Must Have Tools to Launch a Successful Blog from Day 1
Have you ever wanted to start a blog of your own? Of course, you have! Why else would you be here? Well, the truth is there are currently over a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, with thousands of new sites going live daily.
If you want to go live with a website or blog of your own, it will only take a few minutes of your time and it’s extremely easy to set up. However, if you want to create a site that will actually stand out from the crowd and maybe even make you some money, you need to think about a few things before you get started. Even after you launch your site, there are still plenty of things you can do to make your site better than what’s currently out there.
That’s exactly what we are going to be looking at today. Not only will we be documenting a simple step-by-step process for the launch a successful blog from day one, we will also be highlighting a few tools and services to improve your content, branding, and monetization of your site as well.
Be sure to follow each of these steps below, even if you’ve already launched your site, as it’s never too late to improve or further optimize what you currently have in place.
Come Up with a Unique Name for Your Blog Business
One of the hardest, yet most important things you are going to need to do when starting a new site or brand on the internet, is coming up with a great name. The name of your business or site should represent what you are going to be writing about or the type of service you will be offering. When trying to come up with a name for your business you might also want to consider creating a slogan as well.
To help with this process, we recommend taking a look at this business name generator tool that will provide you with a list of options and ideas to choose from. All you need to do is enter in a few keywords and then it will start spinning them all together and give you a bunch of different combinations to choose from. If you don’t like the results from your first search, maybe get a little more specific or add in a few power keywords.
The tool is completely free to use and will generate hundreds of new ideas and business names for you in seconds. After running through a few of the results and picking a few you like, you can then move on to the logo design and domain name process, which we also highlighted below.
Create a Brandable Logo for Your Site or Blog
Have you ever taken a look at some of the most popular brands and businesses in the world today and noticed something quite common with all of them? If you said they all have a great logo design, then you are right. Think about brands like Starbucks, Target, Apple, Microsoft, they all have amazing logo designs and many of them don’t even need to include their name within it for people to know what it is. People know these designs, they love the brands, and they trust purchasing and buying from them.
To create a logo design and brand identity for your site, we recommend you try out this logo maker from Designhill. What makes this design creator unique over others, is that it’s extremely easy to use and is powered by artificial intelligence technology. All you need to do is plug in your company name, choose a few options based on the type of logo design you would like created, then select from an unlimited supply of designs created by the site.
This is exactly what you want to accomplish when you are creating a website or blog. You don’t need to create one of the most popular and trustworthy brands in the world today, but a logo can go a long way with building your brand and creating an online source that your audience can trust. Be sure to also add your new logo to your social media profiles so your existing audiences will start to get familiar with your new brand and visual identity.
Secure Your Domain Name Right Away
Just like every local business or store has a physical location, your website or blog will need to have one as well. On the internet, this would be your domain name. With millions of websites on the internet today, there are also millions of domain names for each of them as well — specifically, one unique domain URL for each. When it comes to purchasing your domain name, prices are quite affordable — with an average cost of around $10 per year. With domain names being so valuable and affordable, once a domain name is registered, it’s likely gone for good. This is important to remember when choosing a domain name for your own site, as it’s something you will likely have for the lifetime of your site.
A few quick tips on how to pick the best domain name for your website:
- Make sure it’s easy to spell and remember
- Stick with a .com, .net, or .org TLD
- Stay away from using numbers and hyphens
- Register your personal name as a domain
- Try not to get too fancy or creative with your spelling
- Shorter domain names are better than longer ones
If you follow these simple steps, the domain name that you end up choosing will likely be a good one that will last for the lifetime of your site. It’s important to choose a great domain name from day one, as it’s not something that you can easily change later on.
Analyze the Keywords You Want to Rank For
When creating a blog on the internet, you need to think about why you are creating it in the first place, the type of content you are going to create and how you might want to eventually monetize it. At the same time, you also want to know why you are creating your content and who is going to be reading it. The more you know about your audience and purpose, the better your content creation and blog will be. If you are trying to create a website or blog to make money on the internet, this will play a huge role in the process, as you want to provide value to your audience and then give them something to act upon in the process.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to do keyword research and analyze your competition and see where they are ranking in the search results. One of our recommended tools for doing this is SEMRush. It’s a premium tool, but they also offer a free trial version that allows you to look up a limited number of keywords and reports daily. Not only can you log into their platform and search for individual keywords, you can also plug in the URL of your competition and see what they are ranking for as well.
Below you can see a quick example of what it would look like if you did a keyword search for “content writing”. If you were to click on any of the anchor keywords, you would then get a more advanced SEO and ranking report.
When it comes to actually creating the content on your website, the longer your content and the more information that you provide, the better. Google likes to rank really long content (more than 2,000 words) in their search results and this will be a great start for getting your blog on the right path from day one.
Choose a High-Quality WordPress Theme
We’ve already covered the importance of getting a great domain name and building a trusted brand for your blog, so sticking with that concept we should now talk about the importance of choosing a great WordPress theme for your site. One of the most amazing things about WordPress is that you will never need to touch a line of code or actually become a site designer to have a great-looking site.
There are hundreds of high-quality WordPress theme providers on the internet today with premium WordPress themes that are available for around $50 each. There are also plenty of free WordPress themes out there as well, however, we recommend going with a premium theme not only for how much better they look, but also for security issues. They will also often provide free updates to keep your WordPress software safe and updating with any Google algorithm changes.
If you don’t currently have a budget for investing a few dollars in a WordPress theme, we recommend you take a look at MyThemeShop, as they not only sell premium WordPress themes, they also have several available for free as well. The option is also there to upgrade your account at a later. Of time for an even larger selection of themes.
Invest in Premium Online Coaching or Membership Courses
If you really want to find success in the world of online marketing and blogging, you’re going to have to learn from some of the top site owners and bloggers in the world today. As mentioned earlier, with so many websites and blogs on the internet all creating content, it will be tough for your website to compete.
Online courses and video tutorials are one of the most effective ways to learn how to create a blog or build an online business. Videos are great to follow, as you can walk through the process step by step. A perfect example of this can be found in the 7 Day Blog Challenge course, which offers a free video series that walks the user step by step on what they should do on a daily basis before ultimately launching content on their site and promoting it to the masses.
Follow these steps to find success with blogging
Blogging has been around for many years now, and it still has no slowdown in sight. With WordPress now powering more than 30% of the websites and blogs on the internet today, it’s going to continue to increase in size and usage for several years to come. Even some of the top websites and brands in the world today are using the platform to power their own sites.
The opportunities that lie within the world of blogging are also quite amazing, as anyone can start a blog no matter where they are, how much money they have, what their expertise is, or even what their language is. Be sure to follow each of the recommended steps below and get ready for the success that you may find in the world of content creation and blogging.
