10 Expert Tips for Starting your Own Tech Blog
Tech is probably something you love if you read Engadget and maybe even something you'd love to write about and create content around. We've compiled 10 smart tips to start and market your online tech blog for success – see below.
1. Have A Clear Goal
The difference between a general, personal blog and a blog that functions as an effective marketing tool is largely a matter of focus. Think about what you want your blog to achieve and set up overarching goals that will help you stay on track. Typical blogging goals include:
* Promoting your individual point of view
* Providing a community with your technical expertise
* Building awareness of your brand
* Advocating for a cause you believe in
* Building goodwill and fostering trust
Beyond a set of goals, you'll also need to be writing with an audience in mind. Without readers, you blog is just going to be an online journal. Once you've identified your goals, ask yourself who you really need to reach in order to achieve them.
2. Choose The Right Platform
You have a lot of different options when it comes to blogging platforms. Some are free, some cost money, and some are in between (the so-called "freemium" model where you can use some features of a premium system without paying). Blogger, WordPress, and many other platforms offer incredible flexibility and wide-ranging appeal.
Research the different platforms carefully to find out which one best suits your situation. Do you want a self-hosted option or are you going to pay for your own hosting? Either way. Any worthwhile platform should offer you certain features, though. You'll need easy access to your blog, simple linking features, and as much customizability as possible.
Another important question to answer is how your blog is going to interact with your existing sites, if any. Are you adding a blog to a commercial website, or starting one up on its own? If you have other online positions you can improve your blog's readership by sending more traffic its way.
3. Build A Consistent Schedule
There is no hard-and-fast rule about how frequently you need to update your blog. Choose a pace that fits your resources, but make it as consistent as possible. There's nothing better for driving away readers than an irregular schedule. The best way to stick to your schedule is to build an assembly line of posts moving towards being published. This ensures that you'll have a little content in reserve for occasions when you're pressed for time.
4. Enhance Your Appeal with Strong Visuals
While content is king when it comes to blogging, you can do a lot more than just throw words onto the screen. Capture more attention by adding illustrations to go along with your posts. Photos, graphics, charts, and even videos can all help.
Don't be afraid to skew the balance of your posts towards your visual material. You're not writing the next great novel; sometimes simply posting an observation and some pertinent links is enough. We've run several highly successful posts here that really just boil down to collections of links.
5. Line Up Guest Bloggers
If you pay attention to the by lines on our blog, you'll notice that a strong network of guest bloggers can be a powerful asset for you. They provide much-needed content to keep your updates flowing steadily. Many guest bloggers also bring a built-in audience with them. If you're going to pay your authors, set a flat fee per post so that there aren't any disagreements about potential edits you want to make. They'll be happy to be link building op and you will be happy with the content.
Here's a sampling of potential guest bloggers you might invite to contribute to an education blog:
* Teachers sharing stories of success in the classroom
* Administrators with insight into organization and management
* Vendors who are willing to share their general expertise (as opposed to promoting their brand)
* Thought leaders in the field of education
6. Formalize Your Policies
As soon as you blog starts gaining a little attention, it's important to have rules in place that govern how you interact with your audience, your bloggers, and anyone else on your site. Make sure that you address rules for content sharing in order to maintain control over what you post. You can look at our policy page to see an example.
7. Be Timely About Comment Responses
A blog is an excellent way to build a community and start conversations, but allowing readers to post comments is an integral part of these processes. Use a layer of moderation (i.e. all comments require approval) to weed out spam and trolling. Having comments waiting for your approval will also spur you to answer those readers who want to interact. You should aim for a response within 48 hours on all of your comments. Fostering a positive discussion through comments is a great way to cultivate loyalty and also draw in more visitors through positive word-of-mouth.
8. Circulate Content Widely
If your blog is just one part of your wider online presence, be on the lookout for opportunities to convert other forms of content into blog posts. This process doesn't just flow one way, either. Email newsletters become blog posts, blog posts turn into mini-ebooks, ebooks get distilled into infographics — you can do a lot to squeeze every drop out of your ideas. As you gain more experience you'll start to see blogging potential in almost all of the information that passes through your hands.
9. Promote Your Blog
Even if you're running your blog as a promotional tool, remember that you need to market the blog itself to build up readership. Social media is the foremost tool available to you for this. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram all make excellent ways to keep in touch with readers and notify them when you post new content. Don't spread yourself too thin, though; concentrate on sites where you know your readers can be found. Here are some basic promotional tips:
* Use analytics to determine which social media efforts bring in the most traffic.
* Set your blogging platform to tweet automatically whenever you make a new post.
* Set promotional targets ("make X number of mentions," for example) for each of your posts.
* Ask guest bloggers to promote their work on your blog.
10. Stay The Course
With consistency in updating being so vital, it's very important to remain committed to producing your blog. Don't let fatigue or burnout bring your blog down. If you absolutely must take a break, try cutting you're posting schedule back rather than taking a complete hiatus. A short break turns into a long break which eventually turns into an abandoned blog. You need momentum to blog successfully, and a big part of that is powering through when the going gets tough.
Hopefully, you're ready to get your own blog started up! Take a look at more of our posts for inspiration, ask other bloggers for advice, and start looking at different platforms! In this day and age, a dedicated blog is one of the best possible ways to share your ideas and promote your interests.