30 Day Blog Building Blueprint
Building a blog is both a necessity and for some, a hassle. It can be intimidating going through the technical steps needed to get WordPress installed and operational, but the reality is, it’s an easy process as long as you know which order to do it in.
Inexperience can lead to fear and frustration. This is usually an issue when a newbie tries to launch a blog in a few minutes, and ends up with some questions they need answers to, causing the process to grind to a halt.
In this 30 day blueprint, you can build a blog with ease by simply logging in and tackle one small task at a time. You’ll eliminate worry about technical steps and time management and still be enjoying forward momentum in getting your business off the ground.
Day 1: Use QuickInstall to Bring WordPress to Your Domain
QuickInstall is an easy, built-in feature on your cPanel that allows you to sign up for WordPress and with the click of a button, allow it to install a blog on your domain. You don’t need to know any coding yourself.
Inside cPanel, you’ll see a QuickInstall option under the Software category. Choose the free WordPress install and enter the information it asks for. This is typically administrative details like your name and email address.
You can choose where you want your blog installed, and then after clicking the installation option, it will let you know when the process is complete. Make sure you copy your credentials and save them in a file so you can log into your blog with ease.
Day 2: Learn How to Navigate Your Dashboard
When a newbie first logs into their dashboard, it can feel overwhelming. You have notifications and a sidebar with a myriad of options to scroll through. Do it little by little. Today, just glance around and see what it looks like without making any decisions.
If you want to, you can go ahead and click the Coming Soon Active link to bring your blog to life, otherwise it’ll show a Coming Soon notice until you do. Don’t be intimidated by all of the bells and whistles that have been included with WordPress.
You won’t even need to know half of them to run a blog. They’ve been pre-filled on your blog and you can delete a lot of what you don’t need until a later time when you decide it may be beneficial to you.
Day 3: Take Care of Security Threats Right Away
Every time you log into your blog’s dashboard, look for update notifications. Whenever something needs to be updated, it poses a security risk from hackers. They look for themes, plugins and other areas where there is a vulnerability.
Companies often update and patch these security holes, so you need to keep your site updated. You may be doing a complete WordPress version update, updating a theme, plugin or something else.
There will always be a notice of what needs to be updated, along with a link that says Update for you to click. It takes care of the rest. Sometimes, when you’re first getting started, you’ll see plugins saying they need updating (like WPForms or OptinMonster) and you won’t even be using them, so you can simply delete those for now.
Day 4: Delete the Post Already Created
WordPress will have a post already created for you titled Hello world! You want to delete this because it’s only a placeholder until you have your real content in there. Go to the Posts section in the left sidebar and delete (or trash) the post.
Day 5: Delete the Pre-Created Pages
WordPress does the same thing with the pages in the blog. They’ve created some for you that you can edit or delete. Usually, there will be a title of three. You can delete the Sample Page and WPForms Preview Page.
They also create a Privacy Policy Page, which many bloggers want on their site. So you may want to leave that one and just edit it with whatever policy you want in place for your visitors.
Day 6: Give Your Posts Category Options
Every time you make a new post, it’s advisable that you categorize it. This not only helps search engines navigate and index your site accurately, but it aids the visitor in finding the information they need, too.
Go to Posts and then Categories. You’ll be able to create both broad and drilled down categories for your niche topic. There’s a placeholder one called Uncategorized, which your posts will default to if you fail to choose one, so you can edit that to your broad niche keyword if you want.
What kind of categories should you have? Well, if you’re teaching weight loss, you might have broad categories like diets and exercise. These will be the parent categories – the broad ones.
Then, you can choose drilled down topics, like cardio or strength training under the exercise one. As you create a category, you’ll enter a slug, also known as the URL location. Use lowercase lettering and select where it goes on the hierarchy of category topics.
Day 7: Choose How You Want Your Blog to Look
When you visit various blogs, you may have noticed they differ in terms of layout, colors and even font. That’s because you have a choice of what theme you want to use as a WordPress blogger.
Today, you’ll log in and go to the Themes section in the sidebar. Now you can certainly buy a paid theme, but there are plenty of free ones that you can customize to your liking.
Click where it says, “Add Themes” and if you want an easy layout, try finding the Twenty Ten theme to install and then activate. The preview will show you the layout, and it will also include a temporary header that you’ll be replacing.
Day 8: Identify Your Blog’s Purpose
Regardless of which theme you choose, you do have the ability to customize certain things, including the statement of what your blog is about. Go into your theme from the Appearances section and look at the Tagline and Site Title.
The site title will be the official name of your blog and the tagline is something like your motto or a short mission statement. Be sure to upload a Favicon, which is a tiny visual representation of your site on the browser tab.
Always make sure that you republish the blog after any changes to make sure they take effect. You can always go back in and change any theme customizations that you want, such as a tagline or pixel Favicon.
Day 9: Upload a Brandable Header Graphic
When you first see your site, you’ll notice it has a header image already in place. Some people mistakenly leave them there, assuming if they chose that theme, they’re stuck with it.
But you can swap it out for something that better represents your brand. Create a header in the right pixel size (it will tell you what that is for the theme under the Header section) and upload it to replace the generic one.
Day 10: Delete and Activate Widgets
Widgets are elements that allow your blog to carry out different functions. When you log into your dashboard today, go to the widgets area and look at how they’re ordered for appearance in your sidebar of the blog.
If you want to change the order, such as having the recent comments or posts up further to the top, you can just drag them wherever you want them. You can also remove useless widgets, such as the Meta block.
Go through and see if there are any widgets you want to add that aren’t currently installed. You might appreciate a tag cloud of keywords, for example – or a calendar that people can view.
Day 11: Clean Up Useless Plugins
We initially removed the two plugins that required updates that you probably wouldn’t be using at first, but there are others you can deactivate and delete, too. Remember, don’t panic if you delete something and feel like you might want it later – because you can always reinstall it whenever you want to use it.
Get rid of JetPack, Hello Dolly, MOJO Marketplace, and Analytics. Keep Akismet for the spam filtering and make sure you activate that plugin with your own spam filtering account.
Day 12: Give People a Way to Contact You
Instead of plastering your email address on your blog, which will cause you to get spammed, create a page dedicated to a contact form. You can first create a new page called Contact Me.
Then, click on the Plugins section and add a new plugin called Contact Form 7. When you activate it, grab the short code it provides and paste it into the custom HTML block on your new contact page.
You want to make sure you visit your blog’s contact page and see if you’re seeing everything correctly (the name, email and subject and message fields) and test it to see if you’re able to send yourself a message.
Day 13: Make Your Posts Shareable
Viral traffic and word of mouth are a great way to generate free traffic to your site. If you’re creating and publishing good, valuable content, your audience is going to want to share it with others.
Use a social sharing plugin of your choice to make the process easy on them. With these buttons, your readers can quickly click on an option to share the post on Facebook, Pinterest, in email and elsewhere.
There are many different social button options. Find one that has good reviews and install and activate it. Then go into the settings and choose things like which social sites you want to allow them to share it to, where the buttons will appear, what your buttons look like, their size and more.
Day 14: Customize Your Blog’s General Settings
It’s time to start going through the settings and making sure your blog will operate as you want it to. Start with the General Settings tab. Double check things like your administrative email, tagline and title for your site.
Other little details like language, time zone and formats for date and time will be options for you to choose as well. This is mostly a default setting where nothing will need to be changes, but it’s important to check it all the same.
Day 15: Go Through the Writing Settings to Ensure Accuracy
Next in line are the writing settings. One of the most important things to do here is enter a list of Ping sites that your blog will notify whenever you have new content. This can help followers of news feeds get instant notification when you’ve published.
You can also set up the ability to post to your blog via email is you want. And make sure you choose a default category for whenever you fail to pick one when publishing a blog post.
Day 16: See If Your Reading Settings Are Optimized
Today you’re going to figure out how you want blog visitors to experience your site in terms of readability. Go to your Reading tab so that you can choose how many posts are shown on each page and whenever they’re syndicated in a feed.
You’ll get to decide how much text is shown in the feed, too – a snippet, or all of it. You want visitors going to your blog, so it’s best to only show a portion. You can also make sure that visitors land on one specific page (like a lead magnet page) or your most recent blog post (recommended).
There’s one very important option you have to double check on this page. At the bottom is says “Search Engine Visibility.” That should be unchecked so that it doesn’t cause search engine bots not to index your site.
Day 17: Formulate the Best Plan for Blog Discussions
Engagement on your blog is an important part of people feeling as if your blog is a digital home where they can feel comfortable gathering and discussing their thoughts about the niche topic.
There are tons of options, so uncheck everything else but the ones that allow people to submit comments on new posts, that require the author to enter their name and email address, that enables threaded comments several levels deep, that emails you when a new comment is posted, that holds the comment for you to moderate, and that requires manual approval by you.
These are all strategic moves that help you ban spam and ensure that only legitimate conversations unfold on your blog. On this page, make sure you choose which avatar visual your blog will show for those who comment, and if you want a real picture of yourself, use Gravatar.
Day 18: Set Up Your Permalinks for SEO
Permalinks are the way your full URL looks in the browser. So you may have it set to look like yourblog.com/486 initially. Instead of leaving it like that, choose the Post Name option.
That will showcase the exact title of your blog post, which can strategically include niche keywords. A better URL would show up at yourblog.com/10-tips-to-lose-weight-fast. This helps you with SEO, and also gives people peace of mind when clicking on the link that they’ll know what the content is.
Day 19: Use a Publishing Calendar for Upcoming Blog Posts
If you’re going to be publishing consistently, which you should as a niche leader, you want to keep track of the topics you blog about so that you vary things and don’t post repeatedly about the exact same issues many times in a row unintentionally.
In your plugins section, you can add what’s called an Editorial Calendar. This will allow you to organize topics and schedule posts ahead of time, freeing you up to work on other areas of your business.
Day 20: Upload the Legal Policy for Affiliate Income
Affiliates, by law, have to disclose that they’re potentially going to earn money from a link if they’re promoting products on their blog. So you want to appease the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and include your legal statement.
If you don’t have this up, sites like Amazon can shut down your account and forbid you from earning money through them. Just add a text widget in the sidebar and place the cookie cutter Amazon statement that says, “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”
Day 21: Embed Your Subscriber Form
You want to capture the names and email addresses of your blog visitors so you can connect with them again directly. Sign up with an email autoresponder system like Aweber and create a list and form.
Grab the HTML code from the autoresponder and log into your blog to add an HTML widget to the sidebar (preferably at the top). Paste the code into it and save it so you can make sure the form works and captures contact information properly.
Day 22: Tell Visitors Who You Are
Consumers are leery about who to listen to in many niches. You can alleviate their fears that you may be a scammer by creating an About page that introduces yourself to the site visitors and tells who you are and why you got into this niche to serve the audience.
Even if you’re hoping to maintain some anonymity, you can still tell a bit of who you are as a person without revealing your real name – and explain why you want to help them. Remember, they’re looking to protect themselves, too.
Day 23: Include a Revenue Stream in Your Blog
The space in your sidebar, under the blog header, and even on the post space itself can serve as an additional income stream if you choose to use some banner ads or image links out to other places.
This can include income where you earn an affiliate commission, a direct sale, or money for an action such as a clickthrough or sign up for someone else’s offer. Just be sure that you use banner ads sparingly so you’re not one big banner ad site and nothing else.
Day 24: Start the Content Generation Process
Every post you make can be whatever length you feel will satisfy the reader with enough valuable information. Don’t aim for a certain word count, but do use the More tag because it allows the comment area to show up if someone lands on your main blog page, rather than it not appearing because they can read the post entirely from the home page.
To start out, you can jump right on an informative post or start out with an introductory post where you welcome readers and talk a little about what direction you’ll be taking them.
Day 25: Begin Sharing on Social Media
You want to get in the habit of sharing your blog content so that you attract more readers without having to pay for traffic. Every time you make a post, share it in a variety of places, such as a Facebook page or group, for example.
Day 26: Work on SEO Automation for Your Blog
Your site won’t rank at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) overnight. But to help it along, you need to focus on the optimization of your posts and site as a whole.
You can spend today learning current SEO strategies, and also take the initiative to install an SEO plugin that works best for you. This will help you ensure each page and post is optimized for search bots so that it gets indexed properly.
Day 27: Get Familiar with You Site Stats
You want to spend today seeing how you can track and analyze your visitors and their behaviors on your blog. You should be able to see what geographic location they’re coming from, the path they took navigating your site, and when they felt it better to bounce away.
Day 28: Publish a Single Stellar Blog Post to Represent Your Site
Instead of thinking in terms of volume and speed, stop for a moment and consider a scenario where you only had a chance to post one single blog post to your site. What would you say to prove you had value as a leading niche expert in that one post?
Today, create a pillar blog post for your domain that showcases the very best knowledge you have to offer. Spend time brainstorming, researching, organizing your thoughts and creating the content.
A pillar blog post is something you feel will best represent you in search engines and in shareable social media posts. Create a lengthy, yet free-of-fluff-and-filler post that will be something people want to bookmark and refer to time and time again.
Day 29: Spend a Day Securing Pictures for Your Blog Posts
Whenever you publish a blog post, you want to have everything ready to go – your ideas, content, links and something to help break up big blocks of text. You can do that with images from your niche, and it’s wise to go ahead and gather many of these upfront.
Use a stock site, use your own photos, or create images using tools like Canva. You can buy stock images or find free ones for your blog post. You may want to add your domain the image so that it shows up when the post is shared online.
Day 30: Become an Official Google Publisher
Have you ever started to conduct some niche research, or even looked up information as a consumer on Google by entering a search term and clicking on the News tab? Many people do this, and you have the ability to get your blog into the official Google News section by signing up to their Publishing Center for consideration.
Not everyone gets chosen, but if your blog posts have a nice combination of frequency, relevancy and cutting edge information, you may have a good shot at it. Building a blog isn’t as intimidating as it may have sounded when you first thought about it.
Just go by the blueprint tasks divvied up above on a schedule that works best for you and soon, you’ll start seeing traction with generating targeted niche traffic to your blog without having to pay for it.