Hi and welcome to The Candid Talks blogging series. In this series, I will each week cover a different topic, question, news or trend from the blogging world.

The new posts will be uploaded every Sunday evening at 8pm Central European Time. So in case, you do not want to miss it, I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter or the in-browser notifications.

Episode 1.

Should you start a blog in 2020?

Should you start a blog in 2020? That’s a very good question right? Also, I guess that you and many other people would like to get an answer to it.

First of all let me clarify one thing. Blogging is still popular and it can be very, but very profitable. If its done right it can bring you more money than your regular full time job. The best bloggers and blogs are able to make more than 50 000 USD per year. 

Also, there are many highly effective tools which can make your blogging experience very easy and more enjoyable. 

In 2017 there were more than 500 million blogs out there. I believe that today there can be few more millions. The blogs become very popular not only in private sector but mainly among companies. They use their blogs to attract customers, promote and get more sales on their products. 

Smaller bloggers are focusing mostly on promoting their work, knowledge and experiences. The most popular blogs today are food blogs, fashion and lifestyle blogs. 

If your blog does not belong to one of these categories, you do not need to feel sad immediately. The positive thing is that more than 70% of internet users read blogs. And those blogs are of all kinds and niches. So there is for sure a reader out there which might be interested in your blog.

Read this before you start a blog in 2020. Learn all you need to smash it from the beginning.

What are the pros of blogging?

  1. You can easily express your opinion and create content which you are passionate about. 
  2. Once your blog gets popular you will be able to monetize it. 
  3. The monetizing options are endless. 
  4. There are many FREE tools, plugins, themes, and services that can help you to create a dream blog.
  5. You can actually blog about whatever you want.

What are the cons of blogging? 

  1. Blogging is time-consuming. 
  2. The success does not come overnight. It comes with hard and consistent work. 
  3. To create a successful blog you have to be well organized. 
  4. You need to have some kind of knowledge about digital marketing, SEO, keywords, sales, a bit of coding, graphic design, creativity, and social media management. 
  5. Getting traffic to your blog got harder in the past years. 
  6. Blogging isn’t for free and it cost money. 
  7. It requires a lot of patience. 
  8. The competition is high and has more money to invest in content and ads than you.
  9. The blog itself will not bring you money. Only the products or services will.
  10. Blogging might feel a bit outdated as it does not leverage the new technologies so much.
  11. You have to be good in analytics and numbers.

So as you see there are definitely more cons than pros. But if you really want and you feel confident enough to take the challenge, you can still start a blog.

Here is my ultimate guide which can help you with that.

Read this before you start a blog in 2020. Learn all you need to smash it from the beginning.

Tips to start a successful blog in 2020.

First of all, I guess that you already have your niche and topics of your blog ready. If not, reach out to me via my social media and I will get back to you within 24 hours.

1. Create a persona for your blog.

Before you start creating the blog itself you should do a few things. Imagine your ideal reader and create a persona. Imagine who that person is, what are his/ her interests or where to find such a person. You can even give him/her a name. This will, later on, help you to easily create content which will also feel very natural to your readers.

2. Find a great name for your blog.

Do your research and search for a catchy blog name. Your readers should be able to remember and understand its meaning very easily. For this step, you can use a tool like Namelix.

3. Brand your blog. Create a logo, choose fonts, graphics, and brand colors.

Once you have the name, you can create a cool looking logo and first branding of your new blog. Tools like the logo maker from Taylor Brands and Canva can help you with that. For finding the best fonts, I would definitely recommend Fontjoy.

4. Set up your blog. Get a domain, hosting, and a fast theme.

Buy a domain, hosting and a well-looking theme or choose a blog hosting platform like WordPress or Squarespace. You should definitely search for a theme or service that has fast loading speed on both mobile and desktop. Great speed will, later on, help you with the SEO and achieve higher rankings on search engines.

5. Do in-depth keyword research. Target long tail keywords.

According to the research I did earlier this year (the survey was made on a group of 47 bloggers) 77% of bloggers rely on their own judgment when it comes to creating new content. Do you know how many bloggers from the survey do keyword research before they create content? ZERO. You see it correctly, ZERO.

And thats a huge mistake. If you want to get higher rankings and get more traffic to your blog you have to know what is going on around you.

To get new keyword ideas fast and for FREE I highly recommend the Ubersuggest from Neil Patel. The tool is like my best friend which I use on a daily basis. You just need to type in a keyword you would like to use in your post and it will automatically give you hundreds of keyword suggestions.

Tools for bloggers

The best part for you as a newcomer is that it shows you keywords which has lower competition, therefore you will be able to get higher SEO rankings.

6. Create content and post it regularly.

To create 1 single blog post (writing, taking or finding relevant photos, seting up SEO, doing keyword research) will take you approximately 4 1/2 hours.

So the best thing you can to do at the beginning of your blogging journey is to create between 10-15 posts upfront. Also, have at least 5-10 another post ready in drafts or at least have them written down in your editorial calendar.

Once you have the content, set up a posting schedule and stick to it. Try to post at least 1-2 times per week. Google loves fresh content. The higher is your posting frequency the better are your chances to rank your blog and your posts higher on the search engines.

7. Sign up for social media channels. But do your research first.

Not every content is relevant to all the social media platforms. For example, photos will get better chances to get higher engagement on Pinterest or Instagram, maybe on Facebook but smaller on Twitter or TikTok.

Also, be aware that the organic reach on social media is dropping significantly. On Facebook news feed, you can reach around 2% and on Instagram feed between 6-12% of your followers. That’s nothing if you take into consideration that you do not have a huge followership yet.

And if you think that ads can save you, you might be wrong. The ads are getting more expensive and their reach is also lower.

But as you already have the persona of your blog ready, it will be much easier to analyze on which platform your readers are. So do your research, and choose your social media platforms wisely.

PS: I highly recommend using stories like the content on any platform you can. For now, they have the best organic reach and engagement.

8. Promote your content over and over. (repurpose it many times)

When you hit publish, and put your new post to your social media channels, do not stop there. One of the best things to do is to get your content in-front your readers more often.

Post and promote your NEW content on social media twice or even 3 times in one week. If you want to learn more about repurposing content I highly recommend the guru in this field Gary Vaynerchuk.

After 10-12 weeks of blogging, you should have around 25-30 blog posts already published. As not each of your readers has seen the oldest ones, repurpose them too.

9. Analyse your results and adjust your next steps accordingly.

What is very important to do with your new blog is to track the data. There are several tools that can help you with that but in my opinion, Google Analytics is the best one.

Check your analytics at least once per week and look for any jumps in your traffic. If you see that some of your content got high traffic, mark it down and analyze why did it happen?

Firstly focus on content which is doing well and not on the low performing ones. This should help you to keep you motivated and create good content.

Conclusion.

As you see, blogging is really complex work. If you believe in your content, you are ready to learn and adapt each day, go for it. Start a blog in 2020.

There are tools and people who can help you with that. Try to focus on creating good content first and only then think about monetizing your blog. And please, don’t get fooled when someone is telling you that you can make 10k dollars in 3 months blogging. That’s almost impossible.

Last but not least, if you do not feel confident writing content but you prefer talking on the screen or in the studio do not even hesitate and record videos or podcasts. The days of blogs are almost over.


Read this before you start a blog in 2020. Learn all you need to smash it from the beginning. 1