6 Traits Of Successful Bloggers (and why you need them!)

Last updated on 13 February 2023

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So you wanna be a blogger? Fantastic! But have you got what it takes? Over my 10+ years of blogging, I’ve discovered that there are some traits of successful bloggers that make them stand out from the crowd and really create something special. These are things that we all can have and build on and grow, but that is vital to continuing to create epic content for our audiences.

There are so many qualities and traits of successful bloggers, and while we could write about them all day, I really wanted to narrow it down to a shortlist. These are 6 things that I have recognised in the bloggers I’ve followed over the years, and while there are many more, it’s a great starting point to find out if you’re on the path to blogging success*.

The 6 traits of successful bloggers that I think are key to point out are:

Passionate
Determined
Organised
Supportive
Have a willingness to learn
Courageous

You’ll notice that all these things are traits rather than skills. Blogging skills, such as optimisation, keyword research, writing etc are all things that we can learn as we go. The traits listed above can be learnt too, but I do think it helps if at least a few of these things are part of who you are from the get-go.

So, let’s get into these traits of successful bloggers and why I think they’re important.

Passionate

Without a passion for what you’re writing about and creating content about, you’re going to burn out. There’s no point in writing about things that you don’t love.

Not only will you grow to dislike your blog, but you can seriously tell through people’s writing when they don’t love their topics. Now, I’m not saying that you have to be passionate about every single post you write or every single topic you talk about, but what I am saying is that if you’re in a niche that you don’t have a passion for, it’s not going to end well.

For example, if you’re a Virtual Assistant with a blog and you love helping people with their social media, their websites, their day-to-day tasks for their business, then you’re going to have a passion for writing about those sorts of things.

Your passion for helping others, managing Instagram accounts, creating content, drafting emails … all of that fire is going to help you create a successful blog, which people are going to land on, see your services, want to pay you … etc. It’s a circle of blogging goodness.

Perhaps you’re a travel blogger and you are passionate about exploring this incredible world we live in. But maybe you hate writing about the practicalities of travel. Booking hotels and flights, organising insurance, renewing passports … none of that is your jam.

That’s okay! Remember, you don’t have to be passionate about every single post you’re writing. Always remember that, when you’re writing about something that doesn’t set your heart ablaze, that you’re still writing about travel, you’re still creating those posts that are going to be mega helpful for others looking to set off on their own adventure.

Remember your ‘why’, and weave a little of that into everything you create.

Determined

Building a successful blog takes time. It takes energy, motivation, persistence and determination. If you’re not determined to keep going, no matter how long it takes, then your blog isn’t going to get any further than where it is right now.

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.” – James Clear

Like the stonecutter in this analogy from James Clear, you have to keep at it. No matter what ‘it’ is, you gotta be determined enough to make it happen. Remember that everything you do today for your blog is a step in the right direction. Being determined to work at your blog, to take those small steps, to set aside time to do 👏the👏thing👏 is going to drastically change your blog’s trajectory and your success with it.

Organised

One of the biggest mistakes of my blogging career was around organisation.

When I started my first blog back in 2008, I had no real idea what I was doing. I didn’t understand things like SEO or why I might use it. I didn’t know much about blog post structure or the tools I could use to make my blog better than it was (to be honest, it wouldn’t have been hard to make that original blog better than it was … ). I was unorganised. I posted whenever I felt like it (sometimes multiple times a day ‘just because’) and I wrote about what I wanted.

It was this disorganisation that really got me into a pickle.

Might I point out, that I’m one of the most organised people I know. But for whatever reason, that didn’t correlate to my blog. Then, everything changed when I discovered the beauty and joy and wonders of a blogging content planner.

Back then, I had a paper planner, and I loved it to bits. Suddenl,y I was posting strategically. I had a plan for the month, for the year and I was on top of things. My writing became sharper because I knew what I was talking about. My blogging became consistent and not sporadic because I had set up a schedule and I stuck to it.

Being organised with your blog is super important to its success. You can have all the passion and determination you want, but if you don’t mix that in with organisation, then your determined passion is going to seem like chaos and calamity.

Supportive

The online world is vast. It’s full of creative people doing incredible things and when you discover accounts, websites, blogs that are run by pretty kick-butt people, then it’s a wonderful reminder of the creativity and courage and determination of like-minded people out there.

Comparison is the thief of joy, as the saying goes.

The online world may be full of those cool peep, but sometimes we see what others are doing and we start comparing ourselves with them and their seemingly perfect lives. We get weighed down because their blogs are ‘doing better than ours’ and ‘they making a full-time income off their blogs and I can’t even get accepted to AdSense’ and ‘how does she look so perfect all the time?’

As soon as we flip our mindset from ‘look at them and all the things they’re going and I’m not’ to ‘look at them and all the amazing things they’re doing that I can learn from and support them in’ then the whole blogging experience is going to change.

Take a look at those other blogs. Learn from them. Leave genuine comments and remarks. Form relationships with other bloggers online. Support what they’re doing. And you’ll find that you’ll receive similar support from others too. Blogging is not a solo activity. Blogging is not siloed. There’s a big wide community of supportive women who are in the same stages of blog creation as you. Find them. Learn from them. Support them.

Have a willingness to learn

If you don’t have a willingness to learn new things (or new-to-you things) then you and your blog are going to stay stuck in the same-ol’ patterns and ways of doing things. Those things might not be conducive to good blogging, nor will they allow you to grow into the successful blogger you want to be.

I’ve learnt so many things in the years I’ve been blogging, some of which I wouldn’t have had any clue about in 2008. Some things which possibly weren’t around to be learnt back then. And that’s one of the challenges: as each year goes on, there are new things to be learnt. But that’s also one of the beauties of the online space. Things are changing, and we can learn and grow with them as we go.

If you’re stuck in a rut and you’re not looking to upskill and learn new things, you won’t get far. If you’re not sure the areas you’re stuck in, then investing in a blog coach might be a good option for you. Remember, blogging is not a siloed activity. There are people out there to help, as long as you have the willingness to learn new things and unlearn anything that’s no longer working.

Courageous

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” ― Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou probably wasn’t talking about blogging, but the quote still works well in a blogging scenario. It takes courage – immense courage – to start a blog. And even more so to keep it going. Especially if you’re weaving your own story throughout your posts and your articles.

When you start a blog, you’re putting yourself out there into a world full of strangers. That’s a little daunting! But if you have the courage to hit that ‘publish’ button for the first time, the second, third, 100th, 1000th time … your courage will grow. And with courage, all of the other traits we’ve just talked about will grow too. For it takes courage to be passionate about the things you love. It takes courage to be determined when other people would give up. It takes courage to learn new things, to reach out to new people, to put your story out there into the world.

Without a little courage, everything else becomes slower, scarier, and will hold you back.

While we might not hold all these traits (I definitely struggle with some of these!), a mix of these is really going to help when it comes to creating a blog that you love. As I mentioned, there are more traits of successful bloggers that we could add here. But these 6 are some of the most important in my opinion. And I hope that this has inspired you, has lit a wee fire in your belly for your blog and the things you’re sharing.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments!

*blogging success is, of course, subjective. What makes one blog ‘successful’ to one person, might be the complete opposite of someone else.