This podcast is brought to you by the profitable blogger society, a mentorship program that gives bloggers direction for increasing their income and growing their brand to thrive together dot blog slash Pb S to learn more and enroll today. Welcome to the Thrive Podcast. I'm Brie pare your host and blogging coach here to help you take your brand to the next level. At thrive, we're dedicated to bringing bloggers and influencers, tactics, strategies, and behind the scenes info from the best in the business. We know that you have a big vision for your brand and life. And we're here to support you with blogging and social media tutorials, workshops, a community and of course, this podcast, just head to thrive together dot blog for all the latest tools. If you're ready to grow your brand and looking for education and encouragement, then you've come to the right place. Now let's get ready to thrive. Hey, thrivers, did you hear 2024 is the year of the resurgence of blogs? Yeah, that's right. If you don't know what I'm talking about, make sure you go and listen to episode 225 If you missed it, otherwise, if you did hear it, you know what I'm talking about? So you're listening to this episode because you want a Profitable Blog and 2024? Yes, yes, I'm trying not to scream too loud to my editor doesn't like hate my guts. But I want to pop the champagne screen, do a dance party all the things. So let's do this, I've got a list of tips that I am dying to get in your hands. There's a lot of nitty gritty details as well. And I don't want to tell you a million links, because there are like a million links that I need to share with you in this episode. So make sure you check out the show notes. Because we're gonna have a guide to go along with this for you that you can go download and get everything that I'm talking about, I'm not even going to be able to mention all of the things. Because there's just so much and this guide is going to go really, really in depth, it's the first time we've been able to create a guide like this, I've been really excited it's been on my list to do for a long time. So make sure you head to the show notes, you're going to be the first to see the guide there and be able to download it and get everything you need to get started with blogging, but then also if you've already got a blog established how to like, take what you've got and build that foundation and run with it. So let's see here. How many been counted? Yes, 10. Of course, a nice, even number. I've got 10 awesome tips here for you guys today. So let's get into it. The first thing with starting a Profitable Blog and 2024 is choosing a niche. It's pretty simple. We got to figure out, what are we going to talk about? Who is our audience? Why are they going to listen to us? We need to pick a topic that we're passionate about. And really understanding our audience interests is crucial. Because if I came on here and started talking to you guys, about Gilmore Girls and did an entire episode on that, you'd be like, Wait, did I tune into Brees? Other podcasts? Let's grab drinks. Yes, that's a little plug there. I do have another podcast with my friend Haley. And we do have an episode all about the Gilmore Girls. So if you want to go listen to that head over there. But if I were to do that here on this podcast, you'd be like, ah, something is wrong. This doesn't make sense, right? You need to understand your audience's interest. You need to understand what they want to hear why they're they're listening to you don't waste their time. So my other tip here is go narrow. It's very easy to be
like I am a lifestyle blogger. I am a lifestyle content creator. What does that mean? Who are you talking to everyone in the whole world? I've made that mistake before. I don't recommend it. It is very difficult to grow. Because sometimes next to impossible, is so much easier to really hyper focus in on your audience and on a specific topic. And let me tell you what, I had this conversation with someone a couple years back and whenever she had this moment of realization that whenever she was to like really go in on the one topic that she was most passionate about, rather than spreading herself thin in the other areas. It was like a lightbulb moment of like, oh, well if I hyper focus here. Here's all of these other little content pillars inside of that one topic that I can talk about. Because she was starting to feel like it was really constraining her like she was only going to be able to talk about one specific thing and it was going to be really boring. But when you hyper focus, a world of possibilities opens up, let me tell you what I thought we were choosing a very niche down topic for our company, bloggers, we work with bloggers, we educate bloggers, done. You guys. As you know, there are 5.2 a million different things that go into blogging, and there are experts within this niche on certain things. So we learned very quickly that okay, cool, we can't be the expert at everything there is to know about blogging, we can't be the expert in SEO, in Pinterest in X, Y, and Z, all of the things. So we have this podcast, and we regularly bring in experts to come in and talk about the things that I'm not that comfortable and competent and giving you strategy there. So all of that being said, go narrow, you can expand as you go, it's going to make your life and your brand a lot easier to grow to to just flourish by narrowing down first. All right. Once you've chosen, what you're going to talk about who you're going to be talking to who you're going to provide this amazing content that you're so excited to create. We got to choose a blogging platform. Where is this content going to live? Where are we typing in the world wide web, so people can see it, we got to choose a platform that suits your needs. WordPress is one you've probably heard of, it's most popular because it is super flexible, has a bunch of different plugins. There are other platforms like Wix or show it or SquareSpace that are a little bit more user friendly for beginners, just kind of depends on what you're wanting. I love a self hosted WordPress site, it's my favorite option, because it's going to grow with you. And it's so versatile. So that's my suggestion. But we're going to give you in the shownotes in our guide a whole bunch of different options. So you can just kind of peruse, go try some free trials, go test things out for yourself. And see what you want to do is do some like pros and cons on each of the different types of platforms that you can choose. The next thing that you're going to have to do is choosing a domain name, right? What is the name of your brand? What are we going with? Are we going with your name? Are we going with something different? Something creative? I think going with your name has its pros and cons, I think going with a brand name has its pros and cons. So pick something and make your domain name irrelevant. The biggest thing here is right, like whenever you have that idea, like going and saying is this domain available, and then is it available on all of the different social media sites and reserving it on all of the different places, you want to make sure you do that as soon as possible. And that really plays into what you choose your name to be. Whenever I was starting the brand, bossy life CO, which is the host of the let's grab drinks podcast that I referenced earlier. We had such a hard time coming up with that brand name. Because so many things were taken were like, Oh, this is brilliant idea. Nope. Or like, one of the things we finally started to make a game out of it like, Okay, how much do you think this domain cost? I can't even remember how much like the most expensive one was, but it was like multiple, multiple, multiple 1000s of dollars to buy the domain really well that's not happening. So that's one thing to keep in mind before you get too locked in and just too excited about what your domain is going to be. Go and see if it's available first. Okay. And then with that, choose a reliable hosting service. There's a ton out there, we'll link to a bunch of them for you. We use SiteGround. It's one that's worked really well for us for about four years now, five years now, it's been a little while. So we love it. It's worked for us. Alright, so once you have all of that figured out, you figured out where you're going to be blogging, the platform, the domain, the hosting, you're going to use you've picked your audience. Now it's time to I think this was really fun. Put this design your blog, so like, what's your logo gonna look like? What fonts are you going to use? What theme are you going to use? What's your colors? This is really fun. It can be stressful. There's a few different hacks, quote unquote hacks. stuff that you can use. If you are not so savvy in the design area, I went to school for graphic design. So it lights me up. It is so much fun for me. But we'll link to some options for you. If you're like, No, no, no, I need help with this. And I needed on a budget, I got you. So you want to make your blog visually appealing and user friendly, you want to use a theme, and a layout that really reflects your niche and your personality. The biggest thing here is ensuring that it's mobile friendly, and that your site loads quickly. Like I said, this word is so much fun. For me, I'm such a visual person, and I love pretty looking blogs that makes me want to stay and click around. And that's what you want. You want a blog that leads people on this journey and encourages them to like read one blog post, and then oh, I want to read this one, oh, I want to read this one and just click, click, click, click, click, get those page views up, and come back for more. Right. That's the goal. So I do think it's super important that you make your website look freaking awesome. And if design is not your forte, it's okay. Here, there's there's hacks out there. So one of the things is picking a really pretty seam there, we're gonna leave a link to a whole bunch of different sites where you can go and look around for a theme that you can choose and tweak. So a theme is something that you install on your website, and it changes how it looks. Okay, so think of it like the clothes that you put on your body. Okay, it's, it's the clothes for your website. Okay, and so we have to choose what is this outfit that everybody is going to see SN all of the themes have options to change the color, change the font, upload your own logo. So that's good and exciting, you can tweak them all to make them match your branding. And we've got several companies that sell really cute ones that we'll recommend. And we'll link them all for you in the show notes. So there's things out there to help make it super easy for you. Once you've got it all design, then you're like cool, I think I'm ready to hit publish, I think I'm ready to send it out into the world. Hold, hold on, hold on, hold the horses, grab them back, pull them back in, there's one crucial thing that I want to make sure you do. And that is legal compliance, we need to make sure that your blog complies with legal requirements, such as having a privacy policy, a disclaimer, and adhering to copyright laws, we want to make sure that nobody else can steal your content as well. So making sure you've got all of that, I love to include it all in the footer. So it's on every single page. So you want to make sure you have all of that in place for you. You also want like a cookie policy. And there's a whole bunch of different like little legal things. The good news is, you can kind of set them up and forget about them. It's kind of exciting. The only thing you really have to do is like if something new comes out and you need to like update it. Usually a lot of people will talk about it, including us. So make sure you're a part of our newsletter paying attention to our blogging community over on Facebook, we'll let you guys know if there's something that we think you need to add to your privacy policy. Otherwise, at the start of the new year, you just need to go in and update the date at the bottom of your footer, bottom of your website. We'll link to all the things all the different policies and stuff that you need to have in place to be legal.
And now a quick word from our sponsor. What would happen if you knew where to focus for growth, how to plan to reach your goals and started to get paid for the content you're creating. If you're ready to make money from your brand want to get started on the right foot and are ready for some serious growth than blogging babe you need to join us inside the profitable blogger society. Inside the profitable blogger society gals are signing contracts for their first four figure brand deals, getting their homes photographed for magazine features creating digital products and doubling their pageviews and email lists. If you're ready for all of that and more and are ready to grow and start making a consistent income from your brand, then you're ready for the profitable blogger society. Our coaches help you know where to focus to grow support you with the custom feedback and advice you need and provide you with trainings like SEO simplified and how to grow your email list. If you're ready to get started, which I think you are head to thrive together dot blog slash PBS to learn more and enroll today. Because blogging babes something happens when you decide to just go for it. We can't wait to support you and help you grow thrive together dot blog slash P b s okay cool. Now Oh, you are set up and ready for sending this beautiful website out into the world. But hold on, you've got a gorgeous theme. You've got your branding in place, you're legally sound you were able to find a domain name that you really love, you know who you're going to be talking to, but what are they going to be reading and listening to and hearing from you about? Now it's time to create content, right? So that is we're on step six, by the way, in case anybody was keeping track. Let me let me let me back up and just kind of recap those real quick for us. Number one was choosing a niche. Number two was selecting a blogging platform. Number three, choosing a domain name and your hosting. Number four, designing your blog. And number five was legal compliance. So now we're on number six out of 10 steps, creating high quality content. So that looks like regularly publishing, engaging, original and really valuable content for your audience. Right, you've already determined that was step one, who your audience is, you've got your niche, you know what they need, you know what they want to hear from you. Remember, it's all about them. It's not about you. It's your brand, but it is a service to your audience. So we need to make sure that our content is always talking to our audience. There was a Katy Stickley. I'm probably butchering her name, but she's like a YouTuber, she's got a huge following over on social media. And I was watching one of her YouTubes this morning. And she had such a good way of explaining it. And she's like, you can have the same type of content. But the way that you're wording it and delivering it to your audience matters, and is going to make a difference in how they react, engage and actually consume the content. So let's say her example was you have a chocolate chip cookie recipe. Now, you could have the title of that blog post and how you put it out there into the world as my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe or the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe. Instead, what if we made it something where it's like, here is a cookie recipe that everyone is going to want the recipe for? Well, yeah, I want that. That is something that's made me like the competitiveness coming out in me. My husband always has a Christmas party that we go to in December. And the theme for this holiday party seems to be the same thing where it's like you bring a couple cases of beer, and you bring a couple dozen cookies, and everybody does like a beer and cookie swap. My goal going into that is that those cookies are the best freakin cookies at the party. I want everybody don't eat them all. I want the recipe to be shot out to everyone because everyone's coming up to me and be like, Oh my God, those were so delicious. Please send me the recipe. That is my goal. Okay, so that was a waylaid conversation in just showing like, that is something that you can kind of be very mindful of whenever you're creating content is how can I reword this, instead of like, the best chocolate chip cookie recipe? Okay, cool. There's a million of those, but like, here's a cookie recipe that everyone's gonna want the recipe for? Let's you know what I mean? You guys know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Alright, let's keep going. Building it audiences. Number seven. Obviously, we need to make sure that there are people around to actually consume our content. Yes, and yes, right. So we're going to use social media, email marketing, and networking to attract and retain those readers. We got to engage with our audience, right? We get engaged with them through comments, emails, social media platforms. So you got to choose how am I going to get this content out there, one of the things is going to be paying attention to SEO, and we've got a whole bunch of different podcasts and resources for you on that will link to those. You need to use those SEO techniques to optimize your posts so that way, you're gaining your audience organically that way and we'll link to those tools. But then you need to choose what is the one maybe two social media platforms that I'm going to use set up your email marketing from the get go oh my gosh, there has been so many podcast episodes over the year over the years where the guests have said the thing I wish I had done from the get go was start my email list. It's about time we have another podcast episode about that. I think we're gonna we're gonna add that to the list. That was one of like their number one regret just kept coming up for a while there of with these guests being like, I wish I had started my email listener. I wish I had start my email list sooner. So I'm telling you start your email list from now from the get go, whether you're listening to this and you're already established and just need to listen to this to get some tips to refine things, or whether you're literally a beginner, start your email list at the beginning flow desk is our favorite, because they've given us a code to give you guys half off, it's $20 a month for ever, the price is not going to go up as your list grows, and when you join something like a MailChimp or ConvertKit, the price skyrockets.
As you grow as your email list grows, all of a sudden, you're gonna find yourself paying 100 $200 a month for email marketing. And that's just outrageous. That's not only as faux desk beautiful, user friendly, it's an incredible platform. I think it's the best platform out there for bloggers, that I'm saying it, I really do. But it's gonna be $20. No matter if you have 10 people on your email list, or if you have 10,000 people on your email list versus if you go over to another competitor, and you have 10,000 people on your email list. It's gonna be a few $100 a month. It's wild. So anyways, that goes on with building your audience, start your email list from the get go. Alright, number eight, cool, I've got it all set up. My blog is beautiful. I'm creating amazing content. I'm connecting with my audience. Now, how do I monetize this ish. All right. Now, once you have a steady flow of traffic, we're going to start to explore some monetization options. Friends, don't go into this thinking that you're going to make a million dollars in the first year. Just don't, you're setting yourself up for heartbreak. And you know, I'm being exaggerating by saying a million dollars. But whether that million dollars to you is $10,000 $20,000 $40,000 is, is a slow and steady, that super, super profitable in the end type of game that we are playing. Okay, we're gonna go slow and steady, we're going to be consistent. We're going to build our audience. And we're going to make bank doing this. But we're not going to do bank in a year. Okay. So once you've got that steady flow of traffic, you've got established content going out, then we're going to explore some monetization options like affiliate marketing, advertising, selling products or services, and sponsored content. Okay, all of that is going to come. The thing I want you to focus on right now is delivering exceptional content to your audience. The only thing I mean, I say the only thing there's probably multiple if we hop on a coaching call, I'm gonna brainstorm with you, we're gonna figure it out. But I could see doing something like a subscription or like a Patreon type of situation towards the beginning could be a creative way to monetize. If huge F huge, huge F I need to edit this video. caveat, did you know that you can listen to this podcast on YouTube? Anyways, I'm gonna put a ginormous if on my face when I'm saying this, if you have the time, and the capacity to do it, if you are limited to like 10 hours a week to work on your blog on growing your brand, you don't have the capacity to also add on another thing, okay? If that's the case, you need to just be focusing on delivering high quality content, staying consistent and releasing those blog posts and marketing to your audience consistently. Okay, but if you do have a bit more time, and you're like, No, I've really got like 30 hours or so to really pour into this, then doing something like a subscription or Patreon might not be a bad idea for like some bonus things that you could add on more towards the beginning of your journey. So like I said, that's kind of like a gray area. It's something that I would suggest talking with a coach me about. So whether you join the profitable blogger society or you do like a one on one coaching call with me something like that is something I suggest for us to kind of hash that out. Alright, so that's monetization. Let me just go through real quick so we stopped with you know, doo doo doo doo doo. Step five, legal compliance. Step six, high quality content. Step seven, building audience. Step eight, monetizing Step Nine of 10 is analyzing and adapting. We're going to use tools like Google Analytics, which you're going to install. That should be up at the top. You need to install Google Analytics before you launch your content before you launch your blog. Okay, we want to start tracking From the beginning, your blog's performance, not only the performance, but we want to understand what works, what is clicking with your audience, what is getting engagement, if anything is performing on SEO right away, and we want to adapt your strategy accordingly. This is like one of those things that goes with like continually learning and staying up to date with things. staying up to date with blogging trends, and kind of like what's going on in the industry is crucial, man talk about that again in a second, but I want to get to the last tip, and that is number 10, which is persistence and patience. I said this already. But remember, growing a Profitable Blog takes time, consistency, perseverance, and a willingness to adapt are so key to long term success in this industry. So let's recap. The first thing, choosing a niche check, selecting a blogging platform, woohoo, domain name and hosting, designing your blog, legal compliance, we're going to create high quality content, we're going to build our audience, then we're going to monetize. And we're always going to analyze and adapt what we're doing. And through it all, we are going to be persistent, and patient, even though patients is very hard for me, I'm not gonna lie. I'm right there with you if you are on the struggle bus with that, okay. So I want you guys to make sure that you are staying up to date with the latest blogging trends and continuing to involve your strategies by listening to this podcast and being part of our Facebook community. If you're not a part of that group over there, Head to facebook, find the Thrive blogging community and join us over there. Never Never stop learning. I you as I am learning something new all the time, probably on a weekly basis. There's so much to know in this industry, and so much that's changing. And we tried to keep you guys up to date, as much as possible. So that's why being a part of a community is just another reason why that is so so important. Blogging success in 2024, as in any year requires a combination of that strategic planning, the creative content creation, and a commitment to connecting with your audience. Like I said, lots of links, lots of notes for this episode to head to thrive together dot blog slash podcast for all the notes for the links and for that guide that is just really going to help you start a Profitable Blog in 2024. Thanks so much for listening. You can find all of the notes from today's podcast at thrive together dot blog slash podcast. Make sure you connect with us over on Instagram at thrive together blog and join our Facebook community to get supported by like minded bloggers and influencers. Just search Thrive blogger community on Facebook. And if you're loving this podcast, be sure to share it with a friend. Hit that subscribe button and leave us review so even more bloggers can get the support they need to grow. Until next time, keep thriving.
