6 Ways to Start a Successful Blog

Why you Should start a Blog

People are curious by nature and they like to see what other people are doing with their lives. This is the reason why reality TV is so successful. What are the ordinary people doing out there? What excites them and how do they go about their day?

You have a message to share with the world and a blog is the perfect way to do it. Sure, you could create a conventional blog and write posts about your life and share your experiences.

In a survey conducted by HubSpot a while ago, they discovered that 75% of participants preferred to watch video rather than read a blog post to learn how to do something or find out more about a product or a service.

There are 1 billion users who consume hours of video every day. There will always be somebody searching YouTube for what you are good at. This provides you with a fantastic opportunity.

Here are 6 ways to start a Blog

The most successful vlogs are always planned. The blog owner has thought through what they want to achieve with their blog and put a plan of action in place. You must do the same. The starting point is to define the goal of your blog.

This is something that you can easily do in a short time. Start right now and have the goal of your vlog defined in a few hours. Don’t spend too much time on this. Some people will spend weeks planning something and then it never happens.

What are you going to communicate with your blog? You need to blog about something that you can get excited about. Remember that you want to make a profit from your blog so you need to think about how you will do this.

So, start off by writing a list of all the things that interest you. Here are some good ideas for blogs:

• Travelling the world

• Making money online

• Beauty and makeup

• Owning a pet

• Sports fan blogs

• Learning specific skills

The main reason that all of these ideas are good is because there is so much scope for creating videos here. The other good reason is that these kinds of blogs are pretty easy to monetize. And that’s good news isn’t it? Go to YouTube and have a look at what other people are blogging about.

This should give you even more inspiration. Don’t worry that there are a lot of other players in the same niche. Competition is a good thing. It proves that there is an audience out there.

Your personality is very different to the other people making the blogs in your niche. This will make you stand out. It would be more of a concern if there were not vlogs already out there in the niche you were interested in.

OK so you have chosen an idea for your blog. Now it is time to see the size of the market and what type of audience your blog will appeal to. Checking that there are other blogs in your niche is a good first step but it is not enough.

You need to find out what terms people are using to find videos in your niche and how often they are looking (search volume). You can do this for free by using the Google Keyword Planner.

To access the Google Keyword Planner you will need a free Google account (such as a gmail email address) and you will need to open a free Google Adwords account– don’t worry you are not going to spend any money!

Once you are in the Google Keyword Planner enter a main keyword for your niche. There are hundreds of thousands of searches each month on Google for this term. Every one of these terms are searched for thousands of times a month.

OK this is for Google, but the same terms are going to be used in the search box on YouTube. The related keywords show you the scope of the niche. There are so many different topics that you can create videos about. This is a very good niche for a blog.

If you want to have a successful blog then you need to focus on your target audience. This starts by knowing who your target audience is. When you know the answers to all of these questions you can fine tune your videos so that they meet all of the requirements of your target audience.

It is no use just guessing and creating any kind of video. Do they want tutorials on how to use eye makeup to the best effect? Do they want to know what the best makeup products are? Are they looking for the best budget makeup?

Your blog needs to answer the questions that your target market has.When you are able to do this your blog will be successful. This way people will get values from your blog.

Nobody is going to expect you to create Hollywood or Bollywood style videos but they will expect quality. OK you could get away with recording your blog videos on your smartphone.

The cameras and microphones in today’s smartphones are pretty good, but if you are serious about your blog, and you must be, then there are better tools available.

Your viewers will expect your video to be clear and sharp. HD video quality is easy to create these days with inexpensive cameras. You don’t need the latest Sony professional camera costing thousands of dollars. To start with you can get a camera that shoots 720p HD for under $100.

If you are going to shoot a lot of outdoor footage then a good solution is the GoPro Hero. This is real quality at a good price. By making an investment in a good camera you will be more committed to your blog which is a good thing.

Next is audio. A video that has poor audio quality is never well received. Some people will create tutorial videos on their laptops and then use the internal laptop microphone. These are usually really poor quality - so don’t do this.

Invest in a good quality microphone to ensure audio is clear.
What about software? Well you will need a video editing suite whatever kind of videos you create. If you are going to provide tutorials (always good) then you will probably want to record your computer desktop.

Let’s start with video editing. It is very unlikely that you will shoot a perfect video the first time around so you will need to cut stuff out and add some refinements to make your videos really look professional.

You can do this for free by using Windows Movie Maker for Windows computers or iMovie for Mac computers. Both of these video editing programs have all that you need to make really professional videos. There are other video editing suites that cost a lot of money, but you don’t need these to get started.

There is a free trial so you can test it out first. If you are on a budget, then CamStudio is a free alternative that will do most of the basic things for Windows users.

There are free applications for Mac users available too.

Video Software such as Filmora9, Invideo.io, video scribe, illustrator are many video best editing software you can use.

Video quality is everything so don’t be afraid to invest a few dollars into your blog. It will definitely pay you back in the long run. Poor quality videos just don’t cut it and you will not get many channel subscribers which is the opposite of what you want.

OK the first thing to say here is that there is no better platform to use for your blog than YouTube. At the time of writing this report it is the second most visited website on the planet just behind Google and just ahead of Facebook. Every day YouTube gets around 4-5 billion views!

The first step to creating your YouTube channel is to decide on a name for your blog. This will be your brand. Some people use their own name which is fine. But if you don’t want to do that then you need to get creative and think of a memorable name. Then you need to check that nobody else has a channel with this name.

With your channel name decided you need to create it. You will need a Google account to setup a YouTube account if you don’t have one already. Login to your YouTube account and start creating channels for your blogs. To be taken seriously you need some good channel art. Don’t worry you don’t have to be a graphic designer to do this. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to do this yourself.

Once your YouTube channel has been established for more than 30 days and you have some videos uploaded and more than 100 subscribers then apply for a custom channel URL. This is very important for your marketing.

If people like your video then they will expect you to upload new videos regularly. We will discuss this more later. Video is ver essential to make while blogging.

Unless you are confident to sit in front of a camera and record videos on the fly it is best to create a video script and storyboard. This will take a bit of effort, but it is really worth doing. You don’t have to write every word down that you are going to say in your video script. Just add pointers and “lead ins” so that you can discuss each aspect of the video.

If you are going to create a tutorial, then plan the footage you will need. Are you going to demonstrate how to do something live or do you need to record your computer screen to show “over the shoulder” how to do something? Both of these are fine, but you need a plan.

Once you have your video plan and script done then create a storyboard. What happens first and then all the segments right to the end. It is vital that your videos start well and end well. A great start will compel viewers to keep on watching. A great ending will leave them wanting more videos from you.

When you are recording make sure that you are passionate and excited. If you are not passionate about your videos, then how can you expect your viewers to be excited to watch them? Don’t resort to a monotone delivery – people don’t want this. If you need to work on your skills here, then do it.

Don’t just rely on YouTube search traffic for views to your vlog videos. Do everything that you can to get the word out to people that your new blog has arrived. Tell everyone that you know about your vlog.

Use social media to make posts about your vlog. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all good platforms to promote videos. There are other social sites such as Reddit.com and Quora.com which you can use to promote your blog. Take advantage of all of these platforms.

The name of the game is to increase the number of subscribers that your YouTube channel has. Focus on this rather than the money you can make. When you achieve high subscriber numbers the money will naturally follow.

You need to be totally committed to your blog if you want it to be a success. Consistency is very important. You need to make high quality videos on a consistent basis and be consistent with your video uploading and the promotion of your blog.

It is going to take time for you to reach a high number of subscribers but if you stick at it then this will come. High subscriber numbers will open doors for you with sponsorships and other money-making opportunities.