Simple Guide To Starting a Successful Blog

My simple guide to starting a successful blog is a great starting point for anyone looking to create and grow their blog. I decided a little over a month ago to launch my first blog. I went into it knowing absolutely nothing about the process or even how to drive traffic to it. I’ve learned so much over the past month and am really happy with my progress so far. I wanted to share my successes with other new bloggers and show how it IS possible to make a profit in just your first month of blogging – even if it isn’t much! Creating a successful and profitable blog is possible with just these few steps below.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you decide to purchase or use some of these resources I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. All recommendations and opinions are my own. Thanks for your support.

Hosting

Once you have decided what you are going to blog about and drafted several posts, you will need a website to create and share your blog. My first step was to sign up with BlueHost as my hosting service for my blog. It is so easy to setup with them and I have nothing but good things to say about their service.

Once you have signed up with BlueHost you are able to create a unique domain (www.example.com) and design your blog. They have tons of beautiful templates to choose from which make the whole process of building and creating your blog extremely easy. 

BlueHost are partnered with WordPress, which makes it much more simple to build and design your blog. You don’t need to know any code! WordPress has a number of free plugins and themes to make your blog look flawless. They help you with things like SEO (Search Engine Optimization so that you show up on Google more often), popups, social media sharing and so much more.

Best part is that they are extremely inexpensive and their plans start at just $3.95/month! Using Bluehost eliminates so many steps and simplifies the whole process of starting and building your blog. I was able to set up mine in just one day.

They also have so many add-on products that help you to build an online presence and drive traffic to your blog. Their customer service is outstanding. They are available 24/7 to help you with any and all questions. Sign up for Bluehost here with this special promo link that also includes a free domain!

Affiliate Programs

My next step after setting up my blog using Bluehost was to sign up for a couple of free affiliate programs. To sign up for most affiliate programs you must have created your blog and have several posts created. Some programs will review your blog before approving. Once you are signed up for an affiliate program you can include a link to a product or service in your blog and get a commission when someone signs up or purchases them. This is how most bloggers earn big money and how I made a profit in just my first month.

• Share-A-Sale

The first program I signed up for was Share-A-Sale. They have thousands of merchants that you can sign up with and promote within your blog. They have tons of categories including home & garden, fashion, family & kids, and food & drink. Share-A-Sale is great if you are creating a lifestyle blog where you want to recommend certain products or services to your readers.

Their commission prices are also higher than a lot of other affiliate programs. Sign up for Share-A-Sale here.

• Rakuten Marketing

Another great affiliate program is Rakuten Marketing. They have a huge number of merchants including big name brands like Nordstrom, Macy’s, MAC Makeup, Neiman Marcus and thousands more. This is another great affiliate program if you are blogging about things like fashion or makeup/skin care products. 

• Amazon Affiliates

The other program I signed up for was the Amazon Affiliates program. With their program you can link any product from Amazon into your blog and earn a commission when someone purchases it. The best part is that when someone clinks on your link you earn a commission for EVERYTHING they buy, not just the product you are recommending. This is great as many people load up their carts when purchasing off of Amazon.

I generally use Amazon Affiliates for my gift guides and product recommendations. You can also place “Native Ads” throughout your blog post that you feel are relevant. Here is an example of what these look like:

Their commission percentage varies but is generally around 5%, which is a little lower than some of the other programs out there. In just a little over a month of using them I have made 58 sales using it. Even with that amount sales this has not been a huge money-maker for me so far, but I would still recommend using Amazon Affiliates as a place to start.

Marketing

• Pinterest

After signing up for these programs and launching several blog posts, my next step was to market my blog. My number one source of traffic has been Pinterest and 95% of my viewers have been from there. Anyone can create a profile and pin their own content for free. All you need is an image and you can create a direct link to your blog. 

• Canva

I use Canva to create my pins. They have templates specifically for Pinterest and a great selection of free fonts and photos that you can use to design your own pins. There is also an option to sign up for a paid account where you have access to premium features such as a huge selection of fonts, pictures and more. It is extremely easy to use and you don’t need any background in graphic design to create beautiful pins that stand out.

I would suggest creating at least 5 unique pins using Canva for each of your blog posts. You can also “animate” your pins using Canva so that they appear as a video on the Pinterest feed. This is a great way to get more visibility to your blog. I have noticed a large increase in my traffic since creating more animated pins. My goal has been to create 5 normal static pins and 5 animated or video pins per blog post. Sign up here for a free account with Canva.

• Tailwind

I started off with a brand new Pinterest profile and zero followers. I currently have an average of 304.3k monthly views less than 2 months later! And that is only with 70 followers. You may ask how that is possible? All of this was thanks to the help from Tailwind.

Tailwind is a scheduler for your pins which helps to maximize your audience by saving you time and pinning for you during optimal times. It knows the best time of day for your pin to be seen by the biggest audience and creates a “Smart Schedule” for them.

Tailwind has been huge with growing my followers and bringing traffic back to my blog. When you join Tailwind you also can join “tribes”, which are groups of other users who will help to share your content. There are currently over 4,000 tribes to choose from, and they are narrowed down by niche.

I have definitely seen an increase in re-pins and traffic after joining a number of tribes. It’s a great way to connect and work together with other bloggers! The rules are generally that you share one of your pins and then you share another pin in the group. It encourages growth and exposes your content to a much wider audience. Sign up for Tailwind here .

My simple guide to starting a successful blog is a great starting point for anyone looking to create and grow their blog. These are the main resources that I have been using to grow my blog with so far and have really liked the results that I am seeing! I would highly recommend them all as a starting point for any new blogger looking to drive traffic to their blog and start making a profit immediately.