Introduction
As I rounded out my first month blogging on WordPress I thought, why not write a blog about it. In this article I will talk about why I started blogging, the WordPress plan I use, some tools I use to help me blog, some tips and tricks I have picked up and some milestones I have passed.
Why I Started Blogging With WordPress
I have been trying to make a passive income online for years. I tried all the get rich quick schemes and none of them works. I moved from print on demand to drop shipping to Multi level marketing and they all taught me one lesson.
If you are selling just to sell no one is going to buy. You really need to offer valuable and helpful advice, insight or something they can not get anywhere else.
My last project was trying to promote a platform called Builderall. I built out this fancy landing page with all the information about Builderall. It had all the plans and features Builderall offered and different tools you can use. Then I set a ton of traffic to that landing page.
I did get some people to sign up for free trials but no one stuck around and I made zero commissions. And then Builderall completely changed how their payment plan was structured and how the entire program works so that landing page I had worked so hard on became trash.
I did not like the restructuring or the change in payment plans and I had grown tired of pushing Builderall on people that it would not help. Not to say Builderall does not have good tools, it is just overpriced and not really the place someone should start making money online.
So I decided to try something different. I closed my Builderall account and every other website I had up running and I started this WordPress blog. I wanted to do something different where I could provide real value and help people instead of just trying to make sales.
It took me years to learn this lesson. That is why am talking about it today so that you can learn from my mistake and save yourself years of wasted effort.
Through these years of failure I have developed a passion for the correct ways and methods that you can actually make a sustainable passive income online so that is what I chose to be my focus for my blog.
The WordPress Plan I Use
I started at using the free WordPress plan to get it the feeling of how to use the platform. Once I became comfortable with the platform and had written five blog posts I started looking into the paid plans.
There where few of the reasons I wanted to look into the pay plans. First of all I wanted to connect my domain to my blog. Second I to be able to monetize the blog with adWords.
After using the premium for a while, probably about two weeks maybe three weeks I started looking into the business plan on WordPress for a couple of the added features.
I wanted to be able to get plug-ins so that I could automatically shrink the size of the photos that are on my blog. Large photos slow down loading speed for your website and that was a major problem I saw when investigating my website loading speed. This was a problem I wanted to address rather quickly.
Another reason I wanted to have access to plug-ins was for a plug-in called Yoast SCE. I just kept seeing every other slightly successful blog saying that this is a a very powerful plug-in and that will help your blogs rate in rank in search engines. So I really wanted to get that plug in.
The third reason I wanted to upgrade to the business plan was I wanted to be able to integrate Google analytics into my website. Every other website I’ve ever created I have been able to integrate Google analytics with it. I am very familiar with Google Analytics so I wanted to be able to connect this blog to Google analytics to get more data on my website visitors.
The price difference between the premium plan an the business plan was quite a jump for someone like me who is not making any money from their website. I did see the added benefit of upgrading. It maked sense to me for the added features.
I used Mercari, a marketplace phone app, to sell some of my high value Magic The Gathering cards to raise funds to pay for the business plan.
While I did this I continued to research the business plan and the added features that would come with it. During this period of time, I contacted WordPress support through the chatbox that’s included on my WordPress dashboard several times about questions regarding setting up my website and connecting it to Google Search Console and my various social media accounts.
As I was having one of these discussions I asked the person who was helping me if there was a way to connect my Google Analytics account to my website. He said you can not do that on the premium plan but you can on the business plan. So I asked him if they have any promotions or coupons at this time that would decrease the price of the business plan and he gave me one!
I suggest you use this technique anytime you talk to any customer support. Always ask if there’s a promotion or if there’s a coupon that will decrease your payments. I mean it works for me like three times out of 10 but it can save you a lot of money and it’s just one question.
So once I had the money from the Mercari sales plus the coupon code I went to the sales page to upgrade to the business plan. I decided to pay for two years because it would really hammer down that I’m in this for the long run. Plus having the coupon code made sense buying a larger plan and having that discount.
Since I started this blog my end of the line goal is to have a semi-successful blog in two years. I measure that as this blog making an average of five dollars a day every day. I wanted to set the bar low so I’m not disappointed.
I feel like I can achieve this goal if I work towards it and I invest in proper tools as well as learn every day and write as much as I can.
Currently, I have a WordPress business plan. If you asked me when I signed up for the free plan if I would have a business plan by the end of the month I would’ve told you no. However, after using and understanding WordPress and the features that come with upgrading your plan it just made sense for ease of use and the capabilities of the plug-in.
If you are considering trying out WordPress you can sign up for it through my affiliate link below. This affiliate link pays me commissions at no extra cost to you.
https://wordpress.com/alp/?aff=31
I also have a handy referral link for Mercari if you’d like to try that out. If you sign up through the referral link below you will get a $10 coupon off your first purchase using Mercari.
Sign up for Mercari and get $10 off your first purchase. Here’s my invitation link : https://merc.li/G6bzJWb
You may also want to check out this blog post I wrote. https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/2019/08/25/why-i-think-mercari-is-better-and-easier-to-use-than-ebay-and-esty/
Tools I Use While Blogging With WordPress
First of all, I want to state the importance of tracking your website data. I am a kind of a data addict. So the first tools I’m gonna be talking about involving my website analytics.
I use Google Search Console to track what people are typing into the search engine to get to my website.
You can Google Analytics to track how many people visit my website as well as how long they stay there, what my bounce rate is and how many pages they view while they’re on my website.
One invaluable tool to have when writing a blog using WordPress is the WordPress mobile app. This is one of the main problems I’ve had with other website builders. I use my phone all the time. It’s much easier to work on a blog on my mobile phone then it is to haul a laptop around with me. It is just a pain so I really really like the WordPress app.
It works very fluidly between the app and the website. I can work on a blog on my phone then quickly switch over and edit it on my computer once I’m home.
WordPress also offers quite a bit of data about how many people visit your website what country they’re from. WordPress also tells you what links are clicked on in your blog.
The next tool I use I found to be incredibly powerful although it may seem rather simple. It’s just a small notebook I take with me everywhere I go. You never know when you’re going to come up with a great headline blog idea or something else you need to do that will make your blog better. Instead of letting that idea go, I can get it written down in my notebook.
Some of the things I frequently write down in my notebook are blog topics, keywords, notes from research and just plain things I need to do.
My wife gave me this next tool and it was a total surprise to me but now I use it every single day. I’ve been a big fan of dry a race boards for a long time mostly because I like using different colors and the sounds and smells it come with chalkboards are just not favorable to me.
This dry erase board is in a league of its own. It is a full year calendar dry erase board. I just love it. Below is a in affiliate link for it. This link pays me commission for sales at no extra cost to you.
Adfly is a low cost traffic source I use for my blog. You can learn more about it in this blog post.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/2019/09/07/what-the-heck-is-adfly/
Blogging With WordPress Tips
A major game-changer that I discovered is this. Writing blog posts can be tiring. One way I’ve discovered to ease the tension of creating new content is to use voice to text on my phone.
I’m currently writing this article using this technique. I will later edit this on my desktop computer so that I can get cleaned up and I can fix any mistakes that are made using the voice to text feature.
Another time saver is to come up with the title and subheadings before your start writing. This makes writing blogs so much easier than just trying to write it all as you go.
Milestones
I launched this blog and connected my domain.
I got my first click from a Google search.
For the first time someone else asked me to link to their blog on my blog.
I wrote my first long form blog post and 17 blogs in 30 day.
I got a sweet logo and 6 blog followers.
Project 24 – An Online Blogging Course
I have always been a bit hardheaded. I like to figure things out on my own, but, trying to make money online without a guide is a sure way to not make much progress.
I learned this the hard way…
I spent several years trying everything under the sun to make a buck online. I never got very far.
I found Project 24 and became fascinated by it. I will be honest it took me a few weeks to justify paying for such a course. I was I has started sooner.
Project 24 has a 60 step lesson plan that walks you through how to set up are profit from a blog website. It is simply a great course.
The 24 in Project 24 represents a 24 month period of content creation, blog writing, which is suggested in the course to create a successful blog website.
You can sign up for Project 24 through my affiliate link below. This affiliate link can earn me commissions at no extra cost to you.
Most Blog Posts About Project 24
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/category/project-24-blog-posts/