HOW TO START A BLOG IN 10 EASY STEPS
HOW TO
START A BLOG IN 10 EASY STEPS:
10 Steps to Writing a Blog Post | How
to Blog Effectively in 10 Easy Steps
10 Steps to Blogging Success | 10 Simple Steps for Creating a Blog
How to Write a Blog Post in 10 Steps
The most widely recognized
messages I have gotten asking me how to begin a blog. It's something numerous
individuals consider doing, however, the greater part of them basically don't
have a clue where to start. Since I realize that beginning a blog has been a
complete distinct advantage for our family, and I am enthusiastic about helping
other people make web journals with the expectation that they can get fruitful
and change their own lives too.
This
guide was made to tell you the best way to begin a blog in 2021. It's
conceivable to have a blog ready for action in only a couple minutes, however I
needed to take things further and show you a portion of the significant
subtleties behind beginning an effective blog.
HOW TO START A BLOG IN 10 EASY STEPS.
Outline
STEP 1: PICK
A BLOG NAME
STEP 2: CHOOSE
A BLOG HOST
STEP 3: CUSTOMIZE
YOUR BLOG
STEP 4: PROTECT
YOUR BLOG
STEP 5: ADD
STANDARD BLOG PAGES
STEP 6: SETUP
A CUSTOM BLOG EMAIL ADDRESS
STEP 7: REGISTER
SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
STEP 8: DECIDE
ON A BLOG POSTING SCHEDULE
STEP 9: PROMOTE
YOUR BLOG
STEP10: MAKE
MONEY BLOGGING
STEP 1: PICK
A BLOG NAME
Picking a domain name for your new blog can
be a test. You need to pick something extraordinary that reflects what be the
issue here and something you'll actually adore a long time as it were. When
conceptualizing area names I like to utilize a basic free apparatus called Bust
A Name. With Bust A Name, you can type in certain catchphrases you're
considering utilizing, and it will concoct accessible blends utilizing those
words. You can find out about other area picking apparatuses in this Digital.com
article.
STEP 2: CHOOSE A BLOG HOST
It's an ideal opportunity to buy your blog facilitating. Your new facilitating organization is the place where all the documents and substance related with your blog will live. At the point when per users type your new domain name into their program, they will be indicated substance, articles, and pictures that are on workers claimed by your facilitating organization.
A decent facilitating organization is a significant piece of your new blog. Your host is the place where your blog "lives," where the entirety of the significant documents for your blog are kept. In the event that your host has issues, you have issues, so you'll need to ensure you pick a host that has fabulous assistance and accommodating client service. Bluehost is the perfect place to start.
STEP 3: CUSTOMIZE YOUR BLOG
Next, we need to customize
the look of your blog and add a few helpful features with WordPress plugins.
After
blog facilitating, the following cash you spend on your publishing content to a
blog excursion ought to be on a custom WordPress subject. There are a huge
number of free WordPress subjects out there; WordPress even accompanies the
authority 2017 topic pre-introduced. When you can swing it monetarily, however,
I suggest you start with a top notch subject that watches extraordinary out of
the crate with negligible customization. With an ever increasing number of
websites beginning each day, quality plan is getting progressively critical to
writing for a blog achievement, and a superior WordPress topic will assist you
with getting that expert look even as another blogger.
In
the event that you do a little WordPress subject examination,
you'll discover heaps of articles and exhortation pointing back to the Genesis
Framework. Beginning isn't a topic as such, but instead a subject system that
engineers and originators can use as a base for their custom youngster subjects
INSTALL NECESSARY WORDPRESS PLUGINS.
Since
you have your custom youngster subject, it's an ideal opportunity to introduce
a couple of significant WordPress modules. Modules are incredible on the
grounds that they permit you to add certain highlights to your blog without
playing with any code. On the negative side, however, the more modules you
have, the more expected issues (site speed, security, and so forth… ) you may
confront. So while modules give a ton of incredible usefulness to your blog,
you'll just need to introduce the ones that you totally need. Here are a not
many that I use with each new blog arrangement:
You can search for and
install all of these plugins directly from the "Plugins" tab
within your WordPress dashboard.
STEP 4: PROTECT
YOUR BLOG
In this step we will take
care of some security and analytic related tasks.
There are
a couple of boring-but-necessary Google-related tasks that you need to take
care of when you set up your blog. The first is creating a Google Analytics account.
Google
Analytics is the business standard for site and blog traffic revealing. It can
possibly give you some unfathomably ground-breaking bits of knowledge into your
blog traffic and website action. I don't suggest you invest a lot of energy learning the intricate
details of Google Analytics when you first beginning publishing content to a
blog (you have more significant activities!), however it is important to make
your record and begin following your site visits. Try not to avoid this —
brands and potential promoting accomplices will regularly demand your details,
and they'll need to see information explicitly from Google Analytics.
STEP 5: ADD
STANDARD BLOG PAGES
Before you begin posting consistently and
before your authority "dispatch," you need to make a couple of
explicit pages on your site. These are the pages that everybody hopes to see
when they visit your site. As another blog, it's critical to pass on a feeling
of authenticity and trust. These pages can assist with that.
DISCLOSURE, PRIVACY, AND COMMENT POLICY
If you ever want to earn money from your
blog, you’ll need some of these standard policies. In fact, Google requires
them to be part of their Adsense program. Don’t overthink it, but make sure you
comply with the law. As an example, take a look at Abby’s “disclosure”
page here: justagirlandherblog.com/disclosure
AN AMAZING “ABOUT” OR “ABOUT ME” PAGE
It’s been proven over and over again that
one of the most highly trafficked pages on your site by new visitors is
your about page.
People want to get to know you! They want to know the person behind the blog.
Take some time to make this a fun, interesting, and engaging page on your site
and then link directly to it on your menu.
For an example of an engaging about page, see Abby's and
then read this article about creating a compelling about page from
Lauren at The Thinking Closet.
CONTACT PAGE
You want your readers (and eventually other
businesses) to have an easy way to contact you. I recommend that you setup a
dedicated “contact” page, either with an embedded form or just simple
instructions on how to get in touch with you. Take a look at Abby’s contact
page.
If you want to use an embeddable form for
your "contact" page, consider using the free Typeform tool.
STEP 6: SETUP
A CUSTOM BLOG EMAIL ADDRESS
In this step you will learn how to setup
a custom email address to match your business name as well as the best services
for collecting email addresses and building your list.
CREATE A CUSTOM EMAIL ADDRESS WITH GOOGLE APPS.
Email is a
significant however frequently neglected piece of your new blog. Quite soon
you'll need to email with different bloggers, brands, and organizations, and
it's essential to have an expert committed email address.
There are two options:
The simplest arrangement is to make a free gmail account with your blog
name. For instance: justagirlandherblog@gmail.com.
That is not an awful arrangement and numerous individuals can get by for
quite a long time without a genuinely custom email address. Be that as it may,
recall, when you begin gathering an email rundown and conveying messages, you
might need to have an expert and custom location to coordinate your name.
The subsequent choice is to make a custom email address that coordinates
your space. A model would be hello@justagirlandherblog.com.
To get your tradition email address, go to google.com/apps and start from there. It walks
you through the setup process.
The only puzzling part is verifying your
domain and adding the MX records. My favorite method for verifying the domain
is adding a text record to your DNS (Google will show you how). For us that
means changing a few things in our CloudFlare account. For others that means
logging into your hosting account and editing the DNS zone file. While you’re
in there, you’ll also want to add some MX records to your DNS zone file.
It's not as hard as it sounds! Your domain
registrar will likely have a tutorial already created to walk you through the
process.
WHY DO I NEED AN
EMAIL LIST?
1. Traffic. Email is an entirely solid method of directing
people to your site. You can utilize email to advise new perusers regarding
your best old posts and urge your endorsers of read your new posts. In case
you're ready to get a peruser's email address, you're substantially more liable
to divert them from a one-time guest into a normal and steadfast peruser.
Pinterest and Google are both significant hotspots for traffic, however they
are sources you don't control. Your email list is yours
2. Marketing. Email simply converts better than any other type of
marketing (including social media). You may have no plans to sell
something right now, but that day will eventually come and you’ll be so
thankful you have an email list.
STEP
7: REGISTER SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
In the
beginning of your blog, web-based media can be a major interruption. I suggest
that you center around developing each or two social diverts in turn prior to
investing energy growing a presence on something different.
CREATE KEY
SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.
Even if you don’t have the time to focus on
all of the social media channels at once, it’s a good idea to get your names
registered. I use a tool called Namechk to search and quickly find open
usernames on the most popular
social networks.
STEP 8: DECIDE
ON A BLOG POSTING SCHEDULE
If the
entirety of different strides as yet were of ordinary significance, this
progression is of incredibly high significance! You essentially won't have a
fruitful blog in case you're not spending at any rate 75% of your
"contributing to a blog" time composing and posting great substance,
especially when you're initially beginning. This is vital, but at the same time
it's the hardest part. It's difficult to get into that innovative outlook and
compose and distribute in any event, when you don't feel like it.
PUBLISH GREAT CONTENT ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE.
Something that made Abby fruitful as a
blogger was her persevering posting plan. She composed in any event, when she
didn't feel like it. She made a timetable and never missed a post regardless.
It didn't make a difference in the event that it was 10 PM and she hadn't began
— she essentially would not miss a post. On the off chance that you need to be
effective, you need a similar mentality.
WHAT MAKES A QUALITY BLOG POST?
Be useful. It’s
fine to interject yourself and your story into your posts, but primarily you
are writing for someone else. Is what you wrote helpful? Will what you wrote
make someones life a little better?
Answer questions. Answer
specific burning questions in your niche and give your perspective. You’ll be
seen as a helpful resource for your readers.
Long posts are great. I’m always disappointed when a Pinterest image or a
post title catches my eye only to find out it’s a 250 word post with no depth.
It’s ok to write long posts! Fluff isn’t good, but if your message needs 2,000
words, that’s ok! Don’t be afraid of long posts.
Headlines are key. Plan
to spend at least 20 uninterrupted minutes brainstorming headline and title
ideas. People decide to click or not click on your posts primarily based on
your headline. That being said, be careful not to fall into the trap of
writing nothing but click-bait type articles with headlines that promise the
world with content that doesn’t deliver.
Great post images are necessary for social traffic. Spend time making eye-catching Pinterest-sized
images for each post. You don't have to have Photoshop to do this! Look at
free options like Canva and Pixlr.
Original photography is great in certain niches, but you can also use free
stock photos as the starting point for great post images. This Fizzle
article has 50+ resources for finding free stock photography.
Tell stories. If
it relates to the message you are trying to convey, share a personal story. If
you do this, over time, your readers will feel like they know you. They’ll have
a personal connection to you and this will help you gain a loyal readership.
Create helpful resources. Think about the posts you’ve bookmarked and saved
over the years… Chances are they were long guides or in-depth resources about a
specific topic. Think about creating something like that in your niche. Think
about the type of posts that readers will come back to over and over. These are
the posts that just keep on getting traffic month after month.
Solve your readers' problems. Pay attention to what readers in your niche are
struggling with. Notice what type of comments they are leaving on social media.
Is there a common problem many of them face? Work hard to solve those problems
and the traffic will come.
From the beginning I recommend that you
keep a list of post ideas. You can do this in Evernote, a regular notebook, a Google Doc or
spreadsheet, or anywhere else. If a post idea strikes you, take a minute to
write down the idea. You want to have a bank of post ideas to turn to when you
are not feeling creative.
STEP 9: PROMOTE
YOUR BLOG
As another blogger, it's
important to locate a decent harmony between making content and advancing
substance. In the good 'ol days it might look like 75% substance creation and
25% substance advancement. Over the long run as you develop a library of over
100+ posts, you may wind up elevating your substance near half of the time.
Advance YOUR CONTENT.
Recollect that the best
advancement methodology on the planet won't get you huge traffic if the hidden
substance isn't useful and fascinating. Advancement is incredible for getting
eyeballs to your site, however extraordinary substance is the thing that will
transform an easygoing guest into a dedicated peruser.
Here are some effective promotion strategies that have worked for us. These strategies are
particularly important in the early days of your blog.
1. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH
OTHER BLOGGERS.
Make a list of 5-10 other bloggers who are
a little more established than you are. Make a commitment to read their posts
and provide helpful comments. You can’t just say “great post!” and expect to
get noticed. But over time, the blogger will notice you if you leave kind and
helpful comments.
Along with reading and commenting, make a
commitment to share their content on your social media accounts. Nothing says
“thank you” like sharing a post on Facebook or Twitter. Over time, a few the
bloggers on your list will start to notice you and may even promote a few of
your posts to their audience.
During Abby's first year of blogging, she
committed to commenting on 5 blogs per day, for a total of about 35 blogs per
week. A lot of those bloggers are now some of her closest blog friends. She has
guest posted for some bigger bloggers and was even a contributor for another
blogger, simply because she took the time to consistently interact with
bloggers she admired both on their blogs and on social media.
2. JOIN A COMMUNITY.
One of the best strategies for getting your
name and your blog out there is by joining a Facebook or Slack group of
like-minded bloggers. It takes some effort, but eventually you’ll find your
“tribe.” These are bloggers that you resonate with and enjoy interacting with.
Eventually you’ll become friends with them, and when there is a
collaboration opportunity they may ask you to join in.
Please keep in mind that the way to get
noticed in these communities is by being as helpful as possible. Don’t join a
Facebook group and start posting links to all of your content. Instead, answer
questions and join in the existing conversations. Posting links to your
posts right away is like walking into a party and screaming, “Look
at me! Look at me!”
Related: Why Blogging is Best Done in Community
3. PINTEREST
For many bloggers, Pinterest is by far the
largest source of traffic day in and day out. You'll want to set up a Pinterest
account for your blog as soon as possible and start pinning high quality pins
that are relevant to your blog's niche.
When Abby started growing her Pinterest
following, she would go to accounts of bigger bloggers in her niche and
check out a couple things. First, she would look at who they were following and
who was following them, and she would follow those people too. Not everyone
followed her back, but many did and her follower count started to grow.
While she was visiting the Pinterest
profiles of bigger bloggers in her niche, Abby would also look at the group
boards that they were a part of. Group boards allow you to get your posts in
front of a larger audience than just your own, so you'll want to find several
to join in your niche. When Abby found group boards in her niche (via other
bloggers' profiles), she would click into them and there would usually be
instructions for joining in the board description if they were accepting new
pinners. She would request to join, and eventually she had a large number of
group boards that she could use to share her content.
UNDERSTAND SEO BASICS.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an
interesting topic. The idea is to highly optimize your posts so that they
display near the top of Google search results for various keywords and phrases.
In my mind there is legitimate SEO and also
non-legitimate SEO. The non-legitimate SEO tries to find loopholes in Google’s
search algorithm and then exploit those loopholes. Many times these strategies
work for a while, but then Google catches on and updates their algorithm and
Google penalizes sites that use these strategies.
Legitimate SEO strategies, on the other
hand, are just best practices for post formatting, keyword usage, and headline
tags. If you're focusing on creating quality content and writing easy-to-read
posts that are helpful for people, SEO will fall into place. All of your
SEO needs can be accomplished with the amazing and free Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. Install it, understand it,
and use it. That’s it!
STEP10: MAKE
MONEY BLOGGING
For the
initial not many months you are writing for a blog, your essential spotlight
ought to be on making astounding substance and building associations with
different bloggers. Whenever you've sunk into a daily schedule and feel like
you have this contributing to a blog thing leveled out, you can consider
bringing in some cash or "adapting" your blog.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM YOUR BLOG (MONETIZE)
1. AD REVENUE
Use Google Adsense or other ad networks for
display ads on your site. In order to earn significant income, your traffic
numbers must be high.
2. AFFILIATE LINKS
Promote various products on your site and
earn an income if a reader clicks on one of your links and makes a purchase.
3. SPONSORED POSTS
Team up with a company and get paid to
promote their products. Typically you're paid on a "per post" basis
as opposed to affiliate links, which require you to make a sale in order to get
paid.
4. DIGITAL PRODUCTS
This is potentially the most lucrative
income category. It’s also the most time consuming to create and sell your own
digital products. Digital products include eBooks, courses, printable, paid
webinars, and email courses.
Abby and I have taken the “diversification”
strategy when it comes to blog income. We started with Google Adsense, later
added some affiliate links to the site, tried a few sponsored posts, and then
eventually created our own products.
To see first hand the exact monetization
strategies Abby and I use, you can read through some of our past
income reports.
Post a Comment