How to start a blog

If you think it's time to start a blog, but have doubts - this article is for you. We will tell you what to blog about, on which platform to create and how to make money on it.

When a person does something cool - bake cakes, hitchhike, or read a lot - they will most likely be told, "Get yourself a blog." But as long as there is no internal motivation, becoming a blogger is unlikely to succeed. Here are some ideas that you can find incentive amongst them.

Make money blogging

When a blog is created to make money, you are actually starting an online business. Think over a plan, invest in the platform, create and promote content, use various monetization tools. By publishing useful and SEO-optimized articles, you attract visitors from search, convert them into subscribers. You can make money on a blog in different ways: place ads, write paid reviews, make money on affiliate programs. We will write about these and other ways to monetize your blog below.

Test approaches and techniques useful for work

A blog is a personal platform for testing ideas. You can try different formats of articles and illustrations, apply new SEO tools, customize WordPress, and so on. A blog is useful for a copywriter, editor, SEO specialist and other people who are involved in marketing.

Build a personal brand

You can be a cool specialist, but known only within your company. A blog helps to become known to a wide range of people. By publishing expert articles, reviews, toolkits, a specialist shows his knowledge and skills. In the future, the blog will become a public resume for employers or a portfolio for customers.

Unload thoughts and structure knowledge

When you dive deeply into a topic, there is too much information. Blogging helps to structure knowledge and come to an interesting conclusion, solution. Or just free your head for new ideas.

Blogging as a hobby and outlet

Someone develops a blog for work, but for someone, on the contrary, it is an opportunity to switch from work to what they love. You can write about handicrafts, travel, books, kids, or gym activities.

Do you know the movie "Julie and Julia"? The main character worked during the day as an operator in a call center, and in the evenings she cooked dishes and wrote in a blog. This is a biographical story - Julie became famous by publishing a book based on the blog. And then they made a film based on the book.

What to blog about

Sometimes you want to start a blog, but it's hard to decide what to write about. Here are some ideas we got from some bloggers. Arrange a challenge or take part in a challenge

life list - tasks for yourself for a yearLife list - tasks for yourself for a year

Describe life events in an online diary

Create Case Studies

In a blog, you can simply describe life events: personal and professional. Most of the LiveJournal diaries are organized according to this principle.

The advantages of a diary are that you are not limited to one topic: you can do book reviews, discuss repairs or prepare for emigration. But there are also disadvantages: if you write about everything in a row, it is difficult to find your audience and understand it, since the readers will mainly come and go.

To make an online diary interesting, you need your own "trick" - a special style of writing or a personal point of view. For example, if you talk about your life from the perspective of a cheerful pessimist:

Online diary with your positionOnline diary with your position

Comment on current news

For example, Milya Kotlyarova, author of the Digital Broccoli blog, follows the news in the freelance world. She explains the laws on the self-employed, changes in payments on the exchanges, and so on.

Freelance Blog News NotesFreelance Blog News Notes

Write reviews: books, programs, cosmetics, work tools

How to start blogging

You can publish your first article on social networks or on a blogging platform at any time: just register, write and press the "publish" button. If you decide to create a blog site, there will be more steps to the first publication.

1. Come up with a name

The name should be well remembered and you like it. Then it will be easy for people to find your blog, and it will be pleasant for you to work with it.

2. Choose an engine for your blog

It is more convenient to blog on the engines that are created exactly for this - WordPress, Egea. WordPress has convenient tools for publishing and commenting posts, organizing headings, SEO optimization, and a large selection of templates. If you need help installing it, it will be easier to find a specialist as WordPress has a large community.

3. Buy a domain name and choose a hosting

Come up with a domain name and check its availability with registrars. Next, select your hosting. Hosting is a remote server that will store your blog files. Sometimes, when buying a hosting, a domain is offered as a gift. Find out in advance so as not to miss the opportunity to save.

4. Design your blog

Now you need to install and configure the blog engine. If there is no experience in installation at all, it will be difficult to do it yourself. Where to go for help:

5. Write and publish your first article

Pick a topic, make an outline of the article and - ta-daam - write your first post. Before publishing, edit the article, check the presentation logic. An article is easier to read when it has a clear structure: heading, introduction, main body with subheadings, and conclusions.

6. Show the article to readers

For a blog post to be seen by people, it must be promoted. Publish a link to the article on social networks and invite readers to express their opinion, share the article in thematic groups and forums.

How to blog

At the start, it is important to organize the work on the blog so that new articles are regularly published. Several tricks will help with this.

Write down ideas ; Get in the habit of writing down thoughts and observations so you don't lose out on interesting ideas. For recordings, you can use the applications Evernote , Wunderlist , Bear . It is convenient to add notes to them on the go:

Make a publication plan ; The content plan helps to publish articles on a regular basis. Planning topics for future articles and working on them is convenient in Trello . Although you can use regular sheets in Google Docs.

Analyze blog statistics ; Install an analytics system on your blog - Google Analytics, Yandex.Metrica. Statistics will show how traffic to your blog is growing, which articles bring more traffic and what keywords visitors come to your blog for.

Install SEO plugin and optimize articles for search engines ; Over time, when search engines index new articles, readers from Google and Yandex search engines will begin to come to the blog. For more such visitors, articles and the blog as a whole need to be optimized.

Select search queries for articles in Google Ads and Yandex.Wordstat and write them in the title, subheadings, article text and alt-texts for images.

Respond to comments ; Follow the comments: thanks for the feedback, answer the readers' questions. Discussions under the articles are a sign that the blog is alive. This attracts new readers.

Set up a newsletter subscription form ; Email newsletters can help turn blog visitors into regular readers . By submitting announcements of new articles or a selection of past ones, you keep in touch with your readers.

Readers' contacts are collected through subscription forms : built-in, pop-up. The inline form is less visible and unobtrusive. On the other hand, a popup converts visitors to subscribers better, as the experience of SendPulse customers shows .

Built-in blog subscription form ; The pop-up subscription form is more aggressive and hard to miss. To prevent people from getting angry, the pop-up needs to be properly designed: do not hide the "close window" button, add a valuable offer to it - a lead magnet :

Pop-up sign up form with lead magnet on blog ; In SendPulse, you can create different forms of subscription : built-in, pop-up, floating, fixed.

Update your blog: design, article formats, headings ; Make small changes to keep your readers happy. These can be new categories and formats, an updated design of the subscription form.

Where to blog

The site for the blog is chosen based on the goals. You can keep an online diary on social networks, Telegram or in the Tumblr microblogging system. Develop a personal brand - on Medium. To make money, you need a full-fledged website on WordPress or another engine. In this section, we will analyze the features of the sites.

Social networks ; A blog on social networks is suitable for keeping an online diary, promoting a personal brand, and announcing articles from the site. It is not necessary to write long posts here, you can take short notes.

pros Minuses

Social networks already have users who can be attracted to your profile: inviting friends, launching paid ads. It is difficult to promote your blog in search engines.

Easily and quickly publish posts. Limited formatting options.

Dependence on the administration of social networks: there is a restriction on the content of the content (photo and text), ranking, and so on.

Blogging on different social networks has its own characteristics. Let's take a look at the most popular sites.

Facebook

In Facebook, to start blogging, you can create a special profile - "Personal Blog". It has the same functionality as a business page: you can promote publications and view advanced statistics.

In addition to regular posts, Facebook offers a "Notes" feature for posting long texts. They can be formatted as articles, illustrations can be added to the header. In Facebook notes, you can only write H1 and H2 headings, and these posts cannot be promoted.

Instagram

For those who like to take pictures and write, Instagram is suitable. On Instagram, you can also select the "Personal Blog" profile type:

Telegram messenger

Telegram has long outgrown the functionality of the messenger. Here you can create your own channel, post notes and invite readers from other resources. In this, Telegram is similar to social networks.

In Telegram, you can publish text, pictures, video and audio clips. You can invite up to 200 people from the phone book to your channel. Next, you need to advance with the help of announcements in other Telegram channels, social networks, blogs, including through paid advertising.

The statistics of popular Telegram channels will help you choose a topic for yourself: In social networks and Telegram, it is good to train to write regularly and study the reaction of the audience. Is it possible to write and have a response? Then you can go to your site.

Blog on your CMS ; Your own CMS site is a variant of the classic blog, where you completely manage content and advertising. To maintain such blogs, they use the platforms WordPress , Ghost , Egeya .

pros Minuses

You can do everything for yourself - colors, logo. Set up a newsletter subscription form, an online calculator, and more. The cost of hosting, domain, payment to the programmer, if you can't handle it yourself.

By adhering to the recommendations of the search engines Google and Yandex for site optimization, you get a good blog position in the SERP and search traffic. There is no ready audience - the blog needs to be promoted and promoted, otherwise no one will know about it.

Freedom of self-expression - you can write as you like (even foul language), moderate comments.

The ability to earn on contextual and banner advertising Adsense, YAN.

You need your own CMS if you plan to blog for a long time, want to make money on it and are ready to spend time not only writing articles, but also supporting the site.

Blog platforms - Medium,

Medium was originally created as a social journalism platform. Thanks to this positioning, the platform has gathered a professional community of journalists, editors, bloggers.

Yandex.Zen is a platform for text blogs that allows you to make money by connecting ad impressions in articles.

pros Minuses

Blogging platforms are used by a lot of people - this is a ready-made audience that you can invite to your blog. Restrictions on content content (more stringent in Yandex.Dzen, fewer in Medium).

You can start blogging in a couple of seconds: register, fill out a profile and publish an article. Limited monetization options.

There is content formatting that allows you to control the attention of the reader.

Blogging platforms are chosen if the blog is created not for making money, but for other tasks: promoting a personal brand, self-expression.

Where you can blog for free

You don't have to pay for hosting and domain for your blog. There are many platforms where you can start blogging for free, investing only your time.

Free blogging platforms:

Medium is an international platform for creativity and self-realization. Popular with writers, journalists, bloggers.

Tumblr is a microblogging service. Many authors publish anonymously. A feature of the site in its tolerance for content of a sexual nature. It is officially allowed to post erotic and pornographic materials here.

Yandex.Zen is the Yandex publishing platform. Allows authors to publish content in different formats: articles, posts, narratives, videos.

Telegram is a messenger where you can create your own channel and post notes. There is no content ranking algorithm like in other social networks: a notification about a new post appears in the chat list.

WordPress is a blog service where you can create a blog hosted by WordPress. A blog can be created for free, but monetization through advertising is prohibited in this case. WordPress can show its ads on your blog.

Postach is a blogging platform from the creators of Evernote. You can choose several topics for the blog, add links to accounts in social networks, embedded comments from the Disqus commenting system.

Social networks - Facebook, Instagram,

The disadvantages of blogs on free hosting are that you depend on the platform - a blog can be blocked or deleted, you cannot radically change the design, install your own advertising banners.

How to make money on a blog

Making money from a blog can cover hosting costs or become the main source of income. Below we will describe the popular ways to make money.

contextual advertising

You can set up a display block from Adsense, YAN or Relap and get paid for ad clicks. Block of contextual advertising from Google on a blogBlock of contextual advertising from Google on a blog

YAN in the requirements writes that sites with a traffic of more than 500 unique visitors per day can participate in the display of advertising. There are no site traffic requirements in Google AdSence . But Yandex's requirements make sense: blogs with high traffic receive real earnings. To estimate income, you can use a calculator :

Partnership programs

Many companies on the Internet offer money for referred clients. Usually the scheme is as follows: you register in an affiliate program and receive a tagged link. Then you post the link on the blog. This can be an overview of a service or program, a selection of services, or just a link in an article:

The reward is paid for the customer who made the purchase. Most often, you can withdraw money after reaching a certain amount.

Promotional Reviews

If a company orders a review of a service or product, earnings will be higher: firstly, you are paid for posting the review, and secondly, you place an affiliate link and receive income for the referred clients. Here's an example of such a review on a blog. Advertising review of the service on the blogAdvertising review of the service on the blog

Sell ​​your services on a blog

A completely different type of income is to use a blog as a platform for selling your services. So a blogger-photographer can sell photo shoots, a pastry chef - master classes, a copywriter - advice on writing texts.