- Just Start
If you want to get a blog off the ground, the best and only thing you can really do is simply get going. A lot of people want to find the “perfect time” to start their blog, but the reality is, there is no “perfect time”. You will always find some reason or excuse to not begin now. Avoid the mistakes of procrastination by getting to it immediately. Don’t waste your time because there are so many opportunities you can miss out on by stalling.
Blogging is a top work from home job, but you have to put in the time and earn it to see its rewards. The reality is, in the beginning, nobody is going to be reading your blog. Now that sounds bad, but actually, this gives you time to get in the habit of writing and actually getting work done without the pressure that other people might see it or are looking forward to it.
When you are a beginner, the hardest part is actually sitting yourself down and writing so the sooner you get that over with and start a momentum that you can keep up with and are comfortable with, the better you will become.
- Pick a Platform
A big part of starting is figuring out what platform you want to be on. Some excellent starter options are Wix, Blogger, SquareSpace, Tumblr, WordPress, but you can use any other sites that you have found on your own. Keep in mind that you absolutely do not have to stay on that platform if you eventually grow out of it or would want to try something new.
It is very likely that you will begin on a platform that is free, but as you get more serious about your blog, you will probably want to move onto a more serious platform. You do not have to make any commitments to any one platform, font, color scheme, or anything, as you can always change it and improve it later down the road once you get the hang of it.
Picking these initial things will only help you get started and motivated. But remember, no pressure to stick with your first choices, you will want to improve and evolve as you go on!
- Don’t Lose Focus
It is very important that once you start, you don’t stop. It is so common for beginners to start very strong and give their blog their all and completely stop writing the first 2 weeks. Usually, this is due to the fact that they started too strong and weren’t able to keep up and write consistently. Another reason is that they put too much pressure on themselves to be perfect.
By putting all of this pressure on yourself, you simply will not be able to keep up. Start slow and set a pace you can actually work with, try writing once every week or once every two weeks for starters, and see how that goes for a while. The point is to stay motivated and stay focused. One highly effective way to make sure you keep up with your writing and don’t lose focus is to create a realistic schedule for yourself.
This schedule should consist of a few easy-to-achieve goals you set out for yourself, knowing they’re possible to meet. This should help you stay on track in the beginning when it seems so easy to give up.
- Good Intentions
It’s easy to automatically compare yourself with every other popular blogger with who you may be familiar with. You have seen that they get to live exciting lives by traveling all over the world and getting a lot of free stuff in PR and promo deals. It seems like the life of a popular blogger is the dream life.
It is going to be very easy for you to compare yourself to someone like that, but you must never forget that those people have probably been doing it for years, have lots of experience, and partially, they got lucky. You cannot go into blogging on the basis of jealousy, it will eat you up inside. You have to go through your own journey and gain experience by putting in hours of work.
The good news is, if you’re passionate about what you’re writing about and using blogging as a creative outlet, it won’t feel like work. This is the number one reason why you have to go into blogging with good intentions, otherwise, you will be inauthentic and the constant comparisons will make you miserable.
- What Do I Write About?
Cred: @glamorousplanning
This is a very common issue that so many first-time bloggers worry over. The first thing you can do that will be very helpful is come up with what your niche is going to be and what you’re going to be blogging about. You want to try to keep it narrow so that you have a specific take on any topic where people know when they come to your blog, that’s what you’re going to be talking about and they will get the information they were looking for.
At the same time, don’t keep it too narrow. Make your niche broad enough so that you still have things to talk about overtime. You don’t want to keep things super specific where after blogging for six weeks you just completely exhausted the list of things to blog about. But you also don’t want to be so broad that you are blogging about absolutely anything.
This will make your readers so confused when they come to your blog because they don’t really get what you’re about. A good place to start is that when you’re getting your blog off the ground, sit down and try to come up with about 50 blog post ideas. Think of these as a list of ideas to make work fun so you don’t get stuck.
This gives you some time to actually get your blog posts out there while coming up with new ideas as you go along without feeling a lot of pressure because you’ve run out of ideas.
- Get Inspired
This is the most important step in creating a successful blog. You’re creating a platform for your audience to engage with. This means you have to care about what you are putting out there because if you were inauthentic your audience will know. Blogging is an amazing creative outlet and there’s a lot of work that goes into it but the trick is finding inspiration in everyday things.
You should be excited about the things that you are writing about. Inspiration can come from literally anywhere. It can be from your immediate surroundings, from a conversation you had with someone else, something in nature, perhaps a new book you’ve been reading, it can literally come from anywhere. The key is to be passionate and excited about what you were writing about. If you’re interested and excited, your audience will follow suit.