How do I start blogging?
Starting a blogging is relatively simple in the fact that it’s technical and there’s not much strategy or analysis in the start up, except for choosing a niche and name.
I share everything about how to start a blog, which includes:
- recognizing that you’re starting a business,
- learning the difference between a self-hosted blog and non self-hosted blog,
- buying a domain name and signing up to hosting,
- choosing a good theme and installing it,
- setting up legal pages,
- installing plugins and analytics you need,
- writing your first blog post
- and even tips on how to make money with blogging.
Can I blog without experience?
Yes of course! Blogging only really became a viable career option 10 years and many people are still just getting the hang of it. That being said, blogging is not something you go to college for and get a traditional degree.
I can guarantee that most people who start blogging start it without any experience at all. If they do have experience blogging, it’s probably at most because they were someone’s intern, assistant or worked at a content creation company.
How do I get over my fear of starting or gain confidence with blogging?
Being scared to start anything new is totally normal, especially with blogging because it is not as structured or straightforward with other careers.
What is the best blogging platform?
In my humble opinion, the best blogging is WordPress.org (not WordPress.com- big difference here).
WordPress.org is the industry standard for bloggers. In my six years of blogging, I’ve only met one blogger who has a Squarespace blog. I met one who had a GoDaddy and another with a Wix blog but they both transferred to WordPress.
The reason why WordPress is the go to blog for bloggers is because:
- You will have a self hosted blog meaning you have complete control over your content.
- Having a self hosted blog will make it much easier to monetize and work with ad networks, sponsors and affiliate programs.
- It’s really customizable and scalable. It’ll grow with you as your blog grows.
How do I make my blog look good?
Making a blog look good design-wise is really easy! All you have to do is install a theme on WordPress.
WordPress itself offers free themes, but after having wasted so much time on free themes, I opted to get paid ones that come with great documentation and support.
Read this post about feminine WordPress themes. If you don’t want something as feminine, then still take a look at the post because Pipdig has great themes that are neutral.
How do I make my content engaging?
Getting people to your blog is one thing but making them stay on it is another. But it really comes down to providing them the most helpful information possible.
With an easy-to-read, clear-to-follow blog post that shares all the information to questions your blog reader has, your reader will want to stay on your blog post and be engaged in your content since it provides so much value.
Humans are inherently selfish so anytime you’re writing a blog post, to keep your reader engaged, answer the question from their perspective, “What’s in it for me?”
How do I get page views?
The best way to get page views is organically from search engines. That’s because 60-75% (depending on the study) of website referrals come users searching online so might as well grab readers where they are hanging out the most!
To get page views from Google, the most used search engine, you want to search engine optimize your blog. This is the process of optimizing your blog in various ways so that your potential readers can find exactly what you’re writing about by searching it.
How can I stay consistent blogging?
If you want to stay consistent blogging, you could create a schedule with what you need to do for the next month or two… But to be honest, schedules don’t work well for me.
We are human so we have natural ups and downs; times we’re inspired and times we’re not.
When you’re feeling inspired and charged to write blog posts, batch write your blog posts! Then perhaps batch take photos or batch input affiliate links into your post.
You can easily schedule blog posts out as if you are writing weekly when in fact, you only spent one weekend writing two or three blog posts.
Also, you have to look beyond the blog. Visualize what blogging can bring you. More money on the side to go on vacations that you want? Ability to work from home so you can be with your kids more? These images will encourage you more than anything.
How do you manage your time blogging?
I’m going to be straight up here. Starting a blog is time consuming, and if you want it to grow quickly, most likely you are going to cut something else out of your life if you are super busy.
Most bloggers and influencers I know cut out their social life when they were first starting their blog! I did.
Otherwise, here are a couple of tips to manage your time blogging along with your full-time job, work or life in general.
- Be kind to yourself. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to write 4 blog posts a month, only to have time to write one. This will strongly discourage you.
- Be realistic with yourself. How quickly do you want to get your blog up? Are you ok building it up over a few years or do you want it to succeed ASAP? It all comes down to what is considered priority in your life.
- Break down your blog posts into small pieces. Don’t tell yourself, “I’m going to write a blog post this week.” Break it down into writing, taking photos, search engine optimizing it, adding affiliate links and so on. You will feel more accomplished as you check off the little things, which will encourage you to keep going.
- Stay focused on how you’re going to make money and don’t get distracted with too many social media sites. At the most, focus on Pinterest.Don’t worry about the other social media sites.
How do you make money blogging?
Ad revenue comes from joining an ad network. With simple coding or plugin that the ad networks take care of, you get money every time a reader passes an ad.
On my first blog, with about 60,000 page views a month, I was making about $1000 in ad revenue, which is considered passive income.
Affiliate marketing is when you get paid a commission by a brand every time you sell their product or service to one of your readers.
The best way for affiliate income to become passive income is to write search engine optimized blog posts. That way you target readers searching on Google for the exact product/service you’re writing about.
Sponsorships happen when brands reach out to you to write about them on your blog. This can be in the form of a direct review or written naturally as part of a blog post.