How to Blog in 2023 to create a passive income stream

How to Blog in 2023 to create a passive income stream, Is any website a blog? Does any site created using WordPress qualify as a blog? Well, in its original form, a blog is nothing more than a digital diary shared by its author with the world via the Internet.

It can also be considered the digitization of the opinion columns seen in most newspapers. When it comes down to it, a blog can be defined as written content shared via the World Wide Web containing the views of an individual, or group of people, on a particular subject.

This content will be serialized and published regularly (daily, weekly, or monthly) on a specific website.

History of Blogs

The blog is a term derived from two terms that were merged into one- Web and log. Not long after the word ‘weblog’ was coined in the late 90s, its popular shortened form was created by Peter Merholz, one of the early bloggers.

But before they came into their own, blogs could be found as comments in discussions in the various forums that were popular in the early days of the Internet.

This was one of the few ways Web users could interact directly without having to go through the pain of drafting an email.

Multiple comments on a particular topic would become threads. It wasn’t until 1995 that the first accurate likeness of a blog did appear.

It appeared in the form of the personal diary of a college student. These slowly began gaining popularity as tools such as Blogger.com were developed to support bloggers.

How Should a Blog Look?

The layout of a blog page will differ from blog to blog but there are some key elements you will expect to see in the structure of a blog, which are:

Header- Contains the main menu and navigation buttons
Body- Where the content is written
Sidebar- Where additional navigation buttons and social media profiles/feeds appear
Footer- Privacy policy, disclaimer, and contacts will usually appear here.

How is a Blog Different From a Website?

A blog is a website but there are some aspects where the two entities differ:

Frequency of updates: A website will mainly contain static (unchanging) information or information that is rarely updated. Things like what a company does, its history, or management staff rarely need to be updated. A blog lives to be updated. This can be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.

Interaction: Blogs thrive on interaction. Whenever a blogger publishes a post, he or she will invite readers to say what they think in the comments section. Responses can even be posted on the social media platforms where the post is shared. Communication on websites, on the other hand, is usually one way- from the owner to the reader.

The Business of Blogs

Blogs have evolved into much more than just a place to vent or share ideas. Many bloggers today are making healthy incomes. They can do this by running ads related to the content they create and by affiliate marketing.

Is everything a blog?

If a blog is a website, is every website a blog? As obvious as the answer may seem to some, this question is relevant in the context of every other website having a blog section.

It should also be updated regularly with new posts. A traditional website will have pages that remain static for years whereas a blog will be updated daily, weekly, or monthly. Particularly passionate bloggers can publish more than one new post in a day.

Note that a website can contain a blog. Many businesses, realizing the potential of content marketing include a blog as part of their web design and have a team dedicated to keeping it updated with fresh posts.

These posts will be infused with keywords that the business wants to rank for so that they are captured by search engines. Other business owners will work with established bloggers so that they can send traffic to their websites.

A blogger could write about a given subject, making sure the post contains a link to that entrepreneur’s product that is relevant to the post. This is one of the ways bloggers can monetize their passion. We will cover this more comprehensively later.

Are All Online Opinion Pieces Blogs?

Now that blogs are all about sharing personal views, ideas, and experiences, your favorite newspaper columnist should qualify as a blogger, right? Especially if his or her mother’s publication is available online.

This is a bit of a grey area given the fact that several professional journalists do have personal blogs. However, what a journalist writes for their newspaper must conform to some journalistic code, even though it contains their personal opinion.

This attachment to the newspaper will disqualify it to some degree from being a blog. But when a journalist sets up a website expressly to air their views and interact with readers, the website will rightly be called a blog.

Speaking of which, many websites will have a ‘news’ section where they post any new information about their company or products.

Can this be taken to be a blog? But while this section may be updated even daily, it lacks one thing critical to the life of a blog; interaction. The flow of information is one way; from the company to the reader.

Can Academic Essays Be Considered Blogs?

Some academicians may find their work published online in academic journals or even mainstream media websites. Does this qualify them as bloggers? Not quite.

First of all, an academic essay doesn’t quite fit in the world of informal communication. They are usually written in a tone that suggests everything they contain is derived from cold, hard facts.

Blog posts won’t typically cite areas where references were made to the works of other writers. And bloggers won’t make an effort to defend their position on a particular subject.

However, academic work can be used to create a blog. A research paper can be broken down into several subtopics from which a series of blog posts can be derived for publishing on a separate website.

Is blogging dead?

You may be thinking of starting a blog but also wondering to yourself if it is worth it. Researchers say there are currently more than 600 million blogs doing the rounds on the Internet.

How will you get your voice heard in such a crowded space? You may have also heard it said in certain quarters that people no longer make money as bloggers.

So is it worth it to invest in a domain and hosting for a blog that you’re not sure will get an audience or that doesn’t promise any returns?

Blogging Isn’t Dead, It’s Shifting

Blogging is far from dead. There are still many successful bloggers out there making heaps of cash in ad revenue and affiliate commissions.

Believe it or not, some are making upwards of $100,000 every month. However, the blogging landscape today is not what it was in the 2000s when it was an emerging trend.

When Facebook, Twitter, and the likes began to take the world by storm, bloggers could not have been happier. There was an easy way to drive traffic to their blogs.

However, research has shown that it is now much more difficult to mine traffic from social media today than it was back then.

It is also significantly harder to get traffic from Google by targeting certain keywords. The search engine’s algorithm keeps changing as Google strives to ensure its users get more relevant useful information whenever they perform a search.

It is difficult to keep abreast with algorithm updates to keep your blog posts ranking well.

A key reason for this is that there is much more competition for the attention of readers today than there was in the past.

Ingredients of a Successful Blog

So how do you ensure you’re not left behind in Blogging’s relentless march into the future? Here are some recommendations from savvy bloggers on trends you can take advantage of to secure your corner of the blogging space:

Use email

Rather than just posting the intro of your latest post on Facebook or Instagram and hoping followers will click through and read, go back to that more personal channel of communication.

Busy as today’s Internet users’ social media timelines are, your best bet for reaching them is by contacting them on a more personal level. So take time to build an email list of potential readers and craft enticing messages to invite them into your world.

Reach out

To other bloggers and website owners, that is. Building incoming links to your blog is one way you can establish authority as well as directly build on your readership base.

You can guest post on other’s blogs or put up posts on Medium.com and other such platforms that bring diverse writers together. Establishing authority is essential when seeking to mine traffic from Google.

Branch out

Blog posts are great; keep churning them out. But at the same time think of other ways apart from blog posts you can reach out to your target audience.

Start with a plan

The key to setting up and keeping your blog successful through the years is to start with a solid strategy. This plan will detail everything from what you’ll write about, who your target audience is, how frequently you will post, which platforms you’ll advertise your posts on etc.

What niche should I choose?

If you’re blogging to earn an income, you should select the niche you will be focusing on carefully.

Writing about the things you love could help you produce great blog posts. Unfortunately, you may not be able to monetize your blog.

On the other hand, writing about any topic you think people will want to read about may give readers the sense that you’re unfocused and simply writing for a quick buck.

So before deciding which niche to write about, it’s worth considering how to sift through potential topics.

Here are some key points

Find a Profitable Niche

Don’t rely on hearsay; find out if there is a big enough audience for your subject of interest using tools like Google Trends. This freely available tool will show you how much interest there is in the subject presently.

It will also show you, graphically, whether interest in the niche is rising or declining. You will also be able to see the geographical locations where interest is strong so that you know where to focus your content.

Narrow Your Focus

If you search for a broad subject like “Interior Design” you will find that it attracts plenty of interest but also that it has a lot of competition. It will therefore be wise to look for a smaller niche within this topic.

You can find subtopics within your desired subject that draw a lot of interest by doing a search for interior design and scrolling down to the related searches section at the bottom of the results page.

You can generate a list of keywords and subtopics around this term using the AdWords Keyword Planner.

Authority

After doing your homework and finding a particularly profitable niche, do you know enough about it to write about it? Note that you don’t have to hold a doctorate in the subject but you should be able to answer comments raised about your post.

The idea is to settle for an issue that you don’t have to do too much research on.

Some Profitable Niches

There are some niches for which bloggers will always find a ready audience. They include the below:

Personal finance management

People are always looking for ways they can get more out of their paychecks. People are always curious about ways they can spend less and save more.

Health

Hand in hand with managing their finances better, people usually start every year saying they will take better care of their health. Many of us resolve to be more conscious about what we eat and develop a fitness routine.

So you are less assured of an audience if you can offer people authoritative dieting tips or cost-effective ways to get back into shape.

Travel

Many people will be thinking about their vacation even before winter has got out of the way. They will be looking for interesting stories of other people’s dream holidays to inspire them as they plan for summer.

Whether you offer such stories or practical tips on how to best enjoy certain destinations, they will come back for more.

How do you monetize a blog?

You may have been running a blog for some time now and have gathered a steady following. Now the question becomes how to make money from what you love doing. At the very least you would like the blog to pay for what you spend on hosting and annual domain fees.

As well as what you paid your developer if you sought the services of a web designer. On the other end of the scale, blogging can be your ticket to escaping a boring 8-to-5 job.

Start with a Plan

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, the adage goes. If you want to make money from your blog, you need to plan how you’re going to do so.

The first step of that plan will be how to grow your following. If your blog is already clocking more than 1,000 visits per month, you have something to work with.

If not, you need to work out how you’re going to increase your viewership. Next, you need to set a goal of how much you want to earn from your blog and choose a strategy that will get you there.

Not all strategies will get you to your earning goal; at least not in the timespan, you have in mind.

Choose Your Weapon

There are several ways you can make money from your site. Here are a few:

Sell stuff on your blog

Think of interesting ways to package the knowledge you’ve gained as a blogger and offer it to your readers as an ebook. You can also sell physical products on your blog. If you blog in the health and fitness niche, you can have an online store where you sell nutritional supplements or fitness equipment.

Banner ads

While they might not be the most popular monetization strategy today, they are the fastest way for bloggers to begin getting paid. But banner ads won’t make you the most money of the available income generation avenues. Ads from Google Adsense can make you hundreds of dollars daily if you are a real authority in your chosen niche with many followers.

Affiliate marketing

This is another popular way bloggers get money from their websites. The way it works is simple; promote or sell the products of brands within your chosen niche and get a commission whenever a visitor to your site clicks through and buys. There are several affiliate networks you can get products to sell. They include Amazon Affiliate, eBay Partner Network, and Rakuten Marketing.

The best way to make good money from this method is by only selling products that you feel will add real value to the lives of buyers. Pushing products to make a quick buck can easily backfire on you, staining your reputation and causing you to lose your following.

Sponsored posts

Here a company pays you to write about their brand or products. To be able to use this method you need to have amassed many followers and become a known authority in your niche.

Is Google AdSense or any other display ads worth it?

You may have heard it said that people no longer make any worthwhile money on Google AdSense and other display ads. But should you also give up on it as a potential source of income from your blog?

Some pro bloggers think that the money you can make from this channel is too little to bother about. Based on the average click-through rate of 0.1 percent, even 1,000 Internet users visiting your website daily would not make you more than a few cents.

Even if you have a slightly better CTR, your earnings from ads will not be anything to write home about.

Ads Are a Distraction

Another reason some bloggers don’t advocate for ads is that they can at times be at odds with your goal for the blog. Sure, ads can earn you money, which could be your ultimate goal for setting up your blog.

However, those very ads could distract readers from your blog. And if they successfully click through on an ad, they will be led to a different website and may never return to finish reading your content.

This may hurt your goal to build up a base of loyal readers. By distracting your readers from getting to the end of your post, they may never get to share the post or subscribe to your email list. In this way, ads can negatively impact your growth prospects.

By visitors leaving your site you are likely to miss out on revenue you could have earned through other sources like sales of your own products or affiliate sales commissions.

Could Ruin Your Reputation

Whenever Internet users happen on a site laden with ads, they get the impression that you’re more interested in trying to sell them something than solving their problems.

If an ad for a product one of your readers has qualms about pops up while they’re on your site, they will apply the negative association of that product with you. And that just might be the end of any potential relationship they would have had with you.

AdSense Benefits

At this rate, you could be forgiven for rethinking any ad ideas you had for your blog. But it’s not all doom and gloom. There are some pros to putting ads on your website.

Analysis: Your AdSense account will give you a clear picture of which ads are making you money and which are not. You will also have heaps of other data that can help you improve your earning potential.

Google does the techie spadework: You don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty of ads fitting well in desktop and mobile browsers. Google will also work to ensure the ads on your blog are high quality and relevant to your audience.

Tips to Increase Your AdSense Earnings

Here are a few ways you can boost your earning potential from AdSense:

• Take time to read and understand Google’s AdSense program policy to avoid any adverse consequences. Clicking on your ads, for example, is a no-no.
• Work on creating valuable content for your target audience.
• Use organic traffic-building marketing techniques to grow your audience.
• Optimize your website for mobile and ensure you’re using responsive ads.

How do I get started?

So you’ve come alive to the reality of earning a secondary income stream as a blogger. You have an idea of how blogging should work and how to monetize it but don’t know where to begin. Here are some steps you can take to get your blogging career off the starting block.

Decide What You Want to Blog About

Your very first step in this journey should be to decide what niche you want to get into. Preferably, your chosen niche will be something you’re personally passionate about.

This way you will be sure to produce great content and relish responding to feedback from readers.

However, the topic that tickles your fancy may not be very profitable. Bloggers seeking to quickly get into the money will search for the most popular blogging niches and try to eke out a following from a subtopic that doesn’t have too much competition.

Make a Name and Register a Domain

Once you’ve settled on a niche, you need to find a name to identify your blog to your target audience and the rest of the World Wide Web.

Getting a name is easier said than done; chances are the name you have in mind has already been taken. Apart from being unique, your chosen blog/domain name should ideally give Internet users a clear idea of what your blog is about.

If you’re short of ideas for names, you can use one of the many blog name generators available online.

Once you’ve got a name, you will need to register a domain name. Most hosting service providers will also help you register your domain and usually, the first year of registration will be free.

Get Hosting

Identifying a host for your blog is the next step. There are numerous providers out there and you will need to select the one that best meets your needs within your budget.

Bluehost, Hostinger, GoDaddy, DreamHost, HostGator, SiteGround, and A2 Hosting are some of the more popular names. Some lesser-known providers are known for good service and low rates.

Speaking of service, the amount of support you get from your hosting provider should be a key factor when making decisions. Will they be available on call or on chat at any time of the day or night to answer your queries?

Another crucial deciding factor is your host’s performance. What kind of speeds can they guarantee you? Slow load times are detrimental to the lead conversion process. Most hosting providers offer an uptime guarantee- usually 99.9 percent.

Install WordPress and Pick a Theme

Installing WordPress is a matter of a few clicks and most hosting providers will guide you through it. After you’re done, you can choose from the many WordPress themes available to give your blog the look and feel you desire.

There are many free themes but if you want one that is unique and gives your site a professional feel, you may have to select from the premium themes.

You may at this stage want to install plug-ins that will enhance certain functionalities on your site. Yoast will help enhance the SEO on your blog, for instance.

Once all the above is done, you’re good to go. Simply begin creating posts and publishing them as you also work on promoting your blog.

Why Affiliate Is The Best Way To Monetize And Would Last?

As we’ve seen, there are many ways to make money from your blog. We’ve seen how challenging it can be to go the Google AdSense way, and how you need extremely high traffic to make any returns from this avenue.

So how does affiliate income match up to ad income and other blog revenue streams? But to begin with, you may be wondering what affiliate marketing is and how it works. Read on to find out.

Affiliate Marketing Defined

Affiliate marketing is essentially using your blog, or website, to market someone else’s products.

How it works is you put a link or a clickable ad on your webpage which will lead the person who clicks on it to a page where they can purchase the product. If this happens and the visitor proceeds to buy the product, you will earn a commission.

Before you’re paid, however, the sale has to be confirmed and the transaction credited to you.

What You Need to Be An Affiliate Marketer

You need to have a platform on which to advertise the products, to begin with. You also need an audience to which you can promote the products.

Since you will be earning a commission on each sale, it will be to your benefit to have plenty of traffic.

But for your audience members to believe you when you say that buying product X will improve their lives, you have to have won over their trust.

As a blogger, you establish this by consistently offering your audience valuable information on your chosen niche. And this doesn’t happen automatically, you have to research widely and deeply on your subject of choice.

You also need to follow any new developments in your niche with a keen eye.

Why You Should Be an Affiliate

Earn before you sell

You don’t need to make an actual sale to begin earning. You can get a commission if the buyer completes certain actions, such as downloading a certain file, joining their email subscription list, or registering for a trial. If your followers even just click the link that redirects them from your site to the seller’s site, you stand to earn a commission.

Earn while you sleep

After doing the initial groundwork of creating a campaign around the product and promoting it with relevant content, you can sit back and watch your commissions grow. Years after you set up your site and populated it with content, you will continue to make money as long as visitors are clicking through.

Hassle-free income

You will make money from the product without dealing with the headache of after-sale service and customer complaints. After playing your part in the sale, the vendor or maker of the product will be left to deal with any arising issues.

Choose the products you want to sell

Unlike Google Ads, you will have more control over what products are promoted. You will be better able to convince people to use a particular product if you have used it and can attest to its goodness.

Use multiple channels

Unlike Google Ads which limits you to places on web pages where the ad will appear, affiliate products can be promoted using multiple channels. You can create an email list to reach out to potential buyers in a more personal way.

Why is the Amazon affiliate (or any other retail affiliate program) not worth it anymore?

Amazon is the world’s leading retailer and it offers anyone with a website the chance to earn commissions on sales.

In the Amazon affiliate program, you advertise Amazon products on your site or blog and get a commission if a visitor clicks through to Amazon from your site and buys one or more of those products.

for the sale to be credited to you, the purchase has to be done within 24 hours. Depending on the products you choose to promote, you could earn a commission of up to 10 percent.

On the face of it, this program sounds like a great way to make a passive income. Amazon is a reputable seller and you can effortlessly earn commissions without having to invest in a store of your own.

In addition to the program being easy to get started on, you will have a wide range of products to choose from. But it’s not all plain selling.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Signing Up

Amazon cookie: Buyers have only 24 hours to purchase for you to be eligible to earn the commission. However, if the buyer puts the product in their cart,

Vague Terms of Service: Even the most seasoned affiliate marketers have a hard time understanding Amazon’s ToS. And these keep changing now and then so it’s easy to find yourself falling foul of Amazon’s rules without knowing.

A case in point is the change in commissions introduced in April 2020. The new tariffs will reduce what you can earn from affiliate commissions from between 3 and 8 percent to between 1 and 3 percent. This translated into less than half commission income for sales of some products.

Service: Whenever you run into a challenge, you will be able to get an Amazon support rep on the phone. But whether they will be able to get assistance is another question altogether.

The beginning of the end: The commission structure change that took the world by storm is thought by many to be the beginning of the end of the Amazon affiliate program.

Indeed, there is a feeling that Amazon has become a self-sufficient monopoly that people have no choice but to buy from. They no longer need to work so hard at marketing their product catalog.

Statisticians say that of all the Amazon affiliates in the world, only 10 percent of them are responsible for 90 percent of the conversions on this platform. That should tell you how hard you have to work to make a living on Amazon affiliate commissions.

If Not Amazon, Who Else?

Getting commissions as low as 3 percent on product sales is less than ideal if you intend to create a sustainable income stream out of your blog that will rival your 9-to-5 take-home pay.

This may lead you to wonder if there is a better affiliate program out there. Glad you asked. Try becoming a SaaS affiliate and you will see the difference. You could also try signing up on digital marketing platforms that pay commissions of more than 30 percent.

Why Are SaaS and Digital Affiliate Programs the best?

Now that Amazon affiliate marketing and retail affiliate programs, in general, appear to yield little returns, should you give up on affiliate marketing as a monetization strategy altogether? Not quite yet. You could give SaaS and digital affiliate programs a try. Here are a few reasons why:

Steady Income Stream

Many SaaS products are sold on a subscription model and this will assure you of a steady stream of income over at least a couple of months. Though what you will get at the end of the month from each subscriber may appear to be little, it is better than the one-off commission you get from retail affiliate programs.

If you manage to get sent through many subscribers from your blog, you could end up with a handsome payout every month. All without having to move a muscle.

Better incentives

We all love freebies and the beauty of SaaS and sellers of digital cloud-based products is that they usually offer buyers a free trial period. It is easier to convince someone to try something for free than to tell them to buy a product upfront.

Instant gratification

When one of your blog visitors takes you up on your offer of a free trial for subscription software, they will get to see how it can benefit them in the real world right away. If they get a real benefit from the product, they will not hesitate to give their credit card info.

With retail products, the buyer has to wait until the product ships to taste whatever benefit you told them they would get from the product.

This could be weeks later, depending on their location. This makes retail products a bit harder to push than digital products or software subscriptions.

Big commissions

Imagine earning a $1,000 commission on a single sale. That is what HubSpot offers for certain products. Meanwhile, the LeadPages affiliate program guarantees you a commission of 30 percent on every sale.

Email marketing platform AWeber offers the same percentage on products that range between $20 and $150. This means you can make $30 from a single buyer every month for as long as they maintain their subscription.

If 50 buyers sign up through your website, that will be a cool $1,500 monthly without you breaking a sweat.

Low competition

The Amazon affiliate program is one of the most popular- if not the most popular such marketing programs. Retail affiliate marketing is a saturated field. And even if you do manage to push products on your blog, the commissions may not be worth the effort.

SaaS and digital affiliate programs are a fairly novel space. Your chances of earning good commissions are therefore high through this as-yet-untapped marketing channel.

The future is bright

While Amazon appears to be slowly killing off its affiliate program, the potential for SaaS affiliate programs is steadily growing.

Currently, more than 70 percent of organizations in the U.S. are using cloud-based applications and this is projected to grow to 90 percent in the next five years.

Given the fact that SaaS vendors get 15-30 percent of their sales from affiliates, there’s little chance of them dropping this mode of marketing any time soon.

Choose a Domain

Picking the correct domain name that will represent your website is very important for the success of your business. Switching from an unsuitable one to one that you prefer can be a chore, on top of it potentially negatively impacting your search rankings and brand.

Below are several tips for picking the most ideal domain name for your online venture.

Opt For The Most Tried and Tested.com

Domain name extensions can come in a dizzying amount of variety, such as .blog, .photography, and even .pizza!
It is highly recommended you pick the tried and true .com.

While it may be tempting to go with one of the other niche choices, .com is the most credible and established extension for domain names that exist out there.

.com is also highly recognizable and memorable, as it has been written and uttered since the beginning of the internet. In addition, smartphone keyboards all have an automatic .com button.

When Searching For Your Domain Name, Use Keywords

Keywords are crucial to a domain name, as search engines use them to identify and rank your website. Higher rankings can be achieved through a keyword-rich domain name, along with a great user experience and quality content.

Keep It Short

As we’ve discussed, keywords are significant but resist the urge to overdo it when it comes to domain length. Precise and memorable should be what you are going for, typically 15 characters or less.

Domain names of extended length bring about more chances of typing errors, and such frustration often leads to loss of traffic.
Your Domain Name Should be Simple to Spell and Pronounce

Any listener should be able to decipher your domain name when it’s spoken to them. This is important when marketing your online business in person.

Keep Your Domain Name Brandable and Unique

A unique domain name makes your online business not only stand out in the minds of your readers but also goes some way to make you more marketable. Brandable domain names are striking, catchy, and distinctive.

Avoid Hyphens

To many people, hyphenated domain names are associated with spam, and that is a link you do not want your users to make. In addition, typos are more likely to be made when a domain name contains hyphens.

If a domain name is already assigned and you choose to hyphenate yours, users are more likely to visit the non-hyphenated domain name just because it’s simpler to remember.

Do Your Domain Name Research

Ahead of registering your domain name, ascertain that it is not already assigned by performing a trademark search, which reveals whether an exact or very similar domain name is already in use or dormant.

Additionally, you can search on Google as well as check popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Domain Name Generators Contain Some Clever Domain Name Ideas

There are currently over 350 million domain names that are registered, which may lead you to believe that “all the good ones are taken”. Searching manually is both tedious and time-consuming.

Domain name generators are free tools that search automatically for keywords to present hundreds of unique domain name suggestions.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

For those new to the world of WordPress and wonder to themselves, ‘What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?’ We are here to answer that very question.

WordPress.com

This is a platform that allows you to ‘build your site’. It is initially free and bundles your new site with a domain name and web hosting.

All that is required is to sign up at WordPress.com for an account, after which you begin to design and build your website immediately.

WordPress.org

This represents a website software that is open-source, in other words, a blog or website’s operating system. In and of itself, the software is free, but it does carry its associated costs, such as website hosting.

Which is Cheaper?

WordPress.com: Both premium and free plans are offered

The free plan is no strings attached 100% free and features a WordPress.com subdomain, 3 GB disk space, and WordPress.com ads placed on your website.

The 4 paid plans cost between $4 and $45 monthly and are featured differently. The cheapest Personal plan offers a one-year domain name, for free.

WordPress.org: While the software itself is completely free, for it to work online it will require the accompaniment of a domain name and web hosting, which are not free.

Conclusion: WordPress.com is cheaper if your aim is a small, personal, and basic website. All things considered though, WordPress.org carries more value in the long run.

Which Is Easier To Setup?

WordPress.com setup is as easy as it comes, simply click on the button Start Your Website on the WordPress.com homepage.

Thereafter, you will be prompted step by step throughout the process, which should take you minutes to complete.

WordPress.org is not as dead easy to install. Once you pick your preferred web host, their platform will guide you through the various ways you can set up WordPress. The easiest way is by using the provided 1-click installer.

Which Is The More Customizable One (In Terms Of Themes)

Themes can be described as design packages that can be applied to a WordPress.com site, installable via several clicks.

WordPress.com: The quantity of themes that you can access depends on the particular WordPress.com plan you pick; the Personal and Free plans offer over 150 themes for free while the eCommerce, Business, and Premium plans allow for over 200 paid themes in addition to all the free themes.

WordPress.org: There are thousands of premium and free WordPress.org themes, both on WordPress.org’s official directory and other online sources.

Conclusion: There are more WordPress.org themes than you will ever realistically need or use.

Summary

If all you want is a hobby site, thought-sharing website, or personal project site, WordPress.com is recommended as it is maintenance-free (on your end), simple to set up, and free (at least initially).

For those with ambitions on a more serious and ambitious online odyssey – be it blogging, a major project, or a business website – WordPress.org would be the way to go. It carries the option of monetization, with unending customization options.

Choose a Hosting Provider

Picking the right web hosting company for your site is a crucial decision as it sets the foundation for your online business’s success.

Your site’s performance can be greatly affected by the hosting provider you end up choosing.

What are a few factors to take into consideration when picking the most suitable web host for your online business?

Understand Your Site’s Needs

There are several web hosting companies in operation, but ahead of engaging any of them, your website’s needs will need to be figured out. The type of questions that will require to be asked is the type of site being built, “What platform should

I join” or “What are my traffic expectations”?

While these questions may appear basic, the more detailed an answer that can be given will assist in the web host’s decision-making process.

For example, if you decide to go with the WordPress platform, then a hosting provider that offers managed WordPress web hosting might be best. If you are going in the direction of an online store, an eCommerce-focused web host may be the way to go.

It is widely suggested that complete novices, opt for a shared web hosting plan through a reputable provider.

The reasoning for this is that shared hosting is easy and cheap to maintain, making it the ideal web hosting plan choice for smaller and new websites. In addition, you will not be responsible for technical aspects such as security and maintenance.

Compare Uptime and Reliability Scores

Remaining online is critical to your website’s fortunes, and this ties in directly with the stability of your web hosting partner. A great way of judging a particular host’s reliability is its uptime scores.

Generally, 99.95% is the market standard while 99% and below should be rejected.

Scalability

Shared hosting is great when you are starting, but not so much down the road when you’ve grown and need to scale upwards. This is due to the nature of shared hosting, which is pooled hosting resources amongst several users such as yourself.

Once traffic to your site increases and the site grows larger, bandwidth accommodation may become a problem. A hosting company that can add to your hosting resources along with your website’s expansion is very important. It sure beats having to uproot your operation and head on to another provider!

Beginner’s tip: A dedicated server or VPS plan provides additional server resources that your website will need once it grows past a certain point. Ideal web hosting companies will offer plans that allow you to move onto those higher tiers of web hosting when your site requires it.

Research the Renewal and Sign-up Fees

Web hosting has two main prices – renewal charges and sign-up charges
Broadly, renewal prices are different from the prices you paid on sign-up, with sign-up charges being significantly discounted, making renewal fees seem higher in comparison.

Aim for web hosts that reasonably jump up in price, such as a $10 per month renewal cost from a $5 sign-up fee, for example.

Set Up WordPress

How Much Does WordPress Cost?

This depends on the purpose of your site or blog but WordPress itself is free. Usually, business websites cost anywhere from $100 annually to several thousand dollars yearly.

It is recommended that you start small, adding features and functionality as the website grows and requires it. This way, money is saved by avoiding overspending and minimizing potential losses.

WordPress can be found in nearly a third of all the internet’s websites, easily making it the most widely-used platform for websites globally. It features an extensive amount of website extensions and designs while being supremely flexible, integrating very well with most third-party services and tools available to owners of websites.

For most people, the perfect website creation and hosting solution is a self-hosted WordPress.org website. Not only is it free, but it comes with a vast array of add-ons and designs that allow for near-endless customization options.

A commonly asked question is ‘If WordPress is free, where do website costs come from? The answer is several-fold. First, there are domain fees, and second, web hosting. Typically, a domain name can cost about $15 yearly while hosting may be priced from around $8 annually.

Let us look at a few of the most popular ways to set up WordPress.

Choose a WordPress Web Host

By far the easiest method to set up WordPress is choosing a web hosting provider that handles the installation for you. There are several WordPress-specific web hosts whose plans come with pre-installed WordPress.

Once you pick the appropriate plan for you, you begin your WordPress-powered online journey once signed up.

Additionally, several web hosts offer managed WordPress plans, and set up WordPress on your behalf, though this category of hosting provider may cost more, depending on the plan.

Setup WordPress Through AutoInstallers and cPanel

cPanel is the most popular dashboard web hosting providers offer their clients. Once signed up to a host, cPanel login details should be provided to you.

Within your cPanel, there should be an auto-installer section that fully automates WordPress setup. This means it is a guided setup, with all you have to do is click along and provide certain basic information.

Pick a theme

Once set up, you will need to pick a theme. WordPress themes control your WordPress website’s visual appearance. These templates are professionally designed to alter their appearance.

Every WordPress website has a plain theme by default, although you can change it by using thousands of paid and free themes.

After the look of your new WordPress website is set, you will then add content. The 2 default types of content are known as pages and posts. Posts are typically used by bloggers and appear with the newest posts displayed first.

Pages are designed to be one-off, static content, for example, privacy policy, contact page, about me page, etc.

Buy A Theme or Go With A Free One

Beginners often ask whether to go with premium or free WordPress themes. What are the Pros and Cons?

Free WordPress Themes

Paid WordPress Themes

Setup All The Important Pages And Why It Is Important To Do This?

Which pages should a website have? This is one of the more commonly asked questions by small business website owners and online entrepreneurs when deciding on whether to start an online presence or not.

Let us look at the most critical web pages to include in your online business website.

Homepage

This is the page presented first for most sites, and because of this, it should inform everyone about you and what your website provides. Intriguing enough and capturing attention within seconds is what you want to go for. It also must look professional, load quickly, and be designed well.

You will need to include

• A concise report of what you do and who you are
• A brief description of the site’s products or services
• A few bullet points detailing how you can be of assistance to your potential client or customer

About Page

When business is conducted between two people, it is only natural that they want to know who they are conducting business with.

This page should feature a summary detailing who you are, the website’s history, and what sets you apart from your competition.

This page should also contain your employee’s biographies with accompanying pictures (if applicable), any received commendations, and a brief blurb on why the customer should pick your business over any other in your field.

FAQ Page

This page answers the questions you are asked the most by customers. Each question should be answered honestly, and those answers should include a call to action, persuading the potential customer to go ahead and make a purchase.

This page should comprise the most commonly asked queries customers have about your product or service, and the answers should leave no doubt in their minds about purchasing from you.

Reviews/Testimonials Page

This page should display the positive reviews received by your business, with author contact info and photos, where possible.

Contact Page

This page should detail all the ways customers can reach you, including email addresses, phone numbers, and physical mailing addresses. Do not forget to include the business working hours and social media handles as well.

Latest News/Press Page

This is a space where your media interactions can go, such as articles, press releases, ads, and videos, all featuring your business and its accomplishments. Included on this page should be a press or media kit as well.

Confidentiality Policy Page

A privacy or confidentiality policy is increasingly becoming more commonplace to see as part of business websites, as it allows the user visiting your site how the personal information they provide is handled.

Included on this page is an honest rundown of what data is collected, how the collecting is done, who the information collected is shared with, and for what purposes.

Terms and Conditions Page

This page defines user rules that must be followed to use the site as you intend. As part of this, guidelines and rules of use should be outlined, such as any laws that would impact your visitors while using your site.

Start With Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of an effective SEO strategy. Ahead of content creation, several high-volume, suitable search terms will need to be identified. SEO keywords should dictate content direction, making sure the content that comes up will be easily searchable and relevant on Google.

Keyword Research: What Is It?

The definition of keyword research is coming up with several keywords that hold value to the content being created, in service to SEO copywriting. Search terms, or keywords, then make up your marketing strategy and content direction.

A keyword can be just one word but more than likely it is usually several words.

What Is The Importance Of Keyword Research?

It is inadequate to just find search terms of high-volume. It is imperative to make sure your content and your SEO keywords match up with your visitor search terms.

Remember – picking a higher volume, more relevant keyword often produces better results in comparison to related or semantic keywords.

How Is Keyword Research Done?

The most common ways of carrying out keyword research are keyword tools, or doing it manually. In either case, some crucial steps need to be taken:

Research Your Niche

• Ahead of deciding the ideal keywords, carry out a deep dive into your niche or content topic.
• Carry out surveys with your visitors to know them better, and what phrases or words they would describe your brand with
• Try and put on the shoes of a customer of yours
  Peruse the online communities of your niche, including social media trying to find the discussions around your brand

Define Your Website’s Goals

• What you are ultimately trying to accomplish needs to be defined. As yourself:
• What are your website’s promises?
• What is the purpose of your website?
• What makes your website special?
• What does your brand stand for?
• These types of introspective questions should lead you to constructing your site’s direction, and with that, your brand’s SEO strategy.

List the Topics You Find Relevant

Depending on your goals and the sector your brand operates in, refine your keyword research further by listing your brand’s elated topics that you want great Google rankings on.

The topics should be critical to your website and cross-referenced with the personas of your audience.

Create a Seed Keywords List

Once sub-topics are created out of your relevant topics, begin a seed keywords list. These should be related closely to your topics while also related to your target market audience’s search terms.

Focus keywords or seed keywords will form the bedrock of keyword research you are attempting to do, as they classify your competitors and outline your niche.

Use Good Tools for Keyword Research

Search terms can be further refined using tools used in researching keywords. Examples include Keyword Toll and Google Keyword Planner. All that is required is typing in a seed keyword or topic and several alternative keywords will hopefully be displayed.

Best Tools for Keyword Research

Modern SEO is nothing without keyword research. This applies to content development strategy for a new blog, or resuscitating a dormant one. Quality keywords are the most effective way of attracting high-quality, consistent traffic to your website.

Below is a list of the best tools that produce the most relevant keywords:

SEMrush

SEMrush is an SEO Swiss Army Knife, beyond being a keyword research tool. It suggests several particular keywords that competitors are currently using!

Standout Features

• Insights into organic traffic and analysis into keyword difficulty
• Access to the entire toolkit of keyword research
• Global statistics of CPC distribution
• Uncover ideas for ad groups and long-tail keyword

Pricing

A free trial period of seven days is offered, thereafter several pricing tiers are on offer, depending on your needs. The best prices are for yearly subscriptions.

KWFinder

This platform allows for the simple detection of keywords featuring low SEO effort.

Standout Features

• Keyword suggestions can be refined using filters
• A suggestion list alongside a SERP overview that is in-depth
• Keyword competition receives precise statistics
• Keyword locating anywhere, in numerous language targets
• An easily navigable and unique user interface

Pricing

Rates range from $30 for small businesses and freelancers, $40 for blogs and new startups to $80 for eCommerce stores and heavy commercial sites.

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Expect broad keyword research reports, which rely on clickstream data to unearth distinctive click metrics.

Standout Features

• Wide-ranging SERP outline
• CTR-improving click metrics
• Global support; more than 171 countries
• Thousands of keyword suggestions
• Accurate scores of keyword difficulty

Pricing

There are 4 pricing plans, with their Standard and Lite plans offering a $7 for one-week trial offer.

Google Keyword Planner

This simple keyword research tool serves several basic features. It is very accurate as far as results go, despite its functionality limitations. AdSense integration is a bonus, as is the data coming straight out of the most widely-used search engine’s mouth.

Standout Features

• Ideal for business-related websites
• Accurate volume of search from Google’s search results directly
• Find commercial keywords through the use of the ‘top of page’ bid range

Pricing
Free!

GrowthBar

GrowthBar is for those who want search results to be presented along with keyword suggestions and ranking difficulty.

Standout Features

• Word count displayed on the page
• Keyword data that is exportable
• Suggestions for long-tail keywords
• Ranking accurate difficulty
• Tracking of keyword rank

Pricing

After trying it out for 5 days, charges will depend on the plan chosen, with the higher option allowing for unlimited keyword searches.
Pro, from$29 per month, and Scale, from $79 per month.

Long Tail Pro

With long-tail keywords being SEO’s new standard, Long Tail Pro produces long-tail keywords aimed at niche sites.

Standard Features

• Over 2,500 SERP searches every day
• Displays recommendations for bringing in organic traffic that is highly convertible
• Easily locate long-tail keywords
• Detailed and powerful keyword metrics

Pricing
On top of a free trial period of seven days, subscriptions begin from $25 monthly, with yearly billing.

Majestic

This all-encompassing SEO tool tracks the health of your site, making it perfect for small businesses and startup blogs without the resources to put into expensive support for SEO.

Standout Features

• Authority vs. trustworthiness graph, used in website analysis
• Every keyword comes with research competition
• Find phrases that are easy-to-target
• One toolkit avails every SEO feature

Pricing

Three free searches are offered after signup, after which you have a choice of plans to choose from.

How to Create the Content

Content marketers find content creation quite time-consuming, but acknowledge that it is the number one method for a website to engage with its audience therefore generating revenue from that audience.

Content Creation: What Is It?

Content creation refers to the identifying process of a new topic you would like to explore, how you want to present it, deciding on which strategy to employ (keywords or not), and creating it.

Further, the processes that makeup content creation include multiple editing rounds, at times in concert with other content creators, ahead of publication.

Content can be displayed in different ways – advertisement, infographic, tweet, eBook, video, blog post, etc. – so the process of creating the content is nuanced, and not as simple as it would appear at first.

Content created well is the most impactful part of an online business, as studies show content that is deemed as ‘quality’ turns page reads into revenue.

Great content creation begins with a well-established process. These are:

Coming Up With Ideas

Content ideas can come from anywhere, such as your inspiration, the product of data mining, company stakeholders, customers, or your content staff.

How Are Content Ideas Generated?

Keyword Research: You can learn a lot from how your users are interacting with a certain topic through the use of keyword research. Also, new ideas and discoveries can be made that you would have not come up with.

Customer Feedback: This can produce fantastic ideas, as they are the users of your product or service and are best placed to know how it fares.

Understand Your Audience: Ask yourself, as your customer would ask you, what they find helpful, interesting, or engaging.

Brainstorm with others: For instance, customer support staff may be communicating with customers and receiving helpful feedback that can be used to inform your content strategy. Similarly, those in sales can be a valuable resource as they know what types of queries the potential customers they interact with tend to ask.

Investigate Your Competition: Content creators should always be briefed on topics the competition is engaged with within your niche. Understanding their approach will help you differentiate your content.
Content Planning

Firstly, decide on the form the content will take. Some ideas may require visual representation, such as a video or infographic, while others will be fine as the written text.

When planning on what content to create, topical keyword research is critical as you can wrap your content around it from the beginning, not retroactively.

Thirdly, what is the scale of your content? Will one article, blog post or video do or will a longer piece integrating all of the above be necessary?

Some recommended questions to ask yourself when planning what content to create are:

• Who is my target audience?
• How much money and time can I spend creating this content?
• What additional resources or assistance will I require to create this content well?
• Is this the right time to create this piece of content?
• Is this content part of my more comprehensive content strategy?

You are now ready to produce a brilliant piece of content!

Outsource Vs. Writing It Yourself

Trying to decide whether to embark on an online business journey? A blog will assist your website in ranking higher on Google, as well as displaying your expertise on your chosen subject.

Once you opt to begin blogging, choices will need to be made, and one of the more important ones is, do you write the content yourself or hire another person to write for you.

Let us look closely at the pros and cons of both approaches:

Writing Yourself

It makes tons of sense to write for yourself because no one understands your niche subject like you do.

Benefits

When content is written internally, your experience and expertise are highlighted in every piece of writing. This would be difficult for an external writer to achieve, as they are not the ones assisting customers with their queries daily. Actual client interactions will be referenced in your work, adding depth to your output.

Authenticity is another aspect your writing will lend to your blog. Your words in your voice dictating your experiences will be brought out in your content. Your audience will feel a sense of kinship with you through your writing.

The human touch is still important, and sales figures bear out the fact that customers like to make purchases from business owners they like.

Challenges

Content writing is not easy, even for seasoned professionals. It takes patience, practice, and the ability to learn how to write an effective post. On top of the actual writing,

You will need to incorporate the best practices of inbound marketing, SEO, and digital marketing. Lastly, you will need to carve out a substantial amount of time to write, depending on your output needs.

Outsource Your Writing

If you don’t have the time to write, a solution might be to pay someone to write for you.

Benefits

The top benefit of outsourcing your blog content writing is the time it saves you to focus on other areas and important tasks. You will not need to learn all that goes into creating effective content, as you will receive ready-to-publish content with all the ingredients therein.

Content creators for hire are well-versed in what it takes to come up with compelling content.

Challenges

Unfortunately, good content creators are difficult to find. You do not want articles or blog posts that are poorly written, lack substance, or are not in tune with your intended audience. It is also difficult to judge a good writer from an average one.

Outsourcing needs a writer who knows about the subject matter, and the voice required to reach its audience. They may not have done adequate research into your customers or your niche, to produce content that fits both purposes.

How About A Little Bit of Both?

Strategically outsourcing is also an option open to you. Creating some content yourself while outsourcing the rest could be a middle ground that works for you. That way, your blog gets the content it requires to satisfy your readership, and quality is maintained.

Formatting The Content To Increase Conversions

You’ve settled on what you’ll write about and who will write it, you’ve probably even written out your content already. What remains, Do you go ahead and publish your content straight away? Hold on just one minute.

Remember we’re putting up a blog as a means of earning passive revenue. So everything on your site needs to be geared towards this; even how content is laid out.

Even if your blog is already getting you leads, there are always areas you can tweak to squeeze out some precious conversions. Here are some ideas you can implement quickly to boost the conversion potential of your blog content.

Start with a catchy headline

Your headline is the welcome mat to the rest of your content. How well you word it will go a long way to determining if readers will read on or brush past your post. So how do you hook readers with your headline? Here are a few ideas to try out:

Give the reader the idea they will benefit from reading on
Use numbers to enumerate benefits- “5 Ways to Grow Your Business…”

Make the points you’re listing seem readily actionable- “5 Easy Ways You Can Launch Your Business Today..”

If you’re stumped for ideas, you can generate headlines using a selection of readily accessible online tools. You can then run your shortlist of headlines through headline analyzing tools to be sure of their potential to lead to conversions.

Have an intro

All your blog posts should have an intro and this is not just for the sake of having an intro. Your intro should entice readers to stay on and read through your post after you’ve lured them in with your headline.

You can go a step further to ensure your intro contains strategically placed keywords that Google users are likely to type when searching for things related to your blog content.

Add some eye candy

Adding some images to your text is a good idea for many reasons. For one, it makes your post easier on the eye. Even the most avid readers will appreciate the monotony of words and paragraphs being broken up by a picture or video.

Chosen well, an image or video can help communicate the point you were making with words. It can also help your post rank well in search results pages if, for instance, you use keywords in its alt tags.

Break up your content

Even the most ardent novel lovers will have trouble getting to the bottom of a long page of continuous text. With attention spans getting shorter and shorter and Internet users looking for instant gratification, you will be shooting yourself in the foot with such content formatting.

Break your content into short paragraphs, each of which should be laden with useful points. Use bullet points if you want to deliver quick, salient points for readers who would prefer to skim through.

Order your content

Give your content a systematic flow that leads the reader through, preferably to a call to action. Disorganized content is not only a turn-off to logical thinkers, but it can also lead to lost conversions.

On-page SEO

You may have heard of on-page SEO or off-page SEO and wondered why the distinction (SEO is SEO, right?) or if it could have any impact on your blog. Well, there is a world of difference between on and off-page SEO.

The former concerns the efforts you make to make a page easier for search engines to find by playing around with its content or HTML code. The latter has to do with building external links and other such efforts outside your website to boost its ranking.

Good on-page SEO will help search engine crawlers know what your web pages are about to establish how relevant they are to search queries. Google’s search algorithms work harder to make sure queries return useful information.

You need to use all the on-page SEO tools you can to ensure your content is easily understandable. So what are some of these on-page SEO strategies you can employ?

Quality content

Work to ensure your blog contains information that is helpful to the reader. If the Google algorithm judges your content to showcase a degree of expertise in the given topic, your pages will rank better.

This is because Google is always looking to give its users the best quality results whenever they search. Even human readers who encounter rich, well-structured content will feel that yours is a credible source of information.

Catchy headlines

Eyeball-grabbing headlines are not just great for luring in human readers, they will help you get better traffic inflows from search engines. Good content may get your site up the SERPs (search engine results pages) but it is an enticing headline that will make them click through.

Keyword-rich content

Use the many available (some freely) tools to come up with a list of keyword phrases that people are likely to use when searching for content related to yours.

Try and get keywords for which you can rank well and which are not too competitive. It also helps to look at the pages that are currently ranking highly for the keywords you want to rank for.

Ask yourself how you can differentiate your content from theirs to offer your website visitors better value.

As you consider how to use keywords in your content, be sure not to fall into the temptation of using them solely to rank highly on SERPs. Tactics like keyword-stuffing have led to some sites being banished into oblivion by Google in the search engine’s quest to promote good quality content.

Having many pages ranking for the same keywords can prove counter-productive as they will compete against each other in results pages. Auto-generated content should be a complete no-no if you’re serious about on-page SEO.

Inter-page linking

Linking content within your pages can work in your favor in terms of SERP ranking but you must structure this carefully. You also need to leverage links that are directly accessible as opposed to hidden links (drop-down menus that are not visible to search engines).

Another way to catch search engine crawlers’ attention with your links is by including keywords in the anchor text. But as with the content, resist the temptation to stuff keywords in your hyperlinks’ anchor text.

Optimizing Website for Speed

How quickly your website loads is a huge factor in determining whether visitors to your blog will stay on and buy or leave in a huff.

In this age of broadband Internet, Web users no longer have the patience to wait more than a few seconds for webpages to fully load.

Your ability to deliver on this could be the difference between a bounced visit and a converted lead.

The rate at which your page even affects your SEO. Load times are factored into Google’s algorithm to ensure high-performance websites are easier for searchers to find.

If your pages load slowly, you will end up not only with frustrated visitors but poor rankings on Google’s results pages. The standard load time expected from a well-performing website is three seconds.

It will be to your benefit to use any of the numerous speed evaluation tools available online to gauge how close your blog is to this standard. Pingdom, Yslow, and Google PageSpeed Insights will give you statistics on your site’s performance as well as recommendations on how to improve it.

How can you ensure that pages load quickly enough to keep both search engines and your visitors interested? Here are some tips you can try:

Optimize on-page media: Images and embedded video can wreak havoc on your web pages’ load times. While they are useful in boosting visitor engagement, media files are usually large and can add considerably to page download speeds. If you must have such files on your pages, make sure they are compressed. This can be achieved using tools like JPEGmini and Kraken or by clever use of tags.

Easy on the JS and CSS files: While they can provide important aspects of functionality and aesthetics to your website, JavaScript and CSS files can bring down your site’s performance. This is because they add to the number of HTTP requests from client browsers to the server where your site is hosted. You can overcome this by grouping all the JavaScript files into one and doing the same for your CSS.

Easy on the plug-ins: Plug-ins also provide added functionality to your site beyond what your CMS or website builder offers. If you’re using WordPress, you will have 54,000 plug-ins at your disposal to assist you with everything from the security of your site to its SEO readiness. Many of these are free and therefore tempting to install. But if you run a performance test, you will find that some of them offer functionalities you can do without yet are seriously dragging your load times.

Change your host or hosting plan: Your speed issues could be as a result of who you is providing you with hosting. It could also simply be that you’ve outgrown the hosting plan you’re on. You could have started on a cheap shared hosting plan but now that you’re serving thousands of visitors a day, you may have to upgrade to a virtual private server (cloud VPS) or a dedicated server. Both these options give you greater control over the performance of your site.

Optimizing Title Tags For Better CTR

Title tags, overlooked as they have been in the past, are crucial factors in luring visitors into your blog. They are, in fact, the first impression Internet users are likely to have of your site. If you ask SEO experts, title tags are as crucial to the ranking of your website as the content itself. This title is the clickable text that appears in search engine results above the description of what the page contains.

If you make your title enticing enough, search engine users who see it on their results page will choose to click on it over other titles appearing on that page. The question then is, how do you make your title tag irresistible to Google users?

Avoid stuffing your title with keywords

In the early days of search engine optimization, the practice was to squeeze in as many keywords as possible into the title tag for better placement on results pages for searches with those keywords.

Google has, over time, improved its search algorithm to ensure users end up with more useful information.

If the algorithm detects any such stuffing in your title, your page could be pushed down the SERP rankings depending on the quality of your content.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t put in any keywords. You need to at least try and fit in your primary keyword there. If it makes sense and will be within the recommended character limit, you can try and squeeze in one of your long-tail keywords as well.

Make it readable

There are some basic principles to observe to ensure your title is legible in the results pages and that readers will be able to easily form an understanding of what the page contains based on that title.

For one, don’t put your title in all caps. Some blog owners do this with the idea that upper-case letters will easily grab readers’ attention. However, this is considered poor writing etiquette and few pages appearing at the top of SERPs will have all-cap titles. A title in sentence case or title case will read better.

Another way to ensure your title is readable is to keep it within 50-60 characters. If it is any longer than this, chances are it will be truncated by Google on the results page.

This means it might not make sense to search engine users. After you’ve drafted a few title ideas, you can use tools like SERPSim and Free Pixel Width Checker to ensure it is fully visible and legible on the results page.

In addition to making your title readable, you need to make it as descriptive as possible of the content on the page.

Do it for all pages

Ensure that all your blog’s pages have a title tag. Many website and blog owners work on one or a few pages and forget about the rest. Don’t be one of them. Furthermore, ensure that all the title tags for the different pages are unique. Resist the temptation to copy-paste title tags.

Schema markups

Schema markup is one of the search engine optimization tools that is still being explored and yet to be fully tapped into. Beginning to use this tool will make your pages stand out from competing web pages on the SERP rankings. But before you can use it to your advantage, you need to understand schema markup and how it works.

The vocabulary is added to website code following any of three formats: Microdata, Resource Description Framework in Attributes (RDFa), or JSON-LD, and is mainly used to describe: people, products, events, places, creative works, reviews, videos, recipes, businesses and organizations. Let’s look at how to use each of these formats to add schema markup to your web pages.

RDFa

This is a standard recommended by W3C to help you mark up structured data. It is an extension of HTML5. To incorporate RDFa into your webpage, you first need to go to Schema.org and look for the word descriptive of the subject of your page.

You can do this using the predefined hierarchies that group items of a given type or directly use the search engine on the top right. To begin with, you can identify a property using a tag like: