To start blogging today without quitting the next day, you will need to develop a blogging business plan.
As far as the internet world is concerned, blogging is a long-term strategy for growing your business, whether small, medium, or large scale.
Don’t worry, no one is reading the plan, so you don’t have to worry about making it investor-friendly.
For this business plan, here is what you should decide on. This will help you determine how far you want to go with your blog.
Determine your budget
You will need to set aside some funds for buying a domain name, hosting, and to run adverts in other to generate the initial traffic for your blog.
- As of today, the cheapest .com name extensions go for 8,500 naira yearly, while the .com.ng (strictly for Nigerian audiences) goes for 1,100 naira yearly.
- The cheapest hosting I will suggest goes for 18,000 naira yearly.
- The cheapest advertising platform I will suggest is Facebook Ads. You can use the daily budget of 800 naira for 2 weeks and close the ads afterward. That is a total of 11,200 naira for the ad budget.
For the 3 activities listed above, you will need a minimum total of 36,200 naira for a .com name and 30,300 naira for a .com.ng name to get you started and running. Write it down.
Next.
Determine your Vision
What do you intend to achieve with the blog? Is it an educative, informative, or entertainment blog? Do you want to educate people about your business? Do you want to sell services? Do you want to be the go-to blog for what you do? Write it down.
Next.
State your Objectives
This helps you to determine the metrics you will be judging your blog growth with. How many blog visitors are you looking at getting in the next six months, one year, 5 years, or 10 years? Are you looking at getting them organically (that is solely dependent on search engines) or actively (that means running continuous ads)? Write it down.
Next.
Determine your Monetizing Strategy
How do you intend to monetize your blog? Are you offering consulting services or selling products? Are you using sponsored posts or affiliate marketing? How will you get them? What of Google Adsense, Propellar, or Adsterra Ads? Do you want to use only one method or a combination? Write it down.
Next.
Your Content Strategy
How do you want to communicate with your readers? Is your writing going to be comical, formal, or informal? Do you prefer more videos, audio, images, text, infographics, or a combination of 2 or more?
Plan out your content with at least 30 topics to write on. This will give you room to breathe and monitor how your content is performing before you plan out another set. Have you determined this? Write it down.
Next.
Determine your Posting Schedule
How often do you think you can write and publish? Do you have other writers that can help out or are you the only one writing for now? If you are the only one, you may choose to write and publish once a week to avoid burnout. Choose a particular day of the week to maintain consistency. Done? Write it down.
Next.
Social Media Presence
Most people will start with Facebook due to the ad platform. Choose the one suitable for your blog interest. And write it down.
Next.
Time allocation
You are likely not going to spend all day in front of your blog. most people start out working on their blog 2 hours daily on a part-time basis and 7 hours daily on a full-time basis. Choose. Then write it down.
Next.
Blogging tools
This includes researching and choosing your domain name, hosting, a compatible theme, plugins, ranking tools, scheduling tools, etc. Write it down.
Next.
Promotion
How do you intend to get your blog to reach your desired audience? Facebook ads, Google ads, sharing your links on forums or groups, your personal social media handles, a combination of 2 or more? Choose and write it down.
Next.
Keywords
Choose multiple sets of 3-6 word phrases your blog is to rank for. This will form the basis for your home page as well as the other posts on the blog. You will need to research online to come up with this. Then write it down.
Next.
Future team
You may be the only one currently working on your blog, but what about tomorrow? As your blog grows bigger, you will need a team. From extra writers, editors, graphic designers, developers, backlink maintainers, and any required role in your blog. Do you know who you will need in the future? Write it down.
Next.
What to do when you feel like giving up blogging
I can hear you say, huh. That’s right. The beginning stages of blogging will be lonely. You will wonder if anyone is even reading at all or at the very least interested in what you are writing about. So you need to plan what to do when you feel down and discouraged. Do you wish to take a break from blogging? Do you need a vacation?
Do you need to measure your objectives to see if you are growing or stagnant? Do you need to sleep? Do whatever you need to regain energy, focus, and continue but never quit. Write it all down and keep it safe and reachable. Then check back regularly on this plan.
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Now that we have developed your blogging business plan, let’s go to the next steps.
Step 2: How to choose and Buy Your Domain Name with your Naira card.
Step 3: How and Where to Buy Your Hosting with your Naira card.
Step 4: How to connect Your Domain name and Hosting if You Bought them Separately.
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Happy blogging…