What to Do Before You Even Start Your Blog

So maybe you've heard of blogging before. Writing about something you love, or anything in general really. Sounds interesting right? And you may be able to make money from it?! Count me in! But before you get ready to publish that first blog post, there are a few things you should do first. These tips don't exactly have to go in this order, but there are some things that make more sense to complete consecutively. (Like step one should really go first!)

1) Pick a Niche

What is a niche? A niche is the main topic that you choose to write about. For example, I run a crafting blog. You could also be a lifestyle blogger, a mommy blogger, a food blogger... the list is literally endless. Do one Google search for blogging niches, and you'll she what I'm talking about!

Now with that being said, you don't have to choose a niche if you don't want to. There are plenty of (successful) bloggers out there who write about a little bit of this and that. But even then, they usually still have some type of theme that their readers can expect. This is why you want a focus for your blog, so that readers will know exactly what you're about and will want to come back! If they have no clue, and you write about a topic that they could care less for, chances are they won't be back.

2) Pick a Hosting Website

So once you've picked out your niche, you need to figure out where you'll be hosting your blog. There are quite a few hosting websites out there— Wix, Squarespace and Wordpress are the most popular ones. Personally, I've been on both Wix and Wordpress, and I can say Wordpress is a lot easier to use for beginners. Wix in the designing stage is a lot more involved and intended for a new blogger who has no idea what they're doing (AKA me), and, honestly, just all around it's harder to navigate. You also can't pre-schedule posts on Wix like you once could, which is essential in my blogging game. With Wordpress, I have three posts a week scheduled for the next 11 days! I can write it, set it and forget it! I'll be at school when I get the notification that my blog post has been published. When I was with Wix I could never even remember to post it! Such a shame really.

3) Come up with Ideas

Did you think the next bullet point was going to be "Post Your First Post?" No! Before you do that, you actually have to have some ideas—preferably a lot. What I like to do is stay at least two weeks ahead in blog posts, which I can do with the schedule tool in Wordpress! It gives me time to juggle all the other things that blogging comes with. Email lists, crafting (for my specific blog). I also craft product for my Etsy, write on here, go to school and have a YouTube as well! It's a lot, so I try to atomize what I can.

Anyway, a good idea would be to come up with lots and lots of topics, and organize them into a list that you can pull from when you need to. I usually try to come up with new ideas every time I blog, but if one day I simply can't come up with an idea for the life of me, I always have my list of ideas at hand.

4) Design Your Blog!

Now that you've done all of that, you get to start the designing part! This part can get complicated, and you're likely to want to spend hours and hours to tweak the smallest things, searching through tons of templates but I recommend not doing that. The design of your blog is important, don't get me wrong but it isn't the most important part. Your content is. I recommend picking a template and making your blog something you like, and is easy to navigate, but then move on. Working on your content in the beginning is more important. Well... it's always important but your readers are going to be more focused on your content than if your header has Helvetica or Comic Sans font.

5) Learn from Other Bloggers

Something I never knew in the beginning of my blog is that there are so many bloggers willing to teach you how to blog. From master classes, to blog posts to sending you tips in your email lists—all for free. Of course there are tons of paid courses you can take for blogging, but I personally don't have the money to shell out for blogging classes. It may be a good idea for you, but if you don't have the funds, there are endless free tips to learn from fellow bloggers. Even bloggers not in your niche still can teach you general tips! So get to searching!

6) Write (a few!) Posts!

Now that you've come up with all your ideas, it would probably be a good idea to write a few posts. Remember how I said I like to stay a few posts ahead? When you first start you blog and you don't have a ton of blogging things to worry about, it is still a good idea to keep up with posting. You want to remain consistent in your posts and life can still get in the way. Or you could be spending all your time learning about how to blog better. (I'm still constantly learning about how to improve!) In my opinion, you can never be "too prepared" for your blog. There is just no such thing. And if you get in the habit to get ahead in the start, that will help the stress you may feel later to keep up with posts.

7) Publish your first post!

After you have done all of that, you should be ready to publish the first post that you've been so excited to post!

8) Want more?

If you want more tips like this, keep an eye on my page as I will be posting lots more tips for you guys! If you want to check out my blog, you can go here to do that. Thanks for reading!