Tum Hi Aana Lyrics (तुम ही आना Lyrics in Hindi) from Marjaavaan: The love song is sung by Jubin Nautiyal featuring Sidharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria. The song is composed by Payal Dev while lyrics of Tum Hi Aana are written by Kunaal Vermaa. The song is from Milap Zaveri directed Hindi feature film Marjaavaan starring Riteish Deshmukh, Sidharth Malhotra, and Tara Sutaria.
Do you know the difference between a successful blog and a failure one?
Paying customers.
Yes, if people are buying your products or services, you can consider your blog as a successful one. If not, it’s a failure blog and you need to take serious precautions to start making sales from it.
Building an authority site is the surefire way to get more traffic, backlinks, social shares, and sales. If you are wondering how to build a successful blog that makes money, firstly you need to consider a few things which you will discover in this detailed post.
Are you ready? Let’s dive into the details without much ado. 7 Things You Need to Focus on to Build an Authority Blog
#On-Site SEO
If you want to make more money from your blog, you need more traffic, especially from Google.
The more traffic you get the more money you can generate. 90% of the blogs never make more than $100 because almost all of them struggle to get traffic.
That’s why you need a plan to bring more visitors to sites especially from search engines like Google. Here’s where on-page optimization comes into play.
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your blog pages for Google crawlers. Keyword research plays a crucial role here. Once you start building a list of all the potential long-tail keywords that you can use within your content, on-page SEO becomes extremely easy.
That being said, once you are done with the keyword research, here are a few places where you can add your primary keyword to get better rankings on Google.
H1, h2 and h3 tags
Image alt tags
Meta description
URL
Inside of your blog posts
Title
At the beginning and end of your posts
Also, make sure to interlink to your old blog posts that are relevant to your newly created blog posts. That way you can make Google crawlers to crawl your sites quickly so you can get your blog posts indexed fast.
#Website Speed
Go to Pingdom tools and analyze the speed of your websites. As a rule of thumb, a fast loading site loads within 2 to 3 seconds. If your site is taking much more time, you need to find ways to improve your loading times.
Otherwise, you might get bad search results on Google just because of your slow loading times. As a matter of fact, Amazon loses billions of dollars every year for every second of delay.
You can also use sites like YSlow to know the factors that affect your website speed. Here’s an image that explains how slow loading sites kill your sales.
Make sure to choose the best web hosting service to run your WordPress sites as your website speed depends largely upon your hosting.
That being said, here are a few quick tips to improve your website speed.
Optimize images: Even before you use images on your blog posts or pages, make sure to optimize them. You can also use plugins like WP Smush.it to compress your images.
Get a CDN: By using a CDN (Content Delivery Network), you can quickly improve your website loading times. There are a lot of CDN plugins available which can help you improve your website speed.
Enable browser caching: This makes it easy for your website visitors to quickly load your web pages.
Use fewer plugins: Seriously, the more plugins you use on your blog the more time it takes to load. As a rule of thumb, limit your plugins usage to 10 to 15.
#Long Form of Content Over Short Content
Most bloggers complain about one thing that they are NOT getting any traffic even after writing blog posts regularly. They might be struggling because of short articles.
In this Post-Penguin world where Google is rewarding the sites with quality articles, you should spend more time to write detailed and in-depth articles. The articles with over 2000 words usually get top rankings even for the toughest keywords.
So if you are thinking about boosting your search engine traffic, make sure to create authoritative articles with over 1500 to 2000 words. Yes, they take time to create but you can reap the best rewards sooner or later.
Have a look at the below screenshot to know how long the form of content performs well on Google search results.
Moreover, your blog audience will consider you as an expert if you prefer to publish long-form of content over short articles. Here are a few tips for you to create long and informative articles.
Before writing a single word on your blog posts, come up with the right blog post ideas. Try to find and create data-backed blog posts. For instance, you can easily create detailed content for topics like “how [someone] made $100,000 within a year from his blog and how you can do the same”. Are you getting me?
Outline your blog posts. Make sure to add all the reference links. Take your own time to make them perfect. Do a lot of research before you begin writing.
Make sure to find out what topics your competitors are covering. Try to beat their content’s quality by writing in-depth data-backed articles.
#Monetization Strategy
Most bloggers struggle to increase their affiliate sales or product sales because of one reason: they don’t usually lay out a monetization strategy.
Without creating a monetization plan, you will find it hard to convert your visitors into subscribers and then into customers. Getting traffic to your sites is one thing and using that traffic to increase your blog’s income is another thing.
That’s when you should be thinking smart to turn your visitors into buyers. Spend some quality time in defining your target audience, get to know their wants and needs and deliver the products that suit their problems.
Here are a few surefire ways to monetize your blog.
Figure out ways to monetize your blog’s content. You can definitely give a try to ad publishing platforms like AdSense, Chitika, etc but they are not so effective if you want to make more money. You can also write product reviews that pay you money or you can create quality review blog posts around the products you promote. All these methods can help you make money from your content.
Analyze how your competitors are monetizing their sites. Are you promoting affiliate products or their own products? Are they making money by offering services or something else? By analyzing them, you can come up with few strategies that might work well for your own blog too.
Make sure to build an email list. It’s the surefire way to convince people to buy stuff from you. Create an autoresponder to send high-quality emails each week so they can trust you.
Ask people for help. If you know someone who’s already making money from their blogs, seek their help. Ask them how to monetize their sites. Most bloggers will help you without any hesitation.
#Networking
Traffic, traffic, traffic. Well, every blogger and entrepreneur struggles and goes crazy to drive more traffic to their websites. But one thing they miss is to network with others. Most bloggers think advertising massively can bring traffic to the website and so spend a lot of money.
But it won’t fetch you any good results unless you have connections with other influencers in your industry. So make sure to spend time finding and networking with other bloggers who are relevant to your blog topics.
Also, find ways to offer them help before seeking any help from them. Be in touch with them on social media and frequently engage with them through emails.
#Email List Building
No doubt, social media marketing is powerful to get followers and consistent visitors but of all, the one that is often neglected is email Marketing. Email is a very powerful tool in bringing desired results when compared to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. By using the email list, you can easily create a sales funnel for your blog. Look at the below image.
Here are a few email list building strategies that can fetch massive traffic to your website.
Identify your potential audience: In order to drive massive results, the foremost step is to identify your potential audience. To whom you are offering services or selling your products? Do the recipients interested in receiving emails from you?
For example, if you are niche is textiles, send the new offers or arrivals to your audience. Why this is important? because, as your subscribers are interested in textiles they subscribed. So, if you send cooking recipes they may mark you as a spammer. So, never spam them with unwanted and unnecessary emails.
Always write mobile-friendly emails: With the smartphone evolution, the majority of the people open or check their emails on mobile. So, it’s highly advisable to customize your mail as mobile-friendly.
Make necessary font sizes that give enhanced readability in smartphones. If your emails are not optimized for mobile, there is a possibility that your email is moved to trash. So, customize your website theme in such a way that it is responsive to mobile devices.
Offer FREE content: Well, who doesn’t love to get anything for FREE? Provide your audience with free templates or tools or free PDF’s. Remember, it should be beneficial to your readers and the content you are offering them for free should not be available on your blog or website.
#Choosing One Social Media Platform at a Time
Instead of wasting your time on all the social media sites at once, focus on one medium at a time. Engage with your audience on social media sites one at a time.
The one common mistake that most of the people do is they try to build their fans on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram all at once. It takes a lot of time and you are wasting your energy.
Instead, engage with them using one particular social media platform at a time and give them a reason to come back and visit your website. Every time you share something on social media, make it an interesting one like what’s new about your services.
So next time, instead of wasting your time on every other social media site, focus on just ONE source and try to add as much value as you can with your posts.
Final Thoughts on Building an Authority Blog
Starting a WordPress blog is so simple but making sales from it is NOT. If you are a beginner with zero online selling skills, it gets even worse to make more money from blogging.
That’s why you need to first focus on building loyal readers around your blog with your content and SEO strategy. Once people started finding value in your site, they won’t hesitate to buy your products or services.
So make sure to implement all the 7 factors mentioned above to build a better blog that adds value and makes money in the long run.
What are your thoughts? Do you have any more tips to build an authority site in any niche? Share your views in the comments.
This guest blog content was written by Anil Agarwal – Founder of Bloggerspassion
Authority is a critical element to blogging success.
We all know that a strong reputation and authority can take your blog to another level, but how exactly do you go about gaining authority?
Here are seven key things to focus on that’ll help you build your authority within your industry.
1. Next-level content
You’ve probably heard the term quality content a lot. And it may be obvious, but it’s something you can’t overlook.
Sure, you’re going to need more than quality content but it provides an important foundation that you can build.
All of your marketing and promotional efforts will be far easier if you have quality content to back it up. Without quality content, it’ll be like trying to swim up stream – hard work!
The phrase quality content has been thrown a about a lot and it’s difficult to know exactly what constitutes quality content. A good way to approach this is to look at the content your competitors are publishing. Take inspiration from the good and leave out the bad – add your own unique take and you’ve got a winning recipe for authority boosting content.
Action steps:
1. Prioritise quality over quantity – Don’t feel like you need to publish a new post every day. Be sure that your posting frequency allows you to dedicate the time you need for each post.
2. Write and publish cornerstone content – Your blog should have at least several cornerstone articles. You may have seen these referred to as epic posts, pillar posts, or something else. Ultimately, they’re simply an extremely in-depth article that earns links, subscribers, and shares.
3. Break the mould – The web is full of people all vying for the same attention you are. Let your own unique experience shine through in the content you create.
2. Personal connection
Human interaction plays a key role in any successful blogging strategy. Blogging is more than just writing articles and hitting publish.
You have to work towards building a strong relationship with your readers. As a result, readers will share your content and link to it. That leads to better search rankings, and even more traffic.
Think about the bloggers that you respect and view as authorities. Almost all of them are bloggers who have consistently work at connecting with their readers.
It’s that personal connection that makes them memorable.
And you can do the same by teaching, motivating, inspiring, and building bonds.
Action steps:
1. Be human – Using your photo can go a long way towards helping your readers feel more connected to you. Video content and podcasts can take this to the next level.
2. Be accessible and approachable – Whenever possible, reply to all blog comments and emails that you receive from your readers.
3. Create a strong about page – The importance of an about page is often overlooked. Use this page to help people get to know you and connect with you.
4. Take a smart approach to social media – There’s more to social media than sharing your blog posts. There are so many opportunities for you to connect with your followers and reach new followers. Interaction is key. Check out David Hartshorne’s post on social media management tools – these can save you a lot of time when replying to followers & scheduling updates.
3. Get more eyeballs on your content
One of the harsh realities of blogging is that you could spend weeks creating the best piece of content ever, but if you don’t promote it effectively – nobody will see it.
And you’ll have missed the opportunity to build your authority with that content.
It’s a shame because of the best articles on the web aren’t promoted and simply gather dust in a corner of the web where nobody will ever find it.
So, it’s critical that you take steps to put your content directly in front of your target audience. Ideally you should split your time in half between content creation and content promotion.
Getting exposure for your blog isn’t easy, which is why you should initially focus on making strong connections with other bloggers in your niche.
If you look at other successful bloggers, you’ll soon notice that they’re surrounded by an extremely strong network. Typically of other influential bloggers.
An easy way to get started is to engage with influential folks in your niche. This could be by leaving comments on their blog, replying to social media updates, or something similar. But, the most effective way is to get in their inbox by signing up to their email list & engaging there. You’ll be surprised at how well this works.
The great thing is there are loads of ways you can go about promoting your blog, and your content.
To get a complete idea of exactly which tactics to use, I’d recommend reading my article on content promotion tactics.
Action steps:
1. Identify and connect with influencers – Chances are you’ll already know who is influential in your niche. Go sign up for their email newsletters, follow them on social, and start engaging.
2. Leverage the power of content promotion platforms – Quuu Promote and Triberr can help you get your content shared.
3. Build your social media following – You need to give people a reason to follow you. The all important factor most people miss is to share content that will make people want to follow you. Some platforms like Twitter aren’t so good for attracting an audience, however, platforms like YouTube are great.
4. Leverage the power of Pinterest – Pinterest can be a traffic powerhouse and vertical images typically perform best. The only challenge is that most blogs have horizontal featured images. An easy way to get around this is to use a WordPress social media plugin like Social Snap. Additionally, the plugin will add a bunch of other features such as share buttons for your images.
4. Turn fans into evangelists
A big part of building your reputation and establishing yourself as an authority boils down to how people perceive you. Not your knowledge, experience, or how great your content is.
The smartest and most talented people aren’t always the ones who are viewed as experts. Perception is influenced by what other people are saying. As a blogger who is looking to build authority, you’ll need to have loyal followers that tell others about you.
They could be spreading the word by sharing your posts on social media, by linking to you from their own content, or by publishing an interview with you. Then there’s good old word of mouth.
These evangelists are critical because they can influence the perception of others in your target audience. You could have the best content on your blog but they’ll only start to see you as an authority when they see other people sharing your content or mentioning you.
In order to do this, encouraging repeat visitors is critical. The more people revisit your site and consume your content, the bigger impact you’ll have on their lives. As such, they’ll be more likely to share your content (and link to it).
Action steps:
1. Build an email list – Email is immediate and it’s personal. It’s one of the best ways of reaching people and gives you a reason to be in someone’s inbox regularly. Check out my post on list building strategy to learn how to get more email subscribers.
2. Share other people’s content – If you want other bloggers to share your posts on social media and link to your content, you’ll need to do the same thing for them. Typically, some bloggers will reciprocate – especially if you let them know about it. To get the most mileage out of this, it’s worth connecting with mid-tier influencers, rather than celebrities in your niche.
3. Reply to all comments and messages – Readers that comment on your blog posts and social media updates are the most likely to spread the word about your blog. Show them that you care and appreciate them by replying to them and thanking them.
4. Encourage social sharing – It’s critical that you take every step possible to make it easy for people to share, and even prompt them to do so. This includes adding social share buttons, click-to-tweet widgets, media sharing, and more. I like to use a WordPress plugin called Social Snap which handles these tasks and more.
5. Focus your blog on a specific topic
Another key to building authority is to have a blog that is tightly focused around a specific topic. Resist the urge to publish content on a wide variety of topics.
If you think back to the blogs you perceive to be authorities, you’ll notice that all of them are focused on a specific topic, or a specific audience.
For example, ConversionXL.com focuses on conversion rate optimization (CRO). As such, when I think of CRO related content, they’re one of the first websites I think of.
Without this level of focus, it’s near impossible to become a leader in your niche. And sure, your blog may not need to be quite so tightly focused, but sticking to one topic gives readers an idea on what to expect.
Action steps:
1. Define your target audience – Think about the people you want to reach. What blogs do they read? What challenges do they face? And how can you help with those challenges? These are the questions you need to be asking. Then you’ll need to fill in this sentence: My blog helps ___________ to ________________.
If you need more help, read our post on how to choose a blog niche.
2. Plan your topic ideas – Once you know who you are trying to help, and what topic you’ll be focusing on, it’s time to plan out content ideas. I’m a big fan of SEMrush for content planning, but you can glean a lot of insights from a Q&A platform like Quora.com.
6. Be consistent
In order for people to view you as an authority and to be on their minds when they are thinking of experts in their field, you need to get your content in front of them consistently.
By consistently delivering quality content, you can build your reputation and each post you publish will help you reach new readers.
You don’t have to publish new posts constantly, but you will need to publish content frequently enough that you stay on people’s minds. And the more content you publish, the more chances you have to reach new readers and increase your traffic.
There’s no set publishing frequency you need to follow. The right posting frequency will vary from one blog to the next. For authority sites, publishing 1-3 posts per week is a good amount. But there are plenty of well respected bloggers that publish less frequently.
You may even want to publish more frequently as you’re getting started, and slow down once you’ve built your reputation.
When I first started Blogging Wizard in 2012, I was publishing 3 times each week. This was a challenge to maintain because I was working full-time and I also ran a video game blog with a friend. After 2-3 years I started to slow down.
I’d also change up the frequency of new content depending on how significant each post was. For example, if I was publishing a huge group interview one week, I wouldn’t publish other content since my audience would roughly have the same amount of content to consume.
Action steps:
1. Set an editorial calendar (that you’ll stick to!) – Decide on how often you want to publish content and which days you’ll publish new posts. You don’t always have to post on the same days each week but it’s worth trying to as it’ll give your audience an idea of when to look out for new posts. Take the topic ideas you create earlier and write them ahead of time. The more content you have ahead of time, the better. For more information, check out Elna Cain’s article on creating an editorial calendar.
2. Plan your schedule accordingly – You’ll want to block out time in your schedule for certain tasks. One approach some writers use is “batching” where they’ll write content in batches, then they’ll proofread in another batch.
7. Be patient
It’s important that you set expectations for yourself right away. You won’t become authority overnight – it takes a sustained effort over time.
Be patient and keep working towards your goal by writing new posts, networking with other bloggers, connecting with your readers, and promoting your content.
Action steps:
1. Set goals based on actions (not milestones) – Instead of setting yourself targets based on revenue, traffic, or subscribers, set goals based on actions you’ll take. Milestones are great but it’s the actions that will get you there. For example, goals such as “publish 5 guest posts on other blogs this month” or “create a new product this month”.
2. Celebrate every victory regardless of how small – Most bloggers will stay focused on a single goal and plug away until they reach it. And while these large milestones are great, it’s important that you celebrate small victories too. Maybe you’ve hit 100 subscribers, or 500 Twitter followers. Maybe you’ve hit your first 1,000 monthly visitors – celebrate them all. It’s all progress and it’s all worth celebrating
If you want to learn how to start a blog so you can grow an audience and make money, you’ve come to the right place.
With over 3 million readers, we’re one of the world’s biggest websites about blogging. We’ve helped thousands of people start a blog, improve their writing skills, and earn real, tangible income online. And today, we’re going to help you.
In this massive, in-depth guide:
We’ll walk you through the step-by-step process for starting a blog, answer some common blogging questions, and show you free tools and resources that’ll put you on the path to success.
You’ll follow the steps, create your own blog, and start padding your wallet with tens and twenties.
Sound good?
We’ll begin with the question we hear most often…
Should I Start a Blog in 2019?
We’re asked many questions by readers —
How do bloggers make money?
Can I start a blog for free?
How do I choose a good domain name for my blog?
— but they all take a back seat to this one:
Why start a blog? Should I start a blog?
With the dominance of video content on YouTube and Facebook, plus the emergence of “microblogging” platforms like Instagram and Twitter, it’s reasonable to wonder if the whole idea of blogging is a little… well, out of date.
However, the numbers tell a different story:
Tens of thousands of new blogs are created each day
According to Statista, the number of bloggers in the United States alone is set to reach 31.7 million by 2020
On WordPress, 70 million new blog posts are written every month
Market researchers estimate more than 75% of Internet users read blogs on a regular basis
Content marketing, which includes blogging, is now a $300 billion industry
In other words:
If your goals are to build an audience and make money online, the question isn’t should you start a blog in 2019 — it’s why wouldn’t you?
So, yes, you should start a blog.
Right now.
And we’re going to show you how, step by step:
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1. Pick the Right Blog Topic
Common Blog Topic Questions:
What are the most popular blog topics?
How do I come up with a blog idea?
What should I blog about?
How to choose blog topics?
What if I don’t know what to blog about?
We get questions like these a lot, and they usually come from people at their wit’s end.
Want to know the big problem with blogging?
Most people don’t know there’s a huge chance of failure, so they spend months or even years creating a blog that has zero chance of succeeding. Eventually, they give up and start over, but again, they invest months or even years into creating a second (or third or fourth) blog that doesn’t work.
The reason?
It’s not because they’re dumb. And it’s not because they’re lazy.
It’s because they’re choosing the wrong blog topic.
Granted, if you’re starting a personal blog, the rules are different. Do you enjoy the topic? Is it fun? Those are the only two questions that should matter to you.
But if you’re looking to start a blog that will bring in traffic…
If you want to create a blog that will generate passive income…
You need to choose a viable blog topic that has a fighting chance to succeed. Because here’s the part that’s tough to swallow:
The good news is we’re going to show you how to pick a winner.
And it’s a lot simpler than you’d think.
How to Choose a Winning Blog Topic
Jot down a list of topics that interest you.
These could be your hobbies, topics you suspect are highly profitable, or something random you read in a magazine while waiting to see the dentist.
To be a viable blog topic, you need to be able to answer “yes” to these five questions:
Do any existing blogs on this topic have a Facebook page with more than 10k fans?
Do any blogs on this topic have more than 50k followers on Twitter?
Does Amazon have any books with more than 30 reviews on this topic?
When you search for words and phrases related to this topic, are there any Google ads?
Do any words or phrases related to this topic have more than 100k searches in Google’s Keyword Planner tool?
These questions will let you know whether or not there’s an existing audience for your topic.
Here’s why this is important:
Too many bloggers try to be cute. They hunt for an audience no one else is serving. They think, “if there’s no competition for this topic, creating a successful blog will be easy!”
Wrong.
If there are no competitors, who will link to you? Where will your audience come from? How the heck will anyone find you?
It’s counterintuitive, but the more competition there is in a blogging space, the easier it is for a new blogger to find success in that space.
So, don’t try to be unique. Don’t try to be too clever.
Pick a blog topic that has an existing audience and popular blogs already vying for the audience’s attention.
Further Reading: If you want to scrutinize your potential blog topics a bit further, 21 Warning Signs You Chose the Wrong Topic for Your Blog has additional insights you may find helpful.
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2. Choose the Right Blogging Platform
Common Blogging Platform Questions:
Which blogging platform is best for making money?
What are the best blogging platforms?
How do I start a blog for free?
Which free blog platform is best?
What are the most popular blogging platforms?
We’ll keep this section brief:
There are several free blogging platforms out there, and for what they are, and what they do, they offer solid value.
In fact, we’re big proponents of bloggers starting with a free Medium.com account so they can test their ideas and make sure they’re viable before creating a full-fledged blog.
But once you’re ready to build an audience and make money online, there’s only one blogging platform you should consider:
WordPress.
Or, more specifically, self-hosted WordPress.
Note: A self-hosted WordPress blog and WordPress.com aren’t the same thing. If you’re unsure of the differences, check out The 5 Best Free Blogging Platforms in 2019 (100% Unbiased).
As of this writing, 34.6% of all websites use WordPress — including heavyweights like TechCrunch, the Star Wars blog, Mercedes-Benz, and, yes, Smart Blogger.
With virtually unlimited plugins you can install, customizations you can make, and designs you can implement, a self-hosted WordPress blog offers flexibility the free blogging platforms can’t match.
Yes, WordPress is technically free too. However, as we explain in the article linked above:
Just like there’s no such thing as a free puppy (once you factor in food, veterinarian bills, and replacing all your shoes after they’ve become chew toys), WordPress.org’s software isn’t actually free once you add up the other expenses.
Because it’s self-hosted, you have to purchase a hosting plan so you can install WordPress on your own web host. That costs money (unless you choose free hosting — more on that later). You also have to purchase your own domain name, which we’ll discuss in a moment.
But don’t let these relatively minor expenses deter you.
If you’re serious about blogging, building an audience, and monetizing your content, you need to set up your blog on a rock-solid foundation.
You need WordPress.
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3. Choose a Domain Name
Common Domain Name Questions:
How do I choose a good domain name for my blog?
What do I need to know before buying a domain name?
How do I come up with a good blog name?
Who is the best domain name registrar?
Put yourselves in the shoes of a visitor.
You’re browsing the web, and you see a headline for a blog post that catches your attention. Maybe a friend on Facebook shared it with you, maybe it came up on a Google search, or maybe it’s just a link in another article you’re reading.
Regardless, you click the link and, consciously or not, you’re asking yourself a single question as you browse through it…
“Is this for me?“
Within a few seconds, you have to decide whether to keep reading the post or move on to something else, and the only way you’ll stay is if it’s relevant to you. Not just the post, either. When you’re deciding, you’ll take in the design of the page, other post headlines, and, yes, the domain name.
For example, consider Entrepreneur.com. Is there any doubt who the site is for? Entrepreneurs, of course!
How about BeABetterBlogger.com? Obviously, it’s for people who want to become better bloggers.
Neither names are clever, but they help you decide to stay or go by clearly articulating who they are helping. That’s what a good domain name does.
Of course, all the great domain names are taken, right?
Not necessarily.
How to Choose a Domain Name for Your Blog
Here are three different methods for finding the perfect domain name:
Name the audience. The simplest way to get a clear domain name is to call out the audience in the domain itself. (Examples: SmartBlogger.com, CouchPotato.com, AFineParent.com)
Name the topic. If your blog focuses on a specific topic, try finding a domain name that describes it in clear, concise language. (Examples: ArtofManliness.com, BudgetsAreSexy.com, PaleoHacks.com)
Name the benefit. Why should people stick around? If you have a good answer, sometimes you can turn it into a new domain name that really stands out. (Examples: BeABetterBlogger.com, MakeALivingWriting.com, BiggerPockets.com)
Our suggestion:
Use these three strategies to make a list of 10-20 domain names you’d be happy having. You can write them out in a word processor or, if you want to get fancy, you can use a blog name generator tool like NameStation to produce a lot of ideas at once.
Once you’re finished brainstorming, head over to a domain registrar like Namecheap (affiliate link) to see if the domain names are available.
Namecheap’s Beast Mode will let you search for up to 5,000 domain names at one time. You can access it by clicking the “Use Beast Mode…” link at the top of the page, or by entering a keyword and clicking “Beast Mode” next to the search button:
Sometimes you get lucky, and one of your favorites is available. If not, you either have to head back to the drawing board for another brainstorming session, or you can go to a premium domain name marketplace like Sedo.
Either way, a few words of advice:
Don’t get hung up on your domain name. While it’s certainly helpful to have a good one, there are thousands of hugely popular sites with terrible domain names no one understands.
In other words, it’s not really a “make or break” factor for your site. Give yourself a few days or maybe a week to brainstorm ideas, and then make a decision.
Further Reading: If you’re stuck, How to Choose a Domain Name (+ 30 Blog Name Generators!) has additional tips to help you choose the right domain name for your blog.
If you’re not familiar with the term, a “web host” is kind of like a warehouse for websites on the Internet. You pay a small fee to keep your website on the Internet, handle all your visitors, back up your website, and so on.
Editor’s Note: If you’re on a tight budget, check out 11 Free WordPress Hosting Services That Don’t Suck. None of the free options discussed will be able to stand toe to toe with premium web hosts, but if “cost” is your chief concern you’ll want to check it out.
There are a gazillion different WordPress hosts out there, but the one we recommend to our students is SiteGround (affiliate link).
SiteGround is like one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants that’s both affordable and really freaking good, and it’s quite possibly the best web host out there for beginner bloggers.
Here are a few of our favorite features:
A technical support team knowledgeable in WordPress
A built-in Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up your site
Free SSL certificates (so Google will know your site can be trusted)
Daily backups (so you never lose your data)
And if you’re a new customer, SiteGround offers a 60% discount.
Note: Though it’s possible to buy your web hosting from the same place you registered your domain name (in fact, Bluehost and GoDaddy offer a free domain name for the first year), we don’t recommend it. If you ever decide to switch to a different web hosting company later, the process can be tricky. By keeping your domain registrar and web host separate, you can save yourself future headaches.
How to Purchase Web Hosting at SiteGround
Go to SiteGround (affiliate link) and click the GET PLAN button underneath the managed WordPress hosting option that best fits your needs.
For beginners, we recommend the StartUp plan:
On the next screen, do the following:
Click the I already have a Domain option
Enter the domain name you purchased earlier from Namecheap (Example: kevinjduncan.com)
Click the PROCEED button
On the final screen, you’ll complete four sections:
Account Information (your email address and password)
Client Information (your name, mailing address, and phone number)
Payment Information (Visa, Mastercard, and Discover are accepted)
Purchase Information (billing period, [optional] extra services)
Let’s look at Purchase Information in more detail:
If you choose a 12-month billing period with no extra services or add-ons, your 1-year total will be $47.40.
Note: As highlighted in the screenshot above, the special $3.95/month price is only for your first invoice. When it’s time to renew, you’ll pay SiteGround’s regular price. So, the longer your billing period (12 months vs. 24 months vs. 36 months), the longer you’ll enjoy the discounted price.
Decline the Extra Services, review your order, and click the PAY NOW button.
Now it’s time to connect it to your Namecheap domain name…
How to Point Your Domain Name to Your Web Host
This next part is a little technical, but we’ll make it as simple and painless as possible.
To connect your Namecheap domain name with your SiteGround hosting account, follow these steps:
Sign into your Namecheap account.
Click Domain List on the left-hand sidebar and select MANAGE next to your domain (if you just purchased the domain name, you can also select it from your account’s main Dashboard).
In the Nameservers section, choose Custom DNS from the drop-down menu.
Enter your SiteGround name servers. To find them, log into your SiteGround account, click the Go to cPanel button, and copy the Name Servers listed in the ACCOUNT INFORMATION section.
Save your changes in Namecheap by clicking the green checkmark.
That’s it.
If you need a handy visual, here’s a short YouTube video from Keri Lawrence that’ll walk you through the process:
With your new domain and web host connected, it’s time to set up WordPress.
Thankfully, SiteGround makes this ridiculously easy — no cPanel or localhost know-how required.
After logging into your SiteGround user panel for the first time, the Account Setup Wizard will appear as a pop-up window:
As shown in the screenshot above, click the Start a new website option and select WordPress as the software you want to install.
Next, you’ll create the login details for your WordPress account:
Enter your preferred email address, a good username, and a strong password.
Tip: Your username will be visible to the public, so keep that in mind. Also, for security purposes, don’t use “admin” as your username. That’s the default username for WordPress installs, which makes it a target for hackers.
Click the Confirm button to continue.
Finally, after reading the SiteGround Terms of Service, you’ll click the Complete Setup button.
And that’s all there is to it.
SiteGround will now install WordPress for you. In just a few short minutes, you’ll be ready to log into your WordPress Dashboard.
Further Reading: Didn’t choose SiteGround as your web host? How to Install WordPress in 5 Minutes or Less will walk you through the WordPress installation steps for a dozen popular hosting providers, as well as how to install it on a Mac, PC, via cPanel, and more.
How to Log Into the WordPress Dashboard
In your favorite web browser, go to your WordPress login URL by appending /wp-admin (or /admin or /login or /wp-login) to the end of your domain name.
Examples:
yourdomain.com/wp-admin
www.yourdomain.com/admin
yourdomain.com/login
www.yourdomain.com/wp-login
You’ll be taken to your WordPress login page:
Enter the username and password you created earlier.
Click Log In.
Your WordPress dashboard will look similar to this:
Now for the fun part. Let’s begin customizing your WordPress site.
We’ll start by giving it a new coat of paint.
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6. Design Your Blog by Choosing a WordPress Theme
Common WordPress Theme Questions:
What are WordPress themes?
How do I choose a WordPress theme?
How many WordPress themes are there?
Are there any good free themes?
What is the most popular free WordPress theme?
Before we begin customizing your WordPress site, we need to be clear about something:
Your content matters more than anything else.
You can have a site that’s ugly, clunky, and slow, but if you have great content, you can still get traffic and earn passive income. Not the opposite, though. You can have the most beautiful, user-friendly website online, but if the content sucks, nobody will care about you.
So, don’t allow yourself to get lost in these details. Focus on making your website functional, and then you can always come back and make it unique or beautiful later.
Make sense? Good.
Now, let’s go over how you can find a great design for your website.
How to Choose a WordPress Theme
In WordPress, your “theme” is the design of your website. It dictates how your blog looks to the world.
There are tens of thousands of theme options out there for you to choose from — some free, some that cost money.
You might think having so many options is a good thing, but it’s actually the opposite. In his book The Paradox of Choice (affiliate link), psychologist Barry Schwartz says having too many choices can lead to decision-making paralysis.
In other words…
The more options you have available, the more likely you are to choose none of the options.
So, we’re going to keep this very simple:
If you want a free WordPress theme, choose Astra (affiliate link)
If you want a premium WordPress theme, choose Astra Pro (affiliate link)
And if you want an advanced page builder that’ll let you customize your design to your heart’s content, choose Elementor Pro (affiliate link)
Pick the WordPress theme that best fits your situation and needs.
Download it.
Now, let’s install it.
How to Install WordPress Themes
To install a WordPress theme, follow these steps:
In the left-hand navigation pane, go to Appearance
Choose Themes
Click the Add New button
From here, there are two paths you can take:
Search themes… from WordPress.org’s huge directory of free WordPress themes, or
Click the Upload Theme button to install a WordPress theme you downloaded from a third party (like Astra or Elementor).
Let’s walk through both paths:
Path #1: Install a New Theme From WordPress.org’s Directory
If you want to install a free theme from WordPress.org:
Enter a theme name or a desired feature (Example: “minimalist”) in the Search themes… field
Click the Install button
Path #2: Install a Thirty-Party WordPress Theme
If you want to install a WordPress theme you downloaded from a third party, click the Upload Theme button and:
Click the Choose File button
Find the third-party theme you downloaded to your computer (Example: premium-theme.zip) and select it
Click the Install Now button
Whether you choose a free theme or a premium theme, you’ll “activate” it the same way.
We’ll show you how to do that next:
How to Activate a WordPress Theme
Immediately after installing your WordPress theme, you’ll be given the options to “Activate” or “Preview” it.
If you want to immediately publish the theme to your website, click the Activate button. Otherwise:
In the left-hand navigation pane, go to Appearance
Choose Themes
You’ll then see every theme you’ve installed, including the “default” themes that are installed automatically by WordPress.
Find the theme you want to use and click the Activate button:
And that’s it.
Your fancy new blog design is now visible to the world!
But is your blog ready for the world? Not yet.
First, we need to improve its functionality. And we’ll start by installing a few WordPress plugins.
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7. Install WordPress Plugins
Common WordPress Plugin Questions:
What are WordPress plugins?
How do I use WordPress plugins?
How do I add WordPress plugins?
Are WordPress plugins free?
WordPress is packed with features. Plugins add even more.
From the 50,000+ free or freemium plugins in the WordPress.org repository to the thousands of premium plugins available from third parties, there is a WordPress plugin for virtually everything.
With so many options available, and with so many articles littered across the web touting “must-have” and “essential” WordPress plugins, most beginner bloggers go overboard. They install so many plugins, their sites slow to a crawl.
Here’s the thing:
There are specific categories or types of WordPress plugins you absolutely need; however, there’s no such thing as an essential plugin.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is giving bad information.
In this next section, we’re going to go over the six categories of WordPress plugins you need to install. And yes, we’ll have a plugin recommendation for each category.
But if you don’t like one of our recommendations, that’s okay. Simply find a different plugin that offers similar functionality.
The 6 Types of WordPress Plugins You Need to Install (+ Recommendations)
Performance Plugins (Our Pick: WP Super Cache)
Security Plugins (Our Pick: iThemes Security)
Backup Plugins (Our Pick: UpdraftPlus)
SEO Plugins (Our Pick: Yoast SEO)
Social Sharing Plugins (Our Pick: Social Warfare)
Email List Building Plugins (Our Pick: Convert Pro)
1. Performance Plugins (Our Pick: WP Super Cache)
Why you need a performance plugin: If your blog is slow, your readers will bounce and Google will rank you lower in search engine results. A good performance optimization plugin will “cache” your content so it loads faster.
Why we recommend WP Super Cache: W3 Total Cache is another good option, but we prefer WP Super Cache for its simplicity. The fact it’s maintained by the company behind WordPress, Automattic, doesn’t hurt.
What’s the cost? It’s free.
Further Reading: To learn the ins and outs of WP Super Cache, including detailed steps for how to customize it, check out WP Super Cache Made Easy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Speeding Up Your Site.
Note: If you go with SiteGround (affiliate link) as your web host, as we recommended earlier, you won’t need to install a performance plugin like WP Super Cache. SiteGround has its own caching plugin, and it only takes about a minute to set up.
2. Security Plugins (Our Pick: iThemes Security)
Why you need a security plugin: On average, around 30,000 websites are hacked each day. If your idea of securing your blog is simply having a good password, you’re asking for trouble.
Why we recommend iThemes Security: Formerly known as Better WP Security, iThemes Security offers a one-click setup wizard that makes protecting your site easy.
What’s the cost? iThemes Security is free, but they also offer a pro version with extra features.
3. Backup Plugins (Our Pick: UpdraftPlus)
Why you need a backup plugin: Because smart bloggers are always prepared.
Why we recommend UpdraftPlus: It strikes a good balance between flexibility, features, and ease of use. It has a 4.8 out of 5.0 rating on the WordPress plugin repository, and it’s actively updated by its developers.
What’s the cost? UpdraftPlus is free, but they also offer a premium version for $70. Here’s a breakdown of what you get with each plan:
Further Reading: For step-by-step instructions for UpdraftPlus, as well as looks at five other backup plugin options, check out 6 Best WordPress Backup Plugins Compared (100% Objective).
4. SEO Plugins (Our Pick: Yoast SEO)
Why you need a SEO plugin: If you want traffic, you need Google to love your content. By using a good SEO plugin, you can make sure your blog posts are putting their best feet forward.
Why we recommend Yoast SEO: It’s the gold standard of WordPress SEO plugins.
What’s the cost? Yoast SEO has both free and premium versions. Its free version offers everything you need.
5. Social Sharing Plugins (Our Pick: Social Warfare)
Why you need a social sharing plugin: By making it easy for your existing readers to share your posts on their favorite social media channels, social sharing buttons help get more eyes on your quality content.
Why we recommend Social Warfare (affiliate link): There are a lot of social media plugins out there, but we like Social Warfare because it’s lightweight (e.g. doesn’t slow down your website) and offers unique features like “Click to Tweet” boxes and Pinterest-specific images.
What’s the cost? Social Warfare has both a free and pro version. Its free version offers all the basics you’ll need, but if you decide to upgrade the pro version is only $29 (paid annually).
6. Email List Building Plugins (Our Pick: Convert Pro)
Why you need an email list building plugin: If you want your blog and business to grow, turning traffic into leads is a must. You need a way to capture the email addresses of your readers so you can continue to engage with them.
Why we recommend Convert Pro (affiliate link): Its drag-and-drop editor for creating pop-ups is the most user friendly option we’ve used.
What’s the cost? Convert Pro isn’t free. It costs $99 annually, or $399 for a lifetime license. If cost is a concern, consider the free version of Sumo, which has some great features, but includes company branding.
Further Reading: For more insights on list building plugins for WordPress, check out 9 Plugins for Growing Your Email List That Work So Well It Feels Like Cheating.
How to Install WordPress Plugins
Now that we’ve gone over the types of plugins you need, let’s walk through the steps for installing them.
It’s really simple:
In the left-hand navigation pane inside your dashboard, go to Plugins
Choose Add New
You then have two paths you can take:
Click the Upload Plugin button (if you downloaded a third-party plugin like Convert Pro), or
Enter the name of the plugin in the Search plugins… field (if you want to find a free plugin from the WordPress.org repository)
Let’s quickly go over both paths:
Path #1: Install a Thirty-Party WordPress Plugin
If you want to install a WordPress plugin you downloaded from a third-party website, click the Upload Plugin button and:
Click the Choose File button
Find the third-party theme you downloaded to your computer (Example: convert-pro.zip) and select it
Click the Install Now button
Path #2: Install a Plugin From WordPress.org’s Directory
If you want to install a plugin from WordPress.org:
Enter the plugin name (Example: “wp super cache”) in the Search plugins… field
Click the Install button
Told you it was simple.
Of course, just like when we installed a WordPress theme, there’s one more step to take to “activate” your plugin.
Let’s go over that next:
How to Activate a WordPress Plugin
Whether you choose a free plugin from WordPress.org or a premium plugin from a third-party website, you’ll turn it on the same way.
You can click the Activate button that appears immediately after you install it:
Or:
In the left-hand navigation pane, go to Plugins
Choose Installed Plugins
Find your plugin and click Activate
Done.
Further Reading: To view a larger list of plugins and tools we recommend, check out 28 Blogging Tools That’ll Up Your Game.
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8. Blog Set Up & SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Common SEO Questions:
How can I improve my SEO performance?
How do I fix my WordPress URL?
Is SEO important?
How do I change my website from http to https?
Volumes have been written about on-page SEO, off-page SEO, Google RankBrain, keyword research, search intent, Google Analytics, and all the other intricacies surrounding the ins and outs of getting ranked higher in SERPs (search engine results pages).
We’re going to be straight with you:
If you want to start a blog that brings in traffic, if you want to catapult your content to page one of Google, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and learn SEO.
We’ll give you some great reading material in a moment. But first, let’s cover the SEO basics you need to know when doing a new blog set up — the kind of SEO basics often missed in advanced tutorials.
We’ll start with the easiest one.
Make Sure Google Can Find Your Website
To ensure search engines like Google and Bing can find your blog, you need to make sure the following is unchecked:
In the left-hand navigation pane of your WordPress dashboard, hover over Settings
Click Reading
Confirm “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unchecked
Create an XML Sitemap (and Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines)
First, a quick definition from Google:
A sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them. Search engines like Google read this file to more intelligently crawl your site. What is a sitemap?
When your blog is new and has few external links pointing to it, a sitemap helps ensure Google is able to discover the amazing content you create.
So, let’s go over how you create a sitemap (and how you can let Google know it exists).
How to Create an XML Sitemap
If you installed and activated the Yoast SEO plugin we recommended earlier, creating a sitemap is a snap.
In the left-hand navigation pane of your WordPress dashboard, hover over SEO
Click General
Click the Features tab
Scroll down to the XML sitemaps option and make sure the switch is toggled to On
You now have an XML sitemap for your blog. Next, we need to give it to Google, Bing, and other search engines.
So before we leave the Yoast SEO plugin, let’s copy the URL of your sitemap:
Click the question mark icon next to XML sitemaps
Click the See the XML sitemap link
Your sitemap will open in a new tab in your browser.
Copy the URL in the address bar and save it.
How to Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines
The steps for submitting your sitemap differs from search engine to search engine. We’ll quickly go over the most popular ones, starting with Google:
Note: If you haven’t yet added your website to Google Search Console, you’ll need to click “Add property” and follow the steps provided before continuing below.
Under Index, click the Sitemaps option
In the Add a new sitemap section, enter the URL you saved earlier and click Submit
Submit your Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools
Log into Bing Webmaster Tools (you’ll need to create an account if you have not yet done so)
Under the My Sites section, click your website
Note: If you haven’t yet added your website to Bing Webmaster Tools, enter your blog’s URL in the Add a Site section and click the ADD button.
In the left-hand pane, click Configure My Site and choose Sitemaps
Enter the URL of your sitemap in the Submit a sitemap section and click the Submit button
And that’s it.
You’ve successfully submitted your sitemap to Google and Bing.
Change Permalinks Structure
By default, WordPress sets the links on your blog to the following format:
yourdomain.com/?p=123
Why do they do this? No one knows for sure. “For grins and giggles” is the theory we’re going with.
But regardless of the reason, you need to update this link structure before you publish a single piece of content.
Here’s how you do it:
In the left-hand navigation pane, hover over Settings
Click Permalinks
Under Common Settings, set the option to Post name
Now your links will look like this:
yourdomain.com/how-to-brew-coffee
www.yourdomain.com/seo-tips
yourdomain.com/social-media-strategies
Not only is this link structure better for your readers, but it’s better for search engines like Google too.
Install an SSL Certificate (So Your URL Begins With https Instead of http)
Speaking of things Google likes…
You absolutely, positively must install an SSL certificate for your website. Here’s why:
Readers will know your website is safe
Your website will be safe thanks to the encryption of readers’ sensitive data and personal info
Google sees it as a ranking signal, which means not having an SSL certificate will hurt your content’s rankings in search results
Okay, so what is an SSL certificate? How do you know if a website has one or not?
Look for a secure padlock and https in a website’s URL:
If the URL has them, the website is secure. If it doesn’t, it isn’t.
How to Install an SSL Certificate
Your web hosting package from SiteGround (affiliate link) includes free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt.
Here’s how you install them:
Log into your SiteGround account
Click the Go to cPanel button
In the Security section, click Let’s Encrypt
Select your domain name, choose the Let’s Encrypt SSL option, and click the Install button
A few moments later, your SSL certificate will be up and running!
Block navigation (a drop-down displaying all the block types used in the post)
Next, the sidebar navigation:
Sidebar Navigation in Gutenberg
Preview and Publish the post
Categories, tags, permalink, and publishing options
Block settings (unique options dependent on the type of block you’re using
Hide the sidebar
More editor settings
How to Add a Block in the Block Editor
Click the plus (+) sign in the top-left corner.
Choose the category and the type of block you want to add:
Each block can be edited, deleted, saved as reusable, and moved up or down with drag-and-drop options:
Don’t worry — WordPress blocks, widgets, and the like will get easier the more you use them.
Now let’s tackle the writing questions we hear most often from bloggers.
Question: “How Do I Find Blog Post Ideas?”
We typically recommend two methods:
1. Use BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a tool that lets you find popular posts on social media. If you need inspiration, what’s easier than browsing content that’s already doing well with your target audience?
2. Find the Thing That Keeps Your Readers Awake at Night
In other words:
What has your readers tossing and turning at two o’clock in the morning?
Are they wondering how to get more traffic to their blogs? Are they suffering from writer imposter syndrome? Or maybe they’re struggling with blog promotion?
Bloggers who are able to answer this burning issue, and who make a concerted effort to write about it and only it, have a leg up on the competition.
So, find your readers’ pain point. And then focus on helping them solve it.
Further Reading: If you need more ideas, check out 255 Blog Post Ideas That’ll Tantalize Your Readers in 2019.
Question: “How Do You Write a Good Headline?”
Copy the professionals.
Browse Smart Blogger and your other favorite blogs. Look for patterns. You should notice “list” and “how to” headlines are quite popular.
There’s a reason for this:
Decades of copywriting and advertising research have revealed certain types of headlines convert better than others.
Why mess with what works?
Further Reading: Check out Headline Hacks, our free “cheat sheet” for writing headlines that go viral.
Question: “How Do I Write a Good Introduction?”
There are several good techniques for writing spellbinding introductions. Here are five of our favorites:
Empathize with your reader
Ask a tantlizing opening question
Alternate between short and longer paragraphs — give your writing a rhythm
Use delayed transitions
Use deliberate repetition of certain words to heighten their impact
Each of the above techniques draws the reader in and keeps them engaged. They’ll want to dive deeper into your post to find out what happens next.
Further Reading: How to Write a Blog Post: The Ultimate Guide and How to Write Spellbinding Introductions by Shamelessly Copying the Pros offer more insights on how to craft compelling intros.
Question: “How Can I Increase my Writing Speed?”
Eliminate as many distractions as possible.
This could mean turning off your phone, buying noise-canceling headphones, or even logging out of your email.
One unconventional trick is to turn off your grammar and spellcheck. Those squiggly red lines are your friends when you’re proofreading, but they’re your enemy when you’re trying to write faster.
Further Reading: For more tips on boosting your speed, read How to Write Faster: 10 Crafty Ways to Hit 1,000 Words Per Hour.
Question: “How Can I Improve My Writing Skills?”
It’s cliche, but you have to practice.
When Brian Clark of Copyblogger took a young editor under his wing years ago, he made him write 100 headlines every single day. That editor, who coincidently went on to launch one of the world’s biggest websites about blogging, got really good at writing headlines.
So, practice. Lots and lots of practice. And reading these resources will help too:
600+ Power Words That’ll Pack Your Writing with Emotion — Ever wish there was a shortcut to tap into your readers’ emotions? An easy way to make them feel exactly what you want? Well there is. Power words.
581 Sensory Words to Take Your Writing from Bland to Brilliant — Are your words falling a little flat? Looking for ways to add a little punch and pizzazz to your writing? This massive, in-depth guide tackles a secret weapon used by literary greats, businesses, writers, and bloggers alike: sensory words.
297 Flabby Words and Phrases That Rob Your Writing of All Its Power — Ever worry that your writing lacks power? Did you know that certain words and phrases can weaken your writing without you realizing? Learn which ones here.
Writer’s Block: 27 Techniques to Overcome It Forever — How can you overcome writer’s block? Try these refreshingly original techniques to shake up your inner muse.
Proofreading: 7 Editing Tips That’ll Make You a Better Writer — Ever wonder why your writing lacks the impact of your writing heroes? Find out the simple secret they don’t want you to know.
How to Become a Better Writer: 14 Tips to Up Your Writing Game — Want a resource that summarizes our favorite writing tips? If you’re struggling with your writing skills, reading this post should be your first step.
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10. Boost Your Traffic, Promote Your Blog, and Master Social Media
Common Traffic, Blog Promotion, and Social Media Questions:
How do I compete in a competitive niche?
How can I increase my blog traffic?
Why is social media good for promotion?
How do you promote a blog?
How do I get people to read my blog?
Let’s be honest:
When you’re a beginner blogger, no one is paying attention to you. You could write the most amazing piece of content the world has ever seen, and no one’s going to know it even exists.
Unless…
Unless you tell them about it.
You need to spend just as much time promoting your posts as you do writing them. At a minimum. Ideally, you’ll spend more time promoting them than writing them.
Here are some tips so you can get the most out of your promotional efforts:
Tip #1: Focus on One Social Media Platform
If you try to kick butt on every social media platform, you’re going to fail.
There are simply too many platforms out there, and there’s only so much time in the day. If you try to be everywhere, you’ll drown.
You (probably)
Here’s what you should do instead:
Pick one social media platform. Focus on it. Forget the others (for a long while, anyway).
Which platform depends on where your ideal readers hang out. For some niches, that’ll be Facebook. For others, it’ll be Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram.
Find the best social media platform for your blog’s niche, join it, and dominate it.
Here’s how:
Learn How to do Pinterest (the Right Way)
Depending on your niche and audience, Pinterest can be a significant traffic source.
If your Pinterest game is lacking, check out 9 Ways to Go Viral on Pinterest and Get an Avalanche of Traffic and implement the tips we discuss.
Drive Traffic to Your Site (and Connect With Influencers) Using Twitter
Tweeting is easy.
Tweeting well, and harnessing the power of Twitter to drive traffic to your blog and connect with influencers, is difficult.
In 10 Simple Twitter Tactics That Will Get You More Traffic Today, we offer strategies to get Twitter traffic (and to get onto the radars of influencers).
If Twitter is your social media platform of choice, be sure to read it.
Become a Facebook Kung-fu Master
Whether you love or loathe (or merely tolerate) Facebook, there’s no denying it is huge.
Facebook is so huge that, most likely, regardless of your niche, it’s where most of your readers hang out on social media.
If that’s the case, you need to master it.
These two posts will help:
How to Get 3,241 Facebook Fans per Day Without Paying for Ads (Incredible Case Study)
How to Use Facebook Groups to Get More Traffic and Traction for Your Blog
Answer Questions on Quora
If you’re unfamiliar, Quora is a Q&A platform where anyone can post a question and get answers from experts in the community.
And it’s used by savvy bloggers (like our friends over at Ahrefs), to send traffic to their websites.
To learn more about Quora and how you can use it to boost your blog’s traffic, check out How to Turn Quora into a Traffic-Driving Machine for Your Blog.
Tip #2: Avoid These 4 Traffic Techniques That Are a Waste of Time for Beginners
Traffic strategies have been around for years. As a result, some of them are a bit long in the tooth.
Some of the following traffic techniques are dead (and have been for a while), while some can get you a little traffic but are too time-intensive.
Either way, when you’re a beginner, you should avoid these 4 traffic techniques:
1. Commenting on Popular Blogs
Once upon a time, this used to be effective, but as the blogosphere has grown, and popular blogs have received more and more comment spam, its return on investment has fallen dramatically.
Yes, blog commenting can open doors to a future relationship with the blogger, but if getting click-throughs to your blog is your primary goal, you’re going to be disappointed.
2. Submitting Your Site to Directories
Years ago, submitting your site to directories used to be a viable traffic resource and an essential part of SEO, but the benefits have disappeared.
Here’s what Google’s John Mueller had to say way back in 2017 when he was asked if submitting to directories had any SEO value:
In short, this strategy has been dead for a long time.
3. Trying to go Viral on Reddit, Hacker News, etc.
While these sites can drive enormous traffic, it’s difficult to get your content to the front page until you have lots of readers to vote for it.
Cross this strategy off your list until you hit 1,000 email subscribers (at a minimum).
4. Paying for a Unique Design
You’d think paying for a unique blog design would help establish your legitimacy and lead to more traffic, but in reality, it doesn’t have any effect on traffic at all.
You’re far better off using a free or inexpensive WordPress theme like Astra (affiliate link), and investing the money elsewhere.
Tip #3: Make Powerful Friends by Reaching Out to Influencers
When you’re a beginner blogger, building an audience is difficult.
Want to know a shortcut?
Get someone influential to introduce you to their audience.
Here’s how you do it:
Find the movers and shakers in your niche
Get on their radars
Reach out to them
It sounds easy, but there’s quite a bit of hard work involved. A lot, actually.
And here’s the kicker:
Every other beginner blogger will be doing outreach too. So will experienced bloggers. Even influential bloggers who blog full-time (including the ones you’re trying to connect with) will be doing it.
Every blogger who wants to grow their audience is pounding the pavement and reaching out to other bloggers (or paying someone to do it for them) in the hopes of making powerful friends.
In short, there’s a lot of competition. So if you want your outreach efforts to be effective, you need a solid plan.
Blogger Outreach: How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Content for Free is packed with proven outreach techniques.
Read it and follow it.
Tip #4: Pay for Facebook Ads
We hesitated even including this section.
Here’s the thing:
When you’re starting out, you should not spend money on Facebook ads. Or Google ads. Or whatever LinkedIn is doing these days.
But once you have a solid foundation in place, once you’ve reached 1,000 email subscribers, once you have traffic starting to roll in from Google search results… consider supercharging your efforts by learning the ins and outs of Facebook advertisements.
Here’s a primer to get you started: How I Got 532 Subscribers in 43 Days Using Cheap Facebook Ads.
Further Reading: If you’d like more traffic resources, check out 10 Things You Need to Do After You Publish Your Blog Post and Why Your Site Gets Such Pitiful Traffic (and What to Do about It).
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11. Build Your Email List (Get Started NOW!)
Common Email List Questions:
How do you make an email list from scratch?
What is an ethical bribe or subscriber bribe?
What are the best email marketing services?
Can you make money with email marketing?
If you polled a hundred experienced bloggers who have been around the block or two, and you asked them for their biggest blogging mistake, you’d hear one answer more than any another:
“I wish I started building my email list sooner.”
Learn from their mistakes. Start building your email list on day one. Get started now.
We’ll walk you through the step-by-step process.
1. Pick an Email Marketing Service
There are a lot of good email marketing service providers…
AWeber
ConvertKit
Keap
Drip
…but when you’re starting out, you need to keep your expenses in check wherever you can. That’s why we recommend MailerLite (affiliate link) to our students, which is free for users with 1,000 or fewer subscribers.
Once you hit the magic 1k number, you can either upgrade to one of MailerLite’s paid plans or switch to a different email marketing service provider.
So, don’t overthink it. You need an email marketing provider to start building your email list. Get a solid one that won’t cost you any money.
Using an email list plugin like Convert Pro (affiliate link) or Sumo, place optin forms throughout your website:
In Your Header
Inside Your Content
On a Landing Page
In Pop-Ups
In Your Sidebar
On Your “About” or Contact Form Page
Further Reading: If you need more ideas for where to place opt-in forms, read 10 Creative Places for Opt-In Forms That’ll Supercharge Your Signups.
3. Give People a Reason to Give You Their Email Address by Offering an Ethical Bribe (aka Subscriber Bribe)
Even if they like you, most people won’t give you their email address out of the goodness of the heart.
No, you need to give them a reason.
Ethical bribes (also known as subscriber bribes, lead magnets, opt-in bribes, free offers, free gifts, and content upgrade) give readers a reason to hand over their email address to you.
They give you their email, you give them a free gift.
That’s all there is to it.
The trap many bloggers fall into is they try to get too big and creative with their lead magnet. As a result, they often fail to create one at all.
The lesson?
Keep your subscriber bribe simple. Our recommendation:
Start with a simple, one-page PDF checklist.
If you doubt a highly-focused, one-page download can be useful and appealing to readers, check out the following examples:
Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich once offered a downloadable PDF (“20 Questions Your Financially Unprepared Friends are Afraid Of”) as a lead magnet, which was essentially a single page of useful questions.
MeetEdgar’s Laura Roeder (formerly of LKR Social Media) once offered readers a “Master Blog Strategy Worksheet” — a single page containing nine strategy-related questions.
Copyblogger had “11 Essential Ingredients Every Blog Post Needs” as its ethical bribe, a simple one-pager that was less than 100 words in its entirety.
Each of these one-page checklists was short, simple, and super effective.
With these three steps, you’ll start your blogging journey in a better position than 99% of your competitors.
And when/if you’re ready to learn more about email marketing and building your email list, be sure to check out these helpful resources:
Email Marketing 101: The Simple, Definitive Guide for 2019
How to Run a Simple Contest and Add 500 New Subscribers to Your List
9 Irresistible Incentives That’ll Grow Your Email List Like Crazy
The Ultimate List-Builder’s Resource Guide: 109 Links to Double or Even Triple Your Subscribers
Are You Damaging Your Email List with These 11 Rookie Mistakes?
7 Emails You Should Send Your Subscribers (But Probably Don’t)
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12. Make Money Blogging
Common Make Money Questions:
How do beginner blogs make money?
How do bloggers get paid?
Is blogging still profitable?
What type of blogs make money?
How much time does it take to start making money from blogging?
So, you have a blog and you’re ready to start making money?
Awesome.
In a moment, we’re going to tell you precisely what to do to generate passive income as a beginner blogger.
But first, we’re going to tell you what you shouldn’t do…
Please, whatever you do, don’t cover your blog in Google Adsense when you’re just starting out.
Seriously, we wrote an entire post detailing why blog ads suck for monetizing your site. And we named it — yep, you guessed it — 13 Reasons Why Blog Ads Suck for Monetizing Your Site.
We encourage you to read it if you’re thinking about plastering blog ads all over your site, but here are the highlights:
Blog ads pay peanuts
They distract your readers
They make your blog look cheap and sleazy
Okay, so that’s what not to do. Here’s what you should do:
Affiliate Marketing
We believe the best monetization method for bloggers is to build an audience that trusts them, and then offer high-quality products or services that will truly, genuinely help that audience.
Most bloggers hear this advice and decide to run off and create a book or course, but we think that’s a mistake when you’re a beginner.
If you’re not careful, you can waste months or even years creating a product your audience doesn’t want. You don’t want that — trust us.
Instead, we recommend you promote affiliate offers from reputable companies that offer money-back guarantees.
It works like this:
You introduce your readers to a product or service from a trusted source
Your readers look at the product or service, decide it will help them, and purchase it
You earn a commission on the sales
The beauty of affiliate marketing is you win multiple ways. You help your audience, you earn money, and — most importantly — you learn what types of products and services your audience likes to buy.
Once you have this information, then you can go out and create your own products, courses, or e-commerce sites around it. Only this time, you won’t be guessing there’s an audience for it. You’ll know it.
We’ve written two great resources on affiliate marketing and affiliate networks. Before you dip your toes into the affiliate waters, be sure to read both thoroughly:
Affiliate Marketing: What It Is and How to Start Making Money
The 8 Best Affiliate Networks for Earning Passive Income
More Money Making Possibilities
Affiliate marketing is the easiest monetization method for beginners, but there are other options too.
Check out these in-depth resources we’ve put together:
How to Become a Freelance Writer and Get Paid $200 – $1K per Post — Want to become a freelance writer? This comprehensive guide walks you through how to get started, where to find clients, and how to scale.
21 Dumb Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your First E-book — Want to write an e-book so you can earn some passive income? Check out these 21 basic mistakes to make sure you’re not sabotaging your e-book’s success from the start.
How to Make Money Writing: 5 Ways to Get Paid to Write in 2019 — Is it easy? No. But it’s certainly possible. This post shows you exactly how to make money writing — everything from getting paid to write for magazines to publishing your own Kindle book. All in one place.
Kindle Direct Publishing: How to Make Real Money on Amazon — With Kindle publishing, you can self-publish your book on Amazon and start making money within 24 hours. This massive, how-to KDP guide will show you how.
How to Run Your First Webinar (with No Skills, No Stress and No Budget) — Does running a webinar sound scary and expensive? Here’s how to run a simple webinar that builds trust and authority without spending a single penny.
How to Make Money Blogging (Free Guide for 2019) — Can you make money blogging? The answer is YES — if you follow these hard-won lessons for building a profitable blog from scratch.
7 Membership Sites that Make $100K+ Per Year (Real Examples) — Wondering if you should create a membership site? Take a look at these 10 real-world examples of membership sites making $100K+ per year for inspiration.
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How to Start a Blog and Get Paid: FAQ
Before we wrap things up, let’s look at some common questions we receive (that we haven’t already addressed above).
This is an ever-expanding list, so if you have a question we haven’t covered about how to start a blog, please feel free to ask us in the comments section.
How Much Does a Beginning Blogger Make?
If you’re working for another company, you can make as much as $50,000 per year. Professional content marketers get paid very well.
On the other hand, most beginning bloggers are hobbyists. They tinker around in their spare time and seldom make much.
If you do commit to blogging over the long-term, and you start a truly popular blog, you can make millions. It’s a long road, and most people fail, but it’s achievable.
What is a Blog?
According to WordPress:
“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe websites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other websites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects. What is a blog?
Blogs have grown up a good bit from their “weblog” days, of course.
How Much Does a Blog Cost?
It really depends.
If your blogging goals aren’t to grow an audience and make money, you can blog on Medium. It’s free, and it’ll allow your inner writer to shine.
However, if you’re wanting to earn passive income with blogging, you’ll need to purchase certain things.
For example:
A domain name from Namecheap (affiliate link) starts at $8.88 per year for a .com domain name extension.
Web hosting from SiteGround (affiliate link) is $3.95 per month for the first billing period.
For a running tally, check out The Shocking Cost of Running a Blog (and How to Create a Realistic Budget).
What is Gutenberg?
Also known as the WordPress block editor, the Gutenberg editor went live as part of WordPress version 5.0 in December 2018.
It’s a modern, drag-and-drop editor that replaced the classic TinyMCE editor. If you’d like to learn more about it, check out WordPress Block Editor: The Ultimate Gutenberg Guide.
How do I Start a Personal Blog?
If all you need is a personal blog (no email list, no affiliate marketing, etc.), go with Medium.com.
It’s free, it’s easy to use, and it has a nice, modern aesthetic (if you’re into that sort of thing).
Is WordPress Free?
WordPress.com is free to use. Self-hosted WordPress.org software is technically free too (anyone can download it). However, since it’s self-hosted, you will need to pay for web hosting and domain name registration.
What Can I do to Stop Spam Comments?
Since it’s the biggest blogging platform in the world, WordPress is a popular target of comment spammers.
And while there’s nothing you can do to prevent spam comments completely (short of turning off commenting functionality on your site), there are steps you can take (in addition to installing an anti-spam plugin) to strengthen your defenses and minimize the amount of spam you receive.
Hold Comments in Moderation
If you want to hold first-time commenters in moderation until you can review and approve their comment, follow these steps:
In the left-hand navigation pane, hover over Settings
Click Discussion
In the Email me whenever section, check the Anyone posts a comment and A comment is held for moderation options
In the Before a comment appears section, check the Comment author must have a previously approved comment option
If you want to hold all comments in moderation, even from individuals who have had comments approved previously, check the Comment must be manually approved option:
The latter will ensure spam comments aren’t able to sneak through and be live on your blog for the world to see, but it means you’ll need to diligently review the pending comments in your dashboard.
Close Comments After a Certain Number of Days
Most legitimate comments you receive will arrive during the first few weeks after your post has been published. Closing down the comments section of a post after a certain period of time is an easy way to cut down on the amount of spam you receive.
Here’s how you can do it:
In the left-hand navigation pane, hover over Settings
Click Discussion
In the Other comment settings section, check the Automatically close comments on articles older than X days option
Enter the number of days you would like to pass before comments are closed. Periods of 30 days and 60 days are common.
Turn Off Pingbacks
A pingback is a notification that appears in your comments section when another blog has linked to it.
Sounds great, but the problem is pingbacks are easily abused by spammers. If your blog is pingback-enabled, your comments can become overrun with spam.
It’s best to turn off pingbacks. Here’s how you do it:
In the left-hand navigation pane, hover over Settings
Click Discussion
In the Default article settings section, uncheck the Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles option
How Can I Avoid the Most Common Blogging Mistakes?
Even experts make mistakes. How do you think they became experts? Trial and error, baby.
Fortunately, you have a choice. Learn the hard way and bump your head against the same mistakes as everyone else, or use your brain and learn from the failures of others.
If you want to avoid some common pitfalls, read these posts:
How to Write Good Comments That Stand Out — Here’s the thing: most blog comments suck. What does a great blog comment look like, and how do you write one? Here’s a simple four-part formula that works every time.
12 Blogging Mistakes That Make You Look like a World-Class Idiot — Don’t be surprised when you publish your great idea, hoping it buzzes around the blogosphere, and it tanks. Not just tanks – but explodes in an inferno of criticism.
6 SEO Sins That’ll Put You on Google’s Naughty List — Did you know Google can make your blog disappear from its search results? Here are the six mistakes most likely to land you on their naughty list.
Why Posting Every Day is a Silly Strategy (And What to Do Instead) — If you doubt your ability to be a successful blogger, it may be your strategy; most specifically, posting every day. Here’s why this strategy is downright dangerous.
Why You Shouldn’t Create a Newsletter (and What to Do Instead) — Once upon a time, the online newsletter produced enormous profits for all kinds of businesses. Nowadays, it’s just pure foolishness.
The Bottom Line on How to Start a Blog (and Get Paid)
You know you’re in rarified air, right?
Most people who read about how to start a blog don’t follow through. They want to start a blog and they talk about it nonstop, sure, but they never take action.
Years from now, they’ll still be skimming posts like this one, nodding along with the words, and wishing they had the courage to make it happen.
But not you.
You’re going to take the steps we’ve outlined above and knock them out one by one. You’re going to create a blog, grow an audience, and start earning a real, tangible income.
And you’re not going to wait days, weeks, or months before you get started. You’re going to start a blog right now, today.
If you have any questions or hiccups, we’re right here to help you.
Depending on your niche and audience, Pinterest can be a significant traffic source.
Tweeting is easy.
Whether you love or loathe (or merely tolerate) Facebook, there’s no denying it is huge.
If you’re unfamiliar, Quora is a Q&A platform where anyone can post a question and get answers from experts in the community.
