You really wanna start a blog but do not know how? here are some Tools and Tips for a Successful Blog. Starting a blog is not as easy as it looks, especially if you want to start a successful and professional-looking blog. I won’t lie to you. I can tell you that signing up is easy, yes that is, of course. But I will tell you it takes lots of determination, time, and consistency to run a successful blog. I have just started blogging after I quit my job as a waitress.
I was unhappy, and I felt like I needed to do more, it was as if my life wasn’t being fulfilled. This wasn’t how I envisioned my life after University. Well, enough of that I would really want to share the tools and tips I have used to gain my success in a short space of time and also share what pro-bloggers do in whatever niche to be successful.
Tools & Tips For A Successful Blog
Tools & Tips For A Successful Blog
SELF HOSTING
WordPress is online software that acts as a tool for website creation. It is one of the most powerful and easiest platforms for blogging and website content management systems. There are two types of WordPress; there is the free version and the paid version. The free version is hosted by WordPress and is restricted regarding monetization, freedom, and functionality.
Seeing that we are trying to create a successful blog, it is vital to self-host by finding a web hosting service on your own and paying for their web space. Make sure to find a web hosting service that powers WordPress. After buying your space and domain name, you will install WordPress via your web hosting service. The two will go hand in hand.
Tip: WordPress.com lets you start with a free WordPress blog. You will need to go to WordPress.org. to get the installed version. However, through your web hosting service this will become easier.
Self-hosting is VERY CRITICAL if you wish to make money. To be honest, It would be hard for someone to blog consistently producing great content and not reaping any benefits. Bloggers I know blog for fun tend to give up after a while or just blog on and off.
You want to be able to monetize your blog at the highest level possible. However, self-hosting will cost you, but it is very cheap, the price of a Starbucks coffee.
Well, how and where do you sign up for self-hosting? You have many options, but I will tell you about the (3) top web hosting companies I know and that many bloggers use including myself.
HOSTGATOR
I personally use Hostgator because I never had any issues. I really don’t like problems, so I just went with Hostgator because many tech bloggers recommended it. Quality over quantity. Oh! of course, they have the WordPress hosting plan which is a must-have.
One thing I love about Hostgator is that they give you a big discount percentage than any other hosting service. During the sign up Hostgator also provides one free domain for their customer. You can now take advantage of their $3 a month offer, I do not think anyone can beat that right now.
Web Site Hosting Bundle: Get Your Doman, Hosting, and Unlimted Email for just $3/mo!
Web Site Builder Bundle: Get Your Domain, Web Builder, and Unlimted Email for Just $3/mo
BLUE HOST
Blue host is great as well, many bloggers use Bluehost like a ton! It is really cheap and is easy to follow. Many of the bloggers I know use Bluehost, and they love it, no problems there. Some tech bloggers will tell you it’s not much, I guess because when you’re in the tech industry requirements are different for web hosting. Regular bloggers don’t require much, but just a proper smooth web hosting that uses the WordPress hosting Plan.
To sign up for Bluehost CLICK HERE
SITEGROUND
Siteground has been highly ranked in many polls. This highly suggests that they are a great web hosting company. I know a few bloggers who use Siteground and are really pleased with their level of service. They’re also affordable ($3.95 – $14.95/month for their WordPress hosting Pan and they give a FREE domain name.
To sign up for SiteGround Click here
Pinterest is an amazing platform for bloggers. It’s bloggers’ paradise. 90% of my traffic comes from Pinterest. Pinterest is the best; you can share all your content with the whole world. What makes it better and more competitive than other social media networks is that your content/pins never die, they continue to grow over time., and because of this, your blog can grow even more.
Below shows my Pinterest Stats and that analysis was less than a month of me using Pinterest. I think that was great progress. (Update these stats are 3 years old and I am way past that now)
You can sign up for Pinterest
TAILWIND
Tailwind is a scheduling tool for bloggers or businesses. It helps manage your social media accounts such s Pinterest and Instagram. This is software that automatically spreads your post/images to your social media account based on your preferred settings. You will never have to worry about spending a lot of time posting images to your account. You will see an increase in followers, repins/reposts,s and page views.
Considering I am a new blogger with not much content. Oh, by the way, I haven’t even reached my second month of blogging yet, and I haven’t started using Pinterest or Tailwind a month fully yet. Even though I have joined them for approximately a month, I wasn’t using them at all. I am happy I decided to. Check out my blog post. How I Increase my page views in 2 months. As of recent, I am up to 19,000 page views.
If you would like to sign up for Tailwind and receive a free trial CLICK HERE
WORDPRESS SEO BY YOAST
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results, according to Wikipedia.
To gain organic traffic from Google, you will need to optimize your website/blog for SEO. There is a method to this madness and believe me, SEO is not that easy. I have been studying SEO’s for 2 months and am still not that good at it. However, WordPress makes it easier for you to install the plugin WordPress SEO by Yoast, which will guide you when writing your content to ensure that your keywords are planted in important parts of your post. This Plugin does the work you just need to worry about the content.
DOWNLOAD WORDPRESS SEO BY YOAST
GRAMMARLY
I love Grammarly It’s the best thing since sliced bread. I am not good at English, trust me, I have tried, and I never seem to perfect it when written. My biggest problem is writing in American English rather than Queens English which I was taught. Grammarly provides a revision for both types of English, British and American.
Around 80% of my audience is American. Hence, I would want to write in American English, but I think I will stick to my native tongue for now. Don’t Judge me I am Jamaican I have an excuse lol. I use Grammarly to help me write my articles better and correct my grammatical errors and improve my vocabulary skills. As blogger mistakes are inevitable but with Grammarly, you can make it better it’s easy and efficient.
Grammarly offers a free trial version If you like to try Grammarly CLICK HERE
AD NETWORKS
Check out my blog post on 13 Ways For New Bloggers To Monetize Their Blog here I discuss ad networks and affiliate programs bloggers can join.
- MEDIA.NET
- BLOGHER.COM
- BIDVERTISER.COM
- QADABRA
- CHITIKA
- SKIMLINKS
- MERIDIAN AT SOVRN.COM
- PROPELLER ADS
AFFILIATE MARKETING
Check out my blog post on 13 Ways For New Bloggers To Monetize Their Blog here I discuss ad networks and affiliate programs bloggers can join.
PICMONKEY
PicMonkey is a charm; it’s so easy to transform your images into good-looking pins and collages. I use pic monkey only because it satisfies all my needs in just one place. And I won’t forget to mention that you can get a free trial. If after the one-week trial you wish not to purchase you still can use it for free. Of course, like many programs or software you have a free limited version and a full version which you pay for.
PicMonkey charges you $12.99 a month or $120 a year for the paid version. However, if you are a new blogger like myself you might want to wait until real income starts pouring in before you invest in things like those, less, of course, you have the money to pay each month. I do believe you have to invest in your blog, but if you’re doing so, do so by investing in an Ebook or course that will give you loads of good advice.
If you like to try out PicMonkey free trial CLICK HERE
EMAIL LISTING
Email listing is a great marketing strategy to build and grow a successful blog over time. If you’re a new blogger, it would still be an excellent idea to install a free email marketing tool so you can start collecting emails now. Don’t wait until you become successful and traffic start pouring in. By that time you should have enough emails to create an email campaign and update users on your blog or sell products and services you might want to offer down the line.
I sign up with Mailchimp because of the free version, but there are plenty of other options you can use, Convert Kit and Aweber have gotten ‘EXCELLENT’ reviews. Here are the top 3 email marketing tools bloggers use.
Convert-Kit – Free Trial for 30 days
Aweber – Free Trial for 30 days
MailChimp – Free Version up to 2,000 email subscribers
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
- Identifies your Top Content
- Identifies your Least performing content
- Tracks your audience’s location and demography
- Learning what people are searching for on your site
- Shows you which device is most used and even the internet provider (weird)
- Top referral sites
BUZZSUMO
BuzzSumo is a powerful online tool that allows any user to find out what content is popular by topic or on any website. BuzzSumo is great in helping to generate content ideas, find out the most shared content and see how competitive keywords are ranked for your blog. There are plenty of features with BuzzSumo when you upgrade to pro. Digital Marketing Institute has an excellent article that talks about 7 ways to make your content go viral.
Signup for BuzzSumo CLICK HERE
PIKTOCHART
Piktochart is a popular form of content marketing that can help you simplify a complicated subject or turn an otherwise boring subject into a captivating experience. INFOGRAPHICS are captivating and usually get more repins than regular pins. If your infographics don’t draw the pinner’s attention, this may be because it’s not engaging enough and may not contain proper or enough data to describe your product.
Piktochart offers free sign up CLICK HERE
USERTESTING
UserTesting is a site that hires random persons to view and critique your website or app for free. Users can test your site via Desktop and or mobile option. I used UserTesting because it was a freeway for me to get real feedback from real people. Asking your mum or friends is not really the best approach seeing that they may not tell you the truth for fear of hurting your feelings. This will give you an insight on what to improve on and such.
To check out their free offer from UserTesting CLICK HERE
Tools & Tips For A Successful Blog
With all the tools & tips for a successful blog I have given you, I hope you can find all this information useful. Starting a blog may look easy because, to be honest setting it up is the easy part but maintaining it, and growing is the hardest part.
Leave a comment if you have any questions or feedback.