How To Start A Parenting Blog
Why I started a parenting blog
I’m sure you have seen parenting blogs all over the place. Some questions you might have are, How do you start a parenting blog? What is blogging like? Would people visit my site or care what I have to say? Or there are a lot of parenting bloggers out there, will mine even get seen?
I had all those questions going through my head too. Blogging always sounded fun, and it’s a way to get my voice out there and be creative. That is why I started my blog.
Pin for when you’re ready to start your parenting blog
How We Started Our Parenting Blog
One night my husband and I were talking and trying to think of ways to make some extra money. We have four boys, and at the time they were 4 years old, 2 years old and 6 month old twins. I used to be a vet tech, but after the twins it made more sense to stay home-daycare is ridiculously expensive.
So, I was brainstorming on ways to make extra money. There were some interesting and fun ways that I thought about. But, I started thinking about blogging.
I didn’t know anything about blogging, except that people do it and people are actually making money off of it. So I did a ton of research. I became almost obsessed with it (and still am). Once I am interested in something and trying to meet a goal I tend to a little carried away, but I’m so glad I did!
I am not a blogger that blogs about blogging. I want to help moms, because since I have some experience in that field and I know how hard it can be, and I know that parents can just use a little help.
At first I was going to start a blog on my own, but then I was talking to my sister all about blogging and how she should start a blog too. So that’s when we decided to do it together. We think so much alike and have the same interests and outlook on motherhood.
We thought it would be perfect because even though we are so much alike, we have completely differnt lives. She is a working mom of a amazing boy, and lives in the mountains with her husband and son.
I live in the city as a stay at home mom of 4 young boys. We both have experienced the working mom and the SAHM lifestyle and with our rounded-ness, we felt that we can help a lot of moms and be relatable to them.
So that is how The Everyday Mom Squad came about. Now onto the details on how you can start your own blog on any topic that you love and interests you.
How to get your parenting blog started
One of the first things you might want to start thinking about is your brand and your site name. There are some generators out there you can use to get ideas for a domain name of see if your idea is taken. I’d recommend to do one with .com, it looks professional and easy for your readers to remember.
Hosting
What is hosting and how to pick one? Hosting is the place that your site lives. It is what gets your website viewed on the internet. There are a lot of hosts out there that are good. The ones that I have heard a lot of bloggers or other websites talk about are Bluehost or Siteground. They are both great, we personally use Siteground.
They are great and I have not had any issues with them. If I don’t know what I’m doing (because I am not tech savvy AT ALL) or have a question about anything, they have 24 hr customer service and they have always got an issue or question that I had resolved and done quickly.
They probably get annoyed with me because I’m always asking questions. That is one reason I picked them because they are convenient and I know I need all the help I can get.
On top of that they are very affordable at $3.95 a month. Along with that they make sure that your site is clean and there are no hackers, and if something got erased they have a back-up so none of your content will be lost.
Along with hosting I really recommend WordPress. They are free it’s a platform that your blog stays on. WordPress.org not WordPress.com lets you customize your website and add plug-ins to get your site looking exactly how you want. It lets you be able to modify your website without needing to know any programing. Over 35% all websites use WordPress.org.
Here is a good video explaining what it is and how to use it.
Theme
Next after you pick your hosting and set up your wordpress account, now it’s time to look at what theme you want.
There are millions of themes to pick from, some are free some are paid. You can always start with a free theme and once you get the hang of blogging and want to customize it more you can always find a new theme or buy a theme. It’s very easy to change the them without having to redo your whole site.
Themes are how you create your website. What it looks like, how it functions, etc. You there are themes just for yoga sites, shopping, recipe sites and the list goes on.
When we first started, we used probably 5 different themes. Some were good but we just couldn’t get our blog to look the we wanted it. The free ones aren’t as customizable so it made it hard to get the look we were trying to create.
In the beginning I wouldn’t worry about it too much because it still looked nice and was professional enough. I was focusing on learning more about blogging and everything that goes into it.
I’m going to be honest, it’s a lot more than I thought. It’s not just writing a post and hoping people see it. You need to write good content and promote it strategically. I’ll get into that more later, but I love it and it’s fun. It has became my escape, what I do for mommy time. ?
Ok, back to theme. The theme we ended up using is Divi by Elegant Themes. I absolutely LOVE them. They have so many plug-ins that you can use for free to help with your site. Also it is completely customizable, if you want your site to look a certain way, then you can make it look that way. They too have 24 hr customer service which I use ALL the time. Another company that is probably annoyed with me.[/et_pb_text]
Tools We Used To Help Us Start Our Mom Blog
I know, this may seems overwhelming. It is, but I am here to help you and tell you my exact steps I used to get our site where it is and the exposure it’s getting.
So like I said, I did a ton of research before we started and when I looked how to get started I kept seeing this other mom blogger over and over who teaches moms how to start their blog. Her name is Suzi from startamomblog.com. I’m so glad I found her because she is an awesome teacher and is full of resources and information for your parenting blog to be successful.
If what I said above is too much to grasp Suzi has an amazing Step By Step Tutorial going over every single step to start your blog; from finding your niche and what to blog about, to making money and everything in between.
This was just what I needed because I had no idea what I was doing or where to even begin.
She also has created a free Blog Plan for the year with steps to take so you will be successful. These steps are what she used to make $9,000 her first year. I have just started to actually implementing what is on the plan and it has been incredibly helpful.
Another mom blogger that I follow is Elna at twinsmommy.com. She has amazing resources on her blog that has been extremely helpful as well. Elna also has an amazing Blog Traffic Planner that I’ve been using to create good content and gaining traffic to my site. She’s my go to for traffic, which I’ll talk more about later.
So when you are getting started I highly recommend following Suzi and Elna. Even after you’re started, continue to follow them, they have amazing tips for every aspect of blogging. These two are definitly my go to’s!
How to get traffic
I’m sure you are on Pinterest or at least know about it. Well, before blogging I thought Pinterest was just websites from the internet and you can find things you are searching for. I didn’t know that these were other bloggers that I was looking at.
That is how oblivious to the blogging world I was. Pinterest is a search engine like Google, but more visual. Also Pinterest is one of the best ways to get eyes on your blog!
I had NO idea about this. I took a really good course from Megan at lovefamilyhealth. She is the Pinterest Ninja, and that’s exactly what her course is called. She explains everything about Pinterest and how to use it to grow your blog and become successful with your site.
In a nutshell, you create you blog content- post, freebie, etc. and you create a pin to pin to Pinterest. You share it on your boards and group boards for people to see and have them click back to your site.
She goes in detail how to do this. And how to use it to start getting people to your site.
I had just finished Elna’s course Blog For Traffic and it was amazing!
We have been blogging for a little more than a year now, but have been consistent and really working at it for about 4 months. I was wondering why we weren’t getting much followers yet.
After doing only about ¼ of her course I was already seeing amazing increases in people visiting out site and actually liking our content. Such a great feeling seeing this!
BIGGEST TIP: You need to be consistent with good quality posts to be successful.
If you aren’t sure how to create good content or know what people want to read, I recommend going to Suzi’s and Elna’s websites and just study everything they have. Suzi does show how to write a good post and a checklist for what you should have in your post for it to drive traffic.
Tailwind
Have you heard of Tailwind before? If not this tool is amazing! This helps get traffic to your site and make promoting your content a million times easier. So like I mentioned, Pinterest is a bloggers best friend. But, it can be time consuming to create pins and pin them so many times to so many boards and remember to do that every day throughout the day because Pinterest likes consistency.
Tailwind is a scheduler for Pinterest and Instagram. You create your pins then load it to Tailwind. Tailwind does all the work for you. It knows when your followers are on during the day so they pin your pins to the most popular times for you.
Being a busy parent I don’t have time to sit on Pinterest to pin my content every day throughout the day to get the traffic I have. I wish I could but it’s not realistic for me.
There are however, bloggers that pin manually. It’s completely up to you, if you have time, by all means do that. Using Tailwind you are still more than welcome to pin manually as well.
Creating Pins
When I talk about creating pins you are probably wondering, “Well, how do I do that?” To me this is one of my favorite parts. I get to be creative and have fun with different styles of fonts, colors and images.
There are two places that making creating pins super easy. One is Picmonkey and the other is Canva. They are both great to make pins, Picmonkey has a little more features than Canva, but I love Canva too. Canva is free with a paid version, and definitely does it’s job.
You can find how to create pins if you search on youtube or the other bloggers I have mentioned all have tutorials on how to create clickable pins.
Monetizing
There are many ways you can monitize your blog. You can become an affiliate for companies like Amazon or any company that you love and would fit will with your nich. You can write sponsored posts, create your own products like a course or ebook, and so many other ways.
There are resources out there on monetizing your blog, including the bloggers that I follow.
One way you can find if a company or product that you love has an affiliate program is you can Google (product)+affiliate program.
You can also find companies that have affiliate programs through a platform Share-A-Sale which is completely free. They have thousands of companies that have affiliate programs. You can keep track of your earnings, and get your links there, to link to your blog posts.
There is a well known blogger who blogs about finances. She helps people live on a budget and gives tips on how to save money. Michelle at Making Sense Of Cents has made a killing living off of her blog, make over a million a year.
Now, before you roll your eyes and doubt yourself, this took time. Blogging is not a get rich quick. Like any business it takes time, hard work, dedication, and consistency.
However, like I said there are plenty of ways to make money blogging, she makes majority of her money by being an affiliate for companies. She has created a great course Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing that is very well known about how you can make good money by being an affiliate also.
I have taken it, I have not finished yet, it is very in depth and full of information. She teaches what she did to make a good living just from being an affiliate to companies and products she loves, and recommends.
Another great way to monetize your blog is with Amazon! Everyone loves Amazon and you can find everything on to here. You can learn exactly how to use Amazon to make a good income. Amazon is known to be the best affiliate program to start with because you will get approved right away.
Amazon Strategies is what I used to learn how to use Amazon’s affiliate program and how to make money from it. The teacher Carolina makes a great income just from Amazon. Amazon has a low commission rate, so many people think that it’s hard to make good money from them. But she teaches exactly what she does to make really good money from Amazon.
Email List
When you’re a blogger you start getting followers and it’s a great feeling. It is important to have an email list, these are your subscribers to your blog. Starting an email you can connect with your readers on a more personal base and grow a relationship. It’s fun to get to know your parent followers and know that you are helping them any way you can.
There are a few email providers out there. Using a provider for business is great because you can make your email look however you need to, plus keep track of your subscribers and do so much more with using a provider; Convertkit or Mailerlite. Convetkit is huge and what most bloggers use.
I have heard great things about them. For us as a new blogger we were trying to start this blog on a budget. Mailerlite is free up to 1,000 subscribers then you can pick your plan.
I really like using them. It is super user-friendly, affordable and great customer service. List By Number is a great tool created by Suzi. She talks about how to build your list, and what provider might be best for you.
I have the course but haven’t taken it yet, I’m in the middle of another course right now. But I know it’s jammed packed with info to grow your list and how it can help you earn money. I’m recommending it because I have take multiple courses of her’s and loved all of them. I trust what she has to teach.
Well, this is everything that we have done and used to start our mom blog. I know it looks like a lot. But don’t get overwhelmed or you will never start. Just take one thing at a time.
Blogging for me has been fun and a creative outlet. I am home all the time with my kids and this is a way to communicate with other moms. I look forward to naps and bed time to write, this is my mommy time.
If you are wanting to start your blog, just do it. If you don’t try you never know if it’s for you. If you have any questions feel free to contact us, we would love to help you, or point you in the right direction to help you.