What is a blog
A Blog posts allow you and your business to publish insights, thoughts, and stories on your website about any topic. They can help you boost brand awareness, credibility, conversions, and revenue. Most importantly, they can help you drive traffic to your website.
But in order to begin making posts for a
blog — you have to learn how to start one, first. Let’s dive in.
Understand your audience.
Check out your competition.
Determine what topics you'll cover.
Identify your unique angle.
Name your blog.
Create your blog domain.
Choose a CMS and set up your blog.
Customize the look of your blog.
Write your first blog post.
1. Understand your audience.
Before you start writing your blog post,
make sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience. To do so,
take the following steps.
Ask yourself exploratory questions.
To discover your audience, ask questions
like: Who are they? Are they like me, or do I know someone like them? What do
they want to know about? What will resonate with them?
Jot down your notes in a notepad or a
document. This is the time to brainstorm audience attributes from scratch, no
matter how out of left field they may feel. You should also think about your
audience's age, background, goals, and challenges at this stage.
Carry out market research.
Doing market research sounds like a
big task, but in truth, it can be as simple as accessing a social media
platform and browsing user and blog profiles that match with your potential
audience.
Use market research tools to
begin uncovering more specific information about your audience — or to confirm
a hunch or a piece of information you already knew.
Create formal buyer personas.
Once you’ve brainstormed and carried out
market research, it’s time to create formal buyer personas. It’s important
because what you know about your buyer personas and their interests will inform
the brainstorming process for blog posts.
2. Check out your competition.
What better way to draw inspiration than
to look at your well-established competition?
It’s worth taking a look at popular,
highly reviewed blogs because their strategy and execution is what got them to
grow in credibility. The purpose of doing this isn’t to copy these elements,
but to gain better insight into what readers appreciate in a quality blog.
3. Determine what topics you’ll cover.
Before you write anything, pick a topic
you’d like to write about. The topic can be pretty general to start as you find
your desired niche in blogging.
4. Identify your unique angle.
What perspective do you bring that makes
you stand out from the crowd? This is key to determining the trajectory of your
blog’s future, and there are many avenues to choose in the process.
5. Name your blog.
This is your opportunity to get creative
and make a name that gives readers an idea of what to expect from your blog.
Some tips on how to choose your blog name include:
Keep your blog name easy to say and
spell.
No need to get complicated at all with
your name, though it might be tempting, since there are so many blogs out
there. While choosing a unique name is essential, it’s also important to choose
one that is easy to memorize for readers. It should also be simple to remember
as an URL (which will come into play in the next step).
6. Create your blog domain.
A domain is a part of the web
address nomenclature someone would use to find your website or a page of your
website online.
Your blog's domain will look like this:
www.yourblog.com. The name between the two periods is up to you, as long as
this domain name doesn't yet exist on the internet.
Here are five other popular web hosting
services to choose from:
GoDaddy
HostGator
DreamHost
Bluehost
iPage
7. Choose a CMS and set up your blog.
A CMS (content management
system) is a software application that allows users to build and maintain a
website without having to code it from scratch. CMS platforms can manage
domains (where you create your website) and subdomains (where you create a
webpage that connects to an existing website).
8. Customize the look of your blog.
Once you have your domain name set up,
customize the appearance of your blog to reflect the theme of the content you
plan on creating and your brand.
For example, if you're writing about
sustainability and the environment, green might be a color to keep in mind
while designing your blog.
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