How to Start a Blog

Let’s get meta and read a blog post about starting your own blog! You may want to start a blog for many reasons: you want a space to share your thoughts and knowledge, make some extra cash, or just join the ever growing community of bloggers in the blog-sphere.

However, there are several steps to take in order to actually start a blog. There are logistics to plan and decisions to make before you publish your first post and start sharing your ideas and thoughts to the world. We’ve simplified the most essential steps to take in order to start a blog, so go down and check off the to-do list to get started!

1. What’s your goal?

This is the most important question to ask yourself when you’re considering starting a blog. Why do you even want to start a blog? What is your end objective for your blog?

This can vary from just remaining a hobby, even a sort of online journal, to a full-time job through various means of revenue streams that your blog could provide if it grows. Apher’s goal for our blog, for example, is to increase awareness of our brand and provide resources for like-minded professionals and potential clients. Your goal is personal to you and it can be anything, but it’s important to set it at the very beginning so that you have a purpose for each subsequent decision you make.

2. Pick a topic

This might seem like an obvious one, but there’s more than meets the eye! For example, maybe you know you love baking and you want to write about and share the baking that you do. But will it be a recipe blog, or an experimentation blog, or just a blog introducing pretty baked goods? If you’re super into Netflix shows and want to write reviews about different shows that you’ve watched, will you focus on one genre and only reviews for shows that you’ve watched within certain parameters, or will you write a review for any and all shows you watch?

Even if you know the general topic, it’s a strategic decision to narrow down to a niche and target your content topics to it. Of course, the decision could be that you write about all of the above – which is a valid choice, but remember that there will be additional challenges with managing several topics and audiences.

3. Pick a voice and tone

Once you’ve picked a topic, you also need to pick how you’re going to portray yourself as you write. Are you going to be funny and casual? Or serious and professional? Or cynical and sarcastic with a hint of dry humor?

How you portray yourself in the voice and tone of your writing will also attract a specific type of audience, so make sure it fits your topic appropriately as well. A baking blog might do best with a cheery, positive voice and tone, whereas a blog about current events may need to be more serious. If it’s appropriate, consider changing up what would normally work well in a topic-tone match to offer a unique offer, like photography and dry humor, for example. 

4. Who are your target readers?

We’ve been talking about the blog’s audience quite a bit to this point, but now that you’ve decided on your goals, topic, and tone, you can really buckle down on who your target readers are now. 

This comes in several steps as well. First, imagine who would be interested in what you’re writing about and write down their demographics and psychographics. How old are they? Where do they live? What might they do for work? What do they think about regularly? What are their needs?

Then, make sure that with every blog, there is a call to action that these readers would be interested in and that also aligns with your goal. If your readers need information and your goal is to grow your readership, then your CTA (call-to-action) could be to subscribe to an email newsletter so they’re always updated when you upload something new. CTA’s can vary from subscribing to buying something on your website to scheduling a sales call.

5. What are some of your main keywords?

Blogs are regularly used to boost SEO for a website by utilizing keywords that might not have fit naturally within the rest of the pages. If you’re covering a lot of content, this might very well be the case. Even if this isn’t the case, using well-researched keywords and SEO tactics is a sure-fire way to increase organic traffic to your blog and increase the number of readers.

SEO is a vast and complex process, but if you’re just trying to boost your blog, starting with some keyword research is a solid first step. Use a free tool like ahrefs to get a list of keywords that have high volume and lower competition and utilize them in your blogs. Make sure to track the results and experiment with what works!

6. Which platform will you use?

Now that the planning is done, it’s time to figure out logistics. There are plenty of free platforms to start a blog, like the free version of Wordpress or Medium, but you may want a customized domain and a site that is all your own. In this case, invest some cash into an easy-to-use site building like Squarespace or Wix. It’s easy to learn, looks super professional, and can be customized to your liking!

7. Post!

Yes, it’s time! You’ve put in the prep work, so now you get to share your first post for your blog! Enjoy the process and this space to be creative and unique that’s all your own. If you need tips on content planning with a content calendar, we have a blog post on that too. 

If you need additional help setting up your blog, or content planning, or even with a brand strategy, contact us today! You know where to find us.