Start. This is always the hardest thing. I know…

Just write. Don’t worry about the Audience, Content, or Tone. Just ACT

Just write: with your heart and your mind will follow.

I for one have been putting this off for a long time! How long? Well, of course, ‘everything else’ got in the way…right?

I never had the time, the space, the tranquil state of mind, for anything other than what I was doing in my daily life cycle…Hamster on a wheel, one might say!

Organise your time and respect yourself, respect the “free time” you have, it’s a gift, and focus on those downtimes: traffic jams, travelling, and waiting.

Another good way to write is to speak! Use your phone to record your ideas and don’t lose that moment of inspiration.

Reel off the whole blog on that train into work or just busy doing nothing, waiting for those lights to change…4 minutes, it’s a quick hands-free blog moment.

Nuanced details, the minutia and SEO optimisations can be researched, refined, and updated later, once you have some traffic to measure the effectiveness and analyse a decent sample size. But, first, you must write to create the audience, as you know, if you build it-they will come.

No content, no clicks.

A raw ‘something’ is better than a perfect ‘nothing’.

Enough: let’s get on with it.

Topical Authority

To begin with stay within a defined area preferably one that interests you naturally, it is important that you could rattle off 5 blogs a week easily- if, you had the time. If you are trying to copy another blogger’s topic or style and you’re in uncharted waters you may find it tiresome, uninspiring, and cumbersome.

To start well, maintain that personal spark, and write about a topic that interests you. This will shine through in your words. So, initially don’t aim to be popular or trendy, aim for experiencing JOY in your writing.

Of course, the more you get into a weekly rhythm the more you will feel capable of tackling those topics on the edge of your personal comfort zone and after already taking the “huge leap of blogging”, will have the confidence and ability to edit and enhance your blogs: adding pictures, graphics, tables, and videos.

So choose a topic that you are close to or one that you can read about effortlessly. DON’T make it a brain-strain, and it’s not recommended to step outside your comfort zone on your first blog. Therefore, if you wish to establish topical authority don’t just copy the top ten bloggers in any given niche, topic, or segment. Bring YOUR own IDEAS, CREATIVITY, and ENERGY to enthuse life into those printed words. This will occur naturally as you read blogs, listen to podcasts, or watch videos on any given topic.

Sure, learn from others, but develop your own style and identity, this “blog-you” is you, and should not be an AI-scripted, copy-paste assimilation of the top ten ranking blogs.

Your Style will Define Your Audience

However, copying or assimilating the style of others is ironically a good start if you’re not motivated by ‘words’, but please, try and imprint, weave and include your own original ideas, such as; your own life observations, work experience tips, and personal anecdotes, onto the blog-page.

The internet is a permanent-flux-trend-pot brewing with all age groups, sexes, races, religions and political opinions looking for a quick-read that embodies or enthuses the reader towards: a solution; viewpoint, a change in their way of life. With over 4 billion people online I’m sure you can find a specific audience that appreciates YOUR style!

So, simply copying a successful blog, that may already be ageing, and tending downwards does not guarantee that you will have some of their Midas-Gold-Dust rub off onto you. Be careful which Pied-Piper you follow, and remember; Are you a Lemming or a Leader?

And hey-presto, you have an original blog post.

The latest Google update from ‘that’ search engine that still has 86% of the market, focuses on Topical Authority, so define a topic (or niche) you love or find simple enough that you are able to explain to your grandmother and then go for a ‘detailed-deep-dive’ [3d] as you produce successive blogs with ease.

Google search bots (spiders crawling the web, feasting on content) are giving ranking prizes, on the first few search pages, to those who can adroitly answer questions and queries on a given topic and show that they are ‘best-in-class’ in that specific niche or subject matter. The aim is to ANSWER THE QUESTION (query) or match the original intent of the query with the ‘authoritarian’ (all-knowing) best quality solution.

Don’t lose sight of the simplicity of the game:

A person types in a search query of a few words and google ranks the answers by how well they address that specific search query.

Of course, searches aren’t all Google-based: See table 1 Below.

Jan. 2012	% Share of Searches	Jan. 2022
91.53	Google	85.65
3.56	Bing	7.61
3.33	Yahoo	2.85
0.23	Baidu	0.59
0.35	Yandex	0.00
1.0	Other	3.30

Keywords: Aim Low and reap the rewards

Initially, you can’t go after every individual keyword (KW) within your niche (aka: keyphrase or longtail keyword) and it helps to focus on those KWs that are easy for you to rank for, given your level of experience at writing content, and the “status” or Domain Authority (DA) of your website.

As a blogging newbie, of course, throw in some mainstream topics within your niche. But I would suggest that in order to ensure that you rank for at least a few keywords in your blogs you should try and follow the 80: 20 rule.

80% of your content should be low-hanging fruit; as a newbie, you’re aiming to rank for fringe topics (at least initially) within your niche, these will be the topics in your niche with low keyword difficulty. Keyword difficulty ranges from 0 to 100, with 0 being the easiest to rank for and 100 being the hardest to rank for.

Fringe topics within a niche will normally have a low difficulty, of course, these will attract a low traffic volume too. But, if you try and compete for the high-traffic topics within your niche you may find yourself not ranking at all, or not getting beyond side 10 in the Search Engine Summary (SES), as the high volume query or keywords have attracted every competitor in the niche already, and as you have a new site and a low ranking or DA (Domain Authority) of 0 or a DA of 1.

Therefore, you can not logically outcompete and immediately dislodge established sites with over 5 to 20 years in a niche and DAs of 50 and upwards. So relax, and focus on what you can rank for FIRST.

20% of your content on a new site can answer the most common questions, this shows you are competent in the basics and have a good foundation knowledge for that topic within the niche, and you may have a refreshing or original approach to answering those common questions. However, initially don’t expect to rank for these, especially on a new website.

But they should help your readers see and also feel that you have a good command (authority) of the total topic in question, and therefore, it’s worthwhile for them to hang around on your website and explore more interesting articles.

Summary: Niche Keywords

Keep it simple, minimize brain-strain, and grow your blog in a blue ocean, not in a shark-invested lake.