Skills of a Blogger – Week 2 of Content from Book

Skills of a blogger

Last week Emma kicked off a series of blog posts we are writing each week sharing content from our book. We are really passionate about sharing our knowledge with other bloggers, helping answer all those questions going through peoples minds and that we see being posting in Facebook groups every day.

Last week Emma wrote about ‘why start a blog’ and asked are your blogging goals being met? This week I share our content on some of the skills required by a successful blogger.

Have a read of each post and if you are keen to read more then buy our book Blogging Your Way To Riches. This is available at a £2 discount on both the paperback and the ebook if you buy from our website here.

The Essential Skills Needed as a Blogger

Honesty, authenticity and passion

Emma and 3 was born as a blog to share Erin’s health problems with the world. It was created from a desire to share the story with a captive audience. The blog posts and realities of dealing with a child’s illness are hard-hitting and a truly authentic account of life’s difficulties.

Authenticity is so important in blogging and pours out of a blog post if it’s real. Alternatively, you can read through a sponsored post where the blogger isn’t being 100% honest or has been paid to write a positive review of a product. We’ll admit it, we have both done it. In the early days of Mrs Mummypenny, Lynn wrote a couple of posts on subject areas that she wasn’t completely comfortable with, to start earning some money. These posts are not as authentic as later posts where she stays true to her goals and morals.

Be prepared to get stuck in, learn and do lots yourself.

When you start a blog it’s you on your own, learning and creating everything yourself. Sometimes you will make mistakes, but hopefully you will learn from them. But you must be prepared to get stuck in and learn as much as possible. Lynn spent her first six months learning like a sponge, mastering things like creating a blog on WordPress, and making plenty of mistakes along the way.

She experimented with plug-ins, set up her own hosting, tried to understand follow/unfollow links (to be explained later in the book), domain authority and search engine optimisation. She focussed on understanding the technicalities so that she could do most things herself. This meant that start-up costs of the business were very low.

You must invest in writing tons of brilliant content. Content really is king and is the thing that will make your website different to other blogs.

There are tons of admin tasks that you must get stuck in and do yourself. Your own books and accounts, setting yourself up as self-employed or a limited company. You need to organise everything yourself, from travelling to meetings to pitches.

You need to set up a separate bank account and keep track of money. Debt will need to be chased, and on a rare occasion you might not get paid. You will need to stay on top of paperwork. Remember the more you do yourself will lower your costs and therefore more profit will be made from your blog.

Professionalism

Professionalism is so important in the world of blogging and it stretches from your relationships with brands to PR agencies to other bloggers and service providers. It will get you far, will make you memorable and trusted and will all lead to more work.

You may work directly with brands or with PR agencies. In both situations build a professional relationship which mainly means polite interaction. Stick to agreed objectives and timescales. If a brand asks you for a blog post on a specific day with a Facebook share and tweet on the same day, then stick to the deadline and deliver exactly what was agreed. Agree these things up front so there is no ambiguity.

Maintain these relationships by sending an email every couple of months with an updated media pack or a great post that they might enjoy.

There may be some professional services that you pay for, maybe logo design or an accountant. Always be professional with these service providers. These people make your life easier so look after them. If they help you and do a great job, then recommend them. You can also earn recommendation affiliate commission for this too.

Professionalism with other bloggers particularly in groups is so important. A reputation as a friendly and collaborative blogger will get you far. Both Emma and Lynn have had work passed on or shared due to their professionalism. They have been invited to events due to other bloggers recommending them to brands.

Collaborate with fellow bloggers and deliver what you said you would, when you said you would. If a blogger writes a post for your website, write one for theirs. Collaborate with other bloggers in the same niche as you.

There are lots of skills here that make up the perfect blogger. We hope you can relate to most of them or at least some of them. And if you think you can manage all of them, you have this blogging game nailed.

Other skills we discuss are being commercial, being a good networker, being a brilliant writer of content, being thick-skinned and planning and organisation skills.

To read more buy the book now from here.