How To Start A Successful Blog As Your Side Project (FAQ s— Answered)
Ahhh, the side hustle.
For many of us, it’s the crutch of excitement that gets us through out week. For those of us who don’t LOVE our jobs, we need something on the side to light our fire and this is often it.
Luckily today it’s never been easier to start something. But, honestly, it’s never more difficult to keep at it consistently.
Sharing things that are important to you, no matter what medium, is a great way to learn about your passions, share, & grow.
Getting Started:
It might go without saying, but it’s incredibly important to think through the scope of what you want your blog to be. It’s easy to let your mind run loose and let things become diverse but confusing.
Some question that can help you start brainstorming the scope are:
- What exactly is this going to be about and why do I care about it?
- What categories am I going to include? What should I leave out?
- What is a normal post going to look like? What are my goals?
Once you have a solid idea of what you’re vision is, it’s then time to pick a platform to build it on.
What Platform Do I Pick?
I know, I know: there are a lot of options out there. But in this post I just wanted to break down the types of choices you have and a couple of popular examples of each.
- Standard And Vanilla: Blogger.com is very easy to set up and get going but lacks real customization and beauty
- Tried & True: Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform out there and if you find a great theme, it could work really well. Sometimes it gets confusing, but it’s easy to configure once you get the initial hang of it.
- Drag & Drop: Both Weebly and Sqaurespace offer out of the box solutions that look sharp and are the easiest to design and customize.
- Sharing & Distribution: A Medium Publication or profile is a great way to contribute to multiple blogs at once and also take advantage of the natural sharing element Medium brings to the table
- Custom Solutions: If you’re a web developer or are willing to pay someone, this is the way to go. There is plenty of free-ware and open source software to get you going and customize deeply.
What do I include on my blog to start?
Well, for starters:
- An About Me page to give a quick background on who you are if someone comes across your blog and doesn’t already know. The goal should to show your passion, angle, and any sort of
- A home page the explains what it’s all about and a link to popular or featured posts
- Contact Me page
- Links to your social media profiles so that people can find you on other platforms so that you reach grows (or your Nametag)
How frequently should I Post?
This is really up to you. but keep in mind that there’s a sense of momentum that comes with a consistent blog. For some, that might mean once a day, others once a month. For my own personal blog, I try to write 1000 words a week, however those manifest themselves.
No matter what you decide, write out a content calendar to establish when you’re going to post and how often, and stick to it. There are way too many blogs out there that were started on January 2nd and ended on January 17th because there was no discipline or planning involved.
How Do I Grow My Audience?
Hold your horses, cowboy.
Is that even your goal? What are you trying to grow?
Followers? Page-views? Email Subscribers?
If you’re looking to build up an audience, you have to be able to capture them somehow. You either have to make it easy and clear on what you want your readers to do. There should be a clear “call to action” at the end of all your posts. It doesn’t have to be big and salesy, but it should be clear and instructive.
Once you decide what it is that you’re looking to grow, here are a few ways to spread your writing:
- Do a guest-post swap with another blogger in your space
- Share your latests posts with friends or colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc, with a headline that’s tailored and interesting to whoever you’re sharing it with
- Search for specific conversations on social media and have conversations while leaving a link to your blog in your bio
Anything Else to Keep in Mind?
- Use high qaulity photos whenever you can — you can get free stock photos from sites like Prexels or photos on Flickr under Creative Commons use
- Write — and then edit, edit, edit. Here’s a great blogpost on concise writing.
- Enjoy it !— or else it’s not worth your time :)
