Ultimate Beginners Guide to Blogging
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As a blogger, when you first decide you want to go after your hobby or for some of us it is a dream to pursue blogging full time. We don’t always know what it entails and all the HARD work. This is the Ultimate Beginners Guide to Blogging and I will share what you need to get started today in detail.
For me, I knew I wanted to get out of the corporate world and take control of my life and schedule. Working toward someone else’s dream just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore. I saw bloggers on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and basically everywhere following their dreams and actually making money. I knew I could do it too!
Many of you are probably in the same boat or have made the dive and started blogging! Woohoo, congrats for following your dreams ladies! It is a big step and to be a cliché the hardest part is taking the first step!
The BIGGEST & BEST source for starting a blog is: PINTEREST
I’ve always loved Pinterest, from pinning my future home décor, to looking up tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s workouts and do not even get my started on the shoes! Wow!
I Pinterested everything. So of course, this is where my blog dreams and research would begin. (side note: my husband created his own Pinterest to look at my boards to find my wedding ring, he is adorable!)
Basically, my blogging Pinterest brain knew I needed a site, content, affiliates, and traffic for this dream of mine to be a travel blogger who lives off passive income to come true. So, I knew the bare minimum. As I dove into researching, I felt overwhelmed and like I needed to keep reading.
All this research hurt me and kept me from actually starting my dream for months. This is a blessing and curse. I have a ton of knowledge now but should be further along in my journey. Oh well, now I am on the journey and here is how you can too.
Step One: Start TODAY!
I am not joking you might be reading this, and you are in your “research” phase. Remember what I did, I wasted a ton of time “researching” when I should’ve been writing. Getting lost in the research black hole is tempting but it will never be rewarding or make you money. AND sister if you wanna quit that job you’re going to need MONEY.
Step Two: What are you going to write about?
If you are not sure, what are you good at? When your friends ask for advice what do they come to you for? I love sharing my experience. If I loved a restaurant everyone will know, and I will take you there personally. If I had an awful experience, I will tell you not to go.
Also, what are you passionate about? Puppies? You can make a killing writing about puppies and niching it down to puppy training, products, breeds, you name it. You have to have a passion behind it or want to learn about it, or you will hate it like the 9-5 you have now.
Step 3: Commit to your Platform: WordPress
It is the best I use it and ALL the research I have done points to this website. This is a free website BUT you NEED to get your own hosting. Having your own hosting means your truly own this site. See my post on starting a successful WordPress blog with Bluehost.
This is the number #1 recommended web hosting for WordPress.org. Bluehost Not only this but out of my research and personal experience I would not switch ever.
With Bluehost you are given:
- FREE domain name your first year
- One click installation with WordPress
- Auto updates
- 24/7 support and more
All for $3.95 a month, this is less than a coffee at Starbucks! You can totally commit to this today and have your website up and running in less than 10 minutes! No joke. Time it!
For the breakdown of setting up Bluehost check out my post. This post will set you up with your theme, setting up your site and understanding the back end of WordPress. Before, you hit LAUNCH. Keep reading.
OK now that you have WordPress and Bluehost set up. It is time for the fun part! Grab a coffee, your favorite working space and get ready for …
Step 5: Ready, Set, Start WRITING
Write your brains out. I like to do a brain dump. Give yourself 15-30 minutes to write down ideas for content. Just topics but get specific. If your niche is travel, you don’t want to write ‘travel’. Instead put ‘10 reasons to visit Miami in the Winter’ or ‘How to Travel for Two Weeks with just a Carry On’. Come up with actual post ideas. Once you’ve done the dump pick out 5 -10 ideas and write.
Your first draft doesn’t need to be perfect and honestly, don’t try for perfect at all. If you don’t publish until your post is perfect, you will never hit the PUBLISH button.
First draft just write, go back a day or two later to proof, check grammar and facts. Once the post is good enough, remember we only need B+ work. You can always go back once you are more established and revamp the same post by adding new updated content. Your audience will love this down the road. Now to add a new post, paste in the content, add pictures, graphics and links.
The goal is to have about 10 posts before you launch your site. So, your audience has other content to view on your site.
Be OK with B plus work, Natalie Bacon taught me this in one of her productive time saver courses.
SO, I HAVE A SITE, CONTENT, WHAT NOW?
AFTER I GOT HERE, I WAS CLUELESS. I didn’t think about promoting my site, I thought people would just find me or I could upload some pins to Pinterest whenever I felt like it and I would be come established. Boy was I wrong. This is half the battle the whole other part is traffic and monetizing my blog $$$. WOW none of this was in my wheelhouse, so I was back to the drawing board, AKA PINTEREST.
My research and what I have learned tells me I somehow need to keep creating VALUABLE content, drive traffic and monetize my blog all at the same time. This is totally harder than my stupid 9-5 job but DUH the owner of a company is always the busiest, at least in the beginning. SO here is where I tell you:
DON’T GIVE UP, you got this!
Step 6: Stay Consistent
Keep Writing
If you need more ideas, use Pinterest. It is a search engine and you can target your ideal audience by tapping into what they are looking for.
Example: type in Miami, it will automatically prompt you with ideas or you can use the tabs below to see other ideas, things to do, style, restaurants, photography, etc. Use this to research.
Building an Audience & Traffic
Ways to drive traffic to your site can vary but my personal favorite and the one I have seen quick and great results with is Pinterest. Creating pins and posting them on your website, your Pinterest boards, and group boards not only get eyes on your content but drives traffic directly to your site… for free.
Creating and optimizing your pins is something we can get into but first you need to understand how to make Pinterest work for you!
When you finish your new post, you should create at least 5-10 pins to post on your different boards on Pinterest. You don’t want to upload the pins all at the same time, this will look spammy. And typically pinning on Pinterest ends up at the bottom of the to-do list, because it takes too much time. It is also impossible to keep up with pinning for all your posts manually at different times of the day.
TRUST ME, I tried. I failed, I was forgetting to post, posting too much in one sitting, not posting at all and just looking like a hot mess on Pinterest.
BUT, in order to be successful and grow your blog and audience you have to have consistent activity on Pinterest. SO, pinning every day, multiple times a day and that is humanly impossible.
Did you like this post? Was it helpful? Pin it to your Pinterest boards!
As passionate as I was to start blogging, I was hesitant to spend any money. YES, I know the saying you need to invest in yourself/career, but I was not bringing any income in and needed to make what I had last as long as I could. This was dumb and a big part of why it took me so long to get off my feet as a blogger. HESITATION and FEAR is the death of entrepreneurs.
So, getting frustrated with traffic using Pinterest I decided to try Tailwind. It is a free trial but not a month instead it is 100 pins. Pinning 100 pins manually would take forever especially if I wanted to space it out, so I figured why not give it a try.
Check out my detailed breakdown of how to use Tailwind to grow your followers in less than 30 days.
Email Subscribers
Wish I did this sooner. This is another one that I let money hold me back from. I did not want to pay for an email marketing site like ConvertKit or Constant Contact. I since, have used both and been able to acquire some great leads.
Tips:
Do not invest in this until you are ready to invest in creating an email sequence with an opt-in freebie. Have these complete before you start your trial. I signed up then created these and wasted a week of a free trial. Insert hand to face emoji!
Have Tailwind and Pinterest up and running to drive this traffic to your site.
Try Tailwind for FREE today, no credit card required.
Learn more about how Tailwind can save you time and make you money HERE.
Step 7: Monetize your Blog
They say, you need traffic before you can monetize. But try to create content around affiliate marketing opportunities. Once, I started looking into affiliates I saw so many opportunities to add them to my content, so I am literally going back and updating all my old posts.
Monetizing can be the hardest part to overcome mentally, of course you want to make money but asking people for money is not always easy. The key to being successful with affiliate marketing is to only promote products you love, have used, know someone who has used it or read every review under the sun. The last is my least favorite and truly unnecessary. Most of your everyday products have affiliate programs.
With affiliate programs, find ones you like and apply to them. Wait until your site is up and running until you dive into the affiliate world, like I mentioned you need an audience first.
Ads are a great way to generate a passive income. But, you have to have a large audience to make a decent income through this. I have chosen to hold off on this until my audience is large enough for it to make sense.
Step 8: Growth
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to blogging. I am not an expert or pretend to know it all. I do know what has worked for me and that is what I like to share. As I continue to grow, I will update this post and share with all of you. Be sure to join my email list to keep up!
Once you have your blog up and running and you dive into monetizing, take your time review your analytics weekly and learn what is working and what is not. It probably won’t be a home run on your first try and that is ok, a lesson learned is better than no lesson at all.
Once, you have made it through this check out my RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS page to continue growing your blog.
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