MaddyWhen I started my blog in 2021, I thought I only needed to know how to write and edit my articles to become a successful tech blogger.
Eight months later, I've realised that I need more skills than just knowing how to write (a massive part of blogging).
This article will go through all the different skills you need to become a tech blogger.
#1 CONTENT WRITING
There is no doubt that content writing is a crucial skill for becoming a tech blogger.
In my opinion, it's the only skill you need to get started. All the other skills go on top of this.
I wrote an article on actions to improve your writing skills.
Blogging is a type of writing whose primary focus is the reader. You write because you want to educate your audience. All your articles should teach something to your readers. It's all about THEM, not yourself.
When writing about technical topics, prefer clarity over sounding clever.
Involve the reader by using "we", "us", and "you". These pronouns help with getting the attention off of the writer.
Key components that make up a blog are:
- A compelling headline.
- Small paragraphs (usually between 4 to 8 lines).
- Visuals (images, GIFs, screenshots, graphs, quotes, videos).
- Depending on what you'll write, a blog usually has bullet points.
Content writing also involves editing.
Editing your articles means rereading your article, and look out for:
- Typos.
- Wordiness.
- Duplicates.
Grammarly is an excellent tool for editing. It gives suggestions on synonyms, prevents you from writing using the passive voice, eliminates wordiness, and checks the tone of your writing.
Writing and editing go hand in hand. You write first, and you edit second.
#2 DESIGNING
A successful blog post contains visuals.
According to research, custom images perform better at Google Search Engine Optimization.
Backlinko suggests in one of their articles to:
- Use a descriptive name for images when creating or saving the images. For example, if you make a custom image to display the sun, you should save the image as "Sun.png" instead of "Image123.png".
- Alt Text should also be descriptive. The Alt Text is this:
<img src="sun.png" alt="picture of a sun" />
To design your images, you can use Canva, paired with an Image Resizer if you don't have access to Canva Pro and need to tweak the size of the picture.
Shrinking the image size will ensure that your blog's performance is not impacted.
#3 SEO UNDERSTANDING
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Backlinko defines SEO as
"[...]The practice of getting targeted traffic to a website from a search engine’s organic rankings. Common tasks associated with SEO include creating high-quality content, optimizing content around specific keywords, and building backlinks."
If you are about ranking your articles higher on Google, SEO is a skill you'll need to practice.
The best way to become better at SEO is through practising.
In one of my previous articles, I added this graph:
This process also applies to learning SEO.
There is always something new to learn about SEO. Writing articles is the way to refine this skill.
To become better at SEO, you'll need to:
- Do keyword research: what are your users looking for?
- Think about your user's needs: by doing keyword research, you'll need to understand what your readers are searching for. Your article must contain valuable information to them.
- Create a compelling headline: the headline is crucial for blogging success. A great headline ranks higher on Google, making it more likely your readers will click on it.
- Use an appropriate URL slug: the URL slug must contain the keyword(s).
- Add external links: Google likes it when you give credit to other people by adding links to external, reputable resources.
- Write SEO optimised meta descriptions: the meta description is the description you see underneath the article's headline when searching for an article on Google. The meta description also needs to contain the keywords your readers are looking for.
#4 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
If you care about your blogging success, you'll probably also care about knowing the statistics of your blog.
Knowing the stats of your blog allows you to understand:
- What articles give you the most page views.
- Bounce rate: the percentage of readers that visit your blog but don't take any action.
- Understand where your audience comes from.
And much more.
Knowing all of these ensures you know what aspects of your blog need improvements.
Tools you can use to analyse your blog's statistics are:
- Google Analytics: this tool gives you a complete picture of your blog's stats. Google Analytics gives you information about your blog's traffic, bounce rate, gender, age, country, etc.
- Google Search Console: this tool gives you a great picture of how your blog's "health". Google Search Console provides information about your blog's performance, page load, and safety.
#5 DISCIPLINE
It's been eight months since I started this blog.
It's a long and challenging journey.
Blogging is mostly a rewarding activity, even though it's challenging to find the motivation to continue, especially when you put all your heart into an article and gain a few views.
Every article is an opportunity to learn something new.
Every time you write, you become 1% better at writing, SEO, designing, etc.
When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.
"Ryan Robinson - 16 Blogging Skills You'll Need in 2022"
Jeff Atwood, the co-founder of StackOverflow, wrote on his blog "Coding Horror" for a year (probably even more), with no one reading his articles. He kept at it and reached a point where he received 100,000 views PER DAY. You can read more here.
So, why not you?
CONCLUSION
I hope you've found this article helpful.
You've learned about:
- Content Writing.
- Designing.
- SEO Understanding.
- Audience Analysis.
- Discipline.
Until next time! 🙋🏾♀️
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