I have now been through this a few times already with my websites. It is great that you finally decided to start a mom blog and it is important to utilize this enthusiasm to get started but, you also need to do some preparation beforehand. Having a plan will make things easier in the future and if you need to make changes at a later point in time, it will be more simple if you had a plan in the first place.

Business or personal

Are you starting a blog for fun or to express yourself? Sometimes writing can be therapeutic for many people. Sometimes the aim is both: to make money from your blog while enjoying the process.

Why this is important:

Logistics are important when you are starting a project like this. Let’s be realistic, if you want to earn money from your blog you will need to treat it as a part time job and put in some effort. In terms of logistics, for example, you will need to buy a domain name rather than rely on free website makers. The topics you write about are also important. If you plan to earn money, you can’t afford to ONLY blog about your personal life (although if planned appropriately this can be a good source of income). Things like thoughts, poems, rankings, etc are not going to earn you much.

A general theme:

There are thousands, if not millions of mom bloggers, making it a pretty competitive market. Have a look at some of the other blogs and try to notice if each of them have a general theme or themes. A theme is called a niche in the blogging world by the way. For example: blogs about housekeeping, traveling with kids or maybe recipes (this last one is extremely competitive!). You don't usually stick to one theme only, but it helps to have something in the back of your mind, your blog will need to be known for something to make it stand out.

Obviously, this is not set in stone, some people succeed without sticking to any apparent theme. For example a lot of moms or families just blog about day to day life and record their life and put it on YouTube. You could argue this in itself is a theme. It is more similar to models or influencer blogging about things they use and recommending products.

Can you make money? How?

Ok, you found topics that you are passionate about. Is there potential to make money out of it? Try to learn about possible ways to monetize your website. Are you going to serve ads, share affiliate links, or sell an online service? Maybe, you plan to do all of them? The important thing is to learn about the available options and gain some knowledge before you start, so you can tailor your blog and design it so it can be monetized.

Explore the market

Once you have an idea what your theme or topic will be, check out your competition. See what others are already doing, what do you think is working and what is not? How could you stand out? Is there a gap that you can fill? It is ok if you find some of your content similar to others in the beginning, you start to develop your own style and brand with time.

A writing plan

The theme you choose should be something you are able to blog about or at least you know how to research. You don't want to feel stuck after a few weeks. People say you should pick something you can write 100 articles on and decide on 10-20 of these articles before even creating your website. Try to even start writing before you create your blog to get your creative juices flowing.

After the planning comes the actual process of picking the domain name, creating the website and working on it. Let me know how the planning is going and feel free to post any questions you have.

Thank you!