How To Start A Life-Changing, Money-Making Mom Blog

Holy mackerel, this post has looong been overdue! 🙂
Are you ready to build your money-making mom blog??

I suggest you get a glass of your favorite beverage and make yourself comfortable because I have a feeling you and I will spend some quality time together… 😉

You might also wanna grab pen and paper to take some notes – cause this post is gonna be jam-packed with valuable information and juicy details.

Let’s do this!!

Disclosure: This post might contain affiliate links. This means when you purchase something through those links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s the cool online-kid way of tipping me – with someone else’s money. Thanks a ton!

Why should you start your own mom blog?

Well, since you found this post it’s safe to assume you’ve already spent some time contemplating the benefits of starting your own mom blog (duh), but let’s quickly recap what’s in it for you so you can get REALLY excited about starting your journey!!

Is starting a mom blog right for you?

• Would you like to work from home on your own terms?
  
• Are you looking for a way to contribute to your family’s income in order to afford the lifestyle you want?
  
• Do you need something flexible that allows you to take a break when your kids need you or some other emergency arises?
  
• Would you like to share your passion with like-minded people who might become your new BFFs?
  
• Would you like to make an impact and literally change people’s lives for the better?
  
• Do you need some adult conversation during the day or else your brain feels like it might implode?
  
• Do you like a challenge?
  
• Would you like to create a business you are proud of because you always knew you had it in you and you were just waiting for the right time to get started?
  
• Are you looking for a business that’s cheap to get started and has low overhead costs?
  
  

If you answered a whole-hearted “YESSSS!” to all or most of these questions, then you are the IDEAL candidate for starting your own mom blog! 🙂

Wanna do this? Let’s get you set up!!

How to choose a niche for your mom blog

First, we need to find the perfect niche for your new blog.

Now I’ve got a whole post talking about what a niche is and how to find yours. But here is the gist:

To find your niche, you need to start with an honest self-assessment:

Look at your knowledge, experiences, passion, personality and your unique voice as the whole package.

Who would benefit by working with you? This is your target audience.

What would you help them to achieve? This is the basis for an offer that you could put out there.

What would you like to achieve and why? This is your vision.

Get clear on those things BEFORE you jump into buying a domain or hosting, etc. They will make it so much easier to make informed choices down the road: Just make sure your choices align with your vision and help your target audience!

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How to set up your money-making mom blog

Ok, now that you are clear on the basics, it’s time to tackle the tech stuff and actually build your blog! No worries, you can do this!! 🙂

Buy your domain

It’s time to put your thinking hat on, come up with a good name for your blog and check if the domain name is still available!

Extra SEO (= search engine optimization) points if you can snag a domain name that’s related to your blog topic (like “bookreview.com” if your blog topic is book reviews). Google likes this!

But if you’re at a complete loss or all the good ones are already taken, you can still choose to develop a personal brand around your own name.

To check if the domain name of your choice is still available, you can go to sites like NameCheap or other web hosting providers like FastComet or BlueHost.

Simply type in your name and see if it’s still available. If so – buy it!

Choosing a platform – WordPress

Ok yes, there are other platforms than WordPress.

But since WordPress is the one that I’m familiar with and that more than 30% of ALL websites on the entire internet use – I’ll stick with WordPress when explaining this process, ok?

“Wait a minute, there’s wordpress.org and wordpress.com – which one do I choose??”

Great question, young padawan! Do not be tempted to go for the free hosted WordPress.com. It’s much more limited in its functionality, customizability and it’s not suited for affiliate marketing (which a lot of bloggers use to create an income stream).

You’ll want to go for WordPress.org and get your own hosting. Trust me on this one!

Find Website Hosting

I’ve got another detailed post explaining all the terminology you might encounter when looking for a hosting company, you might wanna check out.

If I had to start from scratch again I would probably either choose FastComet or BlueHost they have affordable prices, offer reliable service and are used by many successful bloggers.

For those looking for a super professional managed WordPress site (managed means all the WordPress updates will be done for you), check out WP Engine.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of their services:

Install WordPress

All the hosting services I just mentioned make this super easy for you by offering a 1-click WordPress installer. So this bit should be quick and painless. 🙂

And if you run into any trouble, they all offer 24/7 support.

Choose a WordPress Theme

Now it’s time to put some makeup on your plain website and make it a looker – it’s time to choose a pretty theme!

The theme determines the look and a big chunk of the functionality of your website. You can add additional functionality through plugins later on, but you wanna make sure you set up a proper frame in the beginning.

For example, think about whether or not your website should include your own shop and choose a theme accordingly. This will save you so much hassle in the long run!!!

There are a few free WordPress themes to choose from but will probably want to buy a prettier one – it’s not the 90’s anymore and if your website looks ugly, you don’t get a second chance. People are used to seeing beautiful websites everywhere.

A good place to start looking for pretty themes is Creative Market.

Powered by Creative Market

Another great option for theme shopping is StudioPress.

If you choose WP Engine as your web hosting provider, you’ll get the Genesis framework and the gorgeous StudioPress themes FOR FREE – which is a great deal!

Install useful plugins

Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to ->Plugins -> Add new to add additional plugins to your website. Why would you wanna do that? Because they provide extra functionality for your website.

Now before you act like a 5-year-old in a candy store and install every cool plugin you can find – keep in mind that too many plugins will slow down your website and you’ll find that some plugins cause conflicts with your theme or other plugins.

So the rule of thumb here is to install as few as possible and as many as necessary.

You can find a list of super useful free WordPress plugins for your new blog here.

First things to do on your new WordPress website

Inside your WordPress dashboard, there are a few settings you will want to change.

This post shows you which WordPress setting you need to adjust.

Branding

The first thing most people think about when they hear the word “branding” is a logo and maybe a color palette.

While this is all part of your branding, branding is much more than that. It’s your mission. Your vision. Your values. What you stand for and what you stand against. Your message.

Visual branding is just what translates all these intangible concepts into something people can see and understand.

You can read more about creating your personal brand here.

Get your 2 ready-to-use Canva templates!

Need some more help? I also have a big section of my Work-From-Home-Made-Easy workbook dedicated to helping you with your branding! I even added 2 ready-to-use Canva templates to get you started! 🙂

By the way, I strongly recommend working on your branding BEFORE you start writing your first pages or structure your website.

Why? Because the tone of voice and the language you use are also a part of your branding and you want it to be consistent throughout your entire website.

Moreover, being crystal clear about your branding message and the goal you’re trying to accomplish makes it easier to structure your website accordingly and identify the keywords you might want to include.

Become familiar with SEO concepts

SEO stands for search engine optimization. Basically, it’s about helping search engines like Google understand what your mom blog is all about.

As you know, search engines are trying to serve up the most relevant content to the people looking for a certain search phrase (=keyword) and in order to do so, they need to understand each article’s content.

One of the SEO key concepts is to use the right keywords in all the right places on your website.

Google does not only check your blog post’s body text for clues about what your article may be about, it also looks at headings, ALT-text, link text and a few other things to understand your content’s topic!

You can read more about using and placing keywords on your blog here. If you have no idea how to actually FIND those keywords, check out this post on keyword research tools.

Set up your first blog pages in WordPress

Before you start writing your blog posts, you should have a few pages in place. No worries, it’s easy to create a new page: In your WordPress dashboard go to Pages -> Add New and start adding your content.

1. Your data privacy policy and T&Cs – you need these to stay legal. Have a look at what other bloggers are using and adjust to your circumstances – or, to be on the safe side, buy a fill-in-the-blanks template.

2. You should also create your “About me” or “Start here” page. On that page you let your visitors know how you can help them, give them a bit of background on yourself and why you started your business.

I think it’s also a good thing to tell them how they will benefit most from your blog and point them in the direction of helpful resources you provide.

Last but not least you might want to include a way of contacting you if they have questions or want to collaborate – unless you’d like to create an extra “Contact” or “Work With Me” Page and put that information there.

Create a list building strategy for your profitable mom blog

I’m sure you’ve heard this over and over again: If you wanna build a money-making mom blog or any profitable blog for that matter, you need to build your email list.

Why? Because it’s traffic you OWN. You don’t own your following on social media – you only borrow it. If the social media platform of your choice vanished tomorrow, so would your following.

If you have an email list, however, you can stay in contact with the people on your list (unless they unsubscribe obviously).

Emailing your list is also a great way to connect to your tribe and build friendships and collaborations.

And people on your email list are much more likely to buy from you because they got to know and trust you. *light-bulb moment*

So how do you actually get people to join your email list?

The times when people would just sign up to your newsletter are long gone. The standard today is to offer website visitors a form of legal “bribe” aka a valuable freebie they get for joining your list.

You really want to make this freebie as valuable as you can – it’s the first sample of your work they are likely to get in contact with. So you want to wow them!

Moreover, your freebie needs to be highly relevant to the sort of offer you’d like to make down the road.

For example, don’t use a vegan cookbook as your freebie when your blog is all about hand-lettering.

Even though lots of people might join your list, they aren’t necessarily interested in your core offer – know what I mean? Your list is only valuable if it contains people who are ACTUALLY interested in your offer.

When you create your freebie also make sure you stay GDPR-compliant.

Once you created your freebie, showcase it liberally throughout your website and integrate the sign-up form with your chosen email service provider.

And when that’s done, set up an automated email to welcome new subscribers and deliver your freebie.

Write your first blog posts

I’ve created a guide for you to help you write the kind of blog posts your audience loves. Go check it out!

As a guideline, I’d say write 3-5 blog posts before you launch your blog so that website visitors get a better idea of your style and offer. But that’s not a hard-and-fast rule. If you wanna promote your blog as soon as you’ve published your first post – go ahead! 🙂

Start by doing some keyword research to come up with relevant search terms and then write your posts around those terms. This will help your SEO ranking right from the start. Keep in mind though, that SEO is a long-term strategy and you’re not likely to see immediate results. That’s ok! Just keep at it!

Oh, one last thing: If you’re using affiliate links in your posts – make sure you have an affiliate disclosure statement in place to let people know you’re using affiliate links and get compensated when they buy something through your affiliate links.

Share and promote your blog content

Woohoo – your website is ready!! 🙂 Now you need to get your brand-spanking-new content in front of an interested audience! 🙂

To make the biggest impact, find out which platforms your ideal customer uses to hang out and start there. Create your social media account and concentrate on only one or two platforms at first.

Start interacting and sharing your content on those platforms to get your content in front of the right people.

You can check out my favorite marketing and promotion strategy here.

Implement monetization strategies

Remember consistency is key, so try to come up with a publishing schedule and stick with it.

Blogging is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme.

It takes time and effort.

And you’ll likely be on a steep learning curve. That’s good!

Once you figured out what your audience needs from you, you can focus more on integrating different monetization strategies.

You can check out a list of proven monetization strategies for your mom blog here.

Invest in your blogging education

If you want to fast-track your results, invest in your blogging education and never stop learning.

While no one thinks twice about investing money in a college education or something equivalent, for some reason, people assume blogging is different in that you don’t really have to learn how to do it – you just somehow figure it out.

Sure, this can work for you. But you’ll see quicker results if you follow a strategy and the advice of people who’ve done it before.

I’ve put together a workbook that will help you get clear exactly on who your audience is and how YOU can create the perfect offer for that audience.

Join a blogger support group!

Blogging can be pretty lonely if you don’t connect with others…

Therefore joining a group of like-minded people is one of the best things to keep you motivated and inspired.

If you don’t know where to start, join my exclusive FB support group for mom bloggers and make some new friends! 🙂 I created this group as a safe and supportive space where you can ask questions and collaborate with other mom bloggers.

Can’t wait to welcome you there and chat! 🙂

Talk soon!

Happy experimenting,

Yours,

Check out how other moms did it:

MOM BLOGGER INTERVIEW #1 – MEET VANESSA!