I can feel the excitement from here, you have read all blog posts on earth and you’ve decided to start a blog! Awesome!
Super excited for you. That’s exactly how I felt when I decided to launch my blog (or I should say blogs!).
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t follow all these steps and that’s what will help you out today!
13 Important Things to do Before Your Blog Go Live!
What I love about blogging is the fact that we can all learn from each other, isn’t that amazing?
I Love it!
Let me take you through a quick preview of what I’ll be sharing with you:
- Educate yourself about blogging basics.
- What’s your blog niche again?
- Determine, Create and Test your Branding.
- Get inspired and come up with few blog posts before launch.
- Create a simple scheduling plan to determine how often you will be posting
- Go Screaming: “Free Stuff Here“!
- Sign up for an Email Provider
- Choose the best place to host your blog
- What’s the best theme for your awesome new blog
- Sign up to few social platforms & build following
- Sign up for automation tools
- Set up your blog or get a developer to set it up for you
- Have Fun Blogging!
Without further ado let’s get into this so needed tips on things to do before your blog goes live:
Educate yourself about blogging basics
First thing first, If you want to succeed in blogging you need to learn as much as you can in order to get the best results.
What are some ways you could educate yourself when it comes to blogging?
Glad you asked!
Take some time and go through blogs that teach you how to blog, by that way you will learn so many things from people that have experienced so much more than you.
Another thing you could do is to listen to podcasts! I love listening to them because you can be working on regular stuff and listening to helpful blog podcasts.
You need to have a basic knowledge of simple SEO tactics for the long run, how to write naturally aka finding your blogging voice and even writing valuable and quality content.
You always want to know what you’re doing in order to do it best.
What’s your blog niche?
I mentioned this in my 17 Deadly Blogging Mistakes post. Finding your niche from the very first moment you decided you wanted to start a blog is crucial.
Not choosing any niche that brings money. I’ve found that it doesn’t help at all.
Popular posts you might enjoy!
How To Promote Your Content And Grow A Following
How To Start A Blog With The Right Mindset
You need to pick one that excites you. That alone will keep you going during days that you don’t feel like writing a post! Because trust me, I’ve had those days.
Determine, Create and Test your Branding (logo, colors, fonts etc.)
Branding plays an important role in every blog’s life.
Take a moment to brainstorm depending on your niche and the name of your blog. Choose colors that match the niche of your blog and your color taste.
You don’t want to have a blog that makes you feel like “yuck” when you see it just because of the colors.
Fonts also play a big role. You will have to create graphics in order to share them on Pinterest or any social media.
Stick to a default theme using the colors of your logo and brand.
Get inspired and come up with few blog posts before launch.
I made the mistake to launch this blog with just one blog posts. Luckily no one knew much about my blog so i didn’t have lots and lots of traffic with no content!
What you want to do is go over on Pinterest and read related posts and get some inspiration.
Write few blog posts enough to fill up your blog with some content. This will help your blog look fuller rather that people seeing just a post or two.
Create a simple scheduling plan to determine how often you will be posting (consistency)
Consistency is something i work on improving daily, so should you.
I’ve found that batching helps me produce more content so batch up your content base on what you’re working on now.
If you’re creating your blog post thumbnails or graphics create for multiple posts at once so you don’t go from one post writing to editing photos.
Then go ahead and plan your posting schedule. How often will you be posting per week?
This will help you have a general idea of your content and keep your focus on posting on the right days.
Consistency is powerful!
Go Screaming: “Free Stuff Here”! (Create a simple freebie)
You need to come up with a cool freebie that your audience will love.
Why? When you offer something free people like that. That’s a great way to get people to sign up to your email list which in the future will be more than what you could expect. So once you come up with the general idea make the first draft and start creating it.
For your cover or even the entire freebie, i recommend you using Canva which is an amazing tool to use.
Sign up for an Email Provider
I started with Mailchimp and after i hit the 2k mark i had to pay in order to keep using it for campaigns and so on. Later on, I discovered Mailerlite which i fell in love with.
If you haven’t decided yet on which one to go for i strongly advise you to play a bit with Mailerlite and you will love how easy it is to work with and use for you first or even multiple opt-in forms.
Choose the best place to host your blog
When it comes to hosting your blog i always think you should start small and work your way up. In my how to start a blog post i share how to sign up for bluehost which is fairly cheap and they have some great deals for bloggers.
You can check it out here.
What’s the best theme for your awesome new blog
I fell into this and got an amazing theme for this blog and mind you it was premium one, that means i paid for it and i ended up getting another one.
I didn’t plan ahead of time my niche so it came into conflict with my final decision.
The theme i’m using right now is from Themeforest and i love it.
You see?
You need to also like what theme you’re getting so do a research on themes that will match your blog.
Sign up to few social platforms & build following (Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Twitter)
Yep as much as tiering it is, you need to sign up for few but good social media platforms.
You don’t need to signup for all of them. You can fairly choose 2 or even 3 and build a following there.
This way people will find ways to connect with you even when they are not signed up to your email list.
Sign up for automation tools (Tailwing&Boardbooster (Pinterest),Later (Instagram), Buffer (Facebook,twitter,Google+))
Automation tools are such lifesavers.
Before i started using them i would spend hours sharing and posting and making sure i’m active on social media.
I recommend you sign up for few of them such as:
- Tailwing & Boardbooster (Pinterest)
- Later (Instagram)
- Buffer (Facebook, Twitter, Google+)
This tools will give you a breathing space and help you stay active on all these social media networks while you take care of important things like yourself, family, writing valuable content.
You should also interact with your followers by answering questions and showing your presence once in a while.
No one want’s to follow a ghost blogger!
Set up your blog or get a developer to set it up for you
You’re getting closer to your goal. Next, your want to take your time to set up your blog and use all the resources and tips above such as your theme, branding, and content.
This will bring all the pieces together and create a power-packed blog ready for success!
Have Fun Blogging!
My last tip for you would be to have fun with your blog.
It can lead to depression when you are always over your blog checking who read your posts and who unsubscribed.
What i want you to know is that not everyone that comes across your blog will stay and become a follower, many will not and that’s even better for you because you will end up having the perfectly right people as followers.
So that will be my tip for you, have fun blogging!
