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Taking lessons from other people’s mistakes is always beneficial. This helps in saving resources, such as time and money. And this is true for starting a blog as well. Here, we’ll share some proven and sound tips to consider before starting a blog that we wish we knew before we started blogging.
At first, starting a blog can seem daunting. You might be eager to go on a blogging journey but also uncertain about where and how to begin.
Everyone loves perfection and wants to do everything properly to make their blog a success. We, too, started with the fear of the unknown. We’ve made numerous mistakes; we failed many times but took lessons from them and put our efforts in the right direction. This enables us to improve our credibility, achieve higher rankings, and boost traffic to our site. That’s why we created this write-up to help you avoid mistakes and start blogging the right way.
Let’s get started with what you must consider before starting a blog.
1. Choosing the right blogging platform
There are plenty of blogging platforms out in the market, free as well as paid. Many people opt for any free blogging platform, such as Medium, Blogger, or WordPress.com, just because they are free to use, and this is where they make a huge mistake. The reason is that all these platforms come with a lot of limitations. If you are willing to start a blog, you need a platform that is flexible, full of features, and that lets you expand your capabilities. And WordPress.org is the Answer to this. It’s a potent blogging platform that is powering around 43% of all websites on the internet at present. Even novice users can learn and use WordPress easily.
2. Choosing the right domain name and web hosting
The next thing you need to focus on is the right domain name and right web hosting. Establish your blog’s identity with a name that is easy to remember, short and attractive. This will be what people will remember you with. Choose a name that matches your blog’s niche.
Next will be choosing the right web hosting plan. Many people make mistakes with this as they opt for the free hosting solution. They miss that free web hosting also comes with a lot of limitations- less security, no support, limited resources, common outages, and more. If you want to establish your blog successfully, you’ll need to choose a web hosting plan (cloud, VPS, or Dedicated) from a reliable host. To step into your blogging journey, you can start with the most affordable and lower hosting plan. It can effectively fulfil your requirements.
3. Choose your niche cautiously.
If you desire to establish yourself as a professional blogger, you can’t write on any random topic. Many new bloggers start their blogs and generate material on any topic they desire, which is not the best approach to go. This path leads to nowhere. To avoid this, your blog needs to cover articles on a particular niche that will help you present yourself as a knowledge expert and build trust within your audience. You can start with what interests you but be sure to research and discover if it is in demand or not or do people want to read it. Your writing will be worth only when people are interested in what you are offering. Choose the niche that you can write on and that can pay you back as well.
4. Perform keyword research- It’s crucial.
Even if you write excellent posts, you can’t appear on search results if you haven’t used the right keyword. Keyword targeting is the most important aspect of creating content and offering what people are actually searching for. Keyword research is crucial because your time is precious, and you can’t create content randomly. What if nobody wants what you write?
Thus, you can utilize keyword research tools that can help you discover the trending keywords in your niche that are potent and can attract users to your site. There are plenty of keyword research tools such as Answer the public, QuestionDB, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and more that can help you research keywords and find the potential topics in your niche that people are looking for.
5. Make sure you provide Quality Content.
Your blog can’t succeed with low-quality content, and this is the reason for the failure of many. Once you have established everything, you always need to keep in mind that content is the most important aspect that can uplift or pull down your blog’s existence. The quality of content matters the most. You can easily be successful early or late if you offer quality content. No matter what you write, your grammar should be perfect. Never create a wall of text. Split it into headings and paras. Add images to it to make it more interesting and readable. Make sure to provide valuable information to users. Do not copy the content and offer unique, strong, and engaging content to the readers. These are some tips that can help you offer quality content and create your presence on the internet.
6. Be consistent- It’s the key to success.
Many bloggers fail because they aren’t focused on their work. Keep yourself motivated, and don’t get distracted from your goal. Although it’s not a rule to post every day, you only need to be consistent. Prepare a schedule for yourself and post regularly based on it. This will help you gain the attention and trust of your audience.
7. Optimize your blogs for SEO
We are in this digital era, and to appear higher in search results, you need to optimize your blog for search engines. There are multiple elements in SEO, broadly on-page, off-page, and technical, that should be perfect for achieving higher rankings and reaching its targeted audience. Many bloggers don’t pay attention to SEO optimization and continuously create new content to grow their blogs. However, this doesn’t work so. You need to optimize each blog for search engines as well as monitor your strategy to see if it is working or not.
8. Embed videos on your blog to boost user engagement
Videos engage users majorly as they help them understand the content more efficiently. You can embed videos on your blogs to engage users. One thing we would like to mention is not to upload videos directly to your blogs. This might hurt your page loading speed; instead, upload them on third-party sites like YouTube and embed them on your blogs.
9. Set up “Google Analytics” to analyze your blog from the start.
Web analysis plays an important role in the development of any blog. Unless you don’t know how your blogs are performing and how visitors are interacting with your website, how can you plan your future strategy?
Many bloggers use guesswork to analyze website performance, but that’s not the correct way. You can fritter away time and hard work if you continue with your initial strategy. With time everything changes, and you need to modify your strategy accordingly.
You must set up Google Analytics for your blog to discover your site’s performance and track user engagement.
10. Set up a professional email and start creating your email list from the start.
Email marketing is the most efficient method of reaching out to your customers.
You can create a professional-looking email for your blogging site and start building your email list. This can help you reach your customers and promote your content efficiently. In turn, this will engage your users, boost traffic to your blog, and generate leads.
Many bloggers do not place as much emphasis on email lists leading their blogs to fall behind.
Make sure you build your email list right away with potential email marketing, such as OptinMonster and Elementor Pro. You can even start with the free options first and keep in touch with your customers to keep them engaged.
11. Give a personal touch to your blog.
Create and add an About Page and Start Here page on your blog. On your “About Page”, share your story. Tell them how you started, what obstacles you faced, how you learned, and how you got on the right track. This will help you create a personal connection with your audience and help them to learn from your mistakes and experience.
Also, add a “Start Here” page, where you can help users to get started if they too want to start a blog. Make the title catchy and attractive, and provide the links to your most important articles that can help them to get started easily. This will provide your blog with a personal touch, and users might connect with you more and may become your loyal users and even subscribers.
12. Build your authority and credibility
You can’t succeed only by creating content and publishing them on your blog. You need to work on the other way as well.
That is, focus on boosting your credibility. Once you establish your blog successfully, you need to boost your authority and credibility. Write for others, and try guest posting. Comment on others’ blogs within your niche and grab attention, collaborate with the experts in your niche, build sound relations, and take part in forums. This will help you establish yourself as a topical expert in your niche, and once people start knowing you, they’ll cite you and link you back.
13. Promote your content
Nowadays, the majority of the population spends their time on social platforms. Social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more can be greatly effective in reaching your targeted audience and driving traffic to your blog. Create your social visibility and connect with users. Promote your content there and provide useful tips and tricks related to your niche. This will help you create trust within your brand and may drive potential traffic to your site.
14. Use effective tools
Do not run everything on guesswork. Tools can help you strategize your next step so you can back your website and reach heights. SEO Tools are surprisingly great for monitoring a website’s performance, digging out the issues, and suggesting ways you can keep your site’s content and site’s SEO top-notch. You can even keep a check on your competitors and find ideas for yourself with the tools. Examples of some tools are Grammarly, SEMrush, AnswerThePublic, Google Search Console, Google Analytics Yoast, and many more. Many bloggers do not implement any of the tools and pull everything on guesswork, which sooner or later puts them off. If you desire to see your blog flourishing, make sure to take help from the potent tools.
15.Repourpose your content
Content repurposing is another great way to engage your audience. For this, you can repurpose your existing content into images, videos, ebooks, audio files, or podcasts to present your content more beautifully and interestingly. This will help you uplift your internet presence and increase your dependable users.
16. The right time to Monetize your blog
You can start monetizing your blog once you’ve established yourself as a successful blogger and have a decent amount of traffic to it. You can sign up for Google AdSense. It will put ads on your blog, and you’ll earn money in return. You can also sell online courses and subscription plans, involve in affiliate marketing, and much more. However, remember that you can only earn money blogging once you are well-known and well-established and enjoy vast traffic.
To conclude-
Blogging is not a difficult chore once you understand the strategy behind it. You only need to focus on and follow the right path. As we said, you can best learn from others’ journeys. Before starting your blog, you can read what well-established bloggers say. Hope this write-up will help you avoid the mistakes most people make while starting their blogging journey. Here, we have discussed the various tips to consider before starting a blog; follow these proven and sound tips to launch a successful blog.
