Creating a successful blog

Creating a successful blog is like any good recipe, some carefully measured ingredients, some trial and error and of course the secret ingredient. There are many people who spout tips to blogging, and so many blogs exist (most of which aren’t terribly popular). But after working on lots of blogs in lots of industries I think there’s some pretty simple factors that lead to blogging success.

The Ingredients

Original Content – This is such an important ingredient in blogging. So many people create blogs that have a majority of the content swiped from other blogs and news sources, this of course saves them a lot of time but at what cost.

Quality Content – Having genuinely good content. Yet another problem with bloggers is they think they only need to have something on there and it will benefit them. Where true success comes from having great content that people really want to read.

Trial and Error

In marketing trial and error is kind of a given, you try to predict trends or interests but ultimately the audience will tell you what they want.  The kind of testing I’m talking about is content testing, try new ideas and whatever is the most successful should be repeated, with a new topic of course. The magazine style of writing seems to do the best with formats like top 10 lists or “secrets they don’t tell you” blogs. Lots of use of imagery and interactive content is also very helpful to a successful blog, most people don’t want to read an essay they want quick and easy to process information.

The Secret Ingredient
Most commonly overlooked is the coveted secret ingredient; passion. So many bloggers write for one of two reasons, to make money or to share their personal thoughts and beliefs with the world. This creates a problem where bloggers either have no passion for a subject or become too scattered talking about so many different things many users get lost.

Blog about what you love, stay focused and you will find success.