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Everything you read tells you to quit researching and just start your blog. People talk about analysis paralysis, perfectionism, fear of committing, and the list goes on.
You’ve probably already been stuck in the research phase too long. You know starting your blog is valid advice. But it’s not what you want to hear.
You want to hear the actual steps you should take before launching your blog. I’m going to eliminate the fluff and get right to what you should do before launching your blog.
What to Do Before You Launch Your Blog:
1. Set Goals
Make the decision you want to start your blog. You truly want to do this thing. My first step is to set goals and specifically set a launch date.
I started researching in September and decided on January 5th as a launch date. I did this so all expenses and income would be in 2021 for tax purposes. Not that I am guaranteed to make any money the first year. My first blogging expense was purchasing hosting with Bluehost. Click my link here to sign up for hosting for your own blog!
My goal pertaining to content creation was to write 10 posts for each of the next three months: October, November, and December. This way 30 blog posts would be ready to go by January.
Write your goals out! Your goals may be written in the form of a business plan or scribble in a notebook. If you would like to take a look at some of my business goals click to read my Comprehensive Business Plan and Strategy to Grow My Blog During Year 2.
They may be simple lists of what you want to achieve via page views, income, or lifestyle. Whatever you want to do with your blog is great, but make sure to get it on paper!
When it comes to goal setting sticks with things you can control at first. Do not bother setting a goal for how many pageviews you want each month, at least not at first. Your goals should be things you have complete control over such as how often you are publishing content or joining an affiliate program.
Start with what you can control!
2. Start Writing and Create Your Stockpile
The first part of writing is working on your list of ideas. I would suggest a list of 50 to 100 ideas to write about.
The next is to turn those ideas into outlines or bulleted lists. This provides the structure for your writing. Make your outlines as long as possible. Brainstorm those ideas!
Then the fun part is actually writing your posts or articles. Hopefully, you find yourself flowing when you sit down to write. A strong outline or list makes writing so much easier.
And finally, the not-so-much-fun part of editing and proofreading.
As previously stated my goal was to write 30 blog posts in three months. Doing so proved I had enough to say about my niche and made sure I’m happy with my niche decision. It also is validation that you want to blog. If you quit after writing 14 posts then you just saved yourself money that otherwise would have been wasted on hosting services.
Having a stockpile of blog posts written will help you so much with consistency! I’ve spent my fair share of time researching and one common theme bloggers share is how they should have stayed consistent with publishing. The stockpile gives you security that you can keep going during the setup stage.
Decide how often you plan to post, or schedule out your content calendar and then stick to it. Having a bank of posts will help you do this. Especially in the begging when you are overwhelmed by the back end of starting a blog.
30 posts for example could be 30 weeks…that’s over 6 months of posts!
3. Canva
Open your free account with Canva and start learning how to create pins. Start playing with different color schemes to see what you feel fits what you envision for your brand and style. This is the time to figure it out a bit.
For your first 5 to 10 blogs you have scheduled in your content calendar start creating the pin images. You will want to create about 5 pin images per post. This is one more way to get ahead before launch.
4. Pinterest
Start your Pinterest account.
A business account needs a website during the setup.
My way around this was to set up a completely new personal Pinterest account. I started building my boards and pinning others’ content to get my account ready.
This is a great time to start studying Pinterest. Which pins catch your attention and why?
You never want to copy anyone’s pins, but you can notice the trends that seem to be working.
Once you launch your website you can convert your personal Pinterest account into a business.
5. Other Pages
Now is the time to start working ahead on writing your About Me Page, Disclaimer Page, Contact Page, and Policy Page. You can also work on the small About the Author to include at the end of each post.
Go ahead and write the small disclaimer you will include on all posts letting the readers know that there are affiliate links. This small prep can at least be started ahead of time. The legal pages you may consider purchasing.
This is not a huge deal, but is something you won’t want to do later when you are more excited about publishing content.
6. Brand
Before your launch is a great time to play around with what you want your brand to be.
Pick a few domain names and color schemes, save them to a file, and don’t look at them for a month. You can look at color schemes in Canva and save the color codes.
During this month go back to writing and working on creating pins.
At the end of the month go back and look at what you saved. Do you still like the colors? What do you think of the domain names?
You don’t want to have regrets if possible.
7. Research
As stated before, don’t get stuck in the land of research. Yes, it is easy to do but in reality, you aren’t getting anything done. I truly think time is better spent writing content.
If you can’t help yourself though spend a week at a time focusing on one thing to research.
One week you may be focused on Pinterest traffic while the next is SEO.
Don’t waste your time bouncing around. Focus and become an “expert” (not really) at one thing per week. Remember at the end of your time focus on what you have to show for it. Did you only do generic research or did you produce something?
I would also consider researching what is applicable to what you are working on. While creating articles put effort into what makes a good title. When you set up Pinterest boards research what you should be naming those boards and what to include in the description.
Do research that you can put to use and put to work immediately.
Why You Should Take These Steps Before Launching
Be Prepared
Some people can’t just jump into things. They need to feel prepared. You do not need to do all this work before launching, but it may make you feel more ready. I think this is a great way to see if blogging really is what you want to do before diving in financially.
Have plenty of content to post so you can focus on other things
When you launch your blog there is so much to do aside from writing. Setting up your website, creating opt-ins for email subscribers, applying for affiliate programs and interlinking everything is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are numerous other tasks for you to learn and accomplish especially those first few months.
When you are bogged down with all these tasks you will be thanking yourself for all those posts you already have written. By having this stockpile of posts you can focus on literally everything else.
Prevents You From Quitting
Blogs often fail. A major reason why is writers can’t keep up. They start out excited but run out of ideas or inspiration. You may run into the three-month hump. But by following my tips you will be prepared.
I launched with 5 posts and planned to post once a week. So I had 25 weeks covered. Those posts would get me to the beginning of June. I already knew I will be blogging for 6 months. I loved knowing that!
Knowing that I absolutely could make it to June made me so much more confident in financially investing in my blog. This reassures me that YES I can do this!
Update: I published more frequently than this. I started out publishing every other day, dropped down to every fourth day, and ended up setting on my publishing days being the 5th,10th,15th, 20th, 25th, and 30th of the month as of now.
Conclusion
There are plenty of arguments out there going against everything I’ve told you. People will say just launch, do it now or you never will, you can’t make any money until you put it out there. I agree with these statements, but not everyone is made to jump right in. Some people are made to dip their toes in and see if it’s right for them.
Another frequent argument is that all this prep work is being done with no chance of making any money. Until your launch, you are 100% working for free on your blog. For me that was ok.
By doing this prep work before investing your money you will know if it is right for you. You will gain confidence in your ability to run your blog for the long haul.
I know there is so much to learn. You tell people you want to start a blog and they think it’s just writing. That’s such a small portion, unfortunately.
I think this is the right way to go about it. There are so many tasks with running a blog. Why not get ahead on a few?
My tip if you want to work on stuff before launching is DO ALL THE FREE THINGS!!!
Good luck to you!
Check Out My Articles
Steps to Take to Have a Successful First Month Blogging
Take These Steps to Create the Best Blog Post Title Every Time!
How Much Money Can a New Blog Make with Amazon Affiliate Marketing?