5 THINGS BLOGGERS SHOULD FOCUS ON FIRST

This post is about 5 things new bloggers should focus on first.

When you start blogging, a lot of things can seem overwhelming very quickly!

What are really the most important things bloggers should focus on?

How to set up your website and which template to use? How to plan for content and schedule it into your daily life, especially if you are still working a full-time job?

Hey, blogging isn’t easy and whoever says it is, has been blogging for a while. That is the truth!

Even though it looks easy when you see bloggers “who’ve made it already”, mind you, blogging isn’t a “get rich quick scheme”, it REALLY takes some time until you reach the same goals.

It takes a lot of dedication and commitment, especially if you plan to make it your full time income, which I think should be the ultimate goal anyway.

When you are starting off as a blogger newbie, everything feels like is a necessity! You want to have it and do it all.

But by doing this, you will honestly stretch yourself too thin, believe me! This is exactly why you should only focus on the essentials.

1. Have A Presentable Well Functioning Website

One of the most important first steps when creating your blog is to have a presentable website.

It doesn’t have to be the most fanciest website but it should be good enough, so that readers come and also stay and then come back again to visit your website.

If you have a convoluted website, readers quickly lose interest and bounce off. They also don’t come back most of the time.

There are a few things you should consider when you start your blog:

A) Self-Hosted Website With Trusted Hosting Company That Runs On WordPress.ORG

It is so essential for blogger newbies to start off the right way!

Sure it’s casual when you have your blog on blogger.com or similar platforms. What you might not know is that these platforms have many restrictions. Especially if you are planning on monetizing your blog in the future, you could potentially run into issues with a free website.

As a matter of fact, ad networks will not even consider your website as a platform to display ads if you are not running your website on a self-hosted platform.

Really the last thing you want is to be refused by ad networks due to technical stuff.

A self-hosted website gives you many more options with regard to the layout and putting ads on your website. And yes, you will have to spend at least some money on your website as a self-hosted website doesn’t come for free!

By buying a domain, that domain completely belongs to you for as long as you want to have your blog. You literally own it during that time and that is great thing!

B) A Theme That Is Easy To Navigate

Even though many advanced bloggers tell you not to worry about a theme in the beginning, I tend to disagree!

Sure your theme doesn’t need to be fancy and very high-tech, and you shouldn’t spend hundreds of dollars on your website (if you have the money however, then why not!) but you should be careful when picking a theme.

Things To Look Out For When Picking A Theme

1. When It’s A Free Theme

When you are choosing a free theme, make sure it is from a reputable source.

You can choose from many of the WordPress.ORG free themes. I actually use a free WordPress.ORG theme and I haven’t had any issues that have come up so far.

You do need to look out for reviews and what other people have to say about the theme in question.

You don’t want to just download something unless you are 100% sure it is a safe code/script.

2. The Theme Shouldn’t Slow Down Your Website Speed

Oftentimes when themes are filled with all sorts of script and code, your website can become very slow to load. Add slow hosting to this equation and you have yourself a super slow website.

Slow websites are a definite turn-off for website visitors and especially in 2020 you need to have websites that load promptly or else you will loose on that traffic.

Thus, make sure again, that the theme, whether free or not is not a mistake for your website!

Re-evaluate your speed every once in a while. There are many great sites which let you check your website performance and speed load (most important!).You can try this one if you like: https://tools.pingdom.com/

A rule of thumb is that your page should not take more than 3 seconds to load.

3. Pick A Theme That Is Aesthetically Pleasing To The Eye

Colours and design of a website play an important role. They can make or break your brand. Your theme should go with your overall branding and you should be able to like that theme for a longer time.

Check out which colours are appealing to website visitors. A short search on Google.com will give you some insights on what other companies use colour-wise and what effects colours have on website visitors.

It’s a Science in itself, lol!

C) Categories That Build The Foundation Of Your Blog

After you have picked out a suitable theme for your blog you need to lay out the structure of your blog.

You can do this with the aid of your post categories. Pick a handful of categories that help you classify each post you have written and posts you will write in the future.

It’s always better to focus on just a handful of categories as opposed to having more. This gives your blog a more tailored foundation.

Your categories are really the foundation of your blog and keep every post organized.

D) Your Own Well Taken Photos

Pictures make everything more enjoyable reading. That’s just my p.o.v but I do believe that images are still important.

Many bloggers use stock images. There are monthly subscriptions and again a short Google search will prompt you to many service providers.

Yes, those stock images might look perfect but I still prefer taking my own images. Even though they might not look super professional, there’s something about taking your own images.

I generally take all images with my iPhone 8 Plus and only use Snapseed app to edit my images.

When it comes to images, you want to make sure they are bright, crisp and shiny and they have to be sharp, of course! Nobody likes a blurry image.

This is why when you batch work taking images for your blog, do it in day light, with natural light. If you don’t live in a place where there is lots of daylight, you can always use artificial lighting. Make sure this lighting is the same lighting coming from a ‘soft box’. The kind of lighting that you see in really nice dressing rooms! Not the yellow lighting, this type of lighting tends to make your pictures look “oldish”.

You may want to use a Watermark and imprint your logo or blog website on images. This helps people from using your images but it is never guaranteed.

I have come to the conclusion to not put any information on images (just add alt text in the background).

2. Editorial Calendar & Daily Task Schedule

A) Editorial Calendar

You need an editorial calendar!

An editorial calendar is essentially a schedule that you create and constantly use to write down what you want to write about (content, titles of planned posts), when you want to schedule these (scheduling and posting consistently is key!).

You need to sit down at least monthly to plan out your content and should go through past content quarterly or more frequently.

An editorial calendar is more than just a list, it’s the lifeline of your blog, really. It helps you get organized and stay organized. It is the framework of your blog and the content that makes up your blog.

Every blogger needs an editorial calendar to stay on top of things.

B) Daily Task Scheduling

When you have a blog and you are also working full time, you need to have a daily task scheduling process in place.

Having a blog next to your full time job is a full load of work. It can get stressful and you may loose sight over things quickly.

This is why daily tasks scheduling is great. You should take baby steps with your tasks, don’t overload yourself but make sure that each day you have some tasks dedicated to what you need to do.

I usually lay out my daily tasks as follows:

• 3 Pins per day for old content – Takes up to 30 Minutes
• A fresh new pin for every new blog post that goes live at the same time – Takes up 15 Minutes
• Content research – Spend 30 Minutes A Day Gathering Inspiration
• Refresh an Old Post – Usually takes up to 2 hours
• Create a New Blog Post – Usually spend 3-4 hours on this in one day or divide this tasks over several days for 1,200+ word blog posts
• Create batch images – if I feel like I am in a creative mood, I usually take several images in once session. Again, I only use my iPhone 8 Plus and Snapseed and this has worked for me so far.

C) Helpful Task Scheduling Tools

Excel is my friend!

I like to keep a master list of content created/posted and content that is planned ahead. This excel has a lot of information, such as blog title, blog posting date, links, whether a Pin has been created and when it was posted/updated.

My Excel Master List is great and I use different colours to highlight different categories so that I do not write more posts for a certain category (don’t want to be repetitive and keep it versatile!).

I can also keep track of how many blog posts have gone up and overall it is a road map that I use to assist me moving forward.

3. Well Written Posts That Talk To Your Avatar

A) Well Written, Organized Posts

a) Write To Your Avatar

The most important aspect of writing a post is that you truly write to your avatar. Your avatar is your dream client, reader, person that comes back every time, loves what you write about, engages in your content and subscribes to your email list!

b) Well Structured Posts

Your posts should be structured and well written. I know this is hard for me as I sometimes read over my typos and as of yet, I have no one but me to edit and correct my texts.

I usually would say if you have a person who could read over your draft, then do that because of 4-eye principle.

In addition, your blog post needs to have a beginning, a middle section with lots of detail, anecdotes, story-telling, always addressing your avatar.

Finally a nice summary to bring it all together or list out the major points of your post is always a great way to end your post and let’s the reader take-away the most important points.

c) On-Page SEO & Meta Data & Tags

When you start blogging, you hear a lot about SEO, keywords, tags and so forth. If you are completely new to blogging, then this again, can seem very complicated.

In reality though, SEO, keywords, tags and so forth are not as complicated if you just read up on a few things to get going.

You want to structure your blog in a way that is easy to follow and easy to read (or skim through your posts!) for your avatar but also for all search engines that crawl your website.

I know crawl, right. Such a funny word!

But in fact, search engines do crawl your website and look for information. The kind that you post and only the good kind. Search engines only show very well written blog posts that have a satisfying amount of ‘good’ information. Usually these posts on websites have authority on the web, meaning other blogs are already linking to those websites or they have mentions elsewhere or generally, you get a lot of traffic and engagement.

This is when search engines know, your blog is cool 🙂 and they start showing it to the audience that is searching for your kind of content.

So definitely, make sure you read up on SEO and structure your posts in a way that gets picked up by search engines.

I would definitely start with on-page SEO, proper headings (H2, H3, etc.) to break up your post niceley for your sub-headings, use numbers, lists and bullet points.

If you don’t do this from the beginning with your posts, it’s not that bad but you might have to revisit your blog posts in the future to correct this, and if you can do this right from the start, why wouldn’t you 🙂

4. Pinterest Promotion Schedule

A) Pinterest Strategy

Now the most important thing if you want to monetize your blog in the future is to have traffic coming to your website.

The formula goes something like this:

AWESOME CONTENT = TRAFFIC = MONETIZATION

Getting people to your website when you are just starting out is difficult! Yes, for some it might be easy and by luck they have something going viral but most bloggers do find that they struggle with getting people to actually view their posts.

This is why, even if I quit all social media, (read more here), I do believe that Pinterest is a good way to get traffic to your blog which is why I continue to use Pinterest.

People are looking on Pinterest actively and they are willing to move away from the platform to a website if they want to find out more about a product, service, information.

Even if you’ve come across other bloggers who have already achieved success with getting lots of traffic to their websites, they always say, Pinterest is the way to go in the beginning definitely!

So make sure you go ahead and create a Business Pinterest account for your website so that you can start promoting your posts to readers.

As for the Pinterest Strategy, this is really something you have to figure out for yourself. Start pinning, click-worthy pins with good SEO descriptions, using your keywords from your blog post and see what happens. In the beginning you will have to tweak certain things but soon you will get the idea of when it’s best to pin and promote.

I am still figuring this out as I have only recently created a Pinterest account for this blog. It’s interesting to test things out and see what works and doesn’t.

There are many courses which can help you understand Pinterest. I am currently taking one and will let you know how well it is.

You need to try and figure out when it’s best to pin what sort of pins on your own. I believe that there isn’t a one-fits-all methodology for pinning. I also currently only pin manually. I have used Tailwind in the past but prefer to pin manually at this point.

B) Posting Schedule

You should definitely figure out a posting schedule for Pinterest. In fact, it’s best to be consistent on Pinterest and pin every day.

I wish I could post during the day but because I still work full time, I have to use the time slots that are suitable for me right now. Do I think it matters? I am pretty sure it matters how often and at what times you pin but if you are working FT then you don’t want that added stress.

Just start pinning when it works for your schedule & do it consistently, meaning don’t pin one day and then take a few days off.

5. About Page & Legal Pages

a) Why The About Page Is Important

The About Page tells your avatar about yourself and what your mission is with your website. It gives you the opportunity to explain yourself and to shine.

The About Page is one of the most visited pages because people want to find out more about a brand/person and that is where they would normally go to find out more.

It’s also the perfect place to add or highlight your best content by linking to your posts directly. All the best bloggers on the web have this going on.

With that said, if you are collecting subscribers from the start, the About Page would also be a perfect spot to add your opt-in form.

Although I personally think you should focus more on your content & promotion first, leaving the e-mail subscribers for later, many successful bloggers advise to have some type of opt-in on your website even from the very beginning.

It’s ultimately up to you – but know that once you have an opt-in, people want to hear from you and they want to hear from you on a consistent basis so you got to show up for your subscribers. This is oftentimes added stress when you are trying to come up with content, write the posts and promote.

It’s up to you though and there is no right or wrong!

b) Making A Lasting Impression

With The About Page you want to make a lasting impression. I know a lot of bloggers who showcase their entire professional work history, what they have done before blogging, what their blog is about and so forth.

You need to make a lasting impression if you really want to win the reader over. Some interesting or astonishing facts about you are always good. Or, make it about the reader and inform them why this website gives them the value they are looking for.

c) Promotion Of Other Popular Blog Posts

The About Page as mentioned earlier is a great way to promote popular blog posts. Here you can add your most frequented blog posts (find out via your analytics profile, which blog posts get the most traffic!).

d) E-Mail Subscription Opt-In

As mentioned already, you could add your opt-in forms on your About Page. If you do so, you can add a freebie for your readers that really pin points their needs in exchange for their name & email.

Make sure you inform your readers how often they can expect what sort of content and let them know that they have the power to unsubscribe if they no longer wish to receive your content. Because quite frankly, nobody wants to receive emails that they don’t want to have in their inbox in the first place.

It’s a polite thing to do and definitely the right thing to do. You’d want to have 20 raving readers that love you versus 300 of which 60% are not even interested in what you have to say.

So be smart about your opt-in and again, if you decide to go ahead with email marketing right from the beginning, make sure you are consistent with emailing your people!

5.1. Legal Pages

Now I am not a lawyer and don’t suggest anything of legal matters to you but you also have to look into the legal pages that you need to have placed on your blog/website.

You will need to create a privacy policy, disclaimer, terms & conditions (terms of use) and always have an affiliate/earnings disclosure for your readers (especially if you are monetizing!). You want to be as transparent as possible with your readers on your blog.

There is an abundance of information on the internet, and you can always get in touch with a professional to help you craft your legal pages.

CONCLUSION: 5 THINGS BLOGGERS SHOULD FOCUS ON FIRST

When you start off with your blog there are many things you need to think about and implement. There are also many things you do not need to focus on right away. Since there is only so much you can do, choose the things you focus on when you start to blog wisely. Focus on a few things that are important and start creating content. After all, if you do not create content and promote it, you won’t be seeing any traffic, and traffic is really what you need to focus on from the very beginning!

This post is all about the 5 things new bloggers should focus on first.

Image Credit:

“Laptop, sitting on bed” – Unsplash

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