Habits of Successful Bloggers

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Do you want to align with the energy of successful bloggers and become one yourself?

I know, I know, successful bloggers seem like an enigma.

You want all their answers and secrets as to how they became top bloggers in their niches.

Here’s a secret, they’re successful because of habits.

That’s right, habits aren’t just for the new year or people looking to lose weight, or gain control over a certain area of their life.

Habits are for bloggers too and until you get your hands on those habits, you will have much more push, pull, grind and hustle from your blog than you need to.

In this post, I’m sharing with you 11 habits of successful bloggers.

Let’s get down to business.

disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links which means I make a small commission if you choose to use my link to purchase a product and if you do I appreciate you.

11 Habits of Succesful Bloggers

#1 You are no longer “just” a blogger

Uffdah, starting off strong but the reality is, bloggers that are successful in their niches think of themselves as business owners.

Simply making the shift from blogger to business owner is sometimes a tough pill to swallow because it sounds just so…permanent, scary, professional.

Own it.

Once you create that mindset shift of turning your blog into a business, you will treat it differently.

The more serious you can get about your blog, the more effort you’re going to put into it.

And when you choose to see your blog as more than a personal journal or hobby just for yourself and realize your blog is now to serve an audience, you’re going to put more value into every post.

You’re going to see your blog in a new light.

You’re going to own it.

#2 Choose a Direction and Stick with It

You thought I was going to say niche down, didn’t you??

Here’s the thing, the niche will probably pick you, your job is to choose a direction and stick with it.

What I mean by this is that you may start writing in a broad niche like, travel or food and eventually you’ll find that the posts that do the best are travelling outside the US or vegan or keto recipes.

So you start writing more of those posts.

But the direction is still within travel or recipes, you just refined what it is you were blogging about.

If you don’t know which direction to choose, pick a topic you know some things about and would like to write about for a while.

You can learn more about niches in this post.

#3 Understand Your Audience

Do you know who you’re talking to?

I mean do you really?

Successful bloggers know exactly who it is that they are talking to when they sit down to write every single post.

Why?

Well for one, it’s much easier to write when you know who to write for and two that’s simply how you grow an audience.

The easiest way to understand your audience is to create one in your head.

Get clear on what they want, what they need, what their pain points are, and be as specific as possible.

Trust me, your audience is out there but if you’re really struggling with finding your audience, start with this.

#4 Consistently Create Content

This is something all successful bloggers do.

They show up.

There is a caveat to this though that I don’t want you to get wrapped up in.

Successful bloggers are successful because they put in the work, now they are able to chill out, back off and sit butt deep in sand sipping margaritas.

So from the outside, it may look like they’re not really creating anything new often, but for months and usually years they did.

What’s your job as a new blogger?

To show up for your audience with consistent content.

Does this mean writing 5x a week?

Or 1x a week?

I don’t know, that’s really up to you.

Pick a schedule and stick to it for at least six months.

After that, your audience will be much more built up and you’ll have a plethora of posts to choose from to repurpose for social media and Pinterest.

If you’re struggling to consistently write posts, start here.

#5 Value Comes First

When you decide that your blog is a business, this means you’re inviting people in to view it, like it, share it and they become your lively hood.

This means if you’re not giving value, in some way shape or form you’re not getting the shares, likes, comments, views, whatever.

Giving value is everything in being a successful blogger.

There are many different ways to give value to your audience but a few main ones include, motivation, education, and entertainment.

Every single successful blogger gives value in one or all of these ways.

There’s no if’s, and’s or but’s about it.

This is not a drill people, give value to your audience and watch how quickly everything changes.

The easiest way to give value to your audience?

Solve a problem.

#6 Put Your Learning Cap On

Tough love coming at you in 3…2…1…

If you are not willing to learn every single day, ask for help or Google the crap out of everything, building a blogging business probably isn’t for you.

This is a big one.

Successful bloggers know they can’t do everything alone and they know they need to be in a constant state of learning and implementing.

This doesn’t mean having 10 personal assistants.

This means utilizing the resources we have.

Don’t know anything about Pinterest marketing? Read an article about it.

Feeling overwhelmed with starting a blog from the tech side?

Look into courses, books, watch videos, join free trainings, everything you can get your hands on.

If you want to be a successful blogger, be open to learning and willing to implement what you’ve learned.

#7 Be Authentic

Be yourself, be yourself *cue Carol Brander singing from “Just Friends”*

Real talk though.

People can sniff out a fake personality from a mile away.

Don’t be that person.

Every successful blogger has their own voice, their own stories, their own way of doing and explaining things.

Yeah, they may talk about similar things to others in their niche but they’re always focusing on the way they talk, the way they teach, the way they add value.

There is no one else in the world that teach the way you teach, talks the way you talk and is exactly who you are.

Your vibe attracts your tribe.

So be the person you want to attract into your blogging community and you will be successful.

#8 If You get Knocked Down, Get Back Up Again

Thank you for those kind words of wisdom, Chumbawamba.

Successful bloggers are here today not because they never struggled or had massive failures, because most of them (including me – multiple failed blogs) did, but because they decided to try again anyway.

And again, and again, and again.

This whole blogging thing isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies.

It takes hard work, determination, and tenacity.

If something comes by and knocks you on your bum, get up, brush yourself off and find a new plan of action.

It’s as simple as that.

#9 Clear Plan of Action

Do you know what you want? What you really really want? (okay, okay, I’m done referencing songs…promise!)

Without a plan of action for your blog, you’re going to be stuck scratching your head or facing that dreaded blinking cursor for hours on end.

Is your goal for your blog to make more than your 9-5?

Are you using your blog to drive more traffic to your Etsy business?

Is your goal to build a blog then sell it off and turn that into a business?

Are you writing a blog on the side for extra income but you still want it to be a success?

Getting clear on what you want will help you decide how to make money blogging as well as decide where your blog is going from here and what type of content to create around your blog.

If you don’t where to begin, read this post and this post.

#10 Don’t Be Afraid to Invest

I talked about investing in your learning above but you also can’t be afraid to invest in your blog.

This means hosting, a responsive theme, email marketing, any social share plugins you need and so on.

It gets a bit overwhelming thinking about everything you need to start a blog but trust me, these things are so worth it if you want to be successful in the long run.

3 Blog Investments I recommend:

• A host & domain name (obviously counting as one..): The ONLY hosting I recommend is SiteGround because I’ve personally worked with them for a while now for multiple blogs and find them to be the best and safest option for hosting services. If you want to read more about why I recommend purchasing a host and domain and would like to set up your own, read this.
• Email marketing provider: Do you have to have an email list to be successful? No. But it helps. Having an email marketing provider like MailChimp, Flodesk or Converkit will allow you to build your audience via email and away from the noise of the internet.
• Paid Social Share Plugin: Social share plugins are a dime a dozen and come with most if not all WordPress themes but they are quite limited. This paid social share plugin allows you more customization and looks much cleaner than the free plugins.

Notice I didn’t say paid theme, images, etc.

The reason behind all this is because the three investments I recommended above are the foundational pieces you NEED right away.

Themes, images and everything else will come later as you expand and grow.

Do successful bloggers use paid themes and paid blog images?

Yes, most do.

Do you need to?

Not right away but eventually yes.

And because this blog is more geared towards beginners, I just wanted to be extra realistic and only recommend the essentials.

#11 Want to be a successful blogger? Implement

This last one is obviously pretty straight forward.

Successful bloggers implement.

They put what they learned to the test, they create, they write, they put themselves out there.

The hardest part of blogging is starting.

Once you do that, the rest is at least a little bit easier.

You can’t be successful at something without putting something out there first.

Just do it. #nike

5-4-3-2-1-GO. #5secondrule #melrobbins

Just Like Blogging, Creating Habits is a Long Game

Successful bloggers know they need to put in the work and they do and then they adapt along the way.

Just start, ask for help, invest, be brave and you can do this.

If you found this post helpful don’t forget to share it with your friends!

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