The Step-By-Step Guide on How to Start a Mom Blog and Make Money
Have you always had an image of you blogging in the back of your mind? You want to know how to start a mom blog and make money, but aren’t sure exactly how to get there? You’ve daydreamed about creating content that helps others, and maybe also generates some passive income for you in the process?
Yup, that was me too!
Luckily, it’s easier than ever to start. In this post, I’ll break down the exact process to get your blog up and running in under a day. I’m a Communications and Marketing Director in the tech field, do freelance work for a few companies, and run several blogs.
So whether it be a mom blog, a creative business, an accompaniment to an Etsy shop, a passion project, a personal portfolio, or something else – you have great info to share with the world. Read on for the exact steps to get you up and running in no time!
Let’s dive in!
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Step 1: Find Your Theme & Register Your Blog
You’ve heard it before – when picking a theme, you’ll get more readers with specific topics, not broad. When figuring out how to start a mom blog and make money, you may think you should to appeal to the masses, but think about how cluttered the internet is. What would attract eyeballs on a book shelf: “How to lose weight”, or “Keto tips for the busy millennial career woman”? It’s a crowded environment, and picking a niche will draw your target demographic.
To pick your theme, brainstorm potential posts. Maybe you have ideas about toddler crafts, newborn tips, sleep training, and healthy meals. Any one of those could be a great blog theme in itself. Which of them could you write the most posts about? Consider making that one the core focus.
If you really can’t decide, start off generic, and niche down on your most popular posts. The most important thing is to JUST START. Don’t spend weeks deciding when you could be building great content.
To complete step one, pick your site platform (like WordPress.org or blogger.com) and host (like bluehost.com, or godaddy.com). You have two options: free, or paid.
You’ll be tempted to pick free. The trade off is that you can’t customize your site very much and you’ll have limited storage space (which will catch up with you eventually).
The best paid one, in my opinion, is WordPress.org (not to be confused with the free WordPress.com, which has far less to offer). It’s used by roughly 1/3 of all websites, including NewYorkTimes.com and Beyoncé.com.
In this article, we’ll be using WordPress.org as the example. And to make it easier for readers of TwinWinning.com, I’ve scored you a great deal at only $3.95/month which is half off (and is the same price I pay). An even bigger perk to get started today!
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HOT TIP: Pick the 3yr plan. It’s far cheaper, and you won’t need to worry about renewing.
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Step 1b: Plugins
Once you’re registered, go to the plugins tab and download a few plugins:
- Yost SEO plugin
- Instagram plugin
- Pinterest plugin
- Google analytics plugin
- Mail chimp plugin
Simply type them into the keyword bar in the image below, under the “Plugin” tab.
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We’ll teach you how to use each of these in a subsequent post, but for now, just get them downloaded.
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HOT TIP: Register your blog’s name on all social media accounts right away. Even if you don’t plan on using Pinterest for example (though you really should!), don’t let someone else claim your name and confuse things.
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Step 2: Create your first content
Simply pick a template and you’re ready to start populating content!
Don’t spend a ton of time picking this, as it’s usually easy to change at any point. I sometimes change my template just to see how it would look, then change it back.
It’s best to have ~4 posts up before you share your site. It allows readers to click around and will give you an idea of what user functionality will be like.
When writing the articles, remember that readers are in a word, lazy. People skim, and long blocks of text will get ignored. A few tips to keep eyeballs on the page:
- Aim for a max of 3 sentences per paragraph
- Use subheadings to break up text
- Use lists and bullet points when possible
- Include pictures
- Aim for 8th Grade vs. University level English. Simple is better.
- Use regular language: contractions, abbreviations, etc.
Also, assuming you’ve installed the Yost SEO plugin, ensure you fill out the SEO section that pops up when you’re writing the post. Include a key word, meta blurb, and follow the tips that it gives you to get great SEO. This increases the chances you’ll show up in Google searches.
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Step 3: Go Social
Remember those social account names you claimed in step one? Now is the time to populate them! I could write an article on each platform itself, their strategies, pros & cons. But the biggest tip is to not try to do everything to start; pick the 2-3 where your ideal reader goes, and pick there. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes to figure out what to post for them:
- How old are they?
- Where do they live?
- What do they spend their money on?
- Where do they go online?
- Are they married? What ages are their kids?
- What problems are they trying to solve and what are they Googling?
This will help you pick what content to double down on, and which platforms you should frequent.
Once you’ve decided on the platforms, populate them with content from your first four posts, linking back to your blog, and plan to populate them with every blog post you create at the least.
HOT TIP: Use Pinterest. Never knew Pinterest could be an amazing marketing tool? You’ll be surprised. Many bloggers, myself included, get ~90% of their traffic from Pinterest. Consider it basically a Google for your blog posts!
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Step 4: Create a Content Plan
Think you can just post when inspiration strikes you? If that’s your plan, trust me: you will get bored and stop posting. As easy as blogging can be, if you don’t have a plan for your posts, chances are they won’t go up.
Figure out how many posts you’d like per month, and which days you’d like to post. Brainstorm topic ideas, and insert your first two month’s worth of content into a calendar.
I recommend you start with one post/week for the first two months. It’s not too overwhelming, and ensures your readers (and Google) see that you’re posting regular content. If inspiration strikes, and you can do more, great! Just make sure you post each blog entry to each social media account, and you fill out the SEO sections.
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Step 5: Monetize
So after you’ve figured out how to start a mom blog, the next question is “How do I make money?” I hear you, mama!
There are 7 main ways to monetize your blog:
- Ads
- Selling Courses
- Coaching
- Affiliate revenue
- E-books
- Physical products
- Sponsorships
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The easiest one to start with is usually affiliate income, which basically means referral income. When you mention a product on your site, and a reader clicks through to purchase, you get a % of the sale.
One of the biggest and easiest ones out there is Amazon Affiliates. Registration is easy, and when someone clicks to Amazon form your site, you get up to 10% of the price paid to you. The best part? They can buy anything from Amazon – not just the product they clicked on. They also give you 24hrs, which means anything they purchase on Amazon within 24hrs of clicking from your site gives you the bonus.
If you’re recommending products you truly believe in, then you’re helping people and generating income at the same time. Talk about win-win!
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Steps 6 – 1,000
There are so many more blogging steps that you could add to your list that help to increase your reach. I’m talking:
- Creating popups
- Creating an email list
- Sending email campaigns (FYI MailChimp is my fav)
- Maximizing your social accounts (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
- Maximizing SEO using Pinterest
- Editing photos with A Color Story app
- SEO & keyword strategy
- Using Google Analytics
- Lead magnet to build email lists
- Ad campaigns
- Creating courses
- Etc.
You could spend all day, every day, learning the ins and outs of digital marketing strategies when you’re figuring out how to start a mom blog and make money. But you don’t want to spend all day on this. You want to get awesome content out to awesome people, grow your following, and start generating income.
So when you’re figuring out how to start a mom blog and make money, don’t worry about mastering everything right at the beginning; worry about mastering the right stuff. Again, the most important part is to START. Everything else can be done from there.
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There you have it!
You now have the core steps needed on how to start a mom blog and make money. Stay tuned for future posts around using social media, more on generating revenue, how to increase readership, grow your email lists, and more.
But if I can say anything, it’s that you can do this. You can figure out how to start a mom blog and make money from it. You can run an awesome website. And you CAN generate a following. Simply take it step by step, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Congrats, mama!
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Note: If you choose to sign on with Bluehost, I may receive a small referral commission. I only recommend products that I truly believe help other twin mamas, and use both Bluehost and WordPress.org myself (and love them).
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