How To Become A Successful Blogger Even When You Don’t Have Any Experience

Becoming A Successful Blogger

So many years ago, I started my first blog. But before I did, I read hundreds of blog posts and consumed a ton of PDFs that contained tips on blogging and how to become a successful blogger.

Fortunately, it didn’t take me too long before I started making a few dollars from my efforts.

What did I do right?

Bring your seat closer and pay attention as I unveil everything to you. I promise not to hold anything back (except my password of course)!

4 Easy Steps To Becoming A Successful Blogger In 2017

Step 1: Become A Voracious Reader

Becoming a successful blogger includes being a voracious and ardent reader.

I am sure you’ve heard the phrase:

• “Readers are leaders.”

That’s right.

When you read extensively, you are gifted with the same knowledge successful people have.

I get tons of emails from folks who want to do what I do:

• “Hey, I want to become a successful blogger like you.”

But I am always stunned at how shallow their knowledge is about the business.

Interestingly, when I ask these people how many books they’ve read so far on the topic of blogging, marketing, self-improvement, time management, and all the other blogging related topics, they always answer with the same thing:

• “None.”

Typically, every great and successful entrepreneur, and yes successful bloggers, are folks who are committed to a life of learning, and how they learn is by consuming the knowledge of the industry to which they belong.

Do you still desire to be a successful blogger?

I challenge you to start by reading at least 20 books/blog posts on how to run a successful blog.

This is perhaps the best strategy to becoming a successful blogger.

Here are the apps that I use to read posts & books:

• Feedly (available on all platforms & perfect for subscribing to blog feeds).
• Flipboard (great for content discovery). Here is a guide I wrote thatwill help you drive traffic from Flipboard.
• Pocket App (for offline reading).
• Kindle for reading books.
• WordPress Reader

Step 2: Dare To Be Different

According to E.E. Cummings, “To be yourself and nobody else in a world that is doing its best both night and day to make you like everybody else, means to fight the toughest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

One of the things I told myself while starting out was never to act or be like anybody but myself.

I love Gavin Degraw’s theme music on One Tree Hill: “I don’t want to be anything other than what I have been trying to be lately. All I have to do is to think of me and have peace of mind. I’m tired of looking’round rooms, wondering what I’ve got to do or who I’m supposed to be. I don’t wish to be anything else other than me.”

You know that there are a lot of bloggers out there. Some are successful and some are not. The primary thing that will distinguish you from them is the way you communicate and air your opinions.

I’ve heard people tell me to write this way or write that way. I always welcome their views of course, but I go ahead and do what I feel is right for me and my audience.

So basically, if someone I love and admire has their blog’s design in a way that I like, I go ahead and do something different. I make it more unique to myself.

Similarly, if someone I know publishes a sponsored post on their blog, I publish an interview post. If someone I follow closely puts up a text-based article, I make an audio post.

Doing this will make you stand out from the 70 million other bloggers on the internet. I’m not saying you should be doing the exact opposite of what others are doing, but you should try to always do something your own way without imitating anyone.

Initially, it may seem like too much of a task to do something different, but the only way to really become successful is by moving out of your comfort zone.

Step 3: Invest In Yourself And Your Blog

Sadly, a lot of newbie bloggers and average bloggers don’t like to hear this. They prefer to waste their time and energy in merry-go-rounding on the internet searching for FREE ways to promote and manage their blog.

But here’s the truth:

To achieve success with your blog means to start thinking of your blog as a business.

The only distinguishing factor between successful bloggers and failed bloggers is the intentionality and willingness to invest in themselves and in their blogs.

So you will see bloggers like Darren Rowse, Syed Balkhi, Neil Patel, and Jeff Bullas (among many others) get serious with their blog by investing money into every part of their marketing funnels. It’s little wonder how they rake in all that money and success.

You can quickly double your odds and become a successful blogger yourself by simply viewing money as an investment that is sure to yield a high ROI.

I read a lot of blogs (top blogs, average blogs, and new blogs), and I can categorically tell you that the only difference in these blogs is their ability to spend a few extra dollars to spread the word about their blogs across the internet.

So, if you are truly committed to becoming a successful blogger, you have to rethink your strategy and be ready to invest money into yourself and your blog.

Step 4. Create And Sell Products (Add new income streams)

Since we have established the fact that your blog is a business, let’s walk through the process of becoming a business entity.

Simply by viewing your blog as a business, you get closer to the point of becoming a successful blogger. However, you will need to put some highly crucial things in place first.

What things?

Well, let’s first look at what a business is. Business, as defined in one of my speaking engagements:

• “Any organization that centers around the creation of products and services for mankind’s consumption.”

To further buttress my definition, Businessdictionary.com defines “business” as:

•  “An economic system or organization where goods and services are exchanged for one another or for money. Ultimately, every business needs some form of investment and enough customers to whom its output can be sold on a consistent basis in order to make a profit (This also buttresses the point I made above about investment).”

So what things do you need?

As you can already see from the definitions above, you need to create and sell products/services if you want to build a successful business.

Bloggers like Michael Hyatt, Yaro Starak, Brian Clark, and Ramsay of Blog Tyrant (among many others) have learned to invest time, energy, and money on creating timeless and useful products. This information comes in the form of eBooks, software, themes, plugins, online courses, etc. so that their audience can learn and advance their understanding in a short amount of time.

Places to sell your goods:

• Gumroad: A great place to sell digital goods. Example listing here.
• Instamojo: Great for Indian users who wish to sell stuff only in India. See my InstaMojo store here.
• Kdp.Amazon.com: Here I sell eBooks on the Amazon platform. Example listing here.
• Thinkific: Great for creating & selling an online course. This is where the new ShoutUniversity is hosted.

Let’s Wrap Up

These four strategies I’ve shared here will positively transform your life and help you become a successful blogger, even when you don’t have any experience at all.

I’d love to hear your comments as to what has helped you become a successful blogger when you were first starting out. Or, if you are just starting out on your blogging journey, what techniques are you using to help your efforts along? Shout out your thoughts in the comments below!

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