Blogging can be a great marketing tactic for businesses, but it can also be a great hobby for individuals. Blogging gives you a way to share your expertise, thoughts and information with other people interested in the same things.

No matter if you are blogging for business or pleasure, it’s a good idea to engage your audience with intentional blogging. If you take your blog beyond a vanity project—something you only add to when you feel like it—and you start to blog with purpose, you will find that your blog is more successful.

Know your niche.

Every blog needs to have a niche. Maybe you’re blogging about your trip around the world, your financial expertise, your parenting tips, your recipes, or anything else that is interesting to you. It doesn’t matter, but that right there will be your niche. Your blog will be aimed at attracting readers interested in the same thing, whether travel, finances, parenting, food, etc. Before you can start blogging with purpose, you have to know who you are aiming your blog towards, and then you’ll need to use this information to draft blog posts that will continue to grab their attention.

Create some backup titles.

Writer’s block can occur at any time, so in order to stay on schedule and continue to write meaningful blogs, it’s a good idea to keep a backup list of titles. Anytime a great blog idea pops into your head, write it down. This way, if you are ever struggling to think of a title or blog post topic, you can choose from your list.

Create a schedule.

Having a blog schedule is absolutely important for intentional blogging. Think about your actual schedule and determine just how often you could get a blog post written and published. For example, do you have time to update your blog everyday? A few times per week? Once a week?

There is no right or wrong answer for frequency. You just need to make sure that you’re not overdoing it. Don’t try to write one blog post per day if it’s not feasible. This will only cause you to burn out and it will jeopardize your entire blogging effort.

Once you realistically know just how often you can write and publish a blog post, you need to create a schedule. Posting on the same day every week will create consistency for your blog, and this consistency is something that your readers will come to recognize and expect. Because of this, your readers will now know that they can visit your blog on a certain day and there will be new content. This is what keeps them coming back.

Invest in guest posts.

There’s no rule that says you have to create all of your blog’s content. A great way to provide your readers with variety and valuable blog topics is to enlist the help of guest bloggers. Find other similar bloggers who are willing to write posts for your blog. Some guest bloggers ask to be paid while others simply ask for a backlink to their own blog. This is a great way to build readership and generate consistent blog posts. After all, if you’re suffering from a major case of writer’s block, a guest blog can be just the thing to keep you on track without stressing out.

Provide valuable posts.

You always want to make sure that your blogs are useful to your audience. Make sure they’re informative or entertaining, and this will keep your audience coming back. If your readers ever find that your topics are useless or meaningless, you will lose traffic. Your blog content is king to your success, so make sure you are constantly using blog writing tips to stay ahead of the game.

Guest Author: Lizzie Lau is a freelance writer who combines personal opinions and research to create appealing and informative articles on various topics.