Congratulations on your decision to start a blog. It’s a fun and rewarding way to share your thoughts while laying the roots for a successful, long-lasting business. However, there are a few things you should consider before launching your blog.
Content Management System
One of the first things you should do when planning a new blog is to choose a content management system (CMS). As the name suggests, a CMS is designed to streamline the creation and management of a website’s content. You can technically create a fully functional blog using nothing more than Notepad, but this is a tedious and laborious process that really doesn’t make sense given all of the different CMS platforms available.
Marketing Strategy
How do you plan on driving traffic to your blog? If you’re on a budget, you may want to focus your efforts strictly on search engine optimization (SEO). In this case, it’s important to carefully construct your blog with keyword-rich content without looking spammy. If you’re looking for instant traffic, on the other hand, you may want to use a combination of pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, banner ads, link exchanges, and social media postings. The bottom line is that you need a clear, well-thought-out plan.
Niche
What do you want your blog to be about? Choosing a generalized niche like “pets” or “health” isn’t going to work due to the enormous amount of competition they have. A smarter approach is to choose a narrow niche, such as “dog training” or “weight loss for women.” Narrowing down the focus of your blog to specific niches such as this will make your life much easier as a blogger.
If you need help choosing a niche for your blog, play around with Google’s Keyword Planner Tool. This free-to-use tool reveals the popularity and competition of keywords, which is priceless when researching niche/topic ideas.
Web Hosting
You’ll need a reliable web hosting service to launch a successful blog. Granted, you can always opt for a hosted solution, such as Tumblr or WordPress.com, but they lack the versatility and customization options of self-hosted blogs. Choose a web hosting service with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and easy-to-contact technical support. In the event that your blog ever goes offline, you’ll need to reach someone ASAP to get it back online
Did we leave anything out? Let us know in the comments section below!
I agree, make sure you write about topics that are useful to your audience, not just promote & offer deals
I use Squarespace for my CMS and I like it, it’s easy and has some nice themes & customization options
Don’t just start a blog to promote your product – use it to build relationships and encourage interaction with your customers