Starting a Blog? Do These 5 Things First

So you’ve decided you want to start a blog…congrats! You’re probably feeling a mix of emotions: excited, unsure, confused, liberated, uneasy, but oh so excited. Now comes the fun part – actually starting the blog.

But don’t jump in just yet. I can’t stress enough that it’s probably not the best idea to buy a domain name or URL on a whim. Of course, you absolutely can do that, but I wouldn’t advise it until you have a well thought out plan.

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Chance are you want to make money with your blog. If you’re doing it to fun – that’s great too, but why not try to make some money doing the work you’re already planning to do?

HERE ARE 5 THINGS YOU SHOULD DO BEFORE YOU START A BLOG:

RESEARCH.

If you want to make money with your blog, do yourself a favor and see how others are making money with their blogs. My best advice is to read several income reports. That’s right, some bloggers actually post what they earn from their blogs and how they’ve earned it. Pretty neat, huh? That’s what really got me excited when I started researching – and still gets me excited to this day. You’ll get a ton of ideas on how to optimize your blog in order to monetize it, while writing about what you love.

OUTLINE YOUR BLOG NAVIGATION.

You probably know what you want the general direction of your blog to be, but actually laying it all – that can be a bit overwhelming. Start with the top navigation bar, that is, what are the high-level topics you want to write about? Then, determine the second layer of more in-depth topics. If you’re starting a food blog for example, perhaps you want a baking category for all your recipes for baked goods. You may have your top navigation say “Baking” and then have sub-navigation categories of cakes, pies, and cupcakes.

I went through several navigation drafts before I landing on the one you see now. The good news is, if you do this before you actually start your blog, it’ll be much easier to plug in the navigation terms when you go to make your blog. And, it will help you determine a fitting blog template to use based on your navigation layout. I should also mention that you should not stop there.If you’re planning to have a footer, figure out which terms you want to go there, too.

WRIATE AT LEAST 15 POSTS.

This one is so important. If you want your blog to have a .com address, which I would recommend if you want to try to monetize your blog, you’re going to be paying some upfront costs. Sure, it could be as low as $3/month but why even start that if you have zero content to publish? By writing several blog posts up front, you’ll be able to post those all at once when you start your blog and have a more legit-looking blog when you begin promoting it. Fortunately, on many occasions, your blog content will overlap into multiple categories, thus making your blog appear fuller with less content. Score. This is awesome because as you’re just starting out, building quality content takes the most time and you’ll be able to optimize your content by posting it in more than one category.

PICK A BLOG NAME.

It’s not wise to go out and buy the first domain name you think of that hasn’t already been swiped up. Choosing a blog name may seem super easy, but there are so many bloggers who think they have the perfect blog name, buy it, and then regret it later. Take some time to think about the name of your blog. Better yet, as you’re writing your blog posts, see where your creative mind takes you. What do you tend to want to write most about? Where do you see your blog going in five years?

Sure, you may love your college years and want to blog about college life, but what happens when you graduate? You won’t have much left to blog about on www.collegelifewithmarly.com (yes, that’s fictional and only for example!). You get the general idea though. Don’t rush on this important decision; take some time to think about it. The blogosphere will still be here tomorrow. Oh, and make sure the domain name isn’t already taken. Do a quick google search. You’d be surprised at how many other people think like you, and you don’t want to get your heart set on one URL only to find out it’s already taken.

CHECK SOCIAL MEDIA.

If you want the URL on your blog’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. accounts to say your blog name (i.e. facebook.com/abrickhome, make sure you do your due diligence first. Check all social media accounts to make sure the URL you want isn’t taken. Just because your blog name hasn’t been used doesn’t mean it’s not in use on social media.