If you intend to make blogging a profession. You need more than just writing because you have to earn money from it, right? You must be able to make blogs as assets and writing as products that are sold to visitors. Then monetize that visitor traffic into revenue. The process to get to “make money blogging” is long and tortuous. Before you get there, you need to know what it takes, how it works, how to get started, and what to do after you start a blog.
For this reason, this article exists. To help you get an idea of what steps to take next after the first stage, which is creating a blog, you have passed.
The choice of blogging platform consists of many kinds. But some of the most frequently used are Blogger.com, WordPress.com, to blogs with their own domain and hosting or called hostedblog. Among bloggers, many use the WordPress engine as their paid blog interface. To start creating a blog, you can start from one of the names of the services above. If you are still confused about how to make it, I have also provided tutorials for each platform, starting from Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr.
- Complete Blog Navigation
Regardless of what platform you use, navigation is the most important element. Navigation consists of menus that are mandatory on a blog. Among other things, blog profile pages, user terms and conditions, contacts, privacy policies, and categories will contain a collection of articles on certain topics. Why is good navigation important for blogs?
Good navigation increases the duration of visits and reduces the bounce rate. This bounce rate is a kind of benchmark for what percentage of users enter the blog and then immediately leave without clicking on the next link. And usually relatively in seconds.
Good navigation also helps visitors to understand the blog hierarchy, differentiate content, and find what they need.
The position effect is also important because, in the Serial Position Effect approach, people pay less attention to the body part of a web page. Rather, pay more attention to and retain information that appears at the beginning and end. Navigation will be the first destination when visitors need specific information.
- Write the First Article
If in WordPress, you will find a default text entitled Hello World!. When your first blog is created, you should delete that post and replace it with your first post. For starters, you can introduce yourself and who you are, then the blog will tell you about what, why to blog, and so on. Although it seems trivial, believe me, one day this simple writing will feel very valuable to be forgotten.
- Improve Display
Many novice users are stuck with the stigma that blogs must look beautiful, have lots of features, have sliders, lots of colors, filled with pictures, videos in the sidebar, and so on. In fact, things like that do not necessarily make visitors feel comfortable. The most important thing is how to make the blog run quickly and smoothly on the user’s device. Especially now that people have started moving from desktop to mobile, strange features like the ones I mentioned above will not appear all in mobile browsers. Even if it appears, it will make the page load heavy. That’s why Google is now starting to give better rankings to sites that load faster and that provide support for mobile devices. So, install a theme that is simple and responsive but still attractive to look at. Eliminate unnecessary decorative elements. Focus on speed, ease of access, and navigation.
- Logo and Favicon
No less important, create a logo for your blog header. What it looks like, free. I leave what the logo design looks like to you, please make it according to your taste. If you have difficulty, you can also hire the services of someone who has the ability to create a logo. You can pay for college, work, or family friends. Or find design services on forums and social media.
- Create Custom Email
Next, create a special email account separate from your personal account. What is it used for? Lots. This email will later be able to register for social network accounts that will be the next stage, for future advertising contacts and others.
- Create a Newsletter Form
Newsletters or mailing lists can be a valuable asset in the future. Apart from being a source of loyal traffic, they can be a field to offer products or services in the future.
- Create Fan Pages and Social Media Accounts
The next step is to create a Facebook fan page for your blog, then create a Twitter and YouTube account. What function? To make your blog more recognizable, easier to remember and of course reach a wider audience.
Google has emphasized that the popularity of blogs on social media is not a benchmark for ranking in the eyes of search engines. However, the purpose of the existence of a blog on social media is to build branding and direct valid visitors.