This is a guest post by Connor of FirstSiteGuide. Connor is a professional writer and blogger. He’s passionate about helping other writers take their craft to the next level.
It’s Not Too Hard
My blogging tips for beginners always start with a sort of disclaimer: you don’t really even need me. You can do this all by yourself. But if you do want help, I’m happy to talk! Starting a blog is complicated, but it’s not hard. Carefully follow all the steps, and you’ll be fine. Starting everything out right, however, is more than a little tricky.
Go Ahead and Make Mistakes
There is tons of great support out there for launching a blog. So many people blog that every single mistake you could possibly make has been made, someone has asked how to fix that mistake, and someone else has provided a walkthrough for solving the issue. The only tricky part is finding your particular error in the endless sea of helpful fixes. You can always fix anything. So don’t worry about messing up.
The bad news is that starting a blog is hardly enough, if you’re planning on actually doing anything with your blog. If you are worried about messing up that bit, there are plenty of guides to help you get started. Ours at FirstSiteGuide, for example.
There are some general rules to follow, though, that will make your life easier.
The 3 Best Tips for Launching a Blog
It’s an interesting fact that the best tips for launching a blog focus on what you do before you launch. A blog is a huge investment of time, energy, and, usually, love. So you need to do some planning.
1. Figure Out Why You’re Doing It
Before you go through all the trouble of setting up a blog, it’s important to make sure you actually need to—or at least want to. What are your long term goals? Do you want to make money with this blog? Expand your business reach? Make new friends? Share an interest? Promote a book? These are questions you need to know the answers to before you get started.
2. Target a Specific Niche
Once you know why you’re blogging, it should be a pretty simple task to figure out exactly what you’re going to blog about. If your scope is too general, you’ll never be able to stand out. If your scope is too narrow, your target audience will probably be too small to help you get very far. Often, it’s better to start small and expand than to reach for some sort of web-wide blogging empire. If you can pull it off, go you, but let’s just say the odds aren’t in your favor. So decide what you want to blog about. Fashion? Cars? Lifestyle? Gardening? If necessary, narrow it down even more: geek fashion, classic cars, vegan lifestyle, organic gardening, etc.
3. Choose Your Name Carefully
Look, I know you want to depend on the strength of your content, but names matter. You need a name that’s brandable, memorable, relevant to what you do, and unique.
Yes, a rose would smell as sweet by any other name, but Rose.com is going to get a lot more views than www.pretty-pink-or-red-flowers-with-thorns-that-smell-nice-the-flowers-i-mean-not-the-thorns.net because, whatever their intrinsic value, one sounds like a rose-related resource site, and the other sounds, well, stupid.
The Only Way to Learn Is to Do
This is your free bonus tip: get out there and blog!