10 Easy Steps to Start a Successful Blog in 2024

In this blog post, I bring you 10 easy steps to start a successful blog in 2024, we’ll unravel the secrets to kickstarting a successful blog with 10 straightforward yet easy steps, that will set you in the right direction to start making money online.

1. CHOSE YOUR NICHE

Let’s start with the basics, the first thing you need to do when starting a blog, is decide your niche, what are you going to write about?

There is a little bit of a debate in the blogging world, some people believe that it’s not THAT important to choose your definite niche at the beginning, while others, think that it is important so you can set a strategy in place that will work for the niche you are targeting.

Personally, I believe it’s important to have a broad niche at the beginning, where you can go niching down with time because let’s not forget that blogging is a long-term game.

You also have to keep in mind where you want to promote your blog to drive traffic. There are a lot of niches that work amazingly on Pinterest, so if your niche is “Pinterest Friendly”, then you have to set a strategy based on this search engine. But if what you want is to rank on Google, you will need to set in place a different strategy.

Pinterest and Google are two really different search engines. Pinterest is mostly a visual search engine, where people go to get inspiration, keep this in mind while choosing your niche, because what works on Google, might not work on Pinterest.

Some niches with high traffic on Pinterest you can consider are:

Home Decor

This niche has an 80% of traffic on Pinterest, its a really broad niche, visual and creative, thar will allow you to write about many topics and drive tons of traffic!

DIY & Crafts

This niche has 75% of traffic on Pinterest and it has a lot of sub-niches to choose from, like fabric crafts, DIY jewelry, woodworking, etc. It’s really creative and visual, this niche makes for great step-by-step blog posts.

Parenting

This is a niche that has been growing a lot because it allows parents to work from home while they take care of their kids. With 42% of traffic on Pinterest, this niche allows you to talk about everything related to parenting, and as a plus, it gives you the opportunity to connect with other parents with whom you might share the same experiences and struggles.

Animals

If you are an animal lover like me, this niche is great for you! it has 27% of traffic on Pinterest and a lot of room to keep growing! in the last few years, the number of people who choose to have a pet has grown exponentially, and I’m sure this will keep growing since pets are a great company.

Gardening

Another great niche with 25% of traffic, if you love plants and have a green thumb this niche can be for you! From how to care for certain types of plants to garden designs and care, this niche has a lot of room for growth.

2. NAME YOUR BLOG

After deciding the niche you are going to be in and write your blog posts about, it is time to decide on the name of the blog!

Personally, I had no idea what name I could give my blog so I went on Chat GPT and typed something along the lines of “Give me ideas for a bedroom decor blog name” and I mixed some of the names the robot suggested and created “The F Nook”.

If you can, use keywords in the name of your blog that reflect what will you write about, this will be a plus for the search engines!

You can also use your own name, but keep in mind that, in the case you want to sell your blog in the future, if it has your personal name this might not be possible.

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK IF YOUR BLOG NAME IS AVAILABLE ON ALL THE SOCIAL MEDIA YOU WILL USE!

3. GET YOUR BLOG DOMAIN + HOST!

With all these basic things sorted out, it’s time to buy your domain name and host, so you can start creating your blog!

Be sure to use WordPress.org and NOT WordPress.com.

WordPress.com is free but your website will have a URL that looks like: yourname.wordpress.com

WordPress.org is the same software, with the difference that you will need to install it on your web host, this is why you need to get a Host like Bluehost first.

Having your own URL looking like “yourname.com” will allow you to monetize your blog with display ads in the future.

I chose to buy mine with bluehost.com because you can get your domain and WordPress host for 35$ a year, with no extra costs! (really, starting a blog is actually one of the cheapest online businesses you can start)

so if you want starting a blog too, I 100% recommend to start with Bluehost, their prices a really budget-friendly and they have great customer support, for any questions you may have.

4. START BUILDING YOUR BLOG

Time to start building your website!

WordPress has a ton of free themes you can choose from, and edit them how you like.

In the beginning, I chose The Minimalist Blogger Theme, but who would have thought that building your blog on WordPress was going to be so difficult? I tried to follow some tutorials on YouTube but there are not many of them for this theme.

I recommend you start with the Astra Theme, there are a ton of YouTube tutorials you can follow to personalize your website, and the interface is great.

You can also buy a WordPress theme on Etsy, there are really great ones for as little as 16$, and you will be able to set them and customize them in half the time!

If you know how to manage WordPress or have the time and patience to learn, you can totally design your page! but keep in mind that you can also buy a pre-set theme on Etsy, personally, this made my life easier!

5. WORDPRESS PLUGINS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER

Theres some resourses you can use on wordpress that will make this whole new experience of starting a blog so much easier, and also make your blog run more smothly and those are the plugins.

You can install them going to your wordpress site, on the side bar Pluging >Add new > Type the name of the pluging you want > Dowload > Activate

These are some plugins that I’m using right now that are helping me run my blog in the easiest way possible

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a FREE SEO plugin you can install to help you improve your posts. This plugin will tell you the quality of your Headline, the keywords, and writing quality.

Conditionally display featured image on singular pages and posts

This one plugin will help you choose an image to put as a cover for when your latest blog post is on display on your home page and category pages.

Insert Header and Footers

To verify your website on Pinterest or Google Analytics you will need to add some codes to your site, and this plugin will make it easy for you since it allows you to copy and paste code snippets, and finally connect everything on your site.

6. CONNECT YOUR BLOG WITH GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Before you start posting there is a really important thing you need to do and that is connecting your blog with Google Analytics. This will help you track the traffic to your blog and see from which countries you are gaining more traffic also, this will help you in the future if you want to get into Ads Agencies since they ask you for your traffic on Google Analytics.

You should also connect your site with Google Search Console, so you can get data on how your blog is performing with Google searches (this is for traffic specifically coming from Google)

7. GET YOUR PINTEREST ACCOUNT READY

If your goal is to drive traffic from Pinterest then time to get your Pinterest account ready!

You should start a fresh Pinterest Business Account, this is going to allow you to see the analytics, the performance of your pins, and your monthly views.

The importance of having a Pinterest business account for your blog, aside from being able to see the analytics, is that it will also allow you to claim your blog website on your profile, so the URL of your blog will appear on your Pinterest profile, and this is important! it will make your profile look more professional.

8. KEYWORD RESEARCH

With all the technicalities sorted out, it’s finally time to start writing!

Start doing some Keyword Research. Looking for the keywords with the most traffic in your niche will help you understand what the audience you want to target, looking for, so you can write blog posts to fulfill their demands.

Personally, I believe that doing the keyword research is the most difficult part, but I’m a beginner, so maybe it has to do with this!

These are some RESOURCES FOR KEYWORD RESEARCH I’m using right now:

Pinterest Treds Tool

If you plan on driving traffic from Pinterest, I 100% recommend you to use the Pinterest Trends tool, is FREE and will help you check the most researched keywords, the month of high traffic for the keywords you want to use on your post, and other keyword variables you can include on your post.

AHREFS

You can use the FREE keyword generator from AHREFS to have an idea of what people are searching for, divided by country and website (you can choose to check on Google, Bing, YouTube, and Amazon).

9. MONETIZE YOUR BLOG

Since you can’t monetize a new blog with Ad Agencyits because it had 0 traffic, you can choose to use other forms of monetization, like Affiliate Marketing.

Personally, I decided to try affiliate marketing because my niche allows me to promote decor and organization items you can find on Amazon so I opened an account with the Amazon Associates Programme.

Today, there are affiliate programs for all types of niches, so if you want to monetize your blog, this is a great option.

here I leave you some affiliate marketing programmes you can take a look at:

• SHARE A SALE
• CJ AFFILIATES
• IMPACT
• CLICK BANK
• PARTNER STACK

10. TIME TO START POSTING

With everything on your site and your posts ready to go it’s time to start posting!

Your blog posts don’t need to be perfect, as long as you add value to them and are helpful to your audience, so don’t be a perfectionist, if you keep trying to change things, you will never post.

Finally getting your first post online will be a great accomplishment! Now is the time to keep writing and start driving traffic!

like I said before, blogging is a long-term game, so don’t expect fast results, but keep going, if you put in the hard work today, it surely will pay off with time.

CONCLUSION

Here you have 10 easy steps to start a successful blog in 2024!

By following these ten easy steps, you’ve laid a solid foundation for your blogging journey. Stay authentic, engage with your audience, and adapt to the dynamic online environment. Whether you’re sharing your passion, expertise, or unique perspective, the world of blogging is at your fingertips.

you can go to my First Month Blog Income Report as an Introvert in 2024 post to check how it went my very first month blogging.

You have no more excuses, so start working on your website, all your hard work at the beginning will pay off in the end!