So, you have been reading other people’s blogs for a while, and you have thought to yourself,
“I could do something like that!”
The more you think about it, the better the idea seems, until you bite the bullet and make a start on designing your new blog. Although this is a great idea, (thousands of success stories prove it) there are many things you need to consider before starting a new blog. Here are some of the essential elements that you need to include to make your blog a success.
You Need to Input Time and Effort
Before you start to think about what your blog will be, you need to consider what you want from it. If you think that you have a story to tell or a cause to promote, then this will need a lot of work. The same applies to making money from your blog; if you want to gain an income from blogging, you need to attract a lot of visitors to generate the money you want. For those that have made blogging their career, they are spending a lot of time and effort getting their content right and building their audience. You need to accept the fact that your blog, no matter how good, won’t attract big numbers right away.
Blogging is Not Always Free
Although you have probably seen a number of free blogging platforms like WordPress.com and Blogger, these free sites are not going to give you the control and identity that you might want. For example, a free blogging platform will typically not give you your own domain name. Instead, it will be your blog name incorporated into their domain name (e.g. myfancyblog.wordpress.com). To have your own domain name, you will need to buy it and pay a yearly amount to keep it. You will also need to buy additional storage for your blog if you intend to have a lot of large files or high-resolution pictures. If you want to be a serious blogger, then there could be more expense for things like advertising, or hiring professional photographers, or hiring additional writers for content. If this is your intention, then you should probably look to finding funding, at least initially. You can check out Bonsai Finance reviews to help you find the right lenders. (If you want to make a business out of it, then treat it as such.)
Identify Your Topic and Niche
Probably one of the most important parts of starting your own blog is what area or topic it will cover. When you search for blogs, you will find that there are thousands out there, covering almost every possible topic. For that reason, you need to think of a subject that interests you and one that you won’t mind writing about long term. To make your blog a success, you will need to give people something they cannot find anywhere else. You need to find a niche for your subject that can narrow down the topic. For example, if you want to write about cars, then perhaps having a niche such as Fords in the 90’s will hone your blog further.
Content is Everything
A blog is only as good as the content it’s creating, so you need to make sure you are creating something people want to read. However, with quality content comes the argument of quantity. It will take time to create quality work, but you also want to make sure that you are posting on a regular basis or your visitors might get bored. It is a delicate balance, and you will only know what the right balance for you is by trial and error. The most important thing about your content is that it needs to be informative and interesting to your visitors. If you are writing something that is too short or lacking in pictures, that can also detract from attracting new visitors.
Use Social Media
Once you have started to write your amazing content, you want people to read it. Simply leaving it on the blog and hoping people will notice isn’t enough. Your blog won’t be relevant enough to the search engines to have you at the top of the results. You need to start using social media to get your stories read by those that might be interested. To get the best exposure, you ideally want to be on as many of the social media platforms as possible. You should also start to search and follow those accounts that are close to the niche you are writing. That way, you might get some of them to follow you back, and they will then see your blog posts.
Learn Some HTML if You Can
Although not necessary, there can be some advantages to learning the basics of HTML. If you are happy with the templates and customization of the blog creators, then you won’t need to do anything else. However, if there is something you want to do that you can’t find, you can use your basic knowledge of HTML to help you. There are many sites that will teach you the basics for free; then if you get an interest in it, you can move on to the more advanced coding. Some people prefer to build their website from the ground up, which can give you a lot of creative freedom. However, you can have a successful blog with the pre-made versions. You can still brand your blog with premade themes, as long as you customize it to suit your brand.
Learn About Copyright Laws
When you are becoming successful, you can also become a victim of copyright theft. There are some who will intentionally take one of your articles and publish it as their own work. You need to learn how to protect your content, so no one else can steal it. You should also learn about obtaining images and videos without breaching copyright yourself. By learning the rules now, you can avoid a lot of problems later, especially if you are using other people’s images.
Starting a new blog is in many ways the easy part, after that, you still have to learn about how to get the best from your hard work. In a few months, you should have a blog that is growing visitors and gaining popularity.
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