With so many platforms available for writers, we have create an every thing five pounds list to guide you through setting up our blog and growing it with as little as a fiver.

Before you start a blog answer these simple questions that will help you when choosing design, planning content and going social.

What is the purpose of this blog?
(e.g. to make money, to teach, to review products)

What are your strongest skills?
(e.g. writing, designing, speaking, researching)

How many spare hours do you have a week?
(weekends, evenings, mornings)

Once you have answered the above questions you will hopefully be able to see how much time on a monthly basis you have to invest in the blog, the format that will allow you to enjoy updating your blog (if your strongest skill is speaking, maybe a vlog is more suitable, if you love designing look out for blog platforms with large images).

So let’s get on with the every thing five pounds list for you to start using to set up your website.

Todo's for setting up a blog

1. Register on a blogging platform

If you are thinking of reaching a wide audience with your content, WordPress will be the best platform to use. If you have never set up a blog before, we recommend registering a url on the wordpress.com site for free. The blog is a friendly version for those that do not know how to code; it’s also a good introduction into WordPress, so when your blog starts growing, you can set up the full version of WordPress to support it.

2. Research your niche

A lot of people when starting a blog jump straight in and achieve very little results. Take this time to plan out your grow strategy. Focusing on a niche topic usually does this, but this niche will open the way for the more competitive categories. Here is an example, if you are a logo designer and want to attract people that are interested in buying logo designs, you will have so much competition, it will take you years to get noticed on Google. However, if you love doing abstract logo typography, this is your niche. If you produce content around this niche then people who are particularly interested in abstract logo typography will come a lot quicker. Once Google sees people clicking on your search results and interacting with your website, it will trust you to rank for the higher competition keywords. How do you eat an elephant? A bit at a time.

3. Produce heavy content

Once you have your niche, focus on producing the best content out there, use multimedia, external trusted links and original designs to ensure you don’t just have a 500 word plain article. Always write for yourself, and ask would I like to read this? By producing heavy content that is not only text based, google will index and crawl your website a lot more often.

4. Setup a content strategy

A content strategy might sound pointless if you don’t have a lot of time, but it will give you direction of where you want to go. In a simple excel sheet, write down the months and the number of blog articles you hope to publish and keep track of how you perform against your set targets. You can only get better if you know what you’re aiming for.

5. Spread the word

Reserve your username on as many social media accounts (this will be used for growing your blog). You can check if your username is available using a name checker.

6. Share content on all platforms

Find a social platform that drives interest from day 1. Not all social media channels will work for you, but the ones that will you will see instantly. If you have a beauty blog or a fashion blog, pinning all of your articles on your Pinterest account should start generating at least 1-2 clicks from just starting your blog.

7. Keyword optimisation

Let’s say I wanted to write an article about kinky sex toys. I know that not all toys around the world are equally popular, so I would narrow my article to toys in the US. When I have a good idea about the body of the article, before starting to write I would simply type into the google search “sex toys in the US”. As I type I can immediately see other keyword search variations. Google shows you these keyword variations because they are popular searches within the topic. So for my article’s title I would pick the first keyword that google has shown which is “popular dildos US” and I would incorporate the whole sentence as google has shown it in the title and the first paragraph of the article. If you want to speed this process up, get a freelancers from Freelancers.xxx to do the keyword research.

8. Turn readers into subscribers 

Capture data to turn readers into subscribers. You can register on Mailchimp for free to start off with. Add the signup form on your blog so you can immediately start growing your fan base. As your blog grows and attracts more readers, you can also ensure a reader comes back to view your blog once you have new content. You can monetise the email database at a later stage by showing promoted posts or products in the newsletters (make sure these are relevant and will be off interest to your readers or your un-subscription numbers will shoot up).

9. Make your blog sharable and memorable

Add original designs to make your content unique and worthy of coming back for.

10. The whole point of link-building

Grow exposure by growing the number of links pointing to your website. By engaging with other content that you like and offering your opinion you can attract readers from different websites. Also getting people to write about your blog or you and add links that point to your website will grow your blog’s authority in the google search.

The list above should be a good basis for you to start from. Every point can be expanded into more lists but if we listed everything that needs to be done for each point we could write a book. If you really want to grow your blog to have thousands of readers, you need to immerse yourself in the topic you are creating content around. This way you will be able to produce content better than your competition and offer something truly unique to your readers. Once your are done with the initial setup and growth stage of your blog, make sure to track the progress using website performance tools.