Day 1: Your Blogging Strategy (Start a Blog in 9 Days)

Build the foundation now so your blog can grow, rank, and make money for years.

Welcome to the first day of the Start a Blog in 9 Days challenge, where you’ll create your blogging strategy.

Before we move onto building your blog and taking the first steps to turn it into a money-making machine, I want to make something clear.

What we do in Day 1 can make or break your blogging success. One of the biggest misconceptions - and a mistake most newbies make - is that starting a blog will soon bring you money.

While it can happen, it’s not the smart way to look at it.

The foundation is where it all begins and most aspiring bloggers fail to truly understand the meaning of that. So let me make it clear.

The name you choose for your blog and the way you design the homepage and blog post pages will define how people see it, how your brand looks like years from now when it’s already earning a steady income, how other bloggers in the niche look at you, and - ultimately - what your earning potential can be.

The article you publish today might not convert for a long time. But months or a year from now, you can see it rank on top of the results page in search engines and it will be bringing you the exact kind of visitors you were targeting, who are ready to sign up for your list and buy your digital product.

The affiliate link or two you added in the post can also generate you revenue forever. And a potential sponsor can reach out to you because they discovered this article and want to include a paid link in it (which means you can earn a few hundred dollars in a few minutes).

So you will thank yourself you wrote that one piece even though it wasn’t sure whether it could increase your revenue.

If one blog post can do that, imagine what hundreds can!

That’s exactly what you will have in a few years as content creation and distribution will become one of your main tasks as a full-time blogger.

In future posts, I’ll share with you exactly how to write a winning article and make sure it ranks high and is monetized effectively.

The possible mistake you can make here which will probably make you think of giving up soon is this - you’re not thinking long-term when working on your blog.

It’s hard. I understand. But look at all those bloggers or Substack writers earning over $10K/month. Their income is almost passive now but they love what they do and constantly update their site, publish new content and create new products for their audience.

Their site or publication is often a few years old and in the beginning, they had no clue how exactly to monetize it. That’s okay. They figure it out as they go and as long as they are consistent, it eventually works one way or another.

What they have in common, though, is that they had a vision of where this blog could take them, and how it could help their readers.

All the steps shared in this challenge should be done with a specific mindset: Even if a task you work on related to your blog seems insignificant, even if something takes a lot of time and has to be done every few days such as writing a new blog post, even if optimizing for a keyword seems to take you longer than the actual content creation process, you need to do it.

Each of these is a stepping stone. You’re laying the foundation of your future success and that’s how financial freedom and real impact are created.

Now, before moving to launching your new blog, there’s one thing to discuss - your strategy.

Create a Blogging Strategy

Strategizing early on will save you the years many other bloggers and I wasted before actually growing a site.

Every blog post you write and publish should have a purpose. You must have an idea of what you want to offer to your readers once you have an audience. You also need to know who you’re targeting and how to actually build traffic to that blog.

Creating a basic strategy now ensures you begin making money from your blog sooner. It can also include a time frame and content strategy.

An example of a real blogging strategy would be to publish blog posts, write on other people’s blogs in your niche (that’s called guest posting) and get traffic from search engines, social media and/or through advertising, and make sure all these visitors are brought to a specific landing page on your site.

On this page, you will offer them something for free. Maybe an eBook or cheatsheet, which provides value and gives them the steps to achieve a certain result. Usually, a quick win.

Then, people will trust you a bit. In exchange for that, of course, they’ve given you their email address when signing up to your email list to get the freebie (that landing page we’re talking about will include an opt-in form).

Then, you can send them a series of emails, usually automated ones, and that will help you form a relationship with them, until you eventually share your paid offer.

Once you get more people to it and some of them subscribe, you will have them on your email list.

You then have the chance to send out emails often, like once a week, and provide even more value.

After a few emails, you can make an offer and maybe close a sale.

It could be recommending a tool you use but which is an affiliate link so you get a commission once they purchase it. Or you can share tips on how to achieve something related to your field of expertise, and then offer them your paid product that can help them even more.

A blogging strategy has multiple elements and each must be well thought out. Let’s go through them.

End goal

The ultimate question that will drive any of your actions when creating content or marketing your blog is: ‘What’s the one thing I want the website visitor to do and how do I get them to do it?’

Expert bloggers suggest you start with the end result and work backwards.

Being aware of your goal can help you take the right steps.

If you’re just starting out, though, you probably don’t even know how you can be making money from your blog. That’s okay. These will be covered in another day of the challenge (as well as in future posts I write on Substack) and you’ll then have plenty of time to fill in the gaps of your blogging strategy.

If your goal is selling a product, don’t be afraid to declare that now. You don’t need to wait long or even until you have the product ready before you start telling your readers about it. Mention it freely and know that their feedback is valuable.

What’s more, having the vision of selling such a product helps you set specific goals for your blog and guides all your decisions about advertising, optimizing, writing content, designing your site, connecting other bloggers, etc.

Email List/Landing Page

Next, you need the place readers will land on before they buy what you sell. That will be the landing page (the main page explaining what the product is about, handling their objections and giving them all the info they need to make an informed decision).

While you can get them to it directly from social media or even from a free course you created first that mentions your paid one at the end, you can also build your email list.

That will involve using an email marketing tool, creating a freebie, delivering it to people, and having an automated welcome email series to form a relationship with them and build trust.

Find The Traffic

We’re working backwards, remember? So now we need the actual people who will sign up to your email list, get to your sales page and learn about your product.

You need traffic sources that will bring people to where your offers are (the landing page, pages on your site mentioning it or containing an email opt-in form).

For this, you need the people who are interested in what you’re offering. There is simply no point in even mentioning your offer to anyone else.

Tomorrow, you’ll define your blog niche and the topics you’ll cover on your blog, so that’s your starting point.

Traffic to your blog can come from many places.

For now, keep in mind you’ll need to choose your most important traffic source (usually, that’s organic traffic - the one coming from search engines).

Target Audience

Who is this blog going to help the most? Who will benefit from each blog post you write? What social media platforms do these people use so you can reach them there? What’s their demographic data (age, gender, location, employment status)? What about psychographics (values, personality, lifestyle, hobbies)?

What problems do they have that your content is going to solve? What products are they ready to buy? How many times do they need to be exposed to an offer before they sign up to your mail list?

What are these people’s aspirations? What mental barriers do they have?

Answer all these and create content with that information in mind.

The more you learn about who visits your site, the clearer this picture of your target visitor will become.

But for now, based on your passions, the niche you’re in and who you’re targeting, create a profile of your ideal blog reader.

Time Frames and Frequency

How many hours per week can you invest in your blog?

Whatever number you say now, it can be more. But start small and go from there.

However, it will help you a lot to plan that in advance so you can add these activities to your busy schedule and stick to it.

Many people have contacted me saying they aren’t seeing results from their blog. And when I ask them how many hours per week they actually invest in it, they either don’t know or admit it’s not enough. Don’t fall into that trap.

You now have a basic blogging strategy. Go back to it once you complete the challenge so you can fill in what’s missing.

And that’s it for Day 1 of the Start a Blog in 9 Days Challenge.

I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 2.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Till then,
Lidiya