Listen up. Starting a weblog is quite clean, but getting it proper is a lot more difficult and there are many decisions to make along the way. Here are 12 belongings you want to recognize before you even start a weblog:

1. Self-Hosted WordPress Blog

You might be thinking approximately the exceptional alternative for beginning a weblog. Do you create a WordPress blog, or might a platform like Blogger suffice? What approximately something like Squarespace or Wix?

In my opinion, a self-hosted WordPress blog (ie. WordPress.Org) is by way of some distance and away the exceptional alternative.

There are a few most important motives for this:

Firstly, a self-hosted WordPress blog gives you complete ownership and manage the entirety you do. There are tens of millions of subject matters and plugins for WordPress, while it is also fantastic to recognise that no person can come alongside someday and take down your blog because it ‘breaks’ some kind of rule. That’s a large trouble with many platforms!

Once you have got mounted WordPress (it is loose and maximum hosts let you set up it with just more than one clicks), you may essentially do whatever you want. You’ll need to spend a chunk of money on web hosting and a site called, but the ones can be picked up quite cost-effectively.

2. Build a Brand

To build a successful weblog and stand out in the crowd, you want to paintings to create a distinctive emblem. This way choose a very particular area of interest and running to develop a brand that surely speaks to your audience.

What makes a logo?

Well, it entails many different things like the name, brand, visual imagery, the tone/personality of your writing, the consumer revel in, and so forth. Think approximately superb bloggers like Seth Godin. You usually realize exactly what you’re getting when you go to his weblog – and that’s what you want to do, too.

To be successful, you should stick out from the gang and talk to your target audience. What’s your niche? What do you need to be called? What’s the personality of your weblog going to be? Will your blog be serious/funny/informative/special/real, and many others.?

Three. Content is King

You could have the first-rate searching blog within the world, but it would not remember a jot if the content material is crap!

To be successful and preserve humans coming again for greater (which is really what every blogger is seeking out), your content has to be excessive first-rate and supply on exactly what you’ve got promise.

Make certain every submit is properly researched and has a clean point. Make it exciting to read via injecting a bit of your very own personality into each post – or tell testimonies to carry it alive.

Remember: content is king, so make sure it is as right as it probably can be!

4. Blog Regularly

Blogging often is absolutely essential. If you need your weblog to have any form of effect, you just can’t go weeks or months with out creating a put up!

When you first installation your weblog, it’s easy initially tremendous intentions and boast about how you’re going to make a new put up six times every week. But except you’re superman/female, the fact is that sticking to a time table like that is completely unrealistic.

To supply yourself the satisfactory possible danger of success, be realistic about how regularly you are going to put up and set a agenda to fulfill that goal. You would possibly want to plan out your content material earlier and then use a post scheduler to publish it on your blog on a given day.

Five. Visual Content is Key

Visual content is turning into an ever-bigger a part of the running a blog internationally. I’m speak approximately motion pictures, photographs, photos, infographics, and so on.

Make positive each and each publish you’re making incorporates some type of visible content. It without a doubt allows to convey your blog alive and might significantly boom the number of individuals who click thru on your blog – in particular from social media.

Not a photo dressmaker whizz youngster? Don’t worry! A device like Canva is unfastened and high-quality simple to apply, or you could outsource it to a design professional.

6. Connect With Other Bloggers

It’s smooth to see different blogs as competition, but you must simply have a look at them as your buddies. Experience tells me that your achievement often relies upon on connecting with different bloggers and making your self-known to the important thing players in your niche.

Comment on their blogs and join inside the communication. Share their posts on social media. Build a courting with them and get on their radar! Trust me, it will simply help your chances of fulfillment.

7. You MUST Build an Email List

Imagine being capable of sending 500 people in your new weblog post in a be counted of minutes, or having the potential to immediately ship site visitors to a proposal you’re promoting as an associate.

When you’ve got an electronic mail listing, you’ve got the energy to do all this and extra!

You’ve in all likelihood heard the expression “the money is on the list” – and I can sincerely and categorically inform you that it’s the honest truth. If you’re starting a new weblog, ensure you start building an email listing from day one.

8. Paying for Advertising

There are many excellent free ways to get visitors on your blog. You can work on search engine optimization and get visitors from Google. You can write visitor posts for different blogs, or use social media to share relevant content material and get new followers.

But whilst unfastened techniques are exquisite, it is also well worth thinking about paid methods like Facebook advertising and marketing. If you do it properly, you could gain your desires plenty faster and almost immediately attain out to new people.

A phrase of caution: Don’t throw a load of cash at the wall and desire it sticks! Set a small budget (e.G. $20) and take a look at the water to peer if it works.

9. Responsive Design is a MUST

Gone are the times when most people browsed the net on their computer computer. Nowadays, it’s all approximately smartphones and pills.

If you are making plans to set up a brand new blog in 2017, please, please, PLEASE ensure it’s far responsive and without problems viewable on cell devices! It’ll make the viewing revel in a lot better on your site visitors, and it has positive SEO advantages, too.

10. Be Aware of Increasing Security Threats

When putting in place a blog, it’s extremely vital to take safety critically. Blogs are vulnerable to hackers and other online threats, so it is, in reality, important to take steps to guard your website as plenty as feasible. Trust me, you don’t want the problem of finding out a hacked blog because it is able to be a complete and utter pain in the arse!

Firstly, ensure your weblog and plugins are always up-to-date and jogging the modern day variations. This includes the WordPress installation, your subject, and every plugin.

Secondly, ensure you install a basic WordPress safety plugin to assist shield towards not unusual threats and get alerted if the worst occurs. WordFence, BulletProof Security, and iThemes Security are three of the most famous.

11. You Need to Think About search engine marketing

Where do you pass if you’re looking for facts? In most instances, the solution is Google, so that you’d be without a doubt CRAZY to ignore it as a site visitors source.

If you want to get traffic from Google, you need to think about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I may want to write an entire book on this situation, however, for now, you simply need to get the fundamentals right.

Base every blog submit around a specific keyword – and make sure to consist of that key-word sometimes in the publish. Don’t overdo it!

In addition, it’s well worth putting in a search engine marketing plugin like Yoast search engine optimization. This is a free tool that offers you the capability to optimize your blog quickly and effortlessly.

12. Blogging is Hard Work

Finally, it is important to comprehend that running a blog is hard paintings.

Many human beings dream of setting up a brand new blog and achieving on the spot overnight achievement, however, the reality is that it is bloody hard paintings and calls for consistent effort over years and years. If you are willing to position the effort it, it’s nicely well worth it though and literally has the electricity to trade your lifestyles.