How To Jump-Start Your Blog: Blogging Tips

Monetize Your Blog

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Blogging Tips That Bloggers Need

Everyone seems to have a blog nowadays. Have you wondered how to start a blog? Or how to jump-start your blog? I’m not referring to all the behind-the-scenes techie stuff, I’m talking about the up-front, nitty-gritty when you click on a Pinterest link and it takes you to a blog site.  I’m talking about, how in the bejesus do you actually set up a blog site and go from day one to day 90, or better yet, how do you go from zero dollars to $10,000 monthly?

What are the blogging tools that you need to be a successful blogger?  What should you write about to gain followers and earn some coins along the way?  

I may earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase and sometimes if you just click on at link at no additional cost to you. Please read my disclosure page for more info.

There are in excess of 152 million blogs on the internet, with thousands being created on a daily basis.  Most blogs fail within their first year and many more are nothing more than spam and lord knows what. 

Don’t worry, you will not be a blogging statistic.  I’m here to show you how to succeed.  Blogging is hard work.  However, if you put in some elbow grease, I’m here to tell you that there is no reason that you can’t be a blogger pulling in $5k to 20k a month.  Yes, Goddesses, I did say $20k a month and that is on the low end.

You can be successful if you want it bad enough.  I think I know a thing or two about blogging.  I’m what others consider a BLOGGING UNICORN  as I made over $2,000 in my first 30 days of blogging.  I am going to give you the basic tools to start a blog.  Everything that you need to accomplish in your first 90 days to jumpstart you into this wonderful thing, we call blogging.

This blog post is all about how to jump-start your blog. Put your big girl panties on and let’s get started.

Rule #1:  You must at all times disclose your affiliate relationships.  It’s not optional.  If you might receive compensation via, a link, an ad, a sponsored post, then you must disclose to your readers that this relationship exists, period, no ifs, ands or buts about it.  Ya, feel me!

I am going to take you through all the steps on how to start a blog and make some money.  By the end, you should be able to create your own blog, which will generate income.  This guide should keep you from wasting valuable time; it should streamline the process; it should keep you from becoming frustrated and stressed.

Let’s Blog!

Jump-Start Your Blog Day 1 – Month One

Before you can dive in headfirst and jumpstart your blog, earn coins and find some followers, you actually need to build a blog site. Your main focus over the next 30 days is to physically get your blog built. We have to do all the behind-the-scenes/ all the backend/ all the grunt work. Think of it as planting a garden. If you want a beautiful garden, then we must till the soil, put down fertilizer, and water the plants. Better yet, think of it as wanting to lose 15lbs, well it doesn’t just melt off, you have to change your diet and exercise. I promise you will come out blogger gorgeous in the end.

Ponder This… What do you want to blog about?

Let’s talk about niche baby, let’s not talk about a niche, seriously, we have to narrow down what you want to blog about, However, I’m not a huge fan of having such a specific niche that no one is looking for you. On the flip side having a niche like flooring may mean that your niche is only looking for you. It’s not a bad idea (check out The Flooring Girl) as it’s all about flooring and she does around $30k per month. Not bad for a month of work. Make sure that you check out her books on SEO – but that will come later.

Whatever you decide, I think you get better results when you figure out how to solve a problem. Find a problem and figure out how to fix it. Plain and simple. At the very least, you need to have a general idea of what you want to blog about.

My advice is to get a notebook and write down 10 things that you think you want to blog about. Ponder this, do you want to blog for money or do you want to blog for fun. There is a huge difference. Now that you have your list of 10 items, I want you to check out the list below of the most profitable blogging topics aka niches, and see if anything on your list is close to what the experts say.

Here are the top 7 most profitable and popular niches: Don’t re-invent the wheel, just build a better wheel.

1. How to make money

Bloggers in this niche include: Visit all of their sites and you figure out what a blog on How to Make Money encompasses.

2. Lifestyle (specifically, home decor, survival, travel, organization, gardening, homesteading)

Bloggers in this niche include:

3. Food

(vegan & keto are hot right now) You can’t scroll through FB without seeing something on becoming a vegan or the keto diet)

Bloggers in this niche include:

  • Pinch of Yum. She started out as a food photographer and the rest is history. She’s pulling in excess of $60k a month in advertising revenue.

4. Beauty and Fashion 

Most Beauty and fashion bloggers, still focus on Instagram and Youtube as their platform is very visual. Their blog sites tend to compliment the following they have built on social media. You will discover that many of them crossover into having lifestyle blogs and not just beauty and fashion.

Bloggers in this niche include:

5. Personal Finance

 We could also label this as How to Make Money depending on the viewpoint of the blog. Many sites, teach you how to earn money, save money, how to live frugally. I teach women how to save & invest through Ellevest (which we will discuss later) 

Bloggers in the niche include

6. Health and Fitness

 If you are going to pick this niche, then I would highly suggest that you actually be in the health and fitness field, however, I have seen bloggers do blog sites that are successful and they weren’t fitness experts from the start.

Bloggers in this niche include:

7. Personal Development

This one can be tough as you need to narrow down your focus or at the very least have some tangible results and a track record

Bloggers in this niche include:

  • Danielle Leslie (though many wouldn’t consider her a traditional blogger, she is worthy of mentioning as she has made over $20 million dollars in three years from her online course “Course from Scratch”)

Any of these blogs can be profitable. Please understand why individuals come to blog sites. They are looking for answers. Remember your blog is for your reader, not for you.

There are way more than 7 niches, but this will give you something to think about. In addition, I believe that blogs need to meet the following high points in order to generate income. They are simple, so don’t overthink it.

  1. Evergreen (it’s not a fad, will the audience still be here in 365 days)
  2. Pinterest, is it Pinterest friendly
  3. Is it trending, is it popular – We need to make money
  4. Will the core audience be willing to spend money.
  5. Are there items (merchandise) or affiliates that tie into your niche

Time to Take Action

Pick a topic that you feel comfortable with. Pick something that you are familiar with, something that you are ok with talking about as well as writing about it. You don’t have to have a bro-romance going on but you actually want to be somewhat knowledgeable about the topic you are pursuing.

2. Choose A Blogging Platform

We are skipping all the highlights and choosing WordPress.org. You are more than welcome to google on your own time as to why we use WordPress.org and And NOT WordPress.com

Here is the skinny, the breakdown.

WordPress.com-  Think of Worspress.com as the evil stepsisters from Cinderella. It is not self-hosted, hence it will restrict your ability to marry your prince and make money and grow your blog

WordPress.org (what I recommend)- This is Cinderella, a beautiful self-hosted site. Bluehost is the Fairy Godmother – She makes everything work. Having a self-hosted website is like owning real estate on 5th ave. You can grow and do what you desire to do with your blog site.

Simply put, a WordPress.com blog is like living in your parent’s basement.

You have a little freedom, however, the space is not yours and if your parents get tired of you, they will start charging you rent. Eventually, you will outgrow it and move on.

WordPress.org is like owning a house in the suburbs ( I’m a real estate broker, hence the analogy.

It costs a little more upfront, but the rewards are worth it.

Action Step:

Choose a blogging platform, I highly recommend WordPress.org. Hands down it is the #1 platform and most developers design their products to work on wordpress.org

3. Register A Domain Name

Next on the agenda is selecting a domain name. When you select Bluehost as your hosting, it comes with a free domain. If you aren’t sure what a domain name is, it’s simply the name that directs people to your blogsite.. My domain is www.bragdifferently.com simple enough.

Try to avoid names that are confusing and sound like other names. I highly suggest that you think long-term and make sure the name you are choosing is not someone’s registered trademark. Do a trademark search. Visit www.uspto.gov and do a simple search. I further suggest that you try to pick a domain name that you have control of across all social media platforms… (Twitter, Instagram, FB Pinterest) is the name you want available or does someone else with 10 million followers already have the name?

Keys to remember

  • A .com domain name is king. If you can get the .com name then go with it. People simply remember .com over .net, .co, .biz etc.
  • No numbers or symbols. It’s simply too hard to remember. Don’t make this complicated.
  • Try to stay consistent and ensure that your domain name is in sync with your blog topic, ie., if you are blogging about pets, then coolpets.com would flow better than bumblebeemountain.com Your domain name should resonate with your audience.
  • When all else fails, use your actual name. MarvetteCritney.com

It’s time to register your domain

The cost is around $8 to $15 a year. I stated above that you will get a domain name with Bluehost, however, I personally register my domain names separately with services like Indigoblu.co or Go Daddy for added security and peace of mind. I simply believe in having my domain names separate from my hosting.

Domain Name Registrars

Action Step:

Pick a domain name and let’s start the show. Don’t overthink it.

4. Set Up A Blog Host 

Now the party is about to get started. It’s time to choose a hosting company.

There is not a ton of items that you will need to purchase to get your blog site up and running. I cannot stress enough that you need to self-host your site. I’m only going to share two hosting sites, Bluehost and SiteGround. You can do additional research on other sites, but we are going to focus on Bluehost and SiteGround.

Your hosting company has a major impact on your blogging business. I said business, as blogging can be a business and chances are, you are reading this because you want to make money.

Bluehost

I personally use Bluehost for all my websites. You can sign up for Bluehost Hosting services.

Siteground

I have several clients who use SiteGround and are extremely happy with SiteGround and their customer service. You can sign up for SiteGround Hosting services. You do not need to break the bank. Their start-up plan and Grow Big Plan will suffice.

You will need to provide your hosting company with your domain. Though I recommend having a separate registrar such as Indogoblu for the domain, you can use the hosting company if it makes it easier.
If you choose a hosting company like Indigoblu or GoDaddy or Hover, you will need to provide them with the DNS server names – you will need to update this info in GoDaddy under the Domain/DNS tab.

BlueHost
ns1.bluehost.com
ns2.bluehost.com

Action Step:

Sign up for your hosting. You don’t have to be a tech guru to get through this process. Pick one. Bluehost or Siteground

5. Let’s Talk About WordPress

As a former web developer who attended the Art Inst in Atlanta, I can assure you that WordPress was designed for the most non-tech person to figure it out. After the initial set-up, most of what you will touch will be blog posts only. You honestly can’t mess it up. There are one zillion WordPress videos floating around the internet that will literally show you how to do everything and I do mean everything.

Let’s get ready to rumble. I always wanted to say that! Let’s get excited.

There are a few features that I recommend that you update from jump street once you load your blog.

You will need to have a disclaimer and policy page. I mentioned this at the start of this blog post. You will be changing your permalinks… Google doesn’t like the default setting and google needs to like your website. You will need to select a theme and add a few key plugins that will make your life easier.

Go to the WordPress dashboard, click “settings” on the left-hand sidebar then click “permalinks”. As a default, your posts will be set to “month and name” meaning they will show the month/date you wrote the post as long as the post name. Google hates this and we need Google to like you.

Change this to, “post name.”

And your URL will simply show your blog name plus the name of the post.

bragdifferently.com/invest-in-under-10-minutes

Choose a Theme

It is easier to pick a great theme from jump street than to come back later and try to transfer all your info etc over to a new theme. There are free themes that will work, but if you are looking to make money, then let’s invest in a great theme.

I highly recommend a premium theme

Many bloggers recommend the Genesis Framework with the child theme combo. It’s simple to use and it provides a clean-looking blog. I use {17th Avenue Designs} for the template that Brag Differently is on. She also uses the Genesis Framework.

You can check out the Genesis Framework by clicking here. They have thousands of sites. Take a peek for yourself.

Another favorite set of themes that I love are Divi Themes. Tons of Bloggers swear by Divi Themes as they are elegant and easy to use. Just click on the box below to visit their website.

Restored 316 is another favorite theme that many bloggers gravitate towards. Their themes are feminine, soft, and charming. Take a peek and take your pick, I promise you will not be disappointed.

They have more than enough themes to get you started.

You don’t have to purchase a theme, but I suggest that you treat this as an investment. The themes that are FREE, tend to be very basic and may not meet your needs. Take a look at a few other themes and see if you see anything that grabs your attention. You can always contact me and I can refer you to other theme makers, support@bragdifferently.com

I promise that you don’t have to have a fancy theme to get started. Take a look at some other bloggers and see what types of themes they have as well as the features they have on their websites.

Write a Disclaimers and Privacy Policy Page.

Please note, though I may be brilliant as any seasoned attorney, I am not a lawyer, hence I am not dishing out legal advice.

A disclaimer and privacy page is a must-have and frankly, it’s required to keep your site in compliance with the FTC and GDPR Laws. Simply put, it tells your audience how you will use their information if you use affiliate links and or Google Analytics.

It’s the law so just do it. If you still have questions on Disclaimer/Privacy Policies, then google is your friend.

Hey, don’t let this deter you. Everyone is required to have it. There are free sites that will give you samples of free policy/disclaimer verbiage. WordPress provides you with generic verbiage that you can use for your privacy policy; use it. You can look on any blog site and see what their affiliate disclosure page talks about. Use it as a reference guide. Don’t over-think it.

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Think of plugins as apple apps, they are designed to add value to your apple products. There are developers that only design plugins for apple. Plugins add value to your blogsite and help you to do things easier.

Plugins simply make life better in the blogging world.

Do not overload your site with plugins. It’s the same as your phone. Having too many plugins will make your site sluggish.

Here are my must-have Plugins. To add plugins go to your sidebar and click “plugins” then “add new” and you can search for any plugin you want. You can also go directly to a plug-in and download it and upload load to WordPress.

There are free plugins and paid ones. The basic versions tend to be free and the pro-versions typically have a cost. You can get away with the free versions when starting out.

Social Sharing Plugin: This is essential to have on your blog in order for people to share your posts.

  • Grow By Mediavine is what I use. It’s $34 a year. I love that it also allows me to configure what images are used as well as the default verbiage that is shared.
  • Yoast Duplicate post (free- allows you to clone a post, this way you don’t have to start from scratch each time) (let’s say you have a post on income and you already have the categories, etc saved, you can clone the page and save it as an income template.
  • Yoast SEO This plugin makes your site meet the highest technical SEO standards. It also gives you the tools to bring your content to the highest standards of SEO and overall readability. In blogger terms, if your post sucks in terms of cohesiveness, not enough words, etc, repeated words, etc, Yoest will tell you. Yoast SEO also makes it extremely easy to set up rich pins for Pinterest which is another topic altogether.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics:  It’s Google, you have to track your site visitors, etc., and other affiliates use this info to see if you make the cut. “It gives you a deeper understanding of your customers. Google Analytics gives you the free tools you need to analyze data for your business in one place.” borrowed from Google.

Add Google Analytics directly into your header code in wordpress – do not, I repeat do not use a plugin to do this outside of Google Site– thank me later

Please set up your free  Google Analytics account. It’s honestly not optional.

Blog Format & SEO: SEO or search engine optimization is just a Borghese way of saying how do folks find me on google and other search engines.

As a newbie, it’s a ton of info to digest. These simple tools will help you figure out the basics.

DIIB – I just found out about DIIB– it works in sync with Google Analytics- It gives you a breakdown of your site and site searches in easy-to-follow language and a host of other freebies that will only benefit you.

Action Step:

Take time to play around in your blog site and get acclimated. Don’t get overwhelmed and don’t skip any steps.

Take month one to just get your blogsite up and running. You should focus on doing basic research on how blogs work and the basic ins and outs of blogging.

Let’s Recap

  • Pick a niche
  • Purchase a Domain
  • Purchase a self-hosting plan via BlueHost or SiteGround
  • Pick a Template- I recommend 17th Avenue Designs, especially if you have settled on a lifestyle blog (her website walks you through the entire set-up process) if you need help, let me know.
  • Update your perma-link in the WordPress-dashboard to blog post
  • add google analytics to your website (create a google analytics site first, then you can create a google search console site- We will discuss this later)

Month Two

Content & Marketing

Think of blogging as building a house (yes, I have all these real estate analogies). We have the foundation poured and we’ve completed the framing. The Theme is what the outside of the house looks like, now it’s time to decorate, move in and go to work on the yard (we want to be the yard of the month aka marketing)

6. Plan of Action 

Before you jump headfirst into writing blog content, we need a plan of action. This will enable you to stay on track and not be all over the place.

Blogging should solve a problem as I indicated above. A blog answers a question or provides a solution for your reader. The more useful and helpful info you provide, the better chance you have of a reader returning and spending quality time on your site. The goal is to provide value so that they sign up for your newsletter and make a return visit

Why do we shop at TjMaxx or Target? Because we find useful stuff over and over again. Your blog is the same thing.

Please gain an understanding of whom you are speaking to, your reader should feel comfortable with you and connect with you in a kindred sense.

I write from the style of talking to one of my besties when I’m addressing a problem.

Pretend you are talking to a friend about a specific problem and use your active voice.

My advice is to create a blogging schedule to help you stay on track.

Action Step:

Put together a blogging schedule Google Calendar works well or buy a Happy Planner/ Erin Condren Planner and keep track of all your blogging posts/ dates etc.

7. Write Articles and Create Great Content ( Do Not Re-Create the Wheel)

If you want to get your blog up and running, I highly suggest that you use Artificial Intelligence – AI to help you write your blog articles out the gate. Or you can spend hours trying to put together one article vs. writing 30 articles in a few days. I recommend Simplified, but there are several AI providers to choose from.

I don’t care if you have a masters in English Literature if your content sucks, then your blog will suck. Find great content. Yes, I said find great content. I’m not saying that you should pilfer or steal anyone’s content. I am saying there are only so many different ways to tell someone how to earn $200 extra a month; chances are it has been written.

Travel back in time to high school English where you had to write a term paper. Chances are, you borrowed someone else’s paper and used it as a guide. You still ended up writing your own paper. It was still your own words. Their paper simply provided a guide. Use what is already on Google as a guide.

You want to write content that drives people to your website and subconsciously gets people to take action.

What is great content?

Great content is easy when it does the following

  • It solves a problem
  • answers questions that your audience has
  • incorporates keywords
  • saves them time from finding the same info on Google

Your blog is not for you, it’s for your audience

  • What are your readers looking for?
  • Are you fulfilling their needs & wants
  • A new reader is like a new date, they have options
  • Throw that MBA out the window and write like an 8th grader… Who, what, where, and why. Please don’t overcomplicate.
  • Keep it simple, but at the same time provide value!
  • We live in an age of texting and short attention spans. Make sure that your blog post is actually about the topic; otherwise, folks will hop ship, and google will know that they left immediately. You don’t want this to happen. You want people to stay on your site and peruse the articles like they are in a grocery store, just hanging out, and seeing what you have.

BLOGGING IS NOT COLLEGE ENGLISH

The rule of thumb is paragraphs should for the most part not exceed 4 sentences.

Use Bold to make a point – this will also help to break up text

How Long Should Posts Be?

There is no official answer, but industry standards are 1200 words or more.

Our friends over at Google loves in-depth content and they favor valuable content. Better content means better Google rankings. 1500- 2000 words are what google likes.

My Secret Tip – Use Google Docs and select the option to speak and translate. What would take 40 minutes to type, just became 5 min – 15 min with you making corrections for spelling and punctuation.

Keywords

Keywords are words or phrases that are used to match your blog post with the terms people are searching for. Selecting high-quality, relevant keywords within your blog posts, can help you reach the readers you want. When you do a google search for a term, and you see the words in bold, those are keywords.. Think of it this way, if you were writing an article on apples. You would want to include terms like Apple, Washington State, Fuji Apple, Granny Smith, Winesap, Ligol and Ambrosia, and Honeycrisp within your article.

I recommend downloading the chrome extension for keywords everywhere. Keywords Everywhere have been the ultimate game-changer for me. It gives me the keywords and long-tail keywords for my topics.

I also recommend UbberSuggest by Neil Patel –  Free version

He is a New York Times Bestselling author. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Seriously, UbberSuggest is about to become one of your besties when it comes to blogging. In a nutshell, it will rank a keyword for you. It will show you how many folks searched for it and how hard it is to show on the first page of google..

Listen up, this isn’t like dating the guy that no one else wants but you. You actually want to use keywords that people are looking for, but you want that diamond in the rough… I don’t recommend that you go after top keywords. That does not mean that you don’t put those keywords in your blog posts.

Keywords Are Queen

Use keywords that people are searching for (DIIB) will assist with knowing what and how people are searching)
Keywords are simply words that search engines use to find relevant content on the internet

Go to Google and type in Why Do Babies Sleep So Much, and see what pops up

When you do a simple google search for Healthy habits for black women, my article Healthy Habits For Black Women constantly pops up in the #1 position. This is through SEO & Keywords along with having solid content.

Action Step: Begin researching posts that are similar to what you want to write about. I’m not advocating theft or copyright infringement. I’m simply pointing out that there are 999 blog post written on the same topic that you can obtain some inspiration from

Start searching for keywords. You can also do a simple Google search on your Blog post and see what pops up

8. Marketing, Facebook & Pinterest

Now that we have some content, ie., the product on the shelves, we have to let the public know that we are open for business.

This is honestly, where the fun begins

Let’s show them what your momma gave you

Don’t be scared… the big day has arrived… let’s handle business.

Let me scream out loud, repeat after me. PINTEREST

You may as well quit if you aren’t on Pinterest. Man, woman or child, you must embrace Pinterest as a blogger unless your niche does not really need Pinterest per se.

Pinterest can be the life or death of a blogger, and it works like botox when applied correctly. If you are here to make money then Pinterest pays monthly dividends, figuratively speaking.

Pinterest works incredibly well if you use it correctly.

Guess what ladies & gents, Pinterest is a search engine, just like google. It just uses pretty pictures to capture your attention.

There are three big strategies to embrace on Pinterest

You have to be consistent and I do mean consistent with pinning. ( A little hint- this is why we schedule and plan…. Pinterest Pins are the bloodlines leading to the heart of your blog.)

Pinterest Business Profile

You need to convert your regular Pinterest page over to a business profile.

Yes, it’s free and easy to do. A click of a button here and there and you are done.

You have to create boards that make sense for your blog… You can hide all your crazy boards from the public. Only you will see your private boards. No need to delete the Kittie board, just make it private.

If you are in the lifestyle niche then your boards should focus on your niche, i.,e if it’s a mommy blog, then your boards should reflect some of your categories on your blog… Mommy Yoga, organization, cooking with a toddler, etc. If your niche is finance, then your boards may focus on budgeting, earning extra income, saving money, etc.

Your Pinterest profile is prime real estate, you should be using Keywords in your profile including your name, your board titles, and descriptions on your pins.

Pins That Invoke Emotion

The entire point of Pinterest is to get people to be enticed to click on your pin and read your blog post. I highly suggest that you use Canva to create all your pins. It is a lifesaver. 

Canva is already pre-formatted for most social media. It’s drag and drop. If you want to learn Canva from a pro then make sure you join Lakisha Sarbah’s FB group, Canva DIY Design for Entrepreneurs

Put yourself in the mind of your reader, what makes you want to click on something?

Using the same Lifestyle Niche, let’s assume your post is about decluttering the laundry room. Your headline for your pin could be 10 simple decluttering hacks to do while your toddler naps.

I need those hacks

The Advanced Marketing Institute Headline Analyzer is a must-have. It’s all about the emotions baby, all about emotions. It will essentially let you know if your headline sucks.

Consistency

I’m not saying that you have to become a Pinterest Junkie, but I’m saying you might want to hit up Pinterest on a daily basis. Pinterest actually tracks you, if you aren’t active then it’s like a boyfriend ghosting you.

The good thing is that you aren’t alone in your pinning journey. You can use Tailwind and they will pin on your behalf. They are an approved partner.

I suggest pinning yourself when you get started so that you can get a better understanding of the process, but once you are up running, please automate.

Tailwind (free trial) is an approved Pinterest partner and actually pins your pins for you.

There is a little work on the front end as you need to set up the pins. In the end Tailwind will save you valuable time.

Action Step:

Sharing is caring, you have to let people now know that you have a blog. A simple post on FB, ie., share from within your blog site using Social Plug

At the top of the list is Pinterest. Traffic from Pinterest can jumpstart you to blogging heaven and it will help you to achieve rankings on Google.

9. Build Up Your Email List

Having a great domain name may be key, but having a better email list is even better. You want to capture everyone that comes to your blogsite. What’s the point if they don’t know when you have written another fantastic article?

It’s the equivalent of having an open house for real estate and two-hundred people show up and you forget to do a sign-in sheet.

Everything is blogging is about building relationships and nurturing those relationships.

an email address is akin to a golden ticket. You may need to provide them with a freebie to lure them in… A simple incentive will do.

Let’s back up – and do a quick sidestep.

  1. Obtain a professional email. I suggest G-suite. Yourfrigginname@yourfrigginblogsite.com $5 a month.
  2. Convertkit – email list manager. It manages all of the emails that are submitted on your site. It will also create landing pages for your incentives and freebies. They have a free 14 day trial.

Hands down ConvertKit is the boss. All the major players use Convertkit

Basically, the options are endless.

The purpose of an email opt-in is to give your audience a gift. People like gifts. Make it valuable to the reader. A checklist that is relevant to your niche makes perfect sense.

Let’s say your Niche is Keto Diets- A beginner’s checklist on foods to purchase would be helpful. A ten-day meal plan would be helpful

Remember what I said earlier, provide a solution to a problem.

Everything you need to create your checklists, PDFs, eBooks etc., can all be done in Canva.

Month Three

Month three is all about making little tweaks and changes to your blog to drive even more traffic and start a monetization strategy that works.

10. Tweak and Update Old Blog Posts

By your 3rd month, you should be feeling yourself. You should at this point be the Cardi B of bloggers.

Take time to go back and revise old blog posts. Make sure that you have no broken links etc. You may want to update language, sentence structure, etc.

By now, you have joined a few FB blogging groups and learned a few tricks & tips that will help you out. In addition, you may have run across blog posts that you can add to an existing post or maybe your latest post, needs to be linked to an older post.

Ensuring that you have other blog posts that you can link to on your site, keeps visitors on your website longer. Remember Google Analytics… yep, they track how long people stay on your site. It will become a factor later on when you are trying to land the big bucks.

Basically, give your blog site a mini tune-up! But make it a BMW Tune-up

Action Step:

90 days in a great time to look at your analytics and see what posts are bringing you traffic. Take the top posts and make sure that they are copasetic. Double-check for broken links as well as add new links that may be of value.

11. Show Me The Money

Remember I said I was a blogging Unicorn and made over $2000 in my first 30 days of blogging? That is as rare as the Hope diamond, but it can be done. The reason I take you through 90 days is that you often are working out kinks and simply getting organized in your first 90 days. Once you get 90 days in, it’s a simple rinse & repeat method.

By this point, you should have blog posts that are indexed and now you can go back in and add additional content to your blog posts. The goal in your first 90 days is to figure out YOUR process and refine your process. If you ensure that you have done 95% of the things correctly from day one, it will save you so much time and money down the road.

Can you hit the gate running on day one? yes you can.

Trying to monetize your blog from day one is stressful as you are still learning. Focus on having healthy, hearty and robust content, you will thank me later.

How Do You Get The Money

What is Affiliate Marketing

You are about to have a holy cow moment. Most companies that we already use on a daily basis and love already have affiliate marketing in place. Everybody loves Target – even before I had a blog I had an affiliate link with Target.

Are you thinking about what is an Affiliate link? It’s a golden ticket to working from the beach if you treat it right. Simply put it’s a link that a company provides you once you sign up to become an affiliate. When someone uses your link and makes a purchase; or sometimes, just clicks on a link, you earn a commission. Commission amounts vary from merchant to merchant. Commissions range anywhere from a few pennies to a few hundred dollars or even a thousand dollars. 

You can take advantage of sites like ShareASale, Flex Offers that have thousands of companies and products that you can choose from- You sign up with them in order to gain access to the individual merchants.
(Example – under my ShareASale acct, I have a Cricut referral link. I’ve made $19 from that one referral link to date.)

Don’t sleep on the Amazon Associates program (remember you have to have so many qualified sales within 180 days or they will disable you)

The #1 thing to remember about affiliate links is disclosure, disclosure, and disclosure. Make sure that your reader is aware that you may make a commission off of them if they click on a link and or make a purchase via a link. Also, make sure that your affiliate link is relevant to the blog post that you are working on. Don’t just add random links into an article.

Ads

You can make money via ads.. This is easy as you just embed the ads in your blog site and they do the rest. Google AdSense is by far the easiest(no monthly sessions or pageview requirement to join) and Mediavine (min 50,000 monthly sessions). Once you get to a substantial monthly pageview, you can sign up for ad services such as mediavine.

This is considered “passive” because once you add it to the site, you don’t have to do much else. You will need to drive traffic to the site in order to make money from ads. The more visitors, the better the chance someone is going to click and purchase.

Don’t overwhelm your audience with ads. Try not to have a zillion ads popping up on every page. It’s annoying and it’s annoying.

Sponsored Posts

It’s exactly what it sounds like. Someone is paying you a fee to promote a post for a product or service.

You write a review of a particular product and get paid.

All money is not good money, hence don’t take money on a product that you actually have never used. Your authenticity is everything to your audience/followers.

Always disclose when a post is a sponsored post.

Transparency with your audience is critical and because it’s the law… Disclose, and disclose.

Your Own Products or Services

This is the most overlooked and simplest way to monetize your blog. You have 100% control over your product, payments, delivery, etc. Creating a simple digital product could bring you $500 a month.

Let’s say you create a simple digital download and you only charge $1.99 for it. It’s not a lot, but let’s assume that there are 10 items in the bundle… What if 250 people download the item?

I will tell you upfront that it does take time and effort to create products, but once they are done, they are done.

You don’t have to monetize your blog, but what if your blog post goes viral? What if the article you wrote gets 100,000 page views and you don’t have a single affiliate link or ad?

Action Step:

Implement all of the above strategies and see what works for you. When it comes to making money from your blog, the only thing holding you back is you.

12. Tweak & Repeat

Seriously, the key is to tweak & repeat every 90 days. Do what you did on day one. Add new content. What is currently trending, is it applicable to your blog? Is there a way to drive traffic to your blog? What’s the latest & greatest, Gidget, gadget, widget or thingy… can you tie it into an in-depth article on your blog site.

When in Rome do as the Romans. Market your pins on Pinterest, and run a FB ad. You don’t have to break the bank, but you will need to spend a few coins to make more coins.

Write an in-depth, valuable post, and market it on Pinterest and/or social media.

Do it over and over and over again

Every three months, I tweak my blog posts. I refresh and re-advertise if the topic was hot and generated traffic. Think about what you view online on other bloggers’ sites. What makes you follow them, and what makes you pin their pins? What keeps you coming back for more info?

Yes, you can make $100,000 per month. Who says that you can’t?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it’s not working get rid of it. If a pin has 10,000 social media shares and it fits into my blogosphere, chances are, you are going to see that same type of article on my blog site at some point and time. Of course, I am going to add black girl magic and melanin to the mix and make it soulful, because that is what I do.

If you find something just isn’t working whether that’s with monetizing your blog or not getting enough traffic, try something else.

Tweak and tweak again. Tweak until what you are doing is working and making your money.

How to Jumpstart Your Blog: A Newbie’s Guide to Success

You and I know that this is not everything you need to know about blogging, but I promise it will help and keep you from being frustrated and burned out. 

These simple steps will have you 100 steps ahead of other bloggers. Just maintain your focus. I can not stress enough that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel… just tweak it and ride it until it wears down.

Related Posts On Blogging

On that note… Happy Blogging!

If you have comments or questions, then please leave a comment and I will respond.

Please do me and your friends a favor by clicking on the FB icon at the top of the page and share this post to your FB page. You can also save it as a pin on Pinterest. Sharing is caring!

I'm Marvette, a proud mother and doting grandmother to Daniel. As a multifaceted entrepreneur, I've mastered the art of blogging and wear the title of a Quintessential Polymath with pride. My mission? To empower female bloggers to monetize their digital spaces, allowing them to live life on their terms. Dive into the excitement with us at the "Passive Income Simplified" FB Group, brought to you by Brag Differently

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