Blogging And Email Marketing | What You Need To Know | Blogging Series Part 5

Blogging And Email Marketing | What You Need To Know | Blogging Series Part 5

This Post May contain affiliate links

Building a list is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Yet We often get sidetracked with the other things that need to be done and we put this on the back-burner. I know I did. But if you want to make money then you need to give this your undivided attention. It’s so important, in fact, that I recommend you spend 40% of your blogging time on nurturing your email list and trying to grow it as large as possible.

Most people that come to your site won’t come back no matter how good it is. That is just reality, and even the ones who really enjoy it and intend to come back may not come back very often.

People are just busy you know? You need to remind them how great you are and how wonderful your content is. If you don’t they’ll just forget.

Many say that they have a lot of Social media followers and they can share and bring in traffic this way, but it’s not enough. What if you got banned from Pinterest?? This does happen, and it if it happened to you, you would lose that interaction with your audience. But you own your list. It’s yours and you will always have it.

There are a lot of questions that come up when thinking about an email list, Like Who would sign up?? What in the world would I even send to my subscribers? What kind of mail service should I use?

Well, let me start by saying that if you are in need of a mail service then ConvertKit is the only way to go. The system is made specifically for bloggers so that you can gain as many subscribers as possible and it WORKS.

You will need to understand the platform inside and out so I highly recommend you take the ConvertKit Essentials course. I took it and it helped me really get to know their platform.

Now you’re wondering how you can capture those precious emails? Bloggers use to just put a pop up on their site and that worked just fine, or a Subscribe box in their sidebar.

Email Marketing Tips

That just doesn’t cut it anymore. People have simply trained themselves to ignore that little box because they are everywhere.

One way to gain opt~ins is to create content upgrades or free downloads upon sign up. Everyone loves a freebie, especially when it’s truly helpful. It’s an exchange, you offer something up to your audience and then they give you their email and this WORKS REALLY WELL.

All modern bloggers do this and it helps them grow their list really quickly. Make sure you put real effort into it though, no one wants some crappy pdf that took 5 minutes to make. Lame.

You can also offer free email courses or a free Ebook. ConvertKit makes this super easy by adding what is called sequences, which is an email course layout. You are guided through the whole process and it’s super easy. No other platform can offer that. They also have a section for adding your downloadable freebie and that’s a simple process as well.

If you have a great blog with really good content and you add an opt~in freebie of some kind you will surely gather emails quickly and grow at a satisfactory rate.

Now that we have covered opt~ins let’s talk about what you can send your lovely audience.

For starters, You’ll want to communicate with them consistently. Regular email habits are essential. If you don’t email your list for a month, then one day show up trying to sell them something, you’ll get some annoyed readers and lots of Unsubscribes.

You should send something at least once a week. Maybe pick a day and make sure it goes out then so they will know to expect something from you.

You can email your audience when you have a new post, When there’s some sort of special announcement, When you are featuring a new product, Behind the scenes of your blog, or create a special helpful post that you don’t add to your blog so they are getting exclusive content. That makes them feel special, and don’t be afraid to be yourself and treat your audience like a friend. This makes you personable and likable.

You will get some unsubscribes by the way. Don’t let that break your heart, it happens to the best of us and maybe your content wasn’t what they needed at this point in their journey.

Make sure you start educating yourself on Email Marketing right from the beginning to give your blog the best start possible and pick a great platform like ConvertKit. 

Are you ready to take the plunge now and go ahead and start your blog? Well, I have a badass tutorial here with screenshots of every single step, from Setting up hosting to Getting your WordPress site all set up and ready to go. You can find that post right here. It’s the only guide you’ll ever need. 

Be sure to take a look at the other posts in this series. There’s a lot of good information in there!

The Key To Being  A Successful Blogger { Part 1 }

Deciding on a Niche for your blog { Part 2 }

Different Ways To Make Money as Blogger { Part 3 ) 

How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog { Part 4 }

Blog Tutorial With Screenshots every step of the way

If you found this post helpful I would love it if you would share it with your friends. I worked really hard on it to provide my readers with a solid education on how to set up a website. You can share with the buttons to the left or the ones below.  Thank you so much.

Got a question? Post it below!

Pin it For Later!

Email Marketing Tips for Bloggers

 

Drive Traffic To Your Blog | How To Create Interest Through Social Media And Google | Blogging Series Part 4

Drive Traffic To Your Blog | How To Create Interest Through Social Media And Google | Blogging Series Part 4

This post may contain affiliate links.

We’ve all been there. We’ve hit publish on our latest blog post and expected the comments and shares to start rolling in. But instead, we get… nothing.  You here Crickets… It seems that you are invisible in the internet world and no one cares.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You just need to know how to really put yourself out there.

First off, let’s talk about social media. Many people share their post as soon as it’s finished ONCE and then move on. But perhaps that’s not the best way. You need to share more.

A much better solution is to share each blog post multiple times, depending on the platform, in a timely fashion. For example, you might tweet, Facebook share and Google+ your article as soon as you hit publish.

Then a day later you might want to tweet it again. Perhaps the following week it’s time for another Google+ share, and so on, And I would lend extra attention to Pinterest. I like to create 3 pins for each article with slightly different titles, then share each of them.

After that, I will schedule the pins to go out over and over again between my other pins, mostly to group boards, once they are on my own boards. I use Tailwinds to do this.

 These are invaluable tools, as I have mentioned in the past.

 

The next thing you can do is make your content SEO friendly. Search engines are a massive opportunity for traffic, yet many bloggers ignore this channel for a variety of reasons that usually have more to do with not truly understanding SEO or just being too busy to bother with it.

This is such a huge mistake. Make sure you research this subject thoroughly as you’re setting up your blog so that you have a good hold on the subject right from the beginning.

You can get a good free plugin for SEO like Yoast. It will walk you through everything you need for your blog and for each post and it’s an invaluable tool.

SEMrush

Keyword research is also something you need to learn about and consider strongly. Not surprisingly, a big part of showing up in search engines is targeting the terms and phrases your audience are actually typing into a search engine. It’s hard to know what these words will be unless you do some research, and luckily, there’s a free tool from Google to help called the AdWords Keyword Planner.

There are also Great tools Like Semrush that give you a massive keyword advantage. You can really get a leg up on SEO using the right kind of tools and Semrush is the best. Try it out below~ Pick a Keyword!

 And by the way, you should always add Google Analytics to your site so that you can see where all your traffic is coming from. Then you will be able to concentrate in that area, adding even more content and creating more sales and conversions.

Guest posting is a great way to get traffic or allowing someone from a high authority blog to guest post on your site. This will point other audiences in your direction.

It will help spread your brand to new folks who’ve never seen your work before, and it can be useful in earning early links and references back to your site, which will drive direct traffic and help your search rankings.

Another awesome way to get attention online is to add useful, non~spammy comments to other blogger’s posts. Or contribute to Reddit.

Answering questions on Quora is a great idea as well.

There are many other ways to drive traffic to your blog and this just scratches the surface. You will need to do your own research and find other venues that will work for you. Study this subject deeply and look at other similar blogs and find out what they are doing. Model their success.

Think about this tonight and make a simple list of ways you will start off with when you launch, then do a little SEO research and go from there. You can do this. It gets simpler as you move forward. Education is key.

Are you ready to take the plunge now and go ahead and start your blog? Well, I have a badass tutorial here with screenshots of every single step, from Setting up hosting to Getting your WordPress site all set up and ready to go. You can find that post right here. It’s the only guide you’ll ever need. 

Be sure to take a look at the other posts in this series. There’s a lot of good information in there!

The Key To Being  A Successful Blogger { Part 1 }

Deciding on a Niche for your blog { Part 2 }

Different Ways To Make Money as Blogger { Part 3}

Why Email Marketing is so important to Bloggers { Part 5 }

Blog Tutorial With Screenshots every step of the way { Must Read! }

If you found this post helpful I would love it if you would share it with your friends. I worked really hard on it to provide my readers with a solid education on how to set up a website. You can share with the buttons to the left or the ones below.  Thank you so much.

Got a question? Post it below!

Different Ways Bloggers Make Money  | Blogging Series Part 3

Different Ways Bloggers Make Money | Blogging Series Part 3

This post may contain affiliate links.

Many people wonder how the heck bloggers make money. If you tell someone you are a blogger it’s the first question you’ll get. Many just don’t get it. But there is really good money to made in this industry despite what others may think and you don’t have to have a Harvard degree to be super successful.

There are a lot of different ways you can make an income blogging online. Affiliate Marketing is my favorite {Learn More below}

Today we will discuss the traditional ways to do this and how you can too. Let’s get right to it. 

Here’s a List of different ways to make money Blogging:

  • Affiliate marketing
  • Blog sponsorships
  • Display advertising
  • Ebooks
  • Courses
  • Services

 

First, let’s go over Affiliate Marketing. An affiliate is a person or business who promotes a product or service offered by other businesses. If you get someone to sign up through your affiliate link, you are then rewarded by the company for promoting their product.

This is what is known as a conversion. A conversion is when a person completes a specific action designated by the affiliate program. It may be when someone enters their email address on a company’s website, when they make a purchase, fill out a form, or some other action through your affiliate link. It’s a great way to make money on your Blog.

Make sure you make all Affiliate links NOFOLLOW so you don’t get penalized by Google. You can do this by using the Pretty links plugin.

If you are serious about Affiliate Marketing and you really want to earn big bucks you are going to need some real education, not just all the crap you find on Google University.

Make Money Blogging, Three Bird Nest

I highly recommend the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. It will teach you EVERYTHING about the subject and you need to be an expert to Use Affiliate Marketing to its full potential. I took the course myself and love it.

The course was created by Michelle over at Making Sense of Cents and she makes over $100,000 a month with affiliate marketing and blogging. Yes, you read right, no typo. You can check out this important course here. 

 

OK on to Advertising..Display advertising is when you place an advertisement on your blog in the sidebar, below a blog post, below your header image, or in some other location on your blog. Then, for every so many views that advertisement sees, you will earn a certain amount of money. If you have a lot of page views, this will be an easy way to add extra income. Some bloggers make up to $10,000 a month just on adds!  But this depends on your traffic so you need to add a lot of content and get it in front of eyes. 

Ebooks are a great way to make money as well. You can create them fairly quickly and sell them on your blog, Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. I highly recommend creating your own products and this is a good choice.

 

 

Courses are another great way to boost your income dramatically. You can create courses to sell through teachable. Many online Entrepreneurs are really into course making right now. They share their knowledge and make huge profits. 

One other thing you can do is offer services of some kind. Whatever you are good at that is related to your niche is a possible way to boost your income. 

So these are a few of the main ways you can Monetize your Blog. Pick a few or heck, do them all! As long as you create great content and Epic products, You’re Golden!

Are you ready to take the plunge now and go ahead and start your blog? Well, I have a badass tutorial here with screenshots of every single step, from Setting up hosting to Getting your WordPress site all set up and ready to go. You can find that post right here. It’s the only guide you’ll ever need. 

If you found this post helpful I would love it if you would share it with your friends. I worked really hard on it to provide my readers with a solid education on how to set up a website. You can share with the buttons to the left or the ones below.  Thank you so much.

Be sure to take a look at the other posts in this series. There’s a lot of good information in there!

 

The Key To Being  A Successful Blogger { Part 1 }

Deciding on a Niche for your blog { Part 2 }

How To Drive Traffic to Your Blog { Part  4 }

Why Email Marketing is so important to Bloggers { Part 5 }

Blog Tutorial With Screenshots every step of the way { Must Read! }

I would love it if you would share this post! 

Pin It For Later!

Different ways bloggers make money

 

Have questions? Leave a comment below!

Finding A Blogging Niche | Blogging Series Part 2

Finding A Blogging Niche | Blogging Series Part 2

You may have thought about blogging often but unless you have a very specific idea in mind, you may have wondered what the hell to blog about. Will people be interested? Will you be able to make any money with your particular topics?

Well, I am here to tell you that you can Blog about anything you want. You can monetize any topic. What I do recommend though is that you are passionate about your topic and that you know a good bit about it or you’re willing to learn. This makes blogging a fun and educational experience for both you and your audience. If you pick a topic that you are not passionate about your readers WILL KNOW. They will be able to sense it in your writing. You will also get bored out of your mind.

Picking your niche is really the first big decision you make and it’s really important. It’s essential that you choose just a few subjects to Blog about, or perhaps three IF they are closely related. If you want to blog that way with several topics you can call it a lifestyle blog, just make sure it all ties together very nicely.

You are much more likely to make good money if you pick a good niche that you really enjoy. When you narrow your subject down and you know what your followers want to learn, it is much easier to get them to buy. Be clever, girl.

what niche should you blog about, Three Bird Nest

Here are a few of the most popular blog topics:

Lifestyle { My Favorite }

cooking

personal finance

parenting

natural lifestyle

fitness

Frugal Living

Family Living

and sooo much more.. but you need to chisel this down even more. Pick a Subject within a Subject. For example, with Fitness you could Blog specifically about Moms with small children who are trying to get back into shape, Or with cooking, You could Concentrate on writing for the Vegan Lifestyle. The possibilities are endless and the more chiseled down your niche is, the more money you are likely to make.

Be sure to research your idea so you can make sure there are not too many other bloggers doing the exact same thing. But, even if that is the case that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for it if you are seriously passionate about that subject.

You can do research through Google of course, but also head on over to Pinterest and type in your keywords. Pinterest is a platform where everyone can pin stuff from the internet on their boards to read later, in case you have been living under a rock and didn’t know. They are an authority on what kinda Blog Material you can find across the web. The platform can give you a very pretty picture of how much stuff is written on your subject.

And by the way, you don’t have to be an expert on your topic. Just know it, be passionate about it, and learn as you go.

So here are some questions you can think about today~

Question 1: What is your niche?

Think about your passions and interests and start chiseling that down to some very specific topics.

Question 2: Who is your target audience?

You need to know exactly who you are writing for. Think about the people who are interested in your very specific subject.

Envision that reader: What sex are they? What age are they? Where do they live? Do they have kids? What do they like to do as their hobbies?

The more you can get down on paper about who your target audience is, the more tailored your posts can be for that audience and that’s really important.

Write everything down and give this your full attention.

Are you ready to take the plunge now and go ahead and start your blog? Well, I have a badass tutorial here with screenshots of every single step, from Setting up hosting to Getting your WordPress site all set up and ready to go. You can find that post right here. It’s the only guide you’ll ever need. 

More Posts in this series:

The Key To Being  A Successful Blogger { Part 1 }

Different Ways To Make Money as Blogger { Part 3 ) 

How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog { Part 4 }

Blogging And Email Marketing { Part 5 }

Blog Tutorial With Screenshots every step of the way

 

If you found this post helpful I would love it if you would share it with your friends. I worked really hard on it to provide my readers with a solid education on how to set up a website. You can share with the buttons to the left or the ones below.  Thank you so much.

Pin It For Later!

Finding your blogging niche

Got a question? Post it below!

Start A Blog Today | The Complete Tutorial with Screen Shots Of Every Step From Start To Finish

Start A Blog Today | The Complete Tutorial with Screen Shots Of Every Step From Start To Finish

This post may contain affiliate links that help keep our blog up and running. 

Update: BlueHost is now running a special offer For you! You can now set up your blog for just $3.95 per month For 12 months! That’s only $47.40 for the WHOLE YEAR! That Also include your FREE Domain name! Hurry before their prices go up! Sign Up Here. 

Why would you want to start a WordPress Blog or home business? Because it’s life Changing. You can escape your 9 to 5 and start chasing your own dreams. You can work towards something for you and not grind yourself to the bone for someone else’s dreams.

With hard work and determination, you can be making thousands of dollars a month within a year that will often far surpass what you were making before. You can wake up each day, have a cup of tea, and design your own day how you see fit. You are in complete control and it’s very liberating!

With a little planning and Motivation, you will unleash some serious ambition.

{ Hold Up Real Quick. If you’re interested in learning more about blogging I have a free course that has helped others set up great blogs with a solid framework. It’s free, no strings attached. Sign up Below! }

Once you get started you’ll realize it’s one of the best things you have EVER done. This happened to me and I’m just your average mama..~ True Story!

Start a Blog Now Tutorial

Pin This For Later On Pinterest So You Can Come Back to it!

Today I want to walk you through the steps it will take to set up your own blog or website for your business, and get you on your way to the life you want! Stop putting it off and do something great!

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to have someone set up a website for you either.  It’s actually very cheap and simple. You can do it all yourself in 15 or 20 minutes. It’s crazy easy!

The very first thing you need to do is sign up for online hosting and get your domain. You can do that with BlueHost all at once and they’re the leaders in the industry.

Why Choose BlueHost??

Why Choose Them? Because BlueHost is only the best there is. It’s also Dirt cheap yet they offer top of the line service. Buying hosting with one of the other popular companies like Host Gator will get you poor service, a website that is down often, and Blocked the second you come even close to running out of space. That’s a big mistake, Don’t make it. Then you have to worry about transferring your website and that can cause its own problems. It’s not an easy process.

You should start off smart and get it right the first time.

BlueHost is so cheap, right now you can get Hosting for $3.95 a month! So Do it now before prices go up. You can go ahead and sign up here if you want to do it now, and then come back to this tutorial and finish your set up.

BlueHost also offers a free domain, it’s incredibly easy to use, and there’s a money-back guarantee and you can reach them 24/7 for tech support and customer service. Like I said, the best of the best.

A Quick Note: Never host your site on WordPress.com {Wordpress.org is the choice of all professionals}, or sites like Blogger. These companies limit how you can make money on site { No ADs aloud! }, they have limited space, they often look terrible and you don’t own your domain. It’s unprofessional and worst of all you can be shut down at any moment!

Moving on….

The following will be a step by step guide to setting up the blog or Biz you have always wanted and how to actually begin making money from it. Trust me if I can do it, anyone can! This guide has every single step. You won’t be left wondering what to do next.

Let’s Start A Blog Or Business Site!

In this tutorial, I will give you step by step instructions with screenshots on How to Start A Blog as painlessly as possible.

{If you think you won’t be able to finish this post today make sure you pin it or save it so you can come back to it and get the job done. You can save it by going to the bottom of the post and pinning it to one of your Pinterest Boards, There’s a big, beautiful pin made especially for this post. Or save it in one of your social media profiles with the buttons to the left}

There are three easy steps to take:

    1. Set up Hosting and Picking your Domain {$3.95 per month with a FREE Domain}
    2. Install WordPress {FREE}
    3. Make it Pretty with the right theme {$0 To $100}


Let’s Begin!

This is what their front page looks like when you go over to the site~

You can get there by Clicking Right here.

Blue Host Blog Set up Tutorial

Once you decide to go for it you’ll be taken to the next page where you will be able to pick your plan. Here’s what your next step will look like~

Blue Host Blogging Tutorial Step by Step

If you’re on a budget then go ahead and pick the cheapest plan for now because that’s all you’ll need at first. You can always upgrade later if you want. This package information is for space requirements and how many websites you want to add. You will get to pick your time frame package coming up in just a few minutes.

Get Your FREE Domain

You can get your free domain name right now by clicking here. Or You can check availability for the one you want in the box below:

This is what the Domain Name page looks like on BlueHost and it will be the next page you see after picking your package from the screenshot above.

Blue host blog Tutorial step by step

If you already have a domain name then you would just add that in the second box on the page from the screenshot above. It’s still all very simple to do.

Enter the domain you have chosen and now you can move on to creating your account~

Blue host blogging Tutorial

 

On this page, you can decide how long you want to purchase hosting. You can choose 12, 24, or 36 months. The longer the period of time you choose, the more money you’ll save.

Add your credit card info and you have got yourself a website. Congratulations!!

Now you will be guided to create your password. Make sure you create a very secure one and write it down right away in a safe place.

Now let’s get ready to install WordPress!!

Installing the Infamous WordPress

By Choosing BlueHost you have made setting up WordPress so much easier!

Bluehost offers “one-click installation” for WordPress beginners so that you can have your site ready to go in seconds.

After creating your password you will be able to log in to your cPanel. That is the back end of your hosting account. It’s where you can create your website, create emails, view space limitations and change passwords.

I recommend hopping over to YOUTUBE after you’ve set up everything and watch a quick 10-minute cPanel video so you know where everything is at on their platform. There are thousands of videos to choose from on the subject.

So Moving on.. Once you’re in cPanel you’ll need To Head to ” My Sites ” and click Create Site as shown below in the screenshot.

Blue Host WordPress Tutorial

After that, they’ll ask you which theme you want to pick. You can pick a free one if you want to start but they are limited in design and the code is not always very good which has been known to cause problems.

All Professionals have a premium theme and almost everyone uses DIVI by Elegant Themes. It’s by far the best and most professional and versatile theme designed especially for WordPress. I could sing their praises to the moon and back, I adore them so much. I build all my sites with them and no matter what you pick now you’ll eventually make your way over to DIVI. Everyone Does. You cannot make your site look better with any other theme. Plus with the Divi theme membership, you also get the premium theme EXTRA And the Premium plugins Bloom {Used for email opt ins} and Monarch {a Social Media plugin that adds links to your posts and pages for sharing}. You can check them out right here. 

Anyway, You can pick one of the free ones for the moment then Go over to Elegant Themes and Install it later or you can just skip picking a theme right now. The choice is yours.

The page will look like the one below.

Blue Host Blogging Set up Tutorial

Next, you’ll just need to log in to WordPress. It’s as simple as that. You will see the login area to the left of the page below:

Bluehost WordPress Tutorial Step by Step

This is what You’ll see next:

 

bluehost wordpress tutorial

After this step you’ll see this:

Bluehost WordPress Tutorial

Then you’ll be asked a series of questions about your site including:

Are you going to update your site regularly with news or blog posts?

What should visitors see when they come to your site? Updated news/ posts or a static homepage?

Would you like to create a starter contact page?

You’ll be asked if you want to connect Jetpack. If you don’t know what that is yet you can click ” Not Now” {Personally I don’t use Jetpack because it gave me problems in the past, So I just suggest skipping it}

Then You’ll be asked to add your biz address if you have one:

Bluehost Start A blog tutorial WordPress

Now you’ll be close to finishing up and you’ll see this on your screen:

Bluehost-WordPress-customize-your-site

 

At this point, you can go back to your Bluehost dashboard by clicking “Bluehost” on the left-hand side of the control panel.

Bluehost-WordPress-dashboard-control-panel

This is what you’ll see next and if you’re ready to launch your site then do it!

Bluehost-WordPress-launch-site

 

Now your site will be live. Congrats.

Next, let’s take a look at the WordPress dashboard so you will know what to expect.

This is what you’ll see after signing to WordPress:

WordPress Blue Host tutorial

 

On the left, you’ll see a long menu. That’s where you go to add pages or create posts. Once you get in you should click on each menu item so you can get a feel for everything and learn your way around. Maybe go to YOUTUBE and have a look at another tutorial so you can really get to know the platform.

The first thing I like to do is go to settings and make sure everything is set the way I like. There will be a drop-down menu and you can go to each link for set up.

Start with General Settings. Be sure to fill everything out.

Leave the writing settings as they are. Then move on to the reading settings. If you want your homepage to be your blog posts then click on your latest posts. But if you want a front page you’ll click on ” Static Front Page “.

Blue Host Blog Tutorial

For each article in a feed, show Summary.

Lastly, make sure you do not check the box that says “Discourage search engines from indexing this site “

If you do Google will not be able to see your site and that’s no good at all.

Move on to the discussion and media links and pick your preferred settings. Then on to Permalinks.

The Permalink section is very important to your SEO and the appearance of your site. If you don’t have the right link structure your site will seem very unprofessional. The section looks like this:

WordPress set up step by step

 

Make sure you have the post name chosen. This will create links with, you guessed it, the name of your posts. That is by far the best choice.

Appearance Of Your Site

Now you can move on to Appearance. You will find that ” Themes ” is the first link in the drop-down menu. Go there next.

You can pick a free theme for now or you can go ahead and get set up the right way and pick Divi. 

Here’s what your theme page will look like:

bluehost wordpress demo

If you pick a free theme just preview it then click on install.

Quick note: Your site will not look like the demo of the theme because you have no content yet. It may look pretty blank and maybe a little intimidating but don’t worry, it will all shape up.

If you decide to go with Divi you would download the theme from the Elegant Themes website and then you would click on the upload theme button on the screenshot above in the top left corner.

That would take you to a page that gives you the option to upload your file. Search and upload it and then click install.

It will then automatically install and the deed is done. To learn more about Divi once you have it installed, again I will suggest YOUTUBE. They have TONS of amazing videos on Divi and you’ll never be left wondering how to accomplish your task.

The next step will be to add Plug-Ins to your site.

Plug-Ins

So what is a Plugin anyway??

“Plugins” are extensions that are built to increase the capabilities of  WordPress’, adding features and functions to your site that doesn’t come built-in.

You can use plugins for SEO, Google Analytics, Cacheing your site, Optimization of all kinds, Social Media and so much more.

To get to this section of your site just go to the left-hand menu and click on Plugins. This will bring you to the page where you can install what you need. { Screenshot Below }

Here’s what the plugin area looks like:

 

Word Press Blue Host tutorial

You’ll likely find that WordPress Comes with a few plugins when Installed. I always delete these and add my own. Here’s a list of plugins I recommend for your site:

  1. Yoast SEO Plugin~ This is the very best SEO plugin made and used by almost everyone
  2. WordFence~ This one will protect your site from spam and malware
  3. Fastest Cache~ The Best Cache plugin to keep your site quick and clean
  4. BJ Lazy Load~ This one speeds up your site by loading the large pictures as the readers move down the page.
  5. Broken Link Checker~ This will keep all your links healthy and that’s really important to Google
  6. Pretty Links~ If you end up with any affiliate links on your site they need to be nofollow. This is also completely necessary and important to Google.
  7. WP Smush~ This will help keep your pictures light and your site quick.. Make sure you have it.

There are thousands of other plugins you can consider to create more functionality to WordPress but keep in mind, Plugins can load down your site and slow it down, So keep it as minimal as possible.

But the ones above, in my opinion, are a must.

If you buy a premium Plugin or find one somewhere other then the backend of your WordPress, You can simply upload it into your system. Just click on the upload button at the top left and then upload your file as we talked about when discussing theme installation.

Now that you’ve chosen your plugins and set those up we can move on to editing your sidebar.

Sidebar and Widgets

The sidebar is the section of a website usually to the left with the information you can click on to move around on the site. There’s usually a search bar, Latest Posts, Ads, Categories and things like that.

To edit this section you will go to ” Appearance ” on the left-hand menu and when the drop-down menu appears you will pick ” Widgets “. This will take you to a page that looks like this:

Start A Blog Bluehost Tutorial step by step with screenshots

 

This area of the site is a drag and drop section.

First, have a look at the right side. That’s what is already in your widget area.

If you want to get rid of sidebar items you do not need like “Categories”, “Meta” and “Archives”, which are usually pointless, click on them. It will open up and you’ll have the option to delete the widget from that area.

Now pick the widgets you would like shown on your site and simply drag them from the left to the area on the right where you would like them placed. They will then open up and you can fill out any needed information.

With the Divi theme, you can create custom widget areas that you only show on certain pages. This is an amazing feature and it keeps your pages and posts on point and relevant.

There’s also an “HTML box” – a text box where you can use HTML code. This is how you can put ads in your sidebar.

Drag over a text box, open it up, and then click on the text tab at the top right so the system knows you’re adding code. Add the code then click back to visual and you’ll see the ad.

Here’s a screenshot of the text widget:

WordPress Tutorials

It’s all pretty easy once you get the hang of it. If it seems overwhelming now, Don’t worry, Understanding WordPress will come to you fast.

The last thing I want to go over is how to add content and create pages.

Adding Content

So now it’s time to add the content to your site. You can begin by taking a look at your left Menu once again.

There’s a section for pages and a section for posts. Your pages should be your main information. For instance, your home page, about page, any legal pages, and contact forms will be permanent pages.

All blog entries or articles will be under posts.

To create a new page or post click on the link and you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

Bluehost Tutorial

You need to simply add your content and photos. After you’re done make sure to proofread TWICE and add tags, category, and your YOAST SEO data at the bottom.

A quick tip: To add photos to your posts click on “add media’ at the top of the toolbar in WordPress. You can see it in the screenshot above. That’s where you’ll be able to upload your photos into your WordPress Library.

Then add your feature image, preview, and then hit publish.

Wash, rinse, and repeat over and over to populate your blog or website with content that will bring in more and more readers over time.

That’s pretty much it. You should now know how to create your website and move around WordPress with confidence.

You will learn more as you go and it will get easier and easier. Being a success will depend on your motivation and consistency. If you’re ambitious, there’s nothing stopping you! You can do this and I’m rooting for you!

Would you like to learn even more about the blogging process? I have a series that goes into the mechanics of running a successful, money-making blog and I suggest you read it. The links are below:

The Key To Being  A Successful Blogger { Part 1 }

Deciding on a Niche for your blog { Part 2 }

Different Ways To Make Money as Blogger { Part 3 ) 

How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog { Part 4 }

Blogging And Email Marketing { Part 5 }

Read below for some important pro tips…

Pro Notes:

    1. Readers like to see plenty of beautiful photos when reading posts. You can find free stock photos all over the web. Never take photos from Google or other sites. You can get sued and it does happen! You can also buy amazing stock photography just for blogging at Oh Tilly’s and Ivory mix. I highly recommend both. You’ll fall in love when you see what they have to offer.
    2. Break your content up into small sections. Online readers hate big long paragraphs and they will hit the back button the second they see that writing style. It shouldn’t look like a textbook.
    3. Use Grammarly. It’s a browser extension that will double-check your grammar and spelling and all online writers need it. It’s a must.
    4. If you’re a blogger make sure you use Pinterest to get your posts seen. Learn how to make an amazing Pin with Canva and build up a nice following on the platform. You should do a little research on Pinterest because it can bring in massive traffic early on. You can and should use social media schedulers to get your posts out there as much as possible. Board Booster is a good choice as well as Tailwinds. Click the banner below to have a look at Tailwinds. They’re the best in this business. You can check out BoardBooster Here.

Tailwind Visual Marketing Suite

5. Make sure you get Google Analytics for your site, submit your site to Google AND Yahoo, and please know that you won’t get any traffic from Google for a while. It can take anywhere from 3 months to a year depending on how much and how often you write. This is normal.

6. You should start an Email list RIGHT AWAY. They say the money is in the list and it’s true. You need to understand and educate yourself about email marketing for a blog or business right away because it’s a big part of the business and how you’ll make money. You’ll need a good email platform to use and I will suggest ConvertKit. It’s an email platform made just for bloggers and it’s the best.

I’m going to wrap this post up here. If you found this post helpful I would love it if you would share it with your friends. I worked really hard on it to provide my readers with a solid education on how to set up a website. You can share with the buttons to the left or the ones below.  Thank you so much.

Pin it For Later!

How to start a blog tutorial

Got a question? Post it below!

Blogging Resources:

Bluehost

DIVI By Elegant Themes

Tailwinds For Pinterest And Instagram

BoardBooster For Pinterest

ConvertKit 

Pin It on Pinterest