Defining a Blog and its Relevance Today
A blog is a website that showcases articles, or ‘blog posts’, in reverse chronological order with the latest content appearing first. Blogging is an effective approach to demonstrate expertise to your audience, build credibility, and drive traffic to your site, making it a valuable tool for online business and customer communication.
Blogs are generally informal and managed by individuals or small groups, though corporate blogs now produce a significant amount of informative content. Posts often include a comments section for readers to engage by posing questions or sharing their thoughts.
Since 1993, blogging has been an essential marketing tool for many businesses. But in today’s social media and YouTube age, does it still hold relevance?
Importance of Starting a Blog: Benefits and Reasons
Blogging is a crucial marketing strategy for businesses due to its many benefits. It allows you to promote your ideas, brands, stories, products, and more. Currently, out of the 1.9 billion websites in the world, over 600 million are blogs, accounting for a third of the web. Here are some reasons why you should start a blog:
- Blogging brings more traffic to your website by publishing additional content and improving search engine rankings. In contrast, YouTube videos attract traffic to the YouTube platform, not your website.
- A blog strengthens brand recognition, builds authority, and establishes you as a go-to resource for industry-related topics.
- Blogging helps convert website traffic into leads, subscribers, and social media followers.
- Engaging audiences through blog comments and social media builds a community around your business, creating affinity with your brand.
- Blog posts educate customers on your products, share business news, and showcase product features, among others.
- Blogs provide opportunities to generate additional revenue through ads, affiliate marketing, and premium content sales.
- Blog content can be repurposed for other marketing channels, such as YouTube videos.
Considering these benefits, starting a blog is crucial for businesses to improve their online presence and expand their reach. To learn more about the benefits of blogging, see our article on the subject.
Starting a Blog versus Starting a YouTube Channel: Which Should You Choose First?
After considering the benefits of blogging, we suggest starting a blog first and then adding a YouTube channel later if necessary. This is because a blog provides a platform that you own and control, allowing you to attract visitors to your website and promote your products and services. In contrast, YouTube is owned by Google, and search traffic will direct users to the YouTube platform instead of your website.
Additionally, creating blog content first can simplify the process of producing other types of content, including YouTube videos. Since a blog post requires a script, having written content already available can save time and effort. Furthermore, creating YouTube videos involves purchasing expensive equipment, such as cameras and lighting, and learning to use editing software.
Finally, embedding YouTube videos in your blog posts can offer a seamless user experience, allowing your visitors to choose between watching or reading your content.
Starting a Blog: What You Need
Starting a blog can be daunting, especially for non-technical users. However, you are not alone in this. Experts recommend WordPress as the most popular blogging platform.
Although WordPress is free, creating a self-hosted blog entails costs such as choosing and registering a domain name, and selecting a web hosting provider. You may also incur expenses for website design and purchasing premium plugins to add features. Costs will vary depending on your needs and objectives.
The good news is that you can build a fully functional WordPress website for under $100. Bluehost, an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider, is offering a free domain name and over 60% off web hosting for our users.
Customizing Your Blog’s Appearance with Themes
One of the most exciting parts of creating a WordPress blog is customizing its appearance. WordPress has a powerful templating engine that lets you change your website’s appearance by installing themes. There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes available, allowing you to choose one that fits your vision.
Creating Your First Blog Post
After selecting your WordPress theme, you can create your first blog post by clicking on the Posts ยป Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard. From there, you can use the editor area to write your post.
Expanding Your Blog’s Functionality with Plugins
Once you publish your first post, you’ll want to add additional features to your website, such as contact pages, galleries, sliders, and email lists. To add these features, you’ll need to use plugins. Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website that extend its functionality without requiring you to write code.
However, it’s essential to consider which plugins to use to ensure your WordPress website remains secure, private, and anonymous. Our top plugin picks include:
- All in One SEO: the best WordPress SEO plugin for anonymous websites looking to increase traffic from search engines
- SeedProd: a powerful WordPress page builder that lets you create any page type with a drag-and-drop interface
- MonsterInsights: the best WordPress Google Analytics plugin, allowing you to see where your visitors are coming from and what they see on your website
- OptinMonster: a conversion optimization software that helps you turn website visitors into email subscribers and customers
- WPForms: the best WordPress contact form plugin, allowing you to create forms for your website with ease.
Monetizing Your WordPress Blog
WordPress is the world’s largest publishing platform, powering over 43% of all websites. Many bloggers have successfully monetized their blogs, and with this comprehensive guide on how to make money at home using blogging and WordPress, you can too.
Our guide covers proven strategies such as displaying Google Adsense ads, selling ads, affiliate marketing, offering members-only content, and selling digital or physical products. While some of these methods require time and money to get started, your effort will be rewarded.