So you have got your blog setup and it’s registered and online. So What to do next after you have setup your blog. Well from here you need to start getting your blog indexed, create content and install some useful plugins to help you with your blog. Here are a few simple steps you can run through to get your blog rolling quickly.
1. Create some posts
It’s best to try and type up at least around 10 posts before having your blog indexed by search engines. Also if people find your blog through search engines, social media or other mediums they at least will be presented with a blog which has something to offer. Also if you type up your posts before hand you can quickly see what direction your blog is going in and what topics you will mainly be focusing on. So I would suggest that you publish 5 posts right away and then schedule the remainder of the 5 posts for either daily or weekly posting. This buys you some time until your next round of blog posts.
Think of your blog like a social media account where you need to continuously add new content to your blog to keep it relevant, active and useful for your readers. You may want to consider writing one post per day. Alternatively have your posts pre written and schedule them to auto publish over time.
There are many opinions about what is the golden number for blog posts and how many blog posts will start getting you traction. Most bloggers tend to start seeing some good progress from post 60 on wards however the golden number still seems to be 100 posts where your blog will start to avalanche with traffic. Remember consistency plays a big role so try and schedule those posts as much as possible to allow yourself to create that consistency.
2. Setup social accounts
Make sure to start signing up for social accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram and others. These profiles won’t just create backlinks to your blog which is essential for SEO (Search engine optimization) to allow your blog to rank, but will also provide some additional exposure for your blog. Ideally your social accounts will be used for sharing your content. Also for building a following on multiple platforms. It’s just good practice to do this so that you have redundancy when it comes to traffic sources so that you don’t have to rely only on one platform for traffic.
3. Add social sharing to your blog
Now that you have your social accounts. Provide ways for your visitors to start sharing your content. Ways for them to follow you on your social media. One of the wordpress plugins I use is called AddThis. It’s actually quite a diverse plugin which allows you to add your sharing buttons in multiple formats. Such as in the side bar, embedded within your posts and more.
Some tools AddThis provides
With AddThis you can add the sharing tools and follow tools as well. It also has options for displaying related posts which will be useful for keeping your visitors engaged and keep them on your blog.
3. Create optin forms
Start building a mailing list from day one. Your mailing list is your most important tool on your blog. It’s the one thing no one can take away from you. If your social media accounts had to all get suspended you still have your mailing list to generate traffic from. So it is always a good idea to start building one from the beginning. I use a plugin called Optin Forms a long with Mailchimp. In order to set up optin forms all you need to do is acquire an API key from Mailchimp and link your Optin Forms plugin with Mailchimp.
Optin forms has a number of free templates for optins like modal dialogs which you can pop up with your optin message. Always remember to try and add some free value in exchange for an email subscription. This is the easiest way to get optins. Without any optin bate you won’t get any or few subscribers to your blog. Make sure that your free optin content is top notch so that you can build loyalty early on.
Optin forms example form
4. Install sitemap plugin and submit your blog
For sitemaps I use Yoast SEO. It’s a really decent over all SEO tool for your WordPress blog. Make sure to install it. Once installed you should be able to access your sitemap at http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
You also will need to verify your blog on Bing, Google and Yahoo. Once verified you will be able to add your sitemap and search engines will start to crawl your blog and start indexing your pages.
Adding your site on google webmaster tools
What to do next after you have setup your blog
