Wondering how to start a blog and grow it to 1 million+ visitors?
Looking for ways to increase website traffic?
Heard a lot about blogging but don’t know where to start?
These are 3 of the most asked questions by every entrepreneur and business owner looking for ways to grow online. Digital marketing has completely changed the world around us. We live in a time when every traditional business is making efforts to expand its online presence, and online companies are looking for ways to increase website traffic.
One of the best ways to grow your business or start a new business is blogging!
” Google processes approximately 90 billion searches a month”
This can give you an idea of the scope of blogging and how Google is single-handedly responsible for billions of dollars of revenue for companies all over the world. Almost all of the buying decisions these days start with a Google search. This is also a reason why more than 7 million blog posts are posted every day!
This tells you that getting ranked on Google is what can unlock the next level of your business or help you build a business from scratch.
Blogging is, in fact, one of the most lucrative career options for students!
In this article, we show you the step-by-step process of starting a blog and growing it strategically. Stay tuned till the end to know everything that you need to do to taste success online.
How to choose the best blogging niche
The first step of your blogging journey is selecting a niche for your blog. If you represent a business and are looking to increase website traffic, your niche would be your business niche.
If you are going to start a blog to earn money and build a business, make sure to select a niche that is also your hobby. Make sure to choose something that sparks interest in you because that is the only way to stay focused and motivated for long.
Your niche could be anything from gardening, cars, fishing, golf to business niches or maybe a reviews blog for affiliate marketing.
Why should I choose a micro niche for my blog?
Before you finalize a niche for your blog, make sure to choose a micro-niche. Micro-niche is a subcategory of a category for example:
- Automatic cars under Rs. 20 Lacs instead of the cars niche
- Instagram marketing hacks instead of Digital marketing
Micro-niche blogs enjoy lower competition while enjoying loads and loads of traffic. You also get a higher chance of ranking on Google and getting conversions for your traffic.
How to select a name for my blog?
Selecting an attractive name for your blog is crucial for brand building. Your brand name should resonate with your niche and be interesting enough to build a subconscious image in your prospect’s mind.
How to start a blog for free?
After you have selected your blog topic, next in line is building a website. There are many ways of doing that, but the best is to choose a CMS(content management system).
One of the best CMS is WordPress which hosts more than 40% of the total live websites in the world. Building a blog on WordPress is the easiest task, and you can even choose to start a blog for free by signing up on WordPress.com.
However, if you are serious about building a business, you should choose WordPress.org and host your website on your hosting, as you get options to customize everything and build a business.
How to start a blog with WordPress?
The first step is to buy a domain for your blog. Make sure to either get a domain name with your brand name in it or choose to have the best keyword of your niche in your domain. This practice helps a lot with SEO rankings.
After the domain name, buy a reliable and fast hosting service for your website that you can choose from hundreds of options. Almost every hosting company will help you install WordPress on your website for free.
Installing a theme
After installing WordPress on your hosting and connecting it to your domain, start by installing a blogging theme.
There are a few steps involved in building your blogging website, and believe me, you can learn them easily. Building a blogging website is a fairly easy process and watching a few YouTube videos is all you need!
Which one is the best SEO plugin for WordPress
You will need to install a few plugins on your WordPress website to build a blog, and the most important plugin from the point of view of increasing website traffic is the SEO plugin.
The SEO plugin will help you fix all SEO-related problems on your website and post content to grow your rankings and increase website traffic. The best SEO plugins to choose from are:
- RankMath SEO plugin
- Yoast SEO plugin
On-page SEO guide
One of the most important steps to increase website traffic is posting SEO-optimized blogs on your website.
The first step of On-page SEO is doing extensive keyword research. You have to look for keywords that are low in competition while having a good amount of search volume.
The only way of doing effective keyword research is with the help of keyword research tools like:
- Ahrefs
- Google keyword planner
- Semrush
- UberSuggest
All of these tools will give you loads and loads of data about every keyword and an idea of your competitor’s strategies.
After selecting specific keywords, make sure to spend time analyzing the core question behind every keyword and how you can answer the visitor’s deep-rooted problem.
You should then create quality content on that keyword with an attractive title. There are many On-page SEO guidelines that you must take care of while writing content to increase website traffic.
You can check your content uniqueness using a plagiarism checker.
You will find a list of all these factors in the SEO plugin that you use. I am listing the main ones here:
- Maintain around 1% keyword density
- Include the keyword in the title, meta description, and the URL
- Include relevant images with the keyword in the alt text
- Link to appropriate internal and external sources
- Add Table of contents and FAQs
- Use shorter paragraphs
The SEO plugin will list the things you are missing out on in your content piece and help you make your post SEO optimized.
Off-page SEO guide
Every seasoned SEO professional would tell you that SEO is 25-30% On-page and around 70% Off-page.
Off-page SEO would take up most of your time while you work to increase website traffic for your business.
There are many subcategories of Off-page SEO, and I am listing the main ones here so you can follow an order.
- Backlinks
Every time a website adds a link to your website on any of its page or posts, you get a backlink. Backlinks are the crux of SEO, and most of your time would be spent earning high quality and do-follow (technical term for backlinks that you want to give credits) backlinks.
- Guest posts
One of the best sources of high-quality backlinks is guest posting. Guest posting is when you submit an article to be posted on a high-domain website.
A backlink from a high domain authority website (ex., DA – 60+) sends a signal to Google that your website is putting out quality content. When more and more sources link to you, it means your content provides value to the users.
You can easily search for good guest posting websites by searching for “write for us” on Google or by searching for your competitors’ backlinks.
- Web 2.0s and other sources
The next most effective strategy is creating and maintaining Web 2.0s for your target keywords. Websites like WordPress, Wix, and others allow you to create a website for free. All you have to do is create a free website and, with time, create backlinks to your website.
You have to be creative while getting backlinks to increase website traffic. There are hundreds of high-quality sources like Quora, Tumblr, Social platforms, Reddit, and others that can help you get a consistent and high-quality source of traffic and backlinks.
- Comment links
Other types of backlinks include commenting on relevant and related blogs in your niche. Engagement both on your blog and related blogs is rewarded by Google.
As it is obvious, continuously submitting comments on a large number of websites is a time-consuming and difficult task to be done manually and that is why we recommend that you use a tool that can do the process automatically without any need for human intervention. One of the best automatic tools for submitting comments on websites is the vUser Auto Commenter Bot Package. For more information, visit the vUser website.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is another concept that you can use. There are specific social bookmarking websites that can help you achieve this.
Make sure to link your website to Google Analytics and Google Search Console after creating it. This will allow you to get a complete picture of your traffic and analyze the areas that bring you the most results.
Along with that, you also have to take care of:
- txt file
- .ht access file
- xml file
How to start a blog for affiliate marketing?
There are hundreds of opportunities for monetization once you start getting relevant and quality traffic on your website. I am listing the main ones:
- Google AdSense to earn revenue from ads that you display on your website
- Direct advertising for companies in the same niche
- Affiliate marketing of related products
Conclusion
You now have all the tools and knowledge to start a supercharged blog and increase website traffic.
Following the steps mentioned in the blog can help you build a million visitors blog and build a massive business out of it!
Now is the time to take action and work towards a better future. If you have read the blog till here, make sure to implement and leverage one of the biggest opportunities of the current times!
