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8 Blogging Investments Must-Haves
Here are 8 blogging investments that every new blogger must-have. I ask new bloggers the following questions. Are you looking to blog for fun or do you want to make money from your blog? There is a huge, huge difference in what you do out the gate that will impact your success later on down the road.
What are the necessary blogging tools for beginners that you need to have?
Before you even get officially started, you need to take a look at the purpose of your blog. This ties back into deciding if you are blogging for fun as a way to simply share your thoughts, or do you want to make money and turn your blog into an actual business. If you opted to make some money, then you will want to keep reading.
1. Website & Hosting
You’ve decided that you want to earn money, hence we won’t discuss being on a Free Service and not being Self-Hosted. There are free options, where your site is not self-hosted, which is the equivalent of renting an apt vs. owning your home. I personally and professionally subscribe to the notion that in order to be super successful in blogging and to be taken seriously, you need to self-host.
At the top of your blogging list is simply getting a website and getting it set up on self-hosting. You will need to obtain a domain name. You will want to double-check and see if your domain name is also available on the various social media platforms. You don’t want to be thisismydomainname.com and somebody else already has thisismydomainname on Instagram or Twitter. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about it and you will simply have to do a derivative of your name or change your name. One of your websites may be thisismydomain.com and thisismydomainname.us on Instagram.
- Obtain your domain name – indigoblu.co is great for domains.
- Set-up self-hosting – I recommend BlueHost
- Pick a Theme ( there are free themes and or you can select an upgraded theme) Personally, I used a theme from 17th Ave Designs
- Youtube and Google are your friends – take a free course on blogging. View a few videos on youtube as well as visit wordpress.org it is the bible for bloggers.
Your First Investment Expenses will be your domain name, hosting, and your blog theme if you opt to use one vs a free theme.
Here are a few companies that sell themes, so you can understand what a blog theme template is:
2. Legal Requirements
This is critical and more importantly, it’s the law. All bloggers must have some legal requirements posted on their blog site. You need to have a disclaimer, privacy policy, as well as a terms and conditions page.
Why
As bloggers and website owners, we are required by law to have a privacy policy. This lets visitors know how we will use any collected personal information. This is not optional.
You will want to have a disclaimer page that limits your legal liability regarding the content that you publish on your blog/website. In short, it states that the content is for informational and educational purposes only. You will also want to disclose your affiliate disclosures and anything else that you think is necessary. When in doubt, disclose. See my disclosures by clicking here.
3. Terms and Conditions
Many bloggers tend to overlook this, but I think it is just as important as the others. You need to layout the rules of your website, protect your intellectual property, explain refund policies, etc. A key piece should tie everything together and limits your legal liability for errors, omissions, and any inaccuracies or blunders in your content. If you share a recipe and forget to mention that the recipes need eggs, you do not want someone suing you over 2 eggs.
The bottom line is that you don’t want to get caught without these 3 required documents. It is a must-have for all bloggers and anyone looking to do business online.
Do not go out and spend an arm and a leg on legal documents etc. I honestly reviewed 10 of the top blogging sites and created what I needed from their content. No, I did not steal or Copywrite their content. I did use it as a tool to provide guidance on writing my own. Don’t overthink it at this point. When you make some money then you can hire an attorney or purchase the forms.
This is by far one of the best investments you can make into your blog and it’s required by law.
4. MemberVault
MemberVault is hands down my favorite resource for creating courses. Everything You Need To Host Your Courses, Memberships, Challenges & Much More. Try Now! Easily Increase Sales, Boost Engagement, Build Relationships & Identify Your Best Leads. All-In-One Platform. Increase in Sales. Simple Pricing. Chat & Email Support. It took me a minute and using a few other sites before I found MemberVault.
As a Blogger/Influencer at some point and time, you will have products, services, and more that you will offer. Having a platform that does it all and at a reasonable price will be critical. I was able to go from several different platforms down to utilizing MemberVault for all my needs.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a must-have tool if you intend to make it into blogging heaven. You have to have a way to connect with your audience. Email marketing is to blogging what Shea Butter is to ashy folks. You can successfully run your blogging business with email marketing. If you recall earlier in 2019, FB and Instagram went down and folks literally lost their minds…
I didn’t miss a beat, because I am able to communicate with my audience via email. Pinterest recently changed its algorithm and folks are having fits.
Invest in Email Marketing- There are free mailing services that will definitely get you up and running, however, if you intend to grow your blog and earn money, there is absolutely no way around not having a service like ConvertKit in order to take advantage of all the good features. It’s absolutely free for up to 1000 subscribers.
ConvertKit provides landing pages, forms, email sequences, automation, broadcasts, etc. YOU need all these features at a bare minimum. You will also want a provider that can integrate with WordPress, Elementor, and SendOwl just to name a few. As a side note, you will want to be in compliance with the CAN-SPAM act, ie., you have to have an address on every email that is being sent to your subscribers. ConvertKit provides this as part of their service and will forward your mail if any is received by you.
Do not skimp on your email marketing service. Also, make sure that you get a service that you can grow with. I looked at the top bloggers to see who they were using and simply went with them. If it’s good enough for a blogger making $200k per month, then it’s good enough for me
6. Social Media Sharing
This is a must-have and it’s ok to use the free ones. We’ve all been on blog sites that have buttons that allow you to share the content with Facebook, Pinterest, etc. That is all social media sharing in essence does. It’s critically important to have it installed on your site. #1 it validates you as an authority and lets your audience know that people like your content. It also lets advertisers know that people like your content. The more likes and shares you get, the more people visit your site; the better your google analytics appears. I Personally use Grow Social by Mediavine
7. Google Analytics
I can not stress enough that you must have Google Analytics installed on your blogsite. No ifs and or buts about it. This is how Google tracks you. This is how potential advertisers can validate your numbers. There are certain advertisers that require you to have a certain number of page views in order to be considered or worthy to have them place their ads on your blog site.
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand.
It’s a free tool – Google Analytics
8. Additional Must-Have Add-Ons
The items listed above are must-haves to get you out the door and get started. Here are a few additional must-haves that you may want to consider as well.
Some of my secondary ad-ons have been:
- Pinterest account. You will want a Pinterest business acct if you do not have one. BragDifferently
- Instagram page for your blog – instagram.com/bragdifferently
- FB page for your blog –facebook.com/bragdifferently
- Canva Pro– the graphics that you see on this website were all created with Canva Pro
- Grammarly – Corrects all my typos and bad punctuation
- YOAST – SEO Wizard, install the free plugin
- ClickUp – is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool suitable for businesses of all sizes and industries. When it comes to blogging, ClickUp helps me to organize my blog posts, categories, progress, images and so much more!
- Word Counter Apart from counting words and characters, their online editor can help you to improve word choice and writing style, and, optionally, help you to detect grammar mistakes and plagiarism. Using Word Counter will also show you the various keywords you are using.
Lastly, make sure that your blog is listed on BlogLovin as well. You can follow Brag Differently at the link below as well as sign up for your free acct.Follow my blog with Bloglovin
Do not run out the door and break the piggy bank. These tools should suffice and get you up and running. Happy Blogging and welcome to the wonderful world of blogging
Do you have any recommendations for new bloggers, please share your must-haves in the comments below.
Blogging Investments Must-Haves
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- Ways You Can Use Canva For Blogs & More
- How I Made Over $2,000 In My First 30 Days Of Blogging
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