5 Things That Will Make Blogging Much Easier For You
Table of Contents
Choose A Host With Good Customer Support
Many people only look at the hosting price, but I recommend you choose a host that provides good support. The few euros you might pay more for will pay off a hundredfold later. A good host will quickly handle all possible problems that can arise at the start of your blog: domain changes, server moves, missing SSL encryption, database kungfu, backups, website crashes, and so on.
You must choose a host with good support, especially if you are a blog beginner! Tip: Save the customer support number directly into your cell phone and call support before you get gray hairs because of a hosting problem! Because many new bloggers try to solve a technical problem themselves and then go around in circles for hours. Often, a quick call to the hoster helps, and the problem is solved in a few minutes if it has anything to do with servers or hosting.
Use Your Name As A Domain
To become an expert brand, use your name as a domain. The problem with blogging often starts with people needing help deciding what their website should be called for months. Then, they often choose an SEO name because that is supposed to be good for ranking. Then, they find themselves in the topic trap because such a domain means that we have the feeling that we are only allowed to write about this one topic.
Then, everything has to revolve around this keyword in the domain. And woe betide you if you change your professional case or move. Then you have to change your environment, which means effort and the loss of the search engine optimization you have built up to that point. In addition, with such a domain, you make it incredibly difficult for yourself to become an expert brand.
As a talented brand, our goal is that when people hear our name, they automatically associate us with the one thing we stand for. For me, e.g., B., this one topic is blogging. But with a keyword domain, it isn’t easy to stand out from the crowd of service providers and coaches. That’s why it’s essential to immediately appear with your name and use your name, for example. B. gradually form your brand with personal blog articles.
Choose WordPress As Your Content Management System And Use A Simple Theme
WordPress is the best-known and most widely used content management system. It has many features and is still beginner-friendly. I also blog with WordPress, just like everyone on my team. Therefore, we can always provide support and help quickly with WordPress questions.
In my courses, we also recommend blog beginners to use a classic WordPress theme as a design basis: the “Twentytwentyone” theme (which is automatically included with every WordPress installation) with the free “Twentig” plugin as an extension.
After eight weeks, when you can confidently blog with it, i.e., you have mastered the Gutenberg editor, you can switch to a fancier theme with a page builder. B. Elementor or Divi. With such page builders, you can build beautiful websites. Only: What you should NOT do with these page builders is blog! One of the biggest problems I see with new bloggers is that people start immediately with a professional theme because the web designer chose it that way.
Then they are completely overwhelmed, can’t blog, and need a web designer for every step. This is a stupid situation for all sides. Good to know: I have been blogging since 2005 and have already written over 1000 blog articles, and I still write with the standard WordPress editor. I do not use any page builder, such as B.Elementor, for blogging.
Ignore SEO—At Least In The Beginning
SEO is essential, and search engines are our best allies for bloggers. But even more critical at the beginning of your blogging adventure is that you click the publish button often. And SEO can be counterproductive. You can get lost in this topic because there is so much to pay attention to when it comes to search engine optimization. That’s why I often call it search engine optimization. The great thing about SEO is that we can still optimize our blog articles later! So you can come up with a perfect, long blog article later.
Therefore, my tip is to publish short blog articles at the beginning so that you can quickly build content based on your website. Then, revise your blog articles gradually and fill them with additional chapters. For example, start by writing a simple what-is essay in which you explain a technical term from your everyday work. In a blog article like this, I could, e.g., define the word “blogosphere” (the entirety of all blogs).
This blog article can initially only be 300 to 500 words long. Later, I will expand this blog article and write, e.g., B., about when you can call yourself a blogger, how to set up a blog, and what the rules of politeness are in the blogosphere. With each revision and expansion, my blog article becomes longer and more valuable. The result is that it rises in the search engine rankings. The more you blog, the more SEO knowledge you automatically acquire. You don’t have to take an SEO course at the beginning of your blogging adventure; it’s better to postpone it until you already have at least ten blog articles.
Always Have A WordPress Expert By Your Side
A contact person who can quickly resolve technical or design problems with your blog is worth its weight in gold! Otherwise, we might despair of technical kungfu. I know from experience that when it comes to blogging, nothing is as stressful as getting stuck on a WordPress problem and then wanting to throw everything out of the window. This expert can, e.g., be your web designer or a VA (virtual assistant) with blogging know-how. Of course, an expert costs money. But we constantly invest in something when we have a problem we can’t solve immediately; if it’s not money, then it’s our time and nerves. But our time is valuable, too!
I have decided to stop dealing with problems and waste my hours on something an expert can solve in minutes. If we want to move forward with our business, we have to realize that it doesn’t make sense for us to do everything ourselves. Do you need to improve in web design? Get an expert for this! I need help figuring out all the plugins. Get an expert for this! Is your website loading too slowly? You might have guessed it: get an expert for this! Because if you don’t do it, this topic might stay put. This will only stress and block you, which would be an incredible shame!
