Your Guide to Starting and Monetizing a Blog
/We are slowly approaching the four year anniversary of this blog! What started out as Vino in the Village has slowly changed, morphed, and grown over the last four years. We have some exciting changes up our sleeves over here, to celebrate the four year anniversary - so you’ll want to keep an eye out on Instagram for the updates! Over the last two years, I’ve received hundreds of DMs asking how to start a blog, for blogging tips, Instagram growth hacks, and everything in between. Instead of creating multiple posts on each topic, I wanted to create a one-stop guide for you to reference over time.
Before we jump into all of the ins and outs of the blogging world, I want to thank each of you for following along and creating this amazing community over the years. It’s still mind-blowing to me how far we’ve come and I hope you know our chats inside the DMs make my week!
BLOGGING BASICS
Let’s kick things off by covering the basics of starting a blog. When you decide to go down the blogging path you’re suddenly hit with SO many questions and possibilities. Whether you’re trying to decide which platform to host your blog on or if you should start a new Instagram account, there is a whole lot of noise out there.
In 2016 I thought starting a blog could all be done through Wordpress. Now while this is true, it’s important to know that there is a difference between a website you own and a website being made through wordpress.com. So what did I do? I started Vino in the Village on a Wordpress.org site, purchased my domain name through GoDaddy and hosted on Bluehost. Yes, you read that correctly. Three different sites and registrations are needed to start one website.
In 2019 I decided to make the switch to Squarespace from Wordpress. I was wanting to easily add my own products to the site and heard Squarespace was great for doing so. Well friends, one year later and I’m actually in the process of switching back to Wordpress. Yes, Squarespace is easy to use and has a lot of great features. But where they miss the mark is in their blogging capabilities. We’ll talk through this later, but monetizing your posts with affiliate links is a big source of income for a blog of bloggers. When you hyperlink something inside of Squarespace it doesn’t stand out as much as it does in Wordpress. So yes, you will still receive some clicks and commission, but I saw a drastic decline. Wordpress also takes the cake when it comes to simplifying SEO within your site and blog posts.
Okay, now that you have your website set up it’s time to design the layout. Here is something I wish I would have done years ago - purchase a blog template. Yes, Wordpress and Squarespace have free templates you can use, but trust me you will be tired of them in 6 months. Spend the $40 on a website design, you’ll thank me later.
Something to do from the beginning is to set up important pages. Once you set up your blog it’s time to add all the important pages to your blog.
Here are the ones we highly suggest adding first:
about page
contact page
disclaimer pages
For your about page write a few paragraphs telling your readers who you are and what your blog is about. On your contact page write your email address where people can contact you or simply add a contact form widget into the page.
Now let’s talk about legal pages!
Having legal pages on your blog are SO important! (and it’s required by law! ) The most important legal page you need and cannot have a blog without is a Privacy policy. A privacy policy is a statement that tells your readers about all the personal data you collect from them. And trust me, you WILL collect their personal data even if you aren’t aware of that. (for example through Google Analytics, and someone’s email address when they leave a comment on your blog). That’s why you need to add a privacy policy to your blog BEFORE you launch it. There’s no need to feel overwhelmed with creating legal pages, we love using RocketLawyer for all of our legal forms and contracts.
YOUR SITE IS LIVE, NOW WHAT?
Well friend, now it’s time to start driving traffic to your website! There are only two real ways to get traffic to your blog, they are:
Pinterest
SEO
Yes, there is also social media and other places but, in my opinion, they aren’t really worth your time. Especially when you’re just starting out. Learn Pinterest and SEO first and then you can experiment with other things. Pinterest is the best way to start for new bloggers as you can see results incredibly fast. In my SECOND month of blogging, I had over 1k blog views from Pinterest. And now I get 10,000+ blog views a month from Pinterest! To get started with Pinterest take my FREE course where I’ll teach you how to optimize your Pinterest content, create pins that go viral, and all with the right keywords!
INSTA-BLOGGING
There is a whole other side to blogging that needs to be mentioned, and that is Instagram. Over the last four years, so many bloggers have made their debut on Instagram, some even run their entire blogging business on the platform. While there is SO much opportunity that comes with using and growing Instagram, there are also some big red flags to be aware of.
If you’ve been following for a while, it’s no surprise that I’m a HUGE believer in investing in a platform that you own, AKA your website. Yes, it is fun and can be very profitable to grow your Instagram following, but if Instagram disappeared tomorrow would your people know how to find you? Would you know how to find them (this is why we’re always preaching to grow your email list)?
Now that my soapbox rant is over, let’s talk about “Insta-blogging” and the benefits. Brand love working with bloggers on Instagram, whether it’s through a sponsored post or video content. So growing an engaged community will help you land larger brand deals. Sometimes it will feel like everyone and their mom is growing faster than you are, please do not allow this feeling pressure you into buying followers. Fake accounts and bots are SO easy for brands to spot, they will ruin your engagement and these accounts will never purchase from you.
Another fun fake about buying fake followers and likes: most brand contracts have a section highlighting the purchasing of fake likes, stating that if they catch you buying likes to boost the engagement on your sponsored content, you are in breach of the contract. You might not get caught the first five times, but you will eventually get caught.
So how does one grow on Instagram in 2020? Here are a few ways I’ve been able to grow a following of 21.7k over the last couple of years:
Post daily - for the last 4 years I’ve only missed around 5 days of posting. Showing up daily for your community is a must in my book. If you want them to follow and engage with you, it’s important to show up and inspire.
Engage with your community - when someone sends you a DM respond, leaves a comment jump back in with a response, these small acts make your community feel heard and valued.
Create a story share group - I love sharing similar accounts with my community, and it’s an amazing way to gain similar followers! Create a group of similar accounts, share about one another on your stories each day and start cross-promoting one another’s content.
Create Reels - Reels are BLOWING UP on Instagram! It’s no secret that people love video content, start creating content and posting to Reels weekly.
Use New Instagram features - whenever Instagram rolls out a new feature, they favor early adopters. So whether it’s IGTV or Reels, start creating content for the new features and watch your engagement grow.
Okay, we have covered A LOT, now I want to spend some time talking through how you can monetize your blog before jumping into the questions everyone left over on Instagram.
HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR PLATFORM:
There are a couple of ways you can start generating an income with your blog:
Affiliate commission
Ads
Sponsored content
My biggest suggestion is to start using affiliate links and joining networks now. Your audience needs to trust you before making purchases, but when you use affiliate links you are able to leverage their credibility and start making sales faster.
Some of my favorite affiliate programs are: RewardStyle, Impact, Bluehost and PartnerStack.
If you’re looking to work with brands on sponsored content there a few ways you can go about approaching this partnership. The first would be tagging the brand in the content you’re already creating, show them that your audience loves their brand before you ever approach them about a partnership.
From there you can send an email to their marketing team about a partnership. If you have a smaller following on Instagram but receive large amounts of website traffic, highlight your traffic by pitching links back to their website. If you create stunning photography, pitch the brand on an image collaboration. There are so many ways to pitch brands, what’s important is that you genuinely love the brand and it’s mutually beneficial for both parties.
Remember, there is another person on the other side of the email who is probably getting pitched daily, who’s job it is to highlight collaboration opportunities to the brand in a way that will get them just as excited as you are to work with them. If you can make their life a little easier by coming prepared with a creative concept in your initial email, you’ll immediately stand out!
YOUR QUESTIONS
What legal stuff do you need on your website?
Great and important question! You need to ensure you have a privacy policy and a disclaimer on your website before launching.
Which photo editing/layout tools are the best?
When it comes to editing photos, I use the Lightroom mobile app and Let’s Get Social Agency’s presets. Most of the time I’m tweaking each image because the lighting is different, but presets are an amazing way to create a cohesive brand. Using a tool like Planoly is great for planning your feed and I use Canva for creating any sort of graphic image.
Platform comparison: what’s the best platform to host your website on?
I’m team Wordpress and Bluehost all the way!
How do you know if your pricing is reasonable?
When it comes to pricing, people are all over the board with their rates. Here are a few things I take into consideration when it comes to my rates:
How much will my photographer cost?
Will I need to purchase supplies or props for this collaboration?
How much of my time hourly will be required.
What is my current Instagram engagement and audience number?
Once you add up all of these factors you will have a clear picture of your rate per sponsored post.
When is it time to charge brands for sponsored posts?
This is another great question! I started charging for sponsored posts when I hit 2500 followers on Instagram. Your time, work, and audience is valuable, do not be afraid to charge for that.
Did your Instagram take awhile to grow?
Yes, it took a solid two years to hit 10k on Instagram and almost four years in I’m at 21.7k followers. There are definitely a lot of bloggers who have been blogging for the same amount of time or less that have surpassed me. To be completely transparent with you all, I just was not willing to drop thousands of dollars on giveaways to grow a vanity metric. Growth takes time, but those milestones are even more exciting when you hit them!
Do you need a professional camera to blog?
This is definitely a difficult question to answer and I do not think there is one right answer. I’ve never owned a professional camera and have always used my iPhone or hired a photographer when working on a collaboration. With the new camera on the iPhone 11 plus, you really do not need a professional camera when shooting content for Instagram and honestly your blog. Whenever I’m working on a branded collaboration, I do make sure to work with my photographer so the brand is receiving the highest quality images possible. If you are focusing on more video content, it might make sense to start saving and invest in a camera.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this guide today! I hope this is a post you can bookmark and reference throughout your blogging journey.
Still have questions? Drop them in the comments below!