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Why do You Want to Blog?
My first question to you is why do you want to start this blog? Do you want to help people? Do you want to make an income or replace your current income?
Along with this question, I would also ask what are your goals and what do you have to lose?
Think about all of these questions together.
Your reason for blogging can be a combination of multiple things and that is perfectly fine.
Taking the time to answer these questions should help you get over your fear of launching your blog.
You can start a blog for only a few hundred dollars and do it anonymously. You don’t have to worry about judgment from friends and family right off that bat. Your investment can be pretty small.
When I decided to launch my blog my husband was in full support. My initial investment was under $250. My husband reassured me that even if this only ended up as a hobby it was quite affordable.
If you were to take up a hobby like quilting or dancing you would quickly spend that much and more.
The investment should not be what holds you back.
As I mentioned before you can stay anonymous so the fear of people learning about your blog should not be a concern.
What other reason do you have for postponing the launch of your blog?
Fear of Failure
The fear of failure is a huge reason to not launch your blog. However, I already said it is a small investment financially. Are you concerned about investing your time into something that may fail?
My question here would be how much time are you dedicating to your blog? I still spent time with my family. I just chose to use my free time to blog. In the beginning, I would blog while my husband and I watched TV in the evening. I would also wake up early and do an hour or two of blogging before my baby woke up. This took a lot of dedication, but I really wanted to find time to blog.
I wasn’t particularly afraid to fail. I knew I would be bummed. But no one knew what I was doing. I wasn’t wasting that much money. And I was comfortable losing those hours of my life.
At this point, I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on my blogs and am far from successful. Yet I do continue to blog.
Actionable Steps
Now it is time to talk about the steps you can take to get over the fear of starting or the research phase and start taking action.
My recommendation is to first start with free resources. Start learning about SEO. If you can afford a course go for it! If not try to do some free research to better understand what you are doing. You want to write articles that people are searching for and learn how to make them be found. This involves using keywords appropriately in your work.
Next, start creating a list of article ideas. What do you want to tell your audience?
Then, start writing. You can do this for free without a website. You just aren’t publishing your content yet. You are creating a stockpile of posts to publish once you launch your blog. Your writing can be on Google Docs or Word. It doesn’t matter!
Get writing!
When it comes to the content you are writing I recommend putting thought into a digital product you could sell and launch in the near future. Make your articles related to this future product.
The other thing I recommend you work on stockpiling would be pin images. If you plan to promote your blog on Pinterest it is helpful to have multiple pin images prepared for each article. Just organize and store them in folders or in Canva. Canva has a free plan to get you started.
Now you have no excuse but to launch your blog. You have the material prepared after all.
Go for It!
We quickly debunked any of your excuses.
We talked about how you can get prepared for your blog launch.
Once you have the material prepared all you need is the website. The website is the way you put the content out there for the world to see.
Do not tell me you did all this work for it to simply sit on your desktop. Put it out there into the world. Let them know what you have to share.
I went with Bluehost for my hosting and have been happy with their service. If you want to sign up with them you can use my link at no extra cost to you, but a commission for me! The chat feature is always available and helpful. My website is on WordPress. There can be quite a learning curve, but you just need to take it one step at a time.
When it comes to the purchase and set-up of your website you can purchase a course to walk you through or DIY it. I did it on my own using free resources.
My advice is to focus on one thing. Look it up on Google and YouTube and learn everything about it, then implement it. There is so much free information out there available for bloggers.
You can also find checklists for what you need to do. These can include things like changing the time zone or user name. These things are not particularly difficult, but there are a lot of steps you need to do.
Keep track of what you have done and what you need to do next.
Do not publish any articles until you have the basics of your website figured out.
I would also strongly recommend understanding permalinks before publishing because those are tricky to change later.
Once you do get to the point where you publish your first post you will better understand the look and feel of your website. Make sure to view it from the perspective of the reader, not always from the builder.
Conclusion
I hope I haven’t scared you away from blogging.
Answer the questions as to your why.
Start stockpiling searchable content.
Purchase your hosting, domain, and launch your website.
Get through the setup phase and get your content published!
You can do it. I did it without a single course and basically no tech experience. I knew nothing about websites or code and I went for it. You can too!
Check Out My Articles
Why I Will Continue to Blog Despite Making No Real Money
Steps to Take Before Launching Your Blog to Guarantee Success