Are you ready to create a blog to make money? Before you jump right in, you should plan things out first. That way, you can improve the chances of your blog becoming a success.
Starting a blog takes time, so don’t expect overnight results. But if you do the following, you can increase your chances of making it.
Before we get into the tips, this post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy to learn more.
Choose a Niche
One of the first things you should do is choose a niche for your blog. You can start a lifestyle blog and make it work. However, it will be much easier to get traffic and build trust if you have a niche.
Your niche should be something you know about or are at least interested in. That way, you can write a lot of blog posts on your chosen topic. The blog posts you write will be of better quality when you understand the subject.
It took me a long time to niche down, and I paid the price. My first blog took forever to grow, and it’s still pretty small. If you can’t stick with one niche, you can always start a second blog, but start with one for now.
Validate Your Niche
Before you settle on a niche, you need to make sure it has potential. This is particularly important if you want to make money with your new blog.
Take a look on Pinterest to see what comes up. You can also use Quora, Facebook, and other platforms to learn what people have questions about.
Now, you don’t need to choose the largest niche. In fact, doing so can lead to a lot of competition. Look for a balance between the potential for traffic and the ability to stand out as an authority in your niche.
Brainstorm Post Ideas
Next, you’ll want to come up with some topic ideas for articles. You can do a lot of this research while validating your niche. Go back to Pinterest or Google and see what titles show up first in search results.
Of course, you can also use your subject matter expertise. Maybe you know something’s a huge problem in your industry. You could turn that problem into a blog post idea where you give a solution.
List all of your post ideas together, such as in your notes app, in Trello, or on paper. That way, you can keep track of your ideas for when you go to write a new blog post.
After you collect some ideas, do SEO research. Figure out how many searches the topics get per month and how competitive it will be to rank for those topics. Then, choose low competition terms to start, and you can save the rest for once your blog has more authority.
Write a Few Posts
It may sound odd, but try writing a few blog posts before you create a blog. The last thing you want is to buy a domain and hosting only to find that you don’t enjoy the topic or blogging, in general.
Use Google Docs or another tool to write your first few posts. Take those ideas from your list and choose a few to cover. Edit the posts to make sure they’re of good quality.
Then, you can copy and paste them into your website after you set up your hosting account. I use SiteGround, and it’s easy to copy text into a post or page if necessary.
Review Your Schedule
Before you create a blog, you may also want to think about your schedule. If you want your blog to do well, you need to dedicate enough time to writing and promoting your content.
You also need to be able to commit to it for a year before you can expect to see results. Consider how much time you can spend writing posts and sharing them each week.
If possible, I’d recommend publishing at least two posts per week when you start. You can get away with one post if necessary. However, the more you post, the sooner you’ll see results.
Check Out Your Competition
Another important step to take before you create a blog is to review your competitors. You can do this by searching for your blog niche in Google and on social media.
Consider how often they publish new content. Think about the quality of the articles and how long they are. Then, you can find ways to beat your competition.
Maybe you publish articles more often, or you make your articles longer and more detailed. Knowing what your competition is doing can give you a good idea of strategies to try for your blog, and you can test different options until you find what works for you.
Develop a Blogging Business Plan
Assuming you want to make money from blogging, you need to have a blogging business plan. You can do this before or after you create a blog, so don’t feel like you need to rush this step.
However, you don’t want to wait too long. Creating a blogging plan can help you set goals and work towards them. Your plan can look like any other business plan and include how you’ll market the blog and how you plan on making money.
Keep your blogging business plan handy. If you ever have any doubts on how you’ll make money, look back at your plan. This can also help you if you feel like you aren’t reaching your goals. It can remind you what to focus on.
Don’t Wait Too Long
You have to create a blog eventually if you want to make it a thing. While you can do a lot of planning, don’t let planning keep you from actually starting a blog.
Your first blog doesn’t need to be perfect. For one, you can always edit it and change the theme or plugins to make it better. Also, you probably won’t get much traffic to your site at first.
It’s okay if there are small errors. The important thing is that you invest in a good website host and set up WordPress. Then, you can start writing posts.
Will You Create a Blog?
Deciding to create a blog is exciting, but it’s not easy. Be sure to consider a few things before you start your blog.
That way, you can have everything in order before you invest in hosting and a domain. And if you’re ready to do that, read my SiteGround review to learn if it’s the host for you.