Making a Part-time Blog for Designers

Homework

In this section we’ll set our approach towards making a successful blog. I personally think that this is the most important part of making a blog. If the foundations are strong, the building would also be.

Fun + Time = Blogging = Money

This is the most essential thing on which your whole blog will stand, the topic of your blog. Only a few blog just for fun these days, monetary motivation has become quite common.

Since everybody want to earn from it, they don’t really try to make a blog on a subject they like, rather create a blog on something which has more potential for advertisers. This is the Biggest Mistake. I have seen people earning considerable income from blogs about Dog Food reviews and Horse Breeding.

The Right Way: Make a list of topics you love. Then find a middle-ground between expertise and likes, for example if you have three topics, banking (your job), camping (your hobby) and baseball tips (a topic you love). Choose the topic where you excel and that also should be your topic of interest so that you don’t get bored working on it.

Know Your Limits

If you are not a programmer, choose simple blogging platform instead of a professional’s pick. Blogger and WordPress should suite everybody.

Give it Time

This is also one of the very common phenomena here. Blogs don’t start to earn you from the very beginning. You’ll have to give them hours and hours to fill them with content and to promote them.

User Friendly – Not Ad Friendly

Numerous new bloggers do this and add too many advertisements in the template. This offends visitors and repents a great deal of your traffic, just keep the ads aside. Take Designzzz for a perfect example.

Becoming a Geek

No no, you don’t have to become a geek to be a successful blogger, but it is a nice idea to know the basic concepts of HTML (the basic coding language in which websites are written) and Search Engine Optimization.

Running Successfully

Post Frequency

One of the most common reasons which make a blog FLOP. You must have a frequency of publishing your posts. You don’t have to publish too much, even one post in a week could be enough, but there should be a routine so that your readers could also schedule a visit to your website. If you start to publish an article daily and later… you lose the momentum and consequently, you will lose a massive amount of readers.

Be Efficient, Not Quick

Never rush to complete and publish a post. Your posts must not contain any mistakes or dis-information. This will hurt your blog more than anything.

Trying to Look Too Professional

You should always remember to be connected with your readers. And for that you should have an opinion. Be distinct in what your thoughts are. This thing is something you MUST follow if you are reviewing anything.

Copy and Paste

Never ever copy any text content from anywhere – apart from explicit or important citations. It is almost same as stealing, even from Wikipedia, where rights are not reserved, it is not good for the authenticity of your blog that you copy stuff.

Keep Circulating and be Social

For example if you have a blog about HR, visit other HR blogs frequently and keep commenting. This will not just not enhance your contacts, but also inspire you a lot and you’ll never run out of ideas.

Limited Self Promotion

It’s good to promote your articles in social media once in a while, but if you just keep on promoting your website everywhere, you will be banned and so will your domain name.

Not Coming to Designzzz

This is the worst sin you can commit! Bear in mind to visit Designzzz.com for latest trends, guides, tips and tricks in the field of designing. (I just couldn’t hold myself to publicize Designzzz)