Along the way, you can’t go without some of these blogging resources to make daily tasks a lot easier.
Blogging is fun but hard work. That’s why you need all the back up and blogging resources you can use.
If you want to be successful as a blogger you must take writing seriously.
Even if you intend on using video as your main form of media, writing the scripts needs focused writing skills to create great videos.
Here is a list of Blogging ideas, articles, and links to useful software and support.
Blogging Ideas that will help you work efficiently as a blogger.
Articles to help You write better Blog Posts
- How to Write a great Blog Post
- 7 effortless ways to find new ideas for your blog
- How to Crank up the Power of Your Mindset
- How to set readers on fire with your Writing
- How to Crush self-Doubt and Become a self-confident Writer
- How being different pumps up your Creativity
Idea Generators for Posts and Topics
- Google Alerts; you can set up an alert from Google that sends you anything that was posted or talked about around the internet. It covers any topic you choose. Think how important that is to you being on the ball with new posts.
- YouTube Videos are great inspiration and very helpful, just be careful who you are listening to. Here’s a good start with Neil Patel on SEO. Search Engine Optimisation changes as time passes. Listen carefully and choose what you think is useful to you. Some things that people talk about these days are way out of date.
- SEO For Beginners: How To Rank Your Website On The First Page!
Other ways to generate good blogging ideas for posts, is to go out into the web and search forums and websites where a lot of people ask questions.
The questions that people ask on internet forums and social media make for excellent blogging resources lists.
If you spend time answering these questions you will develop a feel for different groups of people and their problems, their pain-point questions and begin to find clusters of people who are very interested in what you blog about.
- Quora here you will find many questions, many people and a lot of people who are experts on various topics. Don’t let that put you off. Quora is great place to read and become active as an authority who can answer questions with a long answer. Quora doesn’t like an answer to be too short, you’ll notice that the best Quora users write a longer and fully answered response to a question. You can build up a following there which will eventually become a source of traffic to your Blog.
- Facebook is full of business pages and personal pages that have great followings. They are full of people exchanging information to get answers to their questions. If you join a page, be low-key about your own blog at first, as you get responses it shows trust. that’s when it’s not a bad idea to mention your own website/blog occasionally.
- Twitter can be a place to browse and waste time, or it can be a great resource for discovery. People talk about a lot of things on Twitter, they gossip, chat and sometimes exchange information that is useful to you and me for building our next blog post.
Get Organised and Stay that Way for Your Success
Michael Hyatt uses Evernote as his go to tool for self organisation.being organised helps you stay motivated when you have a lot of good ideas to work on. Check out this article by Michael Hyatt and see what you think.
Getting more out of Google Drive We all use our chosen system for email accounts, storage, cloud and so on, but if you are a Google user, then understanding how you can utilise the resource of storage for your documents will give you a shove in the right direction and keep you organised.
As a writer and blogger you will need to stay on top of what you have and haven’t written. Keeping a Blogging calendar will help you. Every good editor does this, it helps when you are thinking ahead, coming up with cool ideas and trying to fit an idea into a posting period that is relevant to your post idea. This article on Mashable.com will help you get more organised with calendars
SEO and its Use as a Blogging Idea and Tool
MOZ is an authority on web traffic, SEO techniques and stays up to date on the latest trends – basically it means that it’s a trusted source when you doubt an unknown’s opinion about SEO and the world of websites and Blogging.
Here is an introduction to SEO and Blogging tech to read and use as a basis for good practice.
You will find a hierarchical needs chart. It gives you 7 principle points to keep in mind as a blogger. These tend to stay in fashion all of the time, and are basics of keeping a good blog fit for the internet – that’s if you want to be found.
- Write for your audience first. You can optimise for search engines as you tweak and correct your writing.
- Think hard about your keywords. Know the topic and the sub-categories of your blog, then work out which keywords you want to consistently use in order to build traffic to the keywords. Use long-tail keywords to be more inline with what your readers search for. Try to avoid competing for obviously difficult keywords – you’ll never catch up with well known expressions that are dominated by big, expansive blogs that have been in the game a long time.
- Write short sentences, short paragraphs but be comprehensive about your subject.
- There is a lot of very bad advice out there about writing styles for the internet. Write for grown-ups in a hurry, don’t write for 14 year olds – they are not your audience.
- Work hard on your post titles: the title makes the reader take interest and click through to the article. Then the first paragraph catches their attention enough to keep them reading the whole article.
- Read and practice good writing techniques. Books on writing stories are excellent resources for article and blog writers. There are many ways to approach your writing, it just depends on what your objectives are.
- Use Alt-text for your images so that search engines can properly understand what the image is – search engines “see” images differently to text. It’s an object and it needs and explanation for it.
- Use sub headings to divide your writing and paragraphs.
- Use internal links to point to your own articles. This helps search engines to make sense of your blog. If a search engine can see the structure to your blog, it’s another point in the game of SEO for you. Find useful external links also.
- Use meta descriptions to describe your blog post. This is what the people searching for your topic see, they will have a better idea of what your post is about before deciding to click. therefore, it makes sense to use the description to encourage people to click through to your blog posts.
Use images in your posts and Article Ideas
You can find images for posts all over the web. It’s important that you are aware of the copyright on any image you use.
Don’t Google an image and then just swipe it, photographers and image owners are really on the ball toady, and will take offence at “theft of property”.
Here are a couple of sites where you can find copyright use images, normally all you need to do is mention the photographers name. This helps them gain exposure, and keeps you safe as houses in using the image.
Unsplashttp://unsplash.comh.com
These two are plenty. The images and photographers on these sites are very professional and the variety of subjects is broad.
You may need to change image sizes or use them within an idea. Here’s a great article on how to use GIMP to manipulate images, and turn them into a banner.
GIMP is a free software that I have used often. I went to Photoshop for that little bit of finesse needed when working on images. But, I still think GIMP is great for any image work.
Create a header image for your Blog. Another article, really useful stuff to get you on your way to a fantastic looking Blog.
Blogging Ideas – Hosting and Domain names
You need a domain name, you also need to pay for hosting so that your name and web-space is visible to the world.
You rent a domain name with a one year contract or longer. I recommended firstly doing a 1 year sign-up for your domain name. Choose it carefully and be sure it reflects what your blog is offering by way of information and resources.
HostGator Shared Hosting Plans with Free SSL for as low as $2.75/mo.
HostGator also have an excellent guide on how to use and set up with WordPress sites.
When you start your first blog it’s better for you to go with what has been tried and tested over a longtime.
WordPress is perfect for Themes and is easy to understand quickly.
It’s important that your website choices mean that things stay flexible and they are effective blogging resources, WordPress and Bluehost do that. Both can be upgraded easily and can be changed within minutes – if you decide that your theme looks wrong, or you need something that reflects your own topic more. It’s easy, that’s what we all want so that we can get on with writing and posting great Blogging ideas.
Sign up for a WP Engine plan and receive the Genesis Framework and 35+ StudioPress Themes free!
All of us are learning, search engines change their way of offering and searching for content. So if you have any good blogging resource ideas, then let me know in a comment.
(Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. this means that if you click through an purchase an item I will receive a very small commission on the sale. The commission does not affect the price that you pay.)
Podcasting for Blogger and Writers
The methods used to Blog chop and change as time goes by, mostly it’s fad that marketers are pushing across the web. People love listening to podcasts, they also enjoy watching videos, and people always read first to get information about a subject.
I like the idea of podcasting – a good microphone, like Rode or cheaper but good enough, a Blue Yeti USB Mic
Recording your voice on a podcast is simple. I use Audacity for any voice recording that I want to do. I recommend it as an excellent starting point, and it’s free to download and use.
Audacity is a common software, and has a great reputation for podcasting. Even though I found it simple to get started – immediately – it can be use for all types of audio recording, leveling etc to create a finished product with top quality sound.
I found it to be very user friendly; push the record button, record speaking voice through mic, go back to beginning and listen to the recording while you make a note of a cough or a too long a pause, background noises etc and then eliminate them by simply cutting the section with the simple easy to use tools on Audacity`s software.
If Podcasting is a thing for you, be warned it’ll cost you extra to set up properly with a place to host your podcasts – even when you use your own blog to link to the audio recordings for podcasts, you will need a separate hosting service for podcast audio. To host them on your present Bluehost or other hosting service will overload it too much and cause your blog to slow down into a lumbering mess.
Video Blogging Ideas- Vlogging on YouTube Channels
If you’re happy to use your face and body language to get your message across, then create a YouTube Channel and start to Vlog about your subject on YouTube.
You must have a fairly decent camera for this.
If the camera doesn’t have auto focus, image stabilization, and a basic, but good lens that will get a tack sharp shot of you, then you’ll have constant battles with quality.
On the other hand, I think a lot of bloggers cum Vloggers go way over the top and forget that their message is more important than their tack sharp face. So, make your own mind up about quality of camera and which camera to buy for your YouTube Channel experience.
The great thing about YouTube is that although you need to invest in equipment, you don’t need to buy new hosting, all of that is done on your free YouTube channel.
The Canon Rebel is my own choice. Brilliant camera, and it and I don’t take any crap from wanna be profis who like to impress with mega expensive and extensive bags of camera gear.
Above you is the Canon Rebel Kit with tripod and lenses all for sweet price . The equipment offered is plenty to get going and keep moving as a photographer and video blogger. Add your microphone to the pack and you’re ready to Vlog and Photograph.
A simple straight forward Camera with an 18-55 mm lens included is a great buy too. Canon Rebel T6 Digital
