15 things to do before you launch a Blog- A Beginners Guide

This post contains affiliate links, which means we'll receive a commission if you purchase through our links, at no extra cost to you. Read the disclosure here.

15 things to do before launching a Blog- A Beginners Guide

If you’re looking to start your own niche website, or even if you just want to have your own blog, there are a few things you should do before you launch your site. 

That way, you can kick off the first day of your new site with as much momentum as possible and get the best results it right away! 

In this article, we’ll take a look at 15 things you should do before you launch your blog or website to make sure that everything goes smoothly on day one.

Why should you start a blog?

Why Create A Niche Website?

Before You Launch A Website, Consider Why You Want To Do It In The First Place. 

Let me tell you, when I started Blogging in 2016 – I Knew nothing about it.  I was simply blogging about things I love and what makes me happy. It was all about me me me…You got the point.

I made a hell lot of mistakes like getting on to a free WordPress domain, not going for worpress.org( This was a quite huge mistake), not doing keyword Research, Not getting on to Google Search Console & Analytics and so o.

My First website was divzbeauty.worpress.com( Ah ! can you believe it). 

A few years later in 2019, I changed that to digitallydiv.com.au, AGAIN! another mistake of not going for self-hosted WP because this time I knew a lot more about WordPress and Blogging but was worried about losing all the SEO and the rankings.

As a matter of fact, we decided to redo of this website and move it to another hosting last year in Oct 2021.

So, technically this website is as old as 2016 but newly hosted on siteground. We lost most of the cool & white hat  SEO we had done on this site.

Well, We have also created many sites along the way since 2017 and sold many of them over the years. 

Also, we have been helping many Hobbyists and Solo Entrepreneurs to get into the blogging business.

Many people want to start their own websites or Niche blogs because they think it will help them build an audience and authority status. 

That may be true in some cases, but if that’s your sole reason for wanting a website, then I recommend considering something other than starting one yourself. 

If your goal is just to have your own domain and write about what interests you, you should consider creating a niche website (and blogging) .

As Blogger, you always write for others not for yourself. It’s not about your Journey but the readers.

If you wish to know the mistakes to avoid as a new blogger read this Blog 10 Beginner blogger mistakes you must avoid NO matter what

Choose A Niche

The first thing you need to do is choose your niche. This is one of those non-negotiable rules in blogging that’s often overlooked by newbies. 

You have to have some passion for your topic, and no matter how popular it is, if it doesn’t interest you then you probably won’t be able to work on it for very long. 

So please—for your sake and ours—choose a topic that has some appeal for you and is happy to write about for quite a long time.

Related: How to choose a Niche for your Blog

Start Keyword Research

First, pick a niche and start brainstorming keywords that fit your brand. If you’re unsure about which niche to choose, check out our post on How To Find The Right Website Niche. 

Not sure how to do keyword research? We have a step-by-step guide: How To Do Keyword Research For Your Website Or Niche Site.

Tools I use For Keyword Search

Semrush for SEO & Competition Analysis

KeySearch.co for Keyword search

Create A Domain Name

You will need a dedicated space for your niche website. Make sure that it has your target keywords in it. 

This way, people looking for information on your topic will be more likely to find your website. 

You can register domain names through providers like GoDaddy , Namecheap and use services like WordPress for blogging platforms.

Make sure the domain name is relevant to your niche. For Example if you are an expert in boats.. boatfenzy.com or something like that. 

Also, make sure you take up the .com domain to target bigger Audiences not just your country-specific.UK or . AU.

Sites I use For Domain Registration

Godadddy –

• A very user-friendly customer panel — especially for beginners.
• WHOIS privacy package — $7.99 a year.
• Email accounts — from $4.49 a month.

NameCheap :

• ‘WhoisGuard’ enabled free of charge
• One email account for free. Every additional one at $0.25 a month.

Pick A Hosting Service

Learning how to pick a web host is like looking for Mr. Right for developers, bloggers, small business owners, and others. It’s a common query: 

Which hosting company should I entrust my heart (er, websites) to?

If done correctly, you may have a lifetime of bliss with a dependable and high-performing host who is always there to answer your burning late-night inquiries through phone, chat, or email. 

However, entering a hosting partnership without completing your homework might leave you feeling imprisoned, deceived, or extorted. 

Choosing the incorrect host might result in hassles, a messy, expensive divorce, and you being left alone with all of the data you used to share.

We Recommend Hosting with these 2 Industry Leaders:

Hosting:

Sign up for a blog hosting account –

 We have 2 Options for you depending on your Circumstances:

1. Bluehost is what we recommend as the best hosting to begin your blogs. As a beginner, you are not inclined to spend anything more for your Blog hosting.

2. Siteground is what we use for most of our Clients as they provide free domain name and Email Id as per the Domain FREE of charge -You just pay for the Hosting.

Install WordPress

Setting up your WordPress site is crucial—it’s where most of your readers will go when they visit. 

If you start by installing WordPress now, when it comes time to publish your first post, it’ll be ready to go. 

Get started with our guide on how to install WordPress on your server. (Oh, and don’t worry about creating a whole new site for your new project: most domain names will allow you to add more sites for free.) 1.

Choose A Theme

Your brand new blogging platform might look super sleek, but it’s not going to win any design awards if it doesn’t match your business branding. 

Before you start writing, make sure that you have a theme that matches your site – otherwise, all of your hard work might be for nothing!

Select a Theme for your website

WordPress Themes: Free vs. Paid

Is there a free option or do I have to pay for this? This is a common question among novice website builders.

While premium tools (themes included) have many advantages, free stuff is a great place to start if you’re just getting started (and probably best).

This is due to three factors:

1. You haven’t made any money yet from your website, so you shouldn’t spend a lot of money until you do.
2. When you’re just starting out, you don’t need the added confusion and learning curve that comes with using more advanced features in premium tools.
3. You’ll be persuaded otherwise. At the very least. I think there’s a lot more than that. More than you should, in my opinion. Better not to blow a lot of money on this as well.

That’s why we’ve put together this list of 5 free & 5 paid  WordPress themes for you. To help you save both time and money. ‘

Find out where to get WordPress themes for your blog here. When it comes to selecting a WordPress theme, you’ll have to choose between free and paid options.  If you are Ok to use paid themes, I recommend Elegant themes. Check out some major discounts with Elegant Themes

I would suggest for a beginner like you, WordPress free Blog themes like 

FREE Themes

• OceanWP. Theme Stats: Downloads: 700,000+ 
• Astra. Theme Stats: Downloads: 1+ million. …
• Storefront. Theme Stats: Downloads: 200,000+ 
• Neve. Theme Stats: Downloads: 200,000+ 
• Zakra. Theme.
• Hestia. Theme Stats: 
• ColorMag. Theme Stats: 
• Sydney. Theme Stats

Some more to go…

1. BlogPixie, 

2.Skyandstars,  

3.Brandingandabout , 

Paid Themes: 

4.17th Avenue Themes , VVIAN( paid)

5.Blossom Pin pro ( for a more Pinterest friendly Blog site) 

6.Life coach Website

7. Editorial Avenue

8. Isabel- Skyandstars

9. Millennial theme

10. Femme theme( paid)

Note: Although there are a few fundamental differences between the two, premium themes tend to have more elaborate designs and better functionality than free themes.

Get Comfortable with WordPress

WordPress powers more than 33% of all websites in existence and WordPress does have a learning curve. 

It took me more than a year to get to know most of WordPress stuff. But, you don’t need to Fret- My Team and I can help get going with the Blogging business smoothly. 

Start your Blogging Business here.

If you’re going to build your empire on WordPress, it’s best to get comfortable with it early. 

You can learn how to customize its look and feel, and perform key tasks like setting up SEO-friendly pages, Plugins, Theme Customization, and so on. 

Related Blogs:

• 10 Must have essential WordPress plugins for successful Blogging  and; making money Online
• 15 Best Web Hosting Services of 2022
• 110+ Best Blog Niches to Make Money Online

Set Up Analytics (Google Analytics-It’s FREE)

Make sure you have an analytics platform set up from day one. It will help track your key performance indicators (KPIs) and inform future decision-making for your business. 

For instance, if Google Analytics tells you that there’s low traffic to a particular page on your site, then go ahead and tweak that page. That’s real data informing real change!

Write Your About Page, Privacy Policy & Disclaimer policy. 

Your About page is where your readers will get their first impression of who you are, and that’s why it’s so important. It doesn’t have to be long; just enough information for people to know who they’re getting. 

Many bloggers use their about page as an online resume—but we don’t recommend that because your resume already does that!

Setup Facebook Page, Twitter & Pinterest Account

Get those social media handles!!

There’s no point in setting up your business if no one knows about it. 

Setting up social media accounts is free and can dramatically increase traffic to your website, which is why every new business needs its own Facebook page, Twitter handles, and Pinterest boards. 

Try for 20 likes on Facebook, 100 followers on Twitter, and 10 pins on Pinterest in a day. 

More isn’t better so don’t worry if you fall short of these numbers – it’s just important that people know about your new venture.

Setup Email Newsletter (MailChimp, Aweber, Or Convertkit)

Keeping your audience up-to-date is one of the best ways to stay top of mind. 

Don’t lose them just because you’re too busy writing or speaking to connect with them regularly. 

Not all email marketing services are created equal, so take some time and research which one works best for your audience and how often they’ll want to hear from you.

Build An Email List (Yes, Collect Emails!)

By building an email list of early adopters who like your content and trust your brand, you’ll be setting yourself up for success. 

Not only will you have thousands of eager subscribers when you finally open shop, but they’ll also get a notification whenever something new lands in your store.

Add Feature Image To Your Blog Posts

This might sound obvious, but most people don’t think about it until they’re right up against their publication date. 

If your post relies on an image, it could be killing your potential traffic and engagement. 

You can upload any image as an attachment in WordPress, but there are also many great plugins that allow you to search for images directly from within your content management system, which is much faster and more convenient.

I would suggest stick with  Just One Feature images for your blogs. 

I do not keep any other Images than the Feature image unless it’s about steps where in we need to post the Screen shots.

Also, get Friendly with these digital Marketing tools

Paid Tools for starting your Blog

Hosting:

Sign up for a blog hosting account – Bluehost is what we recommend as the best hosting to begin your blogs.

Canva pro:

You can start with canva free, However, To access many of the features that canva Offers, you’ll need to have a Canva Pro subscription. To get your feet wet in the program and see how it can work for you, sign up for a free trial of Canva Pro here.

SEO Tool

Semrush  Let me tell you a Secret, You don’t need this tool Until reach around 8-12 Months on your blogging Journey or you get 20K+ Traffic on your website.

Canva pro- the best tool for Marketing Creatives

Canva is a graphic design tool, as opposed to drawing tools such as Procreate. 

This means that, unlike Procreate, you cannot draw with a stylus in Canva, but you can create designs using images, fonts, shapes, and elements.

Canva can do a LOT of things like a graphic design tool, but it can’t do everything. This is why I classified it as “basic” graphic design.

10 Reasons Canva Pro is Worth the Money

It’s also worth noting that Canva can’t do much photo editing. Canva does not support custom cropping, colour adjustments, or adjusting objects within a scene. 

For these more advanced techniques, you’ll need to use tools like Photoshop.

Even though Canva appears to be “basic,” many of us( Bloggers and Marketers) do not require the advanced techniques found in other programs, such as the Adobe suites (Photoshop Etc)

Personally, I don’t want to pay a high price for a program that includes features that I will never use.

Canva is the right price for my needs and does exactly what I need it to. That sounds good to me!

Canva also provides some unique features that you won’t find in other programs. 

Some of these features distinguish Canva from the competition and may be worth the subscription fee alone.

To access many of the features like many stock Pics, image background removal, social scheduling, Templates, transparent Images, stay on Brand, and many more you’ll need to have a Canva Pro subscription. 

If you are just starting, to get your feet wet in the tool and see how it can work for you, sign up for a free trial of Canva Pro here.

Get your simple Logo done using canva:

Yes! There is no need for a Flashy logo when it comes to Blogging. Just a simple, relevant Logo using Canva will be as fantastic. So, you need to hire a Flashy logo designer or the Graphic designer…Trust me using just canva to create a logo will do all tricks.

I don’t spend much time on logos for any of my websites.  Just make sure that they are relevant and consistent with your website color code. Or you can create your logo first and then take on your website theme color from your logo.

It can be done either way. Most of the time we create websites with some color in mind and develop a Logo using canva based on those colors. makes sense? huh!

Setup Google Search Console & Google Analytics

No other marketer will tell you this! The Only SEO Analytics Tool You Need Is Google Analytics to start your blogging Business.

A  wealth of SEO insights can be learned from analyzing Google Analytics.

Analyzing data on a regular basis can aid in identifying both performance concerns and improvement opportunities.

Do you want to know if your investment in search engine optimization (SEO) is paying off? Many tools for tracking SEO rankings might assist you in measuring your efforts, but they can be costly to use.

This is where Google Analytics can help. It doesn’t have all of the functionality of the other tools, but it’s free! It just takes a little practice to use it to its best potential for tracking SEO rankings.

Use Google Analytics to keep tabs on keyword rankings 

The first thing that springs to mind when people think about SEO performance is this. What are the most popular search terms on Google?

You don’t need a paid SEO tool to watch your term ranks in Google Analytics, yet many novices assume you do.

How? Through the integration of Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Now you can see exactly how your search phrases are doing without having to rely on keyword data that isn’t included in Google Analytics reports.

The first step is to set up the connections between Search Console and Analytics. 

Then, navigate to Acquisitions > Search Console > Queries in the Search Console. When someone searches for your name in Google, here are the keywords and phrases they used.

In our post, you’ll know how to use Google Analytics to analyze your site’s performance and track SEO rankings, so you can determine whether your techniques are working for your company or whether they need to be adjusted.

5 handy SEO Insights You Can gain from Google Analytics

SEO & keyword Research Tools

SEMRUSH:

Well, You don’t need paid tools Like Semrush  till you reach 8-10 Months of your Blogging journey. Trust me on that! We never use this tool until the website is Old enough with enough traffic.

Before writing your niche blogs,  do the Keyword Research using just a simple google search. Nothing else to start with ( NO AHREFs and SEMRUSHs). 

Google is a GIANT data storage and there are numerous Questions that people search on Google Search.

Check out for your Niche relevant Questions people are asking on Google, and check the Competition. 

If not much competition( Like There is Forum coming up for the search Result or there is really Old Content) exists for the particular Query, VOILA!!  You have your Blog Posts idea ready.

Pro-Tip: Make sure that your First 5-10 Blogs are based on the queries that are Low hanging Fruits( Keywords/Long tail keywords,  I mean!). 

You can start targeting Competitive keywords once you have published your 5-10 Blogs.

Tools I use On an Everyday basis to make money Online

Canva Pro– For Marketing Creatives

Semrush for SEO & Competition Analysis

KeySearch.co for Keyword search

Elementor Pro Page Builder

GetLasso Plugin for Affiliate Links

CrowdFire for Social media management

Designerr.io to Create Beautiful eBooks that sell

Gumroad to sell Digital products

Start Blogging, Today!

Start a blog today.

Well, Customizing your blog and being accustomed to your theme may take some time to get used to, so be patient. 

Due to the fact that each theme is unique, I am unable to give a step-by-step explanation here.

Nonetheless, WordPress.org contains several useful resources, including tutorials that will teach you all you need to know about blogging with WordPress (again, for free! ).

Before writing your niche blogs,  do the Keyword Research using just a simple google search? Nothing else to start with ( NO AHREFs and SEMRUSHs to begin with ). 

Indeed, you can use these Tools once your website is Indexed by Google and start getting traffic.

Google is a GIANT data storage and there are numerous Questions that people search on Google Search.

Check out for your Niche relevant Questions people are asking on Google, and check the Competition. 

If not much competition( Like There is Forum coming up for the search Result or there is really Old Content) exists for the particular Query, VOILA!!  You have your Blog Posts idea ready.

Pro-Tip: Make sure that your First 5-10 Blogs are based on the queries that are Low hanging Fruits( Keywords/Long tail keywords,  I mean!). You can start targeting Competitive keywords once you have published your 5-10 Blogs.

Don’t forget to market your Blogs

So, you’ve created a fantastic blog article that is packed with useful information…now what? 

Is it feasible to get it in front of the proper set of eyes while also presenting it to as many pairs of eyes as possible? 

It is just as vital to promoting your blog entries in the proper manner as it is to provide excellent material. Having said that, if no one views your material, then it’s all for naught. 

Our recent Blog effective ways to promote your blog for free will demonstrate how to effectively market a blog article in order to increase traffic for your website.

If you are looking at Blogging and making money with your fave Hobby, we can help you get going. As a Marketing Agency, We have helped many Individuals and Hobbyists to create a Blogging Businesses and life they love!

Contact us today

Here’s how to Start & Run a Successful Blogging  Business in 15 Simple  steps 

When it comes to the technical aspects of things, setting up a blog is actually rather simple to do. All you have to do is:

1. Find niche relevant available blog domain name and register it.
2. Pick a platform or Content Management System suitable for bloggers – It has to be  WordPress.
3. Sign up for a blog hosting account – Bluehost is what we recommend as the best hosting to begin your blogs.
4. Install WordPress CMS.
5. Pick a simple blogging WordPress theme. There are Hundreds and Thousands of Free and Paid Themes available on the internet. Pick One of your Liking.
6. Install  top must-have WordPress plugins for blogs like the SEO, Security/Backup & GoogleSiteKit 
7. Customize your site and Tweak the blog settings with niche-relevant colours and Font
8. Write and publish your first blog post.
9. Start Marketing Your Blogs- SEO, Social media, and Forums
10. Define your success. Choose your definition of success and what your blog should accomplish.
11. Be consistent. Sit down and write on a consistent schedule (doesn’t have to be every day).
12. Connect with others. Set up social media profiles to reach your fans.
13. Grow with your blog. As your blog grows, so should you.
14. Start Making Money $$
15. Spread your Knowledge across the Globe

This whole process of completing all of these stages, despite the fact that they appear to be time-consuming, is actually pretty quick and straightforward since you are guided through the process by your hosting company, and then by the WordPress dashboard itself.

However, If you find them quite a lengthy process Or have NO time to DIY, we offer 1.5 Hr Consultation and we walk you through all these steps. Contact us if you are keen to start your blogs ASAP.

Note to consider: When you’re ready to buy your hosting, make sure you use the above link for Bluehost. It is an affiliate link (meaning that we’ll get a small commission with NO extra cost to you), however, it will also unlock a $2.75 vs $3.95 discounted price for you. 

You won’t get this discount if you visit the Bluehost site in any other way than via the link above

Contact us Today!

About the Author:

Hey there, I’m Div, a passionate blogger who loves sharing my thoughts and experiences on Blogging Business, Travel & decor.

With 6 years of experience in the Blogging world, I’ve gained a wealth of knowledge and insights that I love to pass on to my readers.

Whether I’m exploring new travel destinations, trying out the latest recipes, or sharing tips and tricks for SEO & Blogging, I’m always looking for new ways to connect with my audience and share my passion.

Let’s dive in and explore together!