There are a lot of reasons to start a blog, especially if you want to promote something. Whether you have information that you want to share, you run a business, or you have a product or book that you want to market; a blog increases your chances of getting more people to your site. New, great, accessible and informative content are the most important things to think about on your site. When you create content that solves someone’s problem or answers their questions, then it makes people trust you and keep coming back for more.
Is starting a blog hard?
I know what you are thinking, starting a blog is REALLY hard.
But, I’m here to tell you, It is actually really easy to start a blog. You can do it within minutes if you already have a business website, and it will take you only about an hour to so if you are starting absolutely from scratch! Either way, these are 8 steps you should take to start a great blog RIGHT NOW!
The thing is, right now, online is huge! For many businesses and online presences, success means being in the right place at the right time. Well, the right place, right now, is online! If you’re not on social media, you don’t have a website and your business profile on Google (if you have an actual physical business) is not optimized, then you are missing out on a tonne of traffic! For those who rely solely on online sales such as courses, books and e-zines, then being optimized across the board is even more important. That is why blogging, whether it is ten times a week, or once a month is important. Every time you have somethinghttp://bradlynwilson.com/3-blogs-3-different-stories/ new online is another opportunity for you to reach another user and another potential customer.
So let’s jump right in!
To start a great blog there are 8 key things that you need to do, and it really is as easy as it sounds! This post outlines the beginning steps to starting a blog, and there is a lot more that goes into it. But if you’re scared of blogging, follow these steps to get to the fun part: writing.
8 Steps To Start A Great Blog: Guide to Blogging
1. Pick Your Platform
Everyone will give you a variety of answers to which platform you should choose and will be best for your blog. There are three main ones that people will tell you to choose from:
WordPress.ORG (not .COM)
No matter where you are in your blogging journey, choosing WordPress.org will give you the freedom to design and customize your site so that you can get the results you want. Since there are a lot of plugins and add-ons you can use on WordPress it is great for businesses and blogs that want to grow, and have a world of options open to them.
Squarespace Sites
Squarespace offers an amazingly easy to use platform that allows you to have designer looking sites without any coding experience. You can use fonts, colours, and templates to build your site and blog with just a few clicks. The easy to use page builder, lets you put all the elements you could want on your page, right away, and in a way that is perfect for starting a great blog. There is a lack of external SEO tools available, however, so you have to manually monitor your SEO on your blog.
WIX Sites
I build an amazing one-page site on WIX in less than an hour once. The drag and drop builder and [age layouts let you create the site of your dreams quickly and efficiently. You don’t have to worry about code like WordPress, and you can customize it to your heart’s desires.
2. Pick a Design
No matter what platform you choose to start your blog on, one of the biggest time drainers will be picking a design or a template. You want your site to be great, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be perfect. In this case, pick a theme or template that you like, because you can always tweak, change and redesign, but getting this step done is better than having it done perfectly.
3. Make Sure You Set Up Your Blog Page
Whether your entire site is dedicated to blogging, or whether your blog is just on one page. You need to set up a blog page where your latest and greatest posts can easily be found.
4. Add Your Blog To Your Navigation
Whatever you do, you need to make sure that your Blog is easy to find. So, not only should you add it into your navigation, but you can also create links in your sidebar, on your homepage and throughout relevant pages on your site. Making your site easily navigable means that you might be able to lower bounce rates
5. Make Sure To Set Up Your Social Media Platforms
No matter what sage of the website building process you are in, you should ensure that your social media platforms are set up. This is especially true when you start blogging because then you will be creating content on a consistent basis that speaks directly to your target audience.
6. Start Writing Content
After everything on your site is set up, you’ve got the design, and your social media accounts are ready to go, it is time to start writing great and knowledgeable content. You want to create posts that will appeal to a large audience, and that will answer questions for your readers. Also, you want your articles to be long, short snappy posts might work sometimes, but on the bigger scale aim for 750 words plus to start a great blog.
7. SEO Your Articles!
Search Engine Optimization of your articles is very important if you want to start a great blog. This is because writing great content alone doesn’t mean anyone will actually read it. You need your blog posts to rank for the keywords that are relevant to you! When someone types something into Google, you want your result to pop up in the top 10, because, and let’s be real, most people don’t go to page 2!
8. SHARE, SHARE, SHARE AND SHARE AGAIN!
This ties into Number 7 on the list of things to do to start a great blog. You want to share your article multiple times after you publish it. You want to create graphics in your post that are easily shareable as well. This helps your blog get seen by as many people as possible, and get you in front of new bloggers!
SaveSave
SaveSave
Great post! Sounds like you can create solid content by focusing on solving a problem for readers, and by keywording the content based on what people might be typing into Google.
Social media and sharing your articles… Are there particular social media platforms, and perhaps certain online forums, that you recommend?
Thanks for the comment Chris! You are completely correct! Creating great content and keywording it based on what people are searching for, is the perfect strategy.
I think for social media, it all depends on the type of content you share. Pinterest and Twitter are huge drivers of traffic. Facebook is great if you are going to do Ad Spends and post to a dedicated group. But Facebook pages no longer show up in news feeds!