Launching Your First Blog In [year]: Actionable “How To” Guide

Do you want to launch your first blog in [year] but aren’t sure how to do it? That’s completely normal. Everyone has doubts before launching their first blog. After all, blogging can be overwhelming because there is so much to do. Creating content, marketing that content, building an email list, growing your social media presence, you name it. Where should you even start? In this guide, I’ll give you a step-by-step breakdown of the most important things you need to do to get your blog off the ground.

1. Choose a promising niche

Choosing your niche is the most critical decision you are going to make. You see, if you pick the wrong market, then no amount of business savvy and perseverance is going to help you. That’s why it’s incredibly important to choose a niche where there is plenty of demand. A great example of a niche like that could be gambling. It has always existed and will always exist. There are plenty of established businesses in this niche (remember, competition is good, because it means that there’s a lot of demand). For example, ThemeBounce - Wordpress themes & plugins - is a very successful WordPress theme and plugin website that serves this niche. Now, I’m not saying that you should necessarily open up an online casino yourself, but you should look for niches that are similar to the gambling niche in their perenniality and their popularity.

2. Pick a name

You can’t just pick any random name and hope for success. After all, your brand name is the first thing that your customer learns about you, so it better be good. I highly recommend Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick by Alexandra Watkins. It will point you in the right direction and will help you to avoid the most common mistakes.

3. Choose a reliable hosting

Imagine this situation. You write an excellent blog post, and it goes viral. Thousands and thousands of people are flooding your website. And then, all of a sudden, your site goes offline! That would be a pitiful waste of a great opportunity, wouldn’t it? That’s why it’s so important to pick a reliable hosting provider. I recommend hostinger.com because they are incredibly affordable - their cheapest plan costs only $2.15/month. Crazy, right?

4. Build your own site

Building your website might seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. After all, there are plenty of free and premium WordPress themes that you can install and customize by yourself. Also, there are a lot of plugins that can help you to liven up your website, such as the WordPress slider from SmartSlider3. You don’t even need to hire designers or developers anymore!

5. Sell a small product

I know that selling something to strangers might sound scary, but you need to get over yourself and do it. After all, if you have no sales, you have no business, right? Start with something small like a simple service, or an ebook, or a plugin. Then, use CaptainForm plugin to put an order form on your website, and watch those sales roll in! I also recommend you to use KnowAll Knowledge Base Theme to create a knowledge database with the most frequently asked questions. That will drastically reduce the amount of time that you have to spend on customer support.

6. Accept payments

I suggest you use Stripe to accept payments for your product or service. Simply install Stripe Payments plugin and add “Buy Now” buttons to your website. Easy!

7. Build your email list

An email list is the most valuable asset a blogger can have because it allows you to interact with your customers directly. Imagine that you have a product to sell. Now imagine that you can pitch it to thousands of people directly with a click of a button. Sounds nice, right? Well, that is the power of email marketing. I recommend you to get ConvertKit, ConvertPlug and start building your list right away.

8. Get on social media

Having a substantial social media presence increases your reach and makes you look more legit in the eyes of your readers. I suggest you start with establishing a Facebook page and a Twitter profile. Once those get some traction, you can expand to other social networks, like Pinterest and Instagram.

Conclusion

Still feeling overwhelmed? That’s completely normal. Just breathe in, breathe out, and start going through these steps. Simply focus on one thing at a time until you have gone through the entire list. That way you’ll have your blog up and running in no time! And don’t forget the most important thing of them all. Blogging isn’t easy. Things are going to get hard and you will want to give up. Don’t. Keep pushing forward. That’s the only way to build a successful blog.