6 Seriously Important Things You Should Do Once You Buy Hosting

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Okay, I got my hosting… now what?  

Alright guys, we’ve got you covered. Now that you’ve bought hosting, we’ll give you the steps you need to take before you make your blog go live. 

Now why are we doing this? Because we get what it’s like to get excited, sign up for something, and then not know what to do with it. It’s great to have a helping hand guide you in the next steps, and that’s what we want to do here!

But First, A Little Bit About Us

Now if you’re new to our site, and you’re unfamiliar about our story and why we even got started with blogging, we’ll give you a quick rundown.

Back in early 2015, we were seriously broke newlyweds. We both had a passion for full-time travel, but we just didn’t know how to get there.

Silas was going from one soul-suck corporate job (not even joking) to the next while I tried to stay at home and find a way to make money online. It was hard because we needed the money (bad), but so worth it.

Finally Silas found an episode from the Side Hustle Show podcast with Nick Loper, and we listened to an interview with Rosemarie Groner from The Busy Budgeter. She was talking about how she went from $18/m blogging to over $5k in A YEAR. A year guys!

Related Topic

How to Start Your Own Money-Making Blog

You can listen to the interview here.

Now we both didn’t want to blog… at all. We had heard from so many that it would take forever to get any source of income from it, but here she had done it so quickly and given a ton of easy and actionable tips in the interview! And she gave us what we needed to get started on our path with blogging.

Now a year later after launching our blog, we’re doing exactly what we want; traveling full-time. Our life is completely different and we’re SO GLAD we gave blogging a chance. Now we get to live a fulfilling life and help so many more people than ever before!

So now let’s get you started on your blog so you can do the same!

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1. Snatch Up the Social Media Handles for Your Blog

Alright, so you found the best blog name ever, and IT’S NOT TAKEN. That’s a pretty good feeling right? Well now it’s time to make sure you have all of the social media handles for your blog.

This means that when you have your blog name down, go onto sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. and create an account for it. Even if someone already has your blog name on Pinterest or Instagram, there are ways you can work around it. For example…

Pinterest: {Your Name} @ {Your Blog Name}

Now if you haven’t figured out your blog name just yet, here are some tips when coming up with one:

– You want to make sure that your blog name isn’t too long, and it’s memorable… so basically easy to type in the search box. Names with crazy spelling will be easy for people to forget. So when they type it out (the way they think it’s spelled), and they can’t find it, they’ll just give up.

– Be careful about naming it after yourself. Some bloggers (who are successful) are just fine doing this, but when your site is new, people won’t always know what your site’s main drive is (so for instance, Passion For Savings hits you right in the face with the blog’s niche/focus). OR if it does become successful in the future, and you want to sell it – because it’s profitable – it might be hard to do so.

Want to start your own blog? I created a free tutorial to show you exactly how to start and set up your blog on a budget (and in minutes!)  You can start yours for just $2.95 per month (you can only get this low price through my special link) with Bluehost. Also, if you’re wondering if you actually need hosting or if you could just make money on free blogging sites like Blogger, I’d seriously recommend going with sites like Bluehost. Free blogging sites can delete your blog at any time. It happened to Michelle from Making Sense of Cents when she first started out. It’s also the only way to actually start making income too since you’ll only get accepted with advertisement and affiliate companies if you’re hosted. 

2. Pick a Theme

Now when picking a theme, it’s super important to pick one that looks professional and smart, but also has some personality (a.k.a. some colors that pop, good font, etc.). Look over other blogger’s sites (that you admire) and see what they look like. Then find free and/or affordable themes, and pick one that’s inspired by them and what you find attractive.

When you do this, you’ll look like someone who’s been blogging for awhile and can be taken professionally.

3. Make 25-50 High Quality Posts Before Starting

Now this may sounds like a lot, and you may be ready to just get posts out there for people to see, but here’s why it’s important.

First: When people come on your site, you want it to look like you’ve been blogging for awhile, not someone who just launched last week. You want to be seen as an authority right away.

Second: When you start promoting your posts on sites like Pinterest (I seriously suggest starting with Pinterest. I’ll explain below.), you’ll have more traffic when first starting out. The reason for this is because more eyes will be on your content than if you had just put a couple posts out there. You want to start your launch out with A BANG!

Third (And Last): You’ll be more likely accepted by ad networks like Adsense. You’ll look more professional and like you know what you’re doing. So if Google Adsense checks out your site (which they will), you won’t really have to worry about them declining you.

PS – For those of you who don’t know, Adsense puts ads on your site and pays you every time someone clicks on an ad and/or sees it. Pretty cool huh?

4. Group Boards

Alright, so Pinterest is my secret weapon. The reason for this is because you don’t need to pay for ads so people will see your content (like Facebook). If one person shares your pin (and they have a lot of followers), their people will see it and you could get a lot of repins.

Another reason is group boards. A group board is when a person decides to let one or more people contribute (pin) to their own personal board. So you could have 20 people pinning about DIY projects to one board. And if you get added to that board, and they have A TON of followers, you DIY project could have the potential to go viral (or at least do very very well).

Now before you launch, you want to make sure you’ve been added onto at least 15-30 group boards. But you also want to make sure they’re high quality group boards; that means, boards with great repin rates. So how do you find these high quality group boards with great repin rates? Find bigger (pro) bloggers, and see what group boards they’re on. Chances are, if they’re on it, they’re good quality.

Group boards will have a circle at the bottom, split into three parts and showing 3 different people who are on that board (symbolizing that they’re not the only contributor). And when you click on it, the very first person on that list in the group board is the owner.

You’ll want to contact them through their site’s contact form, given email in the group board description, and/or through Pinterest messenger. And when you do, make sure you’re extremely polite!

Let them know you love their content and you would love to contribute on their board, “{insert board name}.” Then let them know that you understand their board’s rules (that are stated in the board’s description), and you’ll be sure to follow them. Lastly, just finish it up with letting them know that if there’s anything they need help with, just to let you know. Things like this can go a long way!

Make this your full-time job some days. Apply to as many as you want! Just make sure you’re on some great boards before you launch, and you’ll be thanking yourself that you did the hard work before.

5. Make Pins

Now with each post that you finish, make pins for it so it’s out of the way and done!

I didn’t do this at all when first starting out and it was such a headache to create ALL the pins for ALL the posts once my blog launched.

Now when you’re creating pins, you might want to try out my a/b/c/d and e testing method. Some people a/b test (to see which pin does better), but I do more than two pins per post. That way, if one does well, the rest do well too (it’s an interesting thing I figured out about Pinterest’s algorithm) which leads to a ton of traffic to your site.

Now doing more than one or two pins per post sounds like a lot of work, but it honestly doesn’t take too long. Just brainstorm 4-5 awesome eye-catching titles, and test them out on the same image (or 2 different images if you like).

6. Board Booster

Now when you’re first starting out on Pinterest, you might think, “Wow, it sounds like a lot of work to pin all of my pins each night to different group boards.” And it is! That’s why there are sites like Board Booster which have an automated pinning system.

It’s just $5 A MONTH. That’s super cheap! That’s a cheaper than a Starbucks drink kind of cheap!

Now one of Board Booster’s features (and one that I use religiously) is Campaigns. It’s super easy to set up, even if you’re not tech savvy (like me! 😀 ).

When setting up a new campaign, I choose a “Random Campaign” which pins your content at random to different boards. Then I create a campaign name, copy and paste the URL’s of the pins I want Board Booster to pin into it, choose the group boards (and/or personal boards) I want them to pin to, set a time of day (I choose the evening), and I’m done! It’s as simple as that!

It really is a great feature to have so that you can be focused on other more important parts of your blog. No one wants to waste time with manually pinning their content when they could be working on content curation and networking.

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Alright guys! You’ve made past the first steps! It may be a bit of work at first, but once this is all finished, you’ll have the makings for a money making blog. A profitable blog that can let you work from home with the family or abroad!

Also, I want to let you know that I’m seriously proud that you made the first steps in starting up your blog. It’s a big decision and I know you won’t regret it, especially when you’re able to gain time freedom and work when you want (and not when your boss wants!).

I’m so happy to help you guys, and soon, I’ll be coming out with an update on what to do post launch. So keep your eyes open! And be sure to sign up for my email list so I can answer ANY questions you have and give you amazing tips and advice!