Did you make ‘starting a blog’ one of your new years’ resolutions in 2018? Well, that’s exciting! You might be feeling completely lost right now tho. Let me help you out, friend!

In this post, I put together 12 steps for you to follow if you want to start & grow a profitable blog this year. If you follow these, I promise- by the end of the year, you will have a fully working, profitable blog & you’re going to feel proud!

Are you ready? Roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work:

#1 Start A Blog

Seriously, what are you waiting for? I’m not saying that impulsive decisions will always get you to the right place, but sometimes all you need to do is JUST START.

Ok, I know, I know…starting a blog might look like a hustle to you at this point, but in reality- it only takes 5 minutes… Crazy right?

Just 5 minutes and you can turn your life upside down!

All you need to do is follow this step by step tutorial, it explains everything you need to do!

#2 Decide On Your Niche

Look, you need to come up with a niche for your blog. Don’t think just general lifestyle/beauty/fashion/etc. Take your notebook & start planning. List 5 topics you could blog about. Now cross out 3 of them. The more narrow your niche is- the more chances to have to succeed.

I used to blog about EVERYTHING. Seriously. Not only it was exhausting, but I couldn’t see my blog + biz growing smoothly. As soon as I decided to narrow my niche, things started to pick up, so don’t make the same mistake!

Read: How to Find the Right Niche for Your Blog?

#3 Design Your Blog

So you have your blog live & active now, but it’s not looking real pretty just yet, huh? Don’t miss this step as this is very important.

In this visual era, you must take care of your blog’s design if you want to succeed online.

You have nothing to worry about! You don’t need to be tech savvy or have a great understanding of web design to make this happen.

Get yourself a Premade WordPress Theme & your professional looking blog will be ready in seconds.

Installing your blog design theme is super easy & you always get step-by-step instructions in the theme package (or you can use free installation services and have a professional set it up for you).

If you’re very determined, you can even prepare matching social media covers + post templates by using one of these Blog Branding Packages. You see, we have you covered, friend!

#4 Start Growing Your Audience

Being active on social media is the best way to bring the most engaged audience to your blog. I personally focus on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest & Facebook. However, you can definitely get awesome results from other platforms if you analyse & use them properly. It’s really up to you to decide but make sure to register your accounts as soon as possible & secure those unique usernames.

However, for the first few months, I would suggest focussing on only 1 or 2 platforms tho! You can add more as you go along, but for now- work on the ones you feel you can do best at!

Read more: Growing Your Blog’s Audience Through Social Media.

#5 Get A Camera

In this visual era of the internet, your blog photography means more than ever. With a huge competition out there, most readers will leave your blog straight away if they don’t like the visual aesthetics of your blog. Uploading high-quality images can really help you attract attention to what you really want to say throughout your content.

Find: 5 Best Cameras For Bloggers To Buy Today.

#6 Work On Your SEO

I get requests for sharing my SEO strategies almost every day. I cannot say that I have this secret formula about getting into the first pages of search engines. Nonetheless, over the last year, I’ve been successfully growing my organic search numbers & overall pageviews. It only happened because I decided to get serious about my SEO score at last and you should make sure to learn about this from the early beginning! Follow these 7 Effective SEO Tips for Bloggers to work on this!

#7 Create Your Own Digital Products

Did you know that majority of my income made online come from my digital products? For those who are not aware, I offer premade Blogger & WordPress themes, branding + media kit templates as well as custom blog design packages.

I believe that selling your own digital products can be a great and very efficient way to monetise your blog. However, coming up with a digital product idea can be a hard task if you’ve never done this before.

Make sure to read this post to get a better idea of what products you can offer!

#8 Learn About Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way for a business to reward bloggers or online influencers for each visitor/sale brought by the blogger’s own marketing efforts. Basically, once someone clicks on the affiliate link and buys something from your advertised website you’ve shared- you will get commisioned.

Check out Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course if you want to learn more about it! The course was created by Michelle who currently earns over $50,000 a month through affiliate marketing, and she shares all of the best tips in this course. In this course, there are 6 modules, over 30 lessons, over 20 worksheets, bonuses, an extremely helpful exclusive Facebook group, and more, and she goes through everything when it comes to affiliate marketing. I was so happy to have found this course and learn from a real expert!

#9 Find Your Blogging Goal

Setting an ultimate blogging goal for yourself is a great idea. It helps you stay more focused & picks you up when you’re going through hard times. If you’re having trouble deciding what you want to accomplish with your blog, take a look at these tips!

#10 Learn To Edit Your Pictures Properly

It’s not all about the expensive cameras and lenses when it comes to your blog photography, photo editing is just as important.

Sign up for Adobe Photography Plan & download Lightroom + Photoshop. These might look a bit difficult to use at first, but it’s so worth to take your time & actually learn how to use these. You can find a bunch of handy tutorials on youtube. Or, let me tell you a little secret: I personally LOVE using VSCO presets for Lightroom when editing my images. They are so easy to handle and they make your pictures look so bright & professional!

#11 Take Care Of Your Blog’s Security

I’ve been hacked way too many times during my career online. It all could have ended tragically if I hadn’t secured myself up front by firstly, using the best web hosting services. Secondly, using these WordPress security plugins. Setting these up only takes a few minutes, but it can save you DAYS of worrying about lost content. You will be working hard on your blog & you have to make sure nobody can take it away from you.

#12 Keep Posting Consistently

I love using my planner & scheduling blog posts ideas in advance. Whenever a new article topic pops into my mind- I will write it down for the next available date. This helps me to stay focused on my content & avoid the blogging break-down.

Now in the early days of blogging, I admit, coming up with new topics wasn’t so simple! For this reason, I decided to help you out & came up with a bunch of ideas that you can use in the first months of launching your blog! Check out 30 Lifestyle Blog Posts Ideas or 30 Blog Post Ideas For Fashion Bloggers.

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Hope this post was helpful, folks! Let me know if you’re dedicating 2018 to finally growing a profitable blog!