People have been blogging since the mid-90s, so it’s not exactly a cutting-edge medium for creating and monetizing content, especially when you compare it to things like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms. But if you’re a wordsmith at heart and want to give blogging a try, I’ve selected ten tips to help you get your passion project off the ground. Now, if you’re looking to monetize your blog, that’s a whole other game, so for now I’m just going to focus on getting your blog up and running in order to attract enough readers to (hopefully) justify any ads you might want to allow on your site. This is advice for someone who wants to share their work, their passion, and their ideas first and foremost, and blogging remains a great way to do that and reach potentially interested readers.

1. Follow Your Passion: The biggest thing, and most obvious, is to focus on a topic that you’re passionate about. Blogging takes a certain amount of dedication and you don’t want to run out of steam in six months. So if you’re notorious for not keeping up with journals and diaries and that’s how you plan to use this, you might not get far. And there’s no point in writing about something you’re not deeply interested in just because it might attract an audience. You’ll be bored in no time. Pick a passion—politics, book reviews, raising kids, poetry, travel, real estate, fashion, whatever—and focus on that.

2. Stock Up On Posts: Begin by outlining as many blog posts as you can. Let’s say you want to write reviews of novels. Start by listing the books you’ll want to review, and begin writing your posts one by one. As you write them, save them up for a while before you post them anywhere. Get a healthy stockpile of a dozen or so before you start. This way you’ll always be ahead of the game, and you can take vacations or a week off from writing and still have something to post for your readers.

3. Start Strong: When you do begin to post your blogs online, go ahead and post a few of them at once. This will give brand new readers enough content right out of the gate to show them it’s worth coming back later. Nothing is lonelier than a blog with one post, so start strong and make sure yours looks robust right away.

4. Stick to a Routine: As you continue to post, make sure you do so on a regular basis so readers will get used to seeing new content from you. This will get them into a rhythm of coming back to check up on your blog. However, if you post too frequently, you might run out of content, and if you post too irregularly, you might lose readers because there’s never anything new to read. I started my Bookshop Hunter blog by posting weekly, then twice a month, and now I post monthly. The pandemic slowed me down a little since it was harder to travel and visit bookshops to review, but monthly should still be okay if you’re posting “evergreen” content, or information that ages well and isn’t topical or immediate. But don’t go any longer than that or readers will really drop off fast. Weekly or twice-a-week can be ideal for many blogs.

5. Add Variety: Mix up the types of posts you use to explore your passion. Some will be written out like a brief essay, as per usual, but others could be photo heavy, or feature a Top 10, or include lists, or interviews, or even guest posts by other writers, which can help a lot by allowing cross-promotion. I usually mix my bookshop reviews with interviews of other writers about their favorite shops. It gives them a chance to promote their books, it allows me to highlight shops I might never get to visit, and we both support the bookselling community.

6. Aim for the Right Length: Blog posts should ideally be a few paragraphs long, but if you’re still typing pages and pages later…you might be overdoing it. Try breaking that post up or cull the ideas down to something more digestible for online reading. A quick post that’s just a paragraph or so is fine now and then if you’re announcing something brief, but try to give readers a little more than that for usual posts.

7. Get It Right Before Posting: Make sure your posts are written in your own conversational tone, giving readers a chance to get to know your personality. Something too formal and stiff might tire readers. Go ahead and write like you talk, but also make sure your posts are clear, professional, and edited before posting. Ideally, write a post and then proofread it at least once the next day. Read it aloud if you can. That’s the best way to catch typos, grammatical mistakes, and get a good word flow/rhythm. Give readers something you’ll be proud to post.

8. Be Honest With Your Readers, Your Subject, and Yourself: If you’re not being honest in your writing, then you’re not being honest with yourself. To do that, you have to strike the appropriate balance between being honest with your subject, and with your readers. This can be tricky sometimes. My blog is about bookshops, and I’m aware that my reviews could have a positive or negative effect on how people perceive these shops online, so it is important for me to try to keep my reviews professional and portray my experiences as truthfully as possible. I try to focus on what a shop offers, rather than what it lacks, and I try to keep my posts positive even if my experience is underwhelming. But I have a responsibility to be honest with readers too, no matter my experience. That balance can be delicate, but if I can do that without feeling like I’m being insincere one way or the other, then I’m satisfied. No matter what you write, I suggest you aim for the same.

9. Pick Your Platform: Now, perhaps the second biggest question is WHERE should you post your blog. There are a lot of different blogging sites online, some free, some you pay for, and it all depends on what you’re looking to get out of it. If you’re just posting for fun and you’re not looking to grow the blog into anything bigger, you can get simple, free pages at Blogspot, Wordpress, tumblr, Wix, Weebly, and many other sites, but your web address will include these sites in the name (example: www.bettyblogsaboutbooks.blogspot.com...that’s a lot of b’s!). The design functionality varies from site to site, with some looking quite professional and others minimal and plain. But if you truly want a professional blog/website, I recommend paying for a website somewhere like SquareSpace (which is what I use), or you can also pay for more features and a unique website name at the other sites I mentioned. I just happen to like the designs and functionality of SquareSpace, and it’s worth the money to me for a clean, crisp site that I can adjust over time with just a few clicks. But most sites will let you play around for free before you commit, so do your research and find something that works best for you.

10. Publicize and Expand: Finally, if you start getting traction and a lot of readers, I recommend tying your blog to other platforms and mediums. Make a new dedicated profile on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, or TikTok (if you’re into that kind of thing) specifically for your site. It’s a great way to do PR, draw in new readers, and cross-promote your projects. I’ve only integrated my blog posts into my personal social media accounts, rather than specific accounts for the blog, and that’s for two reasons. One, it can be a lot of work to manage all these accounts and you’ll be spending extra time making sure you’re updating all your feeds and posting across platforms. Which isn’t so bad, but…Two, I’m already online way too much, and I’m only really doing this as a passion project rather than building a monetized brand, so I’m okay with skipping this step, but you may want to go for it. There are a lot of articles online to help with that, so Google away and aim high! Good luck!