7 Tips for Starting a Blog in 2023

Hello everyone! My name is Naomi and on this little blog I share lifestyle content with an emphasis on motherhood and featured guest posts from a group of very talented writers.

This month I celebrated my 5th anniversary on WordPress. I started as a full time blogger who switched to part time after I had a baby, and now I blog mostly as a creative outlet when I have time.

In honor of my Blogiversary, I thought I would share my top tips for starting a blog if you have wanted to give blogging a try, or you want an online journal, or if you’re like me and you want to build an online support system because you don’t have an awesome in person village of support.

1. Just Start

This is probably the most cliché thing and I know everyone always says this, but it is totally true.

I can’t tell you how long I wanted to start a blog, start making YouTube videos and start making TikToks before I actually got brave enough to start. Actually I can, it’s taken me years because getting over the fear of starting always takes me the longest.

I don’t know why but I always have a lot of nervousness about someone I actually know in real life finding out that I like to be creative online in my spare time.

I’ve had to tell myself a few times over the years that blogging makes me happy, so why am I letting the idea of someone I know potentially finding my very small blog and maybe judging me freak me out? Let’s be honest, people I know most likely aren’t looking for my little blog and if they did happen to stumble across it they probably wouldn’t even have an opinion.

I’ve also been held back by the idea of possibly getting online “haters”, however I have found that most people are very supportive and incredibly kind.

2. Self Discipline is Key

Everyone says consistency is the key to building an online platform, but self discipline is one of the building blocks of consistency.

Here is why: The excitement you have from starting your blog and posting for the first time ever will probably be enough motivation for you to keep posting in the beginning. However, it will most likely wear off eventually and if you don’t have self discipline you will either quit all together or start posting so sporadically that it will be impossible to grow your numbers.

This is a terrible business plan and strategy. How can you build anything if you don’t have the discipline to work at it consistently?

By the way, I’m not talking about being disciplined when it comes to other people. We all know how awful it is to let someone else down after you fail to follow through with a commitment, but for some reason we tend to not have as hard of a time letting ourselves down.

Hear me out though, if you don’t have self discipline you will never achieve your goals. This is a basic life principal and it applies whether or not you’re starting a blog.

Remember you can either your best asset or your worst nightmare. Good habits will lead to success and mediocre or even bad habits can lead to burnout, quitting, not meaning deadlines, and letting yourself down.

So find a way to incorporate your goals into your daily routine no matter what. Even 30 minutes a day will get you closer to achieving your goals. Imperfect consistency adds up over time. We are eating elephants and frogs over here not trying to do everything in one day and then totally burning out.

One last thing to remember in the self discipline game is to “clock in and out”. This may seem like a weird concept, but with a traditional 9-5 you know when you need to start working and you’re done. I know of several bloggers who have said they loved blogging so much that they would literally forget to take showers, brush their teeth, check in with family and friends, or do basic housework.

This is not a healthy work-life balance, so do what you love but don’t forget to stop at the end of the day and take care all your other adult responsibilities.

3. Become Best Friends With Lists

Every blogger needs at least 4 lists:

• A brain dump list to get all of your thoughts out of your brain and onto paper.
• A new post ideas list for when you don’t feel motivated, creative, or inspired.
• A daily to do list to keep you on task so you actually get all your work done.
• A running to do list so if you ever have free time you will know exactly how to fill up your extra minutes to get ahead.

4. Learn about SEO Marketing

SEO Marketing is a fancy way of saying key words. Whenever you search for something on Google like “how long do you need to boil eggs to make hard boiled eggs”, Google uses key words and search engine optimization to recommend you a blog post that has to do with what you’re searching for.

So the better your key words are the more Google will recommend your blog, which will drive more traffic to your site.

There are actual courses and experts you can learn from or hire if you need more help understanding how it all works, but that is the basic gist of it. I recommend you go onto YouTube and watch some videos about it because there are a ton of creators who can explain it better than me.

5. Use Pinterest to Promote Your Work

I know a lot of people start with Instagram these days but Pinterest is the way to go.

This is because Pinterest is the only social media platform that also is a search engine. That means it combines SEO marketing to recommend posts, and is a platform where you can build a following that you can interact with everyday through Pins.

Pinterest is also the only social media platform that doesn’t have rules about how many followers you have before you can link your content. This means you can make a pin of your latest blog post and even if you have zero followers, Pinterest will still send anyone who clicks on the link in your Pin to your website.

Every other social media platform will not take your audience directly to your website unless you meet their basic traffic requirements. For example: Instagram requires 10,000 followers before you can unlock the “Swipe Up” feature in Instagram Stories. That number can seem literally impossible when you are starting at zero.

Again there are Coaches, YouTube channels, and other bloggers who offer advice and courses if you want to know more.

6. Email Lists are NOT Dead

I know a lot of people now days say don’t focus on building email lists because nobody will read them or people will only subscribe to get your feee ebook, but email lists are important for one huge reason.

Email has been around for like 40 years and people still use it as a primary mode of communication.

You may think that Instagram or TikTok will be around forever but remember Vine? Probably not unless you’re at least 30 years old. That’s because it went out of business in 2009 and it shocked everyone. Vine was basically TikTok except the videos could only be 8 seconds long. Like TikTok, there were tons of creators who used it to make millions of dollars and some of them literally lost their main stream of income over night when it went under. It was a devastating time to be an online creator.

A similar thing happened with Tumblr. In the olden days (like the early 2000s lol) Tumblr was kind of like a hybrid between a blogging platform and Redit. Again tons of people used it to make their fortunes and when it was bought by Yahoo, a lot of censorship rules were put in place. Once again a ton of creators lost their means to their income overnight and some of them had to literally start over from zero on WordPress or Wix.

I’m telling you these two horror stories to prove to you that your email list is incredibly important. It is the only place you can build up your following and pretty much be guaranteed you won’t loose your entire audience overnight if something happens to your blog or whatever the latest form of social media is.

You don’t have to spam your email list followers or write an ebook and have tons of free products. You can literally just send out a newsletter every once in a while detailing what you’ve been up to with your blog if you want to.

Remember daily content is for Instagram Stories, Reels, or TikTok not your email list, so just pop in and reintroduce yourself every once in a while and you’ll probably be fine.

7. Monetization is How You Make Money

I’m not saying every blog has to make money. In fact there are a lot of us who just need a safe place to share what we’re going through, but if you want to supplement your income or even replace it then you’ll need to pursue monetization.

There are a couple of ways to do this. The first is affiliate programs. You can either reach out to a company you love and ask to be an affiliate, or you can apply to the Amazon Affiliate Program. A lot of people who use social media platforms to make money use this exact program.

Basically you get a link with QR code from Amazon, share it with your followers and if they buy the product using your link you will get a percentage of the original sale price.

This is a good way to monetize your blog especially if you don’t have a ton of traffic yet because its free to sign up, and doesn’t have any page view requirements. A bonus is that you can give your links to anyone you want: your Instagram or Facebook followers, your Great Aunt Mildred who is looking for a new ugly Christmas sweater, your email list followers as an incentive to join your list. Literally anyone.

Ads are another great way to monetize your blog. WordAds and AdSense are two of the most common ad programs that newer bloggers tend to utilize because they require relatively low page views and they tend to be more user friendly than some of the other ad programs.

I like Wordads because you can either be accepted based on how much traffic your blog is getting each month (at least 100,000 page views), or you can automatically be accepted by upgrading to a paid WordPress plan.

Well thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 😅. That is all I have for you today and I will see you in the next one!

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