Consider how life-changing it would be to earn a consistent income by blogging about your interests and passions.
Many people do just that, and this article will teach you some essential blogging tips for beginners to get you started.
Before we begin, I want to emphasize that blogging is not for everyone and that it is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme. Blogging is enjoyable and rewarding, and it can be extremely profitable, but it is a long game. Before you can expect to earn a significant amount of money, you must be willing to put in at least a year of solid and consistent effort.
1. Determine your blog's niche and target audience: Successful blogs have a clear niche and target audience. Unless you're a celebrity, a non-focused blog about YOU is not what people are looking for!
2. Purchase web hosting and a domain name: A new blog can be started for very little money. If you set aside a few hundred dollars for the first year,
you'll have more than enough. It IS possible to spend significantly less.
3. Install WordPress and select a theme: This will determine the overall look and feel of your website. Don't get too caught up in this step; it's much easier than it sounds, and you can change and improve things as you go.
4. Begin creating content: You must ensure that your articles provide genuine value to your readers. They should be better than what's already out there in some way - otherwise, what incentive do people have to choose your blog over the millions of others?
5. Share and promote your site: This could include forming collaborations with other bloggers, mastering social media, gaining press attention, or learning about SEO and working your way to the top of Google's search results. All of these things are done by successful blogs.
6. Monetize your blog: There are SO MANY WAYS TO MAKE MONEY FROM A BLOG: making space for advertisements, marketing products as an
affiliate, selling related products and services, arranging sponsorships, and so on.
7. Rinse, refine, and repeat as necessary. Doesn't that sound pretty straightforward?
It's not that difficult if you take it one step at a time and learn as you go.
But now let's get down to business. If blogging were that simple, everyone would be doing it! So, let's go over our extensive list of blogging tips for beginners.
Tips for Beginning Bloggers
The Beginnings
1. Get Going
The blog that will almost certainly fail is the one you never start.
An endless "planning phase" may spark some ideas, and endless courses and articles may teach you a few things. However, the time between starting a blog and making money from it begins
only when you start your blog and start publishing articles.
Registering your domain, installing WordPress, and writing your first few posts will teach you more by doing than any amount of reading could ever teach you. Spending the small amount of money required to launch your site creates accountability and "skin in the game," increasing your likelihood of sticking with it and taking action.
2. Determine Your Niche
Your blog should be focused on a single topic.
That may seem obvious, but several aspiring bloggers I've coached begin with the intention of creating a personal blog that covers everything they're interested in.
The problem is that no one will want to read that unless you're a big celebrity with people interested in every aspect of your life. Furthermore, Google (and other search engines) will have difficulty determining what your site is about.
Working from home is a specialized field. Training a rescue dog is a specialty. Haircare is a specialized field. Vegan food is a niche market. However, YOU are not
3. Begin Narrow, But Leave Room to Expand Niches might be narrow or broad.
I have a wellness blog where I discuss weight reduction, alcohol-free living, healthy food, and other issues. Home working is a broad category
that includes freelancing, remote working, side projects, training, and a variety of other activities.
A good general rule is to begin narrowly and gradually widen your scope. Make it simple for Google to comprehend what your site is about. Just be cautious about naming your blog. If you call it spanieldogtips.com, it won't make sense to start talking about labradors after six months, and especially not to start talking about cats!
4. Make Certain You Have Enough Material to Write About
Once you've settled on a specialty, make sure you can simply generate a long list of topics to write about.
If you get up to ten article titles and can't think of any more, you may have a serious problem. Your blog needs to last for years, so if you're searching around for ideas right from the start, that's a poor omen.
If you can't quickly generate a list of 50 article ideas, it might be time to reconsider your niche. Perhaps you could broaden your scope, or consider something altogether different.
5. Be honest about how long things will take. This is the most crucial of all the blogging guidelines for beginners on this page:
You MUST understand that nothing happens in an instant.
You may create a website and load it with amazing material, but chances are that only your family and friends will look at it for months.
You'll have to wait a while to create a reputation, climb the ranks, be trusted by Google, and acquire natural "organic" traffic.
Many individuals claim that Google uses a "sandbox" mechanism to keep new websites from gaining momentum soon. This is to discourage individuals from using technological tricks to rank new sites rapidly.
Regardless of how Google works, the truth is that blogs need time to establish themselves.
6. Be Prepared to Spend Some Cash Starting a blog is certainly one of the cheapest business endeavors you could start, but expecting it to be absolutely free is impractical.Yes, there are free blogging platforms, but anything more than a hobby blog will quickly outgrow them.
You MUST have your own domain and hosting. Dreamhost is where I recommend you acquire it, and this link will take you to their current special offer.
7. Pay in Advance for Hosting (If You Can Afford It)
Most hosting firms will charge you less if you sign a longer term. Because blogging is a "long game," you're probably expecting your blog to remain
around for a long time. As a result, if you have the means to pay for a year (or even three) at a time, it makes sense to do so because you'll end up paying considerably less in the long term.
8. Recognize that there is MUCH MORE to blogging than meets the eye. Writing One of my favorite aspects of my job is creating content for my blogs.
However, just a small portion of the time spent working on a blog is spent in creating content.
As a professional blogger, you will also find yourself doing the following:
Taking care of technical difficulties like backing up your website and protecting it from hackers. Contacting other bloggers and industry professionals for guest posts and mentions (perhaps my least favorite duty!)
Looking for places that will link to you and enhance your Google credibility.
Monitoring the competition to guarantee you're producing better material and staying ahead of them in general.
Signing up for and managing affiliate programs and advertising networks.
Analyzing a large number of reports and analytics. Responding to emails from readers, blog comments, social media posts, and, alas, trolls. Using social media to promote the site. Hiring freelancers and writers (once things start building up).
Sending marketing emails and newsletters to subscribers.
Working hard on keyword research and Search Engine Optimization (more on that in a moment). In charge of all record-keeping and accounting. Even with a tiny quantity of money coming in, this can soon become problematic.
Obtaining and optimizing a large number of photos.
Updating privacy policies and addressing legal concerns
I've compiled this lengthy list to emphasize an essential point: If you're considering a career in professional blogging, you should be aware of the following.
I coach aspiring bloggers, and I've seen countless cases where people were turned off by the idea of blogging once they realized the truth.
That's fine; there's no shame in it. In fact, I'd advise you to look over the list and be honest with yourself about whether you want to complete everything on it.
There is nothing on that list that you can skip if you want to run a blog as a company. Once you start making money, you can undoubtedly pay others a portion of it, but you'll have to learn to do everything yourself to begin with.
9. Recognize the Value of Keyword Research and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a vast subject that is far beyond the scope of this essay. The key point to remember is that providing content is only one piece of the puzzle; you also need people to find it online.
Keyword research is an important element of SEO. Simply put, keyword research shows you how many people are searching for specific terms online and how competitive those terms are.
What is the significance of this? Because if you create a post as a new blogger about a keyword that has already been well-covered by big websites, the chances of anyone finding that piece on Google are nearly nil.
Similarly, you don't want to waste time writing about issues that no one cares about.
I strongly advise you to look into the Mangools KWFinder package (reviewed here). A 10-day free trial is available, giving you plenty of opportunity to experiment and conduct research.
You may get as advanced as you want with SEO and keyword research. I'm frequently up late reading lengthy papers on its complexities, or walking around my neighborhood listening to podcasts on the subject. You don't have to go this far (at least not at first!) However, if your site wants to truly compete, a fundamental understanding of SEO is essential.
Check out Coursera's SEO Specialization for a great approach to learn everything you need to know.
Once Things Get Started
10. Consider how your site will earn money. Before you invest too much effort into your site, you need to have a strong notion of HOW it will produce money.
The options are limitless. You could start a blog about graphic design trends with the intention of selling your own design services; you could blog
about mental health and promote related books or even phone counseling services; you could start a food blog and sell recipe books and kitchen gadgets, earning money through affiliate commissions.
The list continues on, but the main point is that it is not the blog itself that generates revenue. It's the side books, affiliate commissions, display ads, or personal services you offer (using the blog as a sales tool) that actually count.
You CAN adapt as you go, but it makes useful to have a general strategy in mind. The three primary models are as follows:
Draw visitors to your blog and use it as a "shop front" to sell your own items and services, such as courses, eBooks, consulting, or even physical products.
Making money via affiliate commissions, I review, compare, and suggest products and services. Create a LOT of content, draw a LOT of traffic, and profit from display advertisements.
Many websites, like this one, make money from all three of these sources and more. There are no "rules," but having a monetisation plan in place from the start makes sense.
11. Begin gathering email addresses.
"The money's in the list," as the saying goes.
There's a reason why practically all blogs (and companies) collect email addresses from visitors. It allows them to stay in touch and attract clicks to content without relying on anything else, such as search engine or social network traffic. It's worth attempting to grow your email list as soon as you get any visitors to your site. Some bloggers prefer to wait until they have a particular amount of traffic, but this means passing up the
opportunity to join up every person who has already visited the site.
Fortunately, most email marketing service companies provide free service for a limited amount of users. ConvertKit, which we use for our site, provides a free plan for up to 300 subscribers as well as a wealth of materials for learning the fundamentals of email marketing. You can sign up for free here, and we have a complete review of the service here.
12. Analyze what works and replicate it. Once you've published a few blogs and begin to get some traffic, it's time to analyze what's working. There are no hard and fast rules for when to do this, but 30 to 50 posts and 6 to 12 months after your site's inception are reasonable starting points.
Google likes seeing "clusters" of linked information. Assume you launched a hair blog and saw that a few articles about wedding hair are performing extremely well and bringing in the majority of your traffic. That's a clear indication that
Google's algorithm "likes" those posts and sees your blog as an authority on wedding hair. So, what are you going to do? Write MORE posts like that, either on directly related issues or on "shoulder niches" that are relevant - for example, bridesmaid's or christening hair.
Nothing gives you more information about what works than the articles that are already bringing you traffic (and perhaps money). The key to blogging success is determining what works and doing more of it.
13. Get Your Monetization Up and Running It's pointless to wait till you reach a specific amount of traffic before attempting to monetize your blog. Even small sums of money can be used to cover site expenditures or treats.
So, if you've reviewed a product, seek for its affiliate program or join Amazon Associates to promote products from Amazon's massive inventory. If you want to run display
advertisements, both Google AdSense and Ezoic allow you to sign up with a small quantity of traffic. In the beginning, it will simply be pocket cash, but
it will offer you experience working with these networks, and even tiny sums of income may be incredibly motivating.
As I frequently point out, the first dollar from a new site is far more exciting than the following $100 from an established blog.
Creating Momentum
14. Expand Your Traffic Sources
Google isn't the only approach to get people to visit your blog. Some bloggers completely disregard Google in favor of Pinterest (which can work in certain niches, such as crafts, food and lifestyle). Other bloggers have mastered Facebook and discovered it to be a solid source of traffic. The ideal scenario would be for traffic to come in from all directions. That way, you're not (as much) at the mercy of a single algorithm for the success of your blog. Not everything you try will succeed, but it's best to keep trying and to double down on what does.
15. Keep Your Articles Current
Publishing a blog piece isn't a one-time event. Everything becomes obsolete with time: a product you've reviewed may change its design or pricing
structure, and your personal opinions (and writing style) may change and evolve over time.
Furthermore, it appears that Google values new content. Articles that have previously rated well will begin to fall and disappear from the rankings over time if they become out of date. As a result, make upgrading and refreshing your older posts a regular component of your blogging calendar.
16. Form Partnerships (and Links)
To assess how "authoritative" each post is, Google's algorithm heavily relies on incoming links. Simply put, a link from another site functions as a "vote" to show the algorithm that a website has some quality. That IS a significant
simplification, and the links are not all created equal. A single link from Forbes or The New York Times carries far more weight than one from a small, personal site.
You will automatically establish some links over time. However, for most bloggers, proactive link building is a never-ending process. It's also far
beyond the scope of a beginner's guide on blogging techniques.
Suffice it to say that promoting your content is just as crucial as creating it.
17. Maintain Consistent Compliance As a commercial blogger, you have a slew of legal obligations, from protecting your clients' data to making your site secure and accessible.
Doing all of this legal stuff may not be exciting, and you may not want to become an expert on topics like GDPR and accessibility requirements. But none of this is optional.
As your site grows in size and popularity, it will attract greater notice - both from readers and from relevant authorities (and that includes paying tax on your income). At your peril, disregard compliance.
Conclusion and Summary
Blogging is incredibly rewarding. It is not an exaggeration to say that it has altered my life, as well as the lives of countless others.
Building an audience around something you enjoy is a good thing, especially if it turns out to be profitable. It's important to note, though, that while "six-figure" blogging is far from a myth, it's never easy money.
It goes without saying that people who make a lot of money from their blogs run them like businesses. There is a lot of work involved.
Once you've established some traction, having a business that produces money WHILE YOU SLEEP is quite wonderful. But there is a lot of active work that goes into earning that "passive" money.
You must be logged in to post a comment.