11 Things I Wish I Knew When First Starting A Blog

Many people would love to start a blog but do not know how and where to begin. I’m guessing why you’re here, is because you’re not sure and may not have any idea on where to start, right? Staring a blog is not difficult, even the most-inexperienced internet newbie can learn how to start a blog and how to make money blogging, but I thought I’d help you by sharing these 11 Things I Wish I Knew When First Starting.

11 Things I Wish I Knew When First Starting A Blog | www.4hourbodygirl.com

I am an experienced blogger and by following these simple steps you’ll hopefully get a good head-start in the world of blogging. Oh yes! Blogging is a good way to share your views, make new friends and even make money blogging doing what you love.

  1. Choose a niche

One of the secret for a successful blogging is choosing a niche of your interest or abilities. You should choose a niche depending on your ability. Also the number of target audiences is essential, but you should understand that your first priority lies in your interest, then the volume of audience. To start a niche blog around a subject you’re passionate about has a very good advantage – you won’t get frustrated and quit. When you’re genuinely-interested in your chosen topic, you will see that you can easily come up with new and interesting content ideas.

  1. Choose a platform

When you want to start a blog you need to ask yourself whether you want to use blogger or WordPress. These are two most used blogging platform on the internet today. Blogger is a blogging platform owned by Google, and is free, reliable and has enough space for you to publish your content. If you build a blog on blogger, remember it’s not owned by you, google runs the service and can shut it down any time without your consent. On the other hand, WordPress is also a free open source software. You will host you your site and you can decide how long you want to run it. You own your site- the data as well as the information you share on your blog without any fear of being shut down. There are also more beautiful themes and plugins on WordPress than Blogger or any other platform out there.

  1. Get a domain name

Once you have decided on the platform to start your blog, the next step is choosing a domain name. Bluehost or Godaddy are the best place to get a domain name at a very good rate. A domain name is the name your blog will be known as – that is your brand. It is important to do thorough research before you chose a domain name, and is also good to choose a name related to your niche. It is easy to register for your domain name just go now to Bluehost or Godaddy. 

  1. Get a hosting company

Again, you need a place to put your blog – hosting. Bluehost is a great host to start your blog, there prices are moderate. You will install your WordPress through Bluehost. If you sign up through my link here, you’ll get a discount and I’ll get a small  commission. Win/Win! I did a lot of research and Bluehost is my #1 pick and who I host with, Hostgator is my #2 choice and GoDaddy would be my #3 choice. 

  1. Chose a theme

There are beautiful free and premium WordPress themes you can use for your blog. A theme gives you the beauty and the feel you desire for your blog. Once you purchase a good theme like Genesis or ThemeForest, it will look awesome on your blog and blow your mind. Most WordPress theme are inexpensive and once you purchase it, you own it for life. 

  1. Good Permalink Structure

Don’t promote your blog if your URLs looks like, my name.com/blog?id=1468. It’s not difficult to reset, go to your permalink options in your WordPress settings, and change it to something like myname.com/my-content. You can install some useful plugins such as, SEO Yoast, Anti-Malware Security and Brute-Force Firewall, Limit Login Attempts, W3 Total Cache, WP-PageNavi and other useful plugins. Do not install too many plugin on your blog, because it could slow it down.

  1. Set-up Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free traffic report powered by giant tech Google. It gives free reports of your sites traffic; like where your traffic comes from. This free tool will help motivate you, because you know that people are actually visiting your blog, and you can plan your content or advertising based on the demographics that it reports as well. It’s an invaluable tool. Try it out today.

  1. Google Search Console

Google Search Console (formerly webmaster tool) is a free useful tool from Google as well. It has numerous functions, like submission of your sitemaps to be indexed. It also alerts you to malware security issues as well as keeps track of 404 errors. Although Google Search Console is an optional tool, it’s really nice.

  1. Quality Content is King

Another one of the 11 Things I Wish I Knew When First Starting A Blog is that content is so important and the way you structure it is crucial as well. Before you start your blog make sure you have at least 15 to 30 quality articles/post. It is totally wrong to announce your blog when it has just 5 to 10 posts on it. What I mean by quality content is from 400 original words or more. If you don’t want to get penalized by Google search engine and other major search engines, never copy contents from other blogs, even if you want to copy, give proper credit to the original author. Once you have that many posts, you can apply to Google Adsense or affiliate marketing, like Amazon, to make money blogging.11 Things I Wish I Knew When First Starting A Blog | www.4hourbodygirl.com

  1. Join forums

Find forums which are related to your niche and establish a presence. Add value to people’s lives by writing a thoughtful comments or advice on others threads, and make sure to not advertise your product while doing so. Make sure to include your website link on the forum signature, which could increase traffic on your site slightly.

  1. Expose your contents to social networks

Exposing your contents to your own social networks –Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and StumbleUpon will help you to bring traffic to your blog. Also boost your post through Facebook advertising and you shouldn’t promote absolutely everything you wrote. Pick three to five of your best posts to boost, and you’ll get a good volume of audiences to your blog than promoting crap and end up pissing people off your blog.

I hope you found these 11 Things I Wish I Knew When First Starting A Blog helpful. I would love to hear about what you found the most helpful and if you have any other questions about blogging in the comments below.

Here’s to your health, wealth, and happiness!

Easy & Tasty, High Protein Veggie Nuggets | www.4hourbodygirl.com

The Liebster Award

liebster-award13 | www.4hourbodygirl.com

 

liebster-award13 | www.4hourbodygirl.com

I was so excited when I found out I was being nominated for the Liebster Award by Denise and Sharleen over at Curio! These ladies are all about finding the beauty in everything. How nice is that? Their DIY projects look tasteful, easy and fun. Check out some of them here. How cute are these Halloween Mummy Cocktail Glasses?

mummy_glasses | www.4hourbodygirl.com

Photo Courtesy Of curio.net

The Liebster award is nominated to new bloggers, by other bloggers. It helps us support each other and virtually meet in our blogging community. Although I’ve had my blog up for about 5 years, I did’t really start focusing on it until January 2015. It took me 6 months to put together the website and I launched in June. So I’ve only been really dedicated and consistent with it for about 5 months now. I’m figuring it out as I go along and am realizing how it’s all about community and supporting each other, which is perfect for me because I love that!

Thank you for nominating me Denise and Sharleen! 

The Liebster Award has some rules…

Post your award to the blog.
Thank the blogger who nominated you and link their blog.
Answer the questions you were given by the person who nominated you.
Nominate a small group of other bloggers you’ve recently discovered.
Create 10 new questions for the nominees to answer. 

Here are the Questions & Answers From Denise and Sharleen To Me…

Q:Where do you draw your inspiration for your blog?

A: I get inspiration from everywhere. Taking to friends, family, cookbooks, other blogs, Pinterest, and just going along my journey. For example, I created a video about how to create an image grid using Pagebuilder because I was searching for months for a solution and couldn’t find it anywhere on the web. I actually created it to delegate the task to my virtual assistant, but then it became content. I also love Pinterest. I’m on there every day. I see recipes I like and then re-create them as a Low Carb version that is easy and delicious like this Almond Crusted Calamari. I love to cook and I love health.

Q: What would be your #1 piece of advise for someone just starting out in blogging?

A: Create a Buyers persona so you know who you’re talking to. Especially if you want to monetize your blog. Figure out who you’re talking to. Be original, which is natural because you’re already unique. Plan. Having a plan is essential otherwise you’re just spinning your wheels. Don’t worry about being perfect, just do your best. Finally, be social and support others

Q: What is your most successful social media outlet for promoting your blog and why?

A: I think Facebook is at the moment but Pinterest is great too. I’ve found some great groups on FB and created some of my own that are helping to grow traffic and make these types of connections. I’m connecting with some great bloggers and we are having discussions around how we can collaborate and start helping each other grow. It’s really cool and exciting!

Q:Would you rather go camping or stay in a 5 star hotel?

A: I’ve been wanting to go camping for a while now and keep saying I’m going to go, but haven’t been camping since I lived in Hawaii in 1994. I’ve been staying in many 5 star hotels around the world since then, so I guess my long-winded answer would be 5 star hotel.

Q:Other than your computer, what would you say is the most important tool you use while creating your blog posts?

A: I would have to say my camera. I’m addicted to taking photos. I’m learning more everyday about how to use it and how to take great photos.

Q:What’s your favorite book?

A: That’s a tough one. I always only read non-fiction. I would say “Think And Grow Rich” had the biggest impact on my life. It was one of the first my Dad recommended to me to read and it changed my way of thinking about wealth. I’ve been meaning to read it again actually.

Q:Who is someone you really admire and why?

A: Another tough one. Oprah is really inspiring to me. I love how her mind works, her story of where she came from, her journey of what she overcame and how she has created, moved, touched, inspired and shared so much. 

Q:What is your most popular post? [Read more…]

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