With the quickly approaching New Year, I know a number of people are making the resolution to start, restart or get serious about blogging. It’s hard to believe but I’ve been at this for nine years now - with varying intensity and frequency - but in that time I’ve learned a lot about the ins and outs of blogging. And while things change each year, there are some things that remain the same. Here are a few things that the beginner blogger should know and consider when first setting up a blog.

Learn about and implement SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial in making your blog a success and reaching a wide audience. SEO is very much needed to increase the flow of people to your blog, it increases the chances of your blog being featured when keywords are searched in a search engine such as Google or Bing. It is extremely important to educate yourself on SEO to increase your traffic and stop your site being buried under hundreds of other sites.

Take security seriously

When setting up your blog you need to make sure you spend some time making it secure. Make sure you setup a strong password and keep up with the updates that are released. When setting a password try not to use anything that you use on other platforms so it isn’t easy to guess. It is also best to steer away from anything linking to you or family such as birth dates or special occasion dates as this can make it easier to guess if the hacker has your personal info.

Another great thing to incorporate for security would be ID verification software which will stop anyone logging in to your blog without the correct documentation and ID. A great software for this is Jumio which uses Netverify to allow you to scan your face, ID and Documentation to verify who you are. There are various options available that you can learn more about online.

Trust me, I know several bloggers and influencers who have lost their blog or Instagram account thanks to an easy to crack password and a cunning hacker. It’s worth it to protect all your hard work from day one.

Be organized

When starting your blog, you need to be organized - super organized. Plan your content out in advance so you know what your going to write about and put on the blog, and when you’re going to do that. Doing this then allows you to spread the content across multiple categories and allows you to have a constant stream of posts going up on your blog, you can even schedule your posts to go live throughout the week or month so you have posts going up regularly even if you don’t have time to write them daily. I recommend having a regular posting schedule, one your readers can expect, especially if you aren’t posting regularly. (I know, I know. I say that but I don’t do it. But I promise, it is one of my goals for 2019. Regular posting on a consistent schedule.)

Market your blog

SEO might be your main source of traffic but to begin with it is best to market your blog and increase your following to get your blog off the ground. The best way to achieve this is through social media. Start by building up your followers by interacting and engaging with others in a meaningful and consistent manner. Then when you share your content, hopefully they will like it or share it, then their followers see it and so on causing a snowball effect.

It can be daunting to blog and work at building up a bunch of different social media accounts too. While I think it is smart to have all the accounts for your blog or business, I think it best to focus on the top two or three that you enjoy and that seem to create value for you and your blog. For me, that’s Instagram (because it’s my favorite), Facebook and Pinterest.

If you’re starting or restarting a blog in the new year, I’d love to hear what your plans are. What will you blog about? How will you be consistent and engaging? Leave a comment and let me know!