For many freelance writers, having a successful blog is at the top of their goals list. While it’s great to make money writing for others, there’s something rewarding about writing for yourself (and being paid for it).

The issue with blogging, however, is that there is a lot of competition out there that can make it difficult for your blog to get noticed. How do you make your blog a success? Read the advice below to help improve your blog and gain traffic that will allow you to make money from doing something that you love.

Put good content first

Before worrying about increasing traffic to your blog, you need to focus on creating good content. That way, when people visit your blog  there’ll be something worthwhile waiting for them.

There are some excellent suggestions for blog content that can make it easier for you to find ideas. Instead of writing the usual posts, consider doing interviews, reader ideas and videos to give some extra depth to your content and make it different than others who write in your niche.

Make sure it runs like clockwork

Websites can break, and there’s nothing more frustrating than coming across a page that is riddled with errors or takes ages to load. As well as spending some time creating content, you should also focus on maintaining the back end of your blog.

If you self-host, you’ll have to do updates manually, so it’s worth checking once a week to see if everything on your blog is in working order. Keep an eye out for broken links in particular and fix them if you need to. If you’re struggling with speed or functionality, you may want to consider using a different provider to ensure your blog benefits from the most up to date services.

Boost the visual content of your blog

Having high-quality written content is great for your blog, but even avid readers can start glazing over when faced with a long wall of text. Create some beautiful visuals to go with your blog content such as photographs and graphics - these will help add interest to your posts and make your blog look more professional.

You don’t even need to be a great photographer to add photos to your blog; there are some amazing free ways to get photos for your blog that give it an incredible look and feel.

Work on your promotion strategy

Promotion is important for getting your blog noticed. If you have social media channels, make sure that you share your posts on them. The principles of creating an effective social media plan are the same whether it’s for a blog or other type of product, and involve a bit of planning and thought on your part about what you want to achieve. Here's my guide to social media for writers.

Alongside your promotion strategy, think about how you can engage with others in the community and build up relationships with other bloggers and those with an interest in your content.

Focusing on the promotion can be just as important as creating the post itself, so bear that in mind when you’re organizing your time.

Try guest blogging

Guest blogging is a popular way for bloggers to increase their traffic and followers. You can guest blog for others or have others guest blog for you - a mix of the both can achieve excellent results.

You should read up about using a guest post for backlinks to see the benefits it could offer your blog. Guest blogging and effective backlinking help to increase your Google rankings, and can be a good strategy to implement alongside SEO to help make it easier for people to find your blog.

Don’t lose your enthusiasm

Blogging requires passion and enthusiasm to keep the momentum going, and if you lose these, then you could soon start to find maintaining your blog a chore. Instead of feeling uninspired or lacking motivation for your blogging, take a step back from it to help you miss it, as well as give yourself some space to think of new ideas.

Spend time reading blogs about things that you enjoy and have an interest in; this can help reignite that spark in you that renews your enthusiasm in your own blogging niche. Choosing a topic you know you love and will enjoy writing about is important, so consider your blogging subject carefully before you start pouring all of your energy into it.

Blogging can be a rewarding pastime as well as an effective way to generate income for yourself. Take a look at some of the ways you can monetize your blog and start generating some money from your hard work. A successful blog is within your reach, you just need to work to achieve it.