Site icon Web Trust Review – webtrustreview.net

45 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Blog: How to Start a Blog for Free in 2022

WebTrustReview
45 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Blog: How to Start a Blog for Free in 2022

It’s fantastic and daunting to start a blog for the first time.

believing that someone will read what you wrote and perhaps even share it. I can’t think of another emotion like it.

However, not everything is sunshine and butterflies. Starting a blog is a lot of work, and there are several traps to avoid. particularly if you are a novice.

In fact, there are so many hazards that we had to create this guide. There are 45 things in total that we wish we had known before launching our first blogs. You won’t have to commit these errors yourself this way!

How to launch a blog properly

But who precisely are “we,” you ask? Well, we all contributed to this post. Three bloggers contribute to the article by offering their best tips on how to create a blog, as well as how to do it successfully and earn money from it.

We’re about to examine all we’ve learnt over the past eight or more years, so take a coffee and settle in. Enjoy!

45 things you ought to be aware of before beginning a blog…

We’ve chosen to concentrate on the most difficult aspects of creating a blog with the help of the following resource.

Everything will be covered, including technology, writing, SEO, graphic design, marketing, tools, security, and a zillion other topics.
Let’s tackle SEO first, as it has undoubtedly been the most crucial aspect of many bloggers’ careers.

Let’s speak more explicitly about how simple SEO is and the typical errors new bloggers make.

Drive tens of thousands of visitors every month using SEO

The practice of optimizing your content for search engines like Google is known as SEO, or search engine optimization.

Keyword research, link building (the process of obtaining links to your website from other websites to enhance your search ranks), and a plethora of additional acts required for best performance are all included under the general term “SEO.”

But more on that in the section that follows. For the time being, launching a blog should take this method into consideration even though it may seem complicated. It operates as follows:

I. Around your niche, look for keywords with a moderately low ranking difficulty.

You may check the number and difficulty of keyword searches using a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush. Here is what it looks like to use Ahrefs for keyword research:

II. Produce the greatest online content possible for the subject and keyword you’ve selected.

Here, there are two steps:

Choose the terms you wish to use when beginning a blog first. But don’t make assumptions. There’s more to this.

The only keywords you should use are those that are both in demand and for which you can rank. There are varying levels of keyword difficulty, and some will regrettably be beyond what you can target in your first several years of blogging.

So that’s the first step, okay. The second step is to produce content around (or for) those keywords.

Look at the top 10 results on Google to determine what’s currently trending, and then make your post as good as you can. Better pictures, in-depth explanations, links to further resources, or a combination of all of the above, for example, could be included.

III. Invest the same amount of time in promoting the content as you did in producing it. possibly more

Additionally, it goes beyond simply posting it on social media. You should send emails to influential people, publish blog pieces as a guest, and even think about paying for marketing using Quuu Promote or Facebook advertisements.

Here is an illustration of Quuu’s return on investment for a $10 investment:

And that’s just for campervans and RVing, a very modest market. Larger niches, like any type of business, marketing, or travel, have a much greater impact.

Oh, and just in case you run across it, I highly suggest white hat SEO over black hat SEO (tactics that work but are against Google’s regulations and might penalize your site). White hat SEO is compliant with Google’s terms of service.

Now, clearly, I can’t adequately describe SEO in 250 words. However, this offers you the fundamentals, which are actually quite simple.

2. Increase your ranks by building links

Because link building is really just an extension of SEO, I placed it immediately after SEO. One of the most powerful factors used by Google to determine a site’s rating is the number of backlinks to it.

Though laborious, it’s not always challenging or intricate. All it takes is some networking, solid relationships, and directing your material toward those who can offer links.

Here is a brief introduction to link building:

You must first have good content.

No one will link to junk, regardless of whether you have been blogging for a while or are just getting started.

Instead of prioritizing keywords, Brian Dean advises writing content tailored for the audience from which you want links. I’ve had success with it.

Reach out to anybody you linked to in your article after you have good content. Due to their interest in it, these individuals are most likely to share and link to it.

(Hint: The more attractive you make individuals appear, the more likely it is that they will link to you.)

Here is an example of an email I wrote to the more than 30 people who contributed to my most recent blog post:

You can utilize an email outreach service like MailShake to automate this procedure.

However, this isn’t the sole method of obtaining backlinks.

There are a ton of other backlink-building strategies you may utilize, including gaining links from roundup writers, broken link building, and resource page link building, to mention a few.

3. Put quality before quantity (underrated by most people learning how to start a blog for free)

This is a lesson I’ve acquired from studying SEO and general blog-building techniques. When it comes to blog posts, quality always prevails over number.

It is not necessary to push out posts every day or even every week.

When done correctly, once a month is sufficient. You now have the entire month to dedicate to promotion.

Websites with new content used to receive some credit from Google.

Then websites began abusing that, publishing a dozen subpar pieces daily. It worked for a short while before Google started banning things. These sites are no longer present.

Furthermore, would you rather have two very outstanding blog posts or ten passable ones? The two excellent ones are what I prefer. Particularly because they give internal links—which I’ll discuss next—more value by increasing their authority as they get backlinks.

4. Use internal linking to help Google (and people) navigate your site

Internal links are very crucial when you first launch a blog. They are only links leading from one page of your website to another. (Where external linking refers to a link from one of your website’s pages to another website’s page.)

Internal linking is crucial for SEO, but it’s also crucial to make it easier for users to navigate your blog. It’s a terrific method to encourage new readers to read older material as well.

Additionally, any internal links from that page to your other sites increases those pages’ rankings when you learn how to start a blog and have a post that ranks highly in search engines and gets lots of backlinks.

Here’s a diagram to demonstrate that:

5. Guest blog for more traffic, better SEO, and brand awareness

A technique for increasing traffic and backlinks to your website is guest posting. In essence, you’re taking (borrowing?) the audience from a reputable blog.

This is certainly something you’ve seen or heard before. It operates as follows:

Find a blog that you’d like to write for first. You probably already have several in mind if you’ve been blogging for a long. Find the people who are at the top of their fields in your or a closely similar field.

I’m a content marketer, for instance. I therefore read blogs about content marketing, including those from organizations like Content Marketing Institute, which has over 100,000 email subscribers and a domain authority (DA) of 85.

(Note: Domain authority ranks websites from 1 to 100 based on their authority. It depends on their age, link profile, and a host of other variables. Higher is preferable as it will improve your SEO more.)

In order to spread the word about my brand, I wanted to post something on their blog. It’s almost like a badge of pride, and since it’s so well-known in my profession, going there would help me attract clients.

I contacted my network to check if anyone had a connection with an editor there in order to achieve that. As it happens, they did!

We’ll actually cover formatting later in this article when we discuss how to add fresh engaging blog posts. Yet for now…

What happens if you launch a blog without a network? What happens if you’re just getting started?

6. Use social media to drive thousands of converting traffic

Blogging and social media go together like peas in a pod. One really cannot exist without the other.

But nothing is more upsetting than spending four hours creating a blog post while attempting to learn how to start a blog, only to receive no responses. You have received just one like—from grandma—and no comments or shares.

This is true because most people utilize social media incorrectly. They simply publish their blog entries using it as a venue for publishing. An RSS feed is not what social media is!

How then do you utilize social media in a proper manner?

by socializing and networking. (You’ll start to realize that networking plays a huge role in blogging.)

I’ll give you a prime illustration. I have a Facebook page for my blog about RV travel. Every time I publish a new post, it nearly never receives more than 5 likes, no comments, and no shares. But then I applied this straightforward technique…

Over 30 other RVers helped me make a great piece, many of whom have large followings on social media.

I then created a Facebook post and included each of them as tags.

Look at this engagement:

As you can see, 11 shares and 21 likes were made, reaching 1,840 individuals naturally. (Note: I ran a $5 test simply to evaluate how well paid promotion performs; it produced 769 paid results.) Later, I’ll discuss about that.)

But things improve. I also shared the link in a Facebook group for a related specialty. That post received more than 56 likes, received 10 comments, and approximately 600 visitors to our blog!

And all of that for a freshly created Facebook profile with less than 100 fans.

The lesson of the tale? Engage with other social individuals to generate social engagement. Be present in Facebook groups, tag everyone, and develop enduring connections. In this manner, you can still generate a ton of engagement when you first start a blog.

Pro tip: You can utilize automation to grow a genuine, engaged audience on social media, albeit you shouldn’t automate everything there (people will be able to tell). For instance, you can communicate with Twitter users who are discussing topics important to the audience you want to reach using a service like Narrow. Or, to increase the number of people who see your archived content, utilize a free service like Revive Old Post.

7. Create amazing images to increase shares, backlinks, and subscribers

Not only is it simple to produce high-quality photographs, but it is also inexpensive and quick. And in today’s fiercely competitive world, it is a need.

Do the top blogs in your field employ a lot of high-quality images? We both likely know the solution.

Images assist readers understand the information you’re providing them with, making it easier for them to read your content, and keep them on your website longer.

Then, how do you make amazing images?

You will need the following equipment:

Pro tip: Include graphs and charts as appropriate. With Visualizer, it’s incredibly simple to make graphs and charts, and readers assimilate information more rapidly when it’s presented graphically in a post.

8. Format your blog post to make you look like an expert

A well-formatted content increases reader engagement and time on page, much like attractive photos do.

People no longer read anything word-for-word, let’s face it. Today’s typical internet reader skims. There is simply too much stuff and not enough time for other activities.

The formatting plays a role in that. Your readers can quickly scan your piece to see whether it is worthwhile of their time before diving in, if they decide it is.

So how do you format when you first start a blog?

Observations are as follows:

9. Use content upgrades for 785% more conversions

You’ve probably heard of a lead magnet. In essence, it’s something you give away for free to your audience in exchange for their email address, such as an eBook, check list, or worksheet.

A lead magnet on steroids is what a content upgrade is. They were specifically designed for one blog article and are closely tied to it.

The blog article “25 Customer Service Scenarios (And How to Handle Them)” was written by Formilla as an illustration.

You can access a content update from this page to download the manual as a PDF:

It converts for them at a rate of about 10%, which is substantially higher than the average lead magnet. And all they had to do was offer their viewers a PDF download of their piece. Easy as pie.

But if you really want to succeed as a blogger, you should include extra supplemental material, such as Brian Dean’s checklists:

The reason why content improvements are so effective is that they are designed to assist visitors in achieving the specific goal they came to your page to fulfill.

If you’re writing about Facebook ads, a content upgrade on Facebook ads is way more likely to convert than a lead magnet on general marketing.

10. Add call to actions to get the most from your audience

I made a big error by not using call to actions (CTAs) when I was learning how to build a blog.

Any action you want your clients to take is a CTA. It can include buying something, reading another blog post, or signing up for a newsletter. A CTA can be something like a content update.

Every single one of your posts should include a CTA of some form, especially if it’s your first time beginning a blog. Every post should have a result, whether it be as small as asking for a share or a remark or as huge as completing a purchase.

You’re losing out on a ton of chances to generate leads, sales, and traffic if your content doesn’t have a CTA.

I’m not arguing that each post must promote a product. It only needs to indicate what the reader should do next.

For instance, if you’ve already found this content to be interesting, would you mind sharing it with your audience? I’m phoning to ask you to do something merely one click:

Yes, it helps us because it expands our reach. However, it also helps you because it allows you to display useful content on your social networking platforms. You’ll become known as a reliable source of knowledge.

READ:   Top 10 Most Notorious Hackers of All Time

11. Use influencer marketing to 10x your audience

Influencer marketing is a strategy that is vastly underutilized.

I’ve seen influencers get amazing outcomes.

For instance, RESCUE sought to promote natural treatments. Their marketing effort led to 133 million social media impressions, over 6,000 website views to the coupon site, and a 258% rise in Instagram followers.

Furthermore, they are not alone. Numerous businesses are seeing comparable success. For instance, the influencers in my piece on the 30 full-time RVers brought hundreds of people to my site.

Use an influencer database to locate influencers in virtually any subject that can help you promote your content. This is a terrific network to establish as you begin a blog.

12. Always be networking. Always.

The easier it is to advertise your work and the more opportunities that present themselves automatically as your network expands.

A good example is how my freelance writing business significantly improved in January. I was able to join a Slack group with some of the most well-known online marketers and authors.

My income nearly tripled over night. They presented me with chances I never would have imagined. They opened doors for me, and their marketing know-how almost ten times increased my ability to promote my posts.

My eyes opened as soon as it happened. From being an afterthought to one of my top objectives, networking has changed. I really think that anything is achievable with the appropriate network.

A few quick suggestions for expanding your network:

I learned a lot from this post in one of the forums I participate in, and it even helped me land two new clients:

(I also learned that the reason I wasn’t receiving credit for the sites that linked back to me was because Google hadn’t yet indexed them. To avoid this, I gave Google’s URL crawler the URLs that connected to my post.)

One last tip: Don’t let relationships fade. Make it a point to reach out to your new network at least once or twice a month. Shoot them an email with a cool article, or tag them in something interesting on social media.

13. Build an email list from the start, and don’t forget to send them stuff

If you take care of your email list, it will eventually grow to be your main source of traffic and sales.

Consider this:

You get out of bed anticipating the day. A pot of coffee is started. You enter your home office to check your email as you wait for it to brew.

Sales from the email campaign you sent last night total over $1000.
You take a sip of your coffee and grab another email that needs to be sent out soon. Your work for the day is finished, so you may now go out and do anything you like.

Basically, your life starts to resemble a stock photo. just like this

Some individuals truly enjoy their lives. That is made feasible through an email list. Naturally, you’ll still need to manage your business and write blog entries as you learn how to create a blog (unless you outsource those tasks out), but your workload can be significantly decreased.

Before you write your first blog article and as a top priority when establishing a blog, you should build an email list. But even if it wasn’t, go ahead and give it today’s top priority.

14. Stick to a theme for better SEO and a stronger follower base

Not keeping to a theme for your posts is one of the major mistakes I made early on and see other writers make.

I realize that people are different. All of us have a variety of interests. You can be a marketer who who enjoys travel and photography. But discussing all three of them won’t help your blog. This is why:

If you absolutely must discuss various topics, I advise launching a completely different blog. It’s just not worth it unless you can really target a certain demographic and yet have excellent pieces on each subject.

15. Use your audience to choose topics

Picking themes at random because you think your readers might be interested in them is similar to playing the lottery. You could succeed, you might not.

But what if you listened to what your audience wanted to hear? That is a surefire victory.

Here are a few methods for learning more:

Buzzsumo’s unique feature is that after you produce an article answering a frequently asked issue, you can go to the forum where the question was posted and link to the article there. (But be careful to add more than simply a link; otherwise, you’ll be blocked from most locations.)

Asking your audience is thus not too difficult. Even if you’re just starting out and don’t yet have an audience, you can still implement the following three suggestions.

16. Share your content somewhere besides social media

When a new blog post goes online, most people normally share it on social media, but they don’t usually share it elsewhere. One of the biggest errors people make while advertising their posts is this.

What other options exist? Email outreach and collaborating with influencers have already been discussed. However, there is still a ton of work to be done!

The following are the top places to promote your newest blog post:

I. Forums with a specific focus

After tip #15, you probably saw this one coming. As long as you post in forums properly, your post will be there for a very long time and may even appear in search results, which is a terrific method to gain long-term traffic.

You can find forums by searching on Find a Forum or by googling inurl:forum + "your_keyword"

Once you locate the forum, you must register as a member. This approach goes beyond simply dropping by to leave a link. You won’t benefit from doing that when beginning a blog because you’ll be banned rather quickly.

Prior to any self-promotion, I advise leaving at least 20 to 30 comments of high quality. (High-value means more than just “Nice post!”; it means thought-provoking and helpful.)

II. Quora

Anyone can ask any question on Quora. Anyone may visit and post a response.

Find questions on Quora that are connected to the pieces you’ve written, respond thoughtfully, and include a link back to the original post for extra information. Easy as pie.

III. Social media groups, third

Facebook groups were briefly covered in the section on social media, but I wanted to expand on that.

Groups on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Plus are fantastic resources for generating highly focused visitors. 600 new visitors from one post are evidence of that.

They are rather simple to locate. Simply perform a search on Facebook or LinkedIn and select “Groups.” Search for Google Plus under the “Communities” menu. Join any that apply.

Don’t just spam your stuff like in forums. Become a well-liked neighborhood resident. Interact with the populace and distribute their goods. You can share your own posts once the other group members are familiar with you and like you. Remember to reply to their remarks as well!

17. Give your “About” page some love

You’re doing it wrong if your website doesn’t have a about page. Starting a blog truly does need building one.

People in the blogging community (and particularly when you’re new, learning how to start a blog) follow those they like, respect, and know. How can you know, like, and trust someone if they don’t have a compelling narrative or show their face?

What do you want visitors to see when they glance at your about page? A poor page created as an afterthought, or one designed to engage visitors with your life or brand story?

18. Leverage paid social media advertising for better reach and to make money with your blog

Paid advertisements aren’t merely for making sales. Additionally, you may use them to advertise your blog content!

In fact, I recently ran a $5 test Facebook ad campaign to promote a post with affiliate links. (The one I alluded to in section 6) 740 people were reached, and 47 links were clicked as a result.

The clicks that followed ultimately brought in $11.47. Overall, there was a $6.47 profit. It is scalable and is not horrible.

But what if one of your blog posts isn’t monetized by links from affiliate companies?

With one qualification: You need a mechanism to monetize that traffic. I would genuinely still think about spending some money to market these.

Blogging can lead to significant financial gains. In actuality, the site you’re reading today brings in tens of thousands of dollars each month.

The simplest method of revenue generation is to direct advertising to a blog article that has an excellent content upgrade. They will join our email list as a result of that upgrade, at which time you can introduce them to your affiliate links or products and finally sell them on using them.

In the end, adopting paid advertisements should have some sort of anticipated return on investment, whether it is short-term advantages like those in the post I linked to above or long-term gains like those in the email onboarding procedure.

19. Add videos to your blog posts to increase engagement

The length of time visitors spend on your website is one of the most crucial SEO indicators. Adding video content is one of the simplest ways to lengthen user engagement.

In addition, fewer people are including videos in their blog entries. It’s a fantastic approach to stand out from the competition and boost participation.

What’s best?

To get started, you don’t need to be an expert filmmaker or shell out a ton of cash on expensive equipment. Your smartphone is actually more than adequate.

The quality can be improved by purchasing a tripod and an external microphone. However, they are not required.

When you’re first starting a blog site, keep in mind that you don’t need an expensive camera for this. Even though most cellphones can now shoot HD video, it won’t be as as good as Pond5’s, but it will still be more than adequate.

What if you’re camera shy, though? You can make animated videos to avoid having to appear on screen, so it’s all right.

Although they offer a free trial, if you want HD quality, you must pay $20 each video at the base price.

The final alternative is to pay a professional to make a video for you. On Fiverr or People Per Hour, you can locate people who make videos. Just remember to read reviews of potential hires before making a decision.

20. Pay attention to your blog’s load times (and make them faster)

Page load times are important whether you’re managing a commercial website, an online store, or a blog.

Google considers your blog’s page load speeds when determining its search result rankings, and your visitors absolutely detest blogs that take forever to load (especially on mobile devices, where most people browse blogs nowadays).

For instance, your bounce rate—the percentage of visitors who leave without viewing a second page—increases as your page load time does. Take a look at this Pingdom data comparison between typical load times and bounce rates:

You can use a page performance testing tool like Pingdom or GTmetrix to see how quickly your blog loads.

Here are some tips to make your blog load faster if you notice that it is:

When learning how to create a blog, it’s important to focus on performance right away rather than treating it as something you can do later.

21. Don’t try to please every single person when starting a blog

You definitely want people to actually…read your blog if you’re launching one. That’s a reasonable assumption, don’t you think?

You might strive to make your blog appealing to as many people as you can in an effort to gain as many “likes” as you can. Although it occasionally succeeds, that rarely does. By attempting to appeal to everyone, you essentially wind up appealing to nobody (OK, maybe I overstated it a bit, but you get the idea).

I’m not referring to picking a limited niche, but rather to giving your site a distinct brand and voice.
Do you have a tendency to use profanity? Next, curse on your blog! Sure, you might alienate some people, but you’re not required to win over everyone. You will get even greater favor with those who aren’t turned away.

Don’t believe me? Look at Mark Manson:

Can you imagine if Mark tried to be some straight-laced personal help blogger? He never would’ve grown to where he is (which is a New York Times Best Selling Author, if you’re not familiar).

Don’t try to please every single person – just try to make a group of people really happy.

22. Stop writing intros like high school research papers

This article from Grow and Convert has had the biggest influence on my blogging, if I had to choose just one piece of information.

Content Marketers: Stop Writing Blog Intros Like A High School Research Paper

I was instantly aware of my guilt, which is why it made such an impact on me. I shouldn’t have been taking my high school English writing style to my blog.

I now aim to talk to my readers rather than at them. You should follow suit if you want visitors to your blog to interact with it.

I won’t go over what Devesh stated again because he did a great job of outlining everything. Simply read his post and make an effort to incorporate the concepts into your writing. Don’t hesitate; start doing this as soon as you discover how to create a blog.

READ:   The 10 Fastest Cars in the World Ranked

23. Don’t wing your content. Make a plan

There are countless topic possibilities at your disposal when beginning a blog. Because of this, it’s simple to wing it and still come out on top. However, as your blog becomes older, two things start to happen:

It is helpful to have a plan when that begins to happen. That is an editorial calendar in this instance.

Your editorial calendar essentially contains all aspect of your content strategy, from concept generation to promotion.

It makes sure that you post frequently, plan out your posts, and have enough time to market your material.

Trello or the Editorial Calendar plugin are free options that are excellent for new bloggers. CoSchedule is one of the most well-known editorial calendar services otherwise.

24. A little bit of maintenance now saves big problems later

Look:

Nobody enjoys performing maintenance. The act of maintaining your blog itself won’t increase its popularity, readership, or income. What’s the point then?
Maintenance, though, keeps everything you’ve built from collapsing around you, even though it might not do any of those things.

I’m referring to issues like:

It is annoying but necessary. A vulnerability that was already patched before hackers discovered it recently led to the hacking of hundreds of thousands of WordPress sites.

Nevertheless, they were still compromised since tens of thousands of website owners hadn’t updated the essential open-source WordPress software.

A little simple maintenance performed today will stop larger issues from developing later.

25. You can reach new followers by resharing old content

Sharing your content on social media was already covered. However, consider this:

You’re going to gain more followers on social media as your personal blog expands. Therefore, even if you shared a post when it was initially published, those new followers would not have had the opportunity to view it because they weren’t already following you at the time.

Tomasz Tunguz discovered that reposting previous content still resulted in high levels of interaction. Even though the numbers were never as high as when it was first published, the content still received enough interaction to be valuable:

It’s not a difficult idea to grasp…but it is one that’s easy to forget about if you’re starting a blog. Thankfully, you can put this whole process..

26. Complicated WordPress themes are always not the best themes

I might draw criticism for this. But I’m not criticizing the majority of WordPress programmers; rather, I’m merely taking aim at some of the occasionally seen bloated monstrosities on ThemeForest.

If you choose a theme that tries to do it all, your website may end up loading slowly due to clumsy code and/or a ton of unnecessary queries. Both of those factors contribute to subpar performance and an increased risk of malfunction.

All I’m trying to communicate is

Never choose a WordPress theme just because it’s visually appealing or because its feature list is longer than Infinite Jest.

Try to find at least one of the following while establishing a blog:

27. Steal your competitors’ keywords, it’s awesome

The topic of primary keyword research has already been covered. However, there are times when I’m feeling lazy and would like to have someone else do the work.

At that point, I visit my rivals and…steal the keywords they are ranking for.

It’s just plain old-fashioned research and “making it better,” nothing harmful. I simply enter my competitor’s URL into my SEO tool to see what keywords they are currently ranking for:

I look over their content and compose one that is superior if I come across a tasty keyword that interests me.

This is one of my preferred methods because it enables you to generate both themes and keywords at once.

Furthermore, since you already know where your rival is placing, you can assume that Google will give blogs a high ranking for that keyword as well (which is crucial if you’re learning how to start a blog in a market with a lot of e-commerce websites).

Serpstat is the research tool that I personally use, but Ahrefs and SEMrush are other excellent choices.

28. Headlines matter. Don’t miss out on clicks

Headlines are important when establishing a blog for two reasons. They:

The adage “eight out of ten people read your headline but not your copy” is true.
However, that statistic dates back to a time when newspapers were the norm rather than blogs and eye-tracking research, which was 50 years ago.

However, a quick glance at your bounce rate and average time on page will show that the majority of visitors aren’t reading past your headlines.

An excellent resource for writing effective headlines is Copyblogger. Additionally, you can obtain additional data-driven insights like:

29. Add a FAQ section before your contact form to save time

When beginning a blog, even if you don’t expect anyone to use it, you can put up a contact form since you feel like you need it.

Then, once your website begins to receive some traffic, someone actually fills out your form and contacts you. Hallelujah! Your content is important to people for them to use your contact form.

Then, as your site continues to expand, you find yourself unexpectedly deluged with messages, many of which repeat the same question.

All of a sudden, responding to emails takes up more time than blogging.

And that won’t lead to continuous success.

But what’s this?

By placing a FAQ (or anything similar) above your “Contact” page, you may at least get rid of a lot of the most pointless emails that you receive. See how Henrik at The Positivity Blog puts two succinct FAQs above his contact form, for instance:

If your contact form plugin permits it, you can utilize conditional fields to accomplish a similar result by requesting information from users before allowing them to send an email.

30. Make a habit of testing important pages on your site (like forms)

I still want to slam my head against a wall in frustration over this error I made.

I changed the contact form plugins on my website, and soon after I saw a decrease in messages (these were critical messages because this was my portfolio site). Naturally, my first thought was to see if my contact form plugin was having an issue.

However, while sending test message after test message, I was unable to identify any issues with my form plugin. I suppose people simply stopped like me as much.

I guess not quite. I should have tested my forms sooner, as it turns out. There was an issue, but it had to do with caching. I never encountered the problem in my testing since I used my admin account, which was not allowed to see cached pages, to test my form plugin.

Avoid the same error I did. Make sure to test any crucial pages on your website the way that your end users will see them. Specifically, use incognito mode.

It’s awful to waste your time on broken pages.

However, some testing can stop that from happening.

31. Ignore the haters…most of the time

Whether you’re beginning a blog for the first time or not, the following is something that all bloggers have in common:

Angry remarks

Even if your goal is to learn how to build a site that only features adorable pups, I practically guarantee you’ll still receive negative feedback from readers who:

However, as YouTube shows, receiving negative feedback is an inevitable part of putting oneself online.

If you let them, you will get them and they will sting.

You must get strong skin. These comments are typically made by irate people hiding behind anonymity. On rare occasions, a commenter will have a valid complaint that you should address. but a great deal of the time? Angry remarks are heard in one ear but not the other.

32. Stop staring at your analytics data

Analyzing data is almost as addictive as checking your Facebook news feed. It becomes even more addictive if you start to notice a constant increase in your statistics.

However, consider this:

These data are completely irrelevant in daily life unless you’re managing a significant advertising campaign that needs real-time monitoring.
Yes, it is beneficial to look at analytics data over time.
However, is it really necessary for you to know whether you got 100 or 200 visits today?
Does it matter if you made $10 or $12 today through Google AdSense? Does any of the information currently help you in any way?

I’ve learned through years of experience that it doesn’t.

I advise you to establish firm boundaries in order to save time. When establishing a blog, you actually have a lot more vital tasks to complete. Make a statement along the lines of, “I will only check my stats on Monday morning.” While not excessively frequent as to become time-consuming, that frequency is still plenty to monitor how your website and content are functioning.

33. Hosting matters!

Here at our company, we take hosting very seriously!

But for the majority of my blogging career, and particularly when I was beginning a blog for the first time, I wasn’t really concerned about hosting or anything server-related.

This abruptly changed one lovely day when I learned that a large spam forum had been functioning on my server for an extended period of time.

My discovery process was amusing as well. A computerized email telling me to “upgrade my vBulletin forum” arrived in my inbox. I was lacking a forum.

The email was actually sent to a random email address on my new domain name, newinternetorder, as it turned out. It was forwarded to my actual email because I had a catch-all option configured there for email. As soon as I started exploring about, I discovered the following:

The forum is that. It’s just there, fully Google indexed, with tons of outbound links utilizing amusing anchor texts like “louis vuitton bags” or other things.

Anyways. To cut a long tale short, it was on this day that I realized the importance of reputable, premium hosting. This type of malware affects servers. It’s not even a WordPress problem.

Please think of yourself. When launching a blog, only work with reliable hosting companies. With an entry-level hosting package, you may acquire something for as little as $3–4 per month, so it isn’t a particularly high cost. I recommend Bluehost. Also, SiteGround. If you have server experience, use Digital Ocean.

34. Do regular content audits

Even while I would prefer it if it weren’t, not everything we publish is evergreen forever. Whatever your niche, there are constantly new advancements, concepts, topics to write about, as well as new advances that connect to your earlier writing.

The truth is that nobody can foresee the future. Therefore, even if you believe that the topic your writing touches on would make it eternal, this is merely a hope and you can never be sure.

Since your site has been online for longer than a year, conducting regular content audits is a wonderful idea. This may not be a concern if you’re just learning how to establish a blog, but it’s still something to keep in mind.

A content audit’s straightforward objective is to determine which of your postings are still pertinent, which require upgrading, which can be completely eliminated, and which can be merged.
The short summary of what Pat Flynn said about this is as follows:

Make a spreadsheet with all of your posts to start (URLs are enough). Separate the spreadsheet into the following three parts:

After getting those, you can start working on them in the following order: delete content first, then consolidate, then improve.

When looking through the separate bits of content, you can accomplish the following things:

You can only demonstrate that you care about what people see when they visit your website and start consuming a random piece of your content by conducting an audit like this and revitalizing your previous content. It basically sends Google a message that everything on your site is updated and deserving of a ranking. If you’re just starting a blog for the first time, this might not seem like it’s that significant, but it’s actually preferable to implement these strategies right away because that’s how you’ll get the most out of it in the long run.

How frequently should the complete audit be performed? most likely once a year.

35. Update your content, regularly

Although I briefly addressed it above, this merits its own place on the list, so let’s get started.

Essentially, it boils down to this

Unless you make a conscious effort to keep it that way, your material isn’t evergreen.
That must be more than 100 upgrades spread across three years.

This is a dramatic illustration. We don’t regularly update all of our stuff. But the point still stands:

Absolutely, your material ought to be refreshed frequently. New data, information, methods, goods, or whatever else you choose to write about is always being produced. Readers are interested in reading about new information. Google is also interested in your writing about it. The world literally expects you to maintain your information current. If you don’t, your Google rankings are toast.

One of the strategies that virtually every seasoned blogger recommends is updating older blogs. For instance, Neil Patel claims that by revitalizing his older pieces, he received 51% higher traffic over a three-month period.

Here’s what you can do specifically:

  1. List your top ten most popular posts by visiting Google Analytics.
  2. An attempt should be made to update those once per month.
  3. Expand the list to the top 30–50 items once again.
  4. Try to update those every three to five months.
  5. To make that easier to manage, make a spreadsheet or a Google Calendar reminder.
READ:   How long does a Tesla battery last? Tesla car range and battery life explained

36. Easy on the number of WordPress plugins you have

Most likely, none of the 30 plugins that are now active on your site are actually necessary, especially if you’re just establishing a blog.

And although it’s simple to get carried away and get lost in yet another list of the “best 10 WordPress plugins for X,” that’s not the way to, so to speak, live your WordPress life.

To begin with, not all of the minor features you desire call for plugins or add-ons. Many things can be accomplished with short changes or easy WordPress hacks. Additionally, there are some things that, while they may look interesting, aren’t really that useful and are just more “shiny objects” that clutter up your life.

Additionally, not all plugins and add-ons function well together. You may occasionally get into situations where items clash, causing your site to crash (worst case scenario) or your performance to decline noticeably (best case). And let’s not even begin to discuss the issue of many plugins attempting to accomplish the same task (installing W3 Total Cache on top of WP Super Cache, for instance).

Instead, concentrate on the absolute necessities and purchase just one plugin per function. Usually:

37. Mind your site’s security, damn it!

Okay, so some circumstances are beyond your control. There isn’t much you can do to prevent server crashes, but there are many other factors that you can control.

First off, keep your website updated, like Colin mentioned above. If you don’t, you run the danger of having it compromised due to an outdated vulnerability.

Second, acquire a security plugin or alternative and pay attention to the alerts it sends you.

Really, there is no need for me to continue talking about this because it is a no-brainer. Definitely require this!

The following are some choices from the official WordPress.org directory:

In addition to such, take into account measures like two-factor authentication and other straightforward improvements that will make your website extremely safe.

Security is one of the most crucial under-the-radar factors to consider when learning how to establish a blog, and I can’t stress this enough!

38. Don’t sweat over your Google PageSpeed Insights score

You understand why you shouldn’t worry about it. Because you typically can’t even significantly improve it.

We conducted a nice experiment a while back. When you receive your initial grade, we wanted to see what kind of an impact you may have on your PageSpeed Insights score. So, after doing testing on a hosting plan with two setups, we optimized the setup that performed worse using a few tried-and-true techniques.

The outcomes were somewhat unexpected (or not surprising at all, depending on how you look at it). It turns out that choosing a fast host for your website is far more crucial than performing any other adjustments.

In the end, even after a variety of adjustments, the quicker hosting option still received a higher rating than the slower hosting setup.

In the end, acquiring a good hosting arrangement is what it all comes down to. When beginning a blog, doing this is always the quickest and most effective approach to raise your PageSpeed Insights score.

39. Use Quora to really find out what people want to learn

Quora was previously mentioned by Bill, but I’m including it for a completely different purpose. This is not about searching for pertinent Quora conversations, answering them, and then promoting your content. This relates to another subject:

One of the few places on the internet where you can go to learn what people really want to know is Quora. In essence, each question gives you the chance to create a brand-new blog post, which is a fantastic tool for those just starting out with blogs.

All you need to do is visit Quora, follow a few subjects that are relevant to the theme of your blog, and pay attention to the questions that people are posing.

When you do that, you accomplish the following:

This is the exact thing we did with at least a handful of posts here:

Key points:

40. Do keyword research for each and every new post you publish

Although keyword research has already been discussed, I wanted to spend one more minute bringing it up to make sure everyone understood. I wanted to emphasize one element in particular here:

The secret to completing genuine, accurate keyword research is to repeat the process for each new content you publish.

Sorry if that sounds like a lot of labor, but there is really no other method to post information when beginning a blog in the current online environment. There is simply already too much excellent information available. Too much existing highly optimized material. You can’t just build your content around “whatever” vaguely related issue and rely on your main keyword for the entire site in a situation like that.

This relates to performing content audits once again. When reviewing and auditing your previous content, ask yourself, “What keyword is this post even targeting? Is it sufficiently optimized?

41. Get inspiration from seemingly unrelated niches

Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with ideas for blog posts. However, maintaining your inspiration by solely consuming content related to your niche also have its drawbacks.

James Altucher, a well-known author and podcaster, claims that idea sex is one of the most potent experiences that a creative person can have (paraphrasing). In other words, having a ton of ideas is the only way tremendous come up with good ones. And once those concepts begin to interact sexually, amazing things, products, and articles begin to emerge.

Therefore, we must grow. I read a lot. Stream several videos. Get a lot done. Give yourself permission to read stuff that isn’t in your field. This is possibly the best course to take when beginning a blog.

Tim Ferriss, an Amazon best-selling author, agrees that it’s important to give himself some leeway in this area. He enjoys reading novels before bed, for instance. He doesn’t write fiction. It would have been counterproductive for him to read fiction. But even so:

Do not read non-fiction prior to bed, which encourages projection into the future and preoccupation/planning. Read fiction that engages the imagination and demands present-state attention.
– Tim Ferriss

42. Give your best stuff away for free

The topic here is paid versus unpaid material. The misconception that your finest content should only be accessible to paying consumers is widespread.

Nope!

If you haven’t totally switched to Spotify or podcasts yet, consider what you hear when you turn on the radio. Do you ever hear a song off an artist’s album at random?

No! Their number one single is what you’re hearing! And you get it for nothing. Why? Considering that this is how they persuade you to purchase the album or a concert ticket.

You might refer to it as the “radio principle.”

The problem is this

People enter the door thanks to the free and excellent goods. They start looking for more when they arrive. They start to believe that this free resource is superior to those that are offered at a cost.
That’s a triumph.

Here, you can promote your one-on-one coaching services, expensive multi-part courses, public speaking engagements, real estate, and so on.

Briefly: Starting a blog? Offer your greatest products for free. It has a fantastic ROI!

43. Stop obsessing over grammar. Nobody cares

(Except this one person who will point it out in the comments. Don’t worry about him. He’s a jerk anyway.)

What counts most is the information’s essence. And although it may sound cliche, it is the way things are.

Simply because your grammar is flawless, nobody will ever visit your blog. I actually mean nobody. If “excellent grammar” is your only selling point, you’ve failed.

To put it another way, a poorly written, insightful essay will always be preferable to a well-written, sexless press release.

Ideas and tales! value for entertainment uncooked data! Prioritize building your content muscle before concentrating on your language.

44. Writing, editing, publishing – it’s a 3-step process

The process of getting an excellent post out the door and into the public still requires some thinking, even though language isn’t something you should be fussing over.

My preferred method is to approach it in three steps: writing, editing, and publishing.

Why would that be?

It’s easy and tempting to edit while you write, that is, to make corrections to your sentences and paragraphs as you go. Since we used it to write school papers, it appears natural. However, it isn’t the most efficient.

The issue with editing as you write is that it breaks your creative process, halts the flow of ideas, and makes storytelling more difficult.

The right method to blog, if I may use the word, is to write first and edit second.

Make it your mantra. How can I begin a blog? Write first, then edit.

When writing the initial draft, the objective is to write as many words as you can without worrying about how they look on paper (or digital paper). I really do mean that you should put anything that comes to mind that has to do with the subject on paper.

Here, it’s crucial to keep moving forward without stopping and attempting to remedy anything. not even mistakes You intend to write. being imaginative

Then, after you’ve finished writing the entire draft, editing can begin. At this point, you can return to your manuscript and begin editing it.

And I am aware that maintaining this isolation is a really difficult task. The key is to recognize this and try to snap yourself out of it. I too find myself editing this or that as I write.

Finally, there is publishing, which these days has taken on a life of its own because the majority of what we write is published online by us (rather than being given to a newspaper or whatever else).

The way blogs operate is distinctive. In addition to formatting the post and adding photographs, you also need to set your tags and categories, include some “click to tweets,” write the headline for your article, prepare the article’s body, and a host of other tasks that come with creating a blog. It all falls under the category of “publication.” Place this last. Just before you press the publish button, work on making your post appear fantastic.

45. Set up your blogging/writing tools right

You may thus find certain tools to be quite useful in your day-to-day life depending on how you go about beginning a blog and producing your material.

Whether it’s a standing desk, a new keyboard, or a cool web app, tools make your blogging life a lot easier.

Let’s simply review each item on this checklist one by one:

I. Get yourself a nice keyboard, please.

Stay put! Please read this entire article. It’s significant.

Perhaps the most underappreciated piece of technology we use on a regular basis is a keyboard. Right, a keyboard is how we interact with computers the majority of the time.

But we hardly ever change keyboards, and we hardly ever keep up with industry developments. We simply use what is offered or what our computer comes with. But that’s incorrect.

There isn’t a single keyboard that can do everything because keyboards come in a wide variety. It all boils down to personal taste, typing prowess, and general comfort in relation to your posture. To find the setting that is the best match, you must experiment with a variety of options.

Different keyboards have keys with different key travel distances. Mechanical keyboards are available. Membrane keys exist. There is everything that modern MacBooks have. Etc. But the truth is that until you give them a shot, you won’t know which one is going to work best for you.

So, try some things out at your neighborhood grocery. Simply wait around, open a notepad program, begin typing, and observe how it feels. You can become a master typist over night with the appropriate keyboard—at least, that’s what it did for me.

II. Try out blogging apps

It’s good to do your job entirely within the WordPress interface, especially while using the distraction-free mode.

But if you use specialized blogging software, you might become even more productive when beginning a blog.

For instance, iA Writer and Bear are two of my favorites.

Markdown is a lot speedier way to write anything, and both apps support it.

In addition, you can synchronize your content across all of your devices if you have more than one.

Other choices include:

III. Experiment with helper apps

Here is a brief list of the apps that significantly speed up my work:

Exit mobile version