With a New Year and decade upon us, your thoughts might have turned to new beginnings or fresh starts and you might have even considered a new hobby such as photography or writing. If this is something that has crossed your mind, then starting up a blog would be the perfect opportunity to explore this new interest.
A blog allows you to be creative and gives you a place to document the things happening in your life, whether you’re traveling the world or embarking on a new adventure with a little one in tow. Once you’ve decided what to blog about, you then need to go about setting the blog up.
If you’re unsure where to start, keep reading as this post will act as a guide on how to set up a blog.
How do you set up a blog?
Choose a domain
Before you begin your blogging journey, you will need to decide on a domain. A domain is your blog’s URL so make sure you pick something relevant to you, your brand, or the topics you want to talk about. Domains vary in price and you’ll need to make sure the domain you want is in use. These can be purchased from sites like GoDaddy or 123-reg.
Decide on a platform
For new bloggers, it’s best to use a platform that is simple yet versatile and a lot of bloggers opt for WordPress. Bloggers prefer this platform as it’s easy to navigate with plenty of online resources that provide helpful information. Other easy platforms include Blogger, Squarespace, and Wix but have a look around and see which one is best for you.
Pick some plugins
If you’re looking to add certain features to your website but you don’t know anything about coding then you can find a range of plugins for your WordPress blog that will make things easier for you. If you’re looking to improve your onsite SEO and optimize your content for target keywords, then Yoast SEO is a brilliant plugin. WordFence is another great plugin that includes features such as malware scans, login protection, and firewall protection.
Track and improve your blog’s performance
If you’re producing good content you will start to build up an audience, which will drive traffic to your site and your domain authority will begin to increase. But how can you track your blog’s performance and improve it?
Use Google Analytics
Using Google Analytics is a great way to track your blog’s performance as it provides various insights on how users find your site and how they use it and you can also find out information such as the age and gender of the users.
Understand keyword research
Keyword research is important for your blog as it allows you to discover the terms that your users are searching for and helps to optimize your content for search engines. You can create content around these terms and even work them into existing blog posts. It’s worth noting that if a keyword is too popular, then it’s unlikely you will rank for this on search engines, so select another keyword or phrase to give you the edge.
Domain authority (DA) was developed by Moz and is a ranking metric that predicts how well a site will rank and is measured on a scale of 1 to 100. So if your site is closer to the 100 marks, you will rank higher on search engines and receive more traffic, which is why it’s important to improve your DA score. There are many things you can do to help increase your blog’s DA, such as gaining high-quality links, creating relevant content, and improving your site’s overall SEO.
How to utilize your blog’s social channels
If you’re looking for other ways to drive traffic to your blog then you need to fully utilize your social media channels and engaging with your audience is a great way to do this.
Grow your followers
By growing your social following, it gives your blog a new audience especially if you’re linking blog posts within your social media posts. The best way to increase your following is by being consistent in sharing your content and connecting with your followers. As your timeline will be constantly updating, you should make use of hashtags so that people can find your content. Remember to re-post and retweet other users’ content if it is relevant to your own as it will help increase your social following.
Post regular content
By posting regular content, will not only help you grow your following but can also help promote your new and old blog posts. Each platform needs to be approached accordingly. For example, what works on Twitter may not work on Instagram so it’s important to adjust your social posts to suit each platform.
Hopefully, this guide has given you some insight on how to go about setting up your own blog as well as implementing social media and monitoring your blog’s overall performance.