How to begin blogging in six steps (Platforms, SEO and more) |
Ready to learn how to begin a blog? This article is designed for you. From hosting to SEO, take these steps to get your blog online and operating.
It's obvious that blogging must be part of your marketing strategy. It's a tried-and-true way to attract new customers and to share your knowledge with the world.
But whenever you get up and attempt to start your quest towards blogging success and you are overwhelmed with questions.
Which platform should I choose?
What is the cost?
What topic should I write about?
What can I do to get readers to click through my articles?
What exactly is SEO?
It's enough to make head spin. We've created this step-bystep guide to starting your own blog.
Starting a successful blog is hard work however the rewards both for your business and customers are worth the effort. And with the right analysis and the proper tools on your side, you can build a blog that readers and you love.
Let's start at the beginning How do you decide what to blog about?
One of the best methods of monetizing your blog is to use digital products. Start selling for free now!
Step 1: Pick the blog's topic.
One of the great aspects of blogging is the fact that you are able to start a blog about pretty much any topic in the world.
Many people loveblogs. Seventy-seven percent of web users read blogs, and people who use the internet within the U.S. spend 3X more time with blogs than email. Therefore, if you're passionate about a subject, chances are there's an crowd who shares your passion and would like to learn more about the subject.
Here are some examples of successful blogs and the niches they serve:
Daniel Bogan's blog for web developers, Uses This This blog is dedicated to interviewing creators of every kind about the equipment and techniques they use in their creation.
Her blog is where Kaleigh Moore provides her expertise as a freelance journalist to eCommerce & SaaS companies.
Neuroscientist Stefanie Faye Frank uses the blog of hers to "translate difficult concepts in science into a language that is used in everyday life".
What do all of these blogs share one thing in common? Specificity.
Instead of focusing on general freelance work, Kaleigh talks about writing on her own subject. Instead of providing travel advice for groups of any size, Queenie focuses on advice on solo travel for those who are like her.
To find your own specific niche, consider using your Passion/Profit Matrix.
passion: Are you excited to get started on this? If you aren't happy working on something, its profit potential doesn't matter as you're much more likely to give up before you get there.
Possibilities for Profit:Do people already spend on this issue? Also, you can imagine "profit" here as curiosity or search traffic. Do people already spend time looking into this issue?
( Download your own copy of the Passion/Profit matrix .)
A good product ideaor niche you can use for your blog is in the upper-right quadrant, which is the intersection of enthusiasm and potential for profit.
If you've found the sweet place, the content marketing expert Ryan Robinson recommends asking these questions to validate your idea:
Are you interested enough in the blog niche you're interested in? Don't pick a topic that you aren't sure about because it's attractive.
Are there paying readers in this area? Or, in other words, are there goods or services targeted at the same audience? If you want to make cash blogging, you'll require an audience that is willing to pay.
What niche is likely to continue to be popular for years to come? It isn't easy to make a blog that is popular and so, choose a subject you can write about for a long time rather than a passing fad.
When you've chosen what you want your blog to be, you'll need to decide the location where it will be hosted.
Step 2: Pick a blogging platform
Beginning with Tumblr and Blogger up to Medium and Wix There are many blogging platforms out there.
With around 70 million posts posted on the platform every month, WordPress is by far the most used choice. more than 28 million websites use WordPress in comparison to 4 million on Squarespace.
But, Squarespace can be more accessible for novices, particularly when you do not have prior experience with coding.
Here's how the two platforms stack up when comes to features, customization costs, and customization.
(A quick reminder Note: The prices listed throughout this post are correct at the time of writing.)
Squarespace
For first-time website builders, Squarespace is an easy-to-use platform that does not require any programming knowledge. The drag-and-drop interface is more lenient process of learning that WordPress.
The basic block-based interface comes at the cost of customization and flexibility. Squarespace has fewer themes of themes, plugins, and themes that WordPress and does not offer as much dedicated blogging functionality.
Overall, Squarespace is a website builder that includes simple blogging tools, rather than a platform that was designed with bloggers front-of-mind.
How much does Squarespace cost?
Apart from the 14-day trial for free, Squarespace offers four different pricing plans . Prices range from $23 to $65 per month paid monthly, or $16 to $49 monthly, annually.
The plans include unlimited storage space and a no-cost domain for the first year. Unless you require an e-commerce feature the two lower tiers are sufficient for managing your blog.
WordPress
WordPress is an online content management system (CMS) built for bloggers. It comes with the built-in templates as well as tools for blogging. This includes:
Post scheduling
Editing
Managing comments
Multi-author benefit and multi-lingual settings
Technical SEO
WordPress also has a large collection of free and paid blogger-specific plugins and thousands of no-cost WordPress themes that are specifically made to be used by blogs.
So, what's the exception?
When it comes to building an individual blog and website, WordPress has a steeper education curve than Squarespace which makes it more difficult to master the platform for novice bloggers. There's no drag-and-drop interface, and you'll need some basic HTML knowledge to fully personalize your WordPress site.
Don't let that scare you away, though. The process of setting up a simple WordPress blog isn't a requirement for hackers with technical expertise, and since WordPress is so widely used it is a wealth of resources for free that can help you master how to use it.
How much will WordPress cost?
WordPress itself is free however, you'll have to pay for hosting, a customized domain name, themes, and plug-ins.
According to blogger specialist Ryan Robinson , the starting investment for the creation of a WordPress website runs between $150 and $200. But, the recurring expenses when using WordPress is likely to lower than the costs associated with Squarespace.
Squarespace and. WordPress: Which should you choose?
Here's a full analysis of the major differences between the two platforms:
While the learning curve for WordPress is more difficult however, the options for customizing your blog are practically limitless. Squarespace is a website creator; WordPress is an CMS initially designed specifically for bloggers.
With all of the above keeping in mind the above, WordPress is the better blogging platform for authors as well as bloggers who want to build, grow, and eventually increase the amount of money they can earn from their blogs.
The next step is to talk about how to create your own blog using WordPress.
Step 3: Setup your blog.
In order to get your WordPress blog running, you need two things:
A domain name
A Web Hosting Plan
Your domain name is where your blog and website reside. If your website serves as your website's home base, your domain name is your web address.
Create your domain name your blog's name if it's available. Do not create confusion for your customers with a URL that isn't related to your blog.
What if you don't have a website orblog name?
Think of business mindset expert Becky Mollenkamp For instance. Becky's blog as well as her digital services concentrate on sharing her own expertise with others to help them succeed.
Becky is her own brand name, therefore it makes sense for her to use beckymollenkamp.com as a company and domain name.
If you're stuck, consider using a domain name generator, such as the Lean Domain Search or Nameboy . Enter keywords and then the generators will come up with a list of available names for domains.
Once you finally find the right name for your business then you must register it with a website hosting company.
We suggest Bluehost . One of the biggest web hosting providers in the world, Bluehost offers free domain registration for the first year on every hosting plan. Bluehost's most basic plans start with $2.95/month.
If you're willing to spend some more money, Bluehost also offers managed hosting accounts for WordPress sites.
The managed hosting plans begin with $19.95/mo.
In addition to Bluehost, Siteground has more than 2 million domains, and is renowned as having the best customer service that you can find. Beginning at $4.99/mo, Siteground is slightly more costly than Bluehost's base plans. But if feel like you may have to call technical support often, Siteground might be the best choice for you.
Once you've chosen an hosting company, you can set up your blog in WordPress. This means installing WordPress on your site, choosing and setting up plugins, then locating and installing the ideal theme.
If you think hiring a WordPress developer is out of your reach I would recommend these thorough instructions from WPBeginner , the largest free WordPress resource:
How do I set up the HTML0 theme on a WordPress theme
Keep in mind that your WordPress blog doesn't need to feature the most luxurious premium theme or the most shiny plugins for you to create great blog content. It just has to work, so you can start making your content and then publishing it.
Step 4: Start writing
You could open up an entire new document, then begin creating a list of ideas off the ideas in your head and then hope that it will be the best.
A few people do really work the best approach.
There are a lot of people. If you're not, let me introduce my blog BFF: outlining.
The process of drafting your outline saves you time, helps you stay organised, and can help you plan your content so that it makes sense for the reader. The outline can be written on paper, or use Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, or Microsoft Word.
Here's the way that you can use the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) recommends writers write their outline:
Think about it:List all the ideas that you want to include in your post.
Organise:Group related ideas together in sections.
The Order:Arrange your ideas into sections.
label:Add headings and subheadings in your article.
Our team of content writers employs this template for defining the blog's sections: post:
[Header title]
Principal Point:
Stats:
Case Study:
Examples:
When you've completed your outline, you're ready to begin writing, even though you might not have the confidence to do so.
Start writing now.
Be careful not to force yourself into finding exactly the right words or eliminate typos absolutely. You can always go back and revise your work later. Most important is to write. Before you know it, you'll have a piece which is ready to be edited to create a stunning blog article.
This isn't to say that writing is the speediest method, but.
Blog posts typically take about 4 hours to write.
Amanda Nielsen of New Breed Marketing explained to Databox , "You can reap a wealth of SEO benefits when you transcribing your videos. If you have the bandwidth make a transcript written and a blog post to promote your video."
Don't have time to transcribe the videos you make? Use an online service such as REV or an automated transcription tool like Sonix .
After you write your blog article (whether from scratch or repurposed -then it's time to revise.
Resuming your work after a little bit or time off helps to bring you back to your perspective. This means that you're less likely to miss minor errors.
There's also an application like Grammarly however, it must never fully replace a human editor, even if you're self-editing.
Grammarly identifies spelling and grammar mistakes, provides synonyms for frequently used words, and provides tons of tips and tricks for no cost.
Grammarly's AI sometimes misses errors (or discovers mistakes where there are none) So, make sure that you read your documents in depth. You can also have someone else look over it on your behalf.
Finally, you're ready to write your first blog post and create a plan to follow for the remainder.
The creation of a schedule for publishing helps to keep you accountable. It's hard to count the number of times I've tried to start a personal blog I've written a post then never published the next.
There's a good thing that you don't need to publish new blog posts every the day (or even every week) to have a profitable blog. In the case of blog posts, it's about quality over quantity. More in-depth, longer and researched posts are more effective.
HubSpot reports that the best length of a blog post to rank for SEO is between 2100 and 2,400 words. A survey carried out by Orbit Media found that the majority of bloggers who write 3000+ word articles report "strong outcomes".
As Jay Baer of Convince and Convert explained to Orbit Media , "Blogging was once a newspaper on the internet that featured a variety of brief articles, published frequently. Now, it's an online magazine: a few longer posts published less frequently."
Step 5: Optimize for search (SEO)
Search engine optimization could be the difference between a decent blog that has only a handful of visitors and a great blog that attracts visitors in the hundreds of thousands.
The content that has been optimized is more prominent on search results that include pertinent words and phrases. If you can improve the quality of your content, the easier it will be for users to locate it via search.
As Google's organic search accounts of the majority of the web traffic , grabbing one of the highest positions on the page of results matters. The top five results on any Google search account for 67.6 percent of the clicks .
In addition, SEO can play a major role in how successful your blog grows. Bloggers who make more than $50,000 a year rate unpaid organic Google traffic as the top marketing channel for their website.
SEO is also much cheaper than traditional advertisements -- and is more efficient. It was found that a Databox study discovered that a majority of marketers believe they believe that SEO is better than pay-per-click ads in generating sales. It's the reason the reason why over 64 percent of marketers actively invest time in SEO.
The best part is having a blog in place already can help you stay ahead of being ahead of the SEO game. Websites with blogs have a 434percent higher probability of achieving a high ranking in the search results page (SERP).
Even better news: If you have your own WordPress blog, the Yoast SEO plugin assists you in optimizing your blog's content directly from the WordPress web editor.
Here's how it works:
Input the keyword or phrase that you would like your blog post to rank for.
Yoast checks your text and informs you if you're using the keyword enough and where it belongs, such as headers.
Yoast can also let you preview how your post will look on the Google search results page.
On the backend, Yoast generates and applies schema.org structures as well as the structured information that "helps search engines determine what each part of your site means, who it belongs to and what the connections between everything".
Additionally, you can employ keyword research tools, like Ahrefs' word generator , to learn what sort of content your reader is looking for. You can also find out how difficult it is for the content to be ranked for certain keywords and how often the keyword is used during a given month.
This can help you get the right key word .
What exactly does this search engine optimization look like in action?
If I'm a parent with lots of responsibilities that is struggling to keep my family's budget, then I may search for a term like "budgeting for busy moms".
The highlighted snippet from the search "budgeting for busy moms" illustrates the article by Simplified motherhood. It's a website which helps moms who are busy stay organized.
When you optimize your blog with a keyword search, you have a better chance of showing up on the first page or two results. Your audience will be more likely to discover your content, visit your website, and once they trust your expertise to purchase your digital items.
To learn more SEO tricks and strategies look at these websites:
All in all, SEO is a must-have for bloggers. It's certainly not the only method to increase your readership.
Step 6: Grow your audience
Blogging is a two-way street A blog's creation can help you grow your audience, and marketing to your followers will help increase the number of visitors to your blog. Blogs that have a presence are able to generate around 67 percent more leads as compared to those that do not have one.
Below are three of our favorite methods to attract new email subscribers as well as blog readers.
1. Collect emails with opt-in forms
A trainer and developer, Reuven Lerner uses his blog to increase his email list by including an opt-in form on his blog.
Create a compelling call-to action (CTA). Provide a compelling reason that they should subscribe to your list of email subscribers -for example "Teach me more Python!" from Reuven's illustration.
Set expectations. Tell subscribers what information you'll send them and when they'll hear from you.
One of the easiest ways to turn blog visitors into subscribers is to give an item of value to exchange their email address.
2. Incentivize subscribers with lead magnets
You give them their email address, they receive valuable information. It's a win-win situation.
Lead magnets show potential customers why they should trust you. They should be practical, useful information targeted to your specific customers and the issues they face.
To create a content upgrade:
Determine the web content of your website that draws visitors to your site the most.
Incorporate the information on the appropriate page.
Turn more readers into subscribers.
If you're looking for a location for your digital downloads -- whether they're digital items to sell or lead magnets -- you should take a look at . Try it out for free today.
Lead magnets and opt-in forms are excellent ways of turning blog readers into subscribers. Beyond sharing blog's content on social networks What are the best ways to get those blog readers in the first place? Our final and third tip is covered.
3. Guest post on other blogs
Guest posting can be a wonderful way to reach a broader public, particularly when you are posting on an known blog.
Here are some of the most important advantages of blog guest posts :
Increase the number of backlinks.
Enhance Domain Authority (a search engine ranking score).
Drive traffic to your own web site.
Boost your brand awareness.
That's probably why 60% of bloggers compose between one and five guest blog posts every month.
Before you are able to publish a guest article, you need to present it to the world. In order to make a pitch, you have to find blogs in your field that allow guest blog posts.
Here are some websites for you to start:
The list includes 200+ web sites and blogs currently accepting guest posts
A list of 150+ websites to host write on.
Many well-established websites that allow guest posts usually have guidelines on pitching and writing that you must follow similar to those on Practical Wanderlust's site .
Once your pitch is accepted After your pitch is accepted, you compose your article The blog then publishes your guest blog post. Then you can send the link to your social media followers and email list to give the post extra exposure and referral traffic.
When you have a larger audience, you can monetize your blog. Take a look at these guides on commercialization to begin turning profits:
The time is now to blog'
It's not always simple. But when you put in effort and utilize the right instruments and sources, blogging will help you reach new people, share your expertise, as well as boost your profits.
For a recap, here are the steps to start your blog:
Pick a niche and topic for your blog. Find something that you and your audience are both passionate about.
Pick a blogging platform. Squarespace or WordPress are among the best two alternatives, and in terms of blog features and customization, WordPress is a clear winner.
Set up your blog. Select and sign up for your domain name. You can also purchase a hosting plan.
Start writing your first post. Utilize an outline for inspiration, then create a publishing calendar for yourself to be responsible.
Optimize your blog for search. SEO is the primary method that successful blogs gain traffic, and it helps the right audience find the blog and its content.
Grow your audience with sign-up forms, lead magnets and guest post. Once you build up your subscriber base and list of email addresses it is possible to make money off your blog.
With this fresh blogging knowledge, you're well on your way to becoming an effective blogger. Get out and begin writing.