Diary Of An Internet Marketing Blogger
Although my internet marketing blog is going to contain reviews and info on the latest internet marketing products and services, while I’m putting together the foundations I thought it would be fun to document some of it for anyone who is also starting out.
This is what I’ve done so far:
1) Choose Domain – Bought a domain name (I know, obvious right) – Cost: Under $10
2) SSL or not to SSL? I got SSL certificate installed on this domain so it’s https:// with a nice green padlock next to it. When you’re keen to get going it can seem like a bit of messing around getting this set up but it’s worth doing. I had to set up a separate mailbox for this purpose also. Cost: Around $40
3) Choose a Theme – Once that was done the next step was to decide on a theme. You can basically go three ways when you’re deciding upon a theme and it’s best not to think too much about it other than choose one you like the look of. If you’re super strapped for cash you can go down the FREE route or you can get a paid theme which usually includes a year of support. The last option is to have a custom theme made which can set you back hundreds of dollars. I chose the middle option (paid theme). As I said in a previous post, more on the subject of themes in a future post. Cost: <$60
4) Activate the Theme (include necessary plugins) – This is where you can end up fiddling around quite a bit but you’ll get there in the end. I’m still adding a few plugins but I’m not going to go crazy as a key priority for me is site loading speed. Here’s 3 I recommend you definitely use though.
- Akismet (unless you love SPAM, activate this one)
- All In One SEO Pack or Yoast (either will do, I went for All In One SEO because I am so used to using it)
- Contact Form 7 – Or some sort of form plugin. Contact Form 7 is super simple to setup and you also want to use Google ReCaptcha to stop annoying bots sending you form messages. If you don’t do this you’ll get a ton of messages from people offering web services and blog improvements (they all say they are talented designers) which will drive you insane. Alternatively you could look at Facebook Messenger plugins but I haven’t got around to doing that yet.
- Also include a social sharing plugin. I’m not going to add one specifically here yet because I’m still in two minds as to which one I’m going to add or if I’m going to stick with the one that is built into my theme.
- Loginizer – This stops brute force attempts on your blog. There are also other industrial strength plugins you can use for this purpose but this one is simple to get going with and will lock out anyone that attempts to login to your blog with incorrect passwords.
5) Fiddle Around With Settings and Add Branding – Every theme is going to be different so this is just about playing with the settings on your theme until you’ve got it how you want it. It’s amazing how quickly time can just fly by when you’re doing this.
I created a fancy blog logo graphic but it took up too much room in the header when I resized it. In end I decided to just stick with one that does what it says on the tin.
Quick Tip: Don’t use a big graphic for your blog in your header if you can help it. When people are looking at your site on phones and small handheld devices this eats up a huge chunk of your virtual real estate you’d be better off using for other things… like content.
6) Create A Fav Icon – I was looking at the tabs in my browser and noticed that they all had little icons in the tab. I also realised that’s how I know what site is what when I have multiple tabs open. Your brain just registers this stuff without you realising. Of course, once I realised I added one and moved onto the next thing.
7) Sidebar Shenanigans – This is where it’s a good idea to include a quick snippet about yourself (the author) and a small photo. After that you can do what you want, but you want links to recent posts and possibly an opt-in area for people to join your list. Tick!
8) Create First Post On Your Blog – So you all do all this and your blog doesn’t even have any content to speak of in it apart from “Hello World”. Next step is to delete that post and replace it with an introductory post to your blog. Once you’ve published it check it all looks okay and then setup your blog menu.
9) Add Pages to Blog – The next pages I added were a “Who Is Dean James?” page (also often referred to as “About” or “About Me”. This page on your blog will be visited A LOT so it’s important to have one. People want to know more about you and they want to see who you are. Include a photo on your “About Me” page and also link to it in the MENU area of your blog so they can check it out any time. I also decided to add a “Recommended” page to this blog which includes links and details of products and services I highly recommend.
Note: The products and services on my “Recommended” page are those I wish I’d been using when I first started. It would have made my life a lot easier, so I’ll be adding to that page over time.
It’s also important that as well as adding comments to your blog they can also get in touch with you personally. To solve that one I added Contact Me Page in the top menu of my blog using the script created by the Contact Form 7 plugin, but on this blog I called it “Have a Question? Click Here“. Anyone that clicks that link will be sent directly to a form they can fill in to ask me a question. As mentioned earlier in this post, if you decide to go down this route, definitely install Re-Captcha so that only real people can send you messages.
10) Install Google Analytics – You want to know who is visiting your site, so install Google analytics or whatever analytics software you are familiar with to track what is going on with your site and where the traffic is coming from. Obviously with a new blog it feels like a ghost town at this point and you’re the number one visitor, but this won’t always be the case so do it before the eyeballs come flocking to your site 😉
11) Add Your Site To Search Console – Add the blog to search console. I also add any new posts or pages I create and submit them here for indexing. Rapid SEO Indexer Software will do all this for you and costs less than 10 bucks.
Click HERE to Visit Rapid SEO Indexer12) Start Promoting Blog and Letting The World Know About It – You can start off gently and announce this fact to your social media following, which is what I have done. Once I create a few more content-rich posts like this one including those that feature info on products and services, I will also let my list know about it.
That’s about it so far…
What About The Next Steps?
The next things I plan to do on this blog are to convert more of my visitors to leads so I can increase engagement. This will most probably involve some split-testing over time. I’ll also be creating more content posts like this and featuring reviews and info on the latest products/services in internet marketing, which I will also be sharing with my audience.
It will be an exciting journey building up the audience, engagement and retention for this blog over time, which will happen providing I publish content on a regular basis that people want to read. I do have a head-start over someone literally starting out from scratch with no other online assets as I have built up a following over time outside of this blog, but anyone can start their own blog just like this one if they are prepared to do a bit of work and stick at it.
As ever, thanks for reading. Don’t forget to bookmark this site and if you enjoyed it/found it useful please share it with anyone that would be interested in reading it as well 🙂
