Have you thought of starting a blog? I recently started one and I am loving it. I love creating content that is valuable and free for my readers and listeners. I had started on the traditional course creator and coaching path, and I do have courses that I offer, but my true love is in writing and getting valuable information out to my clients.
As a regular contributor at Forbes.com, I started to really understand how meaningful my work is and how important it is to get out there. A dear friend of mine helped me understand that I am more a content creator, and it’s true, as The Business Society blog and The Business Society podcast I feel are my true calling.
As a result of creating my own blog and my own content, I have many blogging tips for beginners to share with you.
It’s not that I don’t love helping clients through coaching or course programs, because I do. But not everyone has the means to access those higher ticket programs. So blogging is a great way to help introduce business finance to the world and make it accessible to everyone.
It is my passion to help entrepreneurs and business owners with tips and advice on all things business related, whether it’s understanding your personal finances, your business finances, building a business, or any or all of those topics, you are in the right place.
And I love to share any information that I come across while building my own business. Now I don’t claim to be a blogging expert, but I have learned a few things while setting up my own blog that I would love to share with you. Blogging tools and tips for beginners are always welcome, so I thought I would add what I know as well. And share my experience.
My dear friend, Elisabeth St Pierre, helped me get started with blogging. Elisabeth is an expert blogger, and I will share her blogging tips for beginners. But they’re my tips too, as I just went through the process not too long ago.
I will be sharing her course information so if you do decide to sign up, I may receive compensation for this. Please understand that I do not recommend products or services that I don’t believe in.
With Elisabeth’s guidance, I started The Business Society blog with a strategy.
Niche and purpose
My niche is aimed at entrepreneurs and business owners where we talk about all things business related and personal finance for entrepreneurs and business owners.
SEO driven
I built my site with a search engine optimization (SEO) plan so I can get more traffic to my site without paying ad fees.
Monetization
I want to monetize my blog, and there is a strategy for that which I love. I am choosing to promote my own digital products on this site as well as using affiliate links for products and/or services that I believe in and have used myself.
Blogging Tools For Beginners
Now I want to share the tools that I use for my blog. These are my tips for blogging tools for beginners, and there are many choices that you have out there. But these are the blogging tools for beginners that I have chosen to use and am quite happy with.
Finding a platform to host your blog
When deciding where to host my blog, I went with the best, which is WordPress. Although WordPress is free to use, Bluehost is a web hosting company. The reason why WordPress is still the best blogging platform for your blog is because of its plugins supply. Apart from themes, plugins drive people to WordPress for creating blogs and business websites. More and more useful plugins are getting added to catch with the current trend of the online world.
Email service provider to build your email list
Now that you have your hosting platform established, you will need to collect email addresses of the visitors to your blog. The best way to sell your products or services is through your email list, and there are rules around collecting people’s email addresses.
ConvertKit, in my opinion, is the email service provider tool that I use because it is reasonably priced, easy to use and can handle many features. I have tried many email service providers and all have their pros and cons, but for the features that I need such as scheduling, remailing unopened, tracking and so many other features including beautiful graphics, ConvertKit is what I choose to use.
Click here to learn more about ConvertKit.
Proofreading tool
When creating blog posts, it is essential to use proper grammar. The best tool I use for my Forbes articles and my blog posts is Grammarly. It is reasonably priced and I use it regularly. I create at least five articles per week plus I am writing a book, so I get a lot of use out of Grammarly. And Grammarly has saved my behind on several occasions and corrected my unintentional grammatical errors.
Instant Spelling And Grammar CheckerLegal protection
Ensuring you have your blog covered legally is an essential part of good business practices. I love The Contract Shop because this lawyer was brilliant and recognized a need in the online space. Hiring lawyers can get expensive, and using free templates you find on the internet can cause more legal hassles than the money saving attempt can be worth, so having a pre-approved legal disclaimer and contracts written and verified by a lawyer is so handy and a perfect cost saving measure.
SEO and blogging course
The very best courses that I have ever taken online are Elisabeth St Pierre’s. She packs so much information and care into her courses. She definitely over delivers on her products and her prices are so reasonable. Yes You Need a Blog is an excellent course where again, she over delivers.
I’m going to be completely honest with you here, and I want you to understand that SEO strategies can be tricky. Or they were for me anyways. I had to watch the videos several times to ensure I absorbed all the information and implemented it correctly. But it was worth it.
Digital course platform
If you are considering creating your own digital products, I recommend using Kajabi. Yes, Kajabi is a little more expensive than other competitors out there, but if you are creating a bona fide business, I don’t think you would regret investing in this tool. Kajabi offers an extremely versatile product that can grow your business.
Kajabi is intuitive and easy to learn, and they have a free Facebook group community you can join for when you have questions. They also have plenty of videos and excellent support. I truly love Kajabi and I’ve tried other course platforms, but Kajabi is my favourite.
Landing page designer
Leadpages is a great tool for building landing pages and connecting with Kajabi and convertKit. If you are only using WordPress, you will likely have no use for LeadPages. But if you are creating landing pages to sell your digital products and collecting emails from people who sign up for your freebies or paid material, then LeadPages is a must have.
LeadPages has tons of templates to choose from, or you can build your own pages easily. It has beautiful graphics and builds beautiful landing pages that your customers will be drawn into, thereby converting to sales more easily.
Try Leadpages for yourself!
So that’s a round up of the blogging tools for beginners that I use. If I have missed an important tool or you have a blogging tool that you would highly recommend, please reach out and let me know. I would happily consider it for this list.
Blog post ideas for beginners
Now that you have your blogging tools for beginners, it’s time to talk about blog post ideas.
Interesting and unique blog post ideas are always in demand. People love to read about how to do something, whether it’s saving money, how to grow a garden, or whatever your niche is, you can write a how to and offer guidance.
Beginner guides like this one are good ideas as well. Everyone starts off as a beginner and learning from other people and their mistakes never go out of style. Interviews, Q&As on a specific topic, and personal stories are ideas as well. For more blog post ideas, 35 Blogging Ideas That Are Guaranteed to Be Popular Topics is a great article to check out.
A word of advice, stay within your niche. When people become familiar with your blog, they expect a certain level of content, so it won’t make a lot of sense if you were a finance blogger who started posting about fitness routines or parenting tips. Don’t confuse your readers and stick to your swim lane, as the folks at Forbes say!
The bottom line is blogging is a fun way to reach your people with valuable information and thereby improving their lives in some capacity. I personally love to share my business knowledge and personal finance knowledge with others, and ultimately helping others.
If you like what you see on The Business Society blog, be sure to check out The Business Society Podcast.
