Are you looking into starting a blog? In this blog post, I cover what you need to know before to start a blog and create high ranking content.
Table of Contents
What you need to know before to start a blog
Before to start your blog, ask yourself a couple of questions such as:
- Do I need to start a blog?
- What do I want to talk about
- Do I want to make money
- Share my expertise and educate people
Asking yourself some of the questions above will help you decide if this is truly what you want to do. If the answer is yes, then your next step is to figure out what is your aim or goal is.
What is your goal?
Are you starting a blog to:
- Earn passive income
- Solve a problem
- Educate
- Sell products
- Quit your 9-5
- Spend more time with your family and so forth…
Now that you know that you want to start a blog with a goal in mind, it is time to pick a niche.
Pick a niche
By niche I mean your area of expertise. This is the area of interest that your website is going to focus on and it’s what you’ll be writing about on a daily basis for your blog posts. This might sound like an easy job – but picking your niche is actually something you should consider very carefully. Getting this right can make your life a lot easier, while making a poor choice might make it almost impossible to achieve the goal that you are looking for. Examples of niches are:
- Travel ( what kind of travel)
- Parenting
- Credit repair
- Scientific
- College life
- Weight loss
- Cycling
- Fashion ( what kind of fashion)
- Product review
- Mental health
- Pet grooming
- Sport cares
- Van life and so forth…
Always choose a niche that you enjoy reading and writing about. Blogging is not a ‘small’ job by any stretch of the way. Ask yourself if it is something you will be happy to write about on a regular basis?
Writing will also come a lot easier if you’re well-versed in the subject. You’ll need to do less research and at the same time, you’ll find it much easier to come up with new interesting topics that people who like the subject will be interested in. What’s more, your passion will come across in the content and people will be much more inclined to read more of what you have to say as a result.
Define your target audience and how you can help
In a nutshell that means writting helpful content that solves a problem for your ausience. To do that you will need to define your target audience. Basically you need to know who your audience is. For example if you wan to create recipes for busy moms, your target audience is busy moms who need practical advice and tips on how they can do it.
Now that you have a niche a mind, what will be your blog name?
What will be your blog name
That is the part where you have to come up with a name for your blog. Picking the right blog name is a very important aspect in your blog journey. You will have to pick a name that describes what you are about and that is easy for people to find, recognize and remember.
What platform to use for your blog
Once you are ready to start your blog, you need to select a platorm to host your blog. There are a few blog hosting platforms out there so pick the one that is right for you by doing your own research and decide which one is right for you. Some of these platforms are:
- Blogger.com
- WordPress.com
- Tumblr
- Wix
Keep in mind that if you choose Blogger your content does not belong to you but to Blogger. Once you pick your platorm, you will have to decide where you want to host it. By host I mean where people will fing you.
Hosting platforms and plans
Web hosting is an online service that makes your website’s content accessible on the internet. When you purchase a hosting plan, you are renting space on a physical server to store all the website’s files and data. In a nutshell, hosting platforms allow you to host your blog on the Internet. Some of the hosting platfoms on the market are:
- Hostinger
- Bluehost
- Hostgator
Once you select your hosting platform and pricing plan, set up your blog/ domain name.
A domain is the name of your blog ending in .com. For example, if you want to share your crafts or DIY ideas, pick a name that reflecst it. For example, CraftyNelly.com. When you pick a domain name, be very careful to not pick one endint in.net. having a blog ending in .com is highly suggested for search engines. In additon, before you pick a domain name, do a quick Google search to see if someone is not already using it. If no one is using it than go ahead and claim the name before someone else uses it.
TIP: Are you ready to start your blog and monetize it but do not know how to get started? Click here to get started.
Create all social media accounts
Once you have googled your domaine name/blog name, decide on which social media platform you want to be. Those social media accounts are:
- Tiktok
- Snapchat
- Thread
- You Tube
Keep in mind that you do not have to be on all those social media platforms. Some bloggers have one or two handlers while others choose to be on all platforms. Keep the same name on all your platforms for branding reasons and to make it easier for people to find you.
Now that you have selected your blog hosting platform, domain and pricing plan, it is time to pick a blog theme or design.
Color palette
What branding colors you would like to represent your brands. For example when we see Coco Cola, we immediately think of red, black and white colors.
Free theme
In the dashboard section of your blog, go to appeareance to select a theme and select the one you like.
Premium theme
Kindly note that often times the themes are basic and might not have the aestetic that your are looking for. As a result, you have to buy a premium theme. For example, the theme option for me on WordPress were too basic so I purchased one from a company that sells blog themes. These are two websites that you can check out for blog themes:
Now that you are all set, get familiar with your dasboard and all the tools available there. That is where you will find the blog post section where you will crete all of your posts.
In addition add your contact and about page, create a newlsetter and a freebie fore visitors to subscribe and stay up to date with your content. Once you set up your newsletter share it on all your social media platfoms for people to sign and create an email list that you will use to stay in touch with your audience. Here a few email marketing platforms that you can use:
Add plugings
Plugins are like apps on your smart phone. You can download or purchase them to add or enhance the functionality of your website. Plugins allow users to create powerful sites without touching a single line of code. Some of the pluggins that you wil need for your website are:
- Safety and security
- Anti spam
- SEO
- Back ups
- Table of content
- Twitter feed
- Redirect
- Newsletter and the list goes on.
The key point that you need to keep in mind when adding pluggins is to selct those that are functional and that will not slow down your website. To find pluggings go to your dashboard, scroll down until you see pluggins. Click on it and voila. If you need to add a plugging, simply click add new, go to the search box, type the one that you are looking for than activate it.
Develop a plan for monetization
If your goal is to make money with your blog, stzart developping a plan as soon as possible and treat your blog as a business. Although there are many ways to make money, here are a few of the popular ways that you help you decide what is right for you:
- Affiliate marketing
You essentially promote a product on your blog and earn a commission every time someone makes a purchase through your unique affiliate link
- Advertising
Once you start making a decent amount of traffic to your blog sign u for Adsense, Mediavine and
- Digital products
Create your own products suchas as ebooks, t-shirts, planners, ebooks, coloring book. I have created my own coloring book that I currently sell on Amazon. Feel free to check it out by following this link.
In addition, if you plan on selling products on your website, you need to abide by the laws of the country where you live. Get all applicable licenses and permits, have a privacy policy in place if you are collecting personal information such as email addresses, names etc..Website terms and conditions, the terms and conditions for online sales.
- Sponsored post
As a blogger you can work with brands on sponsored posts regarding your niche. If you are like me into creating travel content, work with hotels and lifestyle brands.
- Services
Use your blog to seel your services to others. One of my favorite website to find people offering their service is Fiveer.
- Speaking engagements
You can do that once you have a certain expertise on a specific subjet by reaching out to certain non profit or for profit business for a speaking or hosting opportunities.
Study successful bloggers in your niche
Study them to see what they do and how they are able to make money.
Write your first blog
Once you are familiarized you your back end, start wrting your blog post. Make sure that you write blog posts content that people are searching for and that is where you have to learn about SEO ( Search Engine Optimization. With good SEO skills, you will be able to write blog post content to rank on Google and bring traffic to your website by doing ahead of time some key word research.
Keyword research
If your goal is to earn passive income or make a living with your blog, it is important to bring traffic to it if you want to work with the two big advertising agencies and collaborate with brands. If you want to write a blog post on easy quick recipes for busy moms, do some key words research before drafting and pusblishing your post to find out what peole are searching for and how you can write a top ranking blog post.
SEO websites to use for Keyword research to create optimized blog content
For research purposes to create ranking blog content, these are some of the options on the market:
If you are new to blogging and SEO, or if you find writing SEO titles and meta descriptions hard, you may find this feature very useful to write your blog content.
For a blog post on “easy quick recipes for busy moms”, use these website to see what peole are searching for and use those keywords to write a top ranking blog post.
High-competition versus low-competition keywords
When picking a niche it is important to pick one with low competition but that people are searching for. Some niches have high competition which is gonna make it difficult for people to find you. For example if you choose travel as your niche, what kind of travel will you be talking about? Conde Nast traveler and other major travel related websites are big authorities in the travel world. Compared to them how will anyone find you? You have to be more specific. Bottom line is to find a topic that is popular but that isn’t so popular. As a result, you will be able to attract people to your blog and set yourself appart from the competition.
If that sounds complicated to you, hire help. There are platforms out there that can help you either hire hire a professional to help you with SEO or teach you how to go about it by buying courses. Such platforms to learn about SEO are:
Interested in hiring someone check out Fiverr.
Share your content of all your social media platforms
To do that, you would need to link your Facebook, Twitter to your post, this way when you click published, your content appear simultunously on all your accounts.
Succesful blogers
To be a successful blogger, keep in mind that you have to be consistent and patient. Many bloggers out there will tell you that it took them years before seeing high traffic and start making money from blogging. Yes you can earn money by writing on a topic (s) that you are passionate about, however, you need to approach blogging as a full-time job if you ever want it to be your main source of income. In other words, if you want this to be your full-time job… start treating it like one.
Conclusion
To sum things up, blogging is a great way to start earning money and make passive income. Although blogging seems on the outside easy it is not. It takes hard work, lots of research and motivation to keep doing it and see results. Bottom line is if you want to live off your blog, you will need to treat it as a full-time job, do some research and pick the right niche.
I hope that you enjoyed reading about what you need to know before you start a blog.
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