You’ve decided to start a blog. Congratulations! Blogging is a great way to share expertise, connect with new people, and reach an audience that might not be able to find you otherwise.
You can learn how to start a blog in any number of ways—this article will give four of the most essential steps to get started.
1. Brainstorm Ideas
Once you have a general idea of the type of content you’d like to write, it’s time to start brainstorming. Think about what your passion is, and how you can share that passion with others. Think of different angles that can be taken and what you want the page to look like.
Get honest opinions from people about whether they would be interested in reading the blog. It may sound great in your head, but it may not be great for others. If the blog is more of a personal journal, you can write whatever you like. If you are looking for views and engagement, you must write for the target audience.
2. Figure Out Your Niche
It is crucial to find a niche if you want to rank highly in search engines like Google and Yahoo. The problem is that this is very hard to do. As an example, let’s look at a sports blog.
If the sports topic is too broad or covers too many areas, the blog will never be able to compete with bigger brands like ESPN, Fox Sports, or Barstool. In contrast, if the topic is too specific, such as high school recruiting in Washington County, Arkansas, even with a loyal audience, you won’t get any clicks or revenue.
The key is to find somewhere in the middle. Perhaps the right topic is high school recruiting in the entire state of Arkansas. This way, the amount of competition is still low enough to rank high online, but large enough to have a good audience.
3. Choose a Design
After deciding on a topic for your blog, it’s time to choose a design. Ensure the theme you choose fits the personality and theme of the topic you are writing about. The color, text, and overall formatting should follow some basic guidelines that can be followed here.
First-time viewers will only give you a few seconds to impress them before moving on to a new page. Keep this in mind when choosing where to post pictures, text, and other elements of your post. Short descriptions, clear graphics, and an inviting format can make the difference between building a loyal audience and having a terrible click-through rate. Fleet maintenance company Cetaris is an example of what this can look like with a nice combination of graphics, clear descriptions, and overall formatting.
4. Write Your First Blog Post
Don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking about how many posts should be written every day. Try writing one post per week and see how it goes! Creating unrealistic goals like “I must publish three posts this week” will only make you feel pressured. Be patient – blogging is not an overnight process. As long as each new post is better than the last, it’s all good!
Don’t forget to be flexible as well. There is no such thing as a perfect blog launch. There are times when the topic needs to be adjusted. Travel bloggers may discover that train travel posts get much better engagement, so they might want to change the general topic to train travel.
Conclusion:
Blogging is a great way to express yourself, connect with other people, and share ideas with the world. Above everything, remember that writing a blog should be fun, and should never be a chore. If you remember that, you can be confident that the blog will have success!
