Step1: Select a concept/topic (content Idea) for your blog
After trying different blog ideas and constantly following successful bloggers around the world, I found that the root-stock of success of a blog is selecting a right concept or Idea. The concept can be about a niche product (physical and digital) or a purpose. The content should explain, educate and help readers in the area of your concept so that the reader can become your followers. The idea may not be unique, but you have unique experience and your voice can be made distinct.
Tips for choosing a blog concept
What is your area of expertise?
What are you passionate about?
What do you enjoy doing?
What are you Interested in learning?
The idea or concept of the blog need not be innovative. But the focus of the blog should be on something. You should love the topic of your blog. You should be more curious and excited about the topic. You should continuously learn about the topic. Otherwise, you will lose interest and it will be difficult for you to create interesting content to your readers.
Example: If you are interested in stock market, you can start a blog in stocks and investment. If you have knowledge in analysis of stocks or gain knowledge on analysis of stocks, you can keep the new content interesting for your followers to read. If you practice investment yourself, you can bring your past experiences to the people so that your blog looks lively.
It is not that you should decide on the blog topic/concept right away. List down all the areas you are interested in. Do analysis on which is going to be trending for next 10 years are so. Blogging is a long term business. To reap the full reward, you need to keep nurturing it and the environment also should be supportive. By choosing a topic/concept which can last for more than a decade, you can grow your knowledge in the area of your interest and help others to grow by showcasing your experience and knowledge in your blog.
More than anything else, you should enjoy sharing your thoughts and experience in your blog. To enjoy blogging one should have at-least anyone of the following reasons to blog:
1. To improve your skill sets in the area chosen
2. To ascertain a spot in the topic chosen for you as an expert.
3. To become self-confident in the area chosen
4. To connect with the experts and like minds in your area of interest
5. To earn from blogging
The best way to start a blog is to choose a niche. What is a Niche?
The word niche refers to a specific topic, subject or category. Most of the websites and blogs provide news and content focusing on some niche (e.g. a blog about football or finance) and online sellers sell products pertain to niche categories often. By focusing on a niche topic or category, you can promote and bring more traffic to your website or blog and retain the visitors as followers. Followers can be targeted as prospects to whom the affiliated products of your niche can be offered.
If your blog is about massive category like finance or technology, you have to struggle to build your followers. If the blog is a niche and focused, (for example: instead of finance, stock investment and instead of technology, android game development) your content will be clearly focused and it will help you generate more content for your audience.
How to choose a niche topic?
Even if you have one or more niche topic that you are interested in, you should look for better possibilities by brainstorming for blog niche ideas. Follow the “niche Ideation” mention to generate a list of topics:
Niche Ideation:
Niche Ideation Step 1: Listing
1. List down all the topics, activities and any stuff that you are interested in.
2. List down the blogs, magazines, books, article, studies etc., you have read and found interesting.
3. List the areas in which you are experienced or had an experience in the past.
4. List the things that you have accomplished in the past.
5. List the common topics you can think of.
After considering the five step niche ideation technique you will have a list. The list will look like something like this.
- Football
- Mobile gaming
- Android development
- Blogging
- Pets
- Automobiles
- Lifestyle
- Painting
- Bike riding
- Farming
- Losing weight
- Debt free life
- Building a website
- Parenting
Niche Ideation Step 2: filtering
Filter the most suitable niche topic based on the following questions.
1. Are you interested in this topic?
2. Do you know about this topic or have experience in the same area?
3. What is the expected life time of the topic in future? – in the next 10 years
4. Is there a competition?
5. Is the topic trending upward? – Google trends
6. Would you be happy to keep writing on this blog topic?
7. Does your blog topic suit evergreen content?
You can prepare a excel sheet like the only below with the list of ideas and questions. Score the questions numbers 1,2,4,5,6&7 as 1/0 for Y/N. For the question number 3 give the number of years 0-10. Total all the answers. The most scored ones can be taken to the next step on deciding niche topic.
| Topics | Are you interested in this topic? | Do you know about this topic or have experience in the same area? | What is the expected life time of the topic in future? In the next 10 years | Is there a ompetition? | Is the topic trending upward? | Would you be happy to keep writing on this blog topic? | Does your blog topic suit evergreen content? | Total score |
| Football | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 14 |
| Mobile gaming | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
| Android development | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| Blogging | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Pets | 0 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 12 |
| Automobiles | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 14 |
| Lifestyle | 0 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 12 |
| Painting | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 14 |
| Bike riding | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| Farming | 1 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| Losing weight | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Debt free life | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Building a website | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Parenting | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
Niche Ideation Step 3: Potential
1. Niche size
Usually the more the keyword ideas is the bigger the size of the niche. Use the keyword search tools available in internet to find the number of related keywords
2. Competition
Search for the related blogs and websites using the top keywords. The blog topic can become successful if the competition is more. Of course, the success goes always with lot of hard work.
You can search using google, twitter and facebook etc., to find the trend.
3. Monetization
Your niche should be monetizable. Test the Blog topic with the following questions
- Whether the competitors are promoting any products and services related to your niche?
- Availability of well-known advertisers in your niche? Basically in internet advertising.
- Is there any Affiliate marketing opportunity in your niche?
Based on these three parameters, you can arrive at one or more blog topics on which you want to start a new blog.
Step 2: Naming the blog and hosting
The very first thing you need to start a blog is to have a domain name. This is the blog name. for example, dirftit.com. Owning a domain name will cost you around $10/year. The domain name can be changed latter by purchasing a new one. All the domain names are renewable at yearly intervals.
After choosing a domain name, you need a hosting service to host your blog. This service makes your blog accessible over internet. The domain name is something like an address of a house and hosting service is like a approach route of the house. Both should be available to make your blog accessible over internet.
The available hosting services are like 1000s in internet. If you are a new bee in blogging, try bluehost hosting services. This will cost you $36/year approx.
Keep your domain name short, better to have a word that represent your blog and should be memorable & catchy.
Step 3: install wordpress
It is not mandatory to install wordpress for your blog, but wordpress makes it easier for maintaining the blog.
Go to your Bluehost account, find the ‘My Sites’ section, and click Install WordPress. It is a one-click set-up offered by Bluehost that makes blog creation easy.
If you type the URL of your blog, you will see a “coming soon” message in the page because your blog has not yet been made live. You need to design a wordpress site before launching it. If you have done everything, you can go to Cpanel and hit Launch button to make your blog live.
Step 4: Finding the right theme (blog design)
There are numerous free and premium themes available in the internet. For premium themes you can browse through sites like,
Themeforest
Elegant themes
Studio press
Thrive themes
I would personally recommend generate press theme which I am using for my blogs.
Go to bluehost, select your website and select login to wordpress. Go to appearance->themes in wordpress and select the free themes you like and activate it. You can have a premium theme and activate it any time later.
You can modify the theme options using the customize option. There is no limitation for your imagination to customize your theme.
Step 5: Blog posts
Once the blog theme is customized (which you can do anytime of the life of your blog), you can start posting. Keep the content more informative, easy to understand to the readers and explain it in detail.
The information which you are providing to your readers through the blog is called blog content. It should be valuable to the readers, make them come back and discuss on it.
1. Know your audience
2. Give persuasive headlines
3. Keep the paragraphs short and with sub headlines
4. Use bullet points
5. Add images
6. Optimize your content for search engines (SEO)
7. Open for comments
Above listed are the seven attributes of a good written blog post.