How to Start Blogging in a Few Easy Steps
I’ve started receiving quite a few emails over the past few weeks asking me how we started blogging and asking for my advice on how to become a blogger. It’s always lovely to receive emails from people who have been reading our blogs and have felt inspired to start blogging themselves. Here I wanted to highlight what we did to start blogging and how you can do it too.
How we started blogging
First of all a bit of background. I started blogging in September 2016. I had never had a public blog before, although I had used Live Journal in the past to keep a sort of day to day journal at different periods of my life, albeit sporadically. I’ve always been passionate about writing. I used to write fiction as a young child and I would read and read and read. I adored studying English at school, although as I went through high school, my interests turned to History and languages instead.
I am a member of a Mummy Facebook group and quite often other mums would ask me to share how I got our baby to nap so well during the day. A Twitter buddy suggested I write down some actionable tips in a blog post and as I had a lot of time to kill (I was coming to the end of my Grey’s Anatomy boxset) I thought why not. So I created a WordPress account and started writing.
Our first ever blog post got a few visits and I had a great reaction from my community of Mummy friends on Instagram, so I kept writing and publishing. I joined a Parent Bloggers Facebook group and started learning about the wonderful world of blogging. I quickly realised it’s not as simple as just pressing publish and hoping for the best; there is so much more to do. From promotional work on social media to interacting with other bloggers so that they will mention your blog and of course the lure of working with brands.
The next thing I decided to do was to go self hosted, which I did at the end of October. This basically meant my web address became mummytodex.com instead of mummytodex.wordpress.com. This process was a lot easier than I thought and I managed to migrate all of my old posts over to the new site and continue blogging within a few hours. I now had more freedom on how my blog looked as well as being able to monetize the blog by placing adverts. A few days later, I received my first email from a brand who wanted to work with me.
I suppose for a lot of people, the idea of writing a blog and making money out of it is the dream. It certainly is very possible. We make thousands of pounds each month from our blogs, though I’m afraid to say though that this is a long process that can take many months or years to do. And it’s a lot of work.
How to start blogging – a step by step guide
- Open a WordPress account and start writing. What is it you are passionate about? What do you have to offer? Write and write and write!
- Open up social media accounts and start interacting with other bloggers and your audience. Twitter is fab for meeting other bloggers; Instagram is great for meeting other influencers and Pinterest is a mixture of the two. Facebook for me though, is key. Who doesn’t have a Facebook account? Only some people tweet and only certain people pin, but 99% of your audience will have Facebook. Set up a Facebook Page in your blog’s name. It’s really easy to do and keeps your blog separate from your personal profile.
- Start publicising your posts. Download a tweet scheduler and tweet your latest blog post every day. Take beautiful pictures, edit them on Canva and pin them on Pinterest. Share your posts in relevant Facebook groups. Don’t be scared or ashamed to do this. Shout about your great content from the rooftops.
- You’ve done all of the above so now ask yourself, are you enjoying the blogging experience and are ready to take the next step? It’s time to go self-hosted. There will be an initial cost (it was around £40 for me for three years of hosting) but it will be worth it when brands start contacting you to work together. It may also be worth the money to purchase a beautiful theme so that your blog stands out from the crowd. Look on Etsy, there’s some gorgeous themes out there.
- Keep writing, keep publicising and enjoy the experience. If you have any more questions you can always email us!
