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Blogging for Beginners: 17 Tips Before You Start Your Blog - DailyBlogTips

Blogging for Beginners: 17 Tips Before You Start Your Blog

Posted: 25 Sep 2012 02:43 PM PDT

Starting a blog is no longer enough.

There are millions of blogs out there, and most of them get nowhere because they don't have a strategy in place.

In this post, you'll not only learn blogging for beginners, but you'll get 17 concrete steps you can take to dramatically increase your chances of success.

It doesn't matter if you haven't started a blog yet, or if you're a veteran, because just one of these tips can make a big difference in your life and in your blogging.

With that said, let's start with the first tip.

1. Passion

Don't just start a blog because you want to make money. There are no shortcuts to success.

If you want to build a thriving blog that brings in revenue, you will have to work hard, and to stay motivated, you have to find something you're passionate about.

Or at least something you're interested in.

2. Purpose

When your purpose is weak, your chances of giving up somewhere along the way go up dramatically.

So ask yourself the following questions:

Why are you starting a blog?
What do you want to get out of doing this?
Why do you want to succeed?

If you have a strong reason for starting your blog, you will go far. This is a long-term game. Always remember that.

3. Niche

The next step is to find your niche. The best way to stand out from all the millions of blogs out there is to become an expert in a highly targeted area.

Think opt-in conversion expert instead of email marketing. Think turning your blog into a book instead of just general blogging tips.

Get specific and you will go far.

4. Solve a Problem

One addendum to finding your niche is to make sure you solve a problem.

Money is made by solving problems for people. If you can help someone get more subscribers on their list and make more money, you're solving a problem.

So think about what problem you're solving, and then do some research on if people are willing to pay for having that problem fixed.

5. Personality

To really stand out from all the noise, you have to inject your personality and expertise into your blog.

There are too many people out there teaching something they have no experience in.

If you don't have experience, get some. The more you know, the more you can share with your audience, and the more they will grow to know, trust and like you.

6. Come Up with a Domain Name

There are many ways of coming up with an excellent domain name, but in the end, you alone have to decide what kind of name and brand you want to build.

A few tips for coming up with a good domain name is to make it:

Unique
Memorable
Easy to spell
Concise

Coming up with a name is tough, so go for good enough instead of perfect.

7. Tag line

Coming up with a tagline is not absolutely necessary when you're starting out, but it can be a lot of fun.

Go for a tag line that communicates who you help and what you help them with. If you help small businesses get more leads on their email newsletter, a simple tag line could be:

"Turn your readers into leads, and your leads into raving customers."

8. Pick Your Web Host

Avoid using a free blogging option like WordPress.com or Blogger.com. If you're serious about blogging, you need a self-hosted service.

There are plenty out there, like BlueHost and HostGator. They are just a few dollars a month and will get you started on the right path.

9. Pick Your Theme

Next up is picking a WordPress theme that makes your blog look professional.

Again, there are several free options out there, but I recommend you spend some money and get a good premium theme. Some of my favorites are:

WooThemes
Thesis
Genesis

If you're strapped for cash right now, go with a simple free theme and upgrade later.

10. Pick Your Plugins

Once you've got a web-host and a good looking theme, it's time to get your plugins in order.

Keep the amount of plugins you use to a minimum. Each plugin you add will (usually) make your site slower, which isn't the best thing you can do.

Here's a list of plugins I use:

Akismet – to prevent spam.
Audio player – to play interviews and podcasts.
Broken link checker – so I can remove and fix broken links.
Contact form 7 – so people can contact me.
Google XML sitemaps – to create a nice and simple sitemap for Google to crawl.
Popular posts – to help people find my best content.
Sharebar – so people can share my content on social media.
WP smush.it – to reduce image file sizes and make my site load faster.
WP super cache – another plugin that helps my site load faster.

11. Analytics

The next thing you have to do is get analytics set-up, which will help you keep track of how many visitors you get, where they are coming from, and what they are doing on your site.

If your traffic isn't growing from month to month, something needs to change, but remember, traffic isn't everything.

If your goal is to make money with your blog, you should be building your email list, and converting that traffic into email subscribers.

12. Content Strategy

You need to have a solid content strategy in place, so think about the following questions:

What kind of content will you produce? (audio, text, video)
How will you produce it?
How often will you publish new content?
How will you make new readers aware of old content?
How will you use your content to grow your business?

Your content is what will build authority and trust. The more you can share, the more people will trust you.

13. List Building

I mentioned building your list above, and it's crucial if you want to make money with your blog. Think about how you will get people on your list, and what email service provider you will use.

One of the easiest ways to start is to give away a free 5 to 10 page report when people sign-up.

There are many email list service providers out there, and they do cost money, but it's an investment worth making. One of my favorites is Aweber. I've been using them for over 5 years.

Do not skimp on starting an email list, because while you may save money now, you will end up losing thousands in lost opportunity down the road.

14. Monetization

The next step is to think about how you will monetize. How will you make money with your blog?

If you don't want to make money with your blog, you can skip over this step. But I see so many people jump into blogging without having a simple business plan.

You have to have an idea of how you will generate revenue. You don't have to be crystal clear, but there needs to be opportunities for you to do so.

Look at what people are already paying for. Go to ClickBank, Amazon, or just use Google to find products and services people are selling in your market.

15. Traffic Generation

How will you get traffic to your site?

Write down at least three traffic generation strategies that you will start off with. For example, I started with blog commenting, but I quickly moved over the guest blogging, because it was so much more effective.

To this date, I've written close to two hundred guest posts for different blogs, and they all keep bringing traffic to my site and building my list, and consequently, my business.

16. Outreach

How will you connect with peers in your field?

If you blog about knitting, how will you connect with other knitters?

This part scares people, and it scared me for a long time. Or to be honest, it still scares me, but in reality, it's about making friends and being yourself.

Just write down how you can connect with fellow bloggers. Maybe you can comment on their blogs, see if they hang out on Twitter or Facebook, or simply shoot them an email.

Start connecting with people right away. Think about how you can add value to their lives and people will appreciate your help.

17. Expectations

Last, but not least, write down what your expectations are. Here are a few questions to get you going:

Where do you expect to be with your blog in 6 months?
What will happen if you don't reach those expectations?
Why do you want these results?

If your expectations are unrealistic, you will be in for a disappointment, and you'll probably give up.

But if you equip yourself with the truth, you'll know what to expect, and you will keep going when the going gets tough.

Summary

Whatever you do, don't just move on and read another article. Pick one of the tips above and implement it.

If you haven't started a blog yet, look at the first few tips on passion, purpose and finding your niche. Sit down and brainstorm some answers and then move forward.

Starting a profitable blog is not easy, but it is worth it. It opens doors, helps you grow as a human being, and if you work at it, can help you make a living working from home, just like it has done for me.

It's not easy, but it can be done.

Henri Junttila is the founder of Wake Up Cloud, where he helps people turn their passion into a thriving lifestyle business. If you want to learn more about how to build a successful online business, make sure you grab his free special report (audiobook included).

Original Post: Blogging for Beginners: 17 Tips Before You Start Your Blog

“How to Improve Workflow in a Multi-Author WordPress Blog” plus 1 more

How to Improve Workflow in a Multi-Author WordPress Blog

Posted: 25 Sep 2012 01:05 PM PDT

This guest post is by Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner.

Running a multi-author blog can become a hassle, especially if you do not have a dedicated content manager for your site.Having run several multi-author blogs myself, I understand the issues you face and decisions you have to make.

If you’re running a multi-author blog, you may have asked yourself questions like, should I give the writer access to my WordPress dashboard? Is it secure? How do I monitor their activities to see they aren’t messing up my website? How do I improve my workflow?

In this article, I will share my personal experience in managing a collaborative WordPress site safely and effectively.

The “t” in “team” is also for “trust”

If you want to improve your workflow, then you will have to give your writers access to your WordPress dashboard. Otherwise, you will find yourself copying and pasting a lot of elements from a Word Document into your WordPress dashboard, attaching images, adding styling elements, and so on.

Fortunately, WordPress comes with numerous user roles with various permission levels.

If you look at the charts above, the two permission levels that make the most sense for multi-author blogs are Contributor and Author.

The biggest issue with Contributors is that they can’t attach images because they do not have the ability to upload files. Since you want your authors to have the ability to upload and attach images to their articles, you will want to give them Author-level permissions.

The big issue with that is that it gives them the ability to publish posts, delete posts, edit published posts, and so on. While I trust all of my authors, I don’t want things to go live without going through an editorial review. So I don’t want them to have this capability.

The good thing about WordPress is that there is a plugin for just about everything. You can use a popular plugin called Members to modify the capabilities of the Author role. Once you install the plugin, go to Users > Roles and modify the Author role. Your final permissions settings should look something like this:

As you notice, the only abilities we’ve given Authors here are editing posts, reading posts, and uploading files.

Security and monitoring

In the past, I have seen hackers trying brute force attacks through the login page. Because each author’s URL contains their username, they only have to guess the password for an author to get access to your site. What’s worse is if your author has used the same password elsewhere, and the hacker knows this.

To prevent this kind of attack, the first thing you need to do is to limit the number of failed login attempts. This means that after three failed login attempts, the user will be locked out.

The second thing you need to do is make sure that you use the plugin Force Strong Passwords. To monitor users’ activity, you can use plugins like Audit Trail or ThreeWP Activity Monitor.

Last, but certainly not least, make sure that you have a strong WordPress backup solution in place. Of course there are other security measures you can take to protect your site in other ways, but these are the ones that are specific to multi-author blogs.

Improving your workflow

A good editorial workflow can make things a lot easier. The key to a good workflow is communication. I use a plugin called Edit Flow to make things easy for me.

The first step is to define the stages of your workflow. My workflow looks like this:

Draft: default auto-saved posts, or any un-assigned posts
Pitch: when an author pitches a post idea
Assigned: the editor or admin assigns the post idea to a specific author
In progress: the author puts the article in this mode so everyone knows that someone is working on it
Pending review: once the author finishes the post, they submit it for an editorial review.
Ready to publish: once the editorial review is complete, we make the post Ready to publish. From there, I or another admin can take a look at it and schedule it for publication.

This workflow makes the process really easy, especially when we have a lot of writers. This plugin comes with default statuses, but you can always add your custom post statuses.

The best part is that you can sort posts by the custom status. Changing the status is extremely simple.

You can also use the Edit Flow plugin to communicate with the author from within your dashboard. This makes the communication part really easy, and prevents you juggling through emails. Also, when assigning posts to a specific author, you can set deadlines in the Editorial Meta Data option.

The plugin also gives you a convenient month-by-month calendar-view of posts. This lets you know if you have a post scheduled for a specific day or not.

A private area just for contributors

Over time I have learned that I don’t have to do everything myself. I can assign tasks to trusted folks in my team. The best way to establish this trust and find out who is the right person for the job is by judging their interest level. Setting up a private area just for your team members can help you determine that.

I recommend that you set up a site with P2 theme and invite your team members and authors there. Password-protect the site, so only logged-in users can see the content. And when an author stands out in this environment, you can promote them to an Editor or another position within your business.

What’s your workflow process? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Feel free to share your tips and tricks for multi-author blogging, too.

Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest unofficial WordPress resource site that offers free WordPress videos for beginners as well as comprehensive guides like choosing the best WordPress hosting, speeding up WordPress, and many more how-to’s.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Improve Workflow in a Multi-Author WordPress Blog

Write For Your Customers, Not Your Peers

Posted: 25 Sep 2012 07:06 AM PDT

This guest post is by Laura Roeder of LKR Social Media Marketer.

Think about your last ten clients. Did they hire you because they have the same level of knowledge and experience that you do? Or did they choose to work with you because of your expertise?

My guess is that they fall into the second camp: your customers look up to you because you're farther ahead than they are. They expect you to provide them with advice and guidance to help them move forward in life and business.

Knowing this, why are so many blogs speaking to their industry and not their customers? You've seen it, and you've probably been guilty of it—posts filled with jargon and industry news. Maybe it seems like the articles your customers need are too simple: that information’s basic, it's been written about before, and therefore, it’s not valuable.

Too many businesses err on the side of writing what they find to be useful or valuable, not what their clients need to know most.

Let's use an example from my business, LKR Social Media. Our customers are people who learning the ropes of using social media for their businesses.

Because social media is our world, we know all the jargon, all the nuances, all the basics. It would be easy to gloss over some of the simpler setup details in our tutorial-style posts because we could make an assumption that everyone already knows how to do them. But, based on who our customers are, we can't make that assumption!

We make sure that we always break down each topic to its simplest steps, making it easy for business owners at all levels to implement what we are teaching. We don't assume that you already know how to set up a Facebook page, or mention someone on Twitter, or use RSS.

So, how do you ensure that you are writing for your customers, and not your peers?

1. Avoid jargon or technical terms

Use clear, concise language that everyone can understand. You do not need to use jargon or fancy terms to come across as an expert; simply blogging regularly and providing valuable information will accomplish that.

2. Break how-tos into action steps

Don't assume that just because you know how to do something, everyone else does too. Break down instructions into simple action steps that someone just starting out on your topic can follow.

3. Write your posts for one person, not your entire audience

You might find it strange to think about singling one person out to write to in your posts. But the value in speaking to one person instead of a group is that usually, most people are sitting down, alone, to read your blog. There probably isn't a huge group of your followers crowded around a laptop in a coffee shop all reading it together. For example, write "you" instead of "you guys." The same goes for video blogs: speak to a single viewer, not to your entire audience.

If you find, after reading this, that much of your blog content was actually written for your peers (people at your level) versus your customers, that's okay! It's not too late to start. For your next blog post, keep these three pointers in mind to help you write content that will help your customers.

You'll start to notice if this strategy is working by looking at a few key analytics:

how long people are staying on your site
how many articles they are clicking through to read in one sitting
whether you are getting more subscriptions to your email list
whether you are generating more sales.

Increased numbers in these areas are sure signs that you're writing for the right crowd.

Laura Roeder, founder of LKR Social Media Marketer, is a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to become welcome-known and claim their brand online. Follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Write For Your Customers, Not Your Peers