Thanks for stopping by Vogue and a Latte – your place for all things lifestyle & blogging.
I receive questions on my Instagram weekly about how to start a blog and how I started mine, what my tips and tricks are, who I host with, etc. First, I will say that I am not an expert. I have been blogging for two years – crazy, I literally can’t believe it – and I might do a post summing up things that I learned over the past two years, but I am by no means the SEO and HTML expert. That being said, I want to start a mini-series highlighting all of the questions that I get about blogging and answer with the knowledge that I have currently.
This question / answer blog post will kind of cover just the BASICS of blogging. How do you start blogging? Where do I start blogging? How did I start blogging? How to start a blog?! All of those questions.
So, how do you start blogging? This is an excellent question! One that I had myself two years ago at about 11 PM in my room in Georgia after I found Payton Sartain’s blog while searching for an LA guide on Pinterest.
–> BLOG TIP: Pinterest is your literal best friend. I get more traffic to my blog from Pinterest than Instagram or Facebook. Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform.
I landed on her blog and started reading her other content and falling in love with her style. I then found her Instagram and was like omg this girl is so COOL.
I thought to myself, “Could I do this? Could I start my own blog?! Would anyone care what I have to say about denim?”, not knowing an ounce of what that meant or what my end goal was. And I think THAT is the key. I didn’t even know you could make money from blogging. I had no intention of taking this “all the way to the top” (I am nowhere near the top, or the middle lol) or that bloggers and influencers would start to take over Instagram and the fashion world. I simply wanted to share my love for style and photography combined with writing on a website. I have always loved writing and my friends have always come to me for fashion advice so I figured I could combine the two online.
I was just watching Payton’s latest Weekly Video on YouTube ( because being a blogger in this season means also having video because video is the way of the future – you must be adaptable ) and she made a few really good points about blogging and what it entails. You can’t start this if you want someone to do half of the work for you. I knew nothing, zero, about blogging when I started. I knew that I wanted to share my life and help others and I knew that I loved to write. And I knew that if I wanted to do it, I had to figure it out myself.
So, I headed straight to Google. I Google’d everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I said Pinterest is your best friend, and that is the truth, but so is Google. So, I am going to sum up a little bit of what I most likely Google’d and then found during those wee hours of the morning. If there is something you don’t understand, Google it! You have to be a self-starter and a self-motivator to be a blogger.
★ Hosting: (Definition: Hosting (also known as website hosting or Web hosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more websites. In a sense, you rent space on a computer to hold your website. Source. ) I host with Bluehost. This is where I bought my domain. Bluehost is also where my email inbox lives, which is important because having an email address at your domain ( ex: madison@vogueandalatte.com ) makes you seem professional. It’s a popular service and I know that you can buy through other hosting sites as well, Bluehost just came very recommended to me for blogging because of the email feature and the flexibility it gives you. It was also really helpful when my website got hacked. You can do your own research and figure out what hosting site works best for you and where you want to buy your domain. Google is your key!!!!
★ Platform: (Definition: A blogging platform is the software or service that you use to publish your content onto the internet in the form of a blog. A blog platform is a specific form of a content management system. Source.) I use WordPress.org ( not .com – there is a difference!!! ). This is where I am writing this post, where I upload all of my images, where I make my menu, where I instal plugins, where I create all of my pages, etc.
★ Domain: My domain is my blog name ( this is obvious but key ). Ex: www.vogueandalatte.com. Buy yours through your hosting site!
★ Theme: I used Bloom Blog Shop for my theme. You can find all kinds of free themes on WordPress or SquareSpace or wherever, I just wanted mine to not be a theme that everyone else was already using. Being unique is also key and sets you apart from everyone else.
★ Name: Make it something searchable that sums up what your blog is going to be about. I renamed my blog about a year in because I was tired of describing my name and telling people why I chose it. I loved the name and what it stood for but people couldn’t tell what they were getting from my blog by the name. I think that was an important step in my blogging journey though, diving more into what I wanted it to be about. So go with your gut. I started out by simply taking pictures of my outfits and describing them in detail. I can’t remember the last time I did that on my blog. Your blog evolves and changes with you, and that’s the point! I have learned so much about myself through blogging and I think that that is enough for me, even if I never get to do it full-time. You could also make your blog your full name. I know a lot of people who do that so if that is the direction you are leaning towards, more power to ya!
★ Find bloggers who inspire you and take notes: There are a few bloggers that I LOVE and I tried to get to the bottom of what I loved about them. Realness of every-day-life, authentically themselves, style inspiration, non-intimidating lifestyles, and then tried to replicate that in my blog. I always want me blog to be a real portrayal of my life and what I am going through. I always want to be authentic with my wording/verbage and how I talk about products. I want to inspire other peoples outfits that make them feel confident. I want to show the parts of my life that are glamorous and definitely not glamorous. What do YOU like reading about? Chances are that’s what you’re passionate about and will like writing about too. If not, you will figure out after you have realized what you hate writing about. I realized after a while that I didn’t want to just describe each detail of my outfit in posts and call it a day. I wanted to provide value. Be a place where people could gain something and find information beyond what shirt I am loving. Not that that doesn’t have value, it’s just not what I enjoyed writing in detail about anymore.
★ Get a few posts up and running before you launch so that you have a few things prepared to post: What are you going to blog about? I think this is a really important step to dive into early on.It’s always good to have a few posts up lined up when you first start a blog. Just like when you launch a new Instagram account or social media campaign, you always want to have a PLAN. Sit down and brainstorm the top 5 things that you want to talk about on your blog consistently. Write a post on each. I don’t have a specific day that I post because my full-time job is pretty time consuming ( yes, most bloggers have full-time jobs!!! ) and I write when I can, but if you can tell people exactly when you are going to be posting ( once a week, twice a week, etc. ) that is really helpful!
★ Social Media: Social media drives traffic to your blog. Simple as that. It is important to have a heavy social media presence to be a blogger. You can rely on SEO only, if that’s how you want to go, but make sure you do your research! Socials allow me to personally chat with and relate to my followers and readers. I get to be a micro-blogger in my captions and growing a social following means more eyes on your content that you have worked so hard on. I made my personal instagram into my blog/personal instagram. I know that most bloggers make their instagram handles ( Ex: @MadisonCrowley ) their blog names ( Ex: @VogueandaLatte – not a real thing lol ), that route just wasn’t for me. I really like the lifestyle/reality aspect of having my name be my Insta handle. Occasionally it has been confusing but never a huge issue.
★ Things to Google:
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization )
Analytics ( Google Analytics, Jetpack plugin )
HTML Basics
*Any term in this post that you didn’t understand!!!!
Depending on how detailed I plan on making this series, I may go into each of those topics individually or in a post. But they are some important things you need to know about before starting. Maybe not HTML basics, but for SURE SEO and analytics. I use JetPack with WordPress.org and I also have the Google Analytics Plugin installed so I can look at all of my analytics that way.
Don’t compare yourself. Your blogging journey is yours and no one else’s. You don’t know what you are doing that they aren’t and vice versa. You are never too old. You are never too young. You are never going to make your blog perfect. You are never going to feel like it is ready. You are never going to be 100% satisfied with a post or your homepage if you are a perfectionist like myself. DO NOT LET THAT STOP YOU. Find your niche and dive in. Blogging takes hard ass work and determination and if you are willing to put in the time and effort, you can reach your goals. You also need to grow thick skin to be a blogger. Haters are just a part of the biz. And you have to be able to laugh at yourself. Like I just said “biz”??? Who AM I!
Not everyone continues blogging. So if you are concerned about “over saturation of bloggers” ( not really a thing but people think it is ), don’t be. There are plenty of bloggers that started at the same time I did that are not still blogging anymore. Blogging is hard work and it is not for the faint of heart ( or the lazy ).
An important point to note: Eventually, those who don’t want to put in the work will fall off. Not everyone finishes the race. STAND ABOVE everyone else. Put in the extra hours. Be relentless.
Up next I am going to write about everything that goes into a blog post and then what you need to look for in your analytics. There will be more to come after that! Tell me if there are specific topics that you want me to touch on when it comes to blogging.
Follow along on Instagram ( @MadisonCrowley ) and comment on my latest post letting me know what questions you want me to answer in this series!
