How to start a blog? What are the steps? To stand out and be well referenced in the first pages of Google search, you must have original and quality content. To have loyal subscribers, a good audience, and thus obtain customers and sales, you must write complete and well-written articles. How to write an effective blog post?
The purpose of a blog post? Attract new visitors, who will become subscribers and potential prospects and customers if you have services or products to sell to them. How do I get my first blog post read and re-read? Have a catchy title, keywords for good natural referencing, quality content, airy and complete, and an attractive image. And in parallel with this writing work, it’s up to you to know your audience to identify your “target” and make your blog a coherent and harmonious space.
Whether you intend to create a blog that you can turn into a digital business or if you want to build something more creative, in this guide you will find everything you need to do it simply and practically. You will see how easy it is!
What types of blogs exist?
You should know that there are two types of platforms where you can create your blog, and the choice between one and the other should depend on your objective with it.
The first one is free and allows you to start a blog quickly, although it will look less professional. The second is paid and it will take longer to customize it, but in return, you will access a professional result with the possibility of earning money with your blog.
Let’s see what each one offers and what type of user it is for:
Free blog
Free platforms are intended for hobby bloggers who simply want a place on the internet to write for themselves or their friends and family.
They are free because they host your website on their server infrastructure. But since those servers have a fixed capacity, they greatly limit the functions of your blog.
The most popular are WordPress.com, Blogger, and Wix. How to start a blog on one of these platforms is as simple as opening an account, choosing the name of your blog, and writing articles.
You’ll recognize most free blogs because the platform’s name is included with its web address, like yourpersonalblog.wordpress.com or yourpersonalblog.blogger.com.
This, as a general rule, tends to reduce the credibility of the blog. Most blogs you follow probably don’t list it, and its web address is simply the name of the blog.
Note
On these platforms, there is the possibility of removing your name from your address, but you will have to pay between 15 and 20 dollars a year to do so and it will continue to be hosted on your server, which does not solve the issue of limitations.
I started out by creating a free blog on WordPress.com myself, but after only four months I switched to the paid option because of how limited I felt.
The reason is that these free platforms offer very little freedom to configure the blog and the necessary functions to receive more visits and generate money. By the time what I was writing started to interest more people and I had my first readers, I quickly fell short.
ADVANTAGE
- These platforms are completely free: you do not need to hire a hosting (server) or pay for your domain name.
- The configuration is quite simple.
DRAWBACKS
- They can remove your blog if you break any policy or if they shut down their service.
- They give an image of a fan by including the name of the platform in the web address.
- You will only have the basic functions to be able to write and add images.
- You will not be able to use services to send personalized emails to your subscribers, for example.
- Search engines like Google do not usually position this type of blog well.
- Some will force you to display ads on your blog without you being able to earn money from them.
Although I don’t recommend free platforms even to start (you will probably have to switch to the paid format later and it’s a hassle), at the end of this article you will find two tutorials to create a free blog.
Paid blogging platforms
In this modality, you do not use the free servers of WordPress.com or Blogger, but you contract a hosting service to a company so that it gives you space on its servers.
Many companies specialized in hosting plan. Since you will be paying them, they offer you much more freedom than with free servers.
Hosting prices usually range between 3 and 50 dollars per month, although it is common for them to make offers during the first 12 months to attract customers.
Although you may be tempted, I also do not recommend that you use the cheapest hosting plan you find. For two reasons:
- They usually give poor technical service or take a long time to respond if you have a problem
- Your blog will load slowly, and nobody likes having to wait to see a page
I started using Godaddy for all my blogs, a popular hosting plan for being very cheap, and unfortunately, I regretted it.
During the Christmas season, one of my blogs where I earn money by recommending affiliate products started getting a lot of hits. Suddenly and without warning, Godaddy suspended my account leaving my website inactive because it was receiving too much traffic and consuming too many resources on their server. Not only that, I’ve faced so many issues like server caching issue, Chat support issue, Free email configuration issue and lots.
If you want to avoid this type of problem, do not go for the cheapest. Most serious companies notify you when there is a problem and propose solutions, but Godaddy took the fast track by closing my hosting.
Currently, the best quality/price hosting that I have tried and where I have hosted most of my blogs is Bluehost. Its advantages can be summarized in four:
- They have a lot of tutorials to help you with whatever you need.
- Their customer service is the best I’ve seen: they answer you in minutes and usually solve the problem
- Their servers are very fast and your website will load faster
- They offer you free security certificates
Its basic plan will cost you 8 dollars per month and it is more than enough to start. If you are interested, you can find more information here.
In addition to the hosting plan, you will also have to pay for the domain of your blog in a company that registers it. It usually costs between 8 and 20 dollars a year, but this way you make sure that it is 100% yours.
To register your domain, I recommend Namecheap. They are cheap and their system is very, very simple to use.
Actually, you only pay for hosting and domain. The system that will allow you to manage your blog is still free, so maintaining it will cost you between 70 and 140 dollars per year. But believe me: it is the best investment I have ever made.
ADVANTAGE
- You will be the owner of an ICANN-accredited domain.
- You will have access to a huge inventory of plugins (additional features) for your blog.
- It will improve the visibility and positioning of your blog.
- It will help you build authority and credibility.
- You will have all the options to earn money with your blog.
DRAWBACKS
- You will have to pay an annual fee for the domain and hosting.
How to start a blog? Of all the platforms that allow you to manage a blog, the most popular is WordPress. Beware of confusing it with free blogs on WordPress.com! They use the same system, but in the first case you have the freedom to install it on the server you want.
There are other web management platforms such as Joomla, Drupal or Blogger. Nevertheless:
- Joomla is not specifically intended for blogs
- Drupal is designed for large-scale websites
- Blogger can’t compete with WordPress features
Wix blogging platform
Wix is a super easy-to-use drag-and-drop page builder that will do most of the work for you. The reality is that for the most details, this is a limitation rather than a benefit, and almost all sites look similar despite the hundreds of designs you can find.
Complexity level
It takes no more than a couple of minutes to sign up, choose a template, and start customizing the website content by dragging and dropping text and photos. You won’t have to worry about the technical side of Wix either as it handles hosting, security, and you can even buy a domain if you want (a bit more expensive than usual, by the way).
Designs
You will be able to choose from hundreds of templates, all very similar, but each one geared towards a type of site or business. The designs look really modern, but it also looks like a template site with little personality, and many users switch to WordPress as they don’t like the aesthetic finish of their website.
Added Features
If you want to include something as basic as a blog, or a shopping cart, you will need to integrate it as part of the site, which can affect its performance. The same goes for apps that add forms, popups, and other digital marketing essentials. Of course, blogging with Wix is not the most comfortable, but it will allow you to publish some texts from time to time. If you are going to add a shopping cart to your site, it only supports a few currencies.
Scalability
Wix offers a variety of plans, however, some of the cheapest ones even include Wix advertising on your site. Realistically, if you’re a professional, you’ll want to opt for a business plan, which costs approximately $15 to $30 per month not counting the domain, which is worth $15 per year.
Squarespace blogging platform
Squarespace is another website building platform, which is not only easy to use like Wix, but also includes some very basic marketing and eCommerce features. For the rest of its characteristics, it is very similar, and we will show you more in the following detail.
Complexity level
Squarespace is not a difficult platform to master either, but the approach it has to start using the service has caught your attention.
Designs
Although you cannot create a website from scratch and the number of templates is limited, the details you will get in Squarespace will look better than the previous option using certain templates.
Added Features
Most templates are feature-rich, so if you’re looking to create a basic website, you shouldn’t have to do much. If you are going to add a shopping cart to your site, it only supports a few currencies as well.
Scalability
As with Wix, you will not have many alternatives to scale your website. Squarespace doesn’t have a plugin directory, and any plugins you might need will need to be added via code snippets, as long as they’re allowed. Because of this, Squarespace is best if you want a beautiful, yet simple website that tells people who you are and what you do.
The only difference with Wix is that Squarespace doesn’t offer anything for free beyond a 14-day trial period, and the cost of the different plans ranges from $16 per month, up to $50 per month if you want to set up a more professional site and an online store. Also, if you want to have your own domain, it will cost you an additional $20 per year.
Although they all have their pros and cons, WordPress is still the best option.
My final recommendation is? Buy your domain, hire cheap but reliable hosting like Bluehost, and install WordPress there to create your blog.
How to Start a Blog step by step?
Here are the steps you need to create a blog:
1. Decide the Niche (theme) of your blog
Although it seems that it has nothing to do with the process of creating a blog, in reality, this is the most important stage.
While the rest of the steps are purely technical and very simple (as you will see below), the theme of your blog is what will determine its potential and your ability to earn money with it in the medium and long term.
If you choose an interesting topic, but it doesn’t solve any needs of your readers, such as politics or curiosities, you can monetize it with advertising but you will limit yourself in terms of the main source of income of any blog: online courses or exclusive areas for subscribers.
For example, my blog mysite.com offers scientifically backed advice for introverted people who want to improve the way they relate to others. Since there is demand, I have been able to create a premium course for them.
Don’t let choosing a theme paralyze you either. Just pick one that you’re good at and where people are willing to pay to fix a problem and start your blog.
Until you start to have readers (a few months will pass) and as you work on your blog you will realize what interests your audience. Then you can finish adjusting your theme and positioning.
2. Register your domain
Following is the list of the best online domain name generator –
Lean Domain Search – Try out Lean Domain Search a domain name generator to find the right domain for your brand. It is a free domain generator to bulk check available domains in less than 5 minutes.
DomainWheel – Find the right domain name for your website. A tool that identifies catchy domains available and gives you the tools to register them on the spot.
InstantDomainSearch – Add one or several keywords in InstantDomainSearch and it will help generate your new domain ideas.
Namecheckr – Namecheckr takes your username idea and checks its availability as a domain name and username on dozens of social channels and online platforms.
Once you have decided on the theme of your blog, it is time to choose a name for your domain and register it.
The domain name is the web address that people will need to type into their browser to go to your blog. Try to choose a short and memorable domain name that defines the theme of your blog well. Some prefer their domain to their name, such as myname.com, but it is a matter of preference.
Once you decide on the name, before buying it you should check that it is available and that no one owns it.
To do this, go to Namecheap and enter your domain in the search engine.
The most common is to choose the .com ending, but if it is not available, other good options are .net or .us (if you are from the USA).
In this case, the domain we have searched for is available, so we can buy it.
We click on the cart symbol and then select View Cart.
Next, you must choose if you want to buy the domain for 1, 2 or more years. My recommendation is that you buy it for one year and check the automatic renewal box to avoid any risk of losing it because you forget to renew it.
You can also select the privacy of your data (WhoisGuard). This means that nobody will be able to see the name of the person who has registered that domain if they consult it in the Whois database.
Namecheap offers the first year of privacy for free but then it has an additional cost of between 5 and 10 dollars per year. Since we do not need to hide our data (unless you have reasons to do so), we uncheck the option and click on Confirm Order.
In the next step, it will ask you to create a Namecheap account if you don’t have one. You must enter your name, address, contact number, and email.
Then you must enter the data of the domain owner, administrative and technical contact, and billing data. If in all cases it is you, simply select the User default account contact option and click Continue.
Now it’s your turn to enter your payment details, either by card or Paypal. Accept the terms and agreements and proceed to payment.
Then the confirmation screen will appear. And that’s it! You are already the owner of a domain.
But you have one last step: go to the email account you used when registering and click on the confirmation email that you received.
In that email, you will find a link that you must click to verify that your email account is correct. Don’t forget or your domain will be deactivated in 2 weeks!
3. Namecheap Domain Auction
Domain Auction is a brand new platform within our Domain Marketplace that allows you to bid against other users for the domain names you want.
How to participate
To participate in auctions and place your bids, you will need to follow two simple steps:
1. Log into your Namecheap account.
Start by logging into your account on Namecheap.
If you don’t have an account yet, you can create one here. It’s completely free and registration only takes a minute.
2. Subscribe to Namecheap Marketplace
Once you are logged in to your new Namecheap account, navigate to your Market dashboard and click on the Settings tab
You will need a subscription to bid on auctions through Namecheap Market. This helps prevent fraud by authenticating the identity of each bidder.
Subscriptions are only $5 per year. Click Subscribe in the Your Account section to get started
Keep in mind that subscription fees are non-refundable and automatically renew each year. You can turn off auto-renewal by following the instructions found here.
When you are in the Settings tab, you can also customize your display name
This name will be used to identify you as the bidder in all Namecheap domain auctions. Once you set a custom display name, it cannot be changed.
Who can bid?
Anyone with a Namecheap account and a subscription to Namecheap Market can bid on domains.
To bid, simply browse the Domain Name Marketplace. If you find one you want to buy, click the Bid Now button to go to the auction page
You will see the minimum bid required and you will have the option to enter a bid equal to or greater than this amount. Once you have entered your bid amount, check “I agree to pay if I win this domain” and click Place Max Bid
To see all of the auctions you are currently bidding on, go to your Market dashboard and click on the Auctions tab
Maximum bid and proxy bids
A maximum bid represents the maximum amount a bidder is willing to pay to win an auction.
4. Hire a hosting provider
The next step is to hire the server where you will host your blog. I recommend the BlueHost High-Performance WordPress Hosting Home plan for its value for money, but you are free to choose any other.
This BlueHost plan costs $9.99 per month, the same as the Standard WordPress Hosting but it allows you to install more blogs, in case you want to start some more in the future.
Click checkout and on the next screen select, I already have a registered domain. Type the domain name you have registered with Namecheap into the box. Then click on Use this domain.
At this point you can use a discount coupon if you have one. Otherwise, click Confirm Order.
On the next screen you must enter your data to create an account and select the payment method. Once done you will have an active hosting active
Now check your email because you will receive an email with the access data to your hosting.
Two things are important here: the names of your server (DNS) and your access data to cPanel (it is the web page from where you will install WordPress). Let’s see what to do with each.
Buy hosting from Namecheap
Already have hosting and want to change your hosting provider? From start to finish, Namecheap migration is free, fast, and easy. No surprises along the way.
Go easy on your wallet
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Expect & receive 24/7 Support
Need some help? Our dedicated team of hosting experts is standing by, ready to help via Live Chat. Whether you’re just starting out or there’s an issue that needs fixing, we’re here for you—every step of the way.
Sit back & relax
When you decide to host with us, you’re in the very best of hands. Rest assured that your needs come first and trust that any changes made will benefit you (think top-tier security measures, stable backups, and uptime guarantees).
Fully hosted by Elementor
Unlike a self-hosted WordPress website, where you have to purchase hosting separately and handle things like SSL, backup, security, and other technical issues yourself that can affect your site’s loading and availability website.
The Elementor Cloud hosted environment is supposed to offer the best performance possibilities with the Elementor page builder.
They are going to use Google Cloud Servers to host Elementor Cloud Bundles and they also mentioned that they are going to handle all server adjustments which means they will optimize it to Elementor and user requirements without giving you no backend access to the server.
Here is a complete list of plugins that you cannot install while using the Elementor Cloud website:
- WP-Clone
- WP Total Cache
- Origin Panels website
- Site Origin Widgets Bundle
- Brizy
- Beaver Builder
- Beaver Builder Lite
- Visual Composer
- Really Simple SSL
- Ultimate Shortcodes
- QTranslate X
- Limit Login Attempts Reloaded
- BWP Minify
- Heartbeat Control
- SiteGround CachePress
- DiviBuilder
- Oxygen Builder
- Image Map Pro
- WD Facebook Feed
- WP File Manager
- peepso
- Duplicator
- Updraft More
- jet pack
- Migrate Guru
- BlueHost Site Migrator
- Customizer Export/Import
- WP Site Migrate
- WP Migrate
- WPVivid Backup and Restore
- VaultPress
- Backup Guard
- WP-Reset
- WP All In One Import
- SiteGround Migrator
First of all, this is not a plan for everyone, Elementor targets specific users who need Elementor integrated into the website with an extremely fast loading speed.
Mainly, business websites fall into this category because they need to have an elegant and sophisticated look with various on-page animations.
And after all, speed is important on every website, so for them this is the best-suited package available.
This service is not necessarily for bloggers and affiliate marketing sites, so if you fall into this category, stay away. But if you are a business owner or you have an e-commerce store or you like Elementor and you want to load your website faster, you can consider this option because it will be worth it.
5. Redirect DNS
In this step you must make the domain that you have registered before point to the server that you have just contracted, which is where you will host all the files (texts, images, etc.) of your blog.
It is very simple. First copy the DNS (server names) of the email you received:
Then go back to Namecheap, log in to your account and click Domain List on the left sidebar. There you will find the domain that you have registered before. Select Manage.
On the next screen, scroll down to the Nameservers option, and from the dropdown select Custom DNS.
This is where you must copy the DNS that Bluehost has sent you. Once you have done it, click on the green tick to save them.
You already have your domain pointing to your server! Surely you will see a warning that this change may take up to 48 hours to be effective, but don’t worry because it usually takes less than 30 minutes.
How to point a domain to a hosting server?
To point an external domain to another hosting server, first we are going to collect the data from our hosting provider, then we are going to modify the DNS of the domain and finally we are going to check the DNS propagation.
· Point the DNS of your domain to your hosting
· As we saw in the introduction, the first thing we have to do is collect the data from your hosting server.
· In this case, the hosting with which we are going to do this operation is Namecheap Networks , because it is one of the best suited to the quality/price ratio.
· In this post you can find a banner with different discounts for hostings.
· In any case, whatever your hosting service is, the steps will be very similar, so you will be able to follow this post.
· To obtain the necessary data we have two options:
· Access the control panel of our hosting.
· Check the email they sent you when you contracted the service.
· If it has been a while, it is likely that you do not have that Welcome email with all the data at hand, so we are going to see where to find them within a hosting.
· In the case of Namecheap, we will first log in to your control panel.
· Now we have to go to the “ Domains ” section and then click on the configuration button that has the shape of a wrench.
· Now click on the ” DNS Servers” section. These nameservers or domain name system associate various information with domain names assigned to each of the participants.
· That is, it is the set of protocols and services that allows us to use names instead of having to remember numerical IP addresses.
· As you can see here there can be up to 5, and depending on the hosting service they will have one name or another, but they will have a similar shape.
· The next step we must do is go to the control panel of the hosting service where we have contracted the domain.
Configure CloudFlare CDN for additional security
CloudFlare is a CDN that works through a reverse proxy using Nginx, acting as a bridge between the visitors who access the web and the server or hosting that hosts the web, in this way it can cache the elements and pages , but at the same time it is also capable of protecting the web server from attacks of all kinds.
CloudFlare is placed in front of the ENTIRE page, it works through DNS Anycast and the visitor accessing the website, instead of accessing the server, accesses a cached version of the page saved on CloudFlare servers somewhere around the world.
How to set up CloudFlare CDN?
We are going to start directly with the configuration of CloudFlare, the process that we are going to explain, works for any website, whatever the CMS used.
We are going to start by creating a new CloudFlare account if we do not have one, for that we must go to the CloudFlare website
We have to fill in the data, as you can see, it is basic data, simply an email and a password to be able to start the process of setting up the CloudFlare CDN account.
Once we fill in the data and press the green button “Create Account” we can advance to the next step.
It’s clear what we have to do, right? We must enter the URL address of our website in the corresponding box and then we must press the green button “Scan DNS records” so that the CloudFlare system detects the records that we currently have in the domain’s DNS server.
Once we have all the records there, we must press the green “Continue” button that is below everything to continue. My recommendation is that if this is your first time setting up a CDN or your first time setting up CloudFlare , do not touch anything related to the CDN controls on this screen (grey and orange clouds).
CloudFlare offers free accounts with VERY WIDE traffic limitations , but it also offers several types of Premium accounts that we can take into account or not depending on our projects and our needs, even so, in the next step CloudFlare offers us this type of account, but We are creating a free account, so we click on “Free Website” surrounded in red
Once we press the green “Continue” button we advance to the next step, but we must wait for the DNS to propagate in order to use CloudFlare.
The time it takes to propagate the DNS depends on the provider and the domain extension , for example, in .es domains it can take between 8 and 12 hours, however, in .com domains it can take a few minutes in most cases. the cases.
Meanwhile, in the CloudFlare dashboard or panel, it shows us this button and this section indicating that the DNS propagation is still pending.
Once the DNS have been propagated and when CloudFlare is really working correctly, this will change and the CloudFlare dashboard or control panel will appear.
With this, we will have CloudFlare configured on our website, whatever the CMS, it does not matter if it is WordPress, Prestashop, Magento or Drupal, even if it is our own development in PHP or in the language you want.
6. Install WordPress
How to start a blog? Now is the time to enter your personal cPanel with the data that Bluehost has sent you by email to install WordPress on your blog.
Just click on the link and enter the username and password (there is an option to change it if you want).
Once inside the cPanel, you just have to select the Create WordPress option (or you may find it as Install WordPress ).
Note: if you have contracted another hosting, that option may be at the bottom of the cPanel, in the Softaculous or Applications section.
The next step that will ask you is to write the name of your blog and to select which domain you want to install WordPress on.
Click the dropdown and choose the domain name you registered for earlier. Leave the Installation path box empty, write an email and username to access your WordPress blog, and choose a random password or write your own.
You will receive an email with the data to access the wordpress blog. But wait! Before there is a step that is important that you complete because it can give you many advantages.
7. Protect your blog from hackers
I don’t know if you’ve noticed that, depending on the website you visit, a padlock symbol appears next to “It’s safe” in your browser bar, while on other pages it doesn’t.
These websites use a security certificate (called SSL) that adds an s to the end of the http of your web address. It is a way to reinforce the security and privacy of our data while we browse.
Soon, websites that do not have this certificate will be marked as “Not secure ” in web browsers, and that can scare many users. In addition, Google plans to prioritize secure websites in its results, so it is highly recommended that yours be.
There are paid and free security certificates, depending on the hosting you have contracted. Also, the installation can be complicated if no one helps you.
Fortunately, Bluehost offers you a free certificate and the process to install it is automatic. This is another of the reasons why they are my favorite hosting.
To install yours, go back to the main page of Bluehost and enter the client area. In the top bar, expand Hosting and select Certificates.
Next, click on the hosting where you want to install your certificate. When you see the two available certificate types, Let’s Encrypt and Comodo, click Enable AutoSSL next to Let’s Encrypt.
Once enabled, below it will ask you in which domain you want to activate the certificate. Select yours, check the two boxes to accept that your WordPress is https (secure) instead of http and click the button.
A list full of files will appear, but that means you already have your certificate activated!
8. Choose a template
How to start a blog? Cool! Now you can go to the WordPress blog to configure it to your liking. You should have received a new email from Bluehost with the data to access:
Typically, the address to access your blog’s WordPress dashboard is yourdomainname.com/wp-admin.
The Elementor theme: Hello Elementor
Hello Elementor is a free WordPress theme developed by the Pojo.me team. You can find it in the official WordPress repository or on the landing page of the theme.
It is very minimalistic and, in my opinion, ideal for working with Elementor (unsurprisingly).
It is not an essential requirement to install Hello Elementor to work with the page builder. The plugin is compatible with most WordPress themes. I say “most” because not all of them follow the official CMS guidelines for their development.
If you are a programmer and you want to know if your theme will work with Elementor, follow the official guidelines that WordPress makes available to you or talk to the plugin team for special assistance.
But what does Hello Elementor offer you? I will briefly summarize it for you:
- It is always up to date. Something very important both for compatibility and performance as well as for the security of your page.
- It is fast and light. It requires only 6KB of resources (at least, as of today) and makes hardly any queries to the server. But it’s normal, the theme is very minimalist, literally a blank canvas to work with the page builder.
- It is “good” for the SEO of your website. I say “good” because obviously installing it will not improve the SEO of your website, that depends on you working on it. But with what you have already seen in the previous points, together with good web optimization, you will not have problems with it as it happens with other WordPress themes.
- At this point, it is clear that if you have WordPress hosting with us, Elementor PRO and Hello Elementor… your project is off to a good start. I do not have doubts. Let’s keep going!
Best WordPress Magazine Themes 2022
One of the most important parts of an online magazine, newspaper, blog or news portal is, of course, the content. However, it is also important to consider the design of the site. Because even with top-notch content, without an attractive design and an easily navigable website, readers won’t stay long.
WordPress is an excellent platform for blogs, online magazines and news sites, and thanks to the infinity of professional themes that exist, it can be used for any type of digital magazine, be it technology, sports, politics, fashion, games and many more.
Newspaper
Newspaper – WordPress Theme for Online Magazines and News Websites
Newspaper is an exceptional template, with a modern and elegant design focused on news sites, digital magazines, newspapers, publications and blogs. It is fast, simple and easy to use. It is optimized for search engines (SEO). Its design is 100% adapted to mobile devices and tablets.
Newspaper supports YouTube and Vimeo videos. It allows you to include ads from Google Ads and AdSense, forums and social networks through bbPress and BuddyPress, and an online store by installing the popular free WooCommerce plugin. It includes the popular WPBakery Page Builder – with a drag-and-drop graphical interface.
This template has a powerful and very intuitive panel of options, with which you can easily customize colors, upload your logo, column layout, supports TypeKit fonts, Google Fonts, font stack and WOFF files and much more.
Newspaper comes with 123+ unique predesigned homepage variations that you can load as demos with a single click, 8 spectacular grid view content styles, 40 unique options to display your latest content, social counters, and articles by readers.
divide
Divi – WordPress template for digital magazines and news sites
Divi is one of the most popular, versatile and efficient WordPress themes. The flagship of the Elegant Themes team. Thanks to a highly flexible design and its intuitive page construction tool – Divi Builder, with a drag-and-drop graphical interface, you can easily create any type of online magazine, giving your news portal a unique look. It should be noted that by buying Divi, you have access to all the other themes of Elegant Themes. There are already 750,000+ satisfied customers!
It comes with 40+ website elements like: slider banners, calls to action, blogs, galleries, testimonials, forms, and many more. It also includes 100+ complete website pre-designed demos and 800+ layouts for free. And every week new designs are added along with photos, icons and illustrations free and without the need to purchase extra licenses.
pennews
PenNews – WordPress Theme for Digital Magazines and News Websites
PenNews is a wonderful WordPress theme that will help you create a website for your online magazine in no time through a drag and drop graphical interface, so you don’t need to know anything about code. In addition, you will have at your disposal 150+ pre-designed demos for multiple purposes that are installed with a single click – for magazines and news sites, personal blogs, travel sites, cooking recipes, fashion, agencies, companies, finance, apps, entertainment, sports, health, beauty, photography and portfolios.
Its code is optimized so that your pages load super fast, it supports all types of Schema.org markup, and it is optimized for search engines (SEO). It is compatible with all caching plugins, allows progressive image loading, and supports Google AMPS (5 times faster) and Facebook Instant Articles. PenNews is compliant with the European privacy policy law GDPR.
newsmag
Newsmag – WordPress theme for digital news, technology, travel, sports magazines
Newsmag is a premium WordPress theme with a modern, elegant, clean and very well-organized design, greatly facilitating the readers’ browsing experience through your digital magazine. Newsmag is great for news sites, current affairs magazines, cars, travel, technology, videos, fashion, sports, and any other type of content. It is fast, simple and easy to use. In addition, it supports Google Ads and AdSense advertising adapted to mobile devices. With 17,000+ satisfied customers, Newsmag is a safe bet.
This theme offers unlimited possibilities, you don’t need to know any code to use it and includes the popular WPBakery Page Builder tool for free, with a drag and drop graphical interface. It has modules to show the weather, the exchange rate of different currencies, your Instagram images, counters that show your activity on your social networks, popular categories, boxes with information from the authors, boxes for the inclusion of advertising and many more. plus. It has an intelligent system for managing your advertising.
jnews
JNews – WordPress theme for digital magazines of fashion, technology, health, news
JNews is a complete solution for digital magazines on all kinds of topics – fashion, technology, decoration, games, videos, architecture, lifestyles, etc. It comes with 120+ pre-designed demos for your home page that you can install with a single click. In addition, it integrates a header creation tool that will allow you to establish in a personalized way the contents that will be displayed in the header of your magazine. As well as the popular and powerful WPBakery Page Builder layout tool – with an intuitive drag-and-drop graphical interface.
Knowing how important it is to be well positioned in Google search results and how important the browsing experience of readers is, JNews has SEO optimization and a very high page loading speed . Also, since a large number of your readers will use mobile devices to access your digital magazine, JNews will take care of displaying your content instantly using Google AMP and Facebook Instant Article.
bimber
Bimber – WordPress theme for viral magazines and trends of the moment
Bimber is a premium WordPress theme specially designed for magazines and news sites that publish viral content and the latest trends of the moment. It comes with powerful sharing buttons; lists of most viewed and most recent posts; and a multitude of areas to include advertisements. All this in a light and easy-to-use package.
This theme has been ultra-optimized to make your website load as fast as possible. Includes advanced progressive image loading options; compatibility with the most popular caching plugins; support for AMP format; and more.
Bimber brings 20+ predesigned demos and allows you to include questionnaires, voting, lists, videos, external links, galleries, memes, downloads, paid content, among others.
It is completely customizable. You can create your content with one of the following page generators: Elementor Page Builder or WPBakery Page Builder.
Important
If you get an error or tell that the connection is not private, don’t worry. It happens because your security certificate has not been installed yet. Give it another 15 minutes and try again.
Enter your username and password on the WordPress blog login screen, and you’ll be in your blog manager!
This screen is the WordPress blog dashboard, the place from where you manage all the content and settings of your blog.
In the left sidebar, you have all the WordPress blog options. First, we are going to set up the appearance of the blog with a template (also called a theme ).
In Appearance –> Themes you will find all the pre-installed templates so you can activate the one you like the most. There you will also be able to select Add new, which will allow you to search through a bunch of new free templates.
These free themes are usually quite limited or stop updating over time, so my recommendation is to use a paid one. They are more reliable, have more options and usually cost between 30 and 100 dollars.
There are paid templates for any type of blog you want to create. For example, for a traditional blog, GeneratePress Premium is one of the most versatile options, Newspaper Theme is ideal for affiliate monetized blogs are for money blogging, and Astra Pro is a great template for online stores.
In any case, I advise you to decide on one that offers several customization options, adds additional features to your website, loads fast, and has clean code —in my review of the best WordPress templates, you will find the results of the performance tests of Most popular.
9. Configure the appearance
Once you have chosen your template, it is time to finish adjusting the rest of the blog design options. To enter the blog customization screen, from the WordPress blog dashboard select Appearance –> Customize.
In the bar on the left, you have all the options, while on the right you will see how your blog looks depending on the changes you make.
The first thing is to change the title if it is still not the one you want. Select Site Identity, and type in the name of your blog. Also, write in 6 or 7 words a description for your blog.
In Header image, you can change the text title of your blog for an image with the logo. If you want a decent logo for less than $10, I recommend Fiverr.
Widgets are sections of your blog that you can configure to your liking with various features, such as a Twitter feed, the icons of your social networks or an author description.
In Cover settings, you can select if you want the home page of your blog to have the latest entries, or only show a specific page.
Under Theme Settings, you will find the blog design option, which is important. Here you can choose if you want it to show your content on the left and a sidebar on the right, also include a sidebar on the left or show it without any sidebar, for example.
In Comments and references, you can select if you want people to be able to leave a comment on your articles and pages.
When you have everything to your liking, simply click Publish.
10. Configure the links
The next step is to go back to the WordPress dashboard and adjust a couple of important options to get your blog working as it should.
First go to Settings –> Reading. There you may find that the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box is checked. If so, uncheck it and save the changes or else search engines like Google will never Crawl your blog.
Then go to Settings –> Links, check the First blog post Name box and save your changes. This way, the web address of the articles you write will include the name of the article instead of a random number.
You’re almost there! Way to How to start a blog. Now you only have to install a few more important functions.
11. Configure plugins
Plugins are small programs that are installed on your blog and give it additional possibilities, such as the function of creating contact forms, calendars or anti-spam filters.
In your WordPress blog dashboard, go to Plugins. You will be able to delete most of the ones you will find by default because for now, you will only need these:
The best plugins for WordPress
To avoid spending hours searching and testing WordPress plugins, we are going to show you the best plugins for WordPress that are considered essential because they have a lot of use.
This way you can test it and see which one fits best on your website.
AccessPress Social Share: The Free Social Sharing Plugin – It is a free WordPress plugin that allows anyone to share the content of the website on major social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
It is the perfect plugin so that any content can be ideal for sharing on social networks and increase its social reach dramatically.
EWWW Image Optimizer: The plugin to edit images in WordPress – This plugin is easy to use with pixel-perfect optimization as it uses industry-leading tools.
It offers the best compression/quality ratio with the possibility of a Premium plugin for JPG, PNG and PDF files.
It has a high security in the connections, being protected with a high level of SSL encryption, it also offers free backup copies that store original images for 30 days.
Smush: Plugin to optimize images – It is the best-known plugin to reduce the size of the images on your website automatically, you only have to install it and each image you upload will be perfected automatically, and if you already have images uploaded, it will also be perfected with them.
Wordfence: Security Plugin – Wordfence provides the best protection for your website, with constant updates from the Threat Defense Feed, preventing you from being hacked.
It offers live traffic view, giving us real-time visibility of traffic and hack attempts, today it is the most complete WordPress security solution.
Relevanssi: WordPress Search Plugin – It is the best WordPress search engine, with many features and configurable options, the best results are obtained.
It has a Premium version with additional features, you must take into account that the use of Relevanssi requires a large amount of space in the database.
If your hosting setup has a limited amount of space for database tables, the use of this plugin is not recommended.
Disqus: The Comment Plugin for WordPress – This plugin is a comment manager that works much better than the default manager in WordPress.
This system manages comments avoiding spam and for content curation, it offers many advantages, such as: validating comments before publication, managing users who comment, processing several blogs from the same platform, exporting comments in XML and it is positive for SEO because comments are considered to own content within the post.
WP Statistics: plugin to measure visits in WordPress – With this plugin you can know the statistics of your website without having to send the data anywhere, you will be able to know how many people visit your website, their origin, what search engines and browsers are used, and which of your contents get more visits.
It has some more advanced features corresponding to its Premium package, therefore you will need to purchase additional extensions to unlock those features.
WP Rocket: Plugin to improve speed – By adding this Plugin you get your website to be faster, offering immediate improvements to your website, which will improve your instant load times.
It caches your WordPress site immediately, compresses your pages on the server and uncompressed them in the browser, optimizes the checkout process of your online store and is compatible with most of the most popular plugins.
It is not paid but it is worth making the annual investment for everything it offers.
Wpml: The multilanguage plugin for WordPress – WPML makes it easy to create and manage multilingual websites, it’s very powerful for business sites, and it’s very simple for creating blogs.
Optimizes the website for multi-language SEO features , has control over display of URLs, defines SEO information for translations, has search engines that drive the right traffic to the language appropriate.
To install each of these plugins, click Add New at the top and enter their name in the search box.
Click Install Now , and then activate it.
To activate Akismet you will need to get your API key by creating an account on WordPress.com. Once you have done so, the Akismet plans will appear.
Select the Personal Plan, and then it will ask you how much you want to pay per year. Since we are not millionaires yet, move the bar to the left to 0 dollars, and it will be free.
Once the subscription is created, it will ask you to activate your domain. Do so and it will provide you with the API key to protect your blog from spam.
BackWPup is used to create backup copies of your blog automatically in a Dropbox account. Once activated, you will see the BackWPup option appear in the left bar of your WordPress blog dashboard.
Select Add new work and in General –> Work destination mark Backup to Dropbox so that it creates them there. Then you will have to choose how often it should make the copies and give it access to your Dropbox.
Yoast Seo allows you to configure the SEO options of your articles. For example, when you are writing a new post, you will see that below you have the Yoast options box.
There you can choose what title and description you want to appear in search engines like Google when they show the contents of your blog.
Jetpack has several plugins in one. It has many functions, such as automatically sharing your new articles on social networks, creating image galleries or the option to view the number of visits to your blog. But sometimes it can slow down the loading time, so if that happens, disable it.
Jetpack Professional offers even more benefits such as real-time external backup, malware scanning and repair. If you’re on one of these plans, you’ll automatically receive Jetpack Professional when you activate Jetpack on your website.
Rank Math – best alternative to Yoast SEO plugin
Rank Math helps you control the most basic aspects of your website’s on-page SEO, such as the use and density of keywords, the customization of meta titles and meta descriptions, and metadata tagging or indexing, among many others.
It has 15 modules that you can activate or deactivate and configure individually depending on the needs of your web page.
Since its launch, MyThemeShop has never hidden that its goal is to launch in the future (it seems not too far away) a paid version of the plugin with advanced features. On the other hand, they have also actively and passively promised that the free version of the plugin will be free forever.
Main features of Rank Math and functionalities
- The truth is that the list of Rank Math features is immense, so I am going to focus on the most outstanding or most useful in my opinion so as not to make this article too long.
- Main features of Rank Math:
- Configuration wizard: The plugin has a simple wizard that allows you to configure the most basic aspects in a few clicks.
- Clean and simple user interface: Its powerful interface shows you the most important information cleanly and simply, making it easy to use in your publications.
- Integration with Google Search Console: By simply connecting to your Google account, you can see the most important information in Google Search Console without leaving the WordPress administrator.
- Error monitor: It allows you to monitor the 404 errors on your website and see detailed statistics to be able to solve this type of failure.
- Automated Image SEO: Rank Math can automatically fill in the ALT and Title fields based on the image name.
- XML Sitemap: Automatically create the sitemap of your website with a very simple configuration. You can manage what is included and what is not.
- Structured data: Easily configure the schema markup of your content.
- Automatic Ping: With this option, you can make Rank Math do a ping every time you create new content so that search engines index it faster.
- SEO analysis: This module performs an SEO analysis of your website based on 40 points to return a report with an assessment of the current status of your project.
- Individual SEO customization: Override the default settings for all types of content. Easily define if that URL should be indexed or not, if it is canonical if it should be included in the sitemap, etc.
- Redirects: Rank Math’s redirects module allows you to create and manage all kinds of redirects on your website without the need to install any other plugins.
- Automatic importer: If you are already using another SEO plugin, Rank Math allows you to import the settings in one click from plugins such as Yoast or All in one SEO.
Finally, Contact Form 7 will allow you to add contact forms to your pages very easily.
11. Start writing!
Everything is ready for you to start writing articles on your blog.
To do this, you just have to go to Posts –> Add new, write its title and start writing the content, adding the images you need using the Add object option.
Note: if you see that there are some entries already published you can delete them; They are usually just for show.
And now you have everything ready! Now you just have to start creating the best content in the entire blogosphere.
How to write a blog post?
For your article to be considered by search engines as relevant text to consider, count between 500 and 1000 characters at least. The ideal? Between 1000 and 2000 characters.
Tips for writing a good first blog post
Take care of the title
The title of your article is the first thing that will grab the reader’s attention. And it must be:
- Visible: with a character size greater than the body of the text, no capital letters, no italics, no underlining
- Short: ideally between 4 to 10 words
- Catchy: explicit to make people want to read the article
- Well referenced: with keywords for search engines
How to write a good title?
The title is indeed the key element of SEO. It must therefore be coherent, and relevant, and integrate the keywords on which you wish to position yourself.
To recap, here are the components of a good headline:
- Fairly short (maximum 70 characters)
- With one or more keywords
- Reflects the content of the article well
- Deliver a message
- Does not contain spelling mistakes
- Makes you want to click
A good hook from the introduction
The introduction should be seen as a “brief” because it forms the basis of the information. We must therefore go straight to the point, it is the principle of the inverted pyramid in web writing. To help you identify the essential content and then summarize it, use the 5W rule:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Where?
- Why?
In other words, in the USA, it gives: “ who is concerned? what’s the news? what is it about? when did this happen or when will it happen? Where? Why? »
Readable content
To make the reader want to read your entire article on any medium (computer, tablet, smartphone); it must be clear, and airy for good visibility and easy reading. For it :
- Break the information into several paragraphs
- Use headings, especially in long texts
- Put the keywords in bold
- Use short sentences of around 15-20 words
- Avoid jargon, whether legal, administrative, commercial, etc.
- Adapt the tone of your article to your target
Optimize your links and images
It is important to add images, videos or infographics to illustrate your article. This helps to energize the reading and to bring examples to your remarks. There are royalty-free image banks. Pay attention to the rights associated with the photo: make sure you can use it.
Place key information at the beginning of the paragraph
The Internet user is in a hurry and very often, he will only read the beginning of your paragraphs. This type of reading is called F-reading.
Present the essential information at the beginning of each paragraph. Your reader will quickly know if what follows will interest him or not.
A personalized article according to your target
Do you want to retain your visitors? So contact them!
To achieve this, you need to know your audience and what they are looking for. You will thus be able to deal with the right subjects in your blog articles and respond precisely to the needs of your targets.
How to write a quality blog post?
To know if your article is a future quality article for your blog, make sure that it meets the following criteria:
- Brings a real answer to a problem: it informs and brings a reflection
- Is of good length : you cannot explore a subject in 300 words and long articles are better positioned in Google results.
- Has a good presentation: the paragraphs are airy, there are headings, bold sentences, bulleted lists
- Has been proofread: to correct spelling mistakes and syntax blunders
- Use keywords: strategically and wisely, in titles but not every sentence
The different stages of writing a blog article
1. A good starting idea
Ask yourself what issue your audience might need your help or expertise on, what might interest them. Then, you have to find the keyword associated with this idea, the one that will allow good referencing and find THE catchy title.
Once the idea has been validated, the question arises of the right format to adopt for this subject: is it a tutorial, a list, a simple text with paragraphs and titles…?
2. Research to do
This is the time to do research if it is necessary. From one theme to another, from one article to another, the research and documentation needs differ.
3. The plan to organize
Before moving on to the writing itself, you have to think about the plan:
- Note the main lines of the article and the most important ideas
- Separate the subject into several parts with titles
4. Writing the article
Finally, it’s time to really write! Too bad if a sentence is a little wonky or if the layout is not perfect, you will have time to correctit later by re-reading. What matters is the message.
5. The choice of the image
You must have at least one image to illustrate the article, in format and weight to remain compatible with the web and not slow down your blog. Remember to respect your graphic charter and prepare images for sharing on social networks.
6. SEO verification
Here’s what to think about, integrating the keyword:
- The meta-description: this is the summary that appears in Google searches. The keyword must appear there
- The number of words: long content weighs more in SEO
- The title, alternative title and description of the images for good referencing
12. How to determine your audience?
Why do you need to know your audience?
Your audience should be the main reason for writing and publishing content, long before SEO and getting traffic to your blog. Not knowing your audience often means publishing useless content, even if it is qualitative. Content adapted to your target will make you gain notoriety and visibility, especially on social networks where the notion of virality is important.
How to analyze your audience?
There are tools to help you analyze your audience.
Google Analytics
A real dashboard of traffic on your blog, Google Analytics is a complete solution that provides all the statistics in real-time on your audience: age, gender, interests, affinities, devices used… But also its behavior on your site and how to acquire traffic. Exploiting its data will give you a fairly clear idea of the audience of your blog.
online surveys
More and more pages are asking for fans’ satisfaction with the content, their expectations and their ideas for improving the page. You will be able to use surveys with Google Form and SurveyMonkey.
How to personalize your blog?
To make readers want to read your articles and come back to your blog, it must be attractive. What appeals to people is the customization of your virtual space. Thus, they feel like they know you and they will enjoy reading and following you. For that you have to accept in a certain way, to expose yourself.
To unfold itself
Your audience needs to know who you are. Insert photos of yourself, show who you are and share moments of life with Internet users.
Talking about oneself
In the “about” page, don’t hesitate to talk about yourself, and anecdotes that have happened to you, in short, let your audience identify with you, it’s a great way to personalize their blog.
find the right tone
The tone of your blog is important since it will allow the visitor to get closer to you or on the contrary, to know that your site is not for him. It’s all about being natural, the tone is part of the signature.
speak in the first person
By using the “I”, you will be able to send a clear and sincere message, to stand out from the competition. You do not simply deliver information but also add an opinion or expertise. You can therefore talk about yourself, without however forgetting to address your audience frequently (using the “you”) to provide them with answers to their questions.
How to master the catchphrases in the text?
The title of an article is like the slogan of an advertisement. Its objective is to attract the reader’s attention, arouse his interest and inform him.
What is a catchy title?
A catchy title should:
- Draw attention
- To arouse interest
- Encourage to read more
- Inform
- keep his promise
How to write a catchy title?
1. Be concise
A title should be short, between 6 to 12 words. Also, try not to exceed 90 characters. Use simple, short words. Your title should contain as few adjectives, prepositions and adverbs as possible.
2. Challenge the reader
Your headline should promise something to the reader.
- Promising a benefit to satisfy a need or want
- Promise him to avoid an inconvenience, a problem
In general, a title must “sell” the text, for this the ideal is to write it:
- In the form of questions
- In the form of a statement
- In the imperative form
- Speaking directly to readers
- In the form of testimony
3. Contain one or more “powerful” words:
Some words have a power of attraction that arouses interest. Here is a list according to the type of motivation:
Security: Assured, Genuine, Known, Certified, Safe, Professional, Reliable
New: New, Revolutionary, Latest, Urgent, Innovative
Money: Value, Only, Economical, Discounted, Bargain
Curiosity: Amazing, Exciting, Incredible, Fascinating
How to write a good first blog post for your content marketing strategy?
Content Marketing requires a number of skills, but writing is still one of the pillars of this exercise.
Writing an effective first blog post requires simplicity.
When the style becomes too heavy, when the turns of style take precedence over the content, you lose your reader.
Content Marketing is not just money blogging. Indeed, many get lost in writing and producing content without triggering a lead. For your content to be of quality, it must have a clear objective, but above all identifiable to your reader.
Ask yourself what reaction you want to produce or what action to encourage. What do you want to trigger after reading your content in your audience?
- A deed of purchase?
- An emotion or thought?
- Signing up for a newsletter?
- A download?
- Sharing or following on social networks?
How to write an evergreen blog post?
What is evergreen content?
The term “evergreen” means “always green” or “always fresh”, ie always interesting and instructive.
It is particularly suitable for setting up an inbound marketing strategy to generate leads and then convert them into customers.
Evergreen content consists of producing timeless articles that attract visitors over time, that is to say long after they have been posted on your blog.
Indeed, the date can influence the behavior of Internet users. If a non-recent date is listed, then they may think your content is outdated.
Also, evergreen content often has an educational aim, intended to inform and learn about things that will always be relevant.
How to create evergreen content?
1. Identify the right type of content
Before writing your content, select your theme carefully. Thanks to your analytics tool, study the curves of traffic, visit, reading time, comment or evaluation of your blog articles. This will allow you to bring out two types of themes:
- popular topics
- Subjects of constant interest
It can be the subject, but also the way you formulated your title (a question, a tutorial), or your editorial style (a checklist, a step-by-step, an opinion piece). Find a variation of the most popular theme and related story ideas.
Although the basis of your article is the same, try to create new content so as not to risk a red card from Google for duplicate content.
2. Offer solutions for your customers
An endless source of timeless content is also found in the problems your customers are having.
Resume comments on your articles, contact emails that you have been sent or question them directly by a survey on social networks.
3. Find inspiration elsewhere
Look for trends by monitoring competing sites. What are their best articles on this topic? Look at the types of posts that work best on social networks Finally, analyze the search volumes on your main keyword thanks to Google Trends.
4. Choose the right size
Several formats are possible for writing evergreen content:
- Blog posts
- guides
- Tutorials
- White papers
- Tool lists
5. Write in a timeless way
The editorial style is also essential to make your content last over time.
Don’t refer to current events, talk about long periods, and don’t mention a specific time marker.
Now let’s learn to write SEO-optimized blogs, and content that ranks.
How to write an SEO optimized blog: 5 tips you can apply today
Growing your business requires some investment. Either from a large amount of money or from your own time.
Today I am here to tell you that there is something inside you that can help you reach more people and connect with them.
And you don’t have to be a computer expert or consider yourself the best writer in the world.
It is a matter of getting organized and applying some linguistic and text-writing techniques. For example, follow a guideline before starting to write, learn to use the different types of connectors and pay attention to how you structure your texts.
In today’s article you will discover how to increase your chances of being found online and make your readers devour your content until the end.
1. Writing a blog requires organization
Create a blog publishing calendar, also known as an editorial calendar, in which you will record the details of each article: topic, target audience, objective, keywords, publication date and any other relevant information.
At first you may think that you are going to run out of topics and that you will not know what to talk about in the blog, but I assure you that it will not be like that. When you start to get organized, you will have so many ideas that you will not be able to stop.
Brainstorm topics you can cover and subtopics within each. I recommend that you take a small notebook with you, if you are a paper lover, or that you use an application to write down any idea that comes to mind throughout the day.
I use Trello and I find it to be a super visual and useful tool to record everything related to the blog. On the board dedicated to the blog I have different cards: ideas about topics, blogs in progress, finished blogs that need to be corrected, others that need to be translated, collaborations on my blog or as a guest on others, etc.
Now that you have organized the most general part of the blog, we are going to limit it to the organization of a specific article.
Before you start writing, think about the topic of the article and outline the sub-topics you would like to talk about and how you will organize them into sections. This step may seem obvious, but I’m the first to skip it for a while… Breaking down the main topic into subtopics and having the sections defined before you start writing makes the task so much easier and more efficient.
As for the topics, I recommend that you find a middle ground between what you want to talk about and what your audience is interested in.
2. Try different writing techniques on your blogs
Once they’ve found you, your content needs to be compelling enough for them to stick around and keep reading. In this aspect, the title and the introduction are key.
But how can you make your blog content more engaging?
If you think you’re not a good writer, get it out of your head right now. There are endless writing techniques that you can start using today, and most importantly, anyone can learn them.
SEO blog article writing course
Learn how to write SEO-optimized blog articles from professionals.
Surely you have heard of storytelling, for example. The art of storytelling. Why not start a blog article by telling a story, as if you were putting yourself in your reader’s shoes? Instead of saying “If you want to learn how to write content…”, tell him a short story about how you feel (and how he feels) when you don’t know where to start writing a post. For example:
You are sitting at your computer with a great idea for the next article you want to publish. You have a couple of lines and you delete them. They don’t convince you. You try again without success…
Another technique is the problem, stir and solution (PAS) technique. What does it consist of? Well, as the name suggests, you mention the problem your reader is having, describe their fear or worst case scenario, and tell them the solution that will make everything better.
For example:
One of the main problems that companies and entrepreneurs have today is to keep the attention of their readers so that they do not leave their website. (Problem)
Have you thought about how many potential clients you can lose simply because your language does not connect with them? How many customers leave your page and continue looking elsewhere? (Agitation)
If you want to engage with your texts and not bore you, today we explain 3 content writing formulas that do not fail. (Solution)
These are just a couple of examples, but you will find hundreds of copywriting techniques on the internet.
In this blog article, we offer you more details about 3 formulas to write content with guaranteed success, and in this other one we give you 5 keys for writing irresistible blogs. Try them out and have fun typing.
3. Merge creative writing and SEO into your blog posts
Familiarize yourself with keywords: they are your ally
Yes, I know. When you’re in creative mode, the last thing you want to do is think about keywords. I must tell you that they will appear naturally in your text. So you have that point in your favor.
However, if you want to go one step further and increase the chances of being found, you should simply use the selected keywords in strategic points of your text, such as titles and subtitles. It is easier than it seems to be!
Google Keyword Planner is a very useful tool that you can use for free. And if you want to invest, there are other very effective tools like SEMrush. Get informed and choose the one that best suits your needs.
Where to use keywords in a blog article to improve SEO?
As I was saying, you will naturally use words related to the topic you are talking about. So I suggest you don’t focus too much on SEO while writing. When you finish the article and review the text, pay attention to the keywords and try to include them in these points:
- Title and subtitles:
Have you read a blog that is written in a paragraph of text, without any sections or divisions? Yes, as if you were reading a novel. Well, that format is not attractive to the reader. Make your posts more visually appealing by using sections, subheadings, and lists.
Use the keywords in the subheadings. Here is an example of one of the blogs on our website: Professional proofreading as a guarantee of success. Since we are already talking about correctness in the publication (title and introduction), we could have simply written “A bridge between the writer and the reader” in the first subtitle, but the fact of adding the keyword makes this article position better. But beware! Don’t force it if it doesn’t sound natural (see captions 2 and 4 of the same image). Mix it up and test to see what works best.
- Images:
Don’t forget to fill in the alternative text (ALT) with a keyword when you upload an image to the blog.
- Links:
Use links to external websites and links to pages on your website. Of course, do not put the link in a text like the famous “click here”. Instead, think of a more natural phrase in which you can include the keyword. For example: “If this topic interests you, check out this blog article on how to improve your writing skills.”
- The SEO snippet :
In this image, we see an example of the SEO fragment of one of our blogs. Write the title, the meta description and the slug (the part of the URL corresponding to that specific page), and try to include the main keyword naturally in each of these elements.
4. Your blog articles are not static: play with them to improve your positioning
Blog posts are not static. You can modify them and try new things. I recommend that you check your positioning with an SEO tool or Google Analytics with some frequency. From there, upgrade items to improve them.
For example, if you see that an article is ranking well and has visitors, you can improve it. How? Expanding it with more content, adding keywords, images… A blog requires maintenance. Just because it’s published doesn’t mean it’s untouchable.
5. Consistency is key: blog frequently
Why is it so important to post regularly? Regardless of what Google “says” about blog posting frequency, it matters to me for these reasons:
- It helps you to be present in the mind of your readers/customers so that when they need what you offer, your name will be the first that comes to mind.
- The more often you post, the sooner you’ll see results. SEO requires patience. However, posting regularly speeds up the process. In our case, we have published twice a week (because we publish articles in two languages, and sometimes in three) since we started the blog. And do you know when we started getting customers who found us on Google through a blog article? After 2 or 3 months.
Remember: practice is the key. I encourage you to put some of these tips into practice and you will see how your blog reaches more people. And if you think this article could help someone else, don’t keep it to yourself and share it. And now, enjoy writing!
Affiliate marketing is a great alternative for anyone who wants to start a digital business without having to make a large initial investment. This type of online business needs a provider of products or services to be able to promote them and obtain a commission for each sale made.
Let’s see what it is and how to do affiliate marketing so you can start your online business without having to invest in stock or worry about shipping and returns.
6. Create a blog for affiliates marketing and make money
Affiliate marketing or affiliate marketing is a type of business whereby affiliates promote a vendor’s product or service and receive a commission for each sale made . In affiliate marketing, the entire logistics and transportation process is the responsibility of the supplier, while the affiliate is in charge of the promotion and sale, without the need to invest in inventory or have to deal with the responsibility of shipments and returns.
To earn money through affiliation, it is necessary to design and implement digital marketing strategies to increase sales, since profit margins are limited, and a large volume is needed to generate interesting profits .
How to do affiliate marketing and how it works?
To set up an affiliate business, it is necessary to focus efforts on digital marketing as this business model requires a large volume of sales to be profitable.
Create a blog for affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is mainly based on the creation of a platform such as a blog or an eCommerce where products are offered to users in an attractive format that makes it easier for them to make the decision to buy them .
When the user decides to make the purchase, the special affiliate link takes him to the provider’s website where he can complete the purchase process.
In a blog for affiliate marketing, entries are made about products presenting relevant and valuable information to attract interested users. These types of users have a real interest in that type of product or service, so if they click on the affiliate link, there is a good chance that they will end up making the purchase.
How to create affiliate links?
The affiliate link is the key in this type of business. It is a special link to the products and services that indicate to the supplier that this sale has been made through a certain affiliate, thus being able to manage the commission that must be paid .
To create an affiliate link, a special format is used that is usually generated on the supplier’s own website, such as Amazon, where an affiliate link of the products found in its online catalog can be generated quickly and easily.
7. How to promote a Blog?
Promoting your blog is one of the most important tasks that every professional who has an Internet blog should know how to carry out, even though, at first, it may seem like a somewhat less relevant task.
And it is that, once you have generated quality content and you have optimized it correctly, there is a long work ahead, to publicize your new articles, give them visibility and, therefore: promote your blog.
Taking this into account, the so-called “Pareto Law of 80/20” probably sounds familiar to you, valid both in our professional career and in our personal lives.
How can I promote a blog through Pareto’s Law of “80/20”?
This says that in any strategy or procedure that we carry out, 20% of our actions should generate 80% of the final income or benefits.
It is therefore that you must take into account that, within the content strategy of your blog and its subsequent dissemination plan through the different digital channels, not all actions have the same “weight”.
Therefore, following this initial premise, I will reveal 8 of the best techniques that have worked for me during all this time as a blogger, so that you give your articles the maximum possible visibility.
Remember that having a blog is one of the best tools to achieve great professional success today.
But if you write on it and then don’t show the world your skills, that effort will have been for nothing.
Carry out a complete previous checklist
The way I see it, the dissemination of your articles starts from a little before, in your WordPress blog , you press the «Publish» key.
When you consider that you have just finished your article or guide, you should check a series of basic aspects, which will mean that, if you manage to attract traffic to your content, your users will not feel repelled.
This will mean that your efforts have been useless, since not only will you not retain or engage them, but you will also be increasing the bounce rate.
Make sure the introduction “hooks”
Regardless of whether or not the development of your post is interesting (which it should be, and a lot), it is very important that its introduction has a “hook” and completely catches the reader.
Think that it will be the first thing that they read when entering it, so if the introduction does not invite them to continue reading, they will go elsewhere with their search intention.
Takes extreme care of SEO aspects
If you have just started, I understand that you still do not have a certain agility so that, as you write your article, you can realize how optimized the SEO of your post is.
However, if you already know what SEO is and its vital importance within a content marketing strategy, you will know that a good part of the organic positioning that it acquires in search engines will depend on internal optimization.
Share the content on your social networks
After all these preliminary and internal verifications, it is time to make your article known “in society”. To do this, you should analyze which are the digital channels in which you are interested in promoting your blog.
To do this, I always recommend analyzing which platforms your target audience is on or, in the case of a professional blog, your potential clients.
Make use of “synergy” Facebook groups
Even going beyond what I just mentioned, if you belong to a segmented and thematic Facebook group, where its members are potentially interested in your content, you should also share it there.
And “looping the loop”, there is the possibility that you create a group yourself, in which you include other colleagues from your profession so that everyone “commits” to sharing the content of others.
This means a further plus of virality and dissemination of your articles, even more so if any of these members has thousands (or even millions) of followers on their social profiles.
Use news aggregators
Although most of the news aggregators that existed a few years ago have disappeared or are about to disappear, there are still a large number of bloggers from all sectors who use them.
It is a great way to give visibility and promote a blog, publishing your valuable content there.
You could start with these:
- bloggers.net
- MarketerTop
- Scoop.it!
- Paper.li
Link content from the ones with the highest traffic on your blog
Going back to your “virtual home”, as long as your new post is related to and complements some concept of another old article, you could link to it internally.
This “interlinking” will favor your On-Page SEO and you will also be bringing quality Web traffic to it, as long as it comes in context.
Remember to start with the ones that are generating the most traffic, so that you have a better chance of getting qualified visits in the first days and weeks.
Share your new content with your subscribers
If you do Email Marketing, something that I highly recommend, keep your community of subscribers in mind when promoting your blog.
Logically, they voluntarily subscribed to your list one day, therefore, they will surely love to receive news from you, where you inform them of the new post you have just published.
Earn money blogging with Adsense
If you see this website you will see that it has advertising banners
Adsense is the easiest and fastest way to start earning money with a blog and the truth is that it works and depending on the sector it can generate more or less very interesting income.
If you manage to reach between 100,000 and 200,000 visits per month, use SEO as a strategy to follow and guide your content based on the CPC, you can get between 200 and 2000 monthly with adsense, but it will always depend a lot on the niche in that you move and the quality of content that they do not tell you that there is a universal formula.
Training and info products
This is another source of income that you can use to monetize your blog.
Using your website as a launch platform for info products is one of the best decisions (by far) you can make if you want to earn money.
An info product is an impressive source of sales work and more so in the age where everything is now and even more so in the future, training is almost entirely oriented to be online.
Users do not have time and are consumers of almost everything and today there is demand for almost any subject.
Sale of Banner, articles or links
If your website or blog is powerful, companies from all over the world will undoubtedly contact you to promote their tools or products.
If you can position a post with a high volume of visits, it can become an important source of income since many companies will want to appear in it.
Keep in mind that being in the first position is a very powerful advertising channel for that company and if you have some posts with interest you will have offers-
In addition, you can always contact the other companies that you already have included in the post and ask them that if they want the link to be maintained they have to pay you a certain amount, I guarantee that they usually accept.
Webinars
Another highly demanded product today in digital marketing.
If you have recognition and create webinars you can sell them.
You don’t always have to sell them, free webinars can help you attract customers, build loyalty or as a means of attracting future buyers.
If you offer quality free content you can offer more paid content.
As you have seen, there are countless sites on which to earn and produce money.
Some methods are a very good way to get jobs and others are more thinking about generating extra income.
End Note
As you can see, after making a blog there are many things to take into account, but don’t get overwhelmed now by doing it all at once!
You enjoy writing, which is the important thing, and as you progress you can take a look at this tutorial you are reading, save it in your favorites so you don’t lose it!
Well, I hope now you have a better idea of how to blog. It would be great if it has served as inspiration for your blog to be on the internet in a few days. If you do, tell me, I’d love to see the result.
Even so, if you have any questions about any of the steps to make a blog, no matter how basic you think it is, such as what a blog is and if it is the same as creating a web page, ask!
Leave a comment and if you want I will advise you on what type of blog you need to create, what platform or content manager to choose, what hosting is more worth it, etc.
I want this guide to really serve you, as a source of knowledge or a springboard to make your start in this blog world as easy as possible.
And do not forget to share with everyone , that you are finally going to create your own blog!