Top 5 Quick Blogging Tips You Need To Start A Blog In 2021

It is relatively easy to get a blog up and running once you have the ‘know-how’ or have access to professional help. Separate from setting up a website for your blog, it will require your commitment and putting in many unpaid hours before you can begin to see any result in the form of traffic and later earnings. You will also have to routinely be creating content that is relevant and compelling for your audience. Keep in mind that there are thousands and thousands of other blogs out there on the web, so STAND OUT!

However, if you are serious and ready to make this commitment at the start of the new year, then congratulations! You are in the right place. I will share with you some highly recommended blogging tips for starters.

Starting a blog will require you to have some technical skills of your own; luckily, there are options like Squarespace that take away the hassle of running a website, and they offer beautiful templates you can choose from. However, this may come at a price if you want full control over your site’s backend. For full control over building and maintaining your website, you can choose WordPress, and please use WordPress.org. There are several other website builder options you can choose from, like Wix and Weebly, among others; however, I have been using WordPress from the get-go, and it does a great job.

After you have created your website, you will need to choose to host, and one of my #1 recommended website hosting providers is Bluehost. Bluehost plans start at $ 3.95/ month for 36 months; included in the plan is a free domain name for 1 year and a free Secure Sockets Layer, indicating your site is secure to your audience. You can get started with a plan from Bluehost right here. Join the email list for more great tips, grab my Blog Startup Checklist below and start your blog right in 2021.

Now let’s dive right into the top blogging tips for 2021:

1. Niche

One thing to bear in mind when choosing a niche for your blog is being specific. You will be doing yourself a huge favor by starting in a niched niche. Become known to your audience for one particular thing, for example, breastfeeding, landscape photography, or chess. This way, you will be able to establish yourself as an expert in that niche. I encourage you to take time to think of things you have a genuine interest in and or something you are good at to help you decide on a niche.

2. Start an email list

An emailing list is often time overlooked or not regarded as necessary. On the contrary, an email list might be one of your most valuable tools as a blogger. Some of the advantages of having an email list are:

• Your mail list is your avenue to promote your blog, products, courses, or other services.
• Email marketing is a fairly low-cost way to reach your audience. There are several types of emails you can use base on your product type. These include welcome emails, newsletters, course launches, etc.
• Email marketing is an effective method to keep your audience current and aware of new content offerings and freebies. Freebies or opt-ins are a great way to get your audience onto your email list. Offer something valuable like an ebook or guide that your audience can use to help solve their problems.
• Email marketing helps increase brand awareness– showcase your brand to your audience with an attractive logo, display brand colors, and increase your ability to grow your brand.
• Customizable– Share customizable emails with your audience according to the product or services you’re offering. Place your subscribers in segments based on the product they signed up for.
• The number of subscribers– Most emailing services you can purchase today will accommodate many subscribers, though depending on your provider, it can be an expensive venture. However, with a larger email list acquired over time, you should cover the associated expenses.

Even though our focus is on blogging or a blogging business, the advantages of using email marketing are applicable to any business. Email marketing strategies are usually the same. This blog post (How to create an opt-in with Flodesk) will guide you in creating your first freebie using Flodesk’s emailing marketing services. Also, signup for Flodesk and get a lifetime 50% discount. Don’t miss out!

3. Create products, services, and or courses to promote to your audience

While there are several ways to earn an income from blogs, such as through affiliate marketing or advertisements, however, if you intend to use affiliate marketing as a form of income, it’s useful to bear in mind that there are no guarantees with this type of income and your commission will fluctuate based on the time of your year.

Christmas is usually the season when you will notice your commission payout being higher. One limitation with affiliate marketing that you will notice is you cannot determine exactly how much commission you are paid. Nonetheless, you can achieve great benefits from affiliate marketing, as many content creators and influencers have been doing.

While earning an income through affiliate marketing, bear in mind that you are promoting someone else’s product or service. So if you intend to grow your blog as a business, it would be best to spend more of your time creating and promoting your own product and services.

Take the time to create a product or service of your own to offer your audience. Many bloggers make content based on their niche; there are mom bloggers with craft ideas, fashion bloggers with current trends, etc. Many bloggers create Pinterest courses, blogging courses, or selling (search engine optimization) SEO strategies.

As your blog grows and you gain more knowledge and experience, you will be able to improve on the products and services you offer to your audience. So don’t be scared to start creating.

4. Stay focus on your goal

To achieve any goal in life, you will need to create a roadmap on how to get there. You will find it useful to create a blogging plan and a daily schedule to help you with time management and keep you on track to achieving your goals. Grab a notebook for this one; here are few steps to consider when setting goals:

1. Take to some to brainstorm and create a list of things you would like to achieve in your blogging business over the next year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years, for example. Use a timeframe that is suitable for you.
2. State how long it will take to achieve those goals. Be as realistic as you possibly can so you don’t find yourself faltering on your goals.
3. Review your list and select your top 3- 5 goals, the ones that excite you most, then make a note to yourself explaining why it is important to achieve these goals in the timeline you have set.
4. Here’s an acronym from Tony Robbins that’s an excellent way to evaluate the goals you’ve set to achieve. The SMART goals acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timeframe. This method is a great way to ensure that you are precise when setting goals.
5. Review your list often to ensure that you are on track to your goal. Check-in regularly can help you stay on track.
6. Celebrate your every achievement, and this will motivate you to continue working towards your goals.

5. Consistency

Tip #5 will go hand in hand with tip #4; blogging takes a lot of effort between coming up with blog ideas, writing, and promoting your content. It can become overwhelming if you do not utilize your time efficiently.

To blog consistently, and I mean publish posts whether twice weekly or once per week, you will need to create a schedule this will help you determine what happens with your time each day. You would be surprised to find out how much time we lose each day on tasks that do not contribute to our goals. Such spending time on social media, Tiktok, has been one of my biggest culprits. Here is a list of time management apps that can assist you in scheduling your time:

4 Recommended Time Management Apps

1. Toggl– Toggl is my favorite since it helps you see the amount of time spent on each task, even up to a year.
2. RescueTime– RescueTime is a lot similar to Toggl; it tracks your time spent online by analyzing everything you do in a day. It also alerts you if you’re spending too much time on any one task.
3. Todoist– Todoist gives you a calendar view of your week and month; it also allows you to color-code tasks. Todoist has a premade template to get you started off on the right track.
4. Remember The Milk– Remember The Milk is a list app that allows you to organize tasks under color-coded tabs. Most significantly, it syncs across all devices.

Another way you can ensure consistency in your blogging routine is to write down the ideas you come with. So you can simply be taking an evening stroll when a possible blog post idea comes to mind, write it down. It may or may not be your #1 idea, but if you keep writing down these ideas, you will have enough ideas to choose from once it’s time to write your blog post.

Mobile phones have become an extension of us, and over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to achieve a lot more productivity with our mobile phones. You have the capability of working on our blog post while on the go by using Google Docs. Google Docs is available in the app store for both apple and android and gives you most of the features you will find in Microsoft Word, such as word count, spell check, bulleted list, and text style (bold, italics, and underline), and paragraph style, etc.

A bonus for me is Grammarly, a Google Doc add-on, and is a huge recommendation if you plan on doing any writing. Grammarly is an online writing assistant that helps you with grammar, spelling, and punctuation and can help you eliminate errors in your blog posts and save you a bit of embarrassment. I will hasten to add while it’s great at catching errors, it’s not foolproof. You will still be required to proofread your post before you hit the publish button. Grammarly is available on a free and premium subscription. Their premium subscription is 11.60/ month for an annual plan at the time of writing this post.

In conclusion, here are the top 5 tips you need to start your blog:

1. Choosing a specific niche
2. Starting an early email list
3. Creating and promote your own products and services
4. Stay focus on your goal
5. Be Consistent

These five blogging tips will help guide you in starting and running a successful blog. Let me know in the comment section which tip you found most useful.