How To Start A Successful Natural Hair Blog
You may have asked yourself questions like "How do I start a successful natural hair blog?", How can I be a successful hair blogger?.
If you are searching for an easy guide on how to start a natural hair blog and make money, you are in the right place as we are going to guide you on how to start, create and set up your natural hair blog in less than a day.
Although how to start a natural hair blog may seem difficult for beginners who have not created a blogging platform before, don't panic as the steps below involve only basic computer skills.
The step-by-step guide in this article will make it very easier for you to start a natural hair blog because we are going to drop every detail of each of the steps using pictures and videos to make each one clear.
After completing this guide you will have a beautiful natural hair blog ready to share with the world the knowledge you have about your passion and also make money as well.
While following the steps, if anyway you get stuck or have any questions at any point, simply send us a message through email manuche@ejimozylists.com and we will do our best to help you out.
So without wasting much of your time, let's delve into the step-by-step guide on how to start a natural hair blog. Please make sure you follow each procedure to the end to get the most out of it.
1. Choose a name for your natural hair blog
The first step on how to start a natural hair blog is to choose a name for your natural hair blog. The blog name also serves as your domain name and the link or URL of your blog (for instance "YourBlogName.com").
If you don't have any name in mind, there are a few ways to find a good name for your natural hair blog. However, below are a few things you should keep in mind when doing so:
- keep the name of your natural hair blog short
- Use words that are unique and easy to remember
- it should be descriptive for potential visitors to instantly tell what your blog is about
Since your blog is all about natural hair, when thinking about how to start a natural hair blog, you should find a way to include words like hair, natural, curl, or other natural hair-related words in your domain name. You can use blog names such as Hair Chick, NaturalTips, SistasNatural, NaturalHairRules, etc.
Try not to get hung up on this method though, as there are other ways to make the name of your natural hair blog more unique. For instance, If you are starting a personal natural hair blog where you write a variety of personal hair topics, or how to style natural hair, you can use your name and add "hair", "curl" or "natural" to it, such as Anita Hair Tips, Vicky Natural, Sophia Curls, etc.
Availability is another big deal you have to consider when thinking of how to start a natural hair blog and choosing your blog domain name. So if the name you wanted to use is already taken, there are a few things you can do:
- Try a different domain extension version such as the .net or .org version of the name.
- Add a word or a letter to the name, such as "a", "my", "best", or "the".
- Or better still, change the name to another nice natural hair blog name
2. Get your natural hair blog online
Getting your natural blog online is the most essential step on how to start a natural hair blog from scratch and make money.
This is the time to start the setup sections of how to start a natural hair blog and you have to pay proper attention to the step-by-step guide.
The guide listed below might sound hard or technical, but if you follow them accordingly, it will walk you through how to start a natural hair blog from scratch and make the process easier and fun. There is nothing fun in creating your blog by yourself.
Since you are creating your natural hair blog to make money and make a career out of it and you are serious about blogging, there is no need of creating your natural hair blog with a free blogging platform.
You should buy a custom domain because it will give you the liberty and total control over your blog without any limitation and it doesn't cost much. A custom domain hosting plan will cost you only $2.95 or less per month depending on the hosting platform.
That is why I will recommend using Bluehost as the platform to start your natural hair blog. Not only the price is cheaper, but they will also make things easier for you as a beginner in terms of technical support and other things such as:
- free SSL certificates, and free domain name registration, and other discounts in your first registration
- 30 days refund guarantee in case you are not satisfied for any reason.
- Automatic installation of WordPress blogging software with one click (which I will show you how).
- 24/7 customer service through phone or web chat.
- And they are recommended by WordPress since 2005 and they currently host over 2 million blogs and websites.
I'm going to guide you below on the step-by-step guide on how to set up a natural hair blog with Bluehost. It requires only a few clicks and you are going to enjoy it. The red marks on the images below will guide you on where to click.
1. Click to visit the Bluehost website and then place your cursor on hosting, then select Shared hosting
2. Click on "Get Started" to select the plan you want to use in hosting your natural hair blog.
3. Since you are starting a natural hair blog from scratch, we suggest that beginning hair bloggers should get the basic plan. It is more affordable and you can always upgrade it whenever you want.
4. Time to search for your blog name availability. If you have not created a blog before, you can add the name of your blog in the first column and then click "next". But if you wish to use an already existing blog THAT YOU OWN, then use the second column
Note: other than a dash, you are not allowed to use any spaces or punctuation while creating your blog URL (domain name).
5. Fill out your basic personal information on the registration page.
6. Select your package information. If you are confused about what to select, we advise you to select it exactly as it is in the image below.
6 Fill out your billing and payment information on the registration page.
7. After filling out all the forms correctly, read and tick agreement terms and click on submit
8. After you have successfully purchased hosting, you will then be taken to where you will create your account. Then Click on "Create Account"
9. Fill out the simple forms. The first one is your domain link URL, the second is the password you want to use. After writing the password on the second space, write it again on the 3rd space, tick agreement terms, and click on "Create Account"
10. After that it will bring you to a page where you will click the blue "go to login" button
11. Put your domain name or email address and the password of the account you just created and then click on "Login"
12. Once you log in you will be taken to an installation helper. Skip the next four pages to be taken directly to your Bluehost dashboard by clicking the "Skip this step" buttons.
13. When you get to your Bluehost dashboard, you will see something like the image below and they have automatically installed WordPress software for you already. After the installation is complete, click the blue "WordPress" button to take you to the logged-in admin area of your blog.
14. Below is the page interface you are going to see, which may seem intimidating or technical. This is where you will be managing your whole natural hair blog and also writing your blog post. Still leave the WordPress dashboard page open on your browser and then go to the next step.
15. The next step is to go to the email address you used in creating your Bluehost account to verify your email address. The title of the email should be "WHOIS verification for yourblogname.com Action required."
16. Go back to the WordPress dashboard page that you left open and click on Bluehost at the left sidebar, and then launch your natural hair blog by clicking the "Launch your site" button.
CONGRATULATIONS! you have successfully created your natural hair blog. Visit your blog by clicking on the green "visit site" button, or by entering your blog URL (yourblogname.com) on your browser to see how your blog looks like. You will see something like the image below.
3. Customizing your natural hair blog design
After checking how your natural hair blog looks, you will find out that it doesn't look like an actual natural hair blog. This is because you have not customized it yet.
So the next step on how to start a natural hair blog is to customize your new website or blog to look like an actual Natural hair blog.
To do that you have to go back to your WordPress Dashboard. If you are logged out, you can go to your Bluehost dashboard and click the blue "WordPress" button again to log in to your WordPress dashboard.
When talking about how to start a natural hair blog, for your blog to look more professional and unique, you have to change your WordPress theme to the design you like as well as the design that will give your blog a natural hair feel.
This is because the WordPress theme is the entire layout of your blog that controls the design, color, and appearance of your entire blog or website. One nice thing about WordPress is that you can easily change the entire layout and design of your blog with just a few clicks by following these few steps below.
1. Place your cursor on the "Appearance" tab on the left menu and then click "theme" which is the first option.
2. You can use any of the themes already available or get new ones if you don't like the themes available. To get a new theme all you need to do is to click on the "add new" tab either above the themes or below the themes.
3. After loading new themes, you can select from the first themes you see or check what is available on the top menus: popular, latest, or favorites. If you have a specific theme in mind, you can enter the name on the search box at the right-hand side of the menu or search for the keyword "Hair" to get suggestions of hair-related themes.
4. Once you have seen the theme design you like, hover your cursor on it and click the blue "Install" button.
5. After the theme is done installing, then click on the blue "Activate" button to activate the theme on your natural hair blog.
Visits your natural hair blog to see how the new design looks. But since there are no posts yet on your blog, it is not going to look like the picture of the theme, but when you start publishing posts, it will look better.
You can always change the theme whenever you want, just play around with different themes to find the design that you like. After getting the theme you like, delete the other themes and keep a few themes, like two or three themes in addition to the active theme.
4. Set some of your blog information
The next step on how to start a natural hair blog is to set up some certain information on your blog. To do that you need to follow the steps below:
(i) Set up your natural blog name and tagline also known as description. To do this, you need to place your cursor on the "Setting" tab at the left-hand menu and then click on "General".
On the Site Title, type in the name of your natural hair blog, then on the tagline, type in your blog description. On the WordPress Address (URL), and Site Address (URL) just put your blog domain URL (for instance https://yourblogname.com)
While on the Administration Email Address, type in the same email address you used in creating your Bluehost account. After that scroll down and click on the blue "Save Changes" button
(ii) Setting up the link structure of your posts. This setting determines how the link on your post and pages are automatically generated. While still on the "setting" tab, click on "permalinks" and select "Post name" like the image below. After that scroll down and click on the blue "Save Changes" button
(iii) The next thing is to add categories also known as Menus to your natural hair blog such as Texture, Length, Kids, Hair Recipes, Hair Tips, Hair Reviews, etc. You can do that by placing your cursor on the "Posts" tab and then clicking on "category". Leave the rest of the spaces empty and fill in only the name of the category like in the example below.
Remember to scroll down and click on the blue "Add New Category" button. You can create as many categories as possible but three to five is ok.
(iv) Use the categories you have just created as your menu by clicking on the "Appearance" tab and then Menu, to create a new menu.
Click on the blue "Create New Menu" and then write the name of the menu with either menu1, category menu, or header menu and then click the "Create Menu" button below the right-hand side.
(v) After creating the menu, It's time to set up the menu to start showing on your site. follow these steps below, the image below will also guide you.
- Set Display location by ticking "Primary menu"
- Scroll left down the menu item, and click on "categories",
- Click on "view all"
- Select all categories by clicking on "select all".
- Click on the "Add To Menu" button
- Click on the blue "Save Menu" button
Congratulations!! you have successfully added a Menu to your blog. You can then go and check how the menu looks on your natural hair blog.
5. Add essential plugins to your natural hair blog
You can't learn how to start a natural hair blog without learning how to install WordPress plugins, especially the essential ones
The WordPress plugin is another essential technology that will help in the proper running of your natural hair blog. There are a whole lot of plugins out there that have different functions, but you are going to install and activate only the ones that are more important to your blog for now.
When talking about how to start a natural hair blog, the general rule of thumb is to install and activate as few plugins as possible. So below are the few essential plugins that will keep your blog going for now. You can easily install and activate more as you grow your blog.
You have to delete all the already install and activated plugins and only keep and activate the ones below:
- Akismet Anti-Spam
- Autoptimize
- Classic Editor
- Jetpack
- Rank Math SEO
To install and activate the plugin, you will click on the "Plugin" tab at the right-hand side menu to check the already installed plugins on your dashboard. If any of the above-mentioned plugins are there, no need to get them and then get the ones that are not there, by clicking on "add new" and searching for it in the search box. The image below will guide you.
Always delete all the plugins that are not active, you can easily download them again whenever you feel the need to use them. Some plugins require settings, you can research how to set them, especially the Rank maths plugin which is the most essential of them all.
6. Write your first post yourself and publish it
Now that you are done with the essential settings and your natural hair blog is up and running, the next thing to consider when thinking of how to start a natural hair blog is to write your first blog post about hair and then publish it.
I know this stage usually makes one nervous and exciting, calm down as we are going to walk you through how to create a nice first blog post with the steps below.
First, you have to click the "Post" tab at the left menu. You will see only one post that has been published. That is a default post that is usually on every new WordPress site, and you don't need it. So you have to delete it by clicking on the "Trash" button just under the post.
After deleting the post, it's now time to start writing your post. Click on the "Add New" tabs on the menu bar or at the top of the post screen to go to the page where you will write your new post
After clicking on the "Add New" tab, you will be taken to the post editor screen. On the top small box, enter the title of your post and then start writing your post in the lower big box.
If you wish to insert any image to your post, click on the big "add media" tab on the top and upload the image from your computer. Just play around with the menu on the new post page and see their functions and how they can help you write posts.
Also check the right-hand side to add a featured image (the image that shows when someone visits your blog homepage before clicking to read the post), tags, tick category, and other things to your post.
Always scroll down to check the metrics of your rank maths plugin. Following the Rank maths guides and writing in accordance to get as many green scores as possible will help the possibilities of your post to appear on the first page of Google when anyone searches for your keyword. You can read this article to learn how to use rank math to improve your blog writing and SEO.
Always save what you have written once in a while by clicking the "Save Draft" button, especially if you want to close your browser or computer. After writing your post, click on the blue "publish" tab to make the post live on your natural hair blog.
6. Add essential static pages
There is no way you will learn how to start a natural hair blog without learning how to add essential static pages to your blog.
Your natural hair blog should contain a few necessary pages that will provide your users, visitors, and advertisers more information about your natural hair blog, and the tools you use in your blog.
The content of these static pages doesn't usually change and is edited once in a while. These top-level pages can usually be accessed through a menu at the footer of your blog.
Below is a list of top-level static pages that you must have in your natural hair blog and must be ready before you launch your natural hair blog to the world that is why we included them in this guide of how to start a natural hair blog:
- About Us: This page usually contains the biography, intention, and purpose of your blog, including the biographical summary of the author(s) that post content on your blog. The following questions will guide you to write a very nice "About Us" page: How did your passion for creating your natural hair blog develop? What kind of natural hair content do you intent to share with the world? What is your ultimate goal?
- Contact Us: This page usually contains information that provides your blog visitors with the means to get in touch or communicate with you or your blog authors. This information includes your address, phone number, email address, and contact form as well as the links to all of your social media profiles.
- Privacy Policy: The content of this page discloses how you collect data and personal information from your visitors, how you store them, how you use them and how you share them with third-party entities or individuals. This page is highly required by the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) and also the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
- Terms of Service: This page contains the terms and agreements in which guide your visitors on how to use your blog content, services, and products. As a blogger, having this page helps lessen your potential liability.
- Disclaimer: Since you are monetizing your blog, the disclaimer page helps you to describe the ways you intend to generate income. According to FTC guidelines, if you have an affiliate link or endorsing a product that will make you profit or commission, this relationship must be disclosed in your disclaimer.
These must-have static pages are usually accessible at the footer of every blog or website, which means they are always accessible from any corner of your blog. To check the static page of this very blog, you can scroll down to the bottom of this page to see how this looks in practice.
So to add a page to your natural hair blog, you have to click on the "pages" tab at the left-hand corner of your dashboard to see the already available pages on your blog. Then click on the "Add new" tab to add new pages like in the image below.
7. Promote your blog to get visitors
Promoting your blog to get visitors is one of the most essential things you have to learn after learning how to start a natural hair blog from scratch.
Selecting a nice theme and having a well-designed natural hair blog is one thing. Then writing great content and getting traffic is another thing.
To get traffic or visitors to your natural hair blog, you have to spend some time promoting it, especially when you are first starting up, this is why we included it as one of the steps on how to start a natural hair blog from scratch.
After publishing at least five blog posts on your natural hair blog. It is time to promote it to get traffic, visitors, and engagement. Following the methods below will help get your blog post in front of more people that are interested in your topic. It is not compulsory to use every strategy, just use only the ones that work for you.
Tell Your Inner Circle About Your New Blog
Tell your friends and family members about your new natural hair blog and encourage them to check it out. You can start by sending them the topics you know they are most likely interested in. By doing so you are not just making them visit your blog and tell you how amazing your blog is, you are also encouraging them to be followers.
Use Social Media To Attract More Traffic To Your Blog
Another way to attract more traffic to your natural hair blog is through social media. Create social media accounts with popular social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Even though it is advisable not to overdo it, you should always post the link of your blog post on your social media accounts for your social media friends to see and click on it to go read your article. Always remember to use hashtags, groups, and other social media tools to engage with your followers.
Many bloggers have reported Pinterest to be the best social media for blogs especially natural hair blog like yours that falls under the beauty industry. You should take Pinterest more seriously as well as Facebook and Twitter. With high-quality content on your blog, social media will help you make your blog go viral.
Always Engage With Your Visitors
Another way to get people to keep visiting your natural hair blog is by engaging with your blog visitors. This means whenever you see a comment on any of your blog posts, you should try as much as possible to reply to those comments and questions, give them "likes" and affirmations. When your visitors notice that you care about your community and readership, they are naturally encouraged to return.
Build Relationships With Other Bloggers
Another way to promote your blog as a brand is by building relationships with other bloggers in your area. This approach most times leads to collaborations or a shoutout from respected members of your field which can boost your blog awareness.
These collaborations include guest posting, promoting each other's blogs and products, and regularly interacting through comments and social media.
Publish Blog Posts Regularly
If you want to grow as a natural hair blogger, you need to post blog content regularly. To do that effectively, you have to create an editorial calendar that will guide you and do as much as possible to stick to it. As a beginner, It is advisable to publish topics about hair at least once or twice per week and you increase the number as you grow. This will help you maintain your existing visitors while you keep promoting your blog for more visitors.
Study Search Engine Optimization
As a blogger, you need to know much about SEO which means Search Engine Optimization. This will help you rank well on google, bing, yahoo, and other search engines. This is also where the bigger traffic comes from.
Although it's essential for every website, one thing that discourages many people especially beginners is that SEO is hard to build and it takes a long period to produce results.
As you grow, you will learn more and more in-depth about SEO. This article will help you get started with SEO.
As your blog grows you can now Sign up for a Google Webmaster account and open the Search Console. This process makes your blog posts show on google when people search for content.
You should keep in mind that since your natural hair blog is still new, your traffic will be minimal to start with the Google search console. However, this will change over time as you start getting traffics due to your informative and relevant content regularly. Then you can add your site to google search console and other search engines.
8. Finally It's Time To Make Money From Your Blog
After putting in so much effort to create an amazing natural hair blog and content with a good amount of traffic coming into your natural hair blog, it's time to monetize your blog and make some money out of your hard work, which is the easiest part.
After learning how to start a natural hair blog, promoting it, and getting traffic, the next step is to monetize your blog to make money.
Natural hair blogs and other blogs have the potential to be a lucrative business or career, but you are not going to start making money right away. It takes some time and in most cases, it could take up to six months to a year to start making a steady stream of income with your natural hair blog.
This is because blogging requires hard work and dedication to build traffic, but after you have built quite some audiences, there are several fun methods you can monetize your natural hair blog and make money, which is listed below.
Sell advertising space
Once your natural hair blog is popular, advertisers will be chasing you for the opportunity to advertise on your blog. You may say this method is not for you, it's for famous bloggers.
There is a way you can take advantage of this situation which is through Google Adsense. With Adsense, Google finds the advertisers for you and you place the Adsense code on your natural hair blog to start making money from Google AdSense.
Sell affiliate Products
Selling affiliate products or services to earn commission is another way to make money from your natural hair blog. When one of your readers buys a product with a link on your blog post, you earn a commission if you signup for an affiliate program of that product or service.
If your natural hair blog is about a product review or product how-tos, then affiliate links are a nice way to earn income through your blog. However, you must always disclose that some links on your blog are affiliate links.
Selling Products and Services
If you can make natural hair-related products yourself, selling them on your blog is a great way to make income independently on your blog. As your blog grows and you begin to see a wide audience, your products and services will begin to sell themselves.
There are many other ways you can make money from your natural hair blog, we just listed the most common ones. Picking the way you make money from your blog depends on your personal goals and the purpose of your natural hair blog.
Bloggers who are selling their services, physical goods, or digital goods, may not wish to take part in affiliate programs where their blog traffic could be lost to another site.
For more information see the full guide to making money blogging here
CONCLUSION
The above well-written article is the step-by-step guide on how to start a natural hair blog and make money and we hope is helpful to you.
While following the steps, if anyway you get stuck or have any questions at any point, simply send us a message through email manuche@ejimozylists.com and we will do our best to help you out.
Thank you for having time to read our article about how to start a natural hair blog to the end. Always visit our blog for more business and entrepreneurship-related articles.
How To Start A Successful Natural Hair Blog
Source: https://ejimozylists.com/how-to-start-a-natural-hair-blog
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