Are you already blogging, or are you only planning to start your first blog? When you write a blog, you need to choose your own platform and take care of backups, security and valuable content. Like every blogger starting out online, I made a few mistakes too. I had my share of frustration and lost time and money. Like every successful blogger, I kept going. It could have been easier, and it could have happened faster. Now that I have some experience, I want to help others with a few tips.
Table of contents
Here is what you should know before you start a blog
First you need to set up the blog, focus on valuable content, make the blog interesting and, above all, take the right approach to building it. It is important to use the right tools when you create a blog. Once your blog grows, you will not want to rely on a rented platform. You will want all your content on your own domain, hosted on your own server. This lowers the risk of losing your blog through bad luck, for example when a company offering free blogs goes out of business.
1. If your blog is just a hobby and you do not plan to earn money from it or use it to support a business, you can use WordPress, Blogger or another platform of your choice. If you do plan to make money from your blog, you should use your own server with content management software, known as a CMS (WordPress is very popular). This means buying a domain and paying a hosting company for server space. It may seem a bit scary at first, but it is a much better solution than running a commercial blog on a free blogging platform.
2. If you have already started blogging on a free platform and written a few posts, but found this guide and changed your mind, the easiest way to switch to your own blog is to copy your content to a CMS on your own domain and delete it from the public platform. Leaving the content on the public blogging platform will get you penalised for ‘content theft’ - so it is much better to clean up everything on the old free blog after moving to your own domain.
3. Do not choose a platform just because a friend uses it or because you have a discount code. Look for the best solution for you, take your time and think it through. Some bloggers run into problems when their blog becomes popular, so choose a blog setup that really suits you. If you are not happy with your platform, switching may be less painful than you think. Most companies offering WordPress also offer to migrate your published content - ask whether this is an option for you.
Backups, security and a mailing list
4. Make backups, every time. Backups are extremely important. If content disappears from your site, you can restore it from a backup, and you will be glad you did. Do not make the mistake thousands of other bloggers made by not planning for data loss. Make backups regularly and keep them in a safe place.
5. Pay attention to security. If you have only just started, few people know about you. Even hackers do not know about you yet. Sometimes, however, attacks are random, and your website may fall victim to one. If you are not familiar with server and data security, look at companies that offer such services. Among popular companies offering free security scanners, Sucuri is worth mentioning.
6. Build your own mailing list. It is important to offer incentives - reasons for someone to subscribe to your messages. Convince your readers to share their email addresses and give your blog a bit of their attention. Consider creating a guide or an e-book and sending it for free in exchange for signing up. Interesting audio or video content will also catch readers’ interest. A short online course can teach your visitors something new as well. You can also offer other incentives that make readers come back to your blog.
Welcome your readers, give them valuable content, add a contact form… and collect email addresses you can use later to build your brand.
Content, analytics and links for your blog
7. Focus on writing interesting blog content. Do not write about random topics. Building a stronger relationship with readers requires meaningful content. Create clear categories and tags. They keep things organised and encourage readers to explore your blog more closely. Categories work like a table of contents for your blog. A personal development blog might have categories such as “Managing your time” or “Taking care of your health”. Every post you publish should have a category, and remember that a post can belong to two or more categories. You do not need to create a full list of categories on your first day of blogging. Three or four categories are enough to start.
Tags work like an index for your blog. It is worth adding a few tags to each post and using them to build topical connections between your content. When you blog, make sure you do not spam, because it looks bad and readers do not accept it, even when it is accidental.
8. Get to know Google Analytics. It is a way to analyse how readers behave on your blog. It is a simple tool for the most common uses, yet new bloggers rarely use it. Try to write interesting posts, because those attract readers - and Analytics data is exactly what shows you what interests them.
9. Try to get links to your site from other sites. It makes a lot of sense. Use keywords in your link anchors. You can use the keywords other people search for by checking them in Google Keyword Planner, but remember that the links you build should look natural, so do not stuff them with keywords.
10. Use internal linking. When you publish new content, add links to older posts. Meta tags are also recommended as part of optimisation: the META TITLE and META DESCRIPTION should be unique and contain the keywords the article targets.
11. Publishing guest posts from other bloggers often gets you a chance to publish on their blogs. Many new bloggers take a long time before they agree to publish posts by others. In fact, even big, well-known bloggers are open to publishing posts by newcomers - they want to help new people in the field and get valuable content that attracts readers in return. A well-known blog can help you get noticed and win many readers.
Page speed, images and a favicon
12. Keep your site running smoothly. It must not be overloaded and should load quickly at any time of day. Check your blog’s speed with PageSpeed Insights and optimise it if needed to make the site faster. The most popular method is enabling caching, which reduces the number of database queries and can sometimes cut page load time several times over. If your blog is already large and gets a lot of traffic, you may need to move to a faster server.
13. Optimise the images on your site. Add pictures and make your blog interesting. Images should be the right size, without empty space around them, and colour photos in high-resolution JPG format usually work well. If you need to optimise images for your blog, you can easily do it with, for example, the WP Smush plugin.
14. A favicon matters because it shows up in the browser tab as a mini logo of your site. A favicon makes your site look professional. Favicons are usually made using the site’s colours and the first letter of its name.
How do you keep going as a blogger?
15. Stay optimistic and do not expect overnight success. There will be bloggers you envy. Success often comes only after several months or even years of blogging. Sometimes earlier blogs pave the way to success for new ones. If you want to succeed quickly, it is important to treat your blog as a business. Plan how the business will grow, invest in the site and plan how to expand it.
16. Good time management is important. You surely have plenty of responsibilities. Maybe you work full time or study. Maybe you have a family, so time is always short. Even if you work on your blog full time, you will need good time management and skills. Work on your blog sensibly, take breaks and rest. Moderate comments, answer emails and put energy and passion into creating valuable blog content.
17. New bloggers worry about how they will handle negative feedback. Rude comments on their blogs, aggressive tweets and nasty emails are not what they need at the start of their blogging journey. You cannot please everyone. Some people have unreasonable expectations that can never be met. Watch what the negative opinions are about, follow trends and collect comments - all of this turns into knowledge and experience, and it is exactly that combination of knowledge and experience that will make you a good blogger.
