Do you plan to fit in a content marketing strategy for your business? Got a knack for writing creative and informative pieces? Are you a Mac product user?
Tie it in with your trade because you’re the Mac blogger your business needs.
Content marketing is a powerful tool for businesses. A whopping 84% of people expect brands to deliver meaningful content. That means their content entertains, shares stories, provides solutions and creates experiences.
One of the most effective approaches to content marketing is making a blog. Blogging is effective because you get to do backlinking and input keywords in your post. You can also make it more informative and useful compared to traditional advertising.
In this guide, we’re focusing on Mac bloggers. We have a guide below for business owners looking to create a blog site. Read on further below for some tips and tricks for blogging.
1. Pick a Platform for Your Blog
Before you write anything down, you need a place to write on and publish. You need a blogging platform. You might have heard of some of these: Wix, Joomla, and WordPress.
When you choose a blogging platform for you, consider the following: cost, accessibility, features and extendability, maintenance, and monetization options. Each platform offers its own pros and cons. Some are free but the paid ones will have more benefits.
WordPress gives you control over your site and it’s great for anybody who is unfamiliar with running one.
It allows you to choose and edit themes, add plugins, and work with social media. One con is that you are responsible for all aspects of your site like security, backups, and performance.
TypePad is a favorite of Mac users and with its hosting services, you can have your site up within a few minutes. It lets you categorize posts for easy navigation and allows readers to comment. Do note that it doesn’t have a free version.
For the simple blogger, Blogspot could be your platform. It doesn’t cost money and it allows to you enter text and images. If you want to do some more customization, you will need to learn to code.
Before you commit, check out each platform’s tools and plugins first. Some make it easy to incorporate photos, videos, or music files.
For an environment-friendly blog, there are platforms that perform eco hosting. Those are only some blogging platforms among the many others out there.
2. Buy a Domain Name
The next step for Mac bloggers is to register for a domain. Your domain name will give your blog a web address free of random characters. You also get to choose your URL for your blog.
To apply for a domain name registration, look for a domain host or domain name registrar. The domain host will check for your chosen name’s availability. If it’s available, they’ll register you to the DNS or domain name system.
Checking for availability lasts a week in general. A good thing about registering for a domain is they are pretty cheap. A year’s worth of domain name ownership cost can be as low as $10.
Make your domain name more unique by diverging from the usual .com ending. These end parts including the dots are top-level domains. This is different from the domain name because it has to be available before you can use it.
Looking for a top-level domain for your URL? We have a list of 10 new TLDs for Mac hosting. Pick one from the bunch and you are all ready to go.
3. Install the Software You Need for Writing
Companies that publish 16 or more blog posts monthly have 4.5 times the leads than companies that publish four or less monthly posts. To gain the advantage as well, you need a writing software you’re comfortable with. Some people start composing on writing software before they copy-paste it on their site to publish.
The program Desk is great for Mac users because of its many blogging features. One is it allows you to save the draft into the iCloud drive. This way, even when you’re not in front of your Mac computer, you can edit your draft on your iPhone or iPad.
If you are using WordPress for a Macintosh computer, you might want to get Blogo. It also syncs with Mac products and allows direct publishing from your desktop. Other features allow you to add a featured image and a live preview of your post before publishing.
Do you want a place where you can get feedback on your writing? Draft is a program with writing tools, allows for collaborations, and uses analytics. It has a straightforward saving process and limited formatting options.
MS Word has more formatting options. It also allows you to encode equations, create citations, and insert graphs and charts. Travel bloggers could also make use of its translate function to put flavor in their blog posts.
Stick with what works for you or what you’ve tried and tested. The software you write on doesn’t matter as much as your content. Always remember that content is king.
4. Find Tools That Suit Your Style
Since 43% of people admit to skimming blog posts, you have to make your posts interesting to warrant a full read. It’s not that easy to add images or videos to your blog post. The following tools should be able to help.
Did you get the dreaded writers’ block out of the blue? Get a tool to capture and organize your ideas. Evernote is a freemium ‘online notebook’ with a search function and unlimited pages.
Writers need to be avid readers, too. The thing is there’s not enough time in the day to read everything you want to. Pocket is an app for your iPhone that lets you save a page for later reading.
If you love lists, Trello is an awesome project management tool. You can make any number of lists with this app and label them as you wish. This way, you organize and store your ideas faster and better.
Are you a gamer looking to share your mad skills? Want a tool that can record what you see in your screen? Camtasia does that plus features like video-editing and sharing.
Free alternatives for Camtasia include CaptureMe and OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). These tools are great for tutorials on digital space. For example, photographers can showcase their Photoshop processes and editing tricks.
Need an app for SEO? Integrity is the SEO toolkit for the Mac OS. It scans all the links in your blog and points out the broken ones. And it works with any blogging platform.
5. Got WordPress for Your Blog? Use Plugins
Let’s take a closer look at the most popular blogging platform out there. WordPress powers over 25% of the world’s websites. In 2017, almost 75 million websites used WordPress as a CMS or content management system.
It won’t be a surprise if you chose to operate your blog with WordPress. To help your experience with it easier, we’ll share some useful plugins for blogging.
When you put up a blog, you need visibility. Yoast SEO is one of the best and most useful SEO plugins for WordPress. One great thing about it is that Team Yoast is always upgrading and updating it.
Some key features of Yoast are that it checks the readability and the Flesch Reading Ease score of your blog. It also optimizes images you post so your blog posts can rank higher in the search rankings. It’s also compatible with Google algorithms.
Content marketing works very well with social media marketing. Easy Social Sharing is a social media plugin that will give more visibility to your blog. Readers will be able to share your content in their social media. With this plugin, you get to keep track of the sharing counts of your blog posts on social media.
Want a two-way communication with your readers? The wpDiscuz plugin will let your readers leave their two cents on your posts. With this, you know which direction to take and how to improve future blog posts.
Those are only some of the 50,000+ WordPress plugins you could exploit.
6. Blog with Your Mobile Device
You won’t always be sitting in front of a Mac computer. What if you’re on a hiking trip and you want to write a blog about the experience while you’re in it? This is why you download blog-writing apps for your iPhone or iPad.
The WordPress Mac app is a mobile-friendly blogging platform. While you’re commuting to work, for example, you could still write a few paragraphs with the WordPress mobile app. When you’re on an overseas trip, you can publish your travel blog from your phone.
Want a blogging platform that Google provided? BlogTouch Pro lets Mac bloggers use a Google account to blog and use as many photos as you desire. For a price of $4.99, it’s an easy-to-use blogging app that is worth the price.
Good blog posts include visual media. Sometimes a photo editor does not have the tools you need to edit your photos. Adobe Photoshop Express has the tools for image enhancement, cropping, and editing.
The best blog apps will let you share your latest blogs to social media. Hootsuite will let you post to social media but it will do it all at once. If you want something sent out at a later time, this mobile app has an AutoSchedule function.
In the same way that you’re blogging from your iPhone, your blog should be mobile-friendly. Nowadays, almost everyone owns a mobile device or two. The more accessible your blog is, the more noticeable it can be.
7. Tips for Mac Bloggers
Your blog page has the potential to create a community. Understand your audience so you know what kind of content will resonate with them. This is also a great starting point when you’re connecting with them.
Yet, you shouldn’t lose yourself in the process. You should be writing for yourself first. The more you enjoy what you are writing, the more posts you can publish.
If it’s easy for you to get distracted by the internet, get a desktop tool that lets you work offline. This way, you get to concentrate on what you’re doing and you’re more productive. If you do this, research everything you need to know before you pull the plug on your Wi-Fi router.
Looking for the perfect web host is a challenge. What if you found one but your serves is half the world away? That won’t be much of a problem when you know the right FTP clients for Mac.
File Transfer Protocol or FTP transfers files between computers on a network. Without it, you won’t be able to upload, download, or publish anything. A fitting FTP will assist you in delivering your stories to the world.
One way to keep constant interest in your posts is to make them worth citing. People make references to a blog post when they find it is reliable or it has a lesson. To get into this mindset, try to ask yourself, “Is this worth sharing to a friend?”
Create, Publish, Inspire!
To conclude, the initial step for making a blog is to get a blogging platform and a domain name. The next step is software installation. Next, you need to find the tools and plugins that will suit your blogging style.
Make your blog accessible to mobile. Last, we shared some tips that should help you on your journey as a blogger. That’s the end of our guide for Mac bloggers.
We hope you found this blogging guide helpful and informative. Successful blogging is a challenging task. You need to publish quality, informative posts often while being consistent.
Got questions? Come and check out our other guides. We’ve got posts on web-hosting, web design, and most things Mac.
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