5 Things To Do After You Start a Blog
Have you just started a blog? Well, let me first say congratulations!
If you haven’t? It’s okay to start here.
Starting a blog is a true start to being able to quit your day job. Make some big money. Stay home with your kids. Travel where you want, when you want. There is a catch to it. You have to actually put in work (to your blog). ‘5 Priority Things To Do After You Start A Blog.’
The road is long and a bit bumpy. But stick with me and I will make it a bit shorter for you and a bit smoother.Â
Let’s start here. Have you already started your blog with wordpress.org? (Don’t confuse wordpress.com and .org together)why? Because you can’t make money from wordpress.com only wordpress.org). So if you have already:
- Signed up with bluehost (my special discount will get you a cool discount with bluehost ) or wix
- Got a cool unique domain name (this is usually free when you purchase your hosting package from bluehost)
- Signed up with WORDPRESS.ORG (This is free and included with bluehost)
1. Priority One:Make your menu
Your menu is the subtitles that are displayed at the top of your page. This is your time to think about what would you want to write about. My tip is to make it simple. The home page is a must. An about page is a must. A contact page is a must. Depending on what kind of blog you have you can get creative with the menu subtitles.
Here are some ideas.
Food Blog
| Home About Recipes Freebies Contact |
Lifestyle Blog
| Home About Family Freebies Contact |
Ok, you see. You will get the hang of it. It took me a few weeks of playing around in wordpress.org until I got the hang of it.
2. Add Your Categories
You just do as it says. Add Your Categories. This is very important because it helps you and your readers find what they are looking for easily. Have you ever seen at the end of blog posts, it says related posts? Ok, you know the magic of that? When you add a category like kids and whenever you post about kid-related things all of your RELATED posts will link thanks to your categorize. ( And ugh, I know I just had a super long run-on sentence.)
3. Download Plugins
OK, let me clarify this term plugin to you. I will often elaborate on weird tech Davy words as such. If you know it is great. But what distracted me and discouraged and straight scared me some was blog terms I didn’t know. Once I learned them later on I’m like wow if I really knew the meaning and its use that would have saved me a ton of time.
Ok sorry back to plugins. Plugins are like apps for your blog/website. Just like a phone if you want to put a cool font or screensaver or speed up your phone you go to the play store or Apple store right? That’s what plugins do. They are functions for everything on your blog.Â
You would go here:
In the search box, you search for what you’re looking for.
Most of the. the time you will get hundreds of options. Sort through them. When you find the one you want to use click Install.
Once it’s installed click activate.
Most of the plugins are free. Don’t upgrade to pro versions at least not just starting out.
4. Place Widgets Where you want
Widgets are places where you can put those plugins that you just installed. If you go here:
You will be able to take those installed plugins(apps for your website) and place them on the side, top, a certain page, or every page or post. It’s up to you. You decide. You are in control. You’re the boss.Â
Think of it like this. When you download an app on your phone. You can put these apps on any screen of your choice.
5. Social Media Icons
This is the time to add your business accounts. Don’t add your personal Facebook, Twitter, and so on. I made a customized account just for my blog All Modern Mommy.
Don’t worry you don’t have to be fancy and have like 4 different social media accounts. As long as you have Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. At least have two.
Go to add new plugins and search for social media icons.Â
There is a lot of work that goes into building your blog design alone. But these 5 will get your blog up and running and ready to function.
The social media social button that I’m using is the plugin Social Warfare.
Check out this more in-depth post about making money from your blog.
What has been your most challenging thing about starting a blog?
