Over the last few months I’ve been asked this question quite a bit and I thought it was time to take my tips & tricks and put them out there for you to see. But wait…. haven’t you only been blogging since January? Uhh, yeah…. That’s what makes this post even BETTER. I’m sure in six months time I’ll have better news for you, but right now, here are my pointers to go from 0 viewers – 63,000 page views with these simple to apply tricks. start a blog

How To Start A Blog

What are your dreams & hopes for this blog? Are you planning to reach far and want to gain compensation from this blog? Or is it just for fun? Will you be posting every day? Or a few times a month?

If you answered the above that you want to make compensation & you want to post 3+ times a week, then these are the steps you should take to ensure you have maximum success.

1. Sign up through SiteGround 
2. Choose A Domain Name Or Transfer Your Existing Domain ( mine is www.whitepicketfarmhouse.com )
3. Choose what platform you want to blog on ( I blog with wordpress as it has so many plugins and makes SEO & marketing the easiest. Don’t be scared by these technical terms, we will touch base later )

So lets start, shall we? Head on over to SiteGround and sign up. You might be thinking, why can’t I just go to blogger.com or wordpress.com? You can, but you want to own your own domain name. Having a self hosted website makes it 99% easier to market your work and make it look more professional. Wanting to collaborate with brands or get sponsored? Most companies will not even look at you until you’re on a self hosted website & own your name. It’s a bit confusing, but save yourself the step and do this now. I started up with weebly and I painfully made the choice to switch over to wordpress.org. Not only did I lose ALL the marketing & backlinks that I worked so hard for, but I had to start from scratch. So take it from me – go this route to begin with!

Lets take a little break, shall we? I was with Ipage before I switched to SiteGround and Oh goodness to me… The difference was NIGHT & DAY. I had problems daily with Ipage. Slow site, timing out, lost work etc. Once I made the switch to SiteGround they transferred everything over for me and they’ve been so helpful. You’ll notice every time you have to talk to an agent they speak english, they’re fast and they’re helpful. It’s true! Here’s some screenshots of the different options they have through Siteground

Reasons to switch to SiteGround:

-Way faster service ( Up to 400% Faster ) I noticed this first and it was a HUGE plus

-Amazing service

-Cheaper Rates

-US Based so you can talk to a english speaking agent.

– They have much better reviews on google, look em up! I dare you.

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Now that you’ve signed up with SiteGround , choose a domain name ( www.exampledomain.com). You can choose a free domain through them or, if you have something specific in mind, it’s quite cheap to buy. I believe I paid 19 dollars for my domain a few years back. It’s mine, so no one can ever use it. Neat hey?

Once you’ve chosen your domain name, you want to choose who you want to blog through. You can blog through anyone, but I picked wordpress as they have so many amazing plugins like Yoast. It is a basic SEO plugin. It attaches to each and every blog post & page you write, so you can just put your keywords in & it will show you step-by-step how to make your posts show up in google and have maximum exposure.

On Siteground, there’s a place to directly click on who you want to blog through. Sign up & you’re set. It doesn’t cost anything to blog with WordPress unless you want to purchase a special theme. Which I did. But folks… be smarter! haha – I’m aware that isn’t a word, but be smarter! You can go on Etsy and buy amazing themes for way cheaper. They also give you step-by-step directions on how to install.

start a blog, go viral

How To Design You Blog

This is the fun part! If you’re signing up through wordpress, you can decide to buy a theme. I highly recommend you do as themes that are bought look more professional, but you can do whatever you like. I bought the “Kindred” theme. I then had it installed by a web designer & she did a great job of adding some of my old posts to this new blog. But you can easily do it yourself too. My situation was a lot more messy as I was taking a existing website over to a completely new platform.

This is the most fun part of creating your website. You can customize your blog to suit your personality. I decided on blue as I feel I use a lot of blue in my decor and picked the “bakery” font so my blog has a color and font that flows through it. Again, having your personality shine through your blog is a huge must. Brands love this and if they feel you’re right for the job they will pick you. Your numbers are the last thing brands look at. You’re just starting though, so lets just focus on making your blog beautiful and functional.

You also want to decide on what your blog will be about. This is called your niche. For example, my blog is a lifestyle home & DIY blog. Go ahead right now and download the yoast plugin. This makes it super easy to do SEO on all of your pages. What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization. Moz.com does an amazing job of describing what it is and how it can easily take you from 0 – 10 in months! It does take a bit of time to work, but the end results are worth working for! So if you’re wanting to be serious about your blog and have it reach many viewers, the Yoast plugin is a MUST.

Once that plugin is added, you also want to add these other plugins which will help google and other major search engines pulls your content from your website

-Google Analytics Dashboard for WP start a blog, go viral

-Pinterest Pin It Button On Image Hover And After Post & Page Content start a blog

-SumoMe

-XML Sitemap & Google News feeds start a blog, go viral

Don’t understand how to add a plugin? Watch this SUPER simple video.

 

Adding the Pinterest Pin it Button on your website will enable every picture to be pinned. It makes it super hassle free for your visitors to pin your pictures and trust me, if it isn’t easy your visitors will not make the effort.

SumoMe is amazing. You can do so much with it. I have 5-6 free products with this company. But basically you can make welcome mats which pop up as soon as a visitor comes on to your site or post and it asks if they want to subscribe. I’ve had great success with this and a 12% conversation rate. meaning, every 12 visitors out of 100 subscribe. I also have another bar added on the very top of my page from “Hellobar” and it also gets subscriptions.  I’m unsure if that link takes you straight to my account, but as you can see, it’s only been installed 5 days and the conversation rate is very very low. Over 4,923 views & only 23 emails it has collected. I would suggest adding the welcome matt from SumoMe for maximum subscriptions. I’ve only had my welcome mat installed for a month now exactly, and I’ve had over 399 Subscribers ( I had a few other mats open, so I have more subscribers than that ) But those subscribers were Just from my first mat you see when you pop on my site.

Through SumoMe, you can also add sharing options. See my set of blue social media icons on my pages/posts? You can choose the color, how big and what font they have. You can also decide if you want your icons to show the world your share count.  There is so much more you can do with Sumome, but these are the big ones.

Lastly, XML Sitemaps. This is huge. You need to add this plugin to your website. It indexes your blogs & pages to google. So here’s where the SEO comes into part. Before posting a blog, make sure your keywords are an par & you have a green light on your yoast plugin. Once done downloading this plugin, it gives you step-by-step instructions on how to add it. It’s very simple, but effective.

Alright…. so that is it for the MUST HAVE plugins that I use currently. But it could change in the future. I’m very happy with the success I’ve had so far with implementing these few plugins and SEO.

How To Go Viral On Social Media

I’m just going to graze over this topic as I’ve already written a post here. But here are the few steps to maximizing your exposure on social media. Start a blog, go viral. DIY Start a blog, Easy start a blog

1. Facebook

2. Instagram

3. Twitter

4. Pinterest

There are more apps you can use, but these are the highest ranking social media places you need to be posting. About 15% of my traffic comes from Facebook. I know, you’re alarmed, right? Most people think since we started off with a bigger following on Facebook that most of my readers are from there. But no, only around 15%. Still, that 15% is awesome. Posts get shared and even weeks or months after you’ve posted the blog, I’ll get hits from it as posts are still circulating. I am part of a blogging group as well and it’s such a nice community as we can ask for advise and help.

I don’t get a ton of traffic from Instagram, but it’s important that you grow this following as it only helps with getting brands to hire you!

I receive about 6% of my traffic from twitter. I have to be honest though. I didn’t really understand how to use it up until 6 weeks ago. So my followers are very low at 392. Still, great place to post links & get exposure.

PINTEREST! 25% of my readers come from pinterest. You need to make sure you have beautiful pictures on this outlet and pin worthy content. Here’s my highest pin right now that I get anywhere between 10-40 hits a day on. I didn’t really start utilizing my pinterest up until february 2016 and I’m almost at 2,000 followers.

What Did We Learn?

1. Sign Up with BlueHost & WordPress
2. Pick A Domain Name
3. Pick A Theme
4. Add The Above Plugins
5. Market On Social Media

Hope this blog helped you in creating your very own outlet to get your thoughts out & inspire people. Please let me know if there’s anything that I can add, or anything you love about it!

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