Hi sweet friend.
While you might not have heard of Xanga or Blogger before, these are two of the first platforms that I started blogging on back in my teens. I don’t think any of my accounts exist anymore, but I just share this with you, to illustrate, that I know blogging. I blogged as a teen, I blogged as a new mom, I blogged as a photographer, and for the last 8 years, I have been blogging as a real estate agent. But I didn’t start taking blogging as seriously as I do now, until a few years ago.
Blogging has the potential to change your world. Change your life. For three solid years, I have been posting YouTube videos and writing blog posts that have generated millions of dollars in revenue. And here you can learn my whole content method. But my story isn’t why you are here, let’s jump into the topic at hand, “How to get started blogging.”
There are many platforms one can blog on. If you want no attachments to technology, you can use a platform such as Medium.com. There are pros and cons to blogging on Medium, but in general, a website that you don’t own, and a website that doesn’t instantly push your content to Google, isn’t one I recommend writing upon unless you want the easiest option. And Medium.com is going to be the easiest, go-to option. What I do love about Medium is the built-in community.
The second option I would recommend as an easy go-to is Substack.com. I actually love Substack. You can build a community within your Substack account, you can put up a paywall, and have a paid subscription option. Substack is also very user-friendly and doesn’t require a love of technology. I do have some plans to navigate over to Substack with one of my businesses later on down the road, but I still plan on hosting my own blog.
The third very easy option I recommend is Ghost.org. It is the best of both worlds, but like the options above, you don’t own anything. With Ghost you are paying a monthly subscription fee, that you will have to pay for the life of your blog. What I do love about Ghost is how easy it is to get a Ghost website and blog up and running. You can purchase templates, connect your domain name, and make it look like “a real website”. Medium and Substack are not customizable. Ghost websites are customizable and very fast. You can view the website I built on Ghost here: http://wishilivedhere.com.
My favorite option, and the one this website is run on, is WordPress. In order to set up a WordPress website, you will need to purchase a domain and host the domain on your server. This is the most complicated option, but this is how I have built most of my websites. it is fully customizable, but not user-friendly. I host this WordPress site on Bluehost, and I am using Elementor as the design platform interface. You can view a handful of my WordPress websites at the links below.
What is fantastic about WordPress, Squarespace, and Ghost, is that you can download pre-made templates that you can install and customize. I like these two websites for templates: Creative Market and Theme Forest.
My least favorite option that I would still encourage others to consider is Squarespace.com. Squarespace is similar to Ghost, but you can build out an e-commerce side of this website very easily. I do not like it for blogging, but it is a great option is you want easy. I have built the website jordanschilleci.com on Squarespace.
The steps below are going to assume you decide to go with a WordPress-based blog and website.
1. So your first step to get started blogging, is going to be: choose a platform you want to host your blog on.
Once you have chosen which website/platform suits your needs the best, you need to think about what you want to name your blog and what domain name you want to purchase. I really recommend you work with a branding coach or marketing coach to brainstorm these items.
2. Think of a name for your website and blog.
If you are building a whole brand around this “name”, you will want to make sure the domain address is available (www.websitename.com), and maybe the YouTube URL, and Instagram username. When I was naming my real estate brokerage, joandco.com was already taken so I decided to go with byjoandco.com. With my travel website, wheretorv.com was taken, so I decided to go with wheretorv.blog. I personally recommend using Bluehost as your hosting service, and I recommend buying your domain with them as well.
3. Purchase your domain and hosting service.
Your website will need a place to live. This place is called a server and the provider is called a host or hosting service. I listed my two favorites above, but any reputable one will do. I love Bluehost because of their customer service. Once these items are purchased, you will need to install WordPress.
4. Install WordPress.
You will need to assign your domain to a folder on your server, and then you will need to install WordPress. Installing WordPress is essentially the click of a button. There are many tutorials on how to do so.
5. Decide on design.
There will be built-in templates on your installed WordPress site. This website is running off of one of those built-in templates. This website was (I have built out all of the websites I have talked about in this blog post) my first time using a built-in template. In the past, I have always purchased and downloaded a template from Theme Forest and used a demo with minor modifications made by myself. I went to school for this (Bachelor’s degree in Web Design and Interactive Media), so it isn’t foreign to me. I wouldn’t say it is easy, but I have always been able to figure it out.
So, yes, the next step is deciding on design. You can use one of the templates installed right out of the box, but you will want to make minor modifications, such as site name, logo, branding colors, etc. Or you can choose a template, purchase it, install it, and modify it to fit your brand.
The other solution would be to hire a company to do this for you. At Jo & Coaching, we do partial and full end-to-end build-outs that include websites and blogs. You can learn more about everything we offer by clicking this link or messaging me on Instagram.
6. Decide on your content pillars.
Before you can start blogging, you need to decide what your content pillars are going to be. These content pillars need to align with your brand and your brand’s purpose. They need to also align with your audience and your ideal client. Another way to look at content pillars is the concept of “content buckets”. Each of your blog posts needs to fall into one of these buckets. Having content buckets can allow you to categorize your content and target different segments of your audience.
Let’s talk this out. Let’s talk about four generic types of pillars all business owners should have, and then you can decide ways to niche or bucket those pillars. Let’s think about people that “have no idea who you are”, people who “know you”, people who “like you” and people who “trust you”. So yes, we have broken down the concept of know, like, trust.
People who don’t know you might want to be entertained.
People who know you might want to be educated.
People who like you might want to watch you showcase.
And people who trust you or love you might want to be sold to, so we will invite these folks to be a part of what you have to offer.
Nicole Burke of Gardenary Co., speaks about this directly. Let me try my best to summarize what I heard her say on a Podcast recently…
Online is a town. Your business is a building. Every single person I am going to work with (or serve content to) lives in this town. So let’s think about where they live in this town in relation to my brick-and-mortar (my business). There are people who live as far away from your business as possible. They probably have never driven by, and they don’t know you exist. In order to draw them in and introduce them to your business, you can use stories to entertain them. Nicole loves to garden. She took her gardening hobby and turned it into a business. Now she is a coach to those doing what she has done. Her example for this one is, “This is a story on how I grow arch cherries 225 days a year.” She is talking about video content (reels) in her examples, but I think this philosophy applies to all content creation. We do not want to try to sell this audience anything, and we are not trying to get them to subscribe.
Then the person who kind of knows you or kind of knows about the material you are writing about or the concepts you are teaching, this person wants to be educated. They want to learn more. They want “step-by-step” content, and they want “how-to” content. This person we are trying to pull closer to the building and business.
The next type of person is the one who knows your business. They read other blogs like yours. They are seeking out content like yours. The type of content we should be serving them is showcasing content. Examples are testimonials, before and afters, “wow” content, and content that makes them want to hit the share button. This content doesn’t just need to be sharable, but gorgeous, or amazing.
The last person is driving by your building and you want them inside. They know who you are. They are active followers or readers. They are trying to decide if they want to be more involved, if they want to buy, etc. We are making inviting content for them. We should be asking them to join a challenge, buy a course, download a guide, or sign up for a webinar.
I don’t know if this is helpful for you, but it was a pretty eye-opener for me. I am going to share some general examples:
Content pillar: Entertain
Buckets: show a day in the life, put your spin on a trending topic, “this is a story about…”, “this is a story on how…”
Content pillar: Educate
Buckets: tips and advice, frequently asked questions, new news on a relevant topic, share the research you gathered
Content pillar: Showcase (Insire, and Relate)
Buckets: show a before and after, tell your story, tell a client’s success story, share something you struggled with and pose a solution, share a client review in their own words,
Content pillar: Invite
Buckets: promote a sale or product, feature a piece of a course, offer a free trial, do a free webinar
I personally make sure my buckets are categories on my blog. I think it is super smart to keep your blog organized. This will help people not just find what they are looking for, but it will keep them on your website longer because it will be easy for them to find more relevant content. This website/blog is new(ish), but here are some of my current categories: With Love, Jo, Ebook, Freebie, Printable, Stan Store, Instagram, Pinterest, Content Marketing, and Blogging.
7. Write.
The next step is the most intuitive and the most important. You need to start writing your blog posts. This might come easy to you, or you might need to do some research. My four favorite ways to do research are:
- Install and use keywords everywhere. – You write a general topic into Google (I recommend 1-2 words max) and hit enter. Then you need to select the “Find long-tail keywords for “keyword” button”. This will share with you everything that has been Googled with said keyword as a part of the input. You can find ideas from here. Keep in mind, that the main reason why you have a blog, is so that people can organically find you and your content through Google Searches. In the last few months, I have averaged 1M impressions per month, which just means I have popped up on over 1M Google searches per month.
- Use answerthepublic.com. It works off of the same data and will give you questions people want answers to. You can create blog posts with these exact titles.
- Peruse your favorite Facebook Group or Reddit threads to see what some commonly asked questions are. These will make great blog post topics.
- Ugh. I had a fourth, and now I cannot remember it. Hopefully, I remember it in the next day or two, and I can update this, but you can also study your competition and look at reels with lots of views or YouTube videos with lots of views to see what people are interested in real-time. And create blog posts around those topics.
You want to talk (write) most about what you know most about. You want to make sure you are representing yourself as the expert you are. Once you have exhausted the topics you know most about, move down the list. It is important, as you probably know, to continue growing. As you grow, your content can grow. It can evolve. And you will see this same evolution in your audience.
My final thoughts.
- You want to make sure you are syndicating your content. If you aren’t properly marketing your content, then your content isn’t reaching its full potential. You can learn all about my content method here.
- Any relevant YouTube videos or Instagram Reels should have a home on your blog. You can embed them quite easily.
- If you don’t want to do this alone, you can hire us. All of our contact information is below.
- Make sure all of your blog posts have a call to action. You can learn more about calls to action (CTAs) here.
What’s next? Are you seeking both personal and professional growth without sacrificing? We are looking to work with those who are building a business while seeking a balance between family and work, and they don’t want to do it alone. We provide coaching, build-outs, training, step-by-step guides, mentorship, and one-on-one consultations.
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