Helpful Guide To Start Blogging At Home

Blogging can be life-changing for you and any potential reader that finds your blog. Expressing your personality, experience, and expertise may allow you to share some things that you love. You could help your audience with some tips and knowledge they are searching for. If you are a fashion influencer, a spiritual yogi, or if you travel around the world, don’t waste the opportunity to share it with the world. Create a community because everyone is looking for someone or something to be a part of to feel connected. If you have no idea where to begin or how to start, this guide might help you. This is a quick summary of tips to start a blog from the comfort of your home. 

What is a blog and why is it a blog? 

Nowadays blogs are very common in the digital world but not a long time ago. Around 1994, they were just a journal so people could express themselves. The word blog is shortened from its original name “weblog” which means to log information on a website. Today there are more than 570 million blogs on the web. The blog is usually editorial content centered around the main topic that is published online regularly. They come in the form of an article called a blog post like the one you are reading now. 

Does blogging have benefits? 

Blogging might be the best way of communicating with people on the internet and to the entire world, apart from social media; of course, that’s why we wanted to share a few tips to start a blog. This type of communication could have a lot of benefits, but they will also depend on what is your purpose for using this method of communication; here are some of the general benefits you might notice in your person: 

• Self-expression: If you are or want to become a blogger, then your self-expression is important. To share your thoughts, abilities, tips, and tricks. This could be exciting and therapeutic for you. 
• Connect with people: By offering interesting information, you could create a community with your audience. Also, a network with other experts in your industry can help you share and receive information. There are sites whose purpose is to share your ideas, thoughts, and views.
• Brand awareness: Websites with a blog have more indexed pages on a search engine like Google. this means that you could rank higher on search engines, and this will create a higher count of organic traffic. So the more people see your brand, the more likely they are to subscribe to your site or to buy your products if you are selling. This will definitely help your social media following, which in turn will expand your brand awareness. This, in the long run, will also help you monetize your blog. 
• Attract people to your social media: Writing articles that readers like will automatically create interest and bring attention your way. People will be likely to follow you on social media. They would also be likely to share your content which helps spread your content to other people organically.
• Converting to leads: If you also want to make a profit, blogging might be a good way to get that going. By engaging with your audience, they might buy the product or items that you sell.

What you need before you start writing your first article

1. Finding your objective.
2. Define the niche.
3. Choose the name of your blog. 
4. Select your domain, hosting, and platform for your blog. 
5. Pick a theme to start uploading your articles. 
6. Write interesting content and publish it. 
7. Attract visitors to your blog.

Finding your objective 

Before you start, you need to define your objective. Ask yourself, why you want to have a blog and what will differentiate you from the rest of what people have to say. Here are some questions to be easier to identify your purpose: 

• Why are you interested in blogging these types of specific types of content? 
• What impact do you hope to bring with your blog?
• What would your audience like to learn or could learn from you?
• Define your niche  

Create your biography 

Creating your biography will help you to generate trust in everyone who reads your articles; they will know your interest, your hobbies, and what you are an expert at. The more you personalize, the more they can empathize with you. You could also make a digital business card if you want to track your readers to your business. You could share this business card on your social media or your website. 

Define your niche  

Because there are a lot of blogs out there, you need to be more specific in what you are going to write. Who is your true target? This way, specific people could be interested in your articles. For example, if you are a mommy influencer.  Your expertise might be educating your kids. If this is so then probably your niche will be for new mothers that are interested in tips for their families’ education. Having this awareness will make it much easier to choose the vocabulary, topics, tone, colors, and pictures if you answered the question. Why would your target audience be interested in reading your blog? Then you are getting an idea of how to define your niche, and you can reach and track your leads easily. 

Choose the name of your blog 

Every brand has a name. You should also come up with a unique name, ideally one where the .com domain name is still available. Maybe one that you can even trademark. It really depends on what you want to talk about. It is quite important because this is how people are going to recognize and remember you. Make it short, catchy, memorable, and unique. You can also claim your name online to improve your online presence.

There are some marketing paths to help you name your blog that could help you out and make this process easier. Here are some steps to guide you:

1. Discover: Investigating is always important; it could give you a lot of insights and inspiring ideas. Do a brand audit; you should know what other podcasts are named. Become an expert in your industry, get to understand your audience, and identify your value proposition and business model.

2. Brainstorming: Here is where you come up with name ideas; there are different types of naming like descriptive name, invented, lexical, founder, and evocative, among others. Come up with more than one name to compare and test them and see if they are legally available.

3. Testing: Before you choose the name that will represent your blog, take the time to familiarize yourself with it, convert them to a logo, and choose the one that represents yourself and the value of your blog.

Select your domain, hosting, and platform for our blog 

If you want your blog to exist on the Internet, you need Hosting (buy or rent space to connect to the internet). A Domain (the address that leads to your blog) and a Platform. The good news is that you don’t need to be an expert at coding in order to have a blog. There are different platforms like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace, that will help you design, edit, manage, and publish your content. If you opt for WordPress, there will be many opportunities to improve your blog with great plugins, such as WP Reset, WP Simple, Author Box, and many others. For a full comparison of different website builders, you can refer to this guide by Tooltester. You can even choose free platforms to create your blog, but if you are looking for more features, like eCommerce or an ad-free blog, you might think about investing in a premium plan that provides a custom domain name and hosting with larger webspace. You could look for Bluehost or HostGator for this purpose.

You could also hire experts as it is really important to follow rules like quality, speed, design, and user experience navigation. In our opinion, WPMU DEV could help you, as the #1 go-to service to create your website.

Pick a theme to start uploading your articles

It could be easier if you have 1 or 2 themes for your articles.  A design strategy that makes your articles look unique, easy to understand, and navigate. If you are not a coder, a theme will be easier to focus on writing and not on designing every article.

There are some free and paid themes for making a blog you could choose from the platform WordPress.

Tips for writing an article 

A great idea is to imagine that you are conversating with someone or one of your friends. Your personality should be felt in every article you write. Always remember to align your ideas with your objectives. If you haven’t done blogging before, it may take some trial and error to find your voice and style; check out this guide for more tips!. Remember to be patient; this comes with practice. Of course, reading books or taking courses can help with your creative writing skills. Some tips on how to write an article could help you with your process like you are reading this article now. Here are some basic tips you should be aware of. 

• Content pillars They are the central topics, the essence of your brand that could allow you to focus on making individual articles, with different topics still being defined by your intent and purpose. If you post frequently the same type of topics like essential oils or running topics, over a period of time, Google will understand with their search algorithms that this may be a trustworthy source of expertise and reporting. This is how site authority is established in an industry. Which improves your SEO. 
• Research: Take advantage of the sources that already exist. Investigate what other brands, influencers, or experts say about the topic you want to focus on. You could use other content to confirm or make the content you are publishing more credible. Adding a link to your website makes your content more credible by citing expert sources. 
• Long reads: According to Semrush, long reads with more than 3000 have more traffic, shares, and backlinks than short ones with 1900- 1200 words. So please take in mind before you start your new article to research and structure your content before publishing it.
• Structure your articles: This allows your content to be more understandable. Start with an attractive title. Then a clear introduction that is also catchy. Readers will probably decide after reading the first sentence of the introduction if they are going to keep reading. Use headings and subheadings. It could be a blogging strategy to keep your audience interested. You could also add bullet points, steps, or lists. Make sure to add a conclusion, and ask yourself what you would want your audience to leave with.
• Use visual content: It might create more engagement with your audience. You could look for free images on Unsplash or other platforms. You could take them yourself. They will look original and fun. You can read our guide about photography and how to take photos with any camera.
• Graphic design: you could also use an online graphic design tool like an infographic maker and create your own visuals. With the help of an infographic maker, you can create visually appealing graphics that will capture your audience’s attention and leave a lasting impression.
• Keywords: Do research for keywords people are searching for. This way you could have more traffic. A free tool you can use is Google Trends. Adding the correct keywords could also help Google find your article faster. Use platforms like Ahrefs or free tools like Answer The Public. 
• Organize a content calendar: It could allow you to be consistent and organized.  Start by planning the content you plan to write, then set time schedules to write the content.  Once you edit it, then finally set a time to publish.

What equipment do you need at home? 

If you are going to do it from the comfort of your home. Make sure you have an inspirational space to create your content. With the right equipment, lighting, and tools, to make your environment comfortable and creative. Remember that if you want to be known for your writing, you need to show your personality. You could find that by having a nice place to write at home. If you are tense or you have writer’s block, you could walk outside your house. Other great tips to spark your creativity are found in nature, or activities like dancing, exercising, stretching, and taking a warm shower can be surprisingly good to help your creativity blossom.

• Space: You don’t need to invest in a perfect space if you don’t want to. However, a good recommendation is that it is better if you go outside the room where you sleep because you might get frustrated being in that room all day. Choose a room that has natural light and a window that can isolate the noises from other parts of the home, like the kids or noisy siblings. 
• Blogging equipment: Make sure that you have good internet, a computer, laptop, tablet, and a blogger kit could be a great addition as well. A good chair because you might be sitting down for hours. A good camera can be a good option if you want to take your own pictures for your article. You could also have a pen and a notebook. Some experts say that it is very good to have a physical paper to write down your ideas. Another option is storing all your articles in cloud storage (like Dropbox, Box, or Drive..).
  Check out laptop reviews for better advice. Check out laptop reviews for better advice. 

• Environmental tools: Candles, incense, and essential oils like mint, or orange will help you concentrate and relax at the same time. You could also add music you like that inspires you to write. 

How to attract visitors to your blog? 

Blogging might not make you famous overnight. You need to plan strategies to attract readers over time. Here are some tips that could help you, but remember to have patience and commitment. 

• Post frequently: For organic traffic, Hubspot recommends as much as possible, but remember that it has to be good quality 3-4 x a week. It will also look professional if you schedule and publish on a specific day so your readers will know when to expect new content. Keep in mind that content is king; not only do you need to keep your site updated, but also, with high-quality content, make it search engine friendly; you can find more information here.
• Share with family and friends: Don’t forget to ask the people you know to share your content on their social media. Word of mouth is really important in marketing because people they trust are recommending it. Some amazing apps help with building comments and a following. 
• Email marketing: If you invite your readers to subscribe with their email, you could let them know when new content is ready and other tips and information for them to stay connected and be aware of unsubscribing or if they click on the links you send to them. This will inform you about patterns or information you may need to change or adjust if they are interested in your content. There are a lot of brands focusing on email marketing like Mailchimp to help you send emails and measurements. 
• Social media: Choose the social media site that you know your audience uses. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Linkedin. Share your content and do it frequently. You could also use strategies in social media to give your audience content that they will like. If you are already an influencer, it would be much easier for you. The secret is to make a community and increase your followers so more people know your work on social media.

Writing articles that readers like will automatically create interest and bring attention your way. People will be likely to follow you on social media. They would also be likely to share your content which helps spread your content to other people organically. Interactive content like a quiz maker can also help you get traffic and boost your website conversions with the help of highly converting and viral quizzes.

• Collaborate with other bloggers or influencers: Let other influencers know what you are doing. Remember that word of mouth could be effective, if those influencers have a big community, then more people could see what you are doing. Collaborating with others is a great way to build up your site authority when others start to add your articles as a trusted resource. 
• SEO: Implementing a SEO strategy will allow you to reach a wider range of search queries as they work well in getting your blog to appear on the results in the search engine. The goal you would want to achieve is that Google ranks you as a domain authority so every time people search for what you are an expert on, you will appear on the first pages.

For doing so, add strategic keywords, and catchy titles to start building your SEO strategy. Always create fresh new content periodically, improve your page speed, ensure your website is mobile-friendly, and do guest posts.

Creating Guest Post could be a great idea to share your creative content with other sites and will also help you in your SEO strategy. Whenever you want to make this strategy, make sure to create original and related content to the sites that you are offering articles so they find your purpose attractive.

For more information read this article to discover the latest blogging statistics.

How to make money blogging? 

Now that you know some tips about how to start being a blogger, you could also take into consideration that there are ways to make a profit from it.  Just don´t think that it will come easily to you; you have to dedicate time and strategies in order to succeed. The more traffic you have on your blog, the more likely other brands might be open to offering you deals to earn money. Take seriously the tips that were shared on “attracting visitors to your blog” before you start thinking about earning money from blogging. Of course, you will need to create a website to be able to start these strategies. It’s not the easiest task to make one from scratch, so you can hire a web designer to help you get started. 

• Sell products/consulting: You could sell products or offer services; here is a great article about how to increase sales so you know where to start. If you are a fashion influencer, you could buy clothes and offer personal orientation on how to dress up with them. You could mention it on your blog or create a link that leads to your website. But if you decide to go more tangible and physical with the products you sell, you can start your marketing with some beautiful and eye-catching business cards.
• Brand ambassadorship: Be an ambassador of a brand you like, on an influencer marketplace. One that goes with your niche or style.  One that personally would use and mention in your blog and social media. 
• Sell ad space in your blog: Brands pay for space in your blog. You could use Google AdSense to make it easier for you. It is a program that suggests ads according to your audience. 
• Affiliate marketing: This strategy is about selling other people’s products or services and you will get a commission for every purchase. Choose the products you love so you feel it organic and tell a story about how you use those products. Remember this is your business. 
• Write product reviews for a fee: Working with companies to review their offerings can be a great way to make some extra money from your blog. You could get them to pay a flat fee plus a commission on any sales that you refer.
• Become a professional in the area: There’s no way to make money making websites without professional qualification, you need to know how to make a website from scratch and with quality!

Read this article for more information on trends for optimal blogging results.

Being a blogger takes time and effort. Remember to be patient, trust in yourself and let people know the way you think and see life. Don’t hesitate in sharing your knowledge, you never know when you are helping another person find something they are looking for or are in need of. Writing is a beautiful way to communicate. If you are passionate, then it will be easier for you to come up with content. So you will be able to post frequently and perhaps this will help you to make a community and in the long run, you be earning money from blogging.