We tell you which platform to choose for a blog, how to monetize it, and what criteria to use to select topics.
What is a blog and what is it for?
Where is the best place to blog in 2024
How to start blogging
How to promote a blog
How to monetize a blog
Blogging Tools
Mistakes and pitfalls
Advice for new bloggers
What is a blog and what is it for?
Table of Contents
A blog is a platform where any person, public figure, company or state can share information. For example, the Federal Tax Service, Sberbank, Artemy Lebedev have a blog, and this article is posted on the Yandex Praktikum blog. A blog is needed for different purposes, for example:
● Tell about yourself and your products, get to know your audience.
● Show your expertise and increase popularity.
● Inform people about new laws or other events.
● Make money by advertising other people’s products or services.
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Where is the best place to blog in 2024
There are many platforms for blogging, some of which you can read about in our article . According to a survey by the Anketolog public opinion institute and the Mediacom.Expert PR agency, in 2024 the most popular platforms among Russian bloggers were VKontakte, Telegram, YouTube, Zen and Odnoklassniki. We will tell you which blogs are suitable for each of these platforms.
Classmates
Everything related to food, motherhood, sports and psychology . Suitable for channels about recipes, culinary and household life hacks, raising and educating children, etc. In 2024, the Russian-speaking audience was 50.9 million people . Among them, 63% are women aged 35 to 64 years.
Telegram
News, politics, education and entertainment. Suitable for channels about politics or niche news — finance, fashion trends, IT, marketing, etc., children’s or professional education — IT, investments, SMM, psychology, etc. In 2024, Telegram registered 85.3 million users from Russia. 58% of the audience are men aged 25–34, women — 42%, of which the majority of users are aged 25–34.
YouTube
Music, entertainment and lectures, reviews (of films, books, technology, cosmetics, games, etc.). Suitable for video blogs of musical groups or singers, retail stores or companies that produce consumer goods, game developers, streamers, lecturers, etc. The Russian-speaking audience in 2024 was 96.1 million people . Despite the monetization block in 2024, you can still upload videos to YouTube, as well as earn income through direct advertising or donations.
“Zen”
Content about humor, movies and TV series, music, food, travel and tourism. Suitable for channels about travel, recipes, TV series reviews, movies and funny stories. The audience in Russia in 2024 was 80.3 million people . The main age of users is from 40 years.
Vkontakte (VK)
Products and services, clothing and footwear, vacancies, children and education, beauty. Suitable for publics about children’s education and psychology, for online stores (clothing, cosmetics, household goods, etc.). VK has a mostly Russian-speaking audience. The average monthly number of Russian users in the first quarter of 2024 was 89 million people .
How to start blogging
● Define your goal. For example, you want to show your expertise to attract customers, sell your products, or earn money by advertising other companies’ products.
● Think of a blog topic. If you are a professional in your field, you can publish life hacks, tips, or content about the pitfalls in your niche. If the blog is needed for a company, you can publish content that explains how to use the product. For example, the flight search service Aviasales tells you which places to visit in different cities and what to take with you on a trip.
● Analyze your audience. Find out who your audience is : gender, age, city, interests and preferred platforms. For example, it may turn out that the audience prefers to learn financial literacy on Telegram, and landscape design on VKontakte.
● Study your competitors. Look at your biggest competitors , what they blog about, what platforms they do it on, what topics and formats they use most often. It may turn out that in your niche, videos work better than text, and of all the social networks, only one collects activity. This information will reduce the time it takes to launch a blog and the money spent on testing platforms, content and advertising.
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How to promote a blog
There are five main ways to promote a blog.
1. Advertising
Promote your blog in search engines, social networks, on niche sites or through bloggers using paid advertising. The cost of advertising will depend on the site and niche. Let’s look at three types of advertising:
● Contextual advertising is advertising that is displayed on websites or social networks depending on the content that the user is currently viewing. For example, if a user is reading an article about travel, they may be shown ads for travel services or hotels. Read more about this in the Yandex Praktikum magazine article .
● Targeted advertising in social networks is advertising that is aimed at specific groups of users based on their behavior, interests, demographic data, and other factors. The Yandex Praktikum magazine has a detailed guide to targeted advertising.
● Paid advertising from bloggers. Find relevant thematic blogs where your audience is and place ads there. For example, a cryptocurrency blogger can advertise a blog about financial literacy for money.
2. Content distribution
Create profiles on popular platforms and share links to new blog posts there. For example, if the blog is hosted on Zen, the content can be additionally published on social networks. The advantage of this method is that you can attract additional traffic to the site. The disadvantage is that it takes time and money to attract an audience to additional platforms.
3. Guest Posts
Publish content on other niche blogs and magazines to get more people to know about you. For example, experts who develop their blogs to attract clients often publish on third-party sites.
4.Barter
Find a blogger with a similar audience and agree that you will publish a post on their site, and they will publish a post on yours. This way, you will exchange audiences. It is not necessary to choose a blogger with the same topic, it is enough that they overlap. For example, a blog about style can barter with a blog about cosmetics or clothing reviews.
5. Search engine optimization (SEO)
If the blog is maintained on a website, in Zen or VKontakte, optimize the content for search engines. Then the articles in the blog will be more likely to be visible when searched in search engines.
To optimize a blog, it is important to consider the requirements of search engines: semantic core, page loading speed, etc. The Yandex Praktikum blog has a guide to SEO optimization . Read it to learn more about it.
How to monetize a blog
There are three ways to monetize a blog.
1. Advertising
Sell advertising integrations directly to companies or use advertising networks – for example, Admitad, Telega.in, VKontakte.
2. Paid subscription
Create exclusive content or chats with paid access. This format sells especially well in very narrow niches. People pay for expert information and networking. For example, an investment expert can create a paid chat where he will talk about his purchases or sales of shares.
3. Crowdfunding
Use crowdfunding platforms to finance special projects or content – for example, Planeta.ru , Boomstarter , Kickstarter .
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Blogging Tools
Eight popular services used by bloggers for text and video content:
1. Google Docs
is a free analogue of Microsoft Word for working with texts. The service works offline and online, to use it you need to have Google mail. In online mode, all entered data is saved automatically – even if you accidentally close the document, nothing will disappear. You can set up shared access if several people work on the blog.
2. etxt.ru
— anti-plagiarism. With its help, you can check articles for uniqueness, errors, spam and other SEO parameters. The first 15 thousand characters are checked for free, if more — from 300 rubles.
3. Orfogrammka
is a service for checking punctuation, grammar, spelling and SEO parameters. The service is paid – from 150 rubles per 100 thousand characters.
4. YandexGPT
is a neural network from Yandex that helps create text, find ideas for articles and posts, create illustrations, form a portrait of the target audience, etc. We talked about all the capabilities of this neural network in the article . To use YandexGPT, you need to install the Yandex browser and register Yandex mail.
5. Venngage
is a free online platform for creating illustrations, infographics, and presentations. There are templates that you can change to suit your needs.
6. Adobe Premiere Pro
is a professional video editing program. Suitable for video editing, creating effects, working with sound and color correction. Adobe Premiere Pro is more suitable for professionals.
7. Movavi Video Editor
is another video editor, but simpler. It is suitable for simple videos with a minimum of special effects and does not require professional knowledge.
8. Weeek
— a space for managing projects and tasks. It allows you to plan the release of articles and posts, write down ideas, and monitor their implementation. The service is free for a team of up to five people.
Mistakes and pitfalls
● The goal is not defined. First, you need to understand why a person needs a blog: to sell advertising or services, to improve reputation, to tell the whole world about their cases – or will it be a lifestyle blog. A written goal will help determine the tools and methods of promotion.
● The audience is not defined. You need to know the target audience in order to choose the right content format. For example, if a blog teaches something to beginners, you shouldn’t make the content in the language of professionals: there is a risk that the audience simply won’t understand what you are talking about.
● Irregular publications. If you publish content rarely, your audience may forget about you. Schedule publications, for example, 2-3 times a week. If it seems that all interesting topics have already been covered and there is nothing more to publish, take old topics and present them in a new format. For example, one article can be repackaged into posts, cards, infographics, circles, discussed by voice, etc.
● Low-quality content. Publish interesting and easy-to-read content. If the user gets bored or the content does not cover their needs, they will not consume it. For example, if you write about choosing building materials for the home, talk about it. Long discussions on abstract topics will quickly tire the audience.
● The author does not understand the topic. The audience will quickly understand if the author is well versed in the topic. In addition, it is difficult to produce interesting content without knowledge. For example, there is no point in writing about bicycles if you ride them once a month. But if you repair them, sell them, or are involved in cycling, the content will be unique and interesting.
