4 hours ago
A few people have asked me in recent months how to start a blog.
As a result of the professional blogging spike in the past five years, you can find a ton of posts about how should start a blog if you want to be a professional about it. However, I don't know that everyone who has considered starting a blog necessarily wants to make blogging their profession.
Some people just want to have a place to write about whatever they feel like writing. Some people want to document a specific journey or adventure on which they are embarking. Some people just want to give it a go and see if it sticks.
Unfortunately, there's not that many posts out there anymore telling you how to start blogging casually. So I thought I would just write my own so that the next time someone asks me about starting a blog, I have a post ready to go with the bare minimum of what they need to know and do to get started.
1. Set up your blog page.
Before you can start to write you need to have a place to write, so you need to choose a blogging platform. There are two approaches to this:
A. Start as if your blog will earn you money one day.
Many bloggers who have monetized their blogs will advise you to start right off the bat with WordPress.org and hire someone to build an amazing website for you. If you you want to start a blog with the intent of earning money with it, and you are fully committed to that and have a plan, listen to those people. I have many blog friends who recommend the resources on Just A Girl And Her Blog for a professional approach to starting a blog.
However, I am not going to tell you to do that.
B. Just start.
Personally, I don't think there's any sense in investing a ton of money until you really figure out if blogging is for you. You may absolutely love blogging, or you may write for a couple months and decide it's not your thing. Especially if you are more interested in personal reasons for blogging (documenting your life, connecting with other people, having your own platform to just write), I would recommend that you start on Blogger.com. I've been on Blogger since the beginning, and I am still happy with it. The interface is very intuitive (you can just start!), they have a great designing dashboard that is easy to use (you can make it look how you want it to look), and it's FREE! You can sign up with Blogger and set up a basic blog in about ten minutes, so go do that. I'll wait.
A Note About Designing
If you want to fiddle around with the design template on Blogger you probably will figure out how to make it look the way you want it to look you all by yourself. You may also consider creating or commissioning a graphic designer for a header image, because that is the first impression of your blog page (nice, but not strictly necessary). You can also search on Etsy for blog templates; some sellers will even install it for you. This is the template designer I used when I wanted to update my template to be mobile-responsive (i.e. so my blog would adjust to screen on your phone), and I'd recommend her - she was very helpful!
2. Start writing.
The next thing you need to do to get going with your blog is just to write.
The professional blogging community will also tell you to create several posts before you launch your site so that you have content already waiting for your potential readers. I don't think this is a bad idea at all. When you have posts already published and ready to promote, it makes it look like you've been writing for more than a day. This is nice, but I'd like to emphasize that it is in no way necessary. It's more important to just start, so if pre-creating content is going to slow you down, I say just skip it.
Just go ahead and write whatever you want to for your first post and publish it. In the long run, what makes most bloggers successful is just writing, and being consistent about it.
The more you write, the more you think of to write, and the more creative you force yourself to be, the more creativity comes to you. So just get started. Try to make a goal of writing x-amount of times per week. If you stick to it for a while, you're going to come up with some good content, and it's going to get easier and easier to come up with good content.
3. Start reading blogs.
You may want to do this before you actually start creating your blog, but after you start writing I think it's especially helpful to read other blogs. There are two reasons for this.
A. To spark your own ideas.
First, reading other blogs will often spark ideas for posts for your own blog. Seeing how other bloggers write will also give you a better idea of how to format posts on your blog, and the kind of feeling you want your blog and writing to have.
B. To become a reciprocal blogger.
The second reason I recommend reading other blogs is not only to get ideas, but also to start creating your network. Blogging is way way more fun if you have people actually reading your blog and interacting with it, and a good way to encourage that is to become a reciprocal blogger - meaning you leave comments on other blogs, and return comments when you receive them on your blog.
This used to be the norm in the blogging world, but unfortunately blogging has gotten a lot more self-focused over the last five years, with an emphasis on pageviews rather than relationships. If you want to have a casual blog and make it fun, focus on building relationships. The good news is that I sense a shift back to building a sense of community among bloggers, and I hope this continues.
If you are just starting out with a casual blog, I recommend commenting frequently and widely on blogs that look similar to yours, and I almost guarantee a few of those bloggers will end up coming back and reading your blog too.
4. Get your posts out there.
By this I mean to go ahead and share your posts on social media. In the blogging world today, commenting, while important for casual bloggers, is not as effective as it used to be in getting people to visit your blog. You need a way to let people know that you have some new content. There are several ways to do this:
A. Instagram.
I highly recommend joining Instagram, even for a casual blog these days. Not only will this help you get your blog out there to people who might be interested in reading what you have to say, the (sort of sad) truth is you will most likely get more responses to your content on Instagram than on your actual blog. I've found it's almost easier to find blog friends this way, because it's so quick and easy to comment back!
B. Facebook.
There are a few ways to use Facebook - you can create a page for your blog so you can share new content, or you can just share new content right on your personal Facebook if you don't mind everyone in your friend list potentially reading your blog. You may also consider joining a Facebook group for bloggers. I don't use my blogging Facebook groups that much because they are typically geared more toward the business side of blogging, but sometimes they can be fun. The Peony Project is a one for women bloggers.
C. Linkups.
A lot of people have great luck finding blog readers through participating in linkups. A linkup is a collection of blog links surrounding a specific theme, and it is hosted on someone else's blog. You would typically write a post that would fit with the theme of the linkup, and then go to the host blog and add your link. If you are going to participate in a linkup to find blog friends/readers, do not just drop your link and run. You have to comment on other people's posts too. I don't do that many linkups, personally, but if you are interested I'd check A Joy Filled Life and/or Girl On The Move for their link party lists.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I write about?
There are typically two kinds of blogs out there: niche blogs, and lifestyle blogs. Niche blogs are focused on one particular topic, such as cooking blogs, fashion blogs, homeschooling blogs, etc. If you want to create a niche blog, I think it's important to really be focused and only write things that relate in some way to your topic. My blog is not a niche blog. I would classify it as a lifestyle or personal blog. I just write about whatever in the world I feel like writing. You can make a blog work either way, you don't necessarily have to have a niche. It's also totally okay to change your focus, especially when you are just blogging casually (which is what this post is all about) - you can try niche writing for a while, and if it doesn't work, change it up.
How do I get people to send me items to review?
A lot of blogs, as they grow, can become a weird hybrid of a casual personal blog, and a money-making blog. My blog might be a good example of this - I mostly write what I please, but I also accept products to review and sponsored posts occasionally - either for fun or to help my family. Because of these occasional sponsored posts, I frequently have friends asking me how they can get free products or compensation through blogging.
In order to get items to review or be offered compensation for writing a post, you have to build something of a readership first. Companies want to make sure their investment of money or a product is going to yield some sort of return, so you just aren't going to get these kinds of offers until you start getting a certain amount of monthly pageviews. Gaining pageviews does take a lot of work, and if this is going to be your focus from the start I would say you are probably not wanting to be a casual blogger - you are hoping to make money with your blog, so I'd check out more of the resources for professional blogging at the link near the top of this post.
How did you start getting sponsored content or products to review?
If you don't necessarily want to start with the goal of making money, but are just kind of curious on how that works, here's my story.
I wrote on my blog consistently for several years, made blog friends, and generally just had fun with it. I gained some like-minded followers. Pinterest came out, and I had a moderate amount of success with some of my party-related posts, which afforded me even more regular pageviews. Once my pageviews reached a certain level, I had companies occasionally contact me to see if I'd like to receive a product to review - of course I said yes (when it was something I would be interested in)! Then I went through a brief phase when I decided to try to gain more sponsored post opportunities through sponsored content networks, and I had some success with that because I had a certain amount of pageviews and an audience that those companies were looking for.
Product reviews and sponsored posts can be a lot of fun, but they only come once in a while, and I don't think they should be your only reason for blogging. Most people aren't that interested in a blog that only puts out sponsored content and product reviews. After trying to earn more money with my blog for a year or two there, I decided I was becoming exhausted with the whole thing and had more fun with blogging when I focused more on friendships with other bloggers, so I shifted back to a more casual/personal approach. I still do occasional sponsored content, but I'm more particular and don't accept those posts as often anymore.
But what about your book reviews?
Okay, if you are wanting to know how to get books to review, that's a whole other ball game! I love reviewing books on my blog, and I think it fits in nicely with a more casual approach to blogging. Let me know if you are interested in more on that, and maybe I'll put together another post on how I receive free books in exchange for reviews!
Blog buddies, what do you think? Would you add anything to this post for people who may be interested in starting to blog casually?
I like to think that sharing the gospel in written form on this blog counts for something, but let's be honest, if I really are about those around me who are headed for Hell, I should be willing to speak up in person too. But I get scared, and I don't know what to say. It's a problem. I've been feeling convicted about this for a couple years, but it's so hard to know where to start.
After praying about this for a while, I feel like the Lord brought a couple resources into my life in the last few months that are making me feel a lot less terrified of evangelizing. I was going to share about all this in one of my life update posts, but then I thought, hey, evangelism is an important enough topic that it certainly deserves it's own post. And I know some of you out there have the same struggles as me. Speak up in the comments!
Resource #1 - Wretched Radio
In December we started listening to a podcast called Wretched Radio. Derek and I are officially hooked now. Todd Friel, the host, has a sarcastic sense of humor that is entertaining, but the meat of his ministry is all tied back to the importance of the gospel and evangelism. We don't always agree with his style or word choice, but he's very grounded on God's word. Each week he does a "Witness Wednesday" episode, where he gets random people on the radio and witnesses to them right there. Just hearing how someone else witnesses to people, in real conversations, has made me feel so much more prepared for the moment when I might get a chance to witness to someone myself. And feeling prepared is half the battle, right?
Resource #2 - Living Waters
On a related note, Friel started this part of the podcast with Ray Comfort, who has a whole Youtube channel where he witnesses to strangers. His boldness in sharing the gospel is so inspiring, and makes the whole thing seem less scary and more doable. Derek and I could sit for hours and watch his witnessing videos. You can see all those here, but be prepared to get sucked in for a ridiculous amount of time.
Resource #3 - Successful Christian Parenting by John MacArthur
I've mentioned Successful Christian Parenting before, but this is my go-to book for refocusing on evangelizing my children - who are the people I want to point to the Lord the most, for obvious reasons! That's really the whole point of Christian parenting. I think this book would be great in particular for anyone who has children in their life that they want to lead to Jesus, even if you aren't a parent yet, and the approach he explains in this book would be helpful in witnessing to someone of any age. I'm reading it again this year.
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Evangelism is one of those things that I think a lot of us put off because we don't think we have the "gift" of evangelism. But the thing about spiritual gifts is that they are often things that we are supposed to do whether we have a "gift" for it or not. We're all supposed to be practicing discernment, hospitality, mercy, etc. And we're all supposed to be evangelizing. Plus, this is purely a guess, but I imagine that since we know God is not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), He probably has gifted more than 2% of the church with the gift of evangelism...and maybe a lot of us just don't realize it because we're too scared or lazy to give it a try.
That would be me. But I'm working on it, and I wanted to encourage my fellow sisters in Christ to work on it too. Checking out these resources is an easy place to start.
Do you have a hard time with evangelism too? Are you trying to work on it? What resources have helped you?
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