Considering starting a personal blog? Want to start blogging about life, work, your personal experiences? Whether you want to blog for personal reasons or to make money online, this article is for you!
Whether you have skills and expertise to write about or just want to ramble on about your life or personal history, a personal blog can do wonders for your mental and emotional well-being and your bank balance.
So let’s learn about personal blogging and what you need to do to get started and reap the benefits.
Table of Contents
What is a Personal Blog?
A personal blog is a website where you share your thoughts, opinions and interests with a wider audience.
Personal blogs can cover a wide range of topics such as:
- personal growth
- self-discovery
- hobbies
- interests
- opinions
They are usually maintained by the blogger directly.
Later in this article I’ll discuss typical personal blog topics you find online as well as some more unusual topics you can cover. The choice is yours, you can cover any topic you like – it’s your blog after all!
So I should blog about my life?
If you want to. It’s entirely up to you. You can blog about your hobbies, interests or share your skills, expertise or your personal opinions on topics.
Do you know who you audience will be?
It’s important to figure that out. In addition, if you want to make money from your blog you will want to consider which topics will be easier to monetize.
The internet is large so no matter how niche your topic you will probably find an audience if your content is high quality and entertaining.
Research your niche and target audience before your start writing
Benefits of Personal Blogging
Let’s consider some of the benefits of personal blogging.
Self-expression
Journaling is considered a great personal practice that can reduce stress, enhance your focus and boost your creativity. Well, you can think of your personal blog as journaling – but online, to an audience.
It can be cathartic to write down your thoughts and opinions. It can be satisfying to share your expertise and knowledge with other people. Many people find blogging satisfying, completing a blog article fills you with a sense of self accomplishment.
Building an online presence and a personal brand
If you run a personal blog you are a content creator. You are in a very small exclusive group of people! Here are the stats:
- 90% of people – passive consumers
- 9% of peeople – engage with content (share, retweet, like, comment)
- 1% create content <- this is you if you have a personal blog!
If feels good to be in a group of people that are creating original content for other people!
As your create content you will get an audience and start to develop a personal brand.
Opportunities to make money from your blog
I have a whole section on this topic later in the article but I wanted to bring it up here. The bigger the audience you get for your blog the more opportunities you will have to make money.
Networking and connecting with other people
People, after reading your content, may reach out to collaborate or partner with you. The more people who see and read your content, the more business opportunities you may receive.
Include a section on your website for people to contact you – typically this is the contact form page.
If you are keen for partnerships and your niche provides a great opportunity for other businesses – let them know. Write an article about possible business opportunities or partnerships and let people know you are keen to cooperate.
77%
percentage of internet users who read blogs
Source: Blogging Statistics 2023
Improve your writing and communication skills
By regularly and consistently producing content for your blog you will inevitably improve your writing, editing and communication skills. In addition to those skills you will also improve the following skills:
- keyword research and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- social media promotion
- using metrics tracking software (Google Analytics, Google Search Console and others)
- website maintenance
- website design
All valuable skills. You can, in addition to your blog, provide some of those skills to other people (a money making idea!).
Archiving your thoughts and opinions
You will have an online history of your thoughts and opinions that you can look back on from time to time.
You can always go back to a previous article and update it with new information or new thoughts. It’s interesting for your reader to see how your opinions have changed over time (and Google likes to see updated content so it’s a win-win).
How to monetize a Personal Blog
I’ve written about this topic before so I will recap some ways here and provide links to more in-depth articles.
- Affiliate Marketing – promoting and recommending products and services, and earning a commission for each sale made through your referral.
- Sponsored Content – receiving compensation for creating and publishing content on behalf of brands.
- Advertising – placing ads on your blog and earning money from clicks or impressions.
- Digital Products – selling digital products such as ebooks, courses, or webinars.
- Services – offering services related to your niche such as consulting, coaching, or speaking.
- Merchandise – selling physical products such as t-shirts, mugs, or prints related to your blog’s theme.
44%
percentage of buyers say they typically consume three to five pieces of content before engaging with a vendor
Source: Ahrefs Blogging Statistics 2023
Your blog can be a valuable personal asset. Just like other assets you can always sell it if needed. The value of your website will depend on how much traffic it receives. The more organic search traffic to your site – the more you website can be sold for.
Types of Personal Blogs
What are the common types of personal blogs?
- Lifestyle blog
- Travel blog
- Food blog
- Fashion blog
- Personal finance log
To stand out from the crowd you may want to consider less common types of personal blogs. Less competition means you can more likely find a profitable niche to make money from your blog. Consider these:
- minimalist living
- urban gardening and farming
- sustainable travel
- decluttering and organizing
- hiking and outdoor adventures
- self-improvement and personal development
- writing and storytelling
- a movie review blog
- learning new skills and crafts
- a fitness challenge blog
- a book club blog
- nature journal blog (document your walks, photos of wildlife, birds, plants etc)
- philosophy blog (explore personal beliefs, ideas, values)
- weather or cloud watching blog (document the weather: photos, videos, paintings, explain the science)
- music journal blog (share your personal music picks, concert reviews, personal views)
- personal productivity blog (most people need help with this topic!)
Just some ideas to consider. You want to blog about topics and ideas you care about – otherwise you won’t spend the time need to create and promote the content.
How to Start a Personal Blog
Convinced about the benefits of blogging? The next step is how to start a personal blog. I list the steps below but don’t forget to research your niche before you start writing!
Choose a blogging platform
By far the most popular blogging platform is WordPress. It’s the platform I use for this blog and all other blogs I have created.
You can’t go wrong by using WordPress for your blogging platform. If you have zero technical knowledge or skills and prefer not to learn you may want to choose something simpler. Read my review of Weebly here: Benefits of a Weebly blog
Select a domain name and hosting
You will need a hosting account first, I’ve reviewed various hosting accounts before:
WP Engine Review: Grow your business with the #1 WordPress platform
Secrets for using SiteGround as your global hosting provider
Hosting accounts will have simple “wizards” (step-by-step guidance) that helps you quickly set up a WordPress website. Hosting accounts will provide you with everything you need to get started.
Customize the design and layout
WordPress have 1000’s of themes to choose from. Some are free and some you have to pay for. Two considerations that are important are:
- Speed
- Security
For SEO purposes you want your website to load as quickly as possible – most readers are not patient and will leave your website if it is slow.
Security is important because hackers will try to break into your site and leave spam comments on your website. This is getting worse with each passing year.
Define your blog’s niche and target audience
Who is your target audience? What niche are you serving?
If you serve everyone then you serve no-one. Don’t try to be a generalist instead pick a niche and cover it well. Read more here: The Ultimate Guide to Finding the Perfect SEO Niches for Your Business or Blog
Create and publish high quality, original content
Sounds obvious but you would be surprised how much duplicate, copy-and-paste content exists on the web. Now, with AI tools becoming available expect more boring, verbose and just plain false information will be produced.
As an aside, I think AI tools have a place when blogging. Not for generating content directly but for research, outlining articles, helping with good title and descriptions. I’ve reviewed a few AI tools before.
Article Forge Review
Is Copy.ai the best AI copywriting software?
Your personal experiences and opinions are what makes your content valuable. Make sure the content is your own.
Best Practices for Personal Blogging
Next, let’s talk about some best practices for personal blogging.
Consistency in posting and publishing content
Readers, and Google, like regular published content. They know they can expect new content frequently so they keep coming back to your website.
Try to keep a consistent schedule for publishing new content.
Engage with your audience through comments and social media
Your blog should have a comments section. Readers can use that section to engage with your content, leave their opinion and feedback.
I suggest you turn on content moderation for your blog. Unfortunately there are many spammers on the internet that will post money making links on your website. It’s bad for your readers and Google will consider those dodgy links to be part of your content which could impact your ratings.
Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques
You should write your content for people first. That’s Google’s recommendation and it’s good advice.
Still, search engines are an important source of free traffic to your website so you should optimise your content to be friendly to them as possible.
For tips on how to do this check out this article: 29 SEO Tips and Tricks to help you rank better in Google
Another important part of content creation is keyword research. You need to target the correct keywords for your niche. Writing articles on keywords no-one is searching for is a waste of time.
Use a keyword research tool – such as SE Ranking or check out this review of affordable keyword research tools: 3 Affordable keyword discovery tools
For an idea of what a keyword research report looks like, try this free tool (you can do 5 free keyword searches per day). Type a keyword phrase you want to know about, e.g. “Keto Diet ideas”:
Monetize your blog through advertising, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing
There are many ways to make money from your blog. Check out some of the article below:
12 Surprising Money Making Blog Ideas You Haven’t Thought Of
How to become an Internet Entrepreneur
Final Thoughts
Hopefully this article has you excited about the possibilities of blogging. It’s easy to get into blogging once you have a website installed. You don’t need to know everything before beginning, just figure out what you are going to blog about, get a website installed and start blogging!
Quick summary:
- A personal blog is an online website where you share your thoughts, ideas and opinions
- Blog is great for self expression and provides a creative outlet for you
- Make money from your blog (ads, sponsorship, affiliate marketing, selling products/services)
- Network and connect with people using your blog
- Learn keyword research and SEO skills
- Be consistent in posting content to your blog
Oh, one final point before I leave you. Be patient. It can take a long time before your website picks up traction and starts getting readers. This is normal, don’t worry about it, if you are consistent and disciplined you will eventually find an audience and create a successful blog.
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