If you are money conscious however and still want to start a blog, there are platforms that allow bloggers to create blogs, some free of charge and others paid. Not all of these blogs however offer the same benefits as you will see later.

Although there are benefits associated with free blog platforms, these may not be ideal for the objective that you have in mind.

Some paid blogging sites provide benefits that make their monthly fees worthwhile. My ultimate goal was to find a platform that provided me with useful tools as it related to the design of my blog. I needed a platform that would also allow me to monetise it whichever way I wanted.

The free and paid blog sites that I discuss in this post help the brand new blogger build and design their blog hassle-free. I have also paid attention to platforms that do not need a lot of technical input from the blogger as I appreciate that not many people know code or script.

Sometimes you just want an easy set up and these blogs, I think, offer that. Whatever your goal is, I hope that this list helps you choose the best blogging platform for your blogging needs.

What is a Blogging Site or Platform?

A blogging site or platform is the foundation upon which one can create a blog.

Back in the days, to build a website you would need to know html and coding. You would have to sit countless hours writing codes and scripts, so that a website could be formed or you could take the easy way out and hire a website developer.

Today however companies have made it easier to create a website or blog by having pre-made templates and designs for the blogger. All you need is the content, which includes your text, images or video.

Some people refer to a blogging site or platform as a blog builder. In technical terms, it is referred to as a content management system.

You will see that when you start using these blogging platforms that very little technical expertise is necessary. Many websites, including this one provide you with step-by-step, straightforward instructions to build your blog.

If you want a more customised, personalised blog design then you may have to implement coding and may therefore require the services of a blog designer or developer.

How Do You Get Your Blog Online?

When you create a blog on a blogging platform, there are a few steps that you need to take before your blog becomes live and is available for the public to enjoy.

The difference between the steps is dependent on whether you have a free or paid blog.

With a paid blog, you must purchase a small space on a web server where your website will be stored. You can purchase this space from companies that provide the technology; these companies being referred to as web hosts.

One such company and my number one recommendation for web hosting is Bluehost.

Why Bluehost? Well I have been with them for over two years, their support is amazing, they are a reputable and well-known host provider and host over one million domains.

Once you have selected your host, you need to select a domain name.

The domain name is the web address. Choosing a good domain name can be very important to the success of your blog. Here are a couple of tips to help you:

1. Keep your domain name short and easy to type. This means do not use special characters and numbers if you can help it.
2. Use keywords in your industry. This is good for SEO. For example if your blog is about gardening, then keywords like “the garden lover” or “garden success” are great keywords to form a domain.
3. Claim your domain name as quickly as possible. Domain names are purchased every day, and if you are not careful, yours can be taken. When you buy the domain name, that is your brand. Use it and build it.
4. Make people remember you if you want repeat traffic. Come up with something catchy and easy.

After you have selected both the host and domain, you can start building your blog and content and publish your blog online.

Just being online doesn’t mean that you will have money coming your way, though. What do you do to make money now that you have a blog?

Simply being online is not enough to get traffic or to steer sales to make an income from your blog.

It is also necessary to produce content often, build an audience and engage with them.

How Do Blogs Make Money?

Blogs can make money in a variety of ways.

It is important to understand though, that in order to make money from a blog; you must have traffic and engagement.

You must be able to convince people to purchase or sign up for products that you promote, interact with brands that you may write sponsored content for or use your paid services.

The ultimate goal is to be strategic in finding and applying lucrative opportunities. Some bloggers decide to sell things online that they have acquired. Other solutions come in the form of affiliate programs. There are also paid advertising placements on your blog where you can earn money.  These are typically free and come with ads links, support, and tutorials for earning with blogs.

Let’s briefly look at these opportunities:

Advertising placements –

Sure, ads can be distracting and most people do not like them, but it’s a great opportunity if you want to make some money. There are two main types of ads:

• PPC ads – pay per click ads. When someone goes to your blog and clicks on an ad banner, you get paid!
• CPM ads – cost per one thousand impressions. These ads pay you based on the amount of traffic to your site that sees an ad, as opposed to the clicks on the ad. For example, an advertiser may pay $2.00 for every 1000 impressions of its ad; meaning that the ad has been displayed 1000 times to persons who visit your website.

You can get ads placements on your site by using the most popular network, Google AdSense. Other ad networks include Media.net, Adsterra Network or Propellor Ads.

These services usually pick the ads and set it up on your blog for you. This makes the process extremely easy.

Of course, the more popular your blog gets, the more advertisers will notice. In fact, advertisers may come to you to pay you for the ability to place an ad on your site. This usually gives you more money. You can even actively search out advertisers before they come to you. Be sure to give them a good reason to advertise on your site and be willing to compromise at first.

Affiliate marketing –

This is my favourite monetisation strategy and I discuss it more in this post. This is where you promote other advertiser’s or marketer’s products for a commission when an action is taken in relation to that product.

That action could be a sale, a lead, a call, a download or a video view.

You can use affiliate links within your content that helps direct your audience to the affiliate product.

Sponsored content –

This method gives you the opportunity to earn money for posting content in the form of a blog post or video. For example, a brand may reach out to you and offer to pay you $500 to write a review about one of their products, in exchange for you posting that content on your blog and introducing your audience to it.

The expectation for the brand is that by posting the content on a high traffic volume website, will drive traffic to their own website and therefore they will be able to acquire a new audience and even sales.

Selling your own products –

Whilst this requires time and effort, selling your own products is a great way to earn money. As you build an audience, you begin to earn the trust of that audience and with that comes a desire to learn from you. It is here where you can share your expertise in a paid product. Check this link to see my first digital product that teaches you how to make money from affiliate marketing without a website

Offering services –

The same as having your own products for sale, you may wish to offer services such as consultation, audits or coaching. This is actually one of the ways in which I monetise my blog and it is a very lucrative opportunity but equally time consuming.

The Top 6 Free and Paid Blog Sites

Blogger

Pros: Blogger is one of the most popular hosting sites for new bloggers. It was acquired by Google in 2003 and is an easy set-up site. Site owners here have access to analytics resources, such as statistics, social media connections, and comment tracking. This free blog site is easy to manage and is reliable.

Cons: Blogger offers site owners fewer templates to choose from for personalisation details. There are fewer updates available on this hosting platform, which limits feature additions. Owners also have less access to advanced blogging tools. You should note that Google has the ability to either suspend blogs or to cancel them at any time or as they see fit.

Medium

Pros: The popularity of Medium, established in 2012, has grown quite a bit making it a place for bloggers, writers, and journalists to connect. This hosting site offers an easy set-up process, which can be created without coding skills. It is possible for writers to focus on site objectives and not designing a professional blog.

Cons: There are few social networking features for blog owners to use with this platform. It is difficult to establish brands or stand out from competitors. There are few designs to choose from with Medium. Site owners are not allowed to use personal ads to make money. Audiences belong to the hosting company, so losing the blog also means the loss of followers.

WordPress.com & WordPress.org

WordPress.com is a blog hosting service, which specialises in hobby type blogs.

Pros: This is a hosting platform that uses what is referred to as open-source software. There are five plans for users to choose from, one of which is free. The free option is based on 3GB of space. This is a self-hosted resource that offers personalised features and templates. Owners do not have to worry about updates or backups because the platform handles these issues.

Cons: Advertisements are placed on all free sites without the owner’s consent. Proceeds from these ads do not go to the owner. You are not personally able to post ads onto your site or to make money from them. Only paying owners have these options available to them. Personalisation of these blog sites is limited.

WordPress.org is a free platform, which is used to create money-making blogs.

Pros: This platform provides users with complete control over websites. The website and all of its data belong to the owner. WordPress.org is more commonly associated with making money because owners have the ability to add free, paid, and custom apps to their sites. It is possible to add paid themes for blog designs. Google Analytics can be used for all tracking activities.

Cons: Access to website files requires web-hosting services, which cost owners. This means that in order to get your blog online using WordPress.org requires the user to pay for web hosting services. This typically ranges from $3–$10, per month. These costs generally increase based upon increased traffic to the site. Site owners are responsible for their own updates and backups. However, utilising site platform plugins is one way to address these automatically.

Wix

Pros: Wix is a hosting platform that allows small businesses to take advantage of online opportunities. It offers drag-and-drop tools that are easy to use for a website set-up. This free resource also lets owners add a blog to their websites with the Wix Blog app. There are dozens of diverse templates to choose from, as well as, apps from third-party companies.

Cons: Free sites built here will display the Wix branding and ads. These are not owned or financially beneficial to users. There is limited access for free websites to utilise third-party apps. The template chosen cannot later be changed, so it is important that you are sure of the choice once selected. Only paid plans are able to participate in e-commerce activities.

SquareSpace

Pros: SquareSpace is a website building service that is recognised for beautiful and professional templates offered. It is not necessary to be particularly tech-savvy to build here. The focus of this service is on users wanting to establish an online presence and capture audiences for business. It provides domain names with SSL/HTTPs and webstores.

Cons: The only available features are those already built into SquareSpace’s proprietary platform. Website owners are limited to 20 individual pages, a blog, and 2 total contributors. Few services and tools allow for integrations. The cheapest monthly plan requires owners to sign up for a year of service to lock in that price.

Weebly

Pros: This hosted platform allows users to build sites with drag-and-drop tools. It is possible to customise sites through Weebly’s web-based interface technology. There are dozens of themes available that are all ready to use. Free plans can be tried out on a trial basis before purchase is necessary.

Cons: There are limited built-in features for free sites to use and it is not possible to add any new ones. Integrating with third-party platforms is extremely limited, as well. Even the cheapest paid site plan of $8 per month, has limited access to features. Unlocking available features requires the purchase of a $49 per month site plan.

How Do You Choose A Blogging Platform?

Now, that you have decided to start a blog and have learned about the different types of blogging platforms, how exactly do you choose the right platform for you? There are a number of things to consider:

• User-Friendliness

How good are you at creating websites? You need to pick a platform that suits your skill level. Otherwise, you may find that your blog doesn’t look how you want it to look. You also may not have the skill to use certain features on platforms that are more difficult. Most of the blog platforms already mentioned require an easy skill level as most of the work is already done for the blogger.

• Cost

Some blogging platforms are free while others cost money. You also have to remember the cost of hosting and domain names.

• Features

What features do you want on your blog? Do you want to customise your blog with widgets, comment boxes, message widgets? Make sure to do your research to ensure that you can easily include these features.

WordPress.org is a great option as they have over 50,000 plugins that you can add to customise the look of your blog.

• Monetisation options

Some blogging platforms allow you to use monetisation strategies on your blog in order to make money. Other platforms will limit these options.

• Goals

What are your goals with your blog? Do you want to make money or do you simply want to talk about a topic that you’re passionate about?

How to Start a Blog and Make Money

There are some important things to think about when starting a blog, especially those designed to make a profit.

It is possible to reach a variety of potential customers on any given day. The way I take advantage of this is to continually provide current content.

The content that I create on my blog serves dual purposes. It works to promote the blog itself and my expertise. My content must demonstrate that I am an authority in my niche and I know what I am speaking about.

This helps build trust with my audience and helps me to market any product that I recommend and promote.

Ready to start your own blog?

Start with my most recommended blog platform and web host, WordPress.org and Bluehost. To get step-by-step instructions then consider taking my free 5-day blogging course to help guide you.

It will give you the steps to getting set up with WordPress and Bluehost, show you the type of content you should be posting to generate sales, how and where to get traffic to your blog and most importantly the steps I took to earn over $600 in my fourth month of blogging.

If you enjoyed this article on the best blogging platforms or have any questions, I’d love to hear from you. Leave them in the comment section below!

Cheers

The post The Top 6 Best Free and Paid Blog Sites to Make Money appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

So here is the second part to my two part blog post that shares with you 50 blog tips for new bloggers that you can apply to your own blog today.

If you have not yet seen my first part then you can read it here.

I finally got around to writing the second part. I am now in my ninth month of blogging (at the time of writing) *happy dance* and I wanted to share with you, everything that I have learnt on my blogging journey.

I have posted tips based on the mistakes that I have made so you can learn from them and not do the same. It is expected that this post will help new and struggling bloggers know what they need to do to grow their blog.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my ultimate goal is to grow this blog to over five and even six figures a month.

I can only do that with hard work and certainly never giving up.

You too should have your own blog goals and just go for it.

Now on to the next 25 blog tips for blog success.

26. Make friends with other bloggers

You know what happens when you make friends with other bloggers? You get to share more and better ideas on how to grow your blog.

I recently came back from a Boss Women’s Retreat with The Traveling Island Girl and it was one of the best trips that I had ever been on since I was able mastermind with other women as to what worked and did not work for them.

We came out with so many brilliant ideas for our business and the inspiration and motivation to take action.

Now that I met these ladies they are life long friends that I hope to continue to learn and seek inspiration from them.

Pic from our St. Maarten’s retreat. With Karina, myself, Kim, Riselle The Traveling Island Girl and Melinda from Shake My Palms Palms

27. Refer to other blog posts within your blog post

When you refer to other blog posts from your own content within your blog posts, this helps with SEO. Internal linking is all about connecting your content with one another so it gives the reader a way to navigate your site.

It also helps Google to find out what content on your site is related and which posts are more valuable based on the number of links that the post carries. The more valuable a page, the more likely the content will rank on Google.

28. Link to other top quality blogs in your blog post

When you link to other top quality blogs you are not only providing your readers with more legitimate resources they can go to, you are also helping Google understand what your site is about.

Many bloggers and websites appreciate back links to their sites because it helps with their SEO. If you can provide an external link to a quality website, do not be afraid that you are driving your visitors to a competitor’s website.

Google actually encourages links to good sites and it also helps to build your trust rank on your site.

29. Add the no follow tag to your links

Following on from the previous tip, when you are linking to external websites you can pass your link value onto that site.

A good way to prevent this from happening and to tell Google that whilst you are linking to other content, you do not wish to pass link value, you should add the no follow tag to your links like this:

Your default link

<a href=”https://www.iamdawn-marie.com”>How to Blog</a>

To make it no follow do this

<a href=” https://www.iamdawn-marie.com” rel=”nofollow”>How to blog</a>

To automatically add the no follow tags to links I use the Ultimate No Follow WordPress plugin.

To learn more about the no follow attribute you can read Google’s guide to no follow links.

30. Install quality plug ins for your blog

Plugs ins help to make the management of your blog easier. There are plug ins that you can use to help grow your blog traffic, make more money and sell products.

Some of the plug ins that I would recommend you install are:

• Akismet Anti Spam prevents your site from publishing malicious content by keeping out spam.
• Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights a complete Google Analytics plugin that is easy and powerful.
• Insert Headers and Footers easily add code to your website to help its growth, like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, custom CSS and more.
• Social Warfare get more social shares which can lead to more website traffic.
• SumoMe makes it easy for visitors to subscribe to your email list, share your content and optimise with analytics.
• W3 Total Cache improves SEO and the user experience of your site by increasing website performance and reducing download times.
• Yoast SEO helps with your search engine optimisation

31. Create a blog community

When you blog you can build a community that continues to return to your blog for help. You can also build a blog community on social media or through email.

The best way to build that community is to give people a place to go to, to connect with you off of your blog, such as in a Facebook group (link to my own Facebook community) or through an email list (subscribe to I Am Dawn-Marie).

It is wise that when you build this community that you always show up consistently so people will see you as credible.

32. Share your blog posts with friends and family

When you first start your blog you may not yet have traffic to it. It’s a good idea to share it with friends and family and ask for their support.

You can share your new blog via social media if you like and ask your friends and family to share it with their friends.

33. Share your blog posts on your social media

Social media is a great traffic source for blogs. One of my best traffic sources is Pinterest. I also use Instagram and Facebook to direct people to my blog.

I would advise that you start with one traffic source to get people to visit your blog. When you do that master that traffic source, learn the ins and outs before moving on to master a second traffic source.

Do not overwhelm yourself by sharing your content on all different social media outlets as you will never truly gain traction from all of them if your focus is spread thin across many of them.

34. Not every guest post submission is made equal

When you submit guest posts for blogs make sure that you are submitting a post on a reputable, high quality blog. You want to research how much traffic the blog gets, how high their domain authority is, are the visitors to their blog engaged, is the blog a quality blog.

35. Your readers are your priority

Blogs are successful because of your readers. So make them your number one priority. To do that, make sure that you are consistently delivering quality content that will help them.

Make sure that you are providing content that they actually want to read. You can find out what content your readers want based on the posts that are visited the most often.

To view this data look at your Google Analytics insights. Go to Reports then Behaviour then Overview.

36. Forget the blog rules. There are none

There really is none. There are things you can do to improve your blog strategy, but if for example, you write less than 1000 words and another blogger writes more than 2000 words, don’t feel that they are right and you are wrong.

Different bloggers have different strategies for growing their blogs. Find a strategy that works for you and stick with it.

37. Get inspiration from other bloggers

It’s ok to model after successful bloggers. So if you see a blog that really inspires you by its design and content and you wish to apply similar elements on your blog, go for it.

I do not however condone copying another blogger. There’s a difference between copying another blogger word for word and modelling after an inspiration.

38. Spell check before you hit publish

We are all humans and from time to time you will make a few typo errors in your blog post. That’s ok. If you know you have a problem with spelling and grammar I would recommend using a spell checker to check this before publishing a blog post.

A lot of readers are turned off from grammatical errors. Some are not too concerned as long as it is understandable and delivers the value they were after.

39. Update old blog posts

If content becomes outdated because a program or product has changed its policy, revisit old blog posts and update it.

You can also refresh a new blog post by rewriting it or adding new images.

40. Make sure your site can be easily navigated

Yessssssss. Very important. You see the menu bar at the top of my blog, that helps to direct my visitors on where they should go if they are looking for a particular subject.

Make sure and use menus properly.

It also helps to include relevant internal links in your blog post to direct your visitors on posts that they may be interested in.

41. Invest in paid advertising

Whilst I use free traffic to drive this blog, I also use paid traffic to promote products on my blog. Paid traffic helps you to get instant and a lot of traffic when you need it.

As long as you know how to use paid traffic well, you can easily make a return on your investment if you are promoting an affiliate product or one of your own products.

I use Facebook ads as a paid traffic source to promote affiliate products and my own courses. Before you invest money in a paid traffic source I would strongly recommend that you learn how to use the paid traffic source so as not to lose money.

For Facebook ads I would recommend the Social Traffic Blueprint Facebook Ads course. I paid $997 for this course and was able to make a 10x return on my investment.

42. Personalise your blog

Personalising your blog helps readers know more about you. To personalise your blog I recommend including a picture of yourself and an About Me section.

You can also include photos of events you have attended or places you have been, just to add a bit of a human touch to your blog.

43. Make use of great images

No I’m not talking about Google images. You don’t want to do that if you don’t want to get on the wrong side of copyright laws.

For great free images you can use sites like Unsplash or Pexels.

If you’d like a wider variety of paid images then I’d recommend Shutterstock.

44. Know your audience

I touched on this in number 35 but to get blog visitors to keep coming back to your blog for more content, you should know who they are, what they want to read and what they like to read.

You can easily get this data from your Google Analytics. If you have not yet installed Google Analytics then visit my blog post to get step by step instructions on how to do this.

If you have already installed Google Analytics on your website then pay attention to the data in the reports section which you can find by going to Reports then Behaviour then Overview.

45. Include call to actions in your blog post

If you want people to take action on your blog such as clicking on your affiliate link or leaving a comment on your blog or opting into a landing page, you need to tell them to take action.

This is where call to actions come in.

Be sure to explicitly tell your audience, opt in or click on the link. You don’t know how many bloggers take for granted that there audience knows what to do when they land on their blog.

So do a little bit of extra work and tell them what to do.

46. Give your blog time to grow

Most important, be patient and give your blog time to grow.

When I started blogging I implemented strategies to drive traffic to my blog and immediately saw results in the first one to three months.

I am now in my ninth month of blogging and have over 10k visitors to my blog per month with an average income of $2000+ per month.

Blogging is definitely not a quick way to make money, but if you stick with it, learn the strategies to generate an income from and drive traffic to your blog, you can potentially create thousands or even millions of dollars from your blog in a few years.

47. Make your headlines catchy

To get people to actually visit a blog post make your headlines catchy. If you are promoting your blog on social media platforms split test your headlines to see which one gets you a higher click through rate.

48. Do not copy

No. No. No. This is big no. Do not copy other bloggers. As I mentioned in number 37, it’s ok to seek inspiration from other bloggers but do not copy.

Not only is this unethical, but it can infringe copyright laws.

49. Short sentences and short paragraphs

You want to make sure that your blog is easy to read.

Huge chunks of text is a major turn off for readers. You want a blog that can be easily scanned and sifted through.

When writing sentences I try to include two to three sentences in a paragraph.

Even one sentence can work.

50. Use basic SEO on your blog posts

If you want your blog to get a good chance at ranking on Google, implement basic SEO on your blog. A good plugin to help with this is the Yoast SEO plug in.

It gives you advice on ways to improve and optimise your blog post for the SERPS.

Wrapping Up

That’s really all the advice I can give to you as a new blogger. When you start your blogging journey you are bound to come across many tips and strategies to grow your blog.

Learn from everything that you read and most importantly take action on what you read.

To be successful you have to consistently apply and find ways you can improve.

Good luck on your blogging journey.

If you have any questions at all about blogging be sure to leave it in the comments so I can help you out.

Cheers

The post 25 More Blog Tips For New Bloggers (Part 2) appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

Obviously to grow my blog I need to step it up a notch and already have my blog goals written down since the start of this year.

Some of my goals include growing my audience to over 100k pageviews a month, generate at least five figures a month and increase my subscribers to at least 2000.

There are other goals that matter such as increasing my domain and page authority but for now those are the ones at the top of the list.

In just eight months, I have learnt so much and every day I meet new people who are helping me to increase my knowledge and level up my skills.

I like to think of myself as a quick learner so based on those past eight months and the goals that  I currently have, I am going to share with you 50 juicy tips (25 in this post) that helped me get to where I am. Maybe you can take away some golden nuggets from it and apply it to your own blog.

Ideally I would like to provide 50 tips but because this is a super duper long post I will split it over two posts.  The second post will be posted shortly.

1. Know your limit

The number one reason why new bloggers quit is because they really don’t know what they signed up for.

Blogging takes time, consistency and determination to make any significant headway. You have to be prepared to work hard over a period of time before you start seeing any results from your efforts.

If you are going to start blogging as a business, decide the amount of time you are going to commit. If you cannot dedicate enough time, sometimes it can take 6-12 hours for 6 months or more, then I would not recommend you start a blog.

2. Get your own web hosting

When I started blogging, I started with WordPress.com. I paid about $80 for the premium version but after reading other bloggers’ posts about avoiding free blogs by using WordPress.org I quickly asked for a refund of my money and signed up to WordPress.org.

I am lucky to have done that because I dodged a serious bullet as I realised that had I built a blog on WordPress.com I would not have been able to monetise it the way I wanted and it would not have belonged to me.

I see so many people still using free blogs and I think how badly they are limiting their growth. If you want to start a blog as a business and earn money from it stop blogging on free blogs and get your own webhosting.

If you are ready to step up to the plate as a professional blogger then checkout my post The Ultimate Guide To Starting A Successful Blog. 

There I teach you how to start a blog using Bluehost and WordPress.org in under an hour. It really does not take long at all and there is no tech business involved.

3. Use a professional, beautiful theme

The truth is, your blog is like your storefront. What appears to the reader the first time they click on your link determines whether they will bounce from your page or hang around for a while.

That is why once you have created a blog, you should take the time to select a beautiful theme that is attractive to the visitor.

If you don’t know whether it is attractive ask a friend. It is always a good idea to have a fresh pair of eyes who can give you another opinion.

Also, make sure that your blog is easy to navigate. A good blog has a menu at the top, which easily directs the visitor to categories that can help them get to the content that they want to read.

Make sure that your blog has a footer, which usually has all your legal info like terms and conditions, privacy policies and affiliate disclaimers.

4. Set up and build an email list

An email list is super important. Think of your email list as a community of people who look forward to hearing from you by email.

They want to know what’s going on in your business life and continue to look to you for advice. It is one of the first things that I would strongly recommend you do as you start your blogging journey or if you have already started.

You can start an email list using tools like Aweber or GetResponse. I have over 14 lists in my email service which is divided into different categories based on what people want to read.

Having an email list is also a source of free traffic. So if one day you find that a traffic source that you have been using such as Google or Facebook, suddenly goes away, you still have a list of people to “talk” to.

Related Posts:

• The Ultimate Email Marketing Strategy For Bloggers, Marketers and Beginners
• How To Build Your First Email List From Scratch
• How To Write A Welcome Email That Gets Opened Every Time

5. Use content upgrades in your blogging strategy

A content upgrade is a lead magnet or opt in freebie, that is delivered to your visitor when they opt into your lead box. It is specifically designed to be congruent with the message of a blog post.

For example, if your blog post is about “An Analysis of 1000 Facebook Ads”, your content upgrade could be “Bonus Tips For Your Next Facebook Ad”.

The content upgrade should enhance or build upon the existing content that is on the blog hence the name “content upgrade”.

Content upgrade lead boxes can be embedded within content on your blog post. Here is an example of one of my content upgrades in my blog post.

I used LeadPages to create that lead box. I wrote a detailed review of LeadPages here.

Throughout my website I have provided different content upgrades and have found that by doing so I have been able to increase my subscribers. Having multiple email lists offering different content upgrades is better as you build your email list faster.

6. Have a content calendar

It is important that you blog consistently and having a content calendar will help you do just that.

It will also help you become organised so you keep on track as to what type of blog post should be written and when.

By having a content calendar and creating content consistently, your readers will always have a reason to come back to your blog.

7. Show up everyday

Blogging is a business so just like your favourite business has regular working hours, treat your blog the same way.

It’s not ok that you blog when you feel like it. That only helps delay your blog from growing faster. What is ok is that you create a blog schedule where you work on your blog let’s say from 9am to 5pm every day until you reach your goal.

8. Write great content

Great content means writing content that is going to add value to your readers. Your content should be helpful and useful.

It should help your reader solve a problem or offer comprehension about the subject.

Avoid adding a lot of fluff to the blog post that makes no sense and is not relevant to your subject.

Actionable step-by-step posts are perfect.

Diagrams and images also allow them to visualise the process.

So if you can take photographs or screenshots and include them in your blog post then count that as one of the most important things you do before you publish your post.

9. Write detailed content

When you are blogging take the time to write content that is in depth. Blog posts that are no more than 500 words are not preferred by Google from an SEO perspective.

Google rewards content that is longer which means that it keeps the reader on the page for a longer time, or they revisit the page after they have left.

This tells Google that the content is valuable and so it gives the blog the chance of improving their search rank.

10. Add share buttons to your blog posts

This is one of the ways that you can get your content shared outside of your circle. When someone visits your blog and if they like your content, make it easy for them to share it with their friends.

What I have found is that if you ask someone to do something, it’s more than likely that they will. So give them the chance to do it.

On my blog I use the Social Warfare plugin that helps you to get more social media shares and so helps to generate more traffic to your blog.

11. Create a blog budget

Not many people realise that when you are serious about blogging you have expenses. From your blog tools, to web hosting, to advertising.

This is why you should have a realistic monthly budget for how much you are going to spend to keep your blog running until you start generating an income from the blog.

If you’re a fashion, food, travel, finance, romance, health and fitness blogger or vlogger here are some typical expenses that you’re likely to incur:

• A basic desktop or laptop $480 to $2000
• Ongoing WiFi $25-$50
• Camera and lenses $200-$500
• Video recording studio software $47-$100
• Webcam $100-$250
• Domain $8-$15/year
• Webhosting $110-$250/year
• Custom email $45-$65/year
• Email marketing service $10-$300/month
• Stock photography $12-$97/month
• Lead generation tools $15-$97/month

12. Have great blogger tools

Yes, you do need tools to run a blog. Having those tools help to automate your blog business and is instrumental in the growth of your blog.

Some of the tools I would recommend include:

Lead boxes to capture leads and grow your email list. I love the LeadPages software which allows you to create lead pages and boxes and embed them right onto your blog.

Email autoresponder to communicate with your leads. When you start a blog it is best to start an email list and then communicate with your leads on a regular basis to update them on things that are happening with your blog. I use the Aweber software because it is so easy to manage and sends my emails right to my leads’ inbox.

Pinterest auto pin scheduler. If you’re using Pinterest to grow your traffic then I would recommend using an automatic pin scheduler. Tailwind is an approved partner of Pinterest and the best one that I have found out there.

13. Listen to what your readers say and write for them

When you are starting a blog you are not writing for yourself. Let your readers tell you what type of content they want to read from you.

Generally, you will know what they want to read based on your visitor analytics.

If you have Google Analytics set up on your blog then you can find out the most read content by going to Reports > Behaviour > Overview.

Based on the analytics you can tell what type of post is being visited the most and therefore write more content like it.

Don’t yet have Google Analytics on your blog? Follow this post to set it up. 

14. Create your own product

When you start blogging you are told to start with the easiest form of revenue and that is affiliate marketing. Whilst this is true, I would not recommend that you solely rely on affiliate marketing.

The reason being is, I have learnt and come to dislike the payment terms of affiliate networks and companies.

Most affiliate companies require that a grace period is passed in the event a customer requests a refund. This can be a 30-day or 45-day period.

Affiliate networks even require that you are paid only when the affiliate company pays them. So if the affiliate company pays the network within 90 days, that’s when you will get paid.

Whilst some affiliate companies have more reasonable payment terms it is in your better interest to eventually create your own product. When you create your own product, you have control over your income and you have immediate access to it.

Some people are put off by creating their own product because of the sheer amount of work but I think the gains of having your own product far outweighs the cons.

15. Monetise your blog in as many ways as you can

Following on from above, do not rely on one income source for your blog. I am in my eighth month of blogging and having gained as much exposure, I am now looking at other methods of monetising my blog.

I would advise you, when you feel you have sufficient experience and traffic to your blog, consider other ways of monetising. This can include, advertising, selling your own digital products, paid sponsorships, personalised services.

16. Your blog really does not have to be perfect

I know I am a perfectionist and sometimes I have to stop myself and remind myself that “no one is expecting perfect from you, Dawn.”

So many times I have thought of redoing my blog layout because I am of the opinion that it does not look professional, then the next day I get an email from a reader who compliments my blog as being one of the nicest blogs they’ve seen.

It’s all in your head but your blog does not have to be perfect.

17. Keep track of your blog metrics

If you want your blog to grow, know your blog numbers. This helps you improve what you are doing so you can work to grow your blog.

I like to keep track of my blog metrics in an Excel spreadsheet and update my numbers every month.

Then I take a look at my performance and see where I can make improvements.

18. Work on improving your blog metrics every month

Your ultimate goal should be to continue doing what’s working and stop doing what is not working. Here are some metrics that I consider important:

The number of blog posts you write per month. As you know Google rewards websites that are updated regularly. Also your readers are expecting to hear from you. So if your aim is to write 4 posts a month, try and outdo yourself in the next month until you reach your target blog post number.

Page views. Page views tell you whether your readership is growing. You should be working every month on having your blog show up on as many avenues as possible. For me, an increase in page views, tells me that what I am doing is working and I should either push myself harder or continue doing what I’m doing.

Bounce rate. You can tell whether there is a problem with your blog or whether people like your content based on your bounce rate. Aim to have as low a bounce rate as possible every month.

You can improve your bounce rate performance by writing longer blog posts, including video in your blog posts, writing better content.

Subscribers. Are you growing your email list? Are there sufficient lead magnets throughout your blog and are they interesting enough to encourage visitors to subscribe to your blog? If your subscribe rate is low then consider implementing some of the techniques I recommend in this Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing.

Domain Authority. This tells you how valuable your blog is and how well it is likely to rank on a search engine. The higher the metric the better your chance of your blog ranking well. Check out Moz’s Domain Authority checker. You can improve your domain authority by:

• Creating lots of linkable content that people want to share
• Creating strong internal linking within your blog posts. This helps readers better navigate your site
• Having strong back links, linking to your site. You don’t want to have incoming links from any site. Make sure that the link is from a site that also has a high domain authority.

19. Treat your blog like a business

Super important. If you want to make money from your blog, then treat your blog like a business and not a hobby.

How can you treat your blog like a business? Well every point in this post is important to help you achieve that goal.

20. Make sure your blog is legal

What do I mean by this? Sometimes you may think that blogging is not serious business but it can hurt you legally when you don’t have your ducks in a row. So make sure and protect yourself by knowing the legalities of your blog.

A few things to consider:

Disclaimers it’s best to let your readers know that you are merely providing information and not advice especially where legal, financial or health matters are concerned. Tell them they should always refer to professional advice before they make a decision.

Disclosure if you are promoting affiliate products, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) makes it mandatory that you let your readers know whether you are earning commissions or whether a post is sponsored or paid for.

Privacy Policy if you are collecting personal information then you must have a privacy policy to let people know what you will do with their information.

Terms and conditions there is no obligation to include a T&Cs but it’s a good idea to let your visitors know the terms under which they visit and use your site.

Copyright do not use other people’s images, music, video or content without their permission.

21. Have a place where people can reach out to you to contact you

This is probably obvious but make sure that you have a contact me page so people can contact you whether by email, your social media or Skype.

I think the bare minimum that you need is your social media or email contact.

22. Turn on blog commenting

Blogging is all about connecting with your readers. It is great to build an audience of people who look forward to what you have to say, so give them somewhere to add their views and talk to you within your blog. Doing this helps to keep your blog social and attract traffic.

Most blog templates have a comment section. Look for it and turn it on.

23. Have a bit of personable-ness in your blog posts

People want to know the author behind a blog. They want to know who they are building a relationship with, so it is crucial that you make your blog personable by adding pictures of you. This goes well on an About Me page and in a side bar.

An image helps to add credibility, professionalism and allows people to see that you’re a real life human being who is penning these thoughts on a daily basis.

I think they will thank you for it.

If however you prefer to remain anonymous on your blog, you might have good reasons for doing so, then perhaps you can use an artwork image of yourself or some type of caricature that represents you.

24. Master one traffic source before you move on to another

Don’t try to spread yourself too thin. It’s just like the saying “jack of all trades, master of none”. The best thing you can do for yourself and your blog, is master one traffic source at a time.

You might be tempted to try other traffic sources because some other blog had success with it, but I am pretty sure that they only had success, because they focused on making it work.

You should do the same.

There is no one magic traffic source. Neither are they all created equal. But one traffic source can work really well for you when you stick to it and learn the ins and outs of it.

When I created this blog, I worked on Pinterest following the recommendations of other bloggers. Pinterest became my main traffic source for six months and helped my blog gain some activity with visitors.

Now that I felt I have a presence on Pinterest and consistently get traffic there I am diversifying my traffic by using Facebook Ads.

25. Include guest posting as a must-do in your blogging journey

Guest posting is creating a blog post on someone else’s blog. It’s like you’re borrowing their platform to introduce yourself to their audience.

This is another way that you can generate traffic to your own blog as well increase the authority of your website.

Wrapping Up

Alright then. This post is long enough already. I don’t want to create information overload.

In my next blog post I am going to provide some more helpful tips and advice for starting your blog journey so you can learn from my mistakes.

Tell me, what tips did I forget to mention here. I might just include it in my next post.

Speak soon

The post 25 Blog Tips For New Bloggers (Part 1) appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

I see a lot of people start blogs but do not know how to monetise it or most importantly get traffic to it, so I decided to share what I have learnt in the past four months that helped me grow my blog traffic from zero to over 32,000 pageviews and made me money in the process.

Now why is blog traffic important?

Well blog traffic means that people are reading your blog. When people read your blog and find value from it, they either bookmark your blog and refer to it as an authoritative source, they use the information on your blog to help them achieve a goal or they may share your blog with their friends and family meaning that you get more traffic.

If your blog is helpful and you have also monetised it, then you can make money from it.

If you have recently started a blog and your traffic numbers are still in the double digits, then it tells me that you’re not promoting your blog enough, so not many people know that it exists.

If you are waiting for Google SEO to kick in then the harsh reality is, unless you are an expert in SEO and know all the whitehat tricks to ranking your blog in a month, then relying on Google for the most part is a big recipe for failure.

It takes a long time, for Google SEO to kick in; I would say about six months worth of blog time. But Google is not the only way for people to know your blog exists.

You must rely on other traffic generation methods.

In this post I will show you the technique I used to get traffic to my blog without Google. It is from a source that you would not even think of because not many people refer it to when they think of blogging.

That source is Pinterest.

What You Will Learn

• Why I use Pinterest
• Pinterest Facts
• How to increase traffic using Pinterest with step by step instructions
• My Pinterest strategy that I specifically used and how you can do it too
• Pinterest strategy at a glance

Why I Use Pinterest  

As an affiliate marketer I never thought of using Pinterest because I thought that people who were interested in internet marketing and learning how to build wealth on the internet, were not hanging around on Pinterest.

They always say, if you want to get the word out about what you do, then go directly to where your audience is.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

I certainly did not think that my audience was on Pinterest until I started following a couple named Lauren MacManus and Alex Nerney who created the blog Create And Go. Create and Go was a blog that was in my niche teaching other people how they could make money blogging.

In just seven months they were able to grow their blog from zero to $25000 a month using traffic from Pinterest.

Now when you think about Pinterest, you must think that it is for women who are interested in beauty, fashion, recipes.

I mean my sister is a fan of Pinterest and all she does is save recipes, so naturally I thought that people from Pinterest would be the least bit interested in what I had to say.

I was wrong.

Pinterest is actually my number one source of traffic with Facebook following with a smaller number of visitors.

Facts About Pinterest

Here are a few facts about Pinterest that you may not have known. There are over 200 million people on Pinterest with about half of millennials using Pinterest. So if your audience is between the ages of 20 and 35, you can find them on Pinterest.

Pinterest is also the number one destination for millennials who use it to discover trends in food, home décor and style.

Millenials are the largest consumer group in the US which means that they are big spenders. In fact 65% of them say that Pinterest helps them discover new brands and products to buy and won’t be afraid to spend generously with their wallet.

Pinterest is also growing to be a search engine meaning that more and more people are using it to find things that they would usually use Google for. Also because it is a visual platform people use it to search for inspiring ideas.

Now as a marketer why would I use this platform for my blog? Because I know that Pinterest users are looking for ideas and if I can get my content in front of their eyes, then that means that there is a highly engaged audience there with the capability of making buying decisions. Every marketer’s dream right?

Also Pinterest is well known for showcasing blogs so every blogger should at least make sure that they have a profile set up on Pinterest and use it.

How To Increase Traffic Using Pinterest With Step-By-Step Instructions

Create A Business Account

To begin using Pinterest as a traffic source you need to create an account.

I am going to assume that you are a business and your end goal is to make money from your blog. Therefore it is imperative that when you create an account that you create a business account.

The reason why you want to create a business account is because you will have access to certain analytics that will allow you to see how your account is performing.

So from my account you can see that so far I have had over 1 million viewers. From Pinterest’s perspective that simply means that my pins have reached 1 million users and so have had some visibility by these users although they did not click on my pin.

If you look on your own Pinterest account you will notice that pins accumulate in a feed. If your pin has viewers it means that your pin has appeared somewhere in this feed for other pinners to see.

Verify Your Website 

After you create a business account you must now verify your website.

In this case your website will be the site that you want to promote on Pinterest. So if that is your blog website, go ahead and verify it.

By verifying your website, Pinterest will be able to see what posts people are reading or saving for later. This helps you see what people are most attracted to, so you can create more content in that area.

For example from my website, Pinterest tells me that the most visited blog post was 16 Real Ways You Can Make Extra Money.

I can also see that the posts How To Make Money Online With Freelancing and How To Do Affiliate Marketing Without A Blog Or Website are appealing to people.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

So this data will inspire me to write more posts about making money in different ways.

This is how Pinterest analytics helps you write more content that your audience actually wants to read.

Rich Pins

Next apply for Rich Pins.

Rich Pins add extra detail to your pins from your website. It also makes your pins look more attractive and clickable. By it being clickable means that you have a higher chance of people actually clicking through to your website or blog.

Here is an example of what a pin looks like when rich pins are not enabled and enabled.

Rich pins not enabled

Rich pins enabled

To apply for rich pins start here.

You will receive an email from Pinterest letting you know whether your pins have been approved. It should take less than 5 minutes but can take up to 48 hours so be patient.

Join Group Boards

After applying for Rich Pins you must join Group boards.

Group boards are boards owned by Pinterest users who agree to share their followers with other pinners.

The reason why joining group boards is effective to start getting traffic to your blog is because you have access to hundreds, sometimes thousands of followers.

So let’s say you are new to Pinterest. You may have 10 followers. By pinning to your account only, there is the possibility of just 10 people seeing your pins.

If however you join a group board that has over 10,000 followers, you have access a wider group of people and so potential for more people to see your pins and website.

If you join 5 group boards with over 10,000 followers each, that is a larger number of people who can see your pins and website.   

To join a group board start by using the Pinterest search. So whatever niche you’re in, type in that niche keyword in the search field.

Next go through the list of boards that Pinterest gives to you and look for a board with a high number of followers.

Click on the circle which represents the board’s owner.

Then look for any group board that the owner may be a part of.

This is a short cut to finding high quality group boards and means that the Pinterest user has already done the research and found quality boards to be a part of otherwise they would not have joined.

When you find a group board that matches your niche and which you’d like to be a part of follow the instructions on the board and ask for an invite.

Now here’s a pro tip. You are likely to get onto maybe 1/10 of the boards that you ask for an invite. So every ten boards you ask to join you may only get accepted to one. Therefore send as many invites as you can and keep track of those boards that you have asked for an invite and those that you have gotten approval for.

Make sure to follow up with the board owners every three days.

To give you some insight, I have made a request to 196 board owners and have been accepted to 36% of them. So remember you will not be accepted to all boards.

It’s a numbers game so the more boards you join the more boards you can get accepted to and start to pin to them.

My Pinterest Strategy That I Specifically Used and How You Can Do It Too

Finally… drum roll please.

This is the cherry on top that will show you how to actually get traffic to your blog from Pinterest.

Now that you have actually set up your Pinterest account and have joined group boards it’s time to put a strategy to work.

Pinterest likes active users so it is important, like anything else, that you remain consistent with this strategy.

1. Create Multiple Pins

Once you have a blog post, bring it onto Pinterest by saving it from your site with your URL.

When you bring the post on to Pinterest, your featured image will also come onto Pinterest as a Pin.

The key mistake that most bloggers make with Pinterest is that they do not split test the image of their pins.  This is the biggest mistake because you never know which pin people will find more appealing to click through to a blog post.

This is what helped me create a viral post within one month and gained over 3000 visitors to my blog in one day.

This particular post I split tested 3 different pin images and one of them was a hit which spread like wildfire. Can you guess which one?

To create my pins I use PicMonkey and Canva.

2. Manual Pinning and Auto Pinning

Next I utilised both manual pinning and auto pinning.

I personally believe that incorporating automatic pinning helped boost my blog visits. The reason why I say so is because I was able to automatically pin at times when my audience was most likely to engage with my content.

So at times when I was asleep, my Pinterest scheduler would pin for me.

I would therefore recommend that you get the Tailwind Auto scheduler to help you start pinning automatically.

You can actually try Tailwind for free. They allow you to pin 100 pins for free, then it is $15 per month when paid monthly or $9.99 per month when paid annually.

I would recommend that you pay annually as not only is it cheaper but you won’t have to worry about paying monthly. This is also a cost that you can write off as a business and after your free trial I am sure that you will agree that using this auto scheduler makes your life so much easier.

My strategy is pinning at least 50 times a day. So I set up 30 pins to pin automatically with Tailwind, then at key times during the day, especially after midday and in the night, I pin manually at least 20 times.

When you join enough boards, Tailwind also shows you which group boards are worth pinning to.

To spend your time wisely you should only pin to boards where your pin is likely to be repined by Pinterest users.

Tailwind’s analytics tell you which group boards are worth your time. To find this information from your Tailwind dashboard go to Track Your Brand Page then Board Insights.

Filter your boards so that group boards remain checked. Then order your boards by Virality Score.

The higher the virality score means that the board is alive and has active pinners repining your content. With more people repinning your content the more likely it is to go viral.

If you look at the Repins category it shows you how many pins were repined on that board in the last 7 days so you can also gauge the activity on the board by this metric.

These are the boards that I will pay more attention to as opposed to the boards with a lower virality score.

3. Blog Board

Pinterest rewards board owners that have virality and engagement. Pinterest rewards these board owners by showing their pins more in the Smart feeds.

For that reason I created a board with all my blog pins and repin only from that board. This tricks Pinterest’s algorithm into thinking that your board is a favourite amongst pinners and so Pinterest will show your pins more in its smart feed.

When your pins are shown more, it has more visibility and potential to be seen by more people.

This is my secret strategy and you can do the same.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

4. Pinterest SEO and Hashtags

Pinterest is a virtual search engine so in order for your pins to be found, it is important that you optimise your pins for SEO.

The good thing about Pinterest SEO however, is that unlike Google SEO, it does not take forever for your pins to begin ranking on Pinterest in their smart feed.

So when I type multiple streams of income you can see that my pin shows up in the smart feed because that pin is optimised.

To optimise your pin it is simple.

When saving a pin make sure that you complete the description. You should also include a few hashtags in your description.

Make sure that the description is congruent with the title of your blog post and your blog post featured image.

The right keywords on your pins is one of the most important tasks that you can do for your Pinterest account as Pinterest’s systems read their description and depending on how popular the pin is, decides to show it more in the smart feed.

This is why it is also important to implement step 3 above so that you can always repin your own pins and create its own popularity.

Wrapping It Up

As a new blogger you’re probably wondering how long you’re going to have to take to start getting readers to your blog.

It really does not have to be that hard and sometimes it takes thinking outside of the box.

I have given you a new traffic source and you have a great strategy to drive traffic to your blog with Pinterest.

Do not think that Pinterest is only for beauty, fashion or food. My blog actually proves that Pinterest traffic has an engaged audience and buyers there too.

Other niches that do tremendously well on Pinterest are:

• Personal Finance
• Travel
• Health and Wellness
• Mental Health
• Interior Designs
• Parenting

Pinterest Strategy at a Glance

• Create a Pinterest business account
• Verify your website
• Apply for rich pins
• Join group boards
• Create multiple pins for your blog posts
• Manual pin and auto pin
• Have a main blog board
• Optimise for Pinterest SEO

Follow this Pinterest strategy guide and you will have traffic to your blog in no time.

Any questions? Leave it in the comments.

Cheers

The post How To Get Your First 1000 Pageviews On Your Brand New Blog appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.