Table Of Contents
Purpose
Why are you creating a blog? Is it to share a skill you that you have, with others? or is it a personal blog where you share your life stories? Write down your reason to start blogging and remember it through the course. Your reason should be good enough for you. Think of only yourself and not about the people around you while thinking of this. Even if your reason is to make some extra money, it is okay! Just have a sense of clarity.
Inspiration
Have you seen other blogs of other bloggers in your niche? Of course, your blog will have your personal touch and taste. But first, go through other similar blogs who are well established. Get a hang of things. How have they designed their blog? What kind of posts gets the most readers? What colour schemes are most pleasing to look at? You never know who inspires you to create something uniquely yours.
Social Media
You’ll need social media accounts to give a nudge to your blog’s traffic. You should and must cross-promote your blog’s content on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc. Have a consistent brand image, logos and colours of your blog. And use the same ones on each platform. This is so that your logo and colour theme becomes synonym to your blog’s name. People should be able to recognize it’s you, from the logo itself.
Basics of SEO
Digital marketing is an ocean which is too deep. Don’t get overwhelmed. Start by taking small steps in learning about SEO, keyword research and how to create your content marketing strategy. Initially focus more on quality content rather than sharpening your digital marketing skills.
Decide on a domain name & hosting
Choose a domain name and see if it’s available to purchase. Stick to .com domains. Don’t use numbers in your domain name and keep it short & simple. Make sure it has your keyword and can be spelt easily. If you are low on budget and you don’t want to invest money, start a free WordPress blog or on Wix, Weebly, Medium, Blogger etc to begin with. You can buy a domain and hosting later on and shift your content to it. A free WordPress will have a domain that looks like this: www.yourblogname.wordpress.com. If you are confused between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, read this. Research about which hosting provider suits your needs, I personally recommend and use Bluehost myself.
Get a Professional Email
Usually, you get a free professional email with your domain or hosting purchase, if not, make sure to buy one separately. Use this email id for your blog related communications to make it look more professional. For example, mine is info@garimashares.com.
Have an About Page
An about page on a blog is a page that is about you aka, the blogger who owns and runs the blog. It is important because people can relate to a human face better than just a site with no face that represents it. You can make it a bit informal too. Share your likes and dislikes, to a limit. Write out a small story of how started the blog and your background. Here’s my About Page.
Ads or No Ads?
On a free WordPress blog, you won’t be able to display ads and earn money. The only mode of earning permitted is affiliate marketing. If you want to display ads on your blog, for example, by using Google Adsense, you need a self-hosted blog. And that would need a monetary investment to be made. If you can’t get Adsense approval for your blog, here are some alternatives for you.
Eye-catching Creatives
Creatives make a blog post more attractive and people, in general, retain information displayed on a picture better than text. Also, people can share your creatives on social media and that will help you reach a wider audience. Canva is a free tool that has numerous templates specially designed for each of the social media platforms. You can get your hands on free-to-use images from sites like Pexels, Pixabay and Unsplash. Read this to know how to make your blog look more professional in the next 10 minutes.
Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a tool that can help you understand your blog and its audience better. You can track your popular posts and the keywords which get you the most traffic and on which you rank the highest in search engine results. It also lets you track stats like engagement, bounce rate, device used to view your site etc.
JUST do it!
Don’t dwell on the first blogpost or the domain name for too long. Don’t crave perfection and delay the process. Nobody writes a perfect blog post on the first go, just write to your heart’s content and hit publish.
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