Everyone’s doing it! Just do a Google search and you can read about it. Someone somewhere is writing a blog.

And now you’re jumping in and starting your own blog. You have no idea how to start a personal blog, but you’re ready!

Wait just a minute before you register your domain or sign-up with a hosting service. There are a few things you should consider before starting a blog and  completely immersing yourself in your blog.

First, figure out why. So many bloggers start out writing their blog as a daily diary. Folks, most readers won’t read the daily mail at home much less the daily musings of a stranger online.

Bloggers often start out with a personal blog but many eventually convert to a business-focused blog

Consider a how-to blog that shows readers steps involved in creating various business forms or a blog focused on digital marketing. The sky’s the limit for your blog and your site when you engage readers beyond the goings-on in your personal world.

Of course, eventually you should consider monetizing your blog, but for now, let’s focus on getting started.

Read our starting a blog tips before you hit “publish.”

Things to Consider on How to Start a Personal Blog

Once you figure out the purpose for your blog, move on to the next step and narrow down your blog niche.

What Will Your Niche Be?

Most new bloggers start with a broad topic. The result? Their blog gets swallowed up by the competition.

By the year 2020, the blog menu in the U.S. will consist of 31.7 million blogs. The topics for those millions of blogs consist of topics on everything.

Standing out in a tightly packed space requires an extra measure of savvy, which we’ll discuss later, but first things first.

Start with a topic you enjoy talking and learning about. Expertise isn’t required but love for research and persistence in drilling down is essential.

Next, use Google trends and keyword analysis tools and test the market for your proposed niche. Google trends measures how frequently users enter a specific search term. Keyword planners can help you generate thousands of keywords but they can also give you topic ideas.

Your goal: Find a niche with high reader interest, low competition, and profitability. Next, choose your platforms.

What Platforms Will You Use?

Before it goes public, you need a place where you create and manage content for your blog. WordPress is free and preferred by most professional bloggers. But don’t isolate your content on WordPress.

Medium and LinkedIn are both platforms, which welcome new and engaging content. Facebook is another option. Post your content on multiple platforms but at the same time, be selective.

This is where you’ll need to know your topic and the audience on the various social media platforms. Does your topic make sense for those readers? If you weren’t aware, LinkedIn users expect a completely different type of content than those using Facebook.

The next step in understanding how to start a personal blog is deciding how often you should introduce new content.

How Often Will You Post?

Two things drive how often you post to your blog: readers and SEO.

Readers devour new content like they’re eating at a buffet. Consistency is key and your readers will expect new content at least once a week. Once you start building your reader base, you can send email alerts whenever you post fresh content.

SEO is all about driving traffic to your blog. The more posts, the more traffic. Posting 16 times each month may be the happy number that helps you capture the most traffic.

Be careful with this though because sometimes the pressure for more volume causes content to suffer.

How to Start a Personal Blog Pro-Tip: While post frequency is important, so is blog post length. 1,700 words is the luck number. You can come in slightly above or below, but that number of words should be your target.

We’ve given you answers to some basic questions most people ask about how to start a personal blog. Continue reading for some of our top tips.

Top Starting a Blog Tips

Starting a blog can be easier if you implement a few of the following tips.

Determine a Cadence and Stick to It

Readers expect quality articles and quantity drives traffic.

Content volume, or cadence, drives every aspect of communication within your organization. Whether you’re a one-man show or a large corporation, content is the fuel.

Create goals for content volume goals realistic outcomes. Start with the minimum volume you can commit to and scale volume as you grow.

Reach Optimum Blog Post Length

A few years ago, 300-500 word posts could rank high on Google. Today, longer posts get more attention. Even so, opinions vary on acceptable post length.

Take into consideration the purpose of the post. Purpose directly affects post length. Also, look at your competition—how long are their posts?

What about your writing capacity? Some writers can write volumes about one tiny topic while others can barely write a paragraph.

Your challenge is filling longer posts with quality content rather than fluff.

Always Be Asking and Answering Questions

Blogs with the most readership share a common thread: curiosity.

Satisfy your reader’s curiosity by answering questions. Pique their curiosity by asking them questions.

Being curious means being fascinated by things bigger than ourselves. Don’t be afraid of asking questions—opening Pandora’s box isn’t always a bad thing.

Stand Out

With a projected 30 million plus blogs in the year 2020, how does a blogger stand out in the crowd? Out of all the starting a blog tips on standing out, these rank highest:

• Craft killer headlines. They whet a readers appetite.
• Professional design. Successful blogs use clean, professional lines and incorporate their brand.
• Content

There are a lot of boring blogs out there and most of them share a common characteristic: useless content.

Create Useful Content

No one enjoys reading re-hashed content and blogs are full of it.

Useful content answers readers’ questions or gives advice on solving a problem. It’s also accurate and verifiable. When you have a proven track record of providing accurate content, you gain your reader’s trust.

Creating content isn’t a passive activity. Readers yearn for fresh and useful content, which means the blog needs regular attention.

Do Not “Set it and Forget it”

Your blog is not an infomercial product with a timer you can set and come back later hoping for amazing results. The numerous hawkers of blog writing courses make it sound like blogging is the magic road to passive wealth with minimum work involved.

Don’t fall for one of the many get rich quick by blogging schemes.

Growing your blog requires your attention and lots of it. That means writing fresh and consistent content. You’ll also spend time keeping up with analytics and tweaking your writing and marketing strategies.

Always Consider SEO

Blogging for SEO purposes allows your website to stay alive. It shows your website was updated recently, and that you care about the quality of content put out to your readers and potential customers.

SEO Allows You to Target Certain Keywords

Blogging makes it easy for people to locate you, even when they aren’t sure who you are.

Since many people use Google and other search engines to learn more about the products and services they’re interested in, they’re likely to come to a blog that has plenty of these. That’s why if you know your niche, it’s important to find out about the keywords people use when researching that topic.

If your niche is plumbing, talk about different types of services offered, and use keywords such as “fix a broken toilet”. People looking for solutions to those problems find your blog and website, thereby bringing them one step closer to you.

Even when blogging seems difficult, it’s important to keep up with it. Continuous efforts drive people to your site, resulting in long-term success.

SEO Allows You to Target Readers by Location

Using local SEO on your blog shouldn’t be discounted. That’s because when people seek solutions to their problems, they search not only for keywords but their location as well.

In keeping with the plumbing example, someone looking for ways to “fix a broken toilet” adds the city and state to their query in the search engine, hoping to find local results. If your blog uses blogging for SEO and includes local cities that match what the user is looking for, you’ve increased your chances of ranking higher.

Keywords such as “fix a broken toilet” seem vague and could lead to results almost anywhere in the world. But putting in the names of cities your blog makes you much more accessible to the reader and even more likely they’ll read your content looking for help.

SEO Helps You Stay Ahead of the Competition

There’s one thing about blogging for SEO purposes: it remains as a popular form of marketing for many bloggers, across various industries. There are many reasons why bloggers love using SEO to promote their content.

Among them are:

• It’s effective
• It’s a low-cost form of marketing
• It easily reaches readers
• It keeps your blog highly visible

If your competition plans on using it for these reasons, you should, too. Although you might not believe in the power of SEO for your blog yet, trust what’s worked for others, and keep your foot in the door, so your competitors don’t get ahead.

SEO Improves Visibility in Google

There’s no denying the power of becoming a high ranking page on Google. When just a few shorts words or a phrase gets typed into the search engine and you discover that your blog comes out on top, it’s a fact that you’ll profit.

Folks click on links that are usually within the first 1-2 pages of their search results, although those close to the top get the most attention first. This makes your blog a prime target for anyone seeking help.

But how do you get up there? The answer is through consistent blogging for SEO purposes and doing high quality SEO for your blog. Doing so and using targeted keywords brings you closer to results at the top.

This is where most readers end up as they focus on a solution to their problems.

You’ll find yourself climbing the rankings of Google the longer you focus on your blog, and continuously update on a regular basis. This helps Google realize that your site is active and matching up with what folks look for. Even if there are many other blogs just like yours.

With continuous work, you’ll watch your blog reap the benefits at the top of Google’s search index.

SEO Helps Bloggers Get Noticed While Saving Money

Back in the day, advertising in the Yellowpages was a common form of advertisement. Radio, TV, and newspaper ads are still used today, too.

One issue with these forms of advertising is they cost a decent amount of money up front. You can’t always track where your readers heard or found out about you, along with the fact that fewer people use these mediums than they do the internet.

Even if your blog is just starting up, content does wonders. Think about what your potential readers need, and reach out to them with solutions to their problems, and how your content solves them.

Searching Online is Here to Stay

Searching online is simple. With the advent of smartphones, people can be anywhere and find the information they’re looking for.

Because of the convenience our society now relies on, using the internet to find information about everything isn’t going away anytime soon. Armed with this knowledge, use it to your advantage, and help your blog reach the top of the search results for folks seeking help.

Presenting a blog that gets maintained and consistently updated with informative content, you’ll show potential readers how you serve them, and why using your company over that of a competitor is their best option.

Our starting a blog tips give your content an edge and focuses on being as accessible as possible when folks go looking for solutions.

Ready to Start Your Blog?

You’ve heard the rumors about how easy blogging is and you’ve read your share of starting blog tips. After hearing the hype it’s a wonder everyone isn’t reaping the benefits of a successful blog.

Maybe you’ve followed our ideas on how to start a personal blog.

You picked a niche and know your competition. If the statistics are correct, your niche has the potential for profitability.

Platforms aren’t as much of a mystery as they were at first. You’re moving beyond WordPress and dipping your toe in with other social media outlets.

Feedback on the blog’s appearance shows you made the right decision by choosing a professional web design. You’re working on incorporating your brand.

As far as posting, you understand your reader’s need for regular content. You also know those short and pithy posts popular a few years ago, don’t cut it now. Your goal is to write fresh, original, and accurate content.

You’re using your natural sense of curiosity as inspiration for your readers. You write from a place outside of yourself and expect readers will appreciate it. No question is off limits if it gets your reader thinking.

You’re on the road to a rewarding experience with your personal blog but don’t stop at the basics.

Let Us Help

You’re probably wondering what else you could possibly do to take your blog up a notch and capture more traffic. You may even wonder how you can ever measure success. Is it readers or is it money in the bank?

Maybe you wonder if there’s more. Can you branch out and find other places for your message or your products (if you have them)?

Overall, your entire marketing program isn’t static and since your blog is part of the program it isn’t static either. Your blog is a machine with moving parts.

The landscape of digital marketing changes constantly. You can’t rest on your laurels. Players who ignore the future won’t have a spot on the team tomorrow.

No one can be an expert on everything. Our goal is providing tools, guides, and advice for people like you who focus on business growth by offering customers the most helpful content.

We go several steps further than just showing you a few tips on how to start a personal blog.

Our team provides tips and tricks on a wide range of topic including SEO. We can help you fine tune just about any aspect of your digital marketing program.

Follow our blog to stay up to date on the latest and greatest content marketing tips!