Are you thinking about starting a blog? If so, I’ve created a useful beginner blogger checklist to get you started in the right direction!
If you’re wondering if it’s possible to start a successful blog in 2023, the answer is yes, you absolutely can!
You may be thinking that video content has taken over and shoved blogging into its death bed, but that’s simply not the case.
Written media and blog content is still thriving. The key is to focus on creating content in a way that’ll entice readers to visit your blog in this day and age.
So, how do you do that? By…
- Being helpful
- Teaching through your blog posts
- Solving people’s problems
- Offering services
- Offering freebies
- Selling useful digital products
As someone who has been blogging for just about a decade at this point, I can say that being helpful has never failed me when creating written content. If you can be helpful in the niche you choose to blog about, you’ll be golden!
Starting a blog is a pretty big feat, and I know that overwhelm can paralyze a person to the point of not even trying to pursue their goals. To help beat the doubt and overwhelm, I’ve created a free beginner blogger checklist that you can use as a blogging “map”.
I recommend following the “PREP” and “LAUNCH” sections to a T. Doing so will get your blog up and ready for readers. Once you get to the “MONETIZE” and “GROW” sections, you can either pick and choose the options that work best for your blog and niche, use the options as inspiration or follow them to a T as well.
Here’s the beginner blogger checklist. Click the image or the link below it to get the high quality version!
So, let’s talk about the items on the checklist.
PREP
Pick a niche. Sounds easier said than done, right? If you have no idea what you want to blog about, that’s completely okay! You can create a general blog and try writing a few different topics to see what you like best. It’s also okay to NOT have a specific niche. There are tons of successful blogs that cover a variety of topics, so don’t let this step keep you from getting started!
Brainstorm 20-50 blog post ideas. Whether you pick a niche or not, brainstorming blog post ideas will be a huge help as you get started. Having a log of post ideas will keep you from ruminating over what you should write about when you get the chance to work on your blog. Instead, you can be efficient by picking an idea from your list and getting it going ASAP.
Choose a domain name. Try to pick something easy to read and brandable. If you haven’t picked a niche yet, simply go for something general. You can use a website like DomainWheel to generate ideas.
When signing up for a hosting service, they’ll often offer a free domain name. I would not recommend purchasing your domain name from your hosting service. Why? A couple of reasons: 1) the domain name is usually only free for the first year and the renewal price is often higher than what you can get on a domain name website. 2) If you need to switch hosting services, it’ll be easier to switch using a domain that is NOT attached to your current hosting service.
Instead, I recommend purchasing your domain on a website like Namecheap. I’ve been purchasing my domains from Namecheap for 7 years and have always been happy with their service!
Sign up for a hosting service. You may be thinking about starting a free blog, but I would not recommend doing so. Creating your blog with a hosting service means you OWN that blog. It also gives you the freedom to monetize and customize your blog the way you want to. I personally use Bluehost as my hosting service when I start new blogs. I love their user-friendly interface and their helpful customer service (they’ve held my hand through various issues I’ve had with my websites in the past, haha)! I’ve never had a problem with them. However, I would recommend looking at other options to choose the best fit for you.
Pick a theme. You can either choose a free theme or a premium theme. JellyMemos is currently using a free theme called Astra that I’ve customized to my liking. You can find this theme in the “themes” section on the WordPress dashboard. However, keep in mind that it’s heavily customized. I would not recommend diving into customizing a theme if you have no experience (it’ll be frustrating. I speak from experience, haha). Simply pick something you like the look of and move onto the next step!
LAUNCH
Customize your theme. Don’t get too caught up in this step. In fact, you may want to skip over this step entirely. Both free and premium themes are typically fine as is, especially for a new blogger. If you want to customize your colors, logo, etc. then go for it! Just don’t use customizing your theme as an excuse to get started on the real work 😉
Set up your important pages. Your contact page, “about me” page, privacy policy and terms & conditions pages. Here’s a free privacy policy generator and a free terms & conditions generator your can use to easily get the content for those pages.
Post 10-20 blog posts. In all honesty, you can write your blog posts and start promoting them from the get go no matter how many you have up. However, I would recommend posting about 10-20 so any new readers that come to your blog have some content to look through.
Set up social media pages. The social media platform I recommend focusing on the most is Pinterest. Pinterest is a great place to promote your blog posts! You can easily create beautiful pins on a website like Canva so you can drive traffic to your blog. Other social media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are not necessary in the beginning, but you may choose to create accounts on those sites if you’d like to!
MONETIZE
Affiliate marketing. This is a great way to monetize a new blog! Affiliate marketing is when you post personalized links to products and/or services. If someone purchases that product/service through your link, you’ll earn a commission. Affiliate marketing is my top recommended way for a new blogger to monetize their blog because it’s easy to get started and you can start earning money right away. If you’d like to learn more, check out my blog posts on how to become an Amazon Affiliate marketer and how to make money with affiliate marketing.
Display ads. Typically, ad networks won’t accept websites unless they reach a certain amount of traffic each month. That being said, signing up for ad networks usually comes later in a blogger’s career. Some ad networks you can look into once your blog starts getting consistent traffic are Google Adsense, Mediavine, Ezoic and Adthrive.
Sponsored posts. A Sponsored post is when a company pays you to write about their product or service on your blog. Companies want to work with bloggers who get some consistent traffic, so this may come later in a blogger’s career just like display ads.
Sell digital products and/or services. I highly recommend having your very own product or service you can offer on your blog. That way, you’ll have something that you’ve created and can get ALL the profits from. The digital product(s) or service(s) you offer will depend on your niche.
Some ideas for digital products include:
- Ebooks
- Printables
- Templates
- Patterns (for craft blogs)
- Photography/stock photos
- Courses
Some ideas for services you can offer include:
- Consulting/coaching
- Web design
- Teaching/tutoring
- Social media management
- Virtual assistant
- Freelance writing
There are SO many products and services you can offer. These are just a few (and I mean few) things to give you an idea.
GROW
Start an Email list. An email list is a way to keep in touch with your most loyal readers. Not to mention, you can monetize the emails you send out my adding in affiliate or sponsored links and promoting your products and/or services. If you’d like to get your email list going ASAP, you can create a free account with Mailchimp to get you started.
Work on SEO. SEO means Search Engine Optimization. AKA: Including keywords and keyterms in your blog posts so your posts show up in the google search engine.
Create Pinterest pins. As I said before in the “LAUNCH” section, Pinterest is the social media platform I recommend focusing on the most. Pinterest can be a super powerful platform for driving traffic to your blog. Plus, it’s so fun to create beautiful Pinterest pins. I personally love to make mine with Canva.
You can either create them with a free account or you can get a free 30-day trial of Canva Pro by clicking here. I’ve used both a free Canva account as well as Canva Pro and, while the free version is more than enough, I highly recommend trying out the Pro version. It gives you way more customization options, fonts, stock photos and features to choose from. Plus, having a Pro account allows you to organize your projects into folders (as an organization freak, this feature alone makes paying for a Pro account more than worth it).
Network. Comment on fellow bloggers posts, get your LinkedIn account set up, talk to people in your niche. You never know what a simple connection can lead to!
Offer freebies. people LOVE free things. Offering freebies will give people the incentive to visit your blog and see what it’s all about. Here are some things you can offer for free on your blog:
- Printables (checklists like the one i’m offering here, wall art, challenges, calendars and so much more)
- Ebooks
- Photography/stock photos
- Mini courses
Those are just a few ideas. As you can see, the list is very similar to the digital products you can sell. That’s okay! The products you offer for free can be small and simple compared to the products that you sell. A quick, 5 page Ebook or one page printable is enough to get people interested.
I know I’m vouching for them a lot in this post, but I would highly recommend using Canva to create the digital products you offer. Canva just makes things so simple!
Alright, we’ve made it through all the details on the beginner blogger checklist! Hopefully, you’re feeling like you have a path to follow as you start working on your new blog.
Let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to help!
Don’t forget to save the beginner blogger checklist so you can keep it as a reference!