January has been a really eventful month for me. I decided to create my blog, which you have obviously stumbled upon if you're reading this. After my trip to Bali in November and December, I have become increasingly motivated to leave my home country of Canada to become an expat in Asia. The passion I have for Bali and the motivation to learn how to make my eventually move is what inspired the creation of Chelsea in Bali. I recently heard a piece of advice on my favourite podcast (Travel Like a Boss), that was something along the lines of this:
The best time to start teaching is as soon as you start learning, because people want to see your journey and progression
And here we are.
Here are the steps that I took this month to create my brand, blog, and start building traffic.
Pick a niche. My niche is a combination of my love for travel, Bali, beauty, and the digital nomad lifestyle. I know that there is an abundance of girls (and guys!) out there who share the same interests, and would be interested in a blog centred around these topics.
Create a brand and logo. Personal branding is huge! You want to market yourself as the go-to resource for readers in your niche. I love graphic design, and I've been teaching myself a lot on the go throughout the creation of my brand. To create my logo, I downloaded the free trail of Adobe Illustrator. It was simple enough for me to use for what I had to do, and I would definitely consider purchasing it if need be for future design work or for my blog.
Get writing! It's funny, because even though my blog has only been launched for a month, I can already look back and see the disparity in the quality of my writing and posts between now and my first posts. It takes a little while to get used to writing a blog style post, and getting in the groove and finding the voice for your brand. My first few posts didn't even have intro paragraphs... This step is also greatly helped by reading other bloggers in your similar niche. Start writing posts that you are passionate about that fall generally into your niche. Eventually you will develop curated topics with these posts that you will be able to format the website around.
Designing your blog (and redesigning). My blog is powered by Wix, and I have been really impressed with the user friendly format. I have learned SO much about basic web design in one moth, and I am very excited to continue to grow in this manner. My site has already changed at least 5 times, and looks exponentially better than when it first launched.
Market yourself and start getting traffic. There are a number of ways you can market yourself for free online. I have seen the most success with Pinterest, as well as being active within forums in my niche. If you simply Google your niche and "forums," there are likely TONS of results that will pop up. Also try finding subreddits in Reddit related to your niche. Just do not be spammy. And don't directly promote yourself too much. A better approach is to answer questions in the forum; leaving a link to your blog or a related post at the end of your answer, allowing the reader the option to click through and check it out. Pinterest on the other hand is a super useful tool, particularly if you become active on group boards. There are tons of group board that you can find within every niche, and you usually just have to send a quick email to the owner of the board and ask them to include you as a contributer.
Up your graphics game (with Canva). Canva is a wonderful, unbelievably free and user friendly graphic design website. It is great for creating beautiful text overlay on an image to use on your blog or on Pinterest. The best (and only) way to get blog traffic to your blog is through beautiful pins, and Canva helps you do a great job of it. I have such a fun time being creative with Canva that I wonder if I'd be suited to a graphic design focused career. Hmmm.
Learn SEO. This one comes last because this is the biggest headache I've had with my blog so far. What I have learned, is that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and functions through the use of keywords that you implement both on the backend and front end of your blog, to make it pop up in peoples searches depending on which key phrases you choose. It is important to make sure that the phrases that you choose are highly relevant to your niche, that you will use often in both your posts and homepage, etc. Of your blog. You also want to make sure the keywords are highly specific, as the more general keywords have highly saturated results in search engines. Some of my keywords are: Bali travel blog, Bali digital nomad, and Bali solo female travel. If your key phrase is super specific, your webpage has a higher chance of popping up when someone types the phrase into a search engine. There are tons of websites you can use to research keyword phrases and their popularity, like SEM Rush. You can have the basic site for free, but it seems to get any real value out of it you have to spring for the paid version- which I'm not totally sold on yet.
Become a part of the community. A huge part of getting your name out there in your niche is to make yourself known within the blogging community. This happens through being an active reader and commenter of blogs you love, as well as reaching out to fellow bloggers of a similar size for collaboration opportunities. I was super flattered to have been reached out to by Take Off Set Sail, and I have already had one of my posts featured on their site, here. I'm also currently working on collaborations/ guest posts with two other travel bloggers in my niche, which I am super jazzed about. It's so nice that you can create a whole new network of friends through this virtual community!
Aside from the creation of my brand and blog, striving to become location independent and learning about digital nomadism is on my mind, as always. Looking online for remote jobs, and trying to develop my writing and design skills for freelance work have become a huge part of my life. I've been struggling to create a profile on Upwork to start getting my name and work on the market, however it seems that they aren't accepting new freelancers at the moment. Boo! What I love about this blog is that it not only provides a huge creative outlet for me, which I so desperately crave, but it also allows me to practice and develop real world marketable skills. I'm learning about SEO, graphics, and Pinterest marketing for my own brand today, but if I continue to develop my skills, who knows what opportunities I might come across in the future!
If you're considering starting your own blog, comment or message me. I've had a blast so far and I'd love to help you or chat. I will admit that if you love it like I do, it becomes a borderline addiction and takes up all your free time! Although, I don't know what could be more valuable than building your own brand and developing useful skills.
Love as always,
C
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