Revealed: 19 Things to Know Before You Start a Blog
102 Intelligent Opinions, Leave Yours. Last Update January 25th, 2016.
Thinking that you’d like to start a blog this year? This post is for you.
Today I’m going to show you some really important things you need to know before you jump in.
If you follow these tips you’ll save a lot of time and valuable energy.
NOTE: This post on starting a blog contains some affiliate links. If you purchase a service through one of my links I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for the support! It means a lot.
The quick steps involved in starting a blog
First up, if you don’t have a blog yet and are wondering about the best way to get started there are a few quick steps you’ll want to follow:
Set short and long term goals.
Get a domain name and blog host from BlueHost and install WordPress as your blogging platform.
Choose a theme and decide on branding elements like logos and colors.
Add an opt-in form to start collecting email subscribers.
Begin producing strategic content that helps people.The content below will go into much deeper detail about starting a blog this year and give you a bunch of helpful resources that you can use to skyrocket your blogging progress.
What’s different about starting a blog this year?
Some things never change when it comes to blogging.
Other things, however, change quite regularly and it can be really confusing if you’re new or just looking to get started.
I constantly get asked questions like:
“Where do I start a blog?”
“Should I use WordPress or Blogger or Tumblr?”
“Do I need Aweber or will Feedburner suffice for my mailing list?”
“Should I update my blog daily?”
“How should I monetize my blog?”
“Etc. ad infinitum.”
These types of questions are timeless but the answers often change from year to year. And even if the answers don’t change it is sometimes necessary to remind bloggers that the answers haven’t changed! That is: keep doing what you’re doing.
Let’s do some of that now.
So you’re starting a blog? What do you need to know?
Here are some of the most important things you’ll want to pay attention if you want to make this blogging thing work for you:
1. A self-hosted WordPress blog is still your best bet
We harp on about this a lot but best thing you can do about blog hosting is to set up your own WordPress.org blog on your own host. I am still of the firm belief that free blogs like Tumblr and Blogger (and even WordPress.com) do not give you the control, ownership and branding options that you need.
Here’s a quick graphic I shared over on Google+ about the difference between a free WordPress blog and a WordPress blog that you host for yourself. Even here you’ll notice that the differences are huge.
As I’ve said before, the one prediction I have for people using a free blog host is that one day you will want to migrate it to your own host. And that can be a really annoying process. It’s much better to set yourself up the right way from the beginning.
I recommend BlueHost for all new bloggers (get a Blog Tyrant special discount rate of $3.49 per month on a 12-month starter plan). This tutorial will take you through the setup process – step by step. It should take around 5 minutes to get completely set up!
2. Visual content will only get bigger
If you aren’t taking your own photos yet it might be time to get started.
At a minimum, you want to be part of a quality stock photo site that allows you to use photos on your site with an attribution license. I use Dreamstimeand Gratisography for a lot of my photos but I also take my own.
Visual content has been growing for years and it appears to be speeding up, not slowing down. We now have retina display tablets and our smartphones are getting bigger. Social networking sites like Facebook and Google+ are favoring images over text – never mind sites like Pinterest which are totally based around photos!
If you’re not working with visual content yet it’s time to start.
3. Growing a mailing list is still the most important thing
If you asked a big blogger for advice about the most important thing to do in 2004 they would have probably told you to grow a mailing list.
Ten years later and nothing has changed.
Your email list is a means to get into people’s inboxes whenever you like. That can lead to increased traffic to your new blog posts as well as more sales when you launch a product or promote an affiliate product.
But the main reason that you want to grow an email list is because you justcan’t trust Google for traffic. And you can’t trust social networking sites that constantly change their policies. It’s only the mailing list that gives you a constant source of traffic, should something go wrong.
I recommend Aweber for all bloggers but there are many other options out there.
4. It’s time to get smart about competition analysis
I reckon about 90% of bloggers that I talk to do zero research when it comes to writing new posts, creating new blogs or coming up with products.
No one is thinking about the competition!
This is a big mistake in my opinion. Almost every post that you write has been written before. Every blog that you think of is already out there. Most products have things that are pretty much the same.
It’s really important to use a quality program like Market Samurai to do some research into the competition. A quick look around and you’ll be able to see what keywords people are targeting, how many back links they have for their main posts and where those back links are coming from.
This is invaluable information as it helps you decide whether or not you can compete in certain niches and keywords. If someone has links coming fromHarvard, Wikipedia and NASA then it is unlikely you’ll be able to outrank them in a hurry.
5. Long content still works
Long content has been working for years. One of the first posts I ever wrote on this site was several thousand words on how I sold a blog for $20,000. That post went viral and got the attention of a lot of bloggers.
It put Blog Tyrant on the radar.
If I’d just written a little 500 word update on the topic nothing would have happened. The whole thing would have fizzled out into nothing.
Unfortunately that is what happens to a lot of bloggers.
Neil Patel has talked about how well long content works for him and now even Google has launched an in-depth articles section on their search results.
Forget about short little updates and start working on longer content that solves problems and provides so much value that people can’t help but share it with their friends.
6. It’s time to spend money on promotion
For some reason bloggers hate the idea of spending money on advertising. It’s a real shame.
One thing you’ll start to see more and more in 2014 is that the bigger bloggers (and other internet entrepreneurs) will start to pay to promote their posts and products a lot more.
There is so much noise online. Just think about the niche you are in – how many competitors are there that are doing better than you?
Well, one way to bypass their domination is to spend a little bit of money promoting your best work to a targeted group of people who are likely to be interested in your stuff.
A screenshot from my Facebook newsfeed – a simple sponsored post.
The great thing about advertising on social networks like Facebook is that it’s low cost and there is a chance that people will share it of their own free will, once they’ve seen your advert. Here is a simple sponsored post that appeared in my newsfeed while I was writing this post. Easy to make and very effective.
You don’t need much. Set aside $25 for a test and see how you go.
7. Make big connections early
Something that a lot of new bloggers fail to recognize is that your success is often largely dependent on the alliances that you form.
If you are going to start a new blog in 2014 it’s a good idea to start making connections with the big blogs and bloggers in your niche as soon as you can. I’m not talking about spamming them with guest post requests either – I’m talking about making genuine friends that can support each other for the long term.
Start by finding the big players on Twitter and sharing their stuff. Mention it on your site and let them know about it. It’s a nice little introduction.
8. Google+ will grow to the point of necessity
Many people already argue that Google+ is essential.
In fact, I’ve said it to my readers a few times in posts on how to set up Google authorship and the best Google+ tips.
At least from an SEO point of view, people are already seeing results from integrating Google+ with your blog. When you get authorship set up you get your photo in search and it seems like you also get slightly higher rankings. This is still up for debate.
Here’s one thing you need to consider. As Google+ grows (it’s already the second biggest social network) you’re going to have more people being logged in when they do searches. If you are in their Circles there is a greater chance that your posts will show up on their results. This means more traffic and potentially more shares.
Here’s a graphic I made recently about how Google+ can help improve your blog’s rankings in 2014.
It’s time to get on it.
9. Responsive blog designs are a must
Mobiles and tablets are now a primary source of web traffic. If your theme doesn’t respond to the smaller screens there is a good chance you will be losing valuable traffic as people click away to find something easier to navigate.
In the next two weeks you will see this site change into a responsive design. More importantly, you will see me launch a brand new site that will help you out a lot when it comes to your responsive WordPress themes in 2014.
The only thing I’ll say now is that you should be on the mailing list to make sure you don’t miss out on this one. It’s going to be big.
10. Outsourcing will make you prolific
Ever since I chatted to Chris Ducker on Skype last year I’ve been more and more looking to outsourcing as a way to get things done.
I’ve been doing it for years, but it wasn’t until talking to Chris that I realized that the process could be streamlined with the use of a virtual assistant – someone who can manage all of your tasks that you would normally control yourself.
There are a few reasons as to why this will be even more important in 2014.
Firstly, it helps you create more content and frees up time for you to focus on the tasks that really grow your blog. Secondly, it gives work to someone who really needs it and, hopefully, is a lot better at that task than you are. Note: We had a big debate about this on my Fiverr post.
Over are the days where you do everything on your blog from the writing to the photoshopping to the HTML editing and outreach. It’s time to get help with it all.
