By Local Loyal Clients LLC
STEPS TO WRITE A BLOG
- Step 1. Choose a Niche.
- Step 2. Blog Title
- Step 3. Register Blog Domain
- Step 4. Setting Up Your Blog
- Step 5. Rank
Writing a blog is easy but starting one can be a little confusing, especially if you haven’t done one before. You can put that fear aside because I’m going to run you through a comprehensive guide of what a blog is, how to start one and how to maximize its potential.
What Is A Blog?
A blog is a personalized platform that shares news, information or perspectives on a particular niche. Anyone can blog from a stay-at-home mom to a one-man start-up company to a full-blown corporation. A blog is made up of a variety of different articles covering particular topics surrounding a specific area of interest. Each article talks about something new while keeping the broader niche in mind. For example, a stay-at-home mom might blog about the difficulties of raising a newborn baby in journal format and share her failures and achievements around raising a child while helping out other moms in the process with tips and info drops. Or, it could be a corporation sharing news on their latest product, say, like a new piece of software that helps remote teams function better. There is no limit as to what a blog can be about, but it does need to be consistent.
Step 1. Choose a Niche.
What Is A Niche?
A niche is a focus on a particular subject area and blog posts explore different angles or areas of the subject area. To give an example, say you come across a blog specializing in neurobiology. Neurobiology here is an umbrella term for the genetic makeup of the brain and the resulting functions. Blog posts associated with neurobiology would then cover different aspects of the brain from how different parts of the brain function to recent scientific discoveries appertaining to a particular region of the brain. For another example of a niche, think of fitness. It’s actually quite a popular niche, so when you search for one, you may come across blog posts covering topics such as body composition, bodyweight versus free weight exercises, etc. That is a niche.
How To Choose A Niche?
When you decide you want to start a blog you ideally want to know what it’s going to be about and that’s your niche. Choosing a niche can be difficult for some and easy for others and the reason for this is the familiarity of the subject you’re going to cover. Life will be easier if you decide to blog about something you know as opposed to something you don’t. Picking a niche you are not familiar with means you’re going to have to do in-depth and intense research to be able to write informative, fresh content on the subject. When you are familiar with your niche, you have an insider’s perspective and a keen understanding of your subject. So, when choosing your niche try to make it something you know and better yet, something you are passionate about. Picking something you’re passionate about will make it easier to research and write posts for, while you may struggle to maintain interest in something you are not passionate about.
Step 2. Blog Title
Choosing Your Blog Title
If you go on any blog on the internet you will see it’ll have a title. Once you’ve chosen your niche you’ll need to think of a title that best reflects the purpose and subject of your blog. While considering it, try to think of keywords that will appear in your blog posts and incorporate them into the title. There’s a reason for this which will be explored later. The thing with titles is they want to be short but catchy, the same as your blog titles. People read the first three words of any title and then miss two or three words in the center and read the last two. It’s called skim reading. To pull your reader in, to get them to read your full title, make it interesting and use power, emotional and empathetic keywords.
When you’ve decided on your title, run it through an online headline analyzer to see how likely it is to catch a reader’s attention (because that’s what you want!). Try to aim for at least 75% in attention-grabbing efficiency. The more impactful the wording, the more likely people will head over to your blog. The same goes for titles (a.k.a headlines).
Step 3. Register Blog Domain
Register For Blog Space
Once you’ve chosen your niche and your title, you’ll want to explore the various domains that host blog space. The most common and popular platforms are WordPress, Medium and Blogger. Have a good read through the internet on what they offer as each is different and as a first-time blogger, you need to know which platform is going to suit your needs. Don’t just read the sites in question, read user reviews as well, the good and the bad. It’s a wise move to learn what you can expect from each platform.
Once you’ve chosen your preferred platform, sign up with them. This is usually a simple process requiring little more than an active email address. Make sure to activate your blogging account through the verification email the host site sends you if they send one – which majority of hosting sites will. When you’ve done this it’s time to set up your blog.
Step 4. Setting Up Your Blog
Tutorial
Since you’re new to blogging there are two things you’re going to want to do before setting up your blog. The first thing is to run through the plans each platform offers (some are called plans whereas others are called upgrades). These plans offer free or paid upgrades that provide a multitude of different things depending on what you need. For now, keep it free so you can find your feet without the cost. The second thing is to run through a site tutorial if one is offered. This will help you immensely in getting orientated with site functions and can take a lot of confusion out of getting your blog up and running.
Themes & Layout
Once you’ve got a handle on the basic functions of the platform, now is the time to select the theme or layout that most reflects how you want to present your blog to your readership. You’re either going to want a landing page or you’re going to want to have multiple blog article excerpts visible as soon as your reader loads the page. It’s up to you. There are a lot of templates to choose from, especially if you go with a paid plan, so have a play about to see which suits your blog the most.
Color
Before you go ahead and designate a color to your blog background, pick a color that compliments the topic. If you’re not sure what color to pick, read up on color psychology. Color psychology influences how much your reader is going to stay on your site, just like how interesting you make the written article, and it’s also going to influence their level of attention when reading the stuff you put out. Readers won’t stay if the color is offputting or hurts their eyes, so choose something friendly.
Font
Like with color, you want to select a readable font. Many blogs have fancy fonts that are impossible to read and this puts readers off. If they see your title or article extract in a difficult to read font, they’ll close the browser tab before they’ve even started to learn what your blog is about. The most basic and widely used font is Times New Roman because it’s friendly on the eyes and easy to read, so stick to something simple. As the creative writing principle goes: less is more.
Your First Blog Article
So, now comes the real work. Writing your first blog post. Right up you should know there are two forms of blog posts: short-form and long-form. A short-form blog post starts at 500 words and ends at 800. A long-form blog post starts at 1000 words and ends at 4000. Long-form blog posts rank higher in search engine results than what short-form does, but more on that later. There are a few things you can do to make your post more appealing to your readers…
Grammar
Every reader that lands on your page will have their own reading level, but even the most basic reader knows bad grammar when they see it and to some readers, it can be offputting. It may even make people doubt what you’re claiming in your posts if they see bad grammar. Unless you’re going to be acting as an authority on a subject, you don’t have to be immaculate but you do need a good command of the common language. Learn the importance of commas, apostrophes and the like so your reader doesn’t become distracted. The same goes for spelling.
Syntax
Syntax is the fluidity of your sentences. Don’t make them long and rambling, otherwise, your reader will get bored and/or confused. Keep them short and their meaning clear. Along with that, don’t have great big blocks of text. In other words, keep your paragraphs short. About five sentences should be the maximum length for a paragraph, two being the minimum.
Another thing to consider when writing is your style. Style can be witty, formal, informative, etc, but what you’re writing about depends on what style you will choose and you will need to select the right one if you either A) want to be taken seriously or B) want to attract certain types of readers. If you’re a stay-at-home mom revealing the ironies of raising a toddler your tone and style would border on witty while writing as a corporation you would probably choose informative with informal overtones.
Step 5. Rank
Ranking Your Blog
Once you have your blog off the ground you’re probably going to want to attract more readers to it and there are a few ways you can do this.
Keywords are the starting point. The more often they appear in a post and a blog, the higher it will rank, but don’t use them so often that it becomes overly repetitive. If you do, your readers will turn away. Typically, you want 3 keywords per 500 words, so in a short-form blog post, you’d have 3 keywords. In a long-form blog post, you could have anywhere between 6 and 12. Keywords will be relevant to the article of the niche you are writing in. The more keywords you have, the higher you will rank.
Search engine optimization is what SEO stands for and it’s not really for beginner bloggers but it is useful once you learn what it is and how it works. In short, SEO reflects the unpaid results of search engine rankings for your blog by increasing the visibility of your site. The main function of SEO goes back to the use of keyword placement, so once you have a handle on keyword management it’s time to start learning more about what SEO has to offer.
So, that’s how you set up and start your first blog. It sounds like a lot of work but it is fun and with enough work, can be very rewarding.
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