Researching Writing and Blogging Tips: Part One

I’ve been trying to do some research on writing/blogging and, well, it’s been a rough start. I went to Google first and typed in best writing blogs. This pointed me towards some really big companies that are doing great, but I wanted to start smaller. I wanted to find other blogs like mine. Not necessarily just starting out, but a little further along than I am. I was interested to see what their blogs looked like and what they were writing about. Here are some tips I have gathered today on writing and blogging.

Pinterest Research

I gave up on my Googling efforts and decided to go a different route. I am currently reading a book called The Essential Habits of 6-Figure Bloggers by Sally Miller. It’s been really helpful so far. Even better, it’s a quick and easy read (though I still haven’t finished it). In the book, she talks about how Pinterest is a great place to find keywords for your blog posts. You start typing what you want to write about, and then all the fillers pop up to show you what people are searching for.

So, I typed “writing” into the search bar to see that prompts, inspiration, and tips were the top searches. I figured why not check out these pins myself! I checked out the writing tips and there were so many great options! You can tailor your search to focus on character development, genres, or anything you need help with in particular.

This turned out to be so much more helpful than my Google search. Not only did it help me with writing tips, but there are also some great blogging tips as well. I was led to the type of blogs I had been searching for on Google through my Pinterest searching.

Blog Research

One specific blog post I found that seemed great for bloggers who are just starting out was this: https://marissamcdaniel.com/7-places-to-submit-your-blog-posts-for-extra-traffic/ . In this post, Marissa tells her readers some places you can share your blog posts for more people to see. It is a great way to slowly build up some more traffic to your blog. Over time, it will hopefully amount to more frequent visitors.

I have been having trouble finding ways to create more traffic to my site organically. That is, without having to pay to take a course on the topic. Everywhere I turn there are more and more courses being offered to learn about different aspects of blogging or writing. This is great! But, I do not have the time or money to dedicate to these classes. I like to find the exact info I am looking for and get back to what I was working on! So, finding this post was perfect for me. Sometimes that is all we need to get started. We can always come back later and take the classes if we decide to dig a little deeper.

Book Research

As I mentioned above, I am currently reading a book about blogging, The Essential Habits of 6-Figure Bloggers by Sally Miller. It has been helpful in outlining how to get started, how to make money, and how to market your blog. I have only just scratched the surface, but so far it has made some really great points. The rest of the book is the writer interviewing very successful bloggers on how they became so successful. I am excited to dive into that section!

I am also reading a book called Just Write by James Scott Bell. Again, I have only just started this book, but so far, it has been useful. There is a great chart at the end of the first chapter telling you to rate how well you think you’ve mastered some key elements of writing. These elements include plot, structure, characters, scenes, dialogue, voice, and theme. Once you rate yourself, it says to go out and buy one or two books whose main focus is on the elements you rated yourself the lowest in. I think this is such a good exercise to try out to help point you in a direction to better your own writing skills.

In Conclusion…

There are so many ways to find the information that you are looking for on the internet. As I’ve said before, it can be very overwhelming! Pinterest can be almost as dizzying as Google, but at least it's a new place to start looking if Google searches are not turning up the results you were hoping for. I hope some of these new tips on writing and blogging that I’m slowly figuring out can help you in your own quests for new skills and new knowledge!

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