5 Things to Do Before You Write Your First Blog Post

My very first blog post for Daglega is “How I Defeated Fears and Started Writing My First Blog Post?” I have seen some hidden paths through that blog post. I got a chance to talk to some experienced bloggers and had 15+ comments on that blog post. Isn’t that great?

Yes, It is nothing, but it was a massive success for me as a newbie because I had never expected anything like that. I thought nobody would read my article. I just wanted to write. 

As I mentioned in my first blog post, my primary focus is on improving my writing skills, grammar, and vocabulary. Still, my goal remains the same, but now I know at least a few are facing the same fears as me, and I have to write for them.

Publishing the first blog post on your blog (I hope you have already launched a blog) takes time. Sometimes, it takes months to finish the first piece. In the beginning, it is annoying and time-consuming.

Don’t worry; it is completely fine.

You’ll definitely feel like you are lost, and nobody will read your article. Every single blogger has gone through this situation — even bloggers with massive success. So, don’t give up.

And please keep this in mind all the time; your blog post doesn’t have to be anything mind-blowing. Just do your best and hit the “Publish” button.

From that moment, you’ll begin to learn so many things. That is why we all love blogging.

I have told you my story of defeating fears of writing, but now I wanted to tell you some more tips to follow while you are writing, especially your first few blog posts.

These tips will improve quality and completion within less time.

1. Read every day

If you want to become a better writer, you should read every day. I mean read a lot every day.

I have written about how serious the reading is in my very first article, but I didn’t think twice about putting it again here because it really is the most powerful tool you want to have when you blog.

Usually, I don’t have any specific niche for reading. I read articles from diverse niches such as Science (especially Zoology related topics), social media marketing, blogging, etc.

However, I would like to propose that you read a lot about the niches that you are going to blog about.

It’ll help you find new blog post ideas and new techniques, improve your vocabulary regarding your niche (this will increase your writing speed significantly), update your knowledge on your niche, and especially get to know some great blogs/bloggers.

2. Writing habit/500 words per day

Do you know why most bloggers give up after a few blog posts? Because they don’t develop “writing habits” They don’t enjoy writing. Blog just for money. Blogging or writing does not work that way. You have to understand that first.

Before you write your first blog post, you should develop a writing habit — at least 500 words per day. Just write anything you like until it becomes a habit.

When you have practiced this 500 words/day challenge for 30 days, you’ll be able to write fast. Two thousand word blog post would be nothing to you.

I have seen this 500-word thing from Jeff’s Facebook group. I joined it and saw people accepting that challenge and improving over time. So, I have done that too. Join that Facebook group. It is really inspiring.

3. Outline your blog post

This should be the first thing you do right after you have found your topic. I usually write the main things like bullet points and then a few things under each. Doing research comes next.

Most of the time, those bullet points become subheadings of my blog post at the end.

For this article, I followed the same method. I came up with a topic while I was going through my blog and wrote it down in Scrivener. Honestly, I didn’t even do keyword research or anything at this point.

I just wrote five main points down and what I want to discuss in those points. It took me like 20 minutes. Sometimes, I cut off irrelevant details and rearrange the points according to the priority level.

It is pretty comfortable with the outline more than doing it with a huge chunk of words.

Outlining is like forcing your brain to stay on the topic throughout the blog post. You can definitely write without an outline, but the difficulty arises when you edit the article.

You’ll see that everything that comes to your mind while writing does not line with the topic, even though those ideas are sweet and beautiful.

4. Blog posting schedule/consistency

Everyone is talking about consistency because it is the key to success. Not being consistent can really hurt your traffic and, ultimately, your precious blog. So, even when you are writing your first blog post, you should keep consistency in mind.

I had to learn this the hard way. For Daglega, I couldn’t write for months because I have been doing some other stuff. Not being consistent on my blog really damaged the traffic (I didn’t have a significant number of users in the first place, but I had enough as a newbie).

See how my blog has performed within the last 30 days. This happened because I didn’t care about my posting schedule. Don’t ever let this happen to yours. Your blog post may be a long one with 2000+ words or a short one with 500 words. You plan to publish once a week or five times a week.

No problem at all. You just have to stick to the posting schedule no matter what.

You know, many other great things can happen with consistency. You’ll become a good writer. It helps to increase engagement and better ranking on search engines. Basically, posting schedules directly affects your blog SEO.

Scheduling blog posts on your blog are pretty straightforward with software like CoSchedule. It is expensive but worth trying.

5. Social media to promote your blog post

You might be writing your first blog post, and you are a beginner like me. So, don’t be discouraged by what I’m going to tell you next.

You will probably not get any search engine traffic for your new blog even if you have written a fabulous blog post. If you could spend like 1000$ for SEO / Ads from the first day, there is a chance, but I’m here for the newbies who can’t.

And my idea is you should not throw money away for easy traffic because you learn things and grow your blog slowly. Do what you have to do. Be patience.

That’ll teach you some great lessons. One day, you’ll have a story to tell about your blogging career. I dream like that. I do not know about you guys.

Don’t worry too much about search engine traffic. We have social media for that. Almost all social media platforms are entirely free to use.

Build a specific social media marketing strategy for each, and start promoting your content through those social media right after you’ve published your blog.

From my experience, I should say that you should not work only on a single platform because what would you do if your favorite social media platform shut down, like the recent news about Google+ (Google shut it down on April 2, 2019)? So, it is better you prepare for that kind of situation.

Build your profiles on a few platforms.

I prefer Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, but you decide how many social media accounts you really need. However, at least work fully on one platform. It’ll be an exceptional investment for the future.

Wrapping up

Again, I want to say, Read. Read. Read.

If you plan to launch your blog, I suggest you write at least five articles. Then you can publish all those right after you’ve started your blog.

Five blog posts on a freshly launched blog from a newbie blogger make a real impression and affect your SEO. 

I wish I could know that before I launched Daglega because It took me months to publish the first five articles on my blog. That is why I told you to write before you launch your blog.

Are you planning to cover some extra work other than writing? I mean work such as creating beautiful graphics for your blog posts and social media yourself? Then you should play with some graphics-creating software.

Canva is the best and the most convenient for beginners. It is free and easy to learn. You just have to play with it just a few hours.

WordSwag is another mobile app for both Android and iOS. I have explained more about these two in one of my previous articles. Please find it here.

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One more thing, you want to know why most bloggers fail? Lack of passion and greed to earn quickly doing nothing.

My advice is, please do not start writing if you do not have any passion for blogging. Yes, you can earn money with your blog but not doing nothing. You have to work hard.

I have already earned about $300 from Daglega with less than 20 blog posts on it (mainly from affiliate links). I didn’t even plan to make money from my blog. I just wanted to write as I mentioned in the beginning.

One of my blogging friends asked me to put some affiliate links as an experiment. It just worked. So, please don’t be greedy. Build your business slowly and write with passion.

If you want to know how I made 300$ so quickly, don’t hesitate to ask, and please share your success story with newcomers here in the comment section.