5 Ways to Set Your Blog Up for Success

5 Ways to Set Your Blog Up for Success 
1. Pick a Great Name for Your Blog.
 Your blog name should encompass your blog’s mission and should clearly articulate your blog’s purpose. Don’t hurry through the process of picking a name; it’s your brand and you want to make sure you love it and it’s something you’re going to love for years to come.

5 Ways to Set Your Blog 

Take a week or two to consider potential names. 
Ask a few trusted
friends to give their input. Toss around ideas, and when you land upon
ones you like, check to see if the domain name (the www website address)
is available on GoDaddy.com before jumping ahead and settling on any
one name.

Important note: Blog names can be federally trademarked. 
This means
that an individual or company owns the federal rights to a particular name
or phrase. It cannot be used by others or you will be subject to fines and
required to discontinue using the name. To be safe, search thoroughly
online to make sure no one is using the name you come up with or a very
similar variation of it.

5 Ways to Set Your Blog 

2. Purchase the Domain Name and All Variations.
As soon as you land on the blog name you love and have double-checked
that no one is using it, buy the domain name immediately. It usually costs
around $10 to $20 per year for this and it’s worth every penny to have
your own domain name for your blog.

I always purchase domain names from GoDaddy.com just because that’s
what I’ve always done. However, if you are planning to set up your blog
through Blogger (see point 3 below), it’s much, much easier if you purchase
the domain name directly through Blogger rather than through a
separate domain name service because the domain will be automatically
set to point to your Blogger blog. You won’t have to go through the process
to manually input the code yourself to point the domain to your blog.
I also suggest, if you want to think long-term and hope to turn your blog
into a successful business, that you purchase all variations of your domain
name. That way, you don’t have to worry about someone else setting up a
site with a domain name very similar to yours.

3. Choose the Right Blog Platform from the Get-Go.
Not too long ago I was asked “What is the one thing you wish you had
done differently when setting up your blog.” 

I immediately replied, “I wish I had started with WordPress*.”
I started with Blogger because that was pretty much the only blogging
platform in existence at the time. I moved to TypePad when the Blogger
SPAM bots marked my blog as SPAM in 2008 and I was locked out of my
Blogger blog for 10 days.
Near the end of 2009, my blog outgrew TypePad and I was forced to
switch to WordPress. Making the leap from TypePad to WordPress was
daunting and tedious. We had to move thousands of posts and hundreds

5 Ways to Set Your Blog 

of thousands of comments. There were all sorts of glitches and it was a big
learning curve.
Truth be told, though it was a major headache, it was one of the best blogging
moves I’ve ever made. WordPress has allowed me to have a much
more organized blog and offer many features I couldn’t with TypePad and
Blogger.
So if I were to suggest a blog platform, I’d highly recommend WordPress.
It’s more expensive, but it gives you many more options than other platforms
offer. Plus, you don’t have to worry about your blog getting locked
or outgrowing TypePad.
Another big perk of WordPress is that it has much more sophisticated
SEO capabilities (i.e. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and basically
refers to optimizing your site so it comes up high in search engines.
People will find you a lot more easily if you come up on the first page
or two of Google rather than page 133!). I don’t do a lot for SEO at this
point, but I’m all about doing small things to help improve where MoneySavingMom.com
shows up when you search for “money-saving blogs”
or “grocery budget.” WordPress makes it extremely simple to accomplish
this.

4. Hire a Designer.
Back in the “olden” days when there weren’t many blogs, if you had great
content and updated regularly, you’d have a good number of readers—
even if you had a basic, free Blogger blog design. Today, because there are
so many more blogs, great content is paramount, but a nice design and
ease-of-use is also very important. If people find your blog design dull or
your layout disorganized, they are much more apt just to go find another
blog.
Now please don’t let this discourage you. You don’t need a fancy-schmancy
blog with lots of bells and whistles. A simple, clean design that is easy to 
navigate can make a world of difference. And paying someone to set this
up for you may be worth the money.
If you can’t afford a designer, at least consider paying to have someone
design your header, and then take the time to learn some basic HTML so
you can tweak your sidebar.

5. Plan Your Posts Ahead of Time.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a new blog advertised and been all
excited to check it out, only to find there were a whopping three posts on
it! If you want people to stick around, you need to have depth and series
and a variety of posts.
Before you open your doors to the public, go ahead and post 10 to 15
posts, plus plan out and write another 15 to have in queue to post after
you start advertising your blog. Not only will this allow you to get your
feet wet and get accustomed to blogging before you have a real live audience,
it also provides some great content for people to check out when
they visit your blog.
I love Google calendar for planning out post series long-term. I also have
recently begun printing out a monthly calendar to pencil in specific posts
for each day. This gives me accountability, inspiration, and organization—
well, at least it’s better than my former blog-by-the-seat-of-my-pants routine!

5 Necessary Traits of Successful Bloggers

5 Necessary Traits of Successful Bloggers

5 Necessary Traits of Successful Bloggers

One of the questions most often emailed to me is, “How do you make money blogging?” 
The short answer is—it’s easier and harder than you may think. 
It’s easy because it requires very little cash outlay up-front, you don’t need a degree or certification, the field is wide open, and the profit margins are high.
 On the other hand, setting up a successful blog that makes a part-time or full-time income will only be the result of massive amounts of effort, determination, consistency, and perseverance. 
If you want to be a successful blogger, here are five qualities you must possess.5 How to Make Money Blogging | Crystal Paine 

1. Successful Bloggers Are Marathoners, Not Sprinters.
 Anyone can be a successful blogger, but unless you’re already a celebrity, there’s no such thing as overnight blogging success. It takes hard work, sweat, and more hard work. It may be a few months before you ever see a penny from your hours of labor invested into your blog.

 2. Successful Bloggers Have Incredible Passion. 
If you don’t think you could write three posts per week for the next two years on your chosen blog topic, you need to choose either a different topic or a different work-at-home idea.

 3. Successful Bloggers Are Self-Starters. 
It’s great to learn from others, but if you want to be spoon-fed, you won’t succeed. Roll up your sleeves, start digging and researching. Read books on blogging, read articles on blogging, read blogs on blogging, watch bloggers who are successfully blogging, and do your own experimentation.

 4. Successful Bloggers Are Creative. 
In a market that is already saturated, fresh and unique voices and approaches are those that will stand head and shoulders above the rest. How are you going to be different from all the other bloggers in your niche? 

5. Successful Bloggers Are Consistent. 
Readers come back when they can count on you having regularly-updated content. It’s much better to post three times per week every week, than to post thirty times one week every few months.