By skyforbes 
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Are you ready to dive into your first month of blogging?
You’re likely going to have a lot of questions during your first month because you’ll be encountering a lot of new tech and other tools you probably haven’t had to use before.
But it’s also going to be very exciting, which may lead to your focus being all over the place, and maybe even a bit of overwhelm. So I’ll make sure to keep you on track with these first-month blogging tips and important info!
Haven’t started your blog yet? START HERE!
Before we go over the 9 things to focus on in your first month of blogging, let’s hit the basics in case you haven’t started your blog yet!
If you have already started your blog and you want to skip to the tips, I’ll leave a Table of Contents below so you can skip around to the good stuff!
1. Choose a hosting company
If you’re planning on making money blogging, you’ll want to start a self-hosted blog. Which just means you pay for it and you own it! This is the best option if you’re trying to make money because:
- Self-hosted blogs are super customizable
- You’ll get to choose your own domain name
- You can choose your own theme
- You can add on free plugins to customize your site however you want
I recommend going with a beginner-friendly company like Bluehost for your hosting company. They are who you’ll pay to keep your site up and running, and then WordPress is the free software you’ll get access to from there.
You do have a ton of other free options but, they won’t be as good and come with a lot of downsides.
- You don’t really own your blog- whoever your blog is with technically owns it
- You can’t get a custom domain name (Website link)
- Customizations are very limited
- It doesn’t look very professional
- Money-making options are pretty limited
- It will be harder to get accepted by affiliate companies & to rank on Google
So if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger and actually make money, sign up for Bluehost right HERE!
How to get started with a Self-Hosted blog on Bluehost
If you want to check out the full step-by-step process, I created this blog post on How to Easily Set up your WordPress Blog, but I’ll leave the important details here too!
1. Choose a Bluehost Hosting plan
If you are just getting started and only have one website in mind, then all you’ll need is the Baics plan. It’s all you’ll need to start!
>>You can check out the plans right HERE
2. Choose a domain name
Your domain name will be the name of your blog and the .com of your site, so make sure you pick a good one! If you don’t have a domain name yet (Which I assume will be the case) Then you can check “Register a new domain.”
With Bluehost, your domain name is free for the first year! Which is a plus.
If you’re struggling to come up with a domain name, check out this helpful blog post right here.
3. Review and complete your order
Next, you’ll need to fill out all of your personal information and complete the purchase. You’ll also choose the length of time you want services.
It’s good to note that the longer you choose your services to last, the more money you’ll save in the long run. I always choose the longest time for myself to save money!
>>You can check out the plans right HERE
First Month Blogging Tips- 9 Things to Focus On
Now let’s get onto the good stuff! Your first month blogging tips and the 9 things I would focus on right away to make sure your blog will be a success and actually start making money blogging!
Let’s get into it!
Or, you can watch the video instead!
1. Narrow down your niche
If you’ve never heard of a niche before, it’s just going to be the main topic that you talk about. So for example, if you’re starting a blog about cooking or fashion. That would be your niche.
And it’s important to make it very clear what your niche is and who you’re targeting in the beginning. You want your audience to understand very clearly what your blog is about, who you speak to, and who you help.
This is going to make it easier for you to have return readers, build up your email list, sell products, and know what posts to create.
If you confuse, you lose. So make sure it’s very clear what’s going on!
Let’s take a look at my blog for example. When you head to my homepage you are clearly met with exactly who I help right away.
Now my niche and messaging aren’t perfect, but the important thing is it’s done. Done is better than perfect, which is something else we’ll get into.
But my niche is primarily about helping bloggers grow their blogs, so I make that messaging as clear as I possibly can. I also have a heavy focus on helping bloggers grow on Pinterest, so I make that super clear as well.
You can also look at the type of content I’ve posted recently. This is all very clearly about one specific topic- growing a sustainable blog and business.
So you want to make sure you understand who you are talking to and what your niche is about.
But also, don’t overthink it. Your niche can evolve over time. I started out in the how-to blog niche and over time grew to talk about building a sustainable business, growing on Pinterest, and more on top of that.
I also want to talk about more than just that; I want to go into talking about living a well-rounded life. So over time, I added productivity, finance, and self-care- all topics I love. But they still have the same main goal in mind.
So the long and the short of it here is, start out small. Pick one niche, one topic, and master that. Build up a ton of posts within that topic.
If you’re struggling to pick a niche, this blog post right here will be helpful.
And then over time, you can start to branch out more and build onto your topics to talk about all of the things you want to talk about. If you want to, that is. You may find you want to stay small or niche down even more! It’s all up to you.
But start small first so you don’t overwhelm yourself.
2. Get organized during your first month of blogging
There are going to be a lot of tasks you need to get done, but if you want to make money quickly, you have to focus on the most important ones (AKA the ones in this list!)
You don’t want to be pulled in a ton of different directions and get distracted by things that don’t matter. There are a lot of organization tools you can use and a ton of different methods, but the one that has worked the best for me is a tool called Asana.
It’s a tool that helps you organize all of the work you need to do. It’s similar to Monday.com, if you’ve ever heard of that. However, I think Asana is the more advanced (and therefore better) version of project management tools.
This is what mine looks like:
It’s a bit of a learning curve to use, but once you get the hang of it, you won’t regret learning how to use it! In fact, I can shorten your learning curve a bit!
I took THIS free workshop to learn a lot about organizing my business like a 6-figure entrepreneur and it was amazing!
You’ll learn;
- The simple 5-step process to go from hot mess to organized CEO
- How to turn your biz into a well-oiled machine (hello, less stress & higher profits!
- How to go from overwhelmed busy bee to saving 10 hours per week
So if you’re at the beginning of your blogging journey, start it out right by taking this FREE Asana Workshop. It’s free, so what do you have to lose?
3. Set specific, clear goals for your first month blogging
The next step is setting goals, but not just any goals. You need to be very clear, and focused and have specific blogging goals.
If you set a goal to “quit your 9-5 job” you’re going to be working at that goal forever, if you ever even hit it to begin with!
Because what’s the plan to hit that goal? When do you want to hit it? What’s the first step?
It’s a good place to start, but then you need to add the specifics. So for example, you want to quit your job.
Start by looking at how much money you need to make for that to be possible. How much money should you save up as a safety net? How much income do you need to keep your blog up and running in expenses before you quit? And then when would you like to do this by?
Once you start breaking it down, then you can start creating your plan.
4. Decide how you will make money
Now let’s go about figuring out how you’ll make money with your blog! If you want to turn your blog into a business so you can quit your job (which I assume is the goal) you need to have a plan for how you’ll make money!
There are so many ways you can make money blogging, but let’s break down the top 3 ways to make money (in my opinion).
You can also check out my lastest blogging income report to see what I’m doing every single month to make money!
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service to your audience and when they buy it, you get a commission from it!
It sounds pretty simple, but there is a lot that goes into it. And there are so many ways you can go about making money with affiliate marketing
You can recommend products inside your blog posts or YouTube videos, you can create a resources page on your site for things you love, you could do TikTok Shop and recommend things in videos there- tons of ways.
I really struggled with affiliate marketing for a long time because I just wasn’t sure what I needed to do, what to recommend to people, or how to even sell a product!
But since learning a lot more, I can finally make sales consistently. Affiliate marketing is one of my favorite ways to make money because it’s pretty passive income!
Sure, you have to create content around products you love, but once the content is out and getting views, you can make sales when you aren’t even working!
For example, this is what I’m currently making with just one affiliate product:
I have $400 sitting, waiting to be approved and sent out to me! It’s pretty awesome.
If you’re looking to do the same thing, check out Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. This is the course I took to help me start making consistent income with affiliate marketing, and as you can see, I got my investment back from just one affiliate product!
She makes so much money from affiliate marketing and with her course you’ll be able to not only understand how to make sales but you’ll be able to increase your revenue (Even if you’re starting from zero) so you can start making affiliate marketing sales quicker!
I also really liked this Affiliate Marketing Bundle from The She Approach as well.
Her From Zero to Superhero Affiliate Marketing Bundle is a good affordable starter choice for beginners to get started with!
Digital products
The next way you can make money is through digital products. I’ve made a few digital products over the years, although it has never really been my main focus.
You can pretty much make a digital product of anything.
- eBooks
- Courses
- Downloadables
- Printables
- Spreadsheets
If you check on a place like Etsy, you’ll see the endless options you can get inspiration from!
Client work
Client work is my biggest income source, and pretty much always has been. And there are a ton of different things you can do for people.
- Virtual Assistant
- Graphic designer
- Email marketing
- Coaching
The list is really endless!
The best way to get started is to create content around a specific topic that you’d like to have a job helping someone with and see if people are interested in hearing you talk about it.
Then once you have an interest, you can launch your services! Keep creating the content you were before, but just mention the services now and if you did everything right, you’ll start booking clients!
This is exactly how I filled up my Pinterest Management services for over 4+ years! Client work is how I was able to quit my job and become a full-time blogger.
5. Just start posting- Stop procrastinating
I know I said at the beginning, I expected you to have already started. But there is a big difference between having the blog up and actually posting on it.
Some people buy a domain and then… never actually do anything with it. You can “technically” say you’ve “started a blog”, but have you really? If you don’t post, can you say you’ve started a blog?
Stop listening to all the advice, just start creating content. It doesn’t matter if your niche isn’t perfect, or if your messaging isn’t great. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the brand colors you choose or if the pins you created are ugly.
Just put them out there anyway.
When I first started, I created the ugliest Pinterest pins you ever could have imagined. They were BAD!
And now I spend my days teaching others how to create amazing pins and grow their blogs using Pinterest. I created an entire course called Pinterest Simplicity teaching bloggers like you how to grow on Pinterest!
I did not start out with the clarity I have now, or the skills I currently have. You can look back on my YouTube to see the thumbnails and videos I used to produce, vs the quality of them now.
And let’s be real, the quality of my current videos could still be better than it is now but here we are anyway!
My old thumbnails:
Versus current ones:
Many bloggers worry about the tiniest of details that never really mattered and so they stop blogging, or never start at all!
I encourage you to head into this knowing that you’re learning and that everything you do can be upgraded in the future.
Blog posts can be edited, themes can be replaced, pins can be improved, and writing can get better. But it never gets better if you never practice. And in order to improve you have to test, you have to fail but most importantly you have to start!
6. Be consistent
If you are really ready to make this blogging thing work, then you need to be consistent with it! You can’t do this half-assed.
I once heard someone say “Treat your passion job like your full-time and your money-making job like a part-time”.
I am definitely paraphrasing and that isn’t exactly what they said, but the point they were trying to make was this. If you want to go full-time in content creation, YouTube, blogging or something else you love- then you have to treat that as your full-time job.
Because one day you want it to be, right?
And then you need to treat your actual 9-5 job that makes money right now as your part-time job, even if it technically is your “full-time” right now. It’s a mindset shift.
You wouldn’t show up to your full-time job once a month, so why would you do the same with your blog? You wouldn’t only post one blog post a month. You wouldn’t sleep in when you promised yourself you’d get up.
When that alarm went off in the morning, you’d get up, get dressed, and go to work. You need to treat your blog with the same respect you’d treat your boss at your 9-5 job.
And since with your blog, you are the boss, then you need to treat yourself the same way you do your current one!
Be consistent, keep posting, and make something of your little blog!
7. Drive traffic to your posts
The next thing you’ll need to focus on with your first month of blogging is driving traffic to your posts. Because you can’t do much without traffic!
I personally think Pinterest is the best place for bloggers to be. It is where a lot of my traffic comes from, and it’s one of the reasons I teach it so heavily on YouTube!
As I mentioned, I created an entire course called Pinterest Simplicity that teaches bloggers my super simple 4-step system on how to manage your Pinterest account in just one hour a week.
I created a super simple system using my time from client work to figure out how to create and schedule pins in just one hour a week!
I understand that Pinterest can take a lot of time for many of us and one of the two main problems I see people having say is “Pinterest takes too much time” and “Pinterest is too confusing.”
That’s why I called the course “Pinterest Simplicity” because it is a super simple system that anyone- even beginners- can understand and grow with!
>> Check out Pinterest Simplicity here!
8. Learn to use Canva
As a blogger, Canva is going to be your best friend. It is a completely free tool that I use every single day in my business.
Well, I actually pay for a Canva Pro subscription, but you can use it for free if you want to!
Graphic design is going to become a big part of your business, so it’s a really good idea to start learning now! You’ll need it for pin designs, graphics for social media, and more.
At first, I was terrible at things like pin design. But the more I did it, the better I got! And you’ll be getting a lot of practice designing Pinterest pins!
If you want to get started with some super simple pin designs, check out my Pin template packs right here.
They’re able to be opened in Canva and are completely editable! Every single element can be updated and changed, or if you like the look of it, you can leave it as is!
Add in your brand colors, slap your title on it, add a photo, and -boom- you’ve got yourself a Pinterest pin!
These are going to save you so much time from having to design pins on your own. Especially in the beginning when you’re just starting out and don’t know the tricks to create pins that get clicks!
Plus, I’ve tested these with my pin management clients and got great results with them so I know these designs convert!
>> Check out my pin template packs right here!
9. Focus on one thing at a time
There are so many things that need to get done when you’re blogging. It can feel like you’re getting pulled in one million directions with all the different things you want to do!
In fact, writing this blog post alone has taken me multiple days because I keep getting distracted by other things to do! It’s just in our nature to get distracted.
But it’s very important to focus on one thing at a time and do your best to not get distracted by every little thing. Which can be easier said than done!
But, when you find yourself pulled in so many directions at once, you’ll likely find yourself getting overwhelmed and may even give up because it just becomes too hard to do anything!
When I find myself running around and trying to do too much, I have to take a breath and refocus. Focus is super important and it is how you’re going to build a strong business that will eventually allow you to branch out and do all the things you want to do.
But you’ll be able to do this over time- not all at once. So keep your head down and stay focused! Use things like The Ivy Lee Productivity Method to help you stay on track.
And if you enjoyed the post, share it on Pinterest so others can benefit as well!