How to start your blog with just six easy steps (Platforms SEO, platforms, and many more) |
Are you interested in learning what it takes to set up blogs? This article is for everyone. From hosting to SEO, follow these steps to get your blog online and operating.
The obvious thing is that blogging needs to be a part of your marketing strategy. It's an effective method to get new customers interested and also share your experience by sharing it with other people.
However, every time you stand up to start your blog journey, you're not sure how. you are bombarded with concerns.
Which platform should I choose?
What's the price?
What topic should I be writing about?
How can I convince people to read my posts?
What exactly is SEO?
This is enough to make your head turn. We've come up with this step-by-step guide to the process of setting up your blog.
The process of starting a blog and making it successful is difficult However, the benefits to your business and visitors are definitely worth it. If you conduct the right analysis and the right tools at your side, you can build a blog that visitors and you love.
Let's begin at the beginning. This is the question: What do you want to be writing about?
One of the easiest methods to monetize your blog is to use digital products. Start selling your items at free today!
Step 1: Choose the blog's topic.
One of the major advantages of blogging is the ability to create a blog on virtually any subject in the world.
Most people are excited aboutblogs. Seventy-seven percent web users read blogs, and those who are internet users within the U.S. are spending 3 times more time with blogs than they do on email. Therefore, if you're enthusiastic about a subject, chances are there's an readership that is also interested in your subject and would like to know more about it.
Below are a few instances of blogs that are successful and the niches they cater to:
Daniel Bogan's blog web developer's uses this , is dedicated to interviewing designers and creators of all kinds regarding the tools and methods they employ to create their work.
On Kaleigh Moore's blog Kaleigh Moore shares her expert insights as a writer-in-residence at eCommerce & SaaS companies.
The neuroscientist Stefanie Faye Frank uses this blog as a way for her to "translate complicated scientific ideas into common language".
What are the reasons that all of these blogs share? Do they have exactly the same feature? Specificity.
Instead of focusing on freelance writing, Kaleigh talks about writing specifically in her field. Instead of offering travel tips to groups of all sizes, Queenie focuses on advice for solo travellers like her.
For determining your personal niche, consider using your Passion/Profit Matrix.
The Love What are you most excited about to work on this? If you don't like working on something, its profits aren't as important since you're more likely to abandon prior to reaching your goal.
Potential for profit:Do people already spend on this topic? Additionally, consider "profit" as interest or search traffic. Are people currently studying this subject?
( Download your own version of the matrix to use for Passion/Profit .)
An excellent product or niche you can utilize for your blog can be found within the upper-right quadrant. It is the intersection of passion as well as the possibility of earning a profit.
If you've found the perfect sweet spot, content marketing specialist Ryan Robinson recommends that you consider the following questions to confirm your idea:
Are you enticed enough by this blog niche? Do not choose a niche you don't feel comfortable with simply because it's profitable.
Is there a paying audience to this blog area? Or, in other words are you offering goods or services that target that same group of people? If you're planning to earn money blogging, you'll require an audience that is willing to shell out.
Do you believe this subject will last for long-term future? It may take some time to establish a blog, so pick a topic that can keep you writing for an extended period of time instead of an annual trend.
Once you choose the topic you'd like your blog to focus on, it's time to determine the best location for it.
Step 2: Pick a blogging platform
Beginning with Tumblr and Blogger all the way to Medium and Wix, there are countless blogging platforms available.
With around 70 million articles published through WordPress every year, WordPress is by far the most widely-known option. Over 28 million websites are using WordPress in comparison to four million of Squarespace's customers. Squarespace.
However, Squarespace can be more accessible for novices, particularly those who don't have previous experience in coding.
Let's see how these two platforms compare in is it comes to features, customization, and price.
(A brief note: All of the prices mentioned in this post are accurate at the time at the date of writing.)
Squarespace
If you're novices in the field of creating websites for the first time, Squarespace is a user-friendly platform that doesn't require any programming skills. The drag-and-drop interface is less of a process of understanding as WordPress.
The basic blocks-based interface comes with the cost of customisation and flexibility. Squarespace is not as rich in themes, plugins, and themes than WordPress but does not provide the same blogging features.
The way it works is that Squarespace is a web-based website building tool with basic blogging tools, rather than a platform built with bloggers in mind.
How much does Squarespace cost?
Apart from a 14-day trial, Squarespace offers four different pricing plans . Pricing ranges from $23 to $65 a month. This can be paid out in monthly installments ranging from $16-$49 monthly each year.
The plan comes with unlimited storage and an unrestricted domain for the first year. Aside from that, you do not require any e-commerce features. The lower two levels will suffice to manage your blog.
WordPress
WordPress is an online CMS for content (CMS) built specifically for bloggers. It has built-in templates, as well as tools for blogging such as:
Post scheduling
Editing
Comments of the Managing Committee
Multi-author advantage and multi-lingual setting
Technical SEO
WordPress is also home to a huge collection of free and paid specific plugins for bloggers, along with thousands of free WordPress themes that are specifically made to be used by blogs.
What's the caveat?
If you're looking to build a blog or website on your own, WordPress has a steeper learning curve than Squarespace which makes it more difficult to grasp the platform for novice bloggers. There's no drag-and-drop interface as well as you'll require basic HTML knowledge to fully customize your WordPress site.
Don't let that put you off, however. It is easy to set the foundation of a basic WordPress blog doesn't require any hacker technical expertise or knowledge, especially since WordPress is so well-known There are plenty of free tools available to help you learn the basics.
How much does WordPress cost?
WordPress can be used at no cost. You will need to purchase hosting, a unique URL, themes and plug-ins.
According to blogger professional Ryan Robinson , the cost to begin the process of creating an WordPress website ranges from $150, $200 to $140. The recurring cost of a site built with WordPress is most likely to be lower than those that users pay with Squarespace.
Squarespace as well as. WordPress: Which should you use?
This article provides an full overview of the major difference between the two platforms:
The learning curve for WordPress is more difficult, the chances of making blogs that are customized are endless. Squarespace is a web-based builder. WordPress is an CMS initially created by bloggers.
All of this with this idea in mind. WordPress is the most effective blogging platform that authors and bloggers looking to grow in addition to grow, and eventually earn money through their blogs.
Next up, let's look at how to set up your own blog on WordPress.
Step 3: Set up your blog.
For you to set up your WordPress blog running, you need two things:
Domain names
An Internet Hosting Plan
The domain name you pick will be the address at which your blog or site is located. If your site is your home on the internet then the domain you select is the domain name that used on the internet.
Select the name of your new domain as the name of your blog once it's in use. Don't create confusion for visitors by using an URL that's not related to the blog you're running.
What is the best option in the event that you don't have a blog orblog with a name?
Take business mind specialist Becky Mollenkamp for an illustration. Becky's blog and digital products are focused on sharing the personal experiences of Becky and experiences with other people to assist her clients succeed.
Becky Mollenkamp will be her personal brand, so it's only natural to use beckymollenkamp.com as a corporate as well as a domain.
If you're struggling with the domain name you want it might be a good idea to consider a name generator like that of Lean Domain Search or Nameboy . Input keywords, and the generators will come up with a selection of names to choose from.
Once you've chosen the ideal name then you must register it with the help of a web hosting service.
We highly would recommend Bluehost . The most well-known web hosting firms in the world, Bluehost offers free domain registration during the first year with each hosting plan. The Bluehost most basic plans start with $2.95/month.
If you're planning to spend more money, Bluehost also offers managed hosting accounts for WordPress sites.
These Managed hosting plans start with $19.95/mo.
In addition in place of Bluehost, Siteground offers more than 2 million domains and is known as having the most efficient customer support that is available. From $4.99/mo, Siteground is slightly more expensive than Bluehost's basic plans. If you feel like you may need to contact technical support often, Siteground might be the ideal choice for you.
Once you've chosen the web hosting provider you'll have to create your blog in WordPress. This requires setting up WordPress on your website, choosing and installing plugins, and finding and installing the perfect theme.
If the expense of a professional developer is beyond your means, I recommend these in-depth tutorials provided by WPBeginner , the largest Free WordPress source:
What is the definition of an WordPress plugin?
How to install the HTML0 theme on an existing WordPress theme
Be aware the fact that your WordPress blog doesn't have to be the most elegant premium design or elegant plugins to create great blog posts. The only thing you need is that it functions before you begin making your content and then publishing it.
Step 4: Start writing
It is possible to create a brand new document and begin to create an outline of your ideas from the surface of your brain hoping that it's the most efficient.
Some people really do prefer this way of working.
There are a lot of people. If you're not one of them, let me introduce you to my blog BFF who is outlining.
It helps you save time, allows you to be organized as well as helps you organize your information so it makes the most sense for your readers. It is possible to write the outline on paper, and follow it up with Google Docs, Dropbox Paper and Microsoft Word.
This is how you can use the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) suggests writers draft their outline.
Brainstorming Ideas:List your ideas that you'd like to put into your blog post.
Organisation:Group similar ideas in sections.
The Order:Arrange your ideas into sub-sections.
Tags:Add headings and subheadings to your blog post.
Our team of content writers employs this template to define every section of our blog posts:
[Header title]
Principal Theme:
Stats:
Case Study:
Examples:
When you've completed your outline, you're ready to begin writing -- despite the fact that you may not be prepared.
Start writing now.
Do not force yourself into finding exactly the correct words, or avoid spelling mistakes absolutely. There is always the option of revisiting your writing to revise and make improvements to your writing in the future. The most important thing is to continue writing. Before you know it you'll write an article that can be edited into a beautiful blog article.
That's not to say that the writing process is the fastest procedure, however.
Blog posts typically take approximately four hours to complete.
Amanda Nielsen of New Breed Marketing told Databox , "You can gain a lot of SEO advantages by transcribing videos. If you're able to do it, you can write a transcription as well as a blog post to promote the video."
Are you too busy to transpose your videos? Make use of an online service like REV or a transcribing tool like Sonix .
Once you've written your blog post -whether you created it from scratch or recycled, it's prepared to do some editing.
The act of resuming task after just a couple of minutes or time off helps to get you back in your perspective. This means that it's much more likely to spot minor errors.
You can also use an application such as Grammarly. However, it shouldn't never fully replace a human editor, even when you're self-editing.
Grammarly identifies spelling and grammar errors, offers synonyms to frequently used words and offers a wealth of strategies and tips at free.
Grammarly's AI often misses mistakes (or detects errors even when there's none) This is why it's essential to review the file with care. Better yet, allow someone else to read it for you.
It's time to post your first blog article, along with establishing an outline of your timetable throughout the rest of your.
The creation of a schedule for publishing helps in keeping you accountable. It's hard to count the amount of occasions I've attempted to create the blog of my own and wrote an article but not released another.
It's good to know that you don't need to create new blog posts daily (or even weekly) for a successful blog. When it comes to blog posts It's all about the quality of your content over the quantity. More in-depth, longer and more well-researched articles perform better.
HubSpot reports that the best length of a blog article to be optimized for SEO is 2100 up to 2400 words. An investigation by Orbit Media found that the majority of bloggers who write 3000-word and more posts have "strong performance".
According to Jay Baer of Convince and Convert explained to Orbit Media , "Blogging was once a kind of online newspaper: lots of articles that were that were published regularly. Today, it's an online magazine with some longer articles published less frequently."
5. Improve your website's performance to improve the search engine ranking (SEO)
SEO can be the difference between having a great blog with a couple of readers and a stellar blog that draws in thousands of people.
Content that is optimized will show up better in search results for appropriate words and terms. If you can improve the quality of your content, the easier it is for new people to locate the content via search results.
Because Google's search engine accounts for the majority for all internet's traffic getting the most prominent position in the search results pages is crucial. The top five results on every Google search are responsible for 67.6% of the clicks .
In addition, SEO can play a significant role in the success your blog grows. Bloggers who make more than $50,000 a year are more likely to consider organic as well as unpaid Google website traffic to be the most important marketing tool for their blogs.
SEO can be much less costly than traditional advertising -- and also more effective. The Databox survey showed that a majority of marketers believe that SEO is more effective than pay-per click advertisements for driving sales. It's the reason the reason why almost 64 per cent of marketing professionals spend time on SEO.
It's a good thing having an existing blog helps you to get ahead on the SEO game. Websites with blogs are likely to offer a higher chance of having a 434% of getting a top ranking in the search results pages (SERP).
Even better news: If you have your own WordPress blog and you're employing Yoast SEO, the Yoast SEO extension, Yoast SEO extension will help you enhance the content you publish right from your WordPress website editor.
What is the process?
You must enter the keyword or phrase you want your blog to rank.
Yoast evaluates your web content to determine if you're using the appropriate keywords and at the right spots like headers.
Yoast can also let you know how your post will look in Google's Google pages of search results.
On the front-end, Yoast generates and applies schema.org structures as well as structure data which "helps the search engines determine what each part of your site is, the person it's part of and how it is connected".
You can also make use of keyword research tools like Ahrefs' Keyword Generator to get a clearer comprehension of the kind of content that your target audience prefers. This tool also informs you of how difficult it is to get the material to rank with a specific keywords, and also how often a keyword is searched throughout a specific month.
This can help you locate your ideal search term .
What do all the search engine optimization appear at in actual use?
If I'm a mom with an active schedule and trying to control my family's finances, I can search Google for phrases like "budgeting for moms who are busy".
The featured snippet in the search "budgeting for moms who are busy" is this blog of Simplified Momhood A website that was created to help busy mothers keep their life in order.
When you optimize your website for a specific search term and you are more likely to have the chance of being listed on the first page, or two or more results. Your audience will be more likely to find your blog's content, go to your site, and after they have faith in your abilities and confidence in your knowledge, purchase your digital goods.
To learn more SEO tips and techniques, check out these resources:
In general, SEO is a crucial instrument for bloggers. However, it's not the only method to boost the number of readers you have.
Step 6: Grow your audience
Blogs are a multi-directional process The first step is to begin your blog. It can help you grow your readership, while marketing to your readers could assist to increase the popularity of your blog. Blogs that have a presence generate about 77% more leads as compared to those that do not.
Below are our top three ways to get new email subscribers and blog readers.
1. Collect emails with opt-in forms
Developer and trainer Reuven Lerner makes use of his blog to grow his list of email subscribers by incorporating an opt-in option on his website.
Create a compelling call-to action (CTA). Offer a reason that they must join your subscriber list - such as "Teach me about Python!" Based on Reuven's suggestion.
Set expectations. Inform your subscribers about what information you'll supply to them, and when they'll receive updates from you.
One of the easiest methods of turning blog users to subscribers is to offer an item of value in exchange for the email addresses of their subscribers.
2. Encourage subscribers to sign up by distributing lead magnets
You provide your email address and you will send them valuable information. The result is win-win.
Lead magnets allow potential customers to know why they should trust your brand. They should provide actionable, informative and entertaining content specific to the audience you want to attract and their needs.
To create a content upgrade:
Discover the page on your website that results with the most visitors.
Incorporate the relevant content from the page relevant to.
Turn more readers into subscribers.
If you're in need of an area to store the digital files you download, whether they're digital goods to sell or lead magnets, take an look at . Check it out no cost today.
Formulas for opt-ins as well as lead magnets can be a great way to convert blog readers to subscribers. However, if you don't post your blog's content to social networks, what is the most effective way to attract these readers at all? The final, third suggestion is covered.
3. Guest blog posts from various blogs
Guest posting is a great way to reach a broader population, especially if you're posting on a prominent blog.
Here are some of the best benefits of guest blogging :
Increase the number of backlinks.
Improve Domain Authority (a index of search engine rankings).
Encourage people to visit your site.
Increase the visibility of your brand.
It's likely the reason 60 percent of bloggers post anything ranging from one up to five guest blogs per month.
Before you are able to publish a guest article You have to present your work to the world. Before you can create a pitch, have to discover blogs within your field that allow guest posts.
Here are some websites to aid you to get started:
A list of more than 200 blogs and websites that are currently accepting guest post submissions
List of 150+ web sites that will permit guest blogging on.
Most well-established blogs that accept guest posts usually have guidelines for pitching and writing which you have to adhere to similar to those on Practical Wanderlust's website. .
If your pitch is approved You write the post, and then the blog posts the guest article. It is then possible to share the link on your social media fans along with your email lists, in order in order to provide the article with additional exposure, and also the potential for the possibility of referral traffic.
When you've gotten your readers to a higher level then you're able to make money from your blog. Check out these resources for commercialization tips to turn into profit
This is the perfect time to start blogging'
The process of starting a blog isn't simple. If you're willing to put in your effort and make use of the appropriate equipment and tools, blogging can help you reach new people as well as share your experience as well as improve your income.
In case you need to brief overview, here are steps for starting your blog:
Select a subject and a specific niche for your blog. You and your readers are deeply passionate about.
Pick a blogging platform. Squarespace or WordPress are the top two choices, but with regards to their ability to modify and features available for blogging, WordPress is a clear winner.
Create your blog. Select and sign up for your domain name. You can also purchase the hosting plan.
Start writing your first post. Make an outline of your ideas to help you get started and then create a schedule of your publishing for yourself to be responsible.
Optimize your blog for search. SEO is the most efficient way to make sure that blogs get traffic as well as allows the right audience to find you and your blog's content.
You can increase the number of readers you have by using leads magnets, opt-in form as well as guest blog posts. After you've built your email list and subscriber base of emails, you'll be able to increase the value of your blog by monetizing it.
If you have this new blog experience in your pocket, you're already on your path to becoming a successful blogger. So, go out and get writing.
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