From mommy blogs, fashion bloggers, niche speciality, hobby enthusiast’s blogs to business and industry blogs and video blogs (or vlogs as it’s known), the list of blog types are endless. But so are the reasons people start blogs and what they hope to achieve with blogging.

You can 'blog like a boss' by having a clear purpose, providing valuable insight, and posting often about topics that your readers will actually want to read.

Here are our top six tips to consider for successful blogging:

1. Decide on your purpose

Many people blog for a variety of reasons. Some blog to expand their business reach; to be seen as a thought leader within a realm of topics. Some do it as a part-time hobby while others wish to make money from blogging. Decide on your purpose so that you can understand what’s needed to catapult your blog off the ground.

2. Discover the reason

Discover the reason for your blog's existence: what are you blogging about, and why does it matter? You can’t simply write about everything and market to everyone, otherwise, you end up reaching no one. Your blog should fulfil some form of need.

For instance, if you have ever thought to yourself 'I wish someone would write an article about this', that right there is your 'a-ha' moment. Your blog needs to fulfil a need or fill a gap in the market around a certain industry, topic, or interest.

3. Find the correct audience:

Decide who your ideal readers are and research everything about them. Consider their demographics, interests, and behaviours to paint a clear picture of them, including what they want to know about, what will resonate to them, and what tone of voice should you speak to them in. You can then tailor each blog piece to them and what they want to hear about.

4. Be passionate about the topic 

Based on your reason and your audience, it’s then easy to identify what value you can provide to your readers. Would this be tips, tricks and techniques, industry insight, secrets on how to do it yourself, a valuable review, your own personal story, or just simply an opinion piece?

Also, preferably pick a topic around something you are passionate about. It will be so much easier to come up with new content on an ongoing basis, and you will most likely enjoy writing about these topics too.

5. Be consistent 

Blog well, and blog often. This is one area many bloggers lack in, and once you start losing traffic to your blog it’s more difficult to regain that traffic and momentum. Following consistency is patience.

Blogs are slow to take off and take a while to become wildly popular, especially without paid spend behind promoting each piece or a newsletter with a massive recipient database. Be patient, and don’t expect instant gratification.

6. Engage with your audience

Engage and respond when users comment or review your blog piece. Whether this is on social media or the actual comments section. This is also one of the best ways to not only build a following or fanbase but to also know what your readers actually want to read about, which will give you even more insight on your next blog piece.

With this blogging how-to guide, there is simply no reason anyone can’t blog well and often – as long as they truly know their subject matter and, of course, their audience.

Think of blogging as the modern day diary – a website that is regularly updated and written in a style that promotes conversation. 

For more information, visit www.arcinteractive.co. You can also follow Arc Interactive on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.