So, you want to have the perfect blog. A blog post that attracts clicks, likes, and shares. A blog that gets read all the way through – and has a real effect on readers, whether that means driving conversions or establishing you as an industry thought leader. In this article, we’ll explore and share all the essential components & elements of a successful blog with major tips for an effective, successful post.
Lucky for you, Visualmodo is here to help! Nine key elements are essential to crafting an effective and successful blog post. If you incorporate them into your blog post, you’ll be well on your way to writing the perfect blog.
Major Elements & Components Successful Blog
Passion is an Essential Element of a Successful Blog
If you read the backstories of popular bloggers, so many of them started for fun, not necessarily with the intent to make it a full-time gig or a passive income source. Yet that passion and no-pressure approach tend to grow a blog – if you want to post often and you’re invested in the topic, the content comes out great and attracts passionate readers.
Another of the major components of why a blog is driven by passion rather than money is because the blogger is not afraid to divulge his main tips and secrets for free. Their goal is to be useful to the reader, not sell whatever they can.
That “give it away for free” approach is a cornerstone of successful blogs. Your audience has to feel like you care about their best interests, not cashing in every chance you get. Showing your audience that you’ll help them even if you get nothing in return builds trust and loyalty, improves engagement, and makes them view you as a confident authority.
If you’re unsure how your passion will translate to a successful, profitable blog post, ask yourself questions like, “What are the problems in this niche that people struggle with the most?” and “What are the major components people want answered or resolved for them?”
Follow This Niche
There’s a misconception that only an effective and successful blog post is about blogging itself (or something in the blogging sphere, like landing pages or SEO). This isn’t true, though. Even if your preferred topic is uncommon or a sub-niche of a sub-niche, there’s likely an audience somewhere who will want to learn more about it. Also, by being a big fish in a not-wildly-popular pond, you can develop a dedicated following first, then broaden your scope and add more related topics to cover.
However, Let’s say you pick one of those big, overcrowded niches. Think about what will set your blog apart from the rest. Is it your voice? What is your alternative stance on controversial topics? The fact that you dive into an untapped sub-niche of an otherwise vast subject? Even something as broad and covered as blogging has desolate areas that need filling.
You can also use a popular niche as a jumping-off point and create a blog discussing the other side of the coin. For example, if you want to get into the marketing genre, your blog could discuss why you don’t need social media or why old-school marketing techniques still reign supreme.
Different Content Styles Are Essential For a Successful Blog
While you don’t want to vary the content styles on your blog too much, choosing two different formats can keep the blog fresh. Down the line, you can always add more styles to choose from. Content styles include Curation-style blog posts, Evergreen content, infographics news, Short-form content, Long-form content, Q&A, Submissions, and Video.
The content styles and essential elements you choose depend on the purpose for which you want to use your blog and make it successful. For example, if you have how-to content, it may be explained better through a video. You could then mix in Q&A sessions every week to address the comments left on your videos.
Or, if you want to create evergreen content and want your audience to know what’s going on in the industry, you can post long-form content at the start of every week and then post a curated list of news links on Friday mornings.
If you want to post different content that doesn’t seem like a good fit for your blog, use your other outlets. For example, you can post how-to videos to Instagram Stories or use Twitter to promote news stories.
They Never Stop Researching Their Audience
Your blog isn’t about you. It’s about your audience. Even if you’re writing a firsthand account of a breakup, it’s still for your audience – it’s about what they can get from your experiences. Your goal is to have essential elements and components to build a successful blog that helps your audience achieve what they want.
A lot of time should be spent understanding your audience. Moreover, not just at the beginning, when launching your blog, but all along the way. The better you know your audience, the more capable you’ll be at creating content that matters to them.
Talk to your audience as much as you can. Poll and survey them regularly. Let them respond to your newsletters and then read and act on those responses. Read the blog and social media comments and reply or contact them directly. Find out what they want and what they’re not getting. Ask how and when they want to receive content.
Major Components Blog- Audience Matter
You don’t have to accommodate every single reader. You have to accommodate the portion of them that best reflects your true audience, the cream of the crop. If you try to please your entire audience, you won’t please any of them. What does your core audience need? Which problems do they need solving? What will they pay you for if it means their lives will be improved? You care about that to have an effective post and a successful blog.
They Cater to Beginners
If you have beginners who will be reading your blog, keep them in mind when crafting your content. The beauty of appealing to beginners is that there will always be new beginners; therefore, your audience base can grow.
Cover topics that are mysterious to people. Scale all the way back – clarify words and concepts that novices won’t know. When explaining complex ideas, write like you’re speaking to a layman. If you have a mix of beginners and more advanced people, create a beginner’s corner with basic overviews and introductions.
They Stick to a Consistent Posting Schedule
You can choose from many effective post schedules for your successful blog. You can post every day, Monday through Friday, weekends only, or even twice daily. Whatever you choose, stick to it – frequency is essential (that once-a-month posting schedule may not be enough), but consistency regarding the day and time of posting is even more impactful. Your audience will know what to expect and when to check for new content in your effective blog post.
You can post sporadically if you’re still adhering to your regular schedule. For example, your audience knows you post every Monday at 8 a.m. As long as that post goes up, it’s okay if inspiration strikes later in the week and you throw up a second post now and then.
They Always Keep Branding in Mind
Think of everything you do for your blog as another way to build your brand. Be consistent with your branding, including your images, post layout, and voice. Do this across all supporting media, like guest posts, social media posts, podcasts, etc.
Each content style you choose should follow a similar format, like how you write the title, intro, conclusion, and call-to-action. The format is part of creating a distinct style. Regarding your voice and tone, some blog posts may be more straightforward, while others may be more personal or flowery, but they should all be written in the same general voice. P.S. It’s okay if your voice is polarizing, so long as you’re not turning off your core audience.
A Successful Blog Post Has Alternative Elements
Top bloggers rarely depend on just one type of income. There are several income streams to choose from when you’re ready to monetize your blog. The way you get traffic to your blog should be varied, too, and some traffic generators may double as income. Options include Advertising, Affiliate programs, Membership-only job boards, Sponsorships, Ebooks, Guest speaking gigs, Online courses, and Workshops.
Of course, you can also use your blog to sell products or services. When your audience has a big problem, they’re willing to pay for a solution, and you’ll have a profitable blog.
Essential Elements Successful Blog- One Social Media Platform
When you’re getting started (and maybe indefinitely), consider using just one social media platform and using it very well. Focus on building that specific presence. You’ll learn a lot about the traffic you get there and how to use it to your advantage with essential components and elements for a successful and effective blog post.
When you focus on maximizing just one social media platform, you won’t get bogged down in tracking insignificant stats. For example, comments are more important than likes, but if you’re juggling five different profiles, it’s hard to drill down into the stats that matter, making likes feel major vital than they are.
On that note, it’s okay if your content doesn’t go viral. Much content doesn’t go viral; some successful bloggers never had viral content or social media posts. Engagement quality is more important than quantity for metric successful blog posts.
They Use Their Email List For Targeted Outreach
Don’t neglect your mailing list! Grow your list and regularly send emails that are supremely useful to subscribers. There are a lot of methods for growing a mailing list, but the most common one is to give away a compelling freebie in exchange for an email address. In order to send useful emails, you should segment your mailing list and personalize the emails each segment gets.
You can automate segmentation by having your signup forms connect to different lists. For example, let’s say you run a blog about blogging. You cover many topics, including work-from-home advice and using Facebook ads. When you send an email, you can allow subscribers to sign up for other streams so they don’t miss the info they want.
Traffic Monitoring is an Essential Element of a Successful Blog
Unless you’re using your blog as a diary and don’t care if people read it, you must watch your traffic. Traffic doesn’t magically happen, even if you’re the greatest undiscovered blogger to ever happen to a niche. Set a traffic goal, plan for getting there, reassess your plan along the way, change the plan as needed, repeat. Figure out where it’s coming from, when it spikes, and when it dies down.
You’ll find that a lot of your traffic comes from a handful of posts, even if you blog daily. That’s not necessarily why you’re getting traffic. When you figure out where your traffic is coming from. You can capitalize on it. You can take those successful blog posts and update them, expand them, write spin-offs and submit them as guest posts, promote them in your newsletter, run social media ads, etc.
They Think of Networking as Part of the Job
The most surprising part about blogging is how much “non-blogging” work there is to do, like networking. You should connect with other bloggers as well as professionals in your niche. It’s easy to do this online, but try to have some in-person networking, too.
Blogging is a lonely job. You don’t have an office full of people to talk to when you need to blow off steam or bounce an idea off someone. That’s why having relationships with other bloggers is important. You’ll be able to bond and trade stories with people who understand what you’re going through. On top of that, network with industry professionals.
The Partnership is an Essential Element of a Successful Blog
Guest posting and regularly commenting on other industry blog posts let you tap into established audiences and learn more about what people want. Reach out to successful blogs in your industry. Even smaller ones may have a dedicated following and ask about opportunities to write for them.
Another reason to stay on top of industry blogs? So you can find out what your competitors are doing with their content and marketing. Then, do it better. Fill in the holes they missed. Improve on what they did by writing higher quality articles or going deeper into a topic. Take a completely different approach and break the mold.
Finally, we hope this article on the essential components and elements of a successful blog with top tips for effective and successful publishing has helped you!
