I get a lot of emails from LWB readers asking me how to get started with blogging.
My answer is usually the same: take action. The blogosphere is a pretty forgiving place for the beginner blogger — today’s false steps and screw-ups are forgotten by tomorrow. But for the blogger, those false steps and screw-ups offer valuable learning opportunities.
However, observing how other people have successfully achieved what you hope to achieve can sometimes be as valuable an experience as what you learn from your failures, which brings me neatly to the subject of this post.
Today I want to give you an in-depth insider peek at my latest blog project because I am certain that many bloggers (beginner and intermediate alike) can learn a great deal from both what I have done so far and what I plan to do in the future. If you want to know how I took a brand new blog from initial concept to launch and beyond, read on.
An Entrepreneur’s Curse
In my experience, the more successful you become, the more ideas you have. That can both a blessing and a curse, as your future success is defined less by whether or not you have good ideas, but by which ideas you choose to execute on.
I have no problem in coming up with ideas these days. Here’s a few I have on the back burner at the moment:
- A guide to using Twitter for bloggers
- A blog and book on dealing with insomnia
- A LWB podcast
- A LWB YouTube video clip series
- A “making money online” FAQ site
- A Paleo Diet blog: “80 Percent Paleo”
- A WordPress plugins review blog
- A freelance blogging Facebook group
- A food and recipes blog for bachelors: BachelorEats.com (I still have the domain name)
The above list is just the tip of the iceberg. Collectively speaking, I have spent hours fleshing out these ideas and deliberating whether to execute on them. Some of these ideas are over a year old and have remained on the back burner, subordinating over and over again to fresher ideas that I felt held more promise.
The unusual thing about my latest blogging project, Healthy Enough, is that it went from the idea stage to launch in a matter of days. How did Healthy Enough as an idea set itself apart from all of the “competition” and why did I feel compelled to start on it immediately?
The Birth of a Blog
If you are a regular LWB reader you may recall that I had a go at the P90X program a few months ago. Unfortunately my progress was halted mid-way through by a shoulder injury and all of my hard work essentially came to naught.
In the end all that I was left with was a blog: P90X Journal. However, with my journey coming to an end the updates on that blog also came to an abrupt halt.
It wasn’t until several weeks later that my thoughts came back to health and fitness. My weight was approaching 210lbs, which is the point at which I stop my eat-what-I-like regime and start dieting. On a whim I opened up an old copy of Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Body and re-read the chapters on his Slow-Carb Diet.
After just a few minutes I could think of nothing other than two things:
- I was going to give the Slow-Carb Diet a go
- I was going to launch a health and fitness blog for normal people
The concept for Healthy Enough came to me almost fully formed: a health and fitness blog for people who were more interested in maintaining a healthy weight, enjoying their food and exercising for fun rather than compromising their quality of life to attain a body that would turn heads.
I loved this idea for two reasons:
- I was seriously passionate about it — I knew that the blog’s content could be written for me as much as anyone else
- I felt that the idea hadn’t been fully explored by anyone else in the blogosphere
It was mainly the passion I had for the idea that led to me jumping on it so quickly. Although I have become pretty good at holding back and letting ideas “breathe” for a while before taking action, I couldn’t want to get started on this. I felt that it was a great idea from the word go and my feelings on that front haven’t changed since.
In short, I was good to go.
What Happened Next?
One of the most important things I have realized from over two years blogging is that in order to resonate with your readers, you need to ask yourself who you are speaking to and how you should speak to them. Therefore, my first step in planning Healthy Enough was to provide answers to those two questions.
Defining My Target Reader
First, I knew that I needed to define my target reader, which I did within Evernote:
Seems super-specific, right? I consider this vital to the process. When I’m writing for the blog I want to have the picture of my target reader crystal clear in my head. In my experience this produces fantastic results in terms of people resonating with your content and makes the writing process far easier.
It is important to note that although my target reader is very specific, writing purely for him does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of others.
Let me explain what I mean. Imagine that the engagement of your readers is coded from red (high), to yellow (moderate), to green (low). You can split potential visitors to your blog into three groups thus:
- Red: your target reader.
- Yellow: people who share one or more of the key characteristics of your target reader.
- Green: people who share none of the key characteristics of your target reader.
In terms of 100% of people on the Internet, the groups (and according level of engagement) might split up into percentages like this:
Less than a quarter of your potential visitors being moderately or highly engaged may seem like a low number, but here’s what happens if you try to create a blog for everyone:
I know which pie chart I prefer.
You may be wondering what drove me to create my particular target reader. My thinking was to create a person that represented (a) me and (b) a large bulk of people out there who would be interested in my topic. If you know me and you examine the target reader, you will see many similarities. However, certain things are different (such as the nationality and age of the reader) to allow me to target a greater group of people than I would if I made the target reader entirely like me.
In doing so I think that I have the best of both worlds: I am writing both for myself and for a relatively large section of the population.
Creating Style and Content Strategies
Once I knew who I was writing for I needed to figure out what I was going to write.
This to me means two things: coming up with a style strategy and a content strategy. They are joined at the hip.
Here’s what I came up with:
The blogging style side of things was easy to come up with — it’s me all over. You see a lot of it here on LWB, but I hold back on some elements because it isn’t really appropriate to the subject matter. But on Healthy Enough I feel comfortable in letting loose with all manners of immature jokes and references because I know that my target reader will find them just as amusing as I do. And that is of course the key — to engage with your target reader.
In terms of the content strategy, I knew that it would be very important for me to set myself apart from the myriad number of health and fitness blogs already in existence. Although it isn’t actually stated in my Evernote notes, I had already decided that I would write in-depth articles of 2,000-3,000 words and even beyond, which immediately separates me from over 90% of the content out there.
After that, I knew that there were three different types of articles that I wanted to write (stated above). In the blog’s short lifetime I have already written two of the three types:
- Why Yo Yo Dieting Isn’t Unhealthy (And Can in Fact Be Good for You)
- How to Lose Weight (Without Dieting)
Personal case studies will follow in due course.
The Launch
A lot of “expert” bloggers will tell you that you need to make a launch a big deal because you never get the opportunity to launch again. However, I take a much more relaxed approach.
Healthy Enough was launched with no fanfare and just one post: Welcome to Healthy Enough. I followed that up with 10 Ways You Know You Should Be a Healthy Enough Reader to quickly establish who the blog is for.
I consider this a pretty good way to launch a blog: introduce it and tell the readers who its for. Most people will tell you that the next step should be to publish some truly epic content. While that is true, I don’t like the implication that not all of your content should be epic. I made a decision very early on with Healthy Enough that I would only publish truly epic content (or content that directly supported the epic content) and I believe that many bloggers could benefit from adopting such an attitude.
It’s the same approach I decided to take with Leaving Work Behind just a few weeks ago and I haven’t looked back since. When it comes to my own blogs, I will only ever publish content if I am positive that it is (a) amongst the best work that I can do and (b) unique in some way.
There’s another benefit to not making the launch a big deal: it helps you to avoid a great deal of anxiety. A lot of beginner bloggers put their launch on a pedestal and dream of what could be, only to be let down by reality. My advice is to relieve yourself of the stress and simply start writing. The posts that you write aren’t going anywhere — they’ll be as epic tomorrow as they were today. You can always draw people’s attention back to them in the future (or even re-publish them).
I don’t think a blog’s “real” launch should take place when you hit Publish on that first post. No — I have a different approach. More on that shortly.
Promoting My Blog
I haven’t done a great deal to promote my blog yet.
I announced it to my email and social media subscribers and have started reaching out to a few health and fitness bloggers, but nothing of any real note. Although I am aware that a blog’s growth is often directly linked to how much effort you put into the promotion of content as opposed to its production, I am always drawn back to the passion I have for content creation.
At the end of the day I am not particularly marketing-minded and I don’t pretend to be. I believe in the concept of creating a strong brand and great content and getting to know people within your niche then waiting for the magic to happen. It’s not the most forceful or effective way of promoting your blog, but I’m comfortable with it and it gives me plenty of time to work on great content.
I hope and believe that the quality of the content I produce for Healthy Enough will be enough to give the blog the kickstart it needs once I decide to open the doors formally. Speaking of which…
Plans for the Future
Although I am not a huge fan of marketing, I do have a strategy in mind for promoting the blog when I feel it is ready. My criteria for “ready” are as follows:
- A sizeable back catalogue of existing content
- A bespoke design
- A manifesto
When my blog has a striking design, a manifesto (that also acts as an email signup incentive) that clearly outlines what the site’s all about and a load of existing content for new visitors to explore, I know that it will be ready for a “hard” launch. Until then I will just keep beavering away.
But when the blog does reach critical mass, my strategy will be simple: reach out to as many bloggers as I can in an effort to either (a) guest post on their site and/or (b) get them to share my manifesto.
By that time I hope I will have a number of established contacts within the health and fitness niche — people who will only be too happy to give me a helping hand in formally launching my blog. Furthermore, I will have benefitted from a “dry run” period in which I will have honed the finer points of my blog and really crystallized the message of my blog (and how it should be presented).
If I time the launch well and get my ducks in a row, this formal launch should elevate my blog above the 95% of blogs out there and into the 5% (the metaphorical sweet spot where you can start to make money from your blog).
Oh — did I not mention that I intend to make money from this blog? While that is my intention at the end of the day, I am currently having far too much fun creating content to even think about it. I think that is something that a lot of beginner (and established) bloggers miss out on — in my opinion, before anything else, blogging should be fun. Not just for your own benefit but for the benefit of your readers. If you enjoy writing your posts, it will shine through.
In reality, firm money-making plans are a way off yet — probably comfortably into 2014. However, I am confident that the Healthy Enough brand is one that can sustain a profitable business in the long run.
So What Next?
Well, I’ve already revealed my rough future plans to you. At this point my primary focus is on creating content for the site — a minimum of one post per week. I also have a friend helping me with the design, which I hope to update sooner rather than later. This is not something I am in a rush with as I want to get it right. In time I have much bigger plans for the blog, but I am taking things one step at a time.
Beyond content creation I will continue to reach out to bloggers in my niche in the hope that some will respond so that I can start building relationships. My experience with LWB has demonstrated to me that relationships are key. The more people you get to know within your niche, the greater a chance you have of opportunities coming your way in time. It’s not necessarily something that can be forced, but it should certainly be encouraged.
So that’s it for now! I will of course be furnishing you with further updates on Healthy Enough as the blog develops. In time I hope to be able to show you how I developed a successful blog from the ground up. If you have any questions or comments then please do not hesitate to leave them below!
Kirsty Stuart says
Another ‘epic’ post Tom! I always read your posts in their entirety, instead of scan-reading them like I do so many others…
I was wondering about the money making thing before you mentioned it towards the end. It’s good to know the process of launching a blog from scratch but also good to learn the blogger’s aims for it too.
Sounds like a great project anyway. I’m far from your target audience of course, but that’s sort of the point I guess! All the very best. Sounds like you’re having fun with it already 🙂
Tom Ewer says
Thanks Kirsty!
Dave Lucas says
This article is off the map! Thank-you for sharing – I’m bookmarking, digging, printing, memorizing… whatever it takes!
Tom Ewer says
Haha — you’re welcome Dave 😉
Justin Hebert says
Thanks for this, Tom. I’m planning a new blog launch of my own, and I’ve been “piggybacking” on ideas I’ve read here and other places. As I read through your list, I pictured my own mental checkboxes being checked one by one.
Blogging for yourself first is so key. People on the internet are weary of reading one cynical product-placed corporate post after another. At the end of the day, the internet is still a medium of connectedness, and people would much rather be connected to a real, living, breathing person than some faceless “brand.”
I’m curious: are you familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk? His book “Crush It” was a big factor in my own decision to stop doing work that simply paid the bills and start working toward something that would both pay the bills and make me feel awesome at the same time. Good stuff.
Tom Ewer says
Hi Justin,
I am familiar with Gary and read Crush It! a couple of years ago. Might be due a re-read!
Cheers,
Tom
Peter Nguyen says
Hey Tom,
Congrats on launching the new blog. I suffer from the same problems as you. I have lots of ideas, but never focused enough to execute on my ideas. 🙁
I need to just start on something.
By the way, could you share the WordPress theme you used for your blog? I like the simplicity and cleanliness of it. How much customization did you have to do?
Tom Ewer says
Sure! It’s Highwind (http://wordpress.org/themes/highwind) and has had very little in the way of customization.
Razwana says
Tom – the detail in this post rocks. I like how you say that the development of the blog should be fun. I totally agree.
It helps if the pressure of making money from the blog in the first instance is off. That can turn something that is fun to something that feels a lot like hard work.
It will be interesting to see what promotional work you do and how this compares to what others do.
Whoot!
– Razwana
Tom Ewer says
Good point Razwana — too many people want to make money from a blog immediately, packing it with adverts and/or affiliate links, then get disheartened when people give their site the short shrift it probably deserves! Far better to play the long game and build a brand before monetizing, in my humble opinion 🙂
Ragnar says
Although I might not get the 80s references, and possibly not the 90s either, I fit well into your target demographic. Kind of interested in health, as long as it’s not too time consuming or requires too much effort, and appreciative of sarcasm and humor. Looking forward to how the blog comes along. ^^
Tom Ewer says
You’re making me feel old Ragnar 😉
Daryl says
Interested in tracking the progress of your site Tom! Good luck and all the best with Healthy Enough.
My only question is, besides promotion to your current media and social circle (such as this post) how do you envision marketing it?
Tom Ewer says
Like I said above: ongoing networking + a big manifesto/email outreach/guest posting push for the “hard” launch.
Kristi says
Hi, Tom!
Yet another awesome post! I am at the beginning stages of my blog launch, and this post gave me some great ideas and affirmed some choices I have already made.
You have inspired me so much, and I appreciate your transparency and willingness to share your journey with all of us. 🙂
Tom Ewer says
My pleasure Kristi 🙂
Bree Brouwer says
Great strategy, Tom, and thank you so much for sharing. I’m glad to see we agree on lots of points, like how to market yourself (which is really more of a “write epic shit, make connections, and see what happens” mentality) and how you shouldn’t be worried if it takes you a while to hone the exact goals and purpose of your blog.
That’s what I’m doing now, and if you became successful following this strategy, hopefully that only means good things for me.
Tom Ewer says
There’s no reason why you shouldn’t succeed following a similar strategy Bree! 🙂
Ruan | Christian Book Blogger says
Great post Tom!
Yeah, I know what you mean not diving too deep into the “hard” launch at first and rather taking the “soft” launch approach.
I just did the same thing with my new site. I did however have more than 2000 Twitter followers, a couple of Facebook likes and almost 100 email subscribers, so I guess that helped. I think I got something like 160 visits on launch day, which I don’t think is too bad.
I also launched with 9 posts/reviews in total, which is somewhat different to my past approaches.
Building relationships – As you’ve mentioned, BIG key to future success and building a brand. That’s what’s on my agenda at this stage.
Another great idea I got today was to start a weekly roundup post (typically a Friday) of book reviews my team and I found all over the web the past week and linking up to them with a short excerpt (typically their page’s description). This should attract the authors of those posts and when they want to show it off to their following, hopefully attract those guys too.
Good luck with your site and looking forward to future updates from you! 🙂
Tom Ewer says
From memory LWB launch day back in June 2011 attracted a grand total of 57 people, so you’ve got me beaten Ruan 😉
Ruan | Christian Book Blogger says
Well, forgive me but that made me feel good for a second, no offense intended. 😉
All the best!
Jackson Anderson says
Yeah Tom! Killing it with this new post and new blog.
Real solid approach, what I really liked is that you didn’t use any crazy theme to get this off the ground,which admittedly I’ve been using as an excuse for myself for not starting to post until I purchase a responsive theme and invest time into that a bit more.
Is there a particular theme that’s free and would be customisable and simplistic similar to the Canvas theme that you use that you could recommend?
All the best with HE and it will be interesting to see your “marketing” plan after 6 months compared to the ones who really put emphasis on pre-launching vs your tactics.
Cheers,
Jackson
Tom Ewer says
Hey Jackson,
The problem with recommending themes is that it’s so subjective. I’d recommend you browse through the posts here: https://managewp.com/tag/themes-of-the-month.
I’m hoping that HE will be doing pretty well for itself in six months 🙂
Cheers!
Tom
Lucian says
Great article! In a way, I am like you: I like to focus more on the content creation part and I leave the marketing away, which is not really the best idea to do it but actually I suck at marketing. I am trying right now a “no link building” approach with one of my newest blogs and it shows me that it can’t be done (at least not as fast as I would like it to happen). And also I am striving with the “only post epic content” part which is clearly the best approach to blogging. Good luck with your new blog!
Tom Ewer says
Thanks Lucian!
Sunday says
Sure Tom, everything boils down to action! Your steps are pretty clear and simple and its pretty helpful learning about how you have built a blog. This post is detailed. Thanks for sharing.
This post on launching of a new blog was shared in the IM news aggregator website – kingged.com where this above comment was left.
Sunday – kingged.com contributor
http://www.kingged.com/how-i-launched-a-blog-from-scratch/
Jon Patrick says
Fantastic blog post, Tom! Like most people, I can read about ‘how to’, but it never really sinks in. The “how I did” post – showing us step by step and why – invaluable. Best of success to you!
Tom Ewer says
And to you Jon!
Joe says
Hey Tom,
Great article! I really appreciated your comment about not needing to create this huge launch for a blog. It does cause some anxiety and worse, can hold a beginning blogger back from just doing it.
I do agree though, that writing “epic shit” is critical and you’re right when you said it should be every blogger’s goal.
I’ll be following your new blog. Thanks for the “epic” post!
Tom Ewer says
My pleasure Joe!
Debmalya says
Great post Tom. I have two questions for you. A) What do you actual mean when you say your blog should have a manifesto? B) Does launch means waiting for your blog to have some healthy number audience and then doing something that reaches audiences beyond your audience?
Tom Ewer says
Hey Deb,
A) A manifesto is basically a document (could be a blog post, a PDF, a poster, or anything really) that clearly outlines who your blog is for and what it offers. It can also include actionable content.
B) In a nutshell, yes!
Cheers,
Tom
Kelli says
Hi Tom,
I bought Insanity two years ago and started doing it as cross-training while also training for two 10ks (that were taking place 2 weeks apart). I’m not even that much of a fitness freak! I managed 6 weeks doing it every other day in between running. After crossing the finish line of my second race I sat on the couch for a year. (Not literally, obviously, but I didn’t do any exercise). Is the slow-carb thing anything like paleo? I’m currently trying out Jack Kruse’s ‘Leptin Reset’ protocol. Yup, I’m a complete glutton for punishment.
This post couldn’t have come a t a better time. I think I’ve been trying to cast the net too wide by trying to make my new blog appeal to everyone. Clearly, I still have much to consider before launching it.
Tom Ewer says
Hi Kelli,
Slow-carb isn’t dissimilar to Paleo but there are a number of big distinctions.
Cheers,
Tom
Iain says
Selecting your ideal reader is something that many people overlook. I know I did. I thought I had one in mind, but what I ended up writing didn’t align with it.
This is an issue I still have. At least I recognize that I do.
I love your idea for Healthy Enough. People think in extremes, so I love this idea of enough. It has a balance to it.
Looking forward to seeing your progress.
Tom Ewer says
Thanks Iain!
Matt says
Hey Tom. I just wanted to thank you for sharing the part in your post about:
Defining Your Target Reader
…and the section about
Creating Style and Content Strategies
Admittedly these are two things that I’ve never really taken the time to plan out for any of my blogs. I always try to write content for the “whole niche” that the blog is in instead of defining a particular type of reader then planning my content strategy around that reader.
I really appreciate you sharing your in-depth strategy with us here, and I look forward to hearing more about HE in the future as your blog progresses. Keep us updated often, would ya’? I always love hearing about your failures and/or successes with your projects. It keeps me motivated to push on with my own projects.
Regards,
Matt Vaden
Tom Ewer says
Hey Matt,
My pleasure! Don’t worry — I’ll definitely be doing future updates on HE 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
Corey Pemberton says
Tom, this is great.
Literally couldn’t have come at a better time for me! I have a niche I’m passionate about and product ideas lined up (one developed).
My website is live, so I’m looking to start driving traffic and engaging with readers.
And I can sympathize with the “entrepreneur’s curse.” It seems for every idea I decide to implement, at least 2 or 3 others branch out from there. Now it’s time to focus and make it happen.
Thanks for the post. Bookmarked.
-Corey
Tom Ewer says
No problem Corey 🙂
Tim O'Dwyer says
Thanks for this Tom – I came across your blog a few weeks ago at work, and you have since inspired me to start a blog of my own (something which I’ve been putting off for far too long!). Lots of good stuff here, I’ll definitely be putting some of it into action. Thanks again!
Tom Ewer says
My pleasure Tim!
Kaelos says
How tall are you? Just wanted to mentally compare with the 210 max lbs you mentioned.
Tom Ewer says
6’2″ and pretty broad 😉
WonderfulWanderings says
I’ve been blogging for over a year and I still haven’t figured out what my style is, entirely… I think 🙂
But it is something I’m aware of and that I’m working on/thinking about.
I also like your approach of not having a grand launch. That’s how I launched my blog as well and I can’t imagine having made a fuzz about it when I knew some things still weren’t where they needed to be.
A question unrelated to this post: how the hell do you make it so that when I copy/paste things from your articles a link to the articles gets pasted as well?:D
Tom Ewer says
Good question — I can’t remember! Let me find where I discovered it…here you go: http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/tutorials/increase-traffic-build-links/
Benedict Musee says
Wow, I am now rejuvenated, I will keep writing till my last breath. Thank you Tom for the encouragement and the insight.