Admittedly, there's nothing that quite rings 'hypocrite' like uploading a blog post about how to become a blogger following a two year-long hiatus of my own. That being said, I thought it would be a shame to rid this post from my 'drafts' folder; for while I am by no means a pro, there's still something to be said for the 5, approaching 6, years of experience I have amassed blogging - that, and it would be a waste given the circumstances, what with half of the Internet (or so it seems) seeking to start a new hobby. Whether it be choosing the hosting site that's right for you or learning the ropes of SEO and social media, I hope that there is something to take away for any of the budding bloggers among us. As per usual, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
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CHOOSING A PLATFORM
Naturally, the first step you need to take when setting up your own blog is choosing a platform by which to do so. As exciting as it may be to get your blog up and running, I believe that this is a step which you ought to take your time in. Something which I wish I had done when setting up this blog is fully exploring the popular platforms available (be it Wordpress, Blogger, Weebly, Wix, GoDaddy, Squarespace, you name it!), making a pros and cons list and truly weighing up which platform would have worked best for me. There are a few key things which I believe are most important to look out for:
USER-FRIENDLINESS
Admittedly, my coding skills are non-existent so when I was initially setting up my blog back in 2014, I was on the lookout for a platform that would be very easy to use and didn't require those skills. Weebly, I believe, is fantastic for this as there are a range of templates that you can choose from and the rest is simply dragging and dropping elements into said templates - though you can embed some coding should you desire it. Having also had prior experience with Blogger, I can safely say that it is also a good option for those starting out. Wordpress, on a general note, tends to be a little more complicated - but with that, there are far more template options to choose from.
TEMPLATE OPTIONS
Leading on from the above point, if you are not looking to code your blog into action, an important factor to consider is the availability and indeed the cost of templates. For me, this is a major downside to Weebly as I feel like the templates that the platform themselves offer are scarce, rather basic and indeed a little outdated. Templates can be found online from web developers but that, again, usually comes at a charge. It is a case of weighing up what you want to get out of your blog, and thus how much you are willing to invest in it. Importantly, you want to be sure to investigate how your template differs and translates itself across different devices. For years, I was frustrated by the way in which my blog looked on mobile devices until I found a way to emulate the same design across both mobile and desktop devices!
PRICE
Many platforms will allow you to set up a website completely free of charge, but will require some form of payment plan should you choose to want some more elaborate features. An important feature to consider, in my opinion, is a domain name - that is to say, do you want the name of the platform in your web address (i.e. everylittlethingblog.weebly.com)? Personally, I haven't opted to buy a domain name because I run this blog purely as a hobby, with any sponsorship I get being a bonus, but if you are looking to make some money with your blog, having your own domain name makes it look a lot more professional. Naturally, some platforms will offer you a better deal than others - with GoDaddy being the main example that jumps into my mind. Similarly, something which I only found out recently is that Weebly sites can be linked to Google AdSense to provide you with some extra income - but that is only applicable to those which are on some sort of paid plan. Again, you have to be true to yourself and to your intentions and do your research.
CREATING YOUR BRAND
Now that you have chosen the platform you wish to use for your blog, it's time to get the ball rolling!
The first thing that you will need to do is choose a blog name. Before you do this, however, it may be helpful to find your intended blogging niche: what do you intend to post? If you are truly at your wits end trying to find the perfect name, I would simply stick to using your real name; at the end of the day, it will always sound professional and will not be something that you wish to change 2 years down the line - a bit of a nightmare, to say the least. That being said, if you can find your niche and manage to incorporate a keyword or two in your blog name, it may help your SEO (more to come on this later).
Having come up with a name for your blog, it's time to move onto your blog design; this is where you can go wild to your heart's content! At the start of your blogging career, if that's what you'd call it, I believe the most important thing is to ensure your blog's readability - and by that, I mean making sure your layout is simple, logical and compatible on both desktop and mobile devices. With around half of my views coming from said mobile devices, I simply cannot afford to have my posts show up in a size 2 font; people are going to be more likely to click off and simply not bother than they are to take the effort to have to zoom in only to keep scrolling back and forth!
At this point, you can begin working on your first blog post. Naturally, the first couple of months for any new blog are going to be difficult - but it's important not to be disheartened and to keep working at it. Asides from promoting your blog, which I will shortly get onto, the key to gaining a loyal and intrigued readership is consistency - something which I admittedly a little hypocritical pointing out, though the fact stands. This does not mean that you have to post daily and set unattainable standards for yourself, but rather having a rough schedule which you aim to stick to - say, posting every Sunday afternoon. I am also big on having a cover photo for every blog post, which will help you immensely when promoting on platforms such as Bloglovin and Pinterest. Spice up with your photos with some props, get creative and make sure the lighting is good.
The first thing that you will need to do is choose a blog name. Before you do this, however, it may be helpful to find your intended blogging niche: what do you intend to post? If you are truly at your wits end trying to find the perfect name, I would simply stick to using your real name; at the end of the day, it will always sound professional and will not be something that you wish to change 2 years down the line - a bit of a nightmare, to say the least. That being said, if you can find your niche and manage to incorporate a keyword or two in your blog name, it may help your SEO (more to come on this later).
Having come up with a name for your blog, it's time to move onto your blog design; this is where you can go wild to your heart's content! At the start of your blogging career, if that's what you'd call it, I believe the most important thing is to ensure your blog's readability - and by that, I mean making sure your layout is simple, logical and compatible on both desktop and mobile devices. With around half of my views coming from said mobile devices, I simply cannot afford to have my posts show up in a size 2 font; people are going to be more likely to click off and simply not bother than they are to take the effort to have to zoom in only to keep scrolling back and forth!
At this point, you can begin working on your first blog post. Naturally, the first couple of months for any new blog are going to be difficult - but it's important not to be disheartened and to keep working at it. Asides from promoting your blog, which I will shortly get onto, the key to gaining a loyal and intrigued readership is consistency - something which I admittedly a little hypocritical pointing out, though the fact stands. This does not mean that you have to post daily and set unattainable standards for yourself, but rather having a rough schedule which you aim to stick to - say, posting every Sunday afternoon. I am also big on having a cover photo for every blog post, which will help you immensely when promoting on platforms such as Bloglovin and Pinterest. Spice up with your photos with some props, get creative and make sure the lighting is good.
AMASSING A READERSHIP
KNOW YOUR READERSHIP
One of the best decisions I have made throughout my blogging career is to install Google Analytics. Not only does this platform accurately track your page views, it also allows you to gain a better insight as to what your readership looks like. In the past year, for example, I am able to see that the majority of my readers (51.49%) are based in The United States, followed by the United Kingdom (17.47%) and Australia (3.91%) - with a whopping 81.25% of those readers identifying as female. Similarly, I can see that my most popular posts include My Work Experience at The United Nations and my, very old, Dupe Alert! Naked 2 Basics vs. Makeup Revolution. You can also see the times at which your blog attracts the largest number of traffic, all of which will help inform your decisions about things such as what time of the day to post so as to gain the largest number of readers you can.
IMPROVE YOUR SEO
Admittedly, SEO isn't the most beginner-friendly concept (heck, I'm still trying to get to grips with it myself) - but improving your SEO can significantly help to draw more traffic into your blog and, hopefully, help you to amass a loyal readership. SEO stands for 'Search Engine Optimisation'; long story short, the better your SEO, the more likely it is that your blog will be in the first few pages of results in a search engine when somebody searches for a specific topic. How does one go about improving their SEO? Asides from some more complicated measures, there are some really simple steps you can take - such as making sure to include many keywords consistently and seeing if your platform has the option for you to write a SEO description, preferentially with said keywords. If you would like to learn more on the subject, I would highly recommend reading this blog post from What Corrine Did.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Perhaps unsurprisingly, by far the most effective way in which you can amass a readership on your blog is by getting on social media! There are a few platforms in particular which come to mind, which I will now deal with individually:
Speaking from a purely personal point of view, Twitter is the best platform through which you can begin to gain a readership.
There are many retweet accounts such as @BloggingBabesRT and #BloggerLoveShare which, once you have followed them, will retweet any posts wherein you promote your latest posts, helping you to gain far more exposure and make your posts more likely to be seen. As tweets are notoriously short, I would highly recommend using the app Bitly to shorten your links. In the past, I have also used the app Buffer to schedule tweets in advance for when I am not able to do the posts myself at peak times. Do not go overboard here so as to not annoy your followers, a few tweets a day should be enough.
Similarly, many of these accounts will host chats at specific times or comment threads wherein everybody can share their latest blog posts and interact with one another's uploads. This will not only help to drive more traffic to your site, but will also allow you to meet like-minded people with whom you can become friends with!
As there are on Instagram, there are also so-called 'comment pods'. This is where a set number of bloggers come together to form a group chat and, once you have uploaded a new blog post, you simply let the chat know and the members will have a look and follow up with a comment - provided you return the favour. While they may be great to boost traffic, they're most certainly a commitment and a part of me cannot help but feel as if there's something disingenuous about them - but hey ho, there are people who love them and you never know until you try! You can see my blog post on them here if you're interested.
There are many retweet accounts such as @BloggingBabesRT and #BloggerLoveShare which, once you have followed them, will retweet any posts wherein you promote your latest posts, helping you to gain far more exposure and make your posts more likely to be seen. As tweets are notoriously short, I would highly recommend using the app Bitly to shorten your links. In the past, I have also used the app Buffer to schedule tweets in advance for when I am not able to do the posts myself at peak times. Do not go overboard here so as to not annoy your followers, a few tweets a day should be enough.
Similarly, many of these accounts will host chats at specific times or comment threads wherein everybody can share their latest blog posts and interact with one another's uploads. This will not only help to drive more traffic to your site, but will also allow you to meet like-minded people with whom you can become friends with!
As there are on Instagram, there are also so-called 'comment pods'. This is where a set number of bloggers come together to form a group chat and, once you have uploaded a new blog post, you simply let the chat know and the members will have a look and follow up with a comment - provided you return the favour. While they may be great to boost traffic, they're most certainly a commitment and a part of me cannot help but feel as if there's something disingenuous about them - but hey ho, there are people who love them and you never know until you try! You can see my blog post on them here if you're interested.
Pinterest is something which I have admittedly neglected over the years but, as with Twitter, they can be great if you decide to join up some group boards, find some people in a similar niche to you and get on pinning! My top pinning tip, aside from joining some group boards and including hashtags in your descriptions, would be to create a board dedicated to all of your blog posts and, with every blog post, leave an extra graphic for your blog post below and pin it to that folder. My favourite website to create said graphics, which I also use for Instagram, is Canva. Be bold and let your readers clearly know what you aim to discuss. This is why catchy titles can be important - though there is, of course, a limit for everything (I'm personally not a fan of this 'clickbait' nonsense, but I can see why people do it).
Creating an Instagram specifically dedicated to your blog is a great idea as you can, like Twitter, post your latest cover photos, add some hashtags and hope to lure some people in to read your new post! That sounded rather menacing didn't it? Oops... Again, the key here is to post high-quality, interesting graphics that are pleasing to the eye and be strategic with the hashtags you use - though be careful in repeating the same hashtags you use too often, as you don't want to risk being mistaken for a bot and be shadowbanned. Similarly, be sure to share the love and not just expect people to come to you when you're not prepared to give anything back. Switching to a business account, as with Google Analytics, can help you to understand your following and make better decisions in regards to your posting.
BLOGLOVIN
Bloglovin is a platform which is specifically dedicated to bloggers, which is what I love so much about it! You can simply link your blog to the site and any new posts will immediately be uploaded there as well as your blog. Like the platforms above, you can follow other bloggers and also amass a follower base which will see your new posts in their curated feed. There is also the option to sift through blog posts in any of the categories you are interested in and include some hashtags to, hopefully, feature yourself!