How To Start A Successful Blog

So you’re here because you want to know how to start a successful blog. That is so exciting! Our resources will show you exactly how to start a successful blog, and we will show you how to do it for under $100! Here are some of the things we will be teaching you along the way:

How to choose the right domain name
Finding the right subject matter(s) for you
How to determine if your subject matter will generate income
How to create a well designed website that will keep readers on your site
The basics of WordPress – themes, plugins, pages, posts, menus, widgets, categories, tags
Advanced WordPress without knowing HTML – site speed, customization hacks, SEO, & other tools we use
How to take and edit amazing pictures that will drive viewers to your blog
Taking and editing amazing video that will drive viewers to your blog
How to do keyword research before starting a blog post to get you to the top of google searches
Steps to creating a viral post and how to capitalize when that happens
Establishing an audience that is loyal to you
How to use Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter to drive traffic to your blog (different content works better on different platforms – we will show you how to optimize each platform)
How to actually make money blogging – We break it down into 5 steps and we will show you how to do them all!
If you decide you really want to get serious, we will also show you how to set up your blog as a business. We will teach you how to grow your blog, use virtual assistants (VAs), use software to grow your social media following, and much more.

A little background about us

I (Camille) have been blogging for about 10 years, and it has been such a great ride. It started as a way for me to stay at home with my kids and have a creative outlet, but has turned into a six figure income I never dreamed possible! Starting a successful blog took me years of learning and thousands of dollars going to blog conferences around the country. I have made plenty of mistakes along the way, and I know the resources I provide can show you how to start a successful blog the right way!

Paul (husband) is a CPA & MBA and is the brains behind the back-end of my blog. He built our website, analyzes our statistics, does keyword research and is the real “details guy” of mymommystyle. Together with our different strengths (his left brain and my right brain) we have created these resources to help you start your own successful blog.

Blogging has afforded me to work on my own schedule and to have some amazing experiences. I am grateful every day for the experiences this unexpected path has brought me. I know with the right tools and dedication you can have the same success!

Here are a few of the highlights of my blogging career:

All expense paid trips to Disneyland – I once told Paul that Disneyland is the only reason I blog. I’m a Disney freak!
This is me enjoying a dessert on Disney’s private yacht watching fireworks…I’m dead
All expense paid trip to Disneyworld & a Disney Cruise – This was a trip of a lifetime, did I mention I was a Disney freak??
I’ve at least doubled my income 4 out of the 7 years I’ve been blogging!
I have negotiated multiple blog posts that paid me 5 figures – one blog post for which I was paid $20,000.
I’ve been fortunate to work with (and be paid by) major brands such as Walmart, West Elm, IKEA, Huggies, Mattel, Campbells, Payless Shoes, VTech, Johnsonville, Clorox, Radio Flyer, Special K, Ace Hardware and many more!
Many other paid-for family trips including trips to Myrtle Beach, New Orleans and a ski trip to Park City, Utah.
MOST IMPORTANTLY – I’ve done all of this without missing any games, recitals, or special moments with my kids!

Why I Think Blogging Is The Best “Job”

You are your own boss – You set your own hours, which means you can build your blog as fast or as slow as you’d like. If you get burnt out you can take a break. If you’re on fire you can work like crazy. There have been times during my 10 years blogging when I have taken the summer off. There have been times when I have worked 5 hours per night for a month (after I put the kids to bed) because I was on fire. If you are looking for something that supports a flexible lifestyle, blogging is for you!
Your content is evergreen – when you write a blog post it stays on the internet forever (or until you take it down). This is great because as readers visit old blog posts you continue to generate revenue. I’m still generating income from blog posts I wrote 7 years ago.

This is the reason I prefer blogging to other businesses – because with evergreen content you continue to generate income without doing any more work. Your content is sustainable and lasting (more on this later).

It’s a perfect side hustle – Do you hate your current job but can’t afford to quit and start something on your own? Do you need to supplement your current income to make ends meet? Blogging is the perfect side hustle as it can be done on your own time. You can build your blogging income while you maintain your current job, and when it finally generates enough income you can quit your day job and become your own boss.
Starting a blog is low cost and low maintenance – when I first started my website, I started as an online boutique with a blog. We sold jewelry and clothing. I spent my entire Christmas Eve hand delivering an order of about 100 coats that we had promised to customers by Christmas but were held up by our manufacturer in China. Quickly I realized the blog part of the business was much less maintenance and lower cost. I also realized that my passion was with helping and interacting with other people, not with order fulfillment and dealing with manufacturers.

I know from experience that helping other people through your blog will bring you so much personal fulfillment.

You can play to your strengths – blogging is so versatile. If your strength is being on camera, you can focus your content on video. Scared to death to be on camera but you are a great writer? Then you can focus on writing. If you are an excellent photographer, you can showcase your camera skills. There are ways to generate income in so many ways. I am a strong believer in doubling-down on your strengths, and we will show you how to grow your blog in a variety of ways.
Big brands are just starting to use influencer marketing – I believe we are just at the beginning of the “influencer marketing wave”. Just in the last year I have seen a huge uptick in product campaigns from large brands. As brands continue to shift from traditional tv, print, billboard & banner ads to influencer marketing there will be tremendous income to be had for bloggers and influencers. If you build an audience that trusts you now, I believe the big payouts from brands are still to come.
You own your own platform – I love that I actually own all of my content. I’ve had friends who have literally had their business reduced to nothing overnight because of a policy change by Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram. With your blog you own the content and it can never be taken down or modified without your permission. We will show you how to effectively use all of these social media channels, but to be well diversified in case one of these channels changes or goes away.

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Step One in How to Start a Successful Blog – Find Your Passion, Discover Your Niche!

If you already have a name picked out for your blog, you are well on your way! If you are still undecided, have no worries we are here to help! Even if you have a name picked out, you may want to consider a few things before diving in. Let’s do an exercise:

Take out a blank piece of paper.
What are your top 5 strengths? List them on the paper
What are your top 5 skills – areas where you would be considered an expert? List them on the paper
What are the top 5 things you are most passionate about? List them on the paper

Now, I want you to look at your three lists. Are there any items that are listed in all three lists? Two of the three lists? If so, I want you to circle those items – these could be great places for you to start a blog.

A quick rant…many other “start a blog” programs have you start with finding a niche. A niche website is a site that focuses on a narrow subject in a larger market with a common specific interest (i.e. instead of choosing dogtraining.com you get very specific and choose poodledogtraining.com). Finding a niche is a good thing, and we will help you do that. However there are some problems with going too niche. First, if your blog is too specific you can run out of content quickly. Second, if your passion changes (say you want to train labs instead of poodles now) you don’t have the ability to pivot.

We believe you need to start with your passion! Discovering your niche will follow! Writing about your passion will fuel you as you build your blog!

Okay, rant over :). Now we are going to take your 3 lists and do a little research to see 1) if there is an audience for your idea and 2) if you can make money blogging about your passion.

First we are going to head over to Ubersuggest (click link here). This is a free keyword tool that will help us with our research. When you get to Ubersuggest I want you to type in one of your strengths, skills or passions. Ubersuggest works best if you limit it to just one word, but you can enter a few words if that’s not possible. Eventually I’d like you to enter all 15 of your strengths, skills & passions into this tool to give you some data on each item.

Let’s look at a couple of my subjects I write about as examples – recipes and natural childbirth (this was not on purpose, but that’s a story for another day…)

As you can see, recipes are a very popular subject. They are searched on Google 550,000 times per month! The SEO difficulty with this subject is hard which means it’s a fairly competitive subject matter. Now, it may seem like you want to stay away from this subject because it’s competitive but that’s not the case. As you can see below, there are subcategories within recipes that are less competitive but still bring a ton of volume. If you’re passionate about food, this is a great subject matter!

“Keyword Ideas” will list related keywords and niche keywords. As you can see there are plenty of subcategories within the recipe subject matter that have huge traffic. SERP analysis will show you the top 5 listings currently on Google (you can see more if you click through)

Now let’s look at natural childbirth.

The search volume is 5,400. This is great for a single post, but for an entire blog I think it is too low. However, as you can see below there are related keywords with much larger search volume. Pregnancy is a great subject with high volume. If this were your passion, I would suggest creating a blog about pregnancy and then you can create an entire series within your blog about natural childbirth.

We will dive more deeply into keyword research in our course, but for our current purpose I want you to be able to see if your strengths, skills & passions have enough volume to generate a future audience. Anything over 50,000 search volume per month I think is a great subject.

Still having trouble thinking of an idea? Here are the top blogging subjects currently on the internet:

Food
Fashion
Fitness
Home Decor
Travel
Family
Parenting
Business
Entertainment
Home & Garden
DIY (Do It Yourself) Tutorials
Personal Finance
Politics
Pets
Shopping (Deals)

In step two of our free course we will dive into selecting a URL name for your blog. What if you have multiple passions you want to talk about? What about using your name as your URL? Should my URL say what my blog is about? You’ve only got one shot to get this one right, and we will walk you through the process to select the right URL. We will also give you a step-by-step tutorial of how to set up your new domain and hosting.

Hopefully this exercise has got those creative juices flowing! To get step two and the rest of our FREE course “How to Start A Successful Blog for Under $100” enter your name and email below and step two will be right in your inbox!

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