The goal of your blog site is to add value to your readers’ lives. You should provide valuable information or help them solve problems. This is the only way to build a loyal following and long-term buy-in. As an author who worked in the corporate world for a decade, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way.
WordPress
If you want to create your perfect blog site, you can use WordPress. WordPress is a free blogging platform with a wide range of features. You can choose to use a standard theme or create a custom one. If you want more features, you can buy a premium theme. However, premium themes may not offer all the features you need.
Many famous websites run on the self-hosted WordPress platform. If you are just getting started, you don’t need to be a computer geek or a programmer to use WordPress. The software is easy to use and a beginner can build a blog with ease. It is highly customizable and allows you to add any type of content and elements.
Before you start building your blog site, make sure your hosting provider can support WordPress. Your website’s security and speed will be greatly affected by your hosting provider. Most hosting providers offer auto-installation for WordPress.
All you need to do is log in to your hosting account and download the necessary files from the WordPress repository. It is also possible to create a local development environment for WordPress on your PC. For this purpose, you should download a free local development environment called Local By FlyWheel.
Hostinger
If you’re new to blogging, you may want to look into hosting your blog site with Hostinger. They offer a wide selection of plans and features, and their control panel is very easy to use and powerful.
You can easily create and customize your site with this platform, and their uptime is 99.9%, which is good news for bloggers. They also have a large knowledge base where you can find tutorials and answers to common questions.
Hostinger’s pricing plans are very affordable, too. You can get their single-shared-hosting plan for as low as $2.99 per month, and it supports up to 10,000 monthly visits.
If you want to use more powerful features, you can upgrade to the Premium and Business plans, which include daily backups, double disk space, double processing power, and Google Ad credits.
When it comes to WordPress, the company is a great option for those looking to monetize their blogs and optimize them for traffic. They offer a one-click installation process, so you can get started right away. Hostinger also provides 24/7 chat support and allows you to upgrade to a more advanced plan if you’d like.
Ghost
Ghost is an easy-to-use blog platform, which is designed for non-technical writers. It is based on the NodeJS technology, and is perfect for multi-author blogs, magazines, and portfolio sites.
With its advanced security features, native tag optimization, and huge integration with third-party services, Ghost makes running a blog a breeze. Its simplicity allows users to focus on writing their content, rather than managing the site.
Ghost also enables you to monetize your content by offering gated content to subscribers. This type of content is beneficial for online publications because it allows users to enter their email address before reading a piece of content.
You can also send newsletters to your subscribers through Ghost. You can even use this feature to offer premium content to your subscribers.
Once you have chosen a theme and added admin information, you can start creating your new blog site. Ghost is easy to use and has a control panel that allows you to edit your blog content. The platform also offers several features, such as markdown, which automatically converts your content into HTML code.
Ning
The Ning blog service is a great option for creating your own personal blog. Its easy-to-use Design Studio makes the process easy, and it also offers domain and hosting services. Moreover, if you already have a domain, you can use it. With Ning, you don’t need to learn any coding to create your own blog.
Ning offers the features you need to create a unique and engaging blog. With the help of Ning, you can create your own blog site in a matter of minutes. Its easy-to-use platform will help you focus on the writing part of the project. It has also been designed to give you more options when it comes to monetization, so you can earn money off your blog.
You can also share content with your Ning community using social networks. For example, you can link your blog to YouTube and Vimeo to allow people to view and share your content. You can also upload photos and videos and create discussion forums. You can even set up RSS feeds and calendars. You can also create subgroups within your Ning network.
Blogger
Blogger is a free blogging platform, so you can create a blog with no coding skills. It comes with several website templates that you can modify to fit your needs, and they come with plenty of images.
However, if you want to make more elaborate changes, you’ll need to use HTML coding. Blogger works well as a regular blog site, but it’s not a good choice for businesses that require custom features and a fully customizable site.
Blogger also comes with a number of widgets. These extensions allow you to add more features to your site and help it catch up with other blog platforms. Google also includes Picasa albums, which let you store photos and blog posts on your site. In this way, you can have access to all your blog posts at once.
You can add different types of content to your blog site, and set up categories and tags. You can also use tools like SurferSEO to optimize your content. It is important to plan ahead and set up a pre-launch campaign. An organized blog site has a better chance of success.
Identifying your target audience
When you start a marketing campaign, you should always identify your target audience. This way, you can focus your efforts and minimize the risk of failure. Without a target audience, you might as well spend your time in vain in a supermarket. And marketers and businesses waste billions of dollars each year on ads that fail to reach their audience.
One of the best ways to determine your target audience is to analyze the existing marketing base. This method is more reliable and objective than intuition. You can also use statistics to narrow down your audience. This way, you can know if your product or service would be attractive to your target audience.
Another way to determine your target audience is to use Google Analytics. This website allows you to gather demographic information about your target audience. This software also allows you to view your website’s information in a variety of colors and graphs.
Creating an editorial calendar
Creating an editorial calendar for your blog site is a great way to manage your content. It allows you to plan your posts in advance and allows you the flexibility to adjust it as needed. An editorial calendar can be useful for both personal and professional bloggers.
For example, a food blogger can plan festive recipe ideas for upcoming holidays. Keeping a content calendar can also make it easier for you to publish posts on time.
There are several ways to create an editorial calendar for your blog site. One simple way is to use a Google spreadsheet. You will need a Gmail or Google+ account to access this calendar.
After logging in, you’ll need to create a new calendar. Once there, enter the email addresses of your team members. After that, click “add new events” and it will take you to the calendar.
When creating an editorial calendar for your blog site, remember to differentiate between different types of content. Regardless of whether you’re writing a blog post, a new article, or a series of articles, you need to have a clear idea of the content you’ll be writing. It’s also important to keep in mind your audience, age, location, special interests, and pain-points.
Creating a contact form
To create a contact form on your blog site, first select your theme. You can then customize the contact form fields to suit your needs. For example, you can include a field for name and email address. Once you have set the form fields, you can customize the message that you send to visitors.
To create a contact form, you can use a free plugin called WPForms. This plugin is free and comes with 20+ contact form templates. Once you download and install it, navigate to the admin panel of WPForms. From there, you can select a contact form template.
Besides being useful for your readers, a contact form is also a useful way to keep your email address out of the hands of spammers. Spammers often scrape email addresses from websites and add them to their scam, email list or phishing list. With a contact form, you won’t have to worry about this problem.
