4 Steps To Getting Into Blogging

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If you are thinking of becoming a blogger, there are many reasons that you might be keen to do this. It might be that you are thinking about trying to improve your business’ website, and you just want a useful way to keep the site updated all the time. Or you might be looking to use your blog as a kind of personal diary. In any case, there are a few vital steps to take in order to ensure that you can get into blogging in the best possible way. Let’s take a look at this in some detail right now.

Choose A Platform & Host

First of all, you are going to need to choose a platform that you can use for your blog, as well as find a way to host it. Often it is best if these two aspects are brought together as one: for instance, you might want to click here to see an example of this whereby you have a WordPress blog with some secure and complete hosting. If you have a situation like this, you are going to find that you’re much more likely to be set up in the right way, so that is something you will want to think about.

Design Your Blog

Having an attractive design for your blog is important for a number of reasons. For one thing, it will help to encourage you to take it more seriously as a venture. That means that you are much more likely to keep on with it, even when you are not quite sure about why you might be doing it or you lose your motivation. But having a good design that stands out is also important if you are thinking, even vaguely, about monetizing the blog at some point in the future. So design your blog on paper first, and make sure it looks exactly how you want it to look.

Start Writing

Of course, it’s not a blog without some blog posts, so next up you are going to want to start writing your blog posts. It is a useful thing if you have a number of blog posts up your sleeve for a later time, as that way you can schedule them out and keep the blog regularly updated much more easily. Think of some of your most interesting and preferred topics, and start writing as soon as possible. Soon enough, you will have a few posts that you can start publishing.

Get Marketing

If you are keen for your blog to be shared, read, and perhaps even monetized, then next you will want to start marketing your blog. There are a lot of ways to do this, but a tried and tested method is simply to use social media to spread the word. If you do this, before you know it you will have quite a few interested people looking at your blog. Then it’s just a case of keeping on writing and drawing them in with interesting material.

Watch Out For These Productivity Pitfalls If You Want To Make It As A Blogger

In the 21st century, what can be more noble than eschewing the daily drudgery of the rat race by taking your future in your own hands and attempting to make a living as a blogger? It sounds like an unattainable dream, right? But that hasn’t stopped ordinary people from all sorts of backgrounds from doing it all over the world. However, monetizing your blog is relatively easy but making a living from it can be hard. If you’re to make a decent living making money from home as a blogger, it’s important to avoid the common pitfalls that can seriously compromise your productivity.

Distractions

The digital age provides creatives with more outlets than ever to share their talents with the world and make a living doing what they love. However, it also provides them with more distractions than you can shake a cursor at. Even if you manage to avoid the allure of your social media feed or funny cat videos on YouTube, there are still myriad distractions in the home that can derail your productivity.  

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Inappropriate space

Nascent bloggers make the mistake of believing that they can blog anywhere from their sofa to their favorite coffee shop. Sure, they can… But they absolutely should not. Your first task as a professional blogger should be to create a space that’s entirely dedicated to working. This is especially important when working from home where you’ll have to contend with the distractions of the household. Your work space should be comfortable, and if possible have access to a view of nature even if it’s just your garden. At the very least you should have some access to natural light. 

Whatever space you choose you should have, as a bare minimum:

• A desk
• A comfortable office chair.
• Appropriate decor (houseplants and wall art are fine, but avoid anything that may prove a distraction).
• Access to a power outlet. You don’t want to find yourself creatively on a roll, only to have to change rooms because your laptop ran out of juice.
• Post-it notes to aid memory.
• Quiet. 

Not having set working hours

In the name of productivity, and for the sake of your sanity, you can’t be at work 24 hours a day. Even those who’ve shrugged off the nine-to-five still keep set working hours. Establish 8-10 hours a day, every day which are dedicated solely to work and outside of those hours stop working. Unless a looming deadline or unexpected rush of work necessitates ‘overtime’, it’s important to stick to your prescribed hours.

Not taking a break

It can be tempting to plough through your work sans intermission when you have a lot to get through, but it’s important to recognize your brain’s limitations. Your brain needs rest to function at its best so make sure you allow yourself a 15-20 minute break every few hours. During these rest breaks it’s important to get away from your laptop (and any other electronic device if you can help it). Find a room that’s comfortable and visually soothing with rocking chair cushion sets and neutrally painted walls. Listen to some music, close your eyes and dedicate a few moments to just enjoying the rest. You’re much more likely to return to your laptop rested and productive than if you were to slave on regardless of your fatigue.

With just a little self-discipline and awareness, you too can turn the dream of professional blogging into a lucrative reality.