Bloggers, especially those still starting out, have to be skilled in many spheres if they want to have a successful blog of their own instead of just freelancing for other sites. Yes, you can always hire someone to do the back end work. But why not learn to do all the tricks of the trade yourself? That way you’ll save loads of cash, learn new skills and just have to rely on yourself to get things done. On top of that you’ll just understand your business better. These are our top 5 skills we think bloggers would find useful:
SEO- SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a great skill to have. It enables you to know which important key words to use for certain texts and basically helps your optimum clientele find you before they find your competitors. Online courses in SEO are readily available and there are even free Youtube tutorials which give useful information. It is definitely worth your time to do some SEO research as it’s a popular tool to track ROI (Return on Investment). SEO ROI is used by almost all major businesses online and if you want to keep up with the game you better hit the books.
Photography and photo editing- What’s a good blog post if there aren’t any images to go along with it? And all the better if they’re original, and professionally edited. Unfortunately photography just does come naturally to some people while others battle to find the eye for it. Luckily there are also really interesting and in-depth photography courses online and it’s an easy and fun skill to practice. Your own photographs are also a great tool in drawing potential and clients from social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. Clickable links go hand in hand with eye-catching photos.
Web Design- A website design can be one of your biggest costs when setting up your own site. If you learn how to do it yourself, you’ll know how to change things when you want to upload new content or change things slightly. While some sites can be really complicated, blogs are often simple and a blogging site could easily be set up by someone with no previous web design knowledge after a few weeks of doing research. Using programs like Wix and WordPress are exceptionally helpful, and guide you along the way of your web design journey.
Social Media Marketing- Like any business these days, social media following is extremely important. Want clients engage with you on social media, they feel loyal to you. It’s been proven. Social media is the perfect way for a professional blogger to market themselves as you can give the general public a little taste of your blog site through social media posts. But don’t think that just because you have a Twittwer account you understand social media marketing, it goes way further than that, so a course or at least research would definitely be useful when promoting your blog online.