What tips would you give someone who’s just starting a blog?

Find The Perfect Domain name

Choosing the right domain name is very important. I had a wildly successful blog called List25.com which had over 2.3 million YouTube subscribers and over 500 million video views. But in hindsight, I wish I didn’t add a number in the domain because it restricted us to only 25 items in a list.

Here are some quick tips on choosing the best domain name for your website.

• Stick with .com domain extension
• Choose a domain name that is easy to pronounce, spell, and as short as possible.
• Use your keywords and brand name in the domain name. For example, stargardeninghouston.com is more search engine friendly, than stargardeningcompany.com

Always Keep Regular Backups

Often users don’t think about backups until it’s too late. In the early days, I chose a cheap web hosting provider that wasn’t very well-known, and they had a hardware failure. I lost my entire website because I didn’t have a backup. Many hosting companies offer limited backups. However, these backups are not guaranteed, and a hardware failure can cause you to lose data as well as the backup.

Backups are your first line of defense against brute force attacks, hacking, and data theft. They are the first step to improving your WordPress security and keeping your website safe. There are plenty of reliable WordPress backup plugins that allow you to schedule automatic backups and store them in remote locations like Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and more.

Pay Attention to Image Copyrights and Licenses

Often beginners just copy and paste images from the internet. This adds liability as your site grows. Don’t just use images from Google because you might have to pay thousands later in image copyright infringement fees. The copyright owner can also report the page displaying their work and ask Google to remove it from search results. Considering these costs, it’s worth paying for a Shutterstock license to get high-quality vector images to use on your website.

However, if you are just starting out and don’t want to pay for licenses, then you can find several websites offering cc0 images. These images are royalty-free, and you can use them on your website. Another way to add images to your website is by creating your own. However, most beginners are not graphic designers. Luckily, there are online tools like Canva which enable you to create professional images to use on your blog.

Consistency is Key

You don’t have to post every day. But you have to be consistent in your schedule. Post once a day, 5-7 days a week. Some popular blogs publish several new posts each day. Choose how frequently you will publish and then stick to that frequency. If you are just starting out, then you can start with 3 posts per week and then gradually increase your pace. If you’re not disciplined, then it’s easy to slip and this is how most blogs die. You need to keep yourself motivated and don’t get distracted from your goals.

Prompt from 87 Blog Post Ideas That Will Never Fail You (2023) at Blog Tyrant