Sharing is caring!

Blogging Tips and Tricks for Beginners

You have decided! You are starting a blog today!

It’s going to be great! How exciting!

But before you get too excited, you may want to consider these 10 things before you get started.

Starting a blog is hard work!

Nowadays anyone can create a blog in a few simple steps. However, if you would like to build a successful and profitable blog, you need to set yourself on the right path.

The internet is flooded with information about starting a blog. Yet many articles and blog posts fail to mention many of these basic things that should be considered before you ever start writing your first blog post.

**This post may contain affiliate links. Which means if you purchase something through one of my links, I may receive a small commission with no extra cost to you. For more information, see my disclosures here.

1. Start off on the right foot from the beginning, with a self-hosted blog

For most people, money is always a struggle. However, if you have any inkling that you want to make money with your blog in the future, then this is where spending the money now and starting a blog off on the right foot will be totally worth it!

Having total control over your content, your site’s appearance and how you can monetize your site in the future is well worth the money spent now on purchasing a domain name and finding a hosting provider.

I purchase all of my domains through Namecheap. Tech Girl Help Desk is hosted with Bluehost. Other popular hosting service providers include HostGator, GoDaddy, SiteGround, and WPEngine.

Check out my post on the differences between WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org for some of the pros and cons of being self-hosted versus using a free blogging platform.

2. Strive to be genuine

When you are first starting a blog, it is so easy to get caught up in all the hype. Trying to write and be like other successful bloggers you admire. No matter how great other bloggers may be, it’s far better to be yourself.

People know when you are being fake. You may be able to occasionally pull off trying to write like someone else, but eventually, people will figure out when you are not being yourself.

People crave authenticity. By being authentic and real, you can build trust with your audience. They want to get to know the real person behind the blog. This is how you will find and connect with your tribe of people.

Be yourself. Provide value to your readers. Listen to your audience. They will tell you what they are interested in and what they want to read about.

It may take time to find your blogging voice when you are first starting a blog but if you are striving to be genuine and sincere, it will come.

3. Your audience is NOT your family & friends

Unless you are blogging to just to express yourself. Or to keep an online journal. Or to document a special occasion, like a wedding, or the birth of a child, or a special vacation, chances are your audience is NOT your family and friends.

As an aspiring professional blogger, understand that there is no long-term future for your business if the core products and services you want to offer are only going to be shared with family and friends.

At the very beginning of your blogging journey, before you even start writing. Find out who is your ideal reader. Take the time to craft your avatar.

Create an imaginary person with all the qualities and facets of your ideal reader so you can be clear who you are speaking to when you write.

You just may find that your reader is a lot like you were 6 months…a year…or two years ago.

4. Create a schedule you can stick to

Building anything of value requires lots of time. Time to build it. And time to just get all the things done. Starting a blog is no different.

In the beginning, you are excited and on fire to get started. You may have 100s of ideas running through your head that keep you up at night. You start thinking you will write a blog post EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And it’s going to be AWESOME!

Sorry for the reality check…but will that really be sustainable over the long haul??

It is definitely a good idea to post more often when you first start your blog so that you can build up content. But maybe aiming for something a little more realistic, like 2-3 times a week, is a more sustainable option.

Letting your readers know what to expect from you and when is key. Posting quality content consistently is much more important than posting inferior content on a more frequent basis.

5. Blogging is hard work if you want to make it profitable

You may have gotten interested in blogging because you have seen and read lots of impressive income reports and success stories about bloggers who have made it big.

And think, wow, this sounds like an amazing opportunity.  But it is important to keep it real too. It is possible to earn a living blogging, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

These bloggers put in tons of sweat equity to get to the point of where they can quit their day jobs and become a full-time blogger.

They didn’t just throw up a website, write a few blog posts and sprinkle in a few affiliate links and just sit back and watch the money roll in.

Building a profitable blog requires lots of work, especially at the beginning. If you are not tech savvy (and sometimes, even if you are!), there will be a huge learning curve just to get your site up and running. Then you have to continuously stay on top of the latest trends and updates in the blogosphere and social media world.

You need to maintain a consistent presence with your blog and brand. You can’t write a blog post one week and then have radio silence for a few months and expect readers to stick around.

Blogging is one of those things where the rewards are directly associated with the effort you put forth.

6. Avoid using images from Google!!

Grabbing the perfect image from Google is tempting and seems pretty harmless when you have no idea where else to get suitable images for your blog.

But the consequences of ‘borrowing’ someone else’s property can get pretty expensive! Think, lawsuits for copyright infringement, which come with hefty fines if you are found guilty.

Most everyone these days have a smartphone, many of which happen to have a pretty good camera included with them. Consider taking a basic photography course to improve your photo-taking skills so that you can use your own photos.

If taking a photography course is not something you are ready to add to your plate at the moment, then look into using some of the free stock photo sites, like Pexels, Unsplash or Pixabay, to name a few, that have huge selections of free to use stock photos that are great options for someone just starting a blog.

You can then edit or resize any of those images using online photo-editing tools like PicMonkey or Canva.

7. Build an email list from day one

This is not my first rodeo when it comes to blogging. And along my way learning the ropes of the blogosphere I have learned just how important it is to start building an email list from day one!

Your email list is your own! No one can take it away from you.

Having thousands of followers on social media is awesome and can be a great way to further connect with your readers.

But if Facebook or Pinterest or Instagram are all gone tomorrow, you will have no way to connect with all of your followers.

This time around, when I started this blog, I implemented an email service provider from day one!

There are lots of email providers to choose from and some are better than others. But when you are first starting out and money is tight, go with a provider that offers a free service level (up to a certain amount of subscribers), like Mailerlite or MailChimp, is probably the better way to go until you start earning money with your blog.

Once your blog is more established and you are earning money, you can consider upgrading your email service provider to Convertkit or Drip.

8. Write for your audience, not yourself

Most people get started blogging because they want to tell their story. And that is all well and good.

But chances are you are not going to make money if you JUST plan on writing your story. You need to give your reader a reason to want to hear your story.

Knowing your avatar is key! Write so that you provide a service or solve a problem for your reader.

Help them accomplish something they want to do. It doesn’t have to be solving world hunger. It can be something much smaller than that. According to an article written by Darrell Etherington on TechCrunch,

People want to know how to make pancakes, make money, lose weight and boil eggs. People really, really want to know how to kiss, get pregnant, and tie a tie.

So write things that will help your ideal reader solve a problem that you are uniquely qualified to help them with.

9. Learn HTML and CSS

WordPress and other content management systems (CMS) make it possible to create beautiful websites without ever looking at a line of code. And that is great!

But having a basic understanding of HTML and CSS can be a huge advantage for bloggers. Once you are familiar with these skills, you will be able to edit the appearance of your articles by hand or even fix simple errors on the blog.

You can easily start learning online for free.  Team Treehouse, W3Schools, and Codecademy are great online resources for learning basic coding skills.

10. Build or become part of a blogging community

I have found that a lot of bloggers are introverts (myself included!) and so the idea of building a blogging community sounds terrifying.

However, being a part of a community of other people who are doing and learning and experiencing the same things that you are doing is a great support system.

There are many groups on social media and online where you can be part of a community of fellow bloggers.

These blogging communities can be great resources of help when you are overwhelmed and trying to figure out various aspects of blogging that are new to you.

To wrap up

Blogging is fun! You will enjoy this journey of starting a blog!

It can be a great way (for all us introverts) to find a voice. It can also become a great way to earn a living.  But it requires hard work, consistency, willingness to learn new things and patience.

Focus your efforts on being genuine and being yourself. Provide a service or help your reader solve a problem and they will keep coming back for more.

Are there other things you feel are important to consider before starting a blog? Let me know in the comments below.

Blogging Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Sharing is caring!