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Sunday, 25 June 2017

Things to consider before starting a blog


When it comes to blogging, there is no right and wrong way of doing it. We are all individuals, and as such, our blogs should reflect that. However, there are certain things that all bloggers should do. So today I thought I would share some things that everybody should try and do. Just remember to take this post as a guide: while I’m saying you should try and do it, that doesn’t mean your blog won’t succeed without it.

Create a media kit

A media kit is an absolute must if you want to get taken seriously and considered for brand partnerships to really start monetising your blog. It’s actually taken me over a year to make mine, and I really wish I had made it sooner. Basically, a media kit is like a CV for your blog. It tells prospective clients what your blog is about, its achievements, and how well it is doing. You can then send this off to brands if they approach you about collaborations. It's a lot less wordy than an essay explaining the niche of your content and the demographic of your readers. Prospective clients can get all the info they need about your blog on a single page. 

Hosting

You'll also want to self-host your blog with a trusted site. The reason you want self-hosting is you have more flexibility to do what you want with your blog. Self-hosting means you own your blog entirely. You can grow it however you want, add multiple domains, and pay for site maintenance/support. It’s all under your control.  For beginner, to mid level-bloggers, I recommend Bluehost because it has all the capabilities you could possibly need for a reasonable price. You won’t need unlimited bandwidth with 10,000 KBs of memory (I don’t even know if that’s the right terminology I’m just making this up right now). Plus Bluehost has outstanding customer support. You send them one email expressing your concerns and boom they email you back almost instantly. This is especially helpful if you don’t know what the heck you’re doing.

Create a content calendar

One of the most exciting things about starting a new blog is having all those ideas of different content that you're going to create. But what's the best way to plan out exactly when you're going to post when and where? A content calendar of course! The first step in creating a content calendar is to create a weekly schedule. What I mean is you designate each day of the week to a specific topic. For example, fashion bloggers could do something like this: Monday = Shopping haul, Tuesday = Outfit post, Wednesday = Outfit video, Thursday = Round up of your week, Friday = Follow Friday. This way, even if you're not actually posting content everyday at least you've got a big backlog of posts just sitting there ready to go - perfect!

At this point, you should be pretty well organized – you got your weekly schedule down, and you've got your content ideas ready to go, now it’s time to actually create.  Most bloggers blog as a side project or hobby so we're very limited on time. We have a lot to balance and without managing our time accordingly, our side hustle can suffer. It’s easy to get off track and miss one day which turns into one week which turns into one month and then you’re back at square one.  In order to avoid this, you need to make time for when you’re going to write the post, when it’s going to go live, and what time you’re going to promote it, otherwise it might not get done at all.

Make your blog easily searchable

It’s SO important to get those Google bots crawling your website regularly so that your site data is kept fully up to date. The easiest way to so this is by creating and uploading a simple Sitemap file. It lets Google know every time your content has been updated, and crucial every time you launch a new page or product if you run an E-Commerce store. This is super simple if you’re on Wordpress because this tool will do all the hard work for you. 

Yoast is a Free Wordpress plugin that enables you to preview how your site will appear in Google results, as well as take some of the most important keywords you’ve picked up from Google Trends and give you the best tips of how to optimise for them efficiently. It’ll also advise you on the best pages to internally link and the most common phrases and keywords used throughout your site to give you an excellent summary of your site’s performance vs. the most important search terms you’ve been researching. 





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4 comments

Jordan K said...

This was an insanely helpful post to read. I've just started out with my blog, so I will almost definitely take all of these into account.

Have a great week!
Jordan | www.jdkay.com

Kate Rose xo said...

Media kits are definitely super important, I wouldn't approach a brand without mine now!

Kate// itskaterose.com

Haute and Comely said...

Great points. I wish someone had told me earlier.Very useful information.

Hazel said...

This was really helpful, not the usual info normally found on posts like this! Have now set up the site map plugin!! Thanks for the help!! xx

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