In this post you will find great tips and tricks on how to create a successful WordPress blog, whether you are just starting the blogging journey or have been blogging for quite some time without any solid results, this article will be perfect for you. I’m far from a search engine optimization expert, and I don’t think you need to be to be successful on the web either. This was proven last month when we hit over 1 million views, which isn’t very impressive if you weren’t aware of the fact that we launched it only 2 months ago. Let’s continue…

Step one: write about what interests you.

It sounds extremely obvious, but you’d be surprised at the number of trash-talking bloggers flooding the website with Google ads in hopes of making their first million. Slap yourself in the face people, it won’t work.

There would be no need to base an entire website on a topic that you don’t enjoy the most. As it will eventually show up in your posts, and your readers will know about it. You need enthusiasm for the chosen niche, and don’t forget a lot of patience to get what you put out.

Step Two: Research Your Chosen Topic

There will be many other people who will already be writing about your chosen topic. But does that mean you can’t keep doing it? Of course not, so don’t worry. These people will be useful in the future, so please bookmark them and write down their email address, we will need them.

How do I investigate? Good question, just look at what other people write about. Which topics are the most popular, which posts generate the most conversation and attention, write it down. Do more research on your chosen topic, you may not know everything you think you know so back up your facts with some facts.

This step would also be a good time to search for keywords (what people type into search engines to find your topic). Write them down too, to help with this and get some numbers check out the helpful tools section below. Remember, try not to aim too high, “Inspiration” returns millions of searches every month. Will you be the first if you flood your blog with the keyword “Inspiration”, the simple answer is no. But if you specifically placed “Design Inspiration” carefully around your content and blog, you might stand a good chance. The more specific your phrases/keywords are, the better results you will get. (No more than 4 words)

Step Three: Set Up Camp

You may have already done this, but if not it’s time to do it. There are many blogging platforms that you can jump on the bandwagon with, but the one that I would personally recommend is WordPress, it is flexible, easy to set up and very easy to use. The number of plugins and themes available are incredible and solid proof of its versatility, it is a blogging program that will grow with you.

Keep in mind that when you name your blog, remember the keywords you wrote down and try to include a pair in the main title and description of the blog. Keep the description short, snappy, and to the point.

Ie: Blog Title – Inspiration Shack

Blog Description – The home of [Creative Inspiration] Y [Design Resources]. <-- Examples of keywords

Step Four: Brand

If you’re a designer, I’m not here to re-teach you as I’m sure you have a good grasp of this element, but if you’re not, I recommend you pay close attention.

Branding is a key element to the success of any business of any shape or size, and it’s not necessarily pretty pictures and a flashy logo. The brand is created by how people perceive you as a person or company, if you come across as arrogant and conceited people will usually walk the other way, that’s a bad brand. If you come across as friendly and fun, people will be drawn to you, brilliant.

How do you want to be perceived? Try to be consistent with your brand, keep the same style of language and tone. You will build an enthusiastic following with good consistency.

Step Five: Happy

Most important of all, you are happy. Your content is why people come to you, you found something or know something someone else wants. it’s simple right? Not really. How will people find your content? Is your content useful? Is it a duplicate of thousands of other similar blog posts? These and more are all the questions you should ask yourself. As you can see, at Inspiration-Hut we offer inspiration for art and design. Inspiration is common, but it’s something we love to write about. What makes us unique are the resources we have to offer and the informative articles we write, like this one.

Keywords should be common throughout all of your content. For example, this blog post is about “How to start a blog.” You may or may not have noticed, but in the first line of the article, those keywords are carefully placed (“In this post you will find some great tips and tricks about What a build a successful wordpress Blog“) that search term alone gets 151,000,000 searches a month. Also, on the sly (norty me) I’ve added Tips and Tricks, another common search phrase, and the phrase WordPress Blog. So in that sentence it covers a wide range of keywords and search phrases.

Step Six: Social Marketing

Another way to get found is social marketing, this doesn’t mean getting your fancy clothes and visiting your neighbors with flyers, not at all. This means starting to make a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, a Google+ fan page (they do that now, yes), even a Tumblr? Maybe, and start slowly populating each account with the information you’re storing on your website. Point all of your accounts to your website, make sure your most prized keywords are in their profiles, along with your website URL, and do everything you can to build a following.

Please avoid spamming “useful information” as it’s annoying, and we don’t like people like you, try to be yourself, remember to go back to the branding element. The most common is to socialize with your followers, share great content from other websites and your own content as you create it.

Helpful Tools – Keyword Search Tool