Want a Writing Career? Here are 4 Blogging Skills to Become a Profitable Writer

Last Updated on August 15, 2022 by coffeepo

Do you want to be a professional blogger? You’re not alone.

There are more than 600 million blogs on over 1.9 billion websites worldwide. In the United States alone there are more than 31 million active bloggers posting once a month. These numbers alone prove that blogging is getting quite popular—and there is a lot of competition to go up against.

Which begs the question…

How can you stand out as a professional blogger in the sea of novices? What does a beginner blogger have to master to become successful? Well, if you want to learn how to build your career as a writer you’re in the right place. 

Here are 5 essential blogging skills that you need to master:

1. Strong Writing Skills

A lot of you might skip over this first step, as beginner bloggers don’t often realize the importance of knowing how to write blogs well. They enter the scene armed with what they’ve learned in school, but the skills for writing essays and book reports are entirely different from writing blog articles. 

More often than not, they end up failing immediately, confused about what went wrong.

Well, becoming a successful blogger means two things: Mastering how to write blogs and understanding how blogs become successful. Here are some tips to improve your blogging skills, so your writing style is geared toward the online audience:

• Go through basic writing courses: Solidify foundational skills and expand your abilities by attending Udemy’s The Complete Blog Writing Course, Pluralsight’s Building a Successful Blog, or any related programs on SkillShare. You can always be a better writer than you are now.
• Find a mentor: Find someone who is already a successful blogger and ask if they’re willing to mentor you. They can be your friend, family, or even a random person online. Just ensure that they can help you get your feet wet in the blogging industry, and point you towards success.
• Join writing communities online: You need other bloggers to critique and give you feedback. Thankfully, there are many online groups out there that can be your second pair of eyes, like Medium, BlogEngage, Triberr, and BlogHer.
• Get familiar with using tools: Just like the big dictionary and thesaurus you had in school, you need to have the right tools with you that can improve your blogs. We recommend that you use extensions like Grammarly Premium, Jasper.ai, and HemingwayApp for better writing.

Once you have all those ready, learn and master the basic parts of an effective blog. It goes without saying that the single most important blogging skill to have is the ability to write compelling content. Without it, you can’t attract audiences, and brands won’t see any value in having you around. If you’re writing fluff—your readers won’t care and potential clients certainly won’t hire you.

Tips for Writing a Good Blog:

These are the key factors that separate good blogs from amateur online content:

• Captivating headline: Deliver enough information in the headline without being too generic or clickbaity. You want potential readers to click your article instead of other Google results.
• Compelling lead or hook: Ensure that you draw the readers in for the viewer to continue reading. Hit their pain points and relate to their problems before offering a solution.
• Clear headers and sections: Split the content into easy-to-read sections. Remember that a lot of online readers are “scanners” and will only read the headlines, so ensure that they’ll understand your article without having to read every word.
• Informative, engaging, and relevant body: Always go for quality content and shared ideas to deliver valuable information for the reader. Don’t forget that using keywords also contributes to the overall user experience on your website (aside from popping up first on search engines).
• Quality images & informative graphics: Being too text-heavy will alienate readers, so include images that will help the readers visualize what you’re trying to explain.
• Powerful call-to-action (CTA): Always go back to the brand or company you’re promoting, whether it’s yourself or a brand. You’re writing as a business—not as a mere hobby. 

Remember that what you learned in high school won’t cut it. You need to sharpen another sword in your writing arsenal and learn all the skills specifically related to blogging professionally.

2. Understand Content Marketing

Many freelance bloggers work in the area of content marketing. This can involve anything such as being paid to ghostwrite for clients or writing with a byline for brands and magazines. It can even involve writing social media posts or long-form ebooks. It’s also something you can do for your own writing business to attract potential clients, like growing brands trying to reach their target audience.

Even if you don’t want to run your own blog, you must have a good grasp of content marketing to be able to do the job clients want. Remember that brands will hire professional bloggers as part of their marketing campaigns to garner more customers—but only if you have the blogging skills to prove your worth.

Now, if you want to run your own blog, keep your end goal in mind. You want to attract and convert readers to eventually become customers, so your blog serves a purpose:

Source: Hubspot

After understanding your role in content marketing, you have to equip yourself with the following things to turn your simple blog into a professional, profitable one:

• You need to have a consistent blog. This is a great way to add value to your client. Plus you can monetize through ads, paid subscriptions, affiliate marketing, donations, online courses, online coaching, online consulting, and so on. Remember that people want to work with consistent partners—not one who only posts blogs when they feel like it.
• You need to have enough experience & knowledge. You need to be an expert if you want to be paid more, especially if you want to write for niche industries. After all, nobody wants to pay someone who knows nothing about the market—they want an expert with in-depth knowledge. 
• You need to create and maintain a content calendar. These are built on solid marketing strategies and audience understanding and your clients will often need help with it. Learn how to create and maintain a content calendar for your own blog and clients if you write for them.

You don’t have to have all these things right away. But you need to have a plan that moves you towards having all of these factors that will attract companies to work with you. It’s also important because once you learn how to do it for your own writing business, you can charge to help companies with their blogs.

Once you have all that in place, remember these things that companies will look for in a blogger:

• Relevant and expert blog knowledge
• Professional business name
• Published author bylines
• Reliability and ability to follow through 
•  Knowledge or experience in their industry

If you understand your role in content marketing and establish a blog based on that, you’ll attract clients eventually, but it is a long-term strategy. That said, a blog also acts as a portfolio so you can approach them easily to hire you if you’re applying to a freelance job post or cold pitching a company. 

3. Learn Basic SEO 

Lastly, you need to learn basic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) practices to pave your way to the top of Google search results. We understand that this may be overwhelming for beginners, but it’s a must to succeed in the blogging world. 

Remember that readers will click the first few results on Google, so you have to show up on the first page. Here are some practical tips to keep in mind:

• Research keywords for your blog post. Once you know what to write about, conduct keyword research to see what other people are searching for around that topic. You want to use the keywords with high volume, low keyword competition or difficulty, and follow search trends.
• Optimize your blog with a title and subheadings. Now that you know the best keyword to take advantage of, use it in your blog title, subheadings, and throughout the content body. Don’t “overstuff” the post with keywords, but use it naturally without distracting the reader.
• Put meta tags. Focus on meta titles and meta descriptions for now. Use your keyword in both of these things, so your click-through rate (CTR) improves—which is a fancy term for how many people will click your post when it shows up on Google.
• Use relevant internal and external links. Internal links will help your blog retain the readers, while external links will help establish the authority and credibility of your content. Links will also help with SEO, so your website becomes more visible and credible.
• Use readable URLs. Yes, even the URLs of your blog post will help with SEO. You want your URLs to be simple (e.g., www.website.com/blog-writing) and never too complicated (e.g., www.website.com/2022/post45679821836) for Google to rank you well.
• Add rich media to your blog. Beef up your content with images and videos, increasing the engagement of your readers. You want to reduce your bounce rate (i.e., readers leaving your blog) and increase the average visit duration so Google ranks you higher.
• Make your blog mobile-friendly. Many of us access blogs through mobile phones as much as we do on laptops—and Google knows this. So it looks at the mobile version of your blog when deciding how to rank it. Ensure that your blog looks great and operates smoothly on mobile.

Blogging professionally is very different from writing for fun. To make it as a serious writer, you need to be well-versed in all the necessary blog writing skills and SEO skills to stand out online in a sea of bloggers.

4. Master Networking 

Once you have the skills—you need to find clients. Networking is key. 

We understand that this step isn’t necessarily for beginners. But knowing what your next step is as a beginner blogger will make it easier for you to become a successful one. Your goal is always to make your blog as profitable as possible, so clients and other professional bloggers will want to work with you.

Here are a few steps to master networking in the blogging scene:

• Reach out to other professional bloggers, ask them to collaborate with you, and build meaningful relationships. Once you start publishing consistent content, your network can help you get the word out. They might even ask you to guest blog on their website, so you tap into their community of readers. Just ensure that your blog has already gained momentum, or you’ll waste your time and effort trying to collaborate with the professionals.
• Guest blog on the most popular websites of your chosen industry, so you expand your reach to everybody else interested in the topic. You can find what websites are popular in your niche by searching on Google, or just by reading all the forums and existing blogs. Then, create an account or reach out to the website to see if there’s any way you can post your blogs there for heightened reach and exposure.
• Pitch to journalists to get your work on larger websites. This can get you to work if you’re paid and the projects can earn you more exposure. Your blog needs to be quite established by this point for journalists to be interested in you. Our pro tip is to use hunter.io to find email addresses for people in large organizations and traditional media jobs. 

It’ll certainly take time. But building your network is essential to finding jobs or clients, selling your products, and turning your blog into a viable business.,

Use These Tips to Become a Successful Blog Writer

These top blogging skills aren’t everything you need to become a successful blogger. But they certainly are the factors that make up the foundation for you to become a professional blog writer.

To sum it up, carve your path to success by:

1. Having strong writing skills that are specific to blog writing.
2. Understanding content marketing and your role as a blogger.
3. Writing compelling content that engages and attracts an audience.
4. Building a networking community to expand your reach and secure industry authority.

With these 4 steps, you can establish a writing career, drive growth for companies and brands, and be part of the growing community of bloggers who are committed to publishing valuable content online.

Check out our other articles on blog writing! Here are the most profitable blog niches you should focus on this 2022, the best blogging tools you can use, and some fresh ideas that you can write about today.

Now you’re armed with the tools, go out and do it! See you in the winner’s circle 🙂