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When I launched my blog last year, I was lucky enough to have a good idea of what I needed to do to give my little corner of the internet a chance of success. After spending three years at university studying journalism, I’d been lucky enough to learn all the ins and outs of launching and making a success of a blog. (I’m not claiming to know everything because I don’t, but I do have a good insight into what’s needed for blogging success.)

 

A mistake that a lot of new bloggers make is rushing the startup process. If you are serious about becoming a blogger and want to make a success of it, you can’t rush things. You need to take the time to plan your blog out properly and ensure that you know how to get it off of the ground. Think of your blog as a business – because essentially that’s what it is – you wouldn’t start a business without preparing properly, would you? So, it’s important to put the same time and effort into planning your blog launch.  

 

To give your site every chance of success here’s what I would recommend you do before launching it.

 

Get your site professionally designed

 

When it comes to website development, it’s far too easy to think that you can create your own blog site. I mean, you could create your own site – there are lots of free tools to help you, but it will never be as good as professionally designed sites. If you want your blog to stand out for all the right reasons, invest in it and have the site professionally designed. (Honestly, it’s a worthwhile investment to make.)

 

Prepare some stock posts

 

Before I launched my site, I put together around ten stock posts – aka filler posts, to get the site started. The last thing you want is someone visiting your site only to see one or two posts – this makes you look like an amateur and devalues your site. So, it’s a good idea to write up and post a selection of posts before launching your site, so it looks older than it is.

 

Create a social media plan

 

The key to success when it comes to blogging is, to an extent, social media and how you use it. If you want to create a name for yourself and your site, you need to put together a social media plan to effectively market your site and your posts. If you’re not sure how to do this, there are plenty of free ebooks that you can read, as well as various examples online that you could use to help you.

 

Perfect your photography skills

 

If you plan on taking your own photos for your blog – this is a must if you want to make it big – it’s important to perfect your photography skills. What it’s important to remember is that first impressions count, so when it comes to your photographs, you need to get them right. To improve your photography skills, study the photos that other bloggers create and read up on how they go about doing so. That’s what I did, and I found that it really helped. I’ve never had any professional photography training, but I can snap some fairly good photos of products I’m reviewing. Learning to take professional-looking photographs is easier than you would think, it’s just a case of getting lots of practice.

 

There you have it, everything that you need to do before launching your blog, to ensure that it’s a success.