When you start at college, it can be tempting to just party and have a good time. While this is such an important part of the process, you could definitely be using this time to kickstart your career. No matter what business you want to move in after you finish, it is important to already show employers that you have experience. Additionally, you might even be thinking about starting your own business while at university.
One way to meet both dreams is by starting a blog. Nonetheless, you might be thinking about how you can start a blog successfully and scale it up, so you have something to be proud of by the time that you graduate. To help you make your blog creation a success, this essential guide has been created. Read on now for absolutely everything that you need to know.
Identify What You Want to Write About
Before you start a blog, you have to make sure that you actually have a clear idea of what you want to write about. Without a clear concept, starting a blog is going to be a very difficult task. That's why you should take a look at what you study and what you are interested in and figure out a way to branch out into a blog about those topics.
One point to bear in mind is to make sure that the topic is broad and big enough to allow you to write regularly. If it is a rather limited subject, you may run out of ideas to talk about rather quickly. Additionally, it is worth having a quick search to check that no one has covered the topic in quite the same way before and that you don't share the same name as anyone, as this could cause you potential problems later on.
Get The Right Hardware to Write On
In order to write a blog, you actually have to have the right equipment to write on. This basically means that you have to have a laptop that can allow for fast typing and quick processing power. After all, if you are working on your blog while balancing other tasks, it is important to make sure that you can get your work done quickly. Look for a laptop that is also within your price range, so you know that when you start your blog — something which you may want to monetize later on — you don't lose a lot of money from the beginning. Thankfully as a student, you might be able to get a great discount. Take a look around for great college student laptop deals now.
Learn the Power of Time Management
As this article mentioned earlier, you will be writing your blog while dealing with the pressures of studying and socializing with new people. That's why it's so important to understand the power of time management so you can successfully manage to do all three tasks at once. There are a bunch of online calendars you can use so you can schedule your time, so you know exactly on which days you are working on your blog and which days you are focusing on your studies. Without being able to understand the times correctly, your blog may lie untouched for days and weeks, potentially losing you views over time.
Take a Writing Course
One of the most exciting parts about starting a blog while working at university is the ability to be able to write for your studies and allow the techniques and the skills that you have learned there to inform the shape and structure of your blog. Nonetheless, no one is a born writer; instead, you have to work hard on the practice — for example, work at it for the much-talked-about 10,000 hours — before you can consider yourself a genuine expert. See if there are any additional writing courses available at your college that you can partake in. If they are not available on the campus, then there is no shame in taking a paid course. It will obviously cost you some money, but this could be worth it due to the additional skills that you will learn that will improve your writing ability for your blog.
Learn the Basic Principles of Search Engine Optimization
There is basically no point in starting a blog if no one is able to find it. That's why, before you even write the first word, you have to acquaint yourself with the basic principles of Search Engine Optimization. Known as SEO in short, it refers to how you tool your website to make sure that it ranks on Google. For example, if someone searches for the "best restaurants in Oregon" you might have an article ranking your favorite restaurants in that area that has managed to go on Google.
It would help if you had an awareness of what people are searching for, which is something that you can look for by using third-party analytical sites. While this can sound quite complicated, it might be built into your website, making it easier to search. Additionally, you should ensure that you have good keyword distribution in your articles coming in between 1-2%, that you write the correct SEO titles and meta descriptions, and that you have alt text for all of your images. Without doing these crucial steps, your blog is unlikely to make much of an impact.
Find a Great Host
Unless you are incredibly talented at web design, it is unlikely that you will be able to create the website yourself. The likelihood is that you will want to use a third-party provider to host the website for you. These days it has never been easier to start and own a website yourself, something which can be done in just a couple of hours. With that said, these hosts can differ significantly in their price points, meaning that it is a good idea to take a look around to find a deal that works best for you. Either way, it is essential that you:
Purchase Your Own Domain
It is true that there are a lot of sites out there where you can start a blog for free. While this can be a good way to start out and test the waters, it looks deeply unprofessional if you truly want your blog to succeed. That is why it is absolutely essential to buy the domain name yourself. While this will cost you more money, this means that you have proper ownership over your website, helping you monetize it over time. Talking of monetization:
Figure out a Monetization Strategy
Building a blog while at university is a great way of developing a passive income that allows you to make money over time, thus giving you the best possible chance of building wealth and having a happy and healthy retirement. Nonetheless, monetization is not something that is likely to come within weeks or months but is a multi-year strategy that requires deep time, effort, and thought.
There are many different ways to make money from your blog. The most obvious one is by having adverts on your site. You can do it rather easily by implementing Google Ads, which require many views to turn a profit, or you can try and strike a deal with an advertiser for a more bespoke collaboration. A potentially more lucrative option can be through affiliate marketing, which means that if you advertise certain products on your site, you can get a share of the purchase if people click through and actually buy the product. You can also write sponsored content for brands, where you work together on the best way to promote their product. Additionally, if your blog gets popular, you can definitely sell your own products directly on the site.
Figure Out a Variety of Different Content Streams
It is not just enough to write on your blog. Instead, you should be investing in a variety of different content streams in order to get people looking at what you have to promote. One great way is to create podcasts, which have been touted as the next big development in content for years. People like to listen to audio on the go, making your blog important and useful even when they are not actually sitting down and reading it directly on their computer. Another amazing option is to invest in video by embedding YouTube videos, as this brings in a whole new generation who skew much younger. Whether or not you are creating videos or podcasts, the important part to remember here is to embed this technology instead of hosting it on your site proper. If you upload these files yourself, you will find that your blog will be too slow, making for a poor user experience.
Install Anti-Virus Software
When you start your blog, no matter how big or small you believe it might be, it is very important that you make sure that it is secured against the nefarious attacks of hackers. As the recent Russia-linked hacks have shown, nobody is free from the attacks of these criminals. Thankfully for you, it is easy to install anti-virus software that can keep you safe when you purchase your website. Another point to bear in mind is the type of password that you use. It is very bad to make your password a simple word that anyone can guess. Instead, you should be investing in an alphanumeric, randomly generated password that absolutely no one can guess. These safeguards should be put in place no matter whether or not your business is worth one dollar or one million dollars.
Promote Your Work on Social Media
It's not just enough to write your blog and hope that people discover it. While SEO is such an essential part of getting eyes on your blog, you still have to actively promote it in order to reach the widest audience possible. That's where the power of social media can help to make your blog become the wildest success possible. Make sure that you have accounts across all five of the major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Tik Tok. While this can seem like an almighty task, third-party websites are available that can help you schedule social media posts and coordinate them across all of these different sites. If your blog is growing too big and you have the budget to do so, it might even be a great idea to hire a social media manager. You can either find someone studying something similar at your college to do it for free experience, or you can hire a professional. Talking of hiring people:
Get Other Writers on Board
You shouldn't just be scaling up your blog on your own. Instead, you can get other writers on board to bring their perspectives on your website. You can look for fellow writers amongst your friends at college, as they will be more than happy to write for free to have a portfolio themselves that they can share with employers. If they don't seem convinced, you can always tell them that they can receive a profit share of any future profits. Additionally, if you have the budget to do so, you can hire professional freelance writers who will be able to truly make your blog stand out heads and shoulders above the rest.
Conclusion
As this guide has shown, there are so many different points to bear in mind when starting a blog if you want it to be a success. While it can seem overwhelming when looking through them all, this hasn't been designed to put you off; instead, it should illuminate all the things you need to consider to ensure that your blog can perform as well as possible. A lot of it is a learning process. Allow yourself to fail here and there, but just make sure that you learn from all of those different experiences. Happy writing and have a great time creating your world-beating blog.