Contents
A brief story
I started blogging in 2014. Being a student of Arts Stream, it was difficult to know how to begin. Another problem, which I faced was to understand what exactly I want to write on. Initially, I thought of creating a site in which I would write about anything and everything which I know.
So, I began writing about English Literature, Indian History, Website Building Tutorials, Earning from Online (though I did not earn a penny) and what not!
For one year, I wrote a lot. However I did not see any improvement. I was literally at zero. One day, a friend of mine advised me to write one a single niche. Initially, I did not understand what he exactly meant. However, I agreed with him and started writing about English Subject. I deleted all the other articles and Boom!
There was a drastic increase in the traffic. I went from 10 visitors a day to 1000 a day within 4 months. It was a huge achievement. I got a mail from Ezoic who promised me better revenue than adsense. As adsense was giving me not more than 2 cents, I signed up for Ezoic and that was the beginning of my success.
I remained stick to my niche. The site became popular. Today, the site has more than 1 Million page views a month and counting. My content is read in more than 192 countries.
I soon started another site (englishnotes.com) (in Feb 2019) in which I focused on things which others never did properly. The site went from 100 to 5k daily hits with in 6 months.
Example of a Failed Site
Today, most of the newly emerged bloggers do not have any idea or knowledge of what they are writing on. They write on everything and all the things. I often land open such sites almost everyday. Some of the people have started their career on facebook. e.g.
So, these people grow their traffic by doing click for click idea. I also find sites like this one.
This site accepts guest posts. Just check the titles. One article is about Ladakh and the other one is about life partner😂. Its like a class in which the teacher is teaching English, Science and Maths at the same time!
Next, you will find sites writing about “Digital Marketing” by experts who do not know what digital marketing exactly is.
Another interesting thing I find on FaceBook is the idea of “ib“. It took me a month to know that ib means inbox. Checkout some of experts below:
These experts sell adsense accounts and are so busy that they cannot write inbox and instead type “IB”.
I also often find sites with “Ultimate Guides” and other heavy terms. However the content has no educational value at all.
Unique Idea
As a blogger, what I have experienced is that the most difficult thing in blogging is to know your niche (in which you have expertise) and then to find the problem (which needs to be solved) in that niche.
By problem, I mean anything which others could not solve or solve properly. e.g. AltNews became popular quickly in India as it worked on busting the fake news (a unique idea!).
Similarly, KhanAcademy became popular though out the world because it focused on providing valuable content for students.
There are hundreds of such examples. The success in online world depends on a unique idea and of course problem-finding and problem solving mentality.
Finding Niche and Problem
The best way of find the niche and its problem is to explore the problems which you have faced in your life. For me, it’s the best strategy as there are thousands of others who also face the same problems.
Until one finds a problem and its solution, the blogging is almost useless. Once you find your niche and a problem in that niche, the next important step is to explore sites and vlogs which are working in that niche. You should study them carefully – their good things as well as bad things.
Next step is to make a strategy i.e. making a list of topics which you may cover in a span of time. You can find the topic ideas by yourself or by the competitor websites. I recommend using Google Keep App in your phone to make the list.
Keyword Research
Now that you have niche, problem, solution, strategy, the next step is Keyword Research (which most bloggers do without accomplishing the previous steps).
Explore Keywords provides an extensive list of SEO Tools which you can use for keyword research. You may use Keyword Volume Checker Tool for finding the keyword volume.
Though you have a keyword with large number of searches, you won’t be able to rank on Google as there are hundreds of sites which are already there. Hence you need to go for Long Tail Keywords. You can use Google’s autocomplete feature for finding long tail keywords.
However its better to use Explore Keywords Instant Finder Tool and Question Keyword Tool and finally you can start writing your content.
We will discuss “How to Write An Article” in another post.
Hope you enjoyed the article.
