The type of landing page I’m talking about here has one goal – to convert.

In this case, the conversion goal will be to join your email list.

You’ll find no nav menus or any other distractions, and they’re typically focused around a specific audience persona.

Here’s an example of one I’m developing:

Why are landing pages such a big deal?

Well, the conversions of opt-in forms on most blogs are extremely low. For example, most sidebar opt-in forms tend to convert at less than 1%.

Compare that against landing pages which can convert at well over 20% (and that’s a low estimate).

For example, quick landing pages I’ve built in the past have converted at over 30% before running any split tests or putting much effort into optimization.

How can you build your own landing pages?

If you use WordPress, you can use a plugin like Thrive Architect. It’s particularly well suited because of it’s marketing focused landing page templates (organised into sets).

Then there are purpose-built landing page builders like Leadpages that make it easy to build, deploy, and test landing pages – they even host them for you.

Alternatively, there are some email marketing services such as ConvertKit that come with the functionality built-in.

How can you drive traffic to your landing pages?

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Add a link to your landing page within your author bio (this is great for guest blogging on sites with a large audience)
Create unique Pinterest images and share them to as many group boards as you can.
Add CTA’s on your blog
Share them on Twitter and pin the tweet to your profile
Link to a landing page from your website URL on social networks (ideal for Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook)
Use paid traffic platforms such as Facebook Ads (just be sure to have a proper sales funnel in place to ensure you get an ROI on your investment)

There are plenty of other ways to do this but these ideas will be enough to get you started.

3. Use viral quizzes to drive serious social media traffic

Chances are you’ve taken part in some quizzes already – likely from a post you on Facebook.

These can be educational in nature, or a little bit silly, like “What sort of penguin are you?”

The great thing about viral quizzes is that they don’t take much time or effort to create, yet they provide a huge pay-off.

And you don’t need a huge audience to make them work.

For example, a good friend of mine launched a blog about classic cars. He created a few fun quizzes and shared them around on Facebook.

Within 2 months he’d scaled his monthly traffic to over 5,000 visitors from Facebook alone.

Not bad right?!

Here’s the good news:

For WordPress bloggers, you’ll find plenty of viral quiz & survey plugins that you can use.

If you don’t use WordPress, you can use a quiz platform like Interact to get started.

4. Run a content audit on your blog and improve underperforming content

Chances are that you have some blog posts on your site that aren’t doing anything for you in terms of traffic.

Maybe they were published a long time ago and they’re starting to age. Traffic from Google may have dropped off and traffic is steadily declining.

Or, there may be some technical issues that are holding those articles back.

Either way, it’s important to audit your content every once in a while.

There are a few things you’ll need to do:

Check your analytics to see which posts are experiencing a decline in traffic
Run a site audit with a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to uncover technical issues

I particularly like SEMrush for running content audits because they have an SEO-focused site auditor and a separate content audit tool.

For example, within a few clicks, I’ve already got the tool pulling in all my posts & pages & collating data for me to go through:

Doing this sort of thing manually, dipping and diving into spreadsheets can be extremely time-consuming.

Now, it’s worth noting that there are a few different ways to handle underperforming content:

Update/expand and repromote – Some blog posts just need a bit of extra TLC. A quick update, maybe some extra tips, and you could reclaim some of the traffic you’ve lost from Google. Always repromote it.
Rewrite from scratch and repromote – If the content is extremely out of date then I’ll consider a complete rewrite. This will sometimes result in the biggest ranking improvements. Like before, always repromote it.
Remove and redirect to the next most relevant post – When a blog post gets no traffic, has no backlinks, and needs significant updates, you may want to consider removing it and redirecting it to another blog post (the most relevant one). There are some cases where I’ll keep a post like this, such as when it’s still useful for my audience, or I’m planning to work on traffic generation in the future.

5. Leverage the power of rich snippets to drive more search traffic to your blog

Rich snippets are additional data points that you often find in Google search results.

These data points will come in various forms. Some of the popular ones being review stars and recipe information.

The result of this extra information is that it helps your content stand out more than the content from other sites. This can result in more clicks.

Here’s an example (the first has rich snippets):

And you can use these rich snippets for a lot more than just reviews and recipes. Here are a few extra uses:

Articles
Courses
Events
Books
Products
Local businesses

Rich snippets can be added using Schema – a type of structured data.

On my sites, I use the Schema Pro plugin for this, but there are a bunch of other powerful WordPress rich snippets plugins you can use.

Once you’ve added any Schema code to your website, be sure to use Google’s data testing tool to ensure it’s been added correctly.

6. Use guest blogging (strategically)

While guest blogging is nothing new, it’s worth mentioning because it can still be effective when done strategically.

While this tactic is great for brand awareness and exposure, driving traffic to your blog from guest posts can be incredibly difficult.

You can fix this by approaching larger sites, particularly those that have a highly engaged audience.

Then, you’ll need craft a rockstar-level piece of content.

Here are a few examples:

The inspirational post – Posts that inspire and tug on people’s heart strings can go a long way but they’re not easy. If you have an inspirational story to tell, this option is for you.
The group interview – When you involve more people in the content creation process, you’ll naturally get more shares & traffic. And group interviews are a great way to do this.
The crowd-sourced + repurposed infographic – When you take a group interview and repurpose it into an infographic that you host on a site with a much bigger audience, what do you get? A heck of a lot of shares & traffic! One time I tried this and my content reached an extra 30,000+ people.
The pillar post – It’s difficult to justify the time to create a seriously in-depth piece of content, but it can pay off if you promote your landing page in your author bio, and have a solid sales funnel in place.

Like many marketing tactics, and life in general – your mileage will depend on the time and effort you invest.

If you want to learn more, Sendible has a step-by-step guide to help you get started with guest blogging.

7. Grab extra Pinterest traffic with tailored imagery

Pinterest has the potential to be a traffic generation powerhouse.

The only problem is you need imagery that resonates with those who use Pinterest.

Typically, we’re talking about eye-catching vertical images that include a catchy title.

Here are a few examples from one of my group boards:

While these images can provide inspiration for your own images, it’s worth running a search for some of the topics you’d want to rank for in Pinterest (think of it like a search engine).

And take a look at the image styles everyone is using.

Best practice would be to follow the styles that others are using, but you’ll want to experiment with this because if everyone is creating similar images – none of them will stand out.

And there’s where you’ll likely find your biggest opportunity.

Once you’ve figured out a particular style of image that works, turn it into a template and use it for the rest of your images.

You can take this to the next level by using a WordPress social media plugin like Social Snap – this allows you to set a unique Pinterest image that people will be able to share when they use your pin button.

8. Use content repurposing to get more mileage out of everything you publish

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re on some sort of content creation hamster wheel that you can’t escape?

I know the feeling well – you’re not alone.

The reality is that you can get more mileage out of every single blog post you publish by repurposing it into different content types.

This can include:

Infographics
GIFographics
Video
Audio
PDF’s
Slideshare presentations

The great thing about repurposing your content is that it will help you reach an entirely new audience. For example, video opens you up to YouTube which has it’s own built-in audience.

And more often than not, these are easy tasks to outsource if you have some budget to play with.

Recently, I hired a designer on PeoplePerHour to turn one of my blog posts into an infographic.

As part of the work, they collated the text for me and here’s a snippet of the end result:

You can save yourself a bit of cash by designing the infographic yourself and you don’t need to be a designer.

Image design tools like Venngage have loads of templates you can use to get started.

9. Invest in the promotion of your content

There’s a common misconception that free traffic generation tactics exist.

It’s a myth. There are no free ways to drive traffic to your blog because you will always pay with something. Usually with your time – and your time is precious.

One of the easiest ways to promote your content is to use paid platforms and considering how much effort it takes to get that so-called “free traffic” – it often works out cheaper.

Here are a few platforms you can use:

Quuu Promote – Get your articles shared by a lot of other bloggers in your niche.
Facebook Ads – You can boost your Facebook posts or run Facebook Ads, just be careful because ads typically default to a high lifetime cost, so be sure to set campaign limits.
Outbrain – Get your articles featured in the related articles sections of huge websites.
Taboola – Similar to Outbrain but it has access to a different pool of websites.

And as I’ve mentioned for a few other tactics in this post, if you’re going to be investing money in a tactic, try to have something in place to help you recoup your ad spend.

This could include a sales funnel that promotes a course, or information product or affiliate links, for example.

Wrapping it up

We’ve talked through a bunch of different tactics to help your blog grow faster.

Some will help you build your email list and others will help you get more traffic to your content.

Implement as many of these ideas as you can and you’ll increase your traffic. Just don’t forget about encouraging people to engage with your content, so you can make the most of everything you publish.

By Adam Connell

Adam Connell is a content strategist with a background in SEO and email marketing. He used to manage the content marketing efforts of international brands. Now he teaches bloggers how to get noticed at BloggingWizard.com.

Sourced from BloggingPro

In News

6 Things Every (Atheist) Blogger Should Know

August 8, 2019 No Comments

By Rebekah K

Recently, my blog turned two and a half years old! That means that today, I’ve been blogging for 136 weeks and this is my 136th post. Over the years, people have asked me for my greatest advice for blog writing, whether that is how to grow a following and get noticed or how to go about writing for an atheist blog when you’re still in the atheist closet. Today, I want to share with you some of my answers to some commonly asked blogging questions.

1. How do I start a blog?

This is a fairly simple question with a straightforward answer. Ask anyone who has ever started a blog, and they will tell you that this is by far the easiest step in blogging. For me, it involved choosing a blog name (The Closet Atheist at the time) and clicking on the big, unmissable Get Started button on WordPress.com. WordPress (almost) literally holds your hand throughout the blog-building process, and there is nothing technical to it. Any WordPress blog can be free, by the way, if you don’t mind a URL ending in .wordpress.blog and a few ads on your site. My blog started off as theclosetatheist39.wordpress.com (does anyone remember this?) because theclosetatheist.wordpress.com was (and still is) reserved. But oh, how far we’ve come!

2. How do I start an anonymous blog as a closeted atheist?

The first thing of which I must warn you—which I had to learn the hard way—is not to expect it to stay hidden forever. I think I did a pretty good job of writing anonymously for that year and a half. My name or face were nowhere to be seen on the site, my Twitter, or anywhere related to them. You better believe The Closet Atheist was not only the name of my site, but my second identity. It was my email address and my Twitter handle, and there was not any way that anyone who didn’t know me could have ever found me on Instagram or Facebook through it.

But writing anonymously, continuously, is hard. You can’t write your life story without details of your life slipping in. Even when I was writing anonymously, you would have known that I was raised in the Lutheran Church, that my mom was an organist, my brother-in-law was a pastor, and I went to a Christian college where I played in a marching band. But I think that giving up that many details of my life were worth how much this blog saved my sanity. Even YouTubers make videos anonymously, but I think that puts you at a much higher risk of being found by people you know.

3. How do I keep my blog going?

I’ve seen more blogs than I can count with one post, or a handful of posts, which were then left and never touched again. Thinking of a cool name, a sleek design, and a catchy topic is simple until you realize that if you want your blog to succeed, you are going to have to keep writing. And writing. And writing. And writing. (Repeat, in my case, 136 times so far.)

Not to be harsh, or overly obvious, but you probably shouldn’t start a blog if you don’t have a pretty long list of post ideas. You don’t want a blog with a total of four or five posts, but you want to be able to write for as long as possible, and to do that, you need things to talk about. I think that generating topics is more difficult as a blogger than it would be for a podcast or for YouTube, because on those media, there are endless other videos to reply to, and endless people to invite onto your podcast to interview (wink, wink—like me!). But I find that it is nearly impossible to collaborate with others or review videos through blogging, so I stick with reviewing books and articles, and in the past I’ve responded to sermons, speeches, bible studies, and class lectures.

4. How will I ever come up with that much to talk about?

The best way to come up with post ideas is deciding the overall topic of your blog. It absolutely has to be something you are passionate about, and that you could talk about for literal years. And you should be able to put your own spin on it, own it, and write about it from your perspective. If you’re telling your story, it should be easy because no one else can or has told it before. For me, I combined my story of becoming an atheist, living as an atheist at a Christian college and in a Christian family, and coming out to the people in my life. On quiet weeks, I interspersed my life experiences with the aforementioned reviews and responses. Nowadays, with my atheist story being quiet and peaceful, I’ve started branching out from the topic of atheism and religion—to posts like this!

5. How do I grow my following?

Here’s my practical, tried-and-true advice: Engage. This is true for every content creator: YouTubers, Instagrammers, and traditional bloggers alike. Comment on, follow, and like other people’s blogs and blog posts. Follow them on social media and interact with them there. The audience will follow if you have built relationships with people. This also means that you can’t make it all about you. If you comment on anyone’s blog saying only “Nice post! Check out my blog at doucheymcdouche.wordpress.com,” they will probably delete it immediately, if it doesn’t get sent automatically to spam. If the post you are commenting on is something you’ve also written about, you should still summarize your thoughts in your comments before linking to your specific post and explaining why. But I find that it is always good enough to not self-advertise at all. Just be logged in, where your blog link will be in your username automatically.

But on a more authentic, less marketing-centered level, it is really all about what you are actually writing. I am a firm believer, when it comes to personal blogging (as opposed to marketing blogs or other paid content), in this unpopular opinion.

The writer comes first. The readers come second.

This probably goes against any blogging advice you have ever read. But for he or she who blogs unpaid, just to tell their story, it is vital. If you write what you want to write, you will have more fun, you will write better, and your readers will know that you love what you’re doing. This is how you keep them around, and this is how you keep your blog going before you decide that it’s “just too hard,” it’s “not fun anymore,” and “no one’s reading it anyway and I can’t figure out what they want!” Just keep going. At the very least, you will be enjoying it. Even among my own readership, I can tell you right now that no matter what, this blog’s biggest fan is me!

6. What’s your biggest advice for anyone who wants to get into blogging?

STICK TO A SCHEDULE!

I cannot stress this enough. At all. Is it absolutely crucial.

I follow a number of blogs, and I can’t tell you how much it drives me crazy when they do not keep a posting schedule, especially when they claim to! If you tell your audience you will upload every Tuesday at 11 a.m., you have to upload every Tuesday at 11 a.m. This is part of building trust. My readers knew that this post would be up today at 8 a.m., and I know that my views are always highest on Sunday mornings. I have never kept my readers wondering for longer than 12 hours where my last post was or when I would write next. There are many Saturdays when I don’t have time to write, and there are no Sundays (anymore) when I am up by 8 a.m. One of the greatest things about WordPress is the ability to write a post any time you want and schedule it to go up when you want it to.

When I was in a graphic design class in college, one of my projects was to make an instructional infographic. I chose a how-to on personal blogging. So if you want a more concise and design-centric list of blogging tips from me, you can look at this poster called “5 Traits of a Successful Personal Blog”.

By Rebekah K

Sourced from The Curious Atheist

In News

Thinking of Adding a Blog to Your Website? Here’s How to Get Started

May 30, 2019 No Comments

By Melissa Burns

Blogging is one of the most valuable tools you can use to engage with your customers online and ultimately improve your marketing and business results. If you don’t have a blog already, you should definitely start one now.

Over the years, blogging has emerged as one of the main elements in marketing strategies today. And 2019 promises to be the year of blogging.

Before we delve into how you can use blogging to connect with your audience, let’s examine the benefits of adding a blog to your website. Then, we’ll discuss how to get started with blogging.

The Benefits of Blogging

A blog is really a simple, concise and easy-to-use platform that allows you to connect with your target audience online and share with them relevant information about your business and other relevant information. Because it is your own platform, you can explain directly to your audience all about your products or services and how to use them. Also, you can easily track customer engagement on your blog and get their valuable feedback firsthand.

As SEO is a part of most content marketing strategies nowadays, more and more businesses are focusing on optimization to improve their search engine rankings. To have a better ranking on Google, the most popular search engine, the most effective way is to add a blog to your website. However, it’s not enough just to have a blog. It will have to be active and you’ll need to learn how to apply SEO recommendations to make your blog popular.

According to a Hubspot survey, 60% of businesses that have a blog on their website acquire more customers. Your blog is where your content strategy starts. From your blog, you can pull out content for your email and newsletter campaigns, social media channels, webinars, eBooks, guides, and so on. Having all your vital information in one place will not only be helpful for your customers, but also for yourself as well.

Keep in mind, though, that your target website or business audience is whom you’re writing to when blogging. That’s why it’s important to provide them with useful tips and tricks so they are benefiting from the blog and finding reason to keep coming back for more information.

Among the numerous benefits of adding a blog to your website, the most crucial one is that it gives you and your company a voice. There is no better way to personalize your company than by having a blog. For instance, you can show all the values that are important to your company and its employees by writing about company culture.

Your blog is also a place where you can write about upcoming products or services, and comment on industry trends. Use it to showcase your brand personality and industry expertise. Remember that customers are less likely to buy a product from a company they don’t like. However, they are more loyal and likely to become repeat customers for those brands they like.

5 Steps to Add a Blog and Start Blogging

Starting a blog is easier than it once was, but you have to be more determined and have clearly defined goals before you start working on your platform.

Here’re crucial steps to make your blogging an interesting and beneficial process.

Step 1: Prepare and plan ahead

Every good strategy requires preparation, and it’s the same with blogging. What are the goals of your blog? Do you wish to inform people about your products or service? Do you want to provide them with additional information on product usage? Do you want to position yourself as an opinion maker in your industry so you’ll comment on recent trends and provide guidelines?

Answering these questions will help you determine in which way to go. Don’t forget about writing a list of topics for your blog. To research and get some ideas, use Google Trends, a free tool provided by Google.

Step 2: Add a blog page on your existing website

As a company or serious professional, you probably already have an existing website. To add a blog to the website, create a new website page with a link to a blog you set up on a popular blogging platform like WordPress (WP).

Alternatively, you can move your website to WordPress. Use .htaccess codes to redirect old links on your existing website to new ones on WP. The power of a static blog homepage in WordPress can allow you to run your blog with your website name as the main domain.

You can then customize your blog to match your website and post content on the blog. Visitors will not have a problem identifying and reading your blog.

Step 3: Publish the blog page

If you want your blog to be accessible on your website so that other people can read it, you will have to publish the website page with a link pointing to your blog, or add the blog link to your website navigation. Check that everything is correct in the page and click the ‘Publish’ button.

After publishing and making your blog link live on your website, go to your WP Dashboard and choose ‘Settings’ on the left side. Click the button to create a new static page in WP and select ‘Blog’ under the drop-down menu for ‘Posts.’

It’s very important that you choose ‘Blog’ under the drop-down menu for ‘Posts’ and not the ‘Front’ page, because it will determine where your blog feed appears on your website.

When you’re done with that, you will now have to decide how many posts you want to appear when your readers visit your blog. The number is up to you.

Step 4: Add your first blog post

This is where you’re going to need that list of blogging topics you created in the first step of preparation. Decide on the title and subject or topic that is best to publish as your first blog post.

With blogging topics already decided and written down in the first step, you will have no problem creating content that is high converting. This is why it’s essential that you don’t skip the preparation phase.

Don’t be too strict on yourself, though, especially if this is your first blog post ever. The good thing about blogging is that you can edit all your posts after they’re published without any problem.

Step 5: Create an editorial/blogging calendar

Blog posting should follow a pre-determined strategy for it to be effective. For this reason, create an editorial calendar for your upcoming articles, with topics, deadlines, the persons who will write them and any other information you find useful. Have this information clearly written down ahead of time.

When you blog without an editorial calendar, your blogging messages and schedules are likely to be all over the place, making your blog look disorganized and messy. Your customers may easily get confused. Blogging is pretty straightforward, but mistakes like these can harm your blog performance.

Conclusion

Adding a blog to your website is not something you can ignore today at a time when every business is focused on content marketing. When you decide to start a blog, remember these key points:

With a blog, you can easily communicate and engage your audience
Blogging will increase your search engine ranking results
A blog is a perfect platform for publishing converting content
Having a blog allows you to show your company culture
With quality preparation, you will simplify your blogging process
Having an editorial calendar is crucial for your content to succeed

With all of this in mind, blogging will be inspiring for you and your audience. It will simplify your communication with customers and make it easier for you to convert prospects into customers as well. So, get blogging today!

By Melissa Burns

Melissa Burns is an independent journalist and marketing consultant. Business innovations, technology, and marketing are central topics of her articles. She started writing with a single goal of sharing her expertise with other people. Melissa also provides workshops for start-ups and small businesses.

Sourced from The Web Writer Spotlight

In News

How To Start A Blog And Actually Keep It Up

April 2, 2019 No Comments

By Phoebe Simmonds

There are so many reasons why you should start a blog. It might be to have a place to voice your opinions, to share your ideas, develop your career or to keep friends and family updated as you travel.

Either way, writing on a blog is a great way to spend some free time and there’s even the potential to earn money off of it in the long run. However, with so many blogs and so much information out there, it can be confusing to know how to start a blog and what’s more, keep it up. Here are our top tips.

Think about what you want to write about

If you want to start a blog then your first step should be deciding what you actually want to blog about. Whether it’s food, travel, fitness or a specific hobby, there are no boundaries when it comes to blogging.

Keep in mind that if you are planning to make money from your blog or use it as part of a professional CV then it pays to pick a niche. This is because there’s so much competition out there that it’s better to narrow your focus down in order to stand out. For example rather than just doing a travel blog, why not do an adventure travel blog or better yet an adventure travel blog that focuses on doing so on a budget.

Choose your blog name

It’s best not to change your blog’s name that often because as soon as you create your site and start posting content, it will get indexed by Search Engines. Constantly changing the name of your blog will mean that it is harder for your blog to get found online.

When it comes to picking a name, try to think of something that’s relevant to your content. It’s important to keep it unique and memorable- a little humour never hurt anyone. The best ways to come up with blog names is to have a bit of a brainstorm on paper. Maybe come up with words associated with your topic and branch off from there. It’s also worth having a look at other peoples blogs to see what names have and haven’t been done.

Pick your Blogging Platform

Blogging Platforms are sites that host your blog and choosing one of these is the first step that you need to take in actually creating your blog. The most popular blogging platform is WordPress which is what the majority of sites and blogs are built on. WordPress is free and as blogging platforms go it’s pretty simple to use and visually appealing. Other popular blogging platforms include Wix, Blogger and Tumblr.

Choose your site layout

WordPress has a number of free themes available for you to choose when you first start your blog. The theme that you choose is integral to the overall feel of your blog and different ones will be suitable for different blogs depending on the type of content that you are going to be posting. Blog platforms usually let you demo a theme first so have a play around with those until you find one that’s right for you. You can always change it at a later date.

Add in your pages

Pages are important when it comes to helping people (and search engines) navigate your site so have a think about what pages you would like to include. It’s usually a good idea to have a Home, About, Contact page and then a different page for each of your main categories such as Travel, Food, Fashion etc.

Write your first post

Every writer knows that the hardest of writing is when you’re faced with that blank page and a blog is no different. When you first start a blog, be sure to hit that new post button straight away. Whether you write an introduction post or get stuck in their right away, as soon as you’ve got your first post published, you’re on your way to blogging success.

Share your content

When you first start a blog, the idea of sharing your content can be really daunting. You might feel that it’s not ready or good enough to share yet but in truth, most bloggers always feel a little like that. Blogging is always going to be a work in progress but it’s so important to share all of this amazing content that you’re creating with others from the get-go. What’s more, knowing that people are actually reading the content that you are writing is when blogging starts to become addictive.

Have Fun with it

It’s so important to have fun and continually try out new ideas on your blog. Be it new themes, a new tone of voice or even a whole new direction with it. Either way, just get creative with it and express yourself. The beauty of a blog is that’s your very own to with what you want.

Challenge yourself

Blogging is a fantastic opportunity for you to really push yourself out of your comfort zone. Get inventive with it, share your thoughts and watch online tutorials so that you can create something you’re really proud of. Having a blog can push you to seek adventures and new experiences that you can write about and in doing so, blogging becomes really addictive.

There’s always more to know when it comes to blogging but it’s a learn as you go kind of thing. Every successful blogger started off with an empty site so don’t let that blank page scare you. The best way to start a blog is to do just that and before long, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

By Phoebe Simmonds

Sourced from SOCIETY19

In News

A Life of Blogging

March 5, 2019 No Comments

By Jason Weiland

What it’s like to analyze everything I do

I’ve been writing my whole life. But, I didn’t start blogging until my twenties.

Back then I called it “online journaling” because blogging and WordPress weren’t a thing yet.

I’ve journaled since I was young, so when I became interested in the internet in the 1990s, I tried to figure out a way to put my personal observations online. As I said, there was no WordPress, so I had to get creative.

This is my journey!

(I tried to use the Internet Archive to find screenshots of my old websites, but it didn’t go that far back. Let’s just say that all my websites were awesome and well before their time. You’ll have to take my word for it!)

BigHeadBoy.com

In the early 1990s, I taught myself how to use Photoshop and HTML and started building simple websites. As you can imagine, my first sites were horrendous! I think I remember clashing colors, loud tiled backgrounds, and animated GIFs of gophers dancing across the page.

After some time, my Photoshop skills got better, and I started creating interesting designs. But because of the nature of bandwidth at that time, images on web pages had to be very small. I figured out a way to create a graphical interface that had a small file size but was very appealing. I wish I had a screenshot.

It was an image of me with the head enlarged and some fancy clickable buttons. I would add new journal entries a few times a week, but each page had to be coded, so it took some time. I got well versed at cutting and pasting.

Eventually, HTML got better and better, and I added some very neat animated rollover buttons (again, I wish I had made screenshots). My first job as a web designer came because somebody saw my website and was impressed with my skills.

Not only did I love designing and coding the web pages, but I enjoyed writing online. Back then, the only comments I received were through email, because there wasn’t any way to add comments to a website yet. People reacted positively, and it’s one of the reasons I continued to design and write online.

I eventually got too unwell to continue updating the website. BigHeadBoy.com stayed with me for some time, and later when I started my own web design firm, BigHeadBoy Design, we used the domain for the company website.

When you clicked on this dude’s big head it loaded the website! (image owned by Jason Weiland)

During one of the years I was hospitalized quite a bit, I failed to renew the domain and lost it. Someone else snapped it up, but they never developed it.

JasonWeiland.com

There was a time I owned the .com for my name and used it as a portfolio/online journal. I was experimenting with design, and I used typefaces in interesting ways. I changed this website about once a month as I learned new things like JavaScript and CSS.

As far as the writing, I didn’t do anything groundbreaking because I was using the site as a portfolio, so I had to be very careful what I wrote about.

Again, I got sick and lost the domain.

SchizoIncognito.com

During the next few years, much was going on in my life with my marriage and my mental health. For some reason, I felt I should protect myself, so I started blogging anonymously. I’d never felt the need to hide before, but I needed to say some things that I didn’t want my family knowing.

I wrote with brutal openness. Some people were turned off because I was writing about my experiences with psychosis and self-harm. But, I had quite a few fans who followed religiously, even though I don’t think my writing was particularly good.

One of the banners I used for the site. (image owned by Jason Weiland)

I got some publicity one day, and I felt like the people writing it were trying much too hard to find out who I was in real life, so I shuttered the blog and never reopened it.

JasonWeiland.net

More recently, I wrote about the changes in my life after my last suicide attempt. I wrote a lot about my mental health, diet, and the businesses I tried and failed to start.

This blog changed quite a bit, as I used it as a way to get freelance clients at times.

It’s no longer active, but I may open it again soon.

ChangingMineChangingYours.com

A few months ago, I got the idea to start a blog chronicling the life and times of my family and I. I had thought to talk about the two girls we were going to foster, but they ended up going back to their mother. I’ve been paying attention to it more now that my wife is pregnant again, and I plan to start writing three times a week.

I guess when I started writing almost every day on Medium, this blog took a back seat. But that will change.

The site itself is not even complete. I don’t even have a mailing list set up, and so far I’ve only posted twice (and an about page). If you want to take a look, please let me know what you think so far.

That is Not All

I’ve had many, many more blogs, but these were either the most interesting, or the ones that changed my life somehow.

Blogging and journaling have been part of my life for as long as I can remember, so I’m sure I will keep doing them for as long as I can. Finding Medium has changed the game a bit for me, but I still think there is a place for standalone blogs on the internet. I know I will probably always have at least one going.

Blogging is great fun, and I feel if I ever decide to stick to it long enough, one day I will be successful with it.

It doesn’t hurt to try.

By Jason Weiland

Sourced from The Writing Cooperative

In News

Thinking of Adding a Blog to Your Website? Here’s How to Get Started In 2019

January 25, 2019 No Comments

By Melissa Burns

Blogging is one of the most valuable tools you can use to engage with your customers online and ultimately improve your marketing and business results. If you don’t have a blog already, you should definitely start one now.

Over the years, blogging has emerged as one of the main elements in marketing strategies today. And 2019 promises to be the year of blogging.

Before we delve into how you can use blogging to connect with your audience, let’s examine the benefits of adding a blog to your website. Then, we’ll discuss how to get started with blogging.

The Benefits of Blogging

A blog is really a simple, concise and easy-to-use platform that allows you to connect with your target audience online and share with them relevant information about your business and other relevant information. Because it is your own platform, you can explain directly to your audience all about your products or services and how to use them. Also, you can easily track customer engagement on your blog and get their valuable feedback firsthand.

As SEO is a part of most content marketing strategies nowadays, more and more businesses are focusing on optimization to improve their search engine rankings. To have a better ranking on Google, the most popular search engine, the most effective way is to add a blog to your website. However, it’s not enough just to have a blog. It will have to be active and you’ll need to learn how to apply SEO recommendations to make your blog popular.

According to a Hubspot survey, 60% of businesses that have a blog on their website acquire more customers. Your blog is where your content strategy starts. From your blog, you can pull out content for your email and newsletter campaigns, social media channels, webinars, eBooks, guides, and so on. Having all your vital information in one place will not only be helpful for your customers, but also for yourself as well.

Keep in mind, though, that your target website or business audience is whom you’re writing to when blogging. That’s why it’s important to provide them with useful tips and tricks so they are benefiting from the blog and finding reason to keep coming back for more information.

Among the numerous benefits of adding a blog to your website, the most crucial one is that it gives you and your company a voice. There is no better way to personalize your company than by having a blog. For instance, you can show all the values that are important to your company and its employees by writing about company culture.

Your blog is also a place where you can write about upcoming products or services, and comment on industry trends. Use it to showcase your brand personality and industry expertise. Remember that customers are less likely to buy a product from a company they don’t like. However, they are more loyal and likely to become repeat customers for those brands they like.

5 Steps to Add a Blog and Start Blogging

Starting a blog is easier than it once was, but you have to be more determined and have clearly defined goals before you start working on your platform.

Here’re crucial steps to make your blogging an interesting and beneficial process.