From the time when women were not allowed to work & carve a professional path for themselves, our society has changed. And with the changing society’s norms, women all across the world are breaking stereotypes of all kinds. Seeing the success stories of Ana Hoffman, Amy Porterfield, Mari Smith & so many more, it can be easily said that women are doing a great job in blogging too. Blogging community opens up tremendous opportunities to explore one’s creative, technical & inner strength which you can share with the world. No matter if you are a working professional or raising kids, blogging is for everyone & everyone wants their blog to get popular. If you have the right tools, resources & the perfect guide to help you on starting a new blog, you will be all set for the blogging journey.
Listed below are the tips inspired by the top bloggers that will be helpful & will make the entire process simpler for you, even if you are a beginner or know tidbits of blogging.
Foundation
Foundation by its definition is the underlying basis of something; thus for a blog foundation, its basics should be done right! Selecting a platform, domain name & hosting provider are the few basic elements that you should primarily focus on. While researching for blogging platforms, you will find several choices with their features, i.e., Bloggers, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc. However, WordPress is what we recommend as its ideal for beginners, free to use, has tons of functionalities, time-saving & easy to modify if needed. Among other advantages, one of the best parts of WordPress is that it provides you a plethora of choices with its products; themes & plugins precisely designed for blogging. You will be surprised to see plenty of choices with just blog themes covering almost all niches from fashion to music & everything in between.
Once you have settled on a platform, next comes the domain name & hosting provider! These can be best understood as you are buying a real estate for your business & getting an address where people can come, but on the web! Brainstorming a name for your blog is critical as you don’t want to get lost in the myriad of a similar niche blog, neither want to sound too pushy or extravagant or generic; the name should be short, concise & easy to remember while conveying the vibe of the blog. As a new blogger, you would not need an expensive hosting provider; you can opt for reasonable ones like BlueHost. And in future when your blog starts getting more traffic, you always have an option switching to a more personalized hosting plan.
Traffic
Without traffic, you will not get the inspiration to continue & your blog will be of no use. Thus to make money & to run your blog successfully, traffic is a must. There are several methods to generate traffic, but these following three should be on everyone’s list:
- Email Marketing: As soon as you launch your blog, you must incorporate email marketing strategy on the blog in order to make the email list. Traffic will keep on fluctuating, but with this list, you can reach out to your audience anytime.
- Search Engine Optimization: Majority of traffic comes from Google as it’s the most used browser in the world & is free. Thus you must learn the basic of SEO & must include certain keywords or phrases in your writing to rank better in the search engine. Contrary to popular belief, learning SEO is not at all tricky; going into depths & learning everything about SEO is, but learning few tips & tricks will help you with your blog’s traffic. You will find tons of guides & tutorials available online to do just that!
- Social Media Platform: Depending on your blog’s niche, you can choose few social media platforms where you can share your posts, links & just updates to be active on your social media handles. Also, encourage your readers to share your content on their profile with easy sharing options, this brings a good amount of social traffic on your blog. If you are using WordPress as your blogging platform, your half work is done with its social media optimized features.
Writing Content
Content acts as the soul of any blog on so many levels; it helps you bring traffic to your blog, improves searchability in the search engine & get your visitors hooked on your blog for a longer duration. While planning what goes onto your blog, you always must present a proofread & grammatically correct post on your blog. Even if you are outsourcing your writing, you must focus on the tone of the writing & if it matches with your blog’s vibe. You can hire a professional editor if you have funds, but there are few free or affordable software which can help you, Grammarly being one! One small tip we would like to mention, always keep your readers & their tastes, requirement or if they gave you a suggestion on writing/topic, in your mind. It will help your readers to bond with you!
Blog Monetization
Granted, you might not have launched your blog with the intention of making money, or you might have profit on your agenda, this is a by-product of blogging nonetheless! There are plenty of ways to monetize your blog; we are covering few of them below:
- Blogging Courses: Just like this guide, the web is flooded with tutorials & guides available on various topics, but for a fee! If you have an expertise in something, you can publish an e-book & sell it online via your blog, or you can provide classes, consultation, seminars & so on, just the same way.
- Advertisement: This is the most popular method wherein either the advertiser contact you with their ads, or you contact them asking for ads to display on your blog. You get a commission if the sale is made via your blog or you get a fixed amount for the same. Also, integrating Google AdSense will come handy where Google will provide your blog few ads relating to the niche of your blog.
- Affiliate Marketing: Making sense of this method is tricky but is one of the popular methods among bloggers, safe & easy one. This method has a way of earning a passive income since you don’t have to do the before & after sales procedures; all will be taken care of by the actual sellers. For eg: you could partner with various WordPress themes providers in their affiliate program and earn commissions based when a user buys their products using your affiliate links.
So, here is a thorough guide that will help you to pave your path for the blogging journey, ladies! Hope this guide was helpful to you, let us know your views in the comment section below!