I wanted to start a blog for years before I finally got the courage to do it. I was afraid that no one would read it, that I wouldn’t have the time to put in a real effort and that it would be too difficult or costly to maintain. I read every lifestyle blog under the sun, knowing that blogging was my dream, but I kept letting excuses and fear get in the way of starting.
Here’s the thing – starting a blog is actually really easy. Keeping it up, not always so easy, but getting started is simple once you get past your own mental blocks. There are so many great resources out there to help bloggers get started, and I wanted to share my own tips and tricks for anyone considering starting a blog either as a hobby or a career.
Tips
Define Your Audience
Personally, I can’t stand the word ‘niche’. I don’t like the idea of keeping my content to one specific topic, so instead I defined the audience that I wanted to reach, and then I write content that I think they would be interested in. I create content that I believe would appeal to women with a with a flair for fashion, a passion for building their career, determination to live a healthy lifestyle or all of the above. Think about who you want to be reading your content.
Define Your Brand
Once you know who you’re talking to, it’s important to define how you want them to think of your blog and your brand. You can have a target audience and great content, but if your target audience doesn’t like what you stand for or what your brand represents, you’re not going to have much success.
My blog and brand are guided by my core values: Connection, Ambition, Authenticity, Boldness, Growth and Creativity. It’s important to me that these values shine through in my content and that my readers can identify these values with my brand.
Develop and Design Your Website
Obviously, this is an important part of starting your blog! There are so many resources out there on how to develop and design a simple blog website. Below in the Tools section of this post, I share the hosting platform that I use for my blog, but I also wanted to share the company that designs the theme and plugins that I use. Empress Themes offers beautiful website themes that are specifically designed for WordPress blogging. They also have great plugins for newsletter opt-ins and affiliate links.
Create A Lot of Content (A LOT)
If you want to have a blog that gets read, you have to create a lot of content. In the first few months of this blog, I thought that I was doing fairly well in terms of page views given that I had just started. I would publish a new post and see a surge of views, followed by a few days of crickets. Now that I have a ton of content on my blog, I see consistent page views every day, and there are two reasons for this: my audience has grown and I have more content for that audience to peruse when on the site.
If I were to start my blog over again, I think that one thing I would do differently is that I would launch with plenty of content ready for readers to enjoy. And not just written content! I would have my blog full of content to read, see and interact with.
Be Social
If you want people to see your content, you have to be a little social! Get very familiar with social media networks like Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. Social media networks are what make blogs discoverable and each platform has its own unique benefits and strategies to apply. One of my favourite blogs to learn about social media strategies is the Later blog. I highly recommend diving into some of their posts if you’re considering starting a blog or even if you’re a seasoned blogging pro. The social media landscape is changing and evolving every day, so make sure you’re keeping up!
You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube and Twitter.
Tap Your Contacts and Connections
Social media activity is necessary to have your blog be discovered, but don’t discount the contacts and connections that you already have. If you want to grow a blog, you need fans, and you’re most likely to find those first fans in your own circle. Without the support of my friends and family, I don’t know that my blog would have been seen by anyone for the first six months to a year. My mom shares every single one of my blog posts, and I always see a bump in traffic when she does!
Aside from the people that love you and want to see you succeed, you can reach out to your contacts and connections to collaborate and support each other. I have reached out to other bloggers to share tips and tricks and to collaborate on giveaways or blog posts. Support your contacts and connections and watch them show you support in return.
Tools
You’re going to need an arsenal of tools to start a blog. These are some of the tools that I use for SammmyHill.com.
Set Up A Self-Hosted Website
Unless your blog is strictly a hobby, I would recommend setting up a self-hosted website. You will have much more flexibility for design, plugins and more. I use Bluehost as my hosting platform, mostly because it’s affordable, but also because it offers my plenty of flexibility and it works like a charm!
Create Graphics
I’m no graphic designer, but with platforms like Canva, it’s easy to create easy and beautiful graphics. I use Canva to make the graphics for my blog posts, social media posts like Instagram Stories and Pinterest pins, and for sharing products with affiliate programs. There is a free version of Canva, which is great, but I use the paid version to get all the features (including the Background Remover!).
Setup Email
If you’re using your blog to connect with people and businesses, you should consider setting up an email account assigned to your website. I use G Suite to manage my blog email address: sammy@sammmyhill.com. If you’d like to use G Suite, I have a code for 20% off:
BASIC: XAAXGGUD6QCXWGR
BUSINESS: 74UWDCJQRKNH3M6
Promote Your Content
Aside from writing your content, promoting it is the most important step in sharing your work. This is where your social media platforms come in to play, but simply posting to those platforms is often now enough to have your content seen. One of my favourite tools for promoting my content is Tailwind. It’s a program that allows you to schedule pins for Pinterest so that your blog is constantly being promoted, rather than you having to be on the platform 24/7. There is also a version of Tailwind for Instagram, but I have not tried that version yet!
I would highly recommend Tailwind for promoting your blog content on Pinterest – it can be a huge traffic driver!
Earn With Affiliate Programs
Once you have established a following and a regular readership, you might consider earning from your blog with affiliate programs. I use rewardStyle and ShareASale affiliate platforms to earn from my blog in the form of links to various retailers. When you click an affiliate link on my blog and purchase a product from the retailer, I can earn a small commission on that sale at no extra charge to you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate when you shop through my affiliate links! Believe it or not, a lot of time and effort goes into shopping and creating those links, so be prepared to put in the time to make it worth your while.
The rewardStyle platform also utilizes the LIKEtoKNOW.it app, which is another great way to earn affiliate income.
My key piece of advice on how to start a blog is to have fun with it. If you want to make your blog a real business, of course you need to take it seriously and be strategic, but no one gets into blogging unless it’s something that they’re passionate about. Play around with social media, with the design of your website and with your content, and find what works best for you and the audience that you want to reach.
If you do start a blog, please share it with me in the comments! I would love to check it out 🙂
Disclaimer: I earn affiliate income from qualifying purchases.