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.

I see a lot of blogs giving you a list of blog posts to write about but unless you actually have a blog in the niche or you know what to write on the subject, I don’t see how that’s going to help you moving forward.

If you stay to the end I will share with you the tools I use to help me with blog post ideas when I’m stuck, but before I get there I want to break down how to actually come up with ideas on what to write about so you don’t have to study other people’s blog about blog post ideas.

The purpose of this post is to teach you how to know what people want so you can write relevant topics. Hopefully by doing that, you will know how to do the research and come up with your own topics in whatever niche you’re in.

Here’s What You Will Learn:

• Understanding your audience
• How to use Google for blog post ideas
• How to use Quora for blog post ideas
• How to use Amazon for blog post ideas
• How to copy other people’s ideas ethically
• How to use an audience for blog post ideas
• How to use Google Trends for blog post ideas
• Tools to use for blog post ideas

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

Understanding Your Audience

The one thing that you need to remember when writing a blog post is that you are not writing for yourself.

Rather you are writing for an audience to help them solve a problem that they may have.

Most blogs therefore answer people’s questions and is an information resource to assist people in finding a solution to their pain points.

Therefore when you are writing a blog, don’t write 4000 words about your life. What happens in your life does not matter unless you are writing for your mom, dad or significant other.

What you want to do however is write about a certain topic that people can take value away from and possibly put some steps in place to get results.

How exactly do you find topics that your audience wants to read? There are many places that you can go to, that literally tell you what your audience wants to know and in the next few paragraphs I am going to break them all down so you can start using each of them to come up with great blog post ideas.

How To Use Google To Get Blog Post ideas

Inspiration for your next blog post can be found on Google’s massive database.

An insane number of people use Google everyday to search for answers to their questions. The reason why you want to use Google and not YouTube (although YouTube is owned by Google) is because when people go to YouTube they are searching for a video.

They’re not searching for a blog. Sometimes, if not most of the times, when they go on YouTube they’re looking for a visual demonstration of how to do something, which a written blog post cannot provide.

So starting with Google here’s what I would recommend you do when looking for your next blog post.

Start with your niche idea.

Plug in that keyword into the Google search bar. In this example I have used black pug dogs as my keyword and my niche idea is black pug dogs.

When I enter this keyword into Google these are the results I have.

As you can see Google has given me four topics that most people are searching for. So if I was in the dog niche and wanted to write about these topics, here’s what I would come up with:

• 10 Mistakes Not To Make When Buying A Black Pug
• What Are Black Pugs Like And How To Take Care Of Them
• How To Include A Black Pug As Part Of Your Family
• All You Need To Know About Black Pugs And Gaming

Next if you scroll down to the bottom of the search page Google gives you more topics that you can write about – topics that people are actually searching for.

Using these ideas, here are a few topics that I think are useful:

• Black Pug v Fawn Pug: The Pros And Cons
• Top 10 Facts About Black Pugs
• How To Raise And Groom Pug Puppies
• The Best Places In India (or whatever country) To Buy A Pug Dog
• How To Choose A Pug Dog And What Their Color Means

So far, using Google and this method I have already thought of nine blog post ideas.

How To Use Quora For Blog Post Ideas

One of the best resources for content ideas is Quora.

Quora is a website where people who want answers go to either ask questions or find answers to their questions.

So the logic is, if people are asking questions here and more than one person asks the same question, it means that there is a potential gap that can be filled with a blog post that answers the question.

So let’s see how this works in practice.

Start at Quora.com.

In the search bar I will enter my keyword related to my niche Travel.

Quora gives five topics that I can narrow down my search. These topics are what you will call your sub niche.

This is useful because if you have a travel related blog that is divided into sub-niches, you can see what type of questions people are asking on Quora in each sub-niche making it easier for you to plan your content strategy.

For the purposes of this post I will select International Travel.

Now I am going to look through the questions and see which one question keeps getting asked most of the time.

I see that three people have already asked “what should I know before travelling to [name of country]”.

Therefore a blog post series that covers several countries can be a great start if you are in the travel niche.

Remember that we chose International Travel as a sub-niche. If you want more ideas then visit each sub topic to find more questions that can be answered in a blog post.

How To Use Amazon For Blog Post Ideas

Using Amazon to find blog posts is unconventional but it does provide valuable insight into what people want to read when it comes to particular topics.

How exactly is that done?

We are going to use Amazon Books to help us find blog post ideas in the niche of your choice.

First start at Amazon and select their Books section.

Now type in your niche keyword in the search bar.

In this example I will use the keyword Wine.

Once the search results come up look for books where there are high customer reviews.

Click on the book that you want to choose then look for the Look Inside symbol to take a look inside the book.

Review the chapters of the book and you will get ideas for your next blog posts.

From this book I have gotten the following blog post ideas in the wine niche

• What Makes Great Wine Great
• What It Takes To Make Wine
• How Is Wine Made
• Making Wine From Grapes
• How To Taste Wine Like A Professional
• How To Pair Foods With Wine
• Top Ten Questions Wine Drinkers Ask And What You Need To Know

The Amazon Book method makes it easy for you to know what your audience wants to read as the writer of the book would have done all the research for you.

Furthermore the number of customer reviews tells you how popular the topics are and is a surefire sign that these are the type of topics that your audience in the related niche wants to read.

To get more ideas simply repeat the steps.

How To Copy Other People’s Ideas Ethically

The internet is full of blog posts that have been recycled and rehashed. But you can always take content that has been written elsewhere and improve upon it to create your own.

One way to do this is by taking pieces of other people’s content and stacking them up to create a better post.

For example if I am writing a blog post about how to make money online, I can do a Google search and see what’s already on the internet.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

So far I see a bunch of list articles with the biggest list article being the top 40 ways to make money online.

When I go to the website I see that the categories are short and to the point.

If I wanted to copy this idea, I would create a blog post that gives a lot more value, is more detailed and includes more ways to make money online.

So my blog post would be something like The Ultimate Top 100 Ways To Make Money Online. 

When I take a post that has already been written by someone and improve upon it, I am creating a more valuable resource that gives the reader more information and a greater insight into what they’re looking for.

If my page is attractive and the reader is drawn into what I have written they will stay on my website longer helping me improve the SEO value of my website. 

Whilst this method takes a bit more time as it involves research and reading what is already on the internet, it is a useful way for providing long form content which Google wants to see from website owners.

How To Use An Audience For Blog Post Ideas

If you already have an audience or are part of a group where people in your niche congregate, then you can leverage that audience to find your next blog post idea.

So for example, you may be part of a Facebook group for moms or a Linked In group with SEO enthusiasts.

The easiest way to find out what people want to read about is to ask them.

The answer comes straight from the horse’s mouth.

To make this work you will start by finding a group that has a high number of active members. Then ask a question like “What is the biggest challenge you have with [your niche]?”

Once you have sufficient answers tally up the most repeated answer and write a blog post about it that solves the challenge.

You can do this with social media groups.

You can also do this with an email list if you have one.

The great thing about using this method with your own email list is that you are speaking to an audience that already knows you.

So by providing more value to them in this way, makes you more of an authoritative figure.

Plus by answering to the questions in a blog post, you are more than likely to get instant traffic to that blog post once you have delivered it.

How To Use Google Trends For Blog Post Ideas

Google Trends offers important insights into a topic that is trending and that tons of people are interested. You can therefore use Google Trends to find ideas for blog posts that are timely and which is likely to help generate a stream load of traffic to your site that engages your audience.

The only pitfall with this however is that trending topics are not evergreen and so do lose their appeal after sometime.

For example if you are in a niche that is seasonal and trending during the summer, expect that you will have high volume traffic during the summer and very low traffic outside of the summer periods.

This can impact on income streams so always be sure to have other material that is relevant to help keep cash flow running.

To start using Google Trends go here.

On the home page you will find a list of topics that are already trending over the past 24 hours.

You can also use the search bar at the top of the page to find topics that are trending in your niche.

Or you can use the All Categories menu to find topics trending in a certain interest.

Let’s see how this works.

To start we will enter a keyword of our choice in the niche we are writing in.

For this example I have used smartphones for the Technology niche.

When I scroll down to Related Topics and Queries I see other useful information that tells me what topics are currently popular.

It is from here that I can think of blog post ideas to write about.

So a blog post about the Top 10 Best Smart Phones of 2018 could be a great commercial blog post monetised using Amazon Affiliates.

I could also do a blog post titled Nokia 3310 Review or a comparison review between the Nokia 3310 and a competitor.

Google Trends always offers fresh new ideas for all types of content. It’s a great way of finding topics that you would not ordinarily think about and helpful to show you what the audience is looking for right now.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

Tools To Use For Blog Post Ideas

So there you have it. Some great ways to find endless content for your blog.

If you don’t like doing all the hard work and want things a little bit easier there are tools on the internet that can help you generate blog post ideas.

These tools may not always provide the best ideas that make sense but they do give you something to work with.

SEO Pressor Connect

With the SEO Pressor Connect blog post idea generator all you need to do is enter your keyword and describe your keyword then click on the green button to generate blog post ideas.

Whilst this automatic generator comes up with interesting blog titles, some of them don’t particularly make sense. Do not worry as you can always get inspiration from what titles do come up and create your own. 

Fat Joe Blog Title Generator

Just like the blog title generator above, you simply enter a keyword into the Fat Joe blog title generator and you are fired back with ten blog post ideas which you can either use or tweak to create headlines which are more relevant to you.

Also pay attention to the friendly disclaimer.

Tweak Your Biz Title Generator

This title generator offers a lot more than just titles.

It breaks down the results into list ideas, question ideas, how to ideas, celebrities, motivation, business and gerund type article ideas.

So if you have used list articles in the past and want a change, you have a wide selection of How To articles that you can choose from.

Blog About by Impact

Whilst I do not consider this the best way to come up with blog post ideas, it is useful for helping you figure out what you can blog about.

Simply use the recycle button and it returns to you randomly generated words that you can blog about.

Click on the Next button and it generates blog titles that whilst it may not make sense you can use it to stimulate ideas for blog titles.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

Time To Wrap Up

Ok folks so that is pretty much it. Trying to figure out what to write for your blog does not have to be a mind boggling task.

The internet is full of useful resources that you can use to find your next blog post idea so whenever you ask yourself, “what should I write about?” remember the tools and steps here that you can use to generate your next blog post idea.

If you have any other ways that you find ideas for blog posts leave them in the comments section below.

This was a long one so I hope this helps and you get some value out of it.

Cheers,

The post A Detailed Guide On Finding Your Next Blog Post Ideas appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

The reality however is that most bloggers struggle to get people to see their content because they do not know how to generate traffic.

When you’re blogging most people think that they need an SEO friendly site and we both know that, that takes almost forever to take effect.

So if you are just starting with your blog and would like to know how do you really get a massive number of people checking out your site, keep reading.

This post is going to break down actionable steps that you can take right now to set up your blog to start receiving it’s first visitors.

What You Will Learn

• How to set up your first guest blogging campaign
• How to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog
• How to use PPC to get visitors to your blog and keep them coming back
• How to use influencers to share your content to get blog visitors
• How to use Facebook groups to drive visitors to your blog

How to Set Up Your First Guest Blogging Campaign

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is writing a blog post for someone else’s blog.

It’s also known as guest posting or you may have heard about blogger outreach campaigns.

Why guest blog?

When someone decides to do a guest blog post, the truth is they’re not thinking about that one additional post that the blogger will add to their archives.

Actually, what they are really thinking about is the traffic that can potentially be directed back to their website which can turn into leads, relationships and potentially sales.   

Not only can there be an immediate increase in traffic from the time the guest post is published, but the other benefits to think of are:

• Permanent traffic back to your site.
• Authority spurt if your guest post is published on an authority blog. You can then use this as a point of reference to influence more prominent bloggers to host your guest post.
• SEO growth. A backlink from an authority blog actually increases your SEO value.
• Being able to network with influential bloggers thereby opening up the gates to meet more bloggers.
• Builds your online presence as more people will know about you.

If you are going to do guest blogging you need a strong strategy to get the results that you want. So here are a few things that you should consider and do before launching your campaign.

What sites are you going to guest post on?

|Google Search

Finding guest blogging sites is as simple as doing a Google search for guest bloggers. For example, use the key word “write for us blog” and you will find a large quantity of blogs that accept guest posts.

Start A Successful Blog Step-By-Step

If your search results are too broad, try narrowing it down by using your niche keyword. For example affiliate marketing write for us blog or personal finance write for us blog.

The disadvantage of this tactic however is that you come across both low authority and high authority sites.

You want to pay attention to the higher authority blogs because it is more likely that they will have a bigger audience to see your content and greater value for SEO purposes.

|Copy The Right Cat

Therefore to find those higher authority blogs, I use this awesome hack which I like to call Copy The Right Cat.

Basically it’s finding guest posts by popular bloggers and then adding those blogs to your list for later analysis. This makes it easy because that popular blogger has already done the work for you.

So why reinvent the wheel.

For example if we search for “guest post by Pat Flynn” this is what we come up with:

Do you have any favourite bloggers and do you think you can copy their steps and find the blogs that they guest post on and pitch to them? Of course you can!

|As Featured On

Another way to find those high authority blogs is on other bloggers’ blogs. Watch out for their credentials that look something like this:

And don’t be too worried about the blogs that these bloggers have written for. You do not have to be a huge influencer to get your post featured on these blogs.

All it takes is just simple creativity, great content and a determination to be featured (which will be discussed in more detail below).

|Listiller

If you want a simpler way and the work already done for you then feel free to visit Listiller’s List of Over 3000 Blogs that Accept Blog Posts. They are categorised by topic, domain and page authority.

Now that you have an idea of who is going to make it on your list, start with a spreadsheet that is set up something like this:

Then work your way down the list until you have completed your outreach.

Pitching To Bloggers

There are two ways that you can pitch to bloggers for guest posting opportunities.

The process itself can be time consuming and monotonous but once you get at least one foot in the door with a high authority blog, the results can be phenomenal.

|The Long Way

The longer but smarter way to pitch to bloggers is by forming relationships with the bloggers before you actually pitch to them.

Now I have a love hate relationship with this way as not only does it take sometime to build the relationship, but in my opinion I am convinced that most bloggers have seen it all and no longer fall for these gimmicks.

But hey, some bloggers say they prefer that the relationship is built before they pitched whereas other bloggers say that they just want a straight-to-the-point pitch so that no one’s time is wasted.

So let’s talk about the long way for a minute.

How do you build relationships?

Once you know which blog you’d like to guest post on, it’s all about making them know that you exist. You can achieve this in a few ways:

• Comment on their blog
• Follow them on social media and engage with their posts
• Subscribe to their blog and reply to email newsletters

When doing this make sure that you get their attention and that usually happens when they respond to any engagement that you have already done.

This activity should continue for at least two to three weeks.

Also keep in mind that when you are engaging with their content try to offer some praise. You know, make them feel good.

Once they have seen you and the relationship is built it’s time to reach out to them with your pitch. Here’s my pitch email that I sent to Francisco Anes from Passive Income Wise.

Whilst doing it the long way does not guarantee that you will get a response to your pitch, it does boost your chances of getting a response as the blogger would recognise your presence from your interaction.

|The Short Way

The shorter version is simply to write your best pitch to the blogger without trying to build that initial relationship with them.

Instead you do it on the first meeting and in a way that you stand out from the rest of emails that they get.

For example don’t be boring. It’s ok to add personality to your emails.

You’re not writing to the President of the United States, so keep all formalities away.

A good pitch with personality looks something like this:

Hi Jon

My name is Dawn and I am a digital marketing blogger from the UK (yip the country with four seasons in a day).

I know how it can be as an influential blogger that you probably get one of these ALL THE TIME so I will try to keep my email as short as possible (I had to actually cut it down to less than a hundred words. I did not know when to shut up LOL).

Anyway…

I recently did a blog post on The Ultimate Blogging Strategy and I quoted your specific advice from one of your blog posts which covered the same topic. (Your advice was epic by the way).

Here’s the blog post.

Given that you’re the go to expert, I was wondering whether there was anything you would change about it? You know I know you have some blogging magic powers.

I really value your advice as I am trying to create a series of emails for my email list that would help my subscribers learn from as they are all beginners and rely on awesome content to get them started.

Whatever little advice you can give it would be appreciated.

I am not going to keep you longer because I know your time is precious.

Neither am I going to insert this really cheeky request for you to share my post with your audience (because that would be killing it right?). But if you did I would be ever so grateful to you.

Anyway I always appreciate learning anything from you.

Your loyal fan.

Dawn-Marie

Once you have all your guest blog email pitches sent out, remember to follow up with the blogger at least three days later.

Here’s a good tip. Once your content is published be sure to plan strategically to make the most of this influx of traffic that you will get.

You may wish to add lead boxes to the page that you have linked back to your blog from the guest post to collect leads. I use LeadPages for my lead boxes. You can also use Clickfunnels. 

Also most importantly don’t forget to use some sort of email autoresponder to communicate with your leads. Aweber is my favourite. As well as GetResponse. 

Start A Successful Blog Step-By-Step

How To Use Pinterest To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Many people overlook Pinterest because they see it as a place just for pretty pictures, recipes or home décor.

But actually Pinterest is perfect for bloggers. People who like to read blogs hang out on Pinterest and if you’re a blogger, that’s where you want to be.

It is almost like the perfect gem given that it is an untouched traffic source so you can take full advantage of this free traffic resource.

Here is a demonstration of how my blog has performed with Pinterest since I started using it. As you can see I achieved an increase of 1393.97% in daily visitors to my website in the month of September from Pinterest.

So how exactly do you use Pinterest to send traffic to your blog? Well I will share with you the steps that you need to take to get started with Pinterest.

Create A Business Account

Setting up a business account is free with Pinterest. A business account is preferred over a personal account as you have more tools to analyse your efforts with their Pinterest Analytics.

With Pinterest Analytics you will be able to see how your pins are performing so you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Verify Your Website

Pinterest requires you to verify your website so you can see what pins people are saving from your website and to validate that it is yours.

By verifying your website you will also be able to pull any images from your blog posts, meta data and create pins with this.

Apply For Rich Pins

Next apply for rich pins. Rich pins show more information about your blog post on your pin. So it will pull your title tag and image onto your pin and look something like this:

Once you have applied for rich pins you will need to validate your rich pins so that they can appear on Pinterest.

After applying for and validating your pins Pinterest will review your website and let you know if you have been approved.

Now that you have taken these initial steps it’s time to work on a strategy for getting traffic to your blog.

Join Group Boards

This part is the hardest but is the most important because this is what helps to increase your traffic.

Group boards are a group of bloggers who have come together and contribute their blog post pins to a forum where followers can see those pins.

So if you are new to Pinterest and have 100 followers but join a group board with over 10,000 followers, that is over 10,000 potential eyeballs on your blog post. That is the power of a group board.

A group board therefore accelerates your chances of your blog post being seen by a lot more people.

To find group boards in your niche start by using Pinterest’s search bar for your niche. Then click on Boards.

Choose a board. Make sure that they have a high number of followers.

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

Then look for group boards on that owner’s profile. This makes it easy for you because the owner has already done the work seeking out those high quality boards that are worth joining.

Next go to each individual group board and if there is an invite process, follow it to get invited to pin to the board.

It is a good idea to set up a spread sheet to keep track of this process.

It can also be time consuming to get invited to boards but once you find a board that you want to join, make sure that you follow up more than once as the owner of the board may not have seen your invite the first time.

Also do not be discouraged if you do not hear back from board owners. This happens. You just have to keep finding new boards to join until you have joined many boards.

Now once you have joined as many group boards as you can pin your blog post pins to the boards frequently to start sending traffic to your blog.

Pinning your content to boards can get tiresome. I would therefore recommend an automatic scheduler like Tailwind which automates the pinning process.

The benefits of using Tailwind is that you can schedule your pins to pin at times when you are not available (think about late at night or early morning).

It also helps to free up your time so you can concentrate on doing other things that matter the most.

Automatic pinning helps to boost your traffic as your content is always present.

Tailwind analyses your pins and boards and tells you which one is performing well.

Click here to get the Tailwind automatic scheduler. They do offer you a free trial where you can pin your first 100 pins for free. I am convinced that once you see how easy it is to schedule your pins and have them pin automatically that you will see how beneficial this tool can be to the growth of your blog.   

Pinterest is a great traffic source but to get the best out of it, it is important that you learn how to master it. I would recommend the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course which is the course that I am following that has helped me grow my blog traffic.

It has only been three months since I have started this course so I am not prepared to write a review of it just yet. However from September’s spike in traffic and my continued blog growth since I started the course it is producing results. 

Watch this post though for my review or join my mailing list to receive notification of when the review is posted.

How To Use PPC To Get Visitors To Your Blog And Keep Them Coming Back

Using PPC advertising is a great way to speed up the process of getting traffic and lots of it to your blog fast.

You can use PPC campaigns with Bing Ads, Google Ads and Facebook Ads if you want to share content and get a desired result such as more leads or product/service sales.

The great thing about using PPC advertising is that you can ensure that only targeted people will view your content.

This means that you are getting people to your blog who are either interested in what you have to say or are searching for your content.

So when using Google ads or Bing ads, if your blog post is about The Best Herbal Medicines For Migraines then you can target people who are searching for relevant key words and direct them back to your blog with the expectation that they sign up to your lead magnet or buy your product.

Whilst I am not an expert on Google or Bing Ads, the following courses will help you master each of these if you’re wanting to get started with search traffic.

• Pay-Per-Click 101: Intro to Google & Facebook Advertising
• Social Media Marketing 2017 – Learn PPC on 10+ Platforms
• Forget Google; Bing Pay-Per-Click Advertising Traffic Course

You can also use Facebook as a driver of traffic to your blogs depending on the interests of Facebook users.

Using the example that I gave above you can target Facebook users who have an interest in herbal medicine and direct them to your blog post.

If you would like to use Facebook Ads as a way to drive steady fast traffic to your blog then be sure to check out Jon Penberthy and Jubril Agoro’s Facebook Ads Course, Social Traffic Blueprint.

They teach you how to do proper targeting to keep your costs low and maximise your profit.

Retargeting

Suppose that you are getting visitors to your blog from all the efforts that I have outlined above. PPC advertising helps you to retarget those visitors to bring them back to your blog to take a desired action, such as opting into your lead magnet or making a purchase.

To do retargeting however you must install each platform’s pixel (a piece of code) onto your blog so that it can collect data and then use that data to show your ad again to the people who already visited your site.

To get started with Facebook retargeting follow their instructions for placing the Facebook pixel on your site.

Here is Google’s.

Here is Bing’s.

Then simply place the ad and see visitors returning to read your content again.

Start A Successful Blog Step-By-Step

How To Use Influencers To Share Your Content To Get Blog Visitors  

Never underestimate the power of influencers.

These are people with high follower accounts who can send a bucket load of traffic back to your site and help you gain authority and build your own following.

But influencers are some tricky folk to work with because just like guest blogging, you have to reach out to them in a smart way to get your content shared.

However once your content is shared, the benefits to you and your blog is massive.

Follow these steps to finding great influencers to pitch and reach out to.

Where To Find Influencers 

The first place you would go to, to find influencers is on social media.

By influencers I am not referring to bloggers anymore. Rather I am referring to people who have an influence in your niche. For example if you have a travel blog, then an influencer could be a travel vlogger from YouTube or Instagram (granted they may have their own blog) who have a huge audience that dig their content.

If you have a cooking blog, then an influencer may have a cooking YouTube channel or a Pinterest account.

These are the people that you want to search for and you can easily find them by searching for them.

For example if I type the keywords cooking channel on YouTube I can find lots of channels on here with high subscriber numbers.

I would not recommend that you reach out to the more popular channels like these as you will probably get no response (although you can still try).

Rather reach out to the smaller channels like these where their subscriber base is large enough to give you good redirect traffic but still small enough to get a response.

You can then repeat this process for social media sites like Instagram, Pinterest or even Facebook.

Get The Quote

Once you have put together a list of influencers that you would like to target get them to respond to you by asking them for a response to a simple question that you can put as a quote in your blog post.

If you do not want to make the initial contact you can always view their content on their respective channels and refer to something that they have done that’s interesting and add it to a blog post.

For example they may have prepared a recipe that looked delicious. In your blog post you can cite them as a reference.

They may have recently visited a country and made a post about it. Again cite it in your blog post.

Publish and Share

Then when the post is published ask them to share it with their audience.

You can use the example cold email that I mentioned in my guest blogging category. Here’s one that I did with Alex from Conquer The World.

And here’s his response.

From my email you will see that I made sure that I did a few things:

• I spoke to them directly and stated my relevance. I was writing a travel related blog post and his was a travel related channel.
• I made my approach personal. I let him know that I watch his channel.
• I asked him for a quote and told him that I would feature it in my blog. This makes it easy for me to come back and share it with him so he can share it with his audience.
• I gave him a due date so he knew it was urgent
• I offered to promote a link to his channel so it would be mutually beneficial for the both of us. Remember the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) tactic.

How To Use Facebook Groups To Drive Visitors To Your Blog

Just like Pinterest group boards, you can use targeted Facebook groups to drive traffic back to your blog.

Using Facebook groups does require you to manually post your blog post into the group, but if your content is popular it can get lots of shares and people going back to your blog.

The difficulty with Facebook however is that unlike Pinterest, the lifespan of your post remains visible for a couple days whereas the lifespan of your pin remains visible for years.

In any event the key to getting traffic to your blog using Facebook groups is to post in groups that are relevant to your niche.

So if you have a weight loss blog join weight loss groups.

Be sure that you do not spam your links. Offer content that is valuable and helpful to the group members.

A better way to do this is with a method that Tori Reid calls the Ask & Deliver method.

Basically what you do is

• Start with a simple question: “What is your biggest challenge with…”
• Next check the most popular responses on the post and write a blog post about that challenge. Offer solutions and give them guidance.
• Return to the group and post your blog post link – deliver.

By answering to a specific problem that most people had, will ensure that they will be hungry for your content as it will help them solve their problem.

Using this method does take a few tries so don’t give up if no one responds to your post on the first try.

Before I Go

That’s it. Five steps that you can take to get traffic to your blog.

I would recommend that you try one or two of these and stick to it until you master it.

Don’t try to do all as they may overwhelm you.

Also a good idea is to use lead capture pages like LeadPages or Clickfunnels to capture potential leads and grow your subscriber list using email automation software like Aweber or GetResponse.

If you have not yet gotten the hang of email marketing then be sure to check out my article The Ultimate Guide To Email Marketing.

Be consistent and good luck in growing your traffic using these awesome traffic generation strategies.

Cheers

The post The 5 Step Strategy To Increase Blog Traffic appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

Wait scratch what I just said. Starting a SUCCESSFUL blog does not have to be hard at all. If you have the right design, the right content and a strategy for getting readers to your blog, you can build a successful blog that makes money in no time.

Now I am not saying it’s going to be easy.

It’s definitely going to be a lot of work. But hey! The most successful entrepreneurs had to dig their heels into the sand and work their butts off before they got tangible results.

So if that means temporary blood, sweat and tears for long term massive gain then why not? Would you be willing to take the plunge.

So I have decided to write this post to help new beginners start their blog by giving a step by step strategy to help you grow your blog within 90 days. Of course what happens after the 90 days is up to you but I’ll let you in on something.

If you have used the tips from this strategy to start your blog then it’s just a matter of repeating the entire process again and again.

Now before I start I think it is important to address a few disclaimers here. I am not saying that you will make money by following this strategy. I cannot guarantee that you will make any money. But any blog, when crafted properly has the potential to make money.

I started making money in my first month of blogging which is why I know the strategies that I outline here will help you.

Secondly I do not know who you are that is reading this. I do not know how well you deal with struggle (because there will be lots of that). I do not what type of drive you have. I do not know your motivation levels. But certainly if you are the go-getter, badass wanna-do-something good for yourself type of person, then you can make money with your blog! Simple.

So with that being said let’s get started.

The Ultimate Blogging Strategy For Beginners – 90 Days To Blogging Success

What you will learn

• How To Start A Blog
• What To Blog About – Choosing Your Niche
• How To Define Your Goal For Your Blog
• How To Blog With Your Goal In Mind
• How To Find Content That Your Audience Wants
• How To Start Writing Your First Blog Post
• How Many Blog Posts Should You Write?
• How To Monetise Your Blog
• How To Promote Your Blog Posts To Get Eyes On Your Blog

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

First questions

Before you start writing a blog, there are a few questions you should ask yourself and a few expectations that you should set in your mind.

This is important because sometimes when you are doing something that is showing no financial growth you can get discouraged and give up on your plan.

Therefore here are some questions you should think about:

• Do you like writing?
• Can you commit to writing for at least 90 days with no monetary return?
• The content that you intend to write about, do you enjoy it? You want to write something that you’re knowledgeable about because I find that it is easier for word flow.

If your answer to any of these questions is no, then you may want to reconsider starting a blog. Starting a blog may not be the best thing for you because you will start writing but your efforts will slow down until one day you no longer have the motivation to continue writing.

If you have answered yes, then great. I have your attention so let’s continue.

I also want to set some expectations for you as you start on this blogging journey.

• Blogging can get lonely
• There will be times when you will doubt whether your blog will ever make you money
• Sometimes no one will read your blog
• Sometimes you may not know what to write
• Blogging is hard, hard work!

As long as you get that and you still want to challenge yourself to starting a successful blog then read on my friend.

How To Start A Blog

In my article, The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Starting A Successful Blog, I took you through the exact steps that you need to start a blog.

When you are starting a blog there are a few things that you will need:

• A domain which you can get from Namecheap or Godaddy for as low as $0.99.
• Web hosting which you can get from Bluehost for only $3.95 a month. Bluehost actually has webhosting with WordPress installation making it easy for your blog to get set up on the WordPress platform. You also get your domain as part of the process.
• WordPress Theme which you can get from WordPress. WordPress has some amazing themes available for free. If you prefer to buy one of their themes then go for it. I would recommend having a simple theme taking into account the expected user experience. After all you want your visitors to be able to easily navigate your site.
• Images which you can get from places like Shutterstock, Unsplash, Pexels, Canva
• Design tools from PicMonkey or Canva
• Image Compression tool from Optimizilla. This ensures that your site isn’t overloaded with bulky images which can slow down the speed of your site.
• SEO tool to help optimise your website for search engines. After all you want your website to show up in the search engines right? I use and would recommend the Yoast SEO plug in from WordPress.
• Email list. As a blogger this is one of the most important things that you should start. Every online marketer has one and being a blogger you fall into that category too. You can read all about why building an email list is important here. To start your email list I would recommend that you use:
• LeadPages for your opt in boxes, landing pages and forms. Other landing page softwares include GetResponse and Clickfunnels. You can read my review on each of them here.
• Aweber for your automated email marketing. You can also use MailChimp which allows you to have up to 2000 email contacts for free or GetResponse.

What To Blog About – Choosing Your Niche

Choosing a niche is entirely up to you.

My advice is to choose a topic that you are excited and knowledgeable about.

This helps with keeping the content flowing easily.

You can also read 6 Most Profitable Niches For Bloggers And Marketers to get some ideas about what you can focus on.

Keep your subjects niched down. What I mean by that is don’t spend time writing about Weight Loss for example. Spend time writing about Yoga For Weight Loss For Women Aged 30 And Above. This topic addresses a smaller audience as opposed to the broad topic weight loss where you can find so many more sub topics that you can write about.

Also choose a niche where the audience is large but competition is low. You want a blog that has a huge market but it isn’t hard to break into that market because of the tough competition. Read more on how to choose low competition niches here.

How To Define Your Goal For Your Blog

What exactly do you want to achieve from your blog?

You want to set some goals that you can measure your progress against.

Writing a blog blindly can be a waste of time. This is why it is important to look at some metrics to help you measure your goals to see what is working and what is not.

To find those goals make sure that you have installed Google Analytics on your blog.  This is how you get that set up.

Start by signing up for Google Analytics here.

When you get to the Google Analytics page you will see a page like this where you will log in using a Gmail account. If you do not yet have a Gmail account then you can create one here.

As a new user you will reach this page. Click on the button to sign up.

Once you have clicked Sign Up you will reach a page like this. There are a few things that you need to complete on this page to proceed.

What would you like to track? Select Website.

Next enter data for Account Name, Website Name, Website URL, Industry, Reporting Time Zone. All of these will identify your account.

Once you have completed those steps, scroll down and click on Get Tracking ID.

You will now have your tracking ID. Google gives instructions on where you should place your tracking ID on your website.

Copy the code and let’s go across to WordPress. (Leave the Google Analytics tab open as you may need to revisit it.)

You can install the code on your WordPress site in many ways however I believe in simplicity. I will show you how to install it with the Monster Insights plug in.

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is a tracking plugin that allows you to see your daily website performance. Using the free version of MonsterInsights you can see page views, which of your content is viewed the most and where your traffic comes from.

From your WordPress Dashboard, click on Plugins then Add New.

At the search bar type in Monster Insights. As a new user you will see a button that says Install Now.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

Once it has installed, the button will say Activate.

Once you have activated the plug in, the plug in will appear on the left side bar and it will be named Insights.

Hover over Insights and a second menu will appear. Select Settings.

Click on the General tab. Click on the blue button Authenticate with your Google Account.

A pop up will appear instructing you to Authenticate Your Google Analytics Account With Monster Insights. Click Next.

A box will appear asking you to enter your Google Code. Click the button Click To Get Google Code.

A popup will appear where Monster Insights will ask to get some of your Google Analytics data.

Click Allow.

A line of code will appear on your screen. Copy the code and head back over to the Monster Insights popup where you will paste the code.

You will then be asked to select the profile you want to track. This will contain the data from your Google Analytics account and is the user profile you created that starts with UA.

Select the profile and click Next. Now you’re all finished.

Great now you can access your Google Analytics data.

Google Analytics does not report data in real time for certain elements. Their platform takes 24 hours to update however you can see how many visitors you have on your website in real time. If you are not yet seeing any data, I would advise that you wait 24 hours for Google Analytics to take effect.

Your Goals

As a new blogger the following are goals that I would recommend you measure.

Page Views how many visitors you have had to your page in a day/month. You should work on increasing this number. To find this metric from your Google Analytics account go to Audience then Overview.

Bounce rate the percentage of time that your visitors remain on your site. The lower the bounce rate the better. You should work on writing valuable content that is at least 2000-3000 words so that your readers will be enticed to stay on your page longer.

Email Subscribers how many people opted into your email list over the course of a month. You should work on increasing this number.

You will find that as you measure these metrics and work on improving them, that the value of your blog increases and the potential to make money grows.

How To Blog With Your Goal In Mind

When creating content it is important to think about the end result.

There are many factors to consider when blogging with your goal in mind. So if your goal is to get more viewers to your blog, then of course promoting your blog is what you will focus on.

If your goal is to get a low bounce rate, then creating content that is rich in value, quality and length is what you need to pay attention to.

If your goal is to get more email subscribers then it is important to use strategies to help you collect email leads. Head on over to my blog post The Ultimate Email Marketing Strategy for Bloggers And Marketers where I list some mega tips to help you get started on your email marketing strategy.

Remember that by focusing on each of these goals, you are increasing your potential to make money which is your ultimate goal for blogging. Whilst making money from your blog should not be your motivating factor, it is something to keep in mind.

Your main motivating factor should be the user experience and adding value to them as ultimately it is those users who go on to buy your products or your recommendations.

How To Find Content That Your Audience Wants

The first thing you should know as you start blogging is that you are not blogging for yourself. You are blogging for an audience so you should answer to what your audience wants to read.

A good place to start is Google and I cover this more in depth in a recent article where I spoke about how to create topics that your audience is searching for and wants to read. You can read more of that article here.

You can also use a website called BuzzSumo to get inspiration for your posts. BuzzSumo actually lists the top most socially shared content on the web. You can search for your niche and see what posts got the most shares then model after that post and create your own.

Another great place to find inspiration for content is Quora. This is a Q&A forum where people post questions on a wide variety of topics.

You can use the data from here to see which questions stand out the most in your niche, then write a blog post answering those questions. It is more likely than not that if people are asking those questions on Quora then there are many more people on the internet who want answers to those questions.   

Some of the article types that do well are:

• How To articles
• List articles
• Case Studies
• Reviews
• Opinion and commentary

How To Start Writing Your First Blog Post

When you start writing your first blog post there are a few things that you should keep in mind:

Value

Your post should add value to the reader. It should aim to help the reader answer a question or direct them to a solution.

So when you write a post make sure that it is something that the reader will want to know about and of course share.

Do not fluff out your articles with meaningless blab. This can actually be a determining factor for how long your viewers stay on your website. It also tells Google whether your blog is informative and valuable as the more people that stay on a blog longer, the more Google sees it as being helpful and valuable.

Actionable

If you are writing How To articles, make sure that your content is actionable. By this I mean, that your content should inspire your readers to take action to implement something that you are teaching.

The steps should therefore be easy to follow.

Include diagrams if you have to and be specific.

In Depth

I always find that posts with a lot of detail on a topic gets the most shares on my blog.

When people read blogs they want the specifics or the essence of the topic.

So avoid hitting the surface. That’s for lazy people.

Take some time to add meat to the bones. Dig deeper. Let’s see how this is done in practice.

First you start by turning on the television

This is very shallow statement. If you write a basic sentence like this you are assuming that your readers know how to turn on the television. So it is essential that you put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Be mindful that not everyone will have the same level skillset as you do.  So what else can you do?

First you start by turning on the television which is found on the left side of the room. Use the black button at the bottom of the television set and press it to turn on the set.

This is now a better sentence with more detail.

Do you see what I have done?

I have given precise instructions to the reader to find the television set, find the button and then turn it on.

That is how your blog posts should be structured. And this formula can be applied to any subject area that you are writing about.

Take a little bit more time to extract your sentences which will then add more value to the article for your reader.

Start A Successful Blog Step By Step

How Many Blog Posts Should You Write?

There is no hard and fast rule with the number of blog posts you should write every day or week.

You want to be very realistic and have a plan which you can stick to. When you have a plan it is so much easier to know what needs to be done to get the job done.

You do not want a plan that will cause too much overwhelm. If you can blog once a day then go for it. If you find that blogging once a week and leaving other days to promote content works for you, then that is ok too.

Whatever your plan for blog writing is, make sure that it involves a schedule to write and promote that content consistently because at the end of the day, your blog posts make no impact if other people are not reading it.

How To Monetise Your Blog

Ahhhhhhhh! Monetising the blog to make money.

I see so many people who wait until they have built up enough traffic on their blog to start monetising it.

I also see other bloggers who suggest that you should not monetise your blog until you have at least 10000 monthly page views.

Well I am here to debunk all those myths because I have proven that you can actually make money from your blog from the very start with less than 10000 monthly page views.

As I am writing, I have about 4000 monthly pageviews having started my blogging journey about a month and a half ago.

I started monetising my blog posts from day one and have relied on affiliate marketing which is where I would recommend that all beginners start.

Other ways that you can monetise your blog include:

• Advertisements
• Your own products or services

Affiliate Marketing

If you have never heard about affiliate marketing, then read my article Affiliate Marketing For Beginners, to get a detailed view on what affiliate marketing is.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products for a commission when a sale is made. Essentially your blog posts may recommend a product which you are an affiliate of. If someone clicks on your affiliate link to check out the product and they buy, then you earn a percentage of the sale.

You can find products to start affiliate marketing at the following sites which are free to join:

• ShareASale
• Panthera Network
• Rakuten Marketing
• Commission Junction
• Clickbank Read my article on The Ultimate Guide To Clickbank Affiliate Marketing for help on how to use Clickbank
• Amazon Associates

You can also recommend products that you use in your day to day life if there is an affiliate program attached to it. So for example, Aweber has an affiliate program. Because it is an email marketing software that you may use as a blogger, you can recommend it to other readers who may be bloggers getting started with email marketing.

LeadPages is another software that has an affiliate program attached to it. You can also include recommendations within your blog posts or write review articles about it to start earning commissions from their program.

For more high paying affiliate marketing programs that pay big commissions you can read my article here.

Advertisements

You may or may not want to use advertisements on your blog at the start. This is a decision that only you can make.

However before you start applying to advertising networks like Google Adsense or Ad Maven there are a few things you need to be mindful of.

Content quality if your content is less than 300 words your content is considered to be thin and of poor quality. No one will want to advertise on your blog and this can be grounds for rejection.

Webdesign if the design of your website is unappealing, you will have a high bounce rate and hardly attract viewers to your site. Therefore choose a design that is attractive and minimal. Ensure that it is easy to navigate your site. A user friendly site will always encourage visitors to return to your site and share its content and is a good reason why your application can be accepted.

Backlink relevancy backlinks are a way to build your website’s authority. A backlink is an incoming website link from one external website to another. So if an authoritative website such as Wikipedia links to your site, Google will assess that your site is of a high quality. Therefore if you are using backlinks, make sure that they are coming from sites which have a high authority. This can improve your chances of your advert applications being accepted.

Your Own Products Or Services

Do you have a product or service that you want to talk about on your blog?

This is a great way to start monetising your blog so you can start reaching out to your audience to purchase from you.

Products and services can be varied.

So you may have a consultancy service, a course, coaching or mentoring which you can advertise on your blog.

How To Promote Your Blog Posts To Get Eyes On Your Blog

Finally, your blog would not matter if no one is seeing it.

So as a beginner the best way you can get eyes on your blog is to promote it. Here are some ways you can do that:

• Guest Blogging
• Content Distribution
• SEO

As I mostly use guest blogging and content distribution to promote my blog content I will focus on that. If you are interested in learning more about SEO then Moz is a great blog that you can refer to.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is putting your content on someone else’s website to borrow their audience and ultimately their traffic.

It is the best way that you can gain a lot of traffic to your own blog but only if you do it right. Guest blogging also helps you to gain authority and recognition in your niche. It helps you to network with other bloggers and influencers and gain email subscribers.

So let’s take a look at what you can do to start guest blogging.

Reach out to other bloggers.

An easy way to find blogs for guest posting is to use Google. I used the keywords blog write for us.

It will be useful to have some type of spreadsheet to track your efforts. I have set up my own tracking using these key headlines

Niche Topic 1 Topic 2 Topic 3 Submission URL Email Request Date Follow Up Date

Make a note of all the guest post requests you have made and don’t forget to follow up with the blogger about three days later.

I would also recommend that you be very selective about the blogs that you write for. You want to write for blogs that have a high audience reach and has a high quality.

It is difficult to know how much traffic a site gets unless you use a premium service. But you can gauge the quality of a website using online analytics tools from Alexa.com to look at the global rank of a site. Simply type in the website URL and Alexa will provide some statistics on the website. Typically a good rank is anything in the top 100,000.

You can also use Moz.com to check the webpage’s domain and page authority. High page authorities are great but a site with a domain authority and page authority of 20 and over is ideal.

Pitching

Once you have your list of blogs to write for, it is time to pitch to them. Keep your pitch simple and to the point.

A good pitch goes a long the lines like this:

Hey [blogger’s first name]

My name is [your name] and I am the creator of [Your blog or business name]. I write on the topic of [your niche] and I hoping that I can write for you and help your audience by providing some great value.

Here is a sample of my work [link to some of your articles]

I have also guest posted on [name some authority sites that are relevant. This shows that you have been accepted as a contributor elsewhere]

My ideas for blog posts are [usually blog owners want 2-3 post ideas that they can consider].

Please let me know if you think this is a good fit for your blog.

I wait to hear from you.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Your name]

Content

When you do get a response from the blogger make sure that you read their blog submission guidelines and follow them.

Nothing hurts you as a guest blogger than breaking the rules as this only puts you in a bad light and could potentially hurt your relationship with the blogger.

After the Post

Once you have submitted your post and it is published be sure to do your part and respond to any comments left by the reader’s audience.

Although you are tapping into someone else’s audience you are responsible for promoting your own guest blog post so the onus is on you to share the content around, whether it is with your email list or social media.

Content Distribution

Content Distribution is another way for you to get the word out there that you are a blogger.

This simply involves sharing your post on social media sites such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter or Facebook.

Any of these sites are great forums for sharing your blog post in any niche.

I use Pinterest to share my content and do so on a daily basis by joining relevant group boards and pinning my blog post to them.

Pinterest is great for driving traffic to blogs. I actually got started using Pinterest after learning all about the value of it by following the strategies laid out in the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course.

To be successful with any of these two methods for driving traffic takes a lot of work and consistency so be sure that you set out time in your blogging schedule to complete these tasks.

Alas!

We have made it to the end.

This blogging guide should prepare you for the next three months of blogging to success. To wrap this up here is a summary of the key steps you should take to start a successful blog:

• Set up your domain name and web hosting
• Design your blog so that it is attractive and easy to navigate
• Monetise your blog
• Write content that your audience wants to read. No one cares about you (sorry to be so harsh)
• Write down your blogging goals
• Get a blogging plan and stick to it
• Get quality traffic to your blog
• Build your email list and treat them like your friends
• Network with other bloggers in your niche
• Enjoy the ride and most importantly BE CONSISTENT!

Cheers,

The post The Ultimate Blogging Strategy For Beginners – 90 Days To Blogging Success appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.