How to Start a Successful Blog from Day 1 in just 9 Steps

I often get asked how to start a successful blog. People usually come to me feeling overwhelmed, thinking its impossible to ever begin. So today I bring you a break down of how to start a successful blog from day 1 in just 9 steps.    

Step 1: Discover your passion, find your niche

Discover your passion. Sounds easier said than done right? Well let me ask you these questions: What articles do you find yourself searching? What topics do you most often pin on Pinterest? What do you enjoy reading about? More often than not the answers to these questions are going to be what you are passionate about. Once you know what that is then you’ve got your niche or your target readers. Mine for example use to be solely about beauty. However my blog has evolved into more of a lifestyle niche because I blog about many different topics that’s dear to me.

Step 2: Name your blog

Once you’ve figured out your passions and your niche it’s time to come up with a name for your blog. This is where you want to take some time finding a name that defines you. You want to ensure that your name is easy to remember, catchy and unique. I would suggest going with a .com instead of .org or .ca since it is more common for people search for a .com website. I would also refrain from using special characters in your name. Keep you name simple to spell. I came up with bethalylovebeauty because my first name is Bethaly and my middle name is Love (yes really it is Love says so on my birth certificate 😉 ). I added the beauty to the end of it because as you may know when I first began my blogging journey it was all about beauty.

Step 3: Set up your blog

Here’s where it can get a little bit techy. I say ‘techy’ however I was able to create this site and everything on it on my own and anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a tech wizard or anything like that so trust me its not to difficult! You don’t even have to know coding and you can learn everything through youtube or through articles on google.

I would suggest using WordPress.org instead of wordpress.com and going self hosted right away. I began with wordpress.com so my site name use to read www.bethalylovebeauty.wordpress.com. Now that I have switched over to my own domain with the help of bluehost my site name reads www.bethalylovebeauty.com. Do you see how my new site looks more professional than my old? Also if you start self hosted you wont have the trouble of migrating your site over to your self hosted domain later on! One of the things I wish I knew before I started my blog. I actually wrote a whole post on 10 things I wish I knew before I started blogging. For more information Here is a great article that walks you through the steps of creating your own self hosted site.

Step 4: Design your blog

Alright here is where we get to the fun part! Now that you’ve found your niche, you’ve come up with a name and you’ve set up your self hosted website, it’s time to start branding your blog and choosing a theme. There are two types of themes to choose from, Paid Vs. Free and wordpress offers both. In fact when you first sign up with wordpress your site is set up with one of their free themes. Now there is nothing wrong with using a free theme, I know many bloggers that do, I myself used a free theme before migrating my blog, however using a paid theme gives you more control. With a paid theme you can easily customize your theme’s colors, fonts, widgets, and so much more! I recommend using Pipdig.  They offer professional looking themes at prices ranging from $60 to $70. All of their themes convert easily from desktop to tablet to mobile. Also depending on the theme you choose Pipdig themes come equipped with some very cool widgets and features.

Step 5: Plan your content

Remember your niche? Brainstorm some ideas that relate to your niche. Do your research. Find out what other successful bloggers who are in the same niche as you are talking about. What are some topics that get the most engagement? Remember to pull from your passions. Once you’ve got a list of blog post ideas it’s time to categorize them. Since I am a lifestyle blog I have a number of categories. My main ones are Beauty, Fashion, Travel, Tips and Food. It’s important to have your content planned out. You won’t be overwhelmed if you know what and when you will be posting. I for example have content planned out till the end of October and I know that I will be posting 1x a week every Wednesday mornings!

Step 6: Create your content

All the prep work is finally done now it’s time to start creating those blog posts! This step is going to be different for everyone. You really want to allow your individuality to flow here and do what works best for you! Take those awesome ideas you brainstormed in step 5 and build on it. Find your voice. Are you going to be speaking to your readers very professionally or will you be more laid back with some humor? I would suggest speaking to your readers in the manner that makes you feel most comfortable and most like yourself because essentially that what your blog is, it’s YOUR place. Your blog is somewhere you can give your thoughts, your ideas, your tips and tricks for whatever you choose. Your readers want to know your perspective and your take on the topics in your niche.

A couple of pointers I have for the more techy side of things:

• You want to take high quality images – You want your images to be shareable on all social media platforms especially PINTEREST! You’ll be surprised how much traffic Pinterest can drive to your blog! But that’s a whole blog post on its own and YES I will be doing a full post on that so stay tuned!
• Your posts should be at least 300 words – You want to give your readers the freshest and as much relevant content as you can. Doing this will also rank you higher in search on Google which is what we want!
• Your posts should include a content upgrade –  People want to know what you can do for them! What problem you are going to solve for them. So whether your content upgrade is a checklist, a printable recipe or for example the upgrade I’m offering for this post a FREE downloadable PDF that sums up all these steps, you want to make sure you have one. Essentially this is why readers are going to subscribe to you and stick around!

Step 7: SEO proof your posts

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. I JUST learned about SEO and my friends it is a game changer! This is definitely one of the 10 things I wish I knew before I began blogging! Google uses SEO analysis to provide search users with a list of websites they determine to be most relevant. I won’t go into to much detail in this post about all the SEO tips I have cause you guessed it there is a post for that right here. But I will give you some of the KEY tips.

• You want to use KEYWORDS – This is essential for Google or search engines to know what your article or post is all about. It is more beneficial if your keywords are a short phrase instead of just one main word. Think of what someone would search for in Google. For example instead of your keyword being “beauty” I would go with something like ” Summer beauty trends for 2018.” There are also important places throughout your post where you want to place your keywords. If you want to read more on this check out my post on my 7 top SEO tips.
• You want to have a descriptive and FOCUSED title – Having a focused title will ensure that Google and readers know exactly what your post is about. Take for example the title “Vancouver Activities” vs “The 10 Must do Vancouver Activities with Children.” The first title was very vague where as the second title is more focused.
• Use a SEO plugin like Yoast – You can get this plugin for wordpress and it is amazing! It does all the analysis for you and basically is a SEO checklist at the bottom of all your posts.

Step 8: Use social media channels to promote your blog posts

Social Media platforms are powerful tools to promote yourself and your blog. Before I ever began blogging I started growing my audience through my beauty account on Instagram. When I decided to start blogging my Instagram followers were the first to know. Before I even made my first post I was promoting my blog launch  through you guessed it Instagram so that when I finally posted my first blog post I had interested readers in my niche! Now I utilize ALL my social media channels. Two important tips I will suggest is

1. you want to switch your personal accounts to a business account or create a new account solely for you blog. This just looks more professional and in switching to business accounts you can take advantage of analytics and insights which is important in figuring out which posts are doing awesome and which ones aren’t doing so great.

2. Try and use the same name and profile picture across all you social media sites. This helps make it easier for readers to find you and it also creates a cohesive brand.

Step 9: Create a schedule, create new content & Grow your readers

Okay we made it to the last step! Here is where you want to keep the momentum of your blog going.

• You want to create a schedule for yourself. How many posts are you going to have up per week? I suggest doing at least 1 post per week which is what I do. I have 3 kids and that’s all I can manage and you know what that’s okay! It’s better to have high quality posts than posting 3 times a week and they’re all rushed and mediocre. If you can I also suggest planning your content at least 2 months in advance. you don’t have to have your content all typed up but at least a brainstorm would be good! I usually take my planner and pencil in the titles of my blog posts under every Wednesday. This gives me a visual of what my blog will look like.  I also recommend scheduling the promotion of your posts! So you want to be scheduling tweets, instagram posts, pins for pinterest and facebook shares!
• To grow your readers you want to LISTEN to your readers. Building on what I said in step 8 you want to use google analytics or the insights on instagram to see what posts are doing awesome and which aren’t doing to great. Social Media is an effective way to get a feel for what your readers are looking for. You can create instagram polls proposing to your readers 2 blog post ideas and asking your readers which one they prefer. You can do Q&A’s. You can also answer emails and any DMs that may come your way. This also connects you to your readers and you become a person to them instead of just a figure.

So there you have it How to start a successful blog from day 1 in just 9 steps! Did you find these tips helpful? Which tips were you already doing and which ones are you going to adopt? Let me know in the comments down below I would love to hear your thoughts and help you with any other questions!

Thank for reading loves

Until next time,

Beth

xo

Bethaly Miro

With this blog I strive to cultivate and foster a community that encourages and empowers women from all walks of life. I am a stay at home to my three beautiful daughters and I am married to my high school sweetheart and together we have built a life we love. You can usually find me with a book in one hand and a Starbucks coffee in the other. I hope that this blog brings you comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone in whatever it is you’re growing through as a mother, a wife, a woman.

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