Perhaps you’ve been contemplating the idea of starting your own blog? Blogging can be both a fun and challenging way to make some money, learn some new things, and offer your expertise and charisma to the world wide web! If your thinking about taking the leap, you’ll want to have a look at these handy tips to get you started.
What to write?
Deciding your niche is the first step, generally speaking, it’s better to focus on one or two key topics for your blog. If you try to be a ‘jack of all trades’, then you might lose the quality! Perhaps you already have some idea of what your blog is going to be about? It should ideally be about something that you love because if your enthusiasm doesn’t translate in your writing, then it’s not going to be any kind of content that people can engage with. If your unsure of your niche, write a brainstorm of your loves and your hobbies. Think about the websites, blogs, or books that you currently read and try to draw inspiration. Spend some time thinking about which of your interests you could best utilize into some great research, ideas and excellent content.
Which platform?
You’ll want to choose a platform for your blog, a popular option is WordPress, and there are also some others like Wix, Medium or Tumblr. WordPress is easy to use with many customizable design themes and a dashboard that’s quick to navigate. WordPress also comes with plenty of plugins so that you can link your blog to your social media, track your metrics, or create a podcast. Wix comes with some handy functions in that you can select from a wide range of apps to add to your site. Some of these app features include comments, contact forms, or galleries.
Amazing content
Once you’ve decided what you’re going to write, you’ll want to put in the hours to ensure that your content is as amazing as possible. It’s vital to do lots of research to ensure that your written content is high quality. Your research should also include looking at blogs with similar topics to your own. By looking at related blogs, you can ensure that you are producing content that is original, imaginative, and will stand out from the crowd. When you are producing your content, don’t forget to consider the structure. Readers of the web will often be put off by huge pages of text. Ensure that you break your writing up into sections and use images and video content to make your posts more visually exciting.
SEO optimization
To drive traffic to your blog, you’ll want to use SEO optimization. Find out which keywords your target readers are searching for and use them within your writing. Find out what questions that your target readers are asking online and write posts that provide the answers. SEO can take a little time to see results, so don’t worry if you don’t see progress right away and just keep on at it! Your SEO will drive people to your site, but you will need to ensure that the content is top quality when they get there (or readers won’t return)!
Affiliate marketing
One top way that bloggers can start to make money through their blogs is via affiliate marketing. You can sign up to an affiliate marketing programme and then you’ll receive links which you can work into your blog. From here on in, if someone clicks on one of these links and goes on to purchase a product, you will then receive a commission.
Offer your services
Once you get more established and build up your web presence, you can offer your writing services as a guest blogger on other sites. If you find work writing for other blogs or publications, the readers of these will easily be able to find their way back to your site. When you start offering your services as a freelance writer or blogger, you’ll want to look into freelance invoice software. This kind of software allows you to generate invoices, get paid the way you want to, and chase up clients.
As with any new project, you need to sit down and create a plan. Forward planning will ensure that you don’t dive in without knowing that your blog will be your best work. Spend some time thinking about the tone of voice of your writing. Practice makes perfect, so the first drafts don’t need to be amazing, they just need to be written, and you can keep redrafting until your happy with the content!
