FREEBIE FRIDAY VOLUME 3: THE ULTIMATE 27 Day Blogging Bootcamp

10 minute read.

T he blogging industry is growing and growing everyday! Studies show that blogging/writing your thoughts down can be very therapeutic; and why not help others around the world with the same issues along the way!

So, I’ve seen a lot of post online that say, “Start a Blog in 7 Days…” but to me that isn’t really an ample amount of time if you want the blog to be GREAT!

Blogs take time, and like everything else in the world, it takes money! But if you do it right, it can also make you money!

So jump on into this extensive 27 day boot camp with me as we explore the blogging life! I’ve been told I can be a pretty hard critic, but that’s because I also had a mentor who was hard on me! I want you to be great! I want your blog to pop, and make you money! So let’s get it!

Hardcore Boot camp Day 1. Let’s begin.

Day 1-3: Your Blogging Niche

Now, most people already know what they want to blog about, but I challenge you to truly unpack that idea, and get more specific. What do you LOVE? What is your reality? What can you talk about for the rest of your life? (Because you know blogging can become your full time job, right?) Do you love to cook? Are you a vegan? Are you a mother of a child with special needs? Are you a single mother? But be more specific… are you a single mother with 4 children who just moved out of your hometown to pursue a new career in nursing?

An easier way to do this is to take it back to high school and make a bubble diagram! Check out my diagrams below!

When I made this diagram, I decided to start with what I thought I wanted to highlight the most, and made those the biggest bubble (motherhood, travel, and fashion). The smaller bubbles don’t necessarily mean they aren’t important, that just means I don’t want those to be at the forefront of my blog, jussst yet…

So think long and hard about this. These categories will be what you are known for! So if you like fashion, but you don’t looove fashion and don’t want to explore all aspects of fashion, don’t blog about fashion. This is the first way to get burnt out.

Day 4-9: Your Branding, Your Blog, and Your Name

After you choose what you want to blog about, you should start trying to figure out your branding kit. What colors and fonts do you think will tell your story? How do you want your logo to look? This may or may not change throughout the years, but for now you should design like this is your final logo. Branding your blog is sooo important because that shows how important your blog is to you! Early on, I created a simple branding kit with colors, my new logo from Etsy, and pattern designs to get an idea. Check out my original branding page, and a few professional examples from online.

Your branding kit should include:

1 Logo + 1 Alternative Logo
Specific Fonts
Specific Color Palette
Stationary Designs
1. Letterhead
2. Envelopes
3. Business cards*** DON’T FORGET!!
4. Invoice Templates
5. Email Templates
6. Posters/Flyers

When you’re reaching out to companies to ask for partnership opportunities, if you don’t have an email template, they most likely won’t take you serious! Here is an exclusive photo of my email template.

You: “It’s blurry!”

Me: ” I know it’s blurry, guh! I will write a separate blog post about the content. I just wanted you to see the layout.”

And although my email template is a little over-the-top, you understand my story and get my ideas! I get compliments all the time from top execs. that can’t offer me a partnership right this moment, but compliment my template! You have to tell a story. Make these companies understand why they should partner with you!

Day 10-12: Hosting + Website + Platform + Domain

There are TONS of hosting sites, so you’ll have to do some research on which is best for you. To me, the sites are categorized by how “tech savvy” you are. With my design background, I am very tech savvy, but when it came to my blog, I didn’t want to have to think much about how to post a new blog post. So I use WordPress.com. It was easy to use, had a lot of awesome templates, and was only $100 a YEAR!!!

Here are a few blogging hosting sites for you to check out.

Now I know what you’re thinking…

“What if (like me at first) I don’t have $100 right now, but I really wanna start my blog!”

Well I’m glad you ask, sis! WordPress has a free version! I bought the premium version of WordPress because I wanted my website to have a .com instead of a .wordpress.com. And honestly, I have no idea why I wanted this… I just knew this blog would be big and dope, so I wanted to start with a big bang!

Not to mention the templates are 10x better with the paid version!

And plus it looks more official!

But I had a .wordpress.com for two months before I actually bought a .com.

Day 13-20: Blog Post

For the next 7 days, you should write, write, and you guessed it write! When I started, one of my blogging role models mentioned that starting out you should have at least 12 intriguing blog post! Now I know what you’re thinking… 12?? Yes, 12! Have you ever went on someone’s website and all they have is one puny ass post? Like really…you have one post? Even three? You have three post, and you want to do what with this? Lol.

This step is essential. You want your followers to know that you are sooo serious, you’ve already started writing!

At this rate, you should write about 2 blog post a day.

My technique is as follows:

Write a post rambling about (insert your idea here)
Go back and edit my own crazy writing
Edit on Grammerly
Edit on Hemingway
Do something other than edit for at least one hour (because editing can get annoying….)
Get back to it, and read through at least 10 more times…

Or skip steps 3-5 and hire someone to edit.

Do this 12 times, and now you are at the final stretch of the boot camp!

Day 20-27: Your website layout

I saved this for last because, it’s easy to get lost in scrolling to find a layout. They are all so beautiful, right?! This is where most of the fun happens! Picking your layout is very important because it needs to be able to draw viewers in. So take one whole day, because it will take this long to scroll through the millions of layouts, and choose one.

Just choose one, already!

Check out some of the layouts on WordPress.com below!