Focus on These During Your First Month of Blogging

Blogging can be an amazing experience, but if you don’t focus on these during your first month of blogging, it can also be overwhelming. 

But that’s not what we want. We want this blogging journey to be one that’s filled with success, new friendships and of course, money! 

Unfortunately, so much information out there tells you to work on this and work on that.The truth is, you don’t (and shouldn’t) have to do it all, especially not during your first month of blogging.

So if you’re a new blogger, or soon-to-be one, we’ll cover the tasks you should prioritize during this first month and which ones not to spend time on just yet.

Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if clicked at no extra cost to you. Though the opinions remain my own

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Your Mindset Matters

Before we get into the things you’ll need to focus on during your first month of blogging, it’s important to know that your mindset matters. 

The way you view your blog will determine how fast you can grow it. If you’re not in the right mindset, it can become really difficult to get your blog moving in a positive direction.

If your ultimate blogging goal is to make money off of it, whether as side income or to replace your current income, this means your blog is a business. And just like any business, you need to treat it as one.

No business becomes successful without making initial investments into it. Not just money but time too. And not just loose investments either because I know we don’t have a bunch of money to blow LOL. So instead, we’re going to focus on making smart investments, the kind that’ll help you see ROI quicker.

So despite what anyone thinks of you becoming a blogger, this shhh is hard work so yeah, it’s definitely a business.

Related Post: 3 Blogging Truths You Need to Believe to Succeed

What To Focus on Your First Month of Blogging 

In the early stages of starting a blog, it’s important not to get caught up with doing every single thing possible because if you do, nothing will really happen. 

Instead, focus on these tasks during your first month of blogging so that you can build your foundation and be set up for success!

Choose a niche

The very first thing you need to do when starting out is to choose a niche. I know of some big bloggers that tell beginners that a lifestyle blog is perfectly okay when in reality, these types of blogs are the hardest ones to grow.

Notice how I said “hardest” meaning not impossible. However, it’s still a good idea to identify a niche and become an authority and expert in it. I mean, why would you want to struggle, right? 

But look, I get it. I was there too and was forced to niche down because by not doing so, it made everything else harder. 

For that reason, I don’t want you to go through the same thing. So please do yourself a favor and choose a specific niche from the beginning.

Things to consider when deciding

When choosing your niche, you’ll need to figure out what topic you want to focus on for your blog. You’ll want to make sure it’s an area where you have plenty of experience or knowledge in so that it’s easier to write about it. 

But of course, you gotta love what you’re writing about too, so that’s important to note. 

Here are some questions you could ask yourself when trying to decide on a niche:   

What are your interests? What about that topic do you love the most? Is it something you can see yourself spending hours talking aka writing about? 

What are you good at?  And is this something you enjoy doing or discussing?

These are just a few examples to help you get started on brainstorming the perfect niche for you.

However, if you’re unsure of your niche choice, need ideas or perhaps have an idea of one but aren’t sure if it’s a profitable one, Niche Ninja Mini Course can help you with this critical step.

Identify your target audience

The next thing you want to do is to identify your target audience.  

Now you may be thinking, “well, isn’t choosing a niche and target audience the same thing?” The answer is not necessarily.

Within your niche, you must create an ideal avatar. Once you have identified who your ideal customer is, this then does niche you down a bit further.

For example, if you chose the food niche, this is still pretty broad. So let’s say within the food niche your ideal avatar is a woman in her mid-twenties that eats healthy keto meals. This niches you down a bit further to a keto food blog (which is a good thing).

So who are you writing for? What is their demographic? What do they enjoy doing? And what are they wanting to improve on or need help with? 

Knowing who you’re writing for will help you establish what content should go on your blog, what your blog should look like and what posts will be relevant for them.

Set up your blog the right way

The next thing you’ll want to do in this first month of blogging is get the technical side of blogging done and set up.

Choose a domain name

But before you even start with setting up your blog, you need to come up with a site name. Your site name will be your blog brand and identity so it should be one that you absolutely fall in love with.

To get domain name ideas and see if the one you’re thinking of is already taken, visit NameCheap here as you can go ahead and directly purchase it from there too.

Save social media handles

Check social media before purchasing your domain name to see if it’s already taken on any platform. Once you’re happy with the domain name and it’s available everywhere, go ahead and create profiles for all social media accounts.

By create profile, I literally mean just create the account. Don’t worry about the bios or information just yet. All you want to do is save the social media handle for now to ensure no one gets it.

Choose a proper host

To do this, you’ll want to start a WordPress.org blog through a trusted host. Do not go the free route if you’re trying to make money with your blog.

Being self-hosted means you’re the owner of your site versus the free version where they could shut you down at any time. Companies and brands also prefer to work with bloggers who have self-hosted sites for this reason.

Personally, I’ve used Bluehost, Siteground and BigScoots, but have seen better results with Bigscoots, which is who I use now for all my blogs.

However, I’ll admit that Bigscoots is on the pricier side so I started with cheaper plans and worked my way up. You’ll need to decide which host is right for you based on your finances and what’s more important to you right now – cost or reliability.

Related Post: How To Start Your WordPress Blog with Siteground

Invest in legal pages

One of the most important upfront investments you’ll need to make is for legal pages.  

The legal pages bloggers need on their blogs include Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and Disclaimers. Do not skimp out on these because you want to ensure your blog is protected in case of anything happening.  

I personally didn’t even launch my blog without these legal templates as I’m very familiar with the legal world and wasn’t about to put myself or my blog business at risk. And neither should you!

Plus, if you’re wanting to make money blogging, you have no choice but to have your legal pages up on your site first. Most companies and brands won’t even consider working with you if you don’t have them, so be sure to check out these easy and affordable legal templates here. 

Even the tiniest blogger mistake could lead to big legal trouble so don’t let this happen to you.

Get systems implemented early

If I’m being honest, one of my biggest blogging pet peeves is that this critical step is often overlooked.  

Many beginner bloggers start blindly and try to go full speed without getting their systems in place (and if I’m being honest, this was me too). But the thing about blogging is that this isn’t something you can get successful at by “just winging it.” 

There’s just way too much involved and way too many things you’ll need to learn. That means some tasks need to take priority over others. 

When I finally realized this and got my systems implemented for my business, I started getting things done faster and stopped feeling so overwhelmed by everything because it was now manageable. 

Inside of DIY Workflows, I teach you how to get systems implemented in your business with ease so definitely be sure to check them out. 

Related Post: Blog Scheduling Tips to Get More Done

Begin writing amazing content

With the technical and planning side of blogging out of the way, you can now focus on creating content that will bring in your target audience and keep them engaged. 

There’s a myth that says you have to wait until you have so many blog posts written before you should publish your site. However, this is not true. 

You can and should hit that publish button as soon as you have one blog post up. It takes Google a while to notice your site anyways so might as well start the timer on it as soon as you’re able to.

Related Post: This is the Blog Post Format You Should Follow

Learn SEO basics

And speaking about Google, before learning anything else, prioritize learning about search engine optimization (SEO). 

Following the Moz definition, SEO is the “practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results” like Google.

But because there’s so much to learn about this topic, in your first month of blogging, you only want to focus on learning the SEO basics. 

This includes things such as blog post formatting and keyword research. 

Don’t push learning SEO to the side like many of us did. I’m grateful that I at least didn’t wait years like many big bloggers did. I strongly believe this is the biggest reason why my blogs have grown so quickly.

Related Post: Increase Blog Traffic Using KeySearch

What (Not) To Focus On in Your First Month of Blogging 

As you see, blogging is a time-consuming business, and it’s tempting to think that if you do more of the blogging tasks, that your blog will grow at the rate that you want. 

However, this is far from the truth because the only thing that ends up happening is you’re left feeling overwhelmed and defeated. 

So here are some blogging tasks that you shouldn’t worry about doing during your first month of blogging. You’ll have plenty of time to work on them later on once you’ve established a solid foundation.

Related Post: What If I Started My Business Over? 

Making money 

I know, I know. You’re in this to make money with your blog, right? But if you aren’t doing things correctly, you won’t even get a chance to see that money roll in. 

Rushing into monetizing without having your foundation set only leads to failure in many cases. Because think about it, how are you going to make money if you don’t know how to bring in traffic or aren’t writing SEO-optimized blog posts? 

I promise that making money will come soon enough, but there are other things you should prioritize first so that this part comes easier.

Related Post: Ways to Make Money Blogging

Building an email list

Everyone says you need to start an email list right away. And although I do agree that building an email list is super important and should be done early on, it’s definitely not something you should worry about during your first month of blogging.

There are just wayyyy too many tasks associated with list building ranging from creating a freebie, creating landing pages, opt-in forms, welcome series and more. So yeah, definitely don’t take this on just yet.

Plus, how are you going to nurture your new subscribers when you don’t even have much content up on your site? It’ll just make it harder to know what to send in your weekly email newsletters.

So establish your content first before focusing on building an email list. This part comes later.

Related Post: How To Create MailerLite Landing Pages for Free

Posting on social media

This one is another common mistake bloggers make when they’re starting out. 

Of course social media is great for building your personal brand and connecting with your audience, but it’s also super time-consuming. And don’t even get me started with the individual platforms algorithms. 

Each platform like Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram have their own unique algorithm. This is how they decide whose content to show to which followers. 

I hate to break it to you but just because someone follows you, doesn’t mean your social posts appear on their feed. For this to happen, you’ll need to be checking off several marks from their algorithm checklist, which updates often.

So instead of wasting time posting on social media when they may not even be seen, push this to the side until you can invest time to learn one platform at a time.

Related Post: Do You REALLY Need to Be on Every Social Media Platform?

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And remember, there is always something to be happy for… Cheers to blogging! What are you cheering to today?

Lucy