Online Business » How to Start a Parenting Blog Blogging GuidesGuides How to Start a Parenting Blog

Everyone wants to make more money and of course, you’re no different. So you’ve decided to start a family and parenting blog because you heard that you could make a quick buck with it.

However, you’re not sure how it can be done. Or perhaps you aren’t seeking to just have a quick side income but want a full-time sustainable income from blogging.

Regardless of what group you belong too, making cash from a parenting and family blog can be done. It isn’t a get rich scheme but if you follow the right steps you can generate enough income to go all in.

You don’t have to keep your parenting experiences and thoughts to yourself. You can turn those random family conversations, concerns and fears into a profitable stream of income.

It’s important to state though that due to the number of junk blogs popping up all over the net, you have to be able to set yours apart.

In order to do this, you need to know how to set your blog up properly and I’m going to show you how. Keep reading if you want to turn your parenting and family experiences into massive income pool!

How to Set Up a Blog the Right Way

Starting your first family & parenting blog isn’t as difficult as you may think. You don’t need top-notch technical skills or some fancy computer science degree.

As a matter of fact, there’d be no need to code, as I’m sure you already have the mortal fear that it’ll come to that.

However, keep in mind that there are two approaches to setting up a blog. You can go the free simplistic route or the paid professional route. It all depends on if you want to blog as a part-time hobby or if you’re in for the long-haul.

If you want to go the professional route and make a full-time income from your blog while generating your desired impact keep reading to see the steps you need to follow.

Step 1: Finding Your Niche

If you’ve been searching the web for blogging tips, you may have come across suggestions such as “write about your passion” or “write about your field of expertise”.

While that’s some solid advice, there’s a whole lot more to it.

The key to creating a blog that stands the test of time and succeeds is locating a profitable niche. Shaping your blog to target a specific group of people puts your blog in the “niche” of those individuals.

Most times, this step gets overlooked. However, it’s one of the most vital aspects of setting up a blog. If you go for a niche that’s over-saturated with top authority blogs you’ll have to deal with way too much competition and your new blog probably won’t stand a chance.

On the other hand, if you go for an irrelevant niche you’ll make little to no impact.

So, what do you do? You need to find a middle ground; a niche that you can break into easily and can be monetized effortlessly.

Choose a Topic That Interests You

First things first, off the top of your head, take a pen and paper and then put down 8 to 10 topics about family and parenting that interest you the most. Next, pick one that resonates with you the most.

Do Some Market Research

This is where it gets interesting. You have to make sure that there’s a huge and profitable market for the topic you picked. This can easily be done with some little market research.

Now, I know you may be thinking, there’s no need for market research, I’ll just start a blog with “parenting” as its niche. Well, that’ll be detrimental to your blogging success.

This is because “parenting” is over-saturated and you’ll be competing with websites and blogs that have stronger authority than yours.

So what do you do? Like I previously stated, find a middle group that targets a specific audience. Instead of picking “parenting” as a niche, you can narrow your choice down to something like “kid crafts”

That isn’t all there is to it though. Picking a niche is just the first step. Now you have to find out what kind of interest your choice gets. To find this out, you’ll have to visit Google Trends.

Google Trends is a tool that’ll help you to see the kind of buzz your chosen niche has been generating over the years.

All you need to do is type in your chosen niche into the search bar and you’ll see a graph like the one below that shows you the interest that niche gets.

By using this information, you can avoid topics that over the years have declined in interest, especially if you intend to start a blog that’ll be relevant for long.

As you can see in the example above, “kid crafts” seems to be an excellent sub-niche to build around. This is due to the stable interest it generates.

Check the Competition

As with any business you need to check out the competition and find out what kind of blogs you will be trying to outrank?

To see what type of competition you’re going to face in your chosen niche. Search for it on Google and see the number of search results that show up for it.

As you can see in the image below, you can get an idea on the number of websites you’ll be competing with and this will help you measure your success and know what you’re going up against.

Family and Parenting Sub Niches

So we’ve seen how to find a niche and how to narrow it down to get the best results. However, if you’re just starting out in the blog sphere you may have little to no ideas on what family and parenting sub-niches to choose from.

Well, I’ve got you covered and have listed out some of the most profitable sub-niches you can pick from.

Keep in mind though, that picking a sub-niche you’re familiar with or have a measurable degree of interest in, may end up being more beneficial than one chosen randomly.

Obviously, to make money as a blogger, you need to create quality and authoritative content and if you lack the needed expertise in the niche you pick, your content may not be beneficial to the reader.

With that said here is a list of some family and parenting sub-niches:

Adult children

House Rules

Childcare

Children and Finances

Step-Parenting

Teens and Romance

Single-Parenting

Family Travel

Pregnancy

Crafts for Kids

Branding

Who exactly are you and why on earth should I take your advice seriously? This is a question that constantly revolves around “branding“. And if you do not have a breathtaking answer to this question, your money making blogging attempts may be futile.

Now, a brand is an entity that over-time has emerged as the symbol of a specific thing, with the public trusting this entity as a provider of quality.

Simply, put a brand is what makes a buyer opt for a product from a particular company irrespective of its price rather than another similar one.

However, a brand doesn’t just have to be a product; your blog can be branded. Your family and parenting blog can be such an authority that web users regard it as the final say in your niche.

This doesn’t just happen though. You can’t just create a blog and fold your hands with the expectation it’ll generate a cult following.

There are certain things you’ll need to do in order to achieve this. Let’s have a look at them.

Stick to a Niche

Your blog has to be synonymous to something.

When a particular term is searched by web users, they need to have at the back of their minds that you’re an authority in that field.

If you build your family and parenting blog around numerous sub-niches, your readers will have no way of putting a tag to what you create.

Hence, your goal when branding your blog is to be known for something on the web. Everything you do, create and introduce into your blog must all be geared towards your sub-niche.

Discover Your Unique Writing Style

When trying to build a brand around your blog, you need to be aware that your writing style possesses a crucial role.

This is because the content you create represents the voice your blog projects, which is the foremost reason web users visit your blog.

Hence, in order to build a powerful branded blog, it’s vital that you discover your unique writing style.

For example, will you write short or long posts? Is your content going to be harsh, brash or soft? Will you be politically correct with your posts or go all out?

These are questions that will assist you to discover the type of voice you want your blog to give out.

Pick a Posting Method for Scheduling and Topics

Once you’ve discovered the kind of writing style you want to use, you need to choose a posting method. How often will you make posts? And at what time can your readers expect to see new posts?

Consistency is something that you cannot separate from branding. No one will take you seriously if you post in a haphazard manner. Branding is all about predictability. Your readers need to know what they can expect from you.

To ensure you become an authority, your blog needs to have a crystal-clear posting method. This doesn’t just relate to your posting schedule but also the kind of topics you cover.

For example, if your blog is centered on family fun crafts for kids, it’d be counterproductive to create posts on teens and romance.

Your visitors come to the blog expecting a particular kind of content and may leave disappointed when they don’t get what was expected.

There’s no ounce of professionalism in that.

Take Your “About Us” Page Seriously

It may seem negligible but it’ll surprise you to know that your visitors will take your “About Us” page seriously. Your readers would want to know all about the person or people behind the blog.

This makes your “About Us” page very crucial to the branding process. It’s your chance to clearly put forward the image you’re trying to portray to the online community.

A great start is to include the vision of your blog as well as a mission statement and its objectives. Basically, ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with the blog and put it in words.

Coming Up with Your Blog Name and Domain Name

When you create a blog you need to give it a name that revolves or resonates with its content. What’s more, you’ll also need a domain name that’s relevant as well.

However, you can’t just pick a random name for either if you intend to get the best out of your blog. There are certain things you need to ensure first.

Choosing Your Blog Name

In order to come up with the best name for your blog, you’ve got to ask yourself questions such as:

Will the content of my blog be centered on its name?

Will I build my brand around this name?

What’s my target audience?

What type of voice will my blog project?

These questions will help you come up with a blog name you won’t regret in the long-run. If you haven’t yet decided on what sub-niche you want to take on, you’ll have to decide one now.

Otherwise, you won’t be able to properly choose. You may end up spending hours choosing a name you won’t blog about.

Choosing Your Domain Name

Your domain name points web users to your specific blog via some alphanumeric characters. For instance, if your blog is kidscraft.com, “kidscraft” is your domain name.

It’s important to state that your domain extension also matters as well. Blogs with unfamiliar domain names like “.xyz” or “.blog” appear like spam blogs. So you should stick to the known “.com” to ensure your brand appears credible and trustworthy.

Furthermore, you should also avoid putting hyphens into your domain name as it also creates a spam blog feel to users.

Lastly, your domain name must cover the kind of topics your blog will handle. This is necessary so you attract the right audience, who know exactly what to expect when they click your blog’s link.

Buy a Professional Family & Parenting Theme

You’re building a business so you must invest in it. Trying to go the cheap route by opting for a free theme will ultimately affect your family and parent blog’s professional functionality.

Basically, you should see a professional family and parenting theme as an investment in your business. This is because they offer certain premium features you won’t get if you use a free theme.

When you get the best fit for your blog, you won’t just get access to a total functional theme but you’ll also get frequent updates, a lot more customization options and even support.

What’s more, your blog will be less prone to get viruses or third party intrusion. And best of all, a professional theme helps in ensuring the uniqueness of your blog’s appearance.

Here are some of the things you should look for when picking a profession family and parent theme:

Compatibility with plugins

Compatibility with all major browsers

Responsiveness, as it will be beneficial to SEO

Compliance with all the latest trends of HTML and CSS as well as the latest versions of WordPress

Customizable

Professional blog themes cost about $50 and above. A great place to get started is theme forest.

Install Essential plugins

There are certain plugins that will aid your productivity as well as boost the overall function of your blog. To install these essential plugins, all you need to do is navigate to the dashboard on your WordPress.

Next, click on “plugins” on the left column and then click add new. This will open up a huge repository of plugins inclusive of premium ones.

Some of the best plugins you’ll need are:

Yoast SEO: This plugin makes carrying out search engine optimization on your blog as easy as it gets. It offers SEO signals, readability signals and even permits you to add SEO meta-description to your blog. Furthermore, it also lets you create SEO titles for your blog as well. And best of all its extremely easy to use.

Social Warfare: Social Warfare is a plugin that permits you to share your content across various social media mediums.

Google Analytics: This plugin created by Monster Insights lets you analyze the behavior of your readers. You can know who they are and what they find the most intriguing. It will let you know the kind of content you need to be creating more of due to previous engagement levels.

Content Creation / What to Write About

Creating content for your family and parenting blog is the most important aspects of your blogging journey. This is because the volume of traffic your blog gets is dependent on the quality of the content you create.

Family and parenting blog content should be fun and educational, you can share your personal experiences and viewpoint as a parent and you can also get ideas about topics to write on from content-generating sites.

It is, however, important to avoid creating content on controversial subjects like religion or politics which may be a turn off to some readers.

Asides controversial subjects, any other kind of content that is relevant to your sub-niche is okay.

Ensure that you create content that is valuable to the target audience, let every content you create add value to your audience.

Don’t just churn out content for the fun of it. Thousands of parents are online on a daily basis seeking answers to questions about parenting, let your content answers some of these questions.

The value your target audience derives from your content will determine whether or not it will be read and shared online.

An easy way to ensure that the quality of your content is not compromised is by having a content plan you adhere to.

A content plan enables you to map out topics that you will be publishing. The plan can be for a month or months. Having a content plan will ease you the stress of constantly worrying about what next to blog about.

It is often difficult for newbies to publish content that people read and share, this is because they do not create content the right way. The trick to getting many people to read and share your content is to publish content that solves the needs of your target audience.

To get an idea of the questions or problems that are prevalent in your sub-niche, you can use Google search suggestion. This will let you see topics that target audience is interested in like the example below on kid crafts.

Having good ideas and topics on your blog isn’t a guarantee for increased organic traffic on your blog. The ranking of your blog will be mainly determined by how much your blog satisfies web user’s queries.

Another way to do this is to pick a popular keyword, and then build content around it.

You can also create content around other types of keywords that are related to the popular keyword.

You may be thinking, “How do I find keywords?” Easy, there are free resources available that will help you find popular keywords.

A good example is the Keyword Everywhere. It is a chrome extension that enables you to see the search volume and competition for keywords.

You can also use this tool to try different keywords combination that will give you good search volume. For starters, anything between 500 to 1000 searches per month is okay.

Always remember that when it comes to blogging, you have to be active. Ensure that you publish posts often at least once a week and as you gain popularity, you can begin to publish daily.

Updating of previous posts is also important; this will keep your blog relevant and enable search engines to rank high.

If there have been new discoveries about a topic you once wrote on, go back to the posts and update the information.

Photography

Photography is a non-negotiable part of your blogging life that you will need to pay serious attention to.

This is because people are moved by pictures and the quality of the pictures you use will determine how well your visitors react to your content.

Some bloggers can get away with not including pictures in their posts, but definitely not a family and parenting blogger.

A family and parenting blog needs the right dose of pictures to pass across the message of the content to the reader especially if your content revolves around telling stories of the day-to-day experiences of parents.

Having pretty photographs with eye catchy titles will definitely endear people to your site. It is advisable to use your own pictures rather than downloading stock pictures especially when the content revolves around a stage of parenting that you are currently at.

For example, if you have toddlers that litter their toys everywhere and you are writing a post about “How to have toddlers and still have a tidy home” you can take pictures from your living room to communicate whatever message you are trying to pass across.

What this does is that when other parents visit your blog and see these pictures that tell the same story like theirs, they feel confident in your content because they know you are writing from a practitioner’s point of view and not just spewing unrealistic theories.

If you will be taking the pictures you post on your blog by yourself, you need a very good camera. If you don’t have one yet, you can look for good quality cameras online.

Here are some few photography tips to bear in mind when taking pictures for your blog:

Be spontaneous

Spontaneous pictures are usually candid. Planning a photo shoot often spoils the fun and doesn’t really communicate the desired message. Take pictures immediately you see something, you think will be perfect for your blog is much better.

If you are creating a post about a product you have used, you can take pictures of you using them; this is more powerful than taking the picture of the product stacked in your cupboard.

Have a Gallery

Create a special gallery for the pictures you will be using for your blog and group them.

If you decide to wait till when you are about to publish a post before hurriedly searching for the perfect picture, you will fail.

Creating a gallery and grouping pictures into it will save you a lot of time and also enable you to pick the perfect picture for each post.

Pay Attention to Lighting

Natural light is always the best when you are trying to take a picture. It enhances the quality of the picture.

Ensure that there is adequate lighting before taking any picture. Dark and blurry pictures don’t sell.

Change Shooting Locations

Taking pictures from the same location over and over again can become boring to your users. Spice things up by taking pictures in different locations.

It can be on the street, in the park, at school, in the shower, while camping, while kayaking or any other location.

Pay Attention to Details

Focusing on the right detail can help you pass across your message faster. You won’t have to bother about explaining a lot before your audience can understand you.

Use Editing Programs

The easiest way to ensure that the style of your photos remains consistent is by using editing software. You can use software like Lightroom or Photoshop to edit your pictures.

Finally, it is important to note that images need to be well optimized for SEO and performance.

Uploading the full resolution pictures to your blog will make the pictures to load slowly. You can use optimization tools to optimize your pictures to fit your blog. This is one of the things Google considers when indexing pictures that will be displayed on Google images.

Promoting Your Blog

You will need to promote your blog to be able to generate enough traffic to your family and parenting blog. There are numerous blogs in your niche, and as a newbie, it may be hard to get enough traffic.

The best way to attract attention to your blog is by promoting your blog.

The best way to promote your blog is by taking advantage of the social media platforms available.

There are billions of active users on social media and you can promote your blog to a great percentage of these active users by doing any of the following:

Place Targeted Ads

Targeted ads are displayed to people who have shown interest in a particular kind of content. Targeted ads will enable you to advertise to people who already care about what you have to offer; therefore they’ll naturally want to visit your website.

Be Active on Multiple Social Media Platforms

Being active on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter will enable you to promote your blog on all these platforms and build a following.

Get into the Comment Section

If you want to increase the awareness of your blog, you need to get into the comment section and interact very often with your audience.

If you make a post on social media and someone makes a comment or ask a question, you can answer the question in the comment section. You can also have live video sessions where you interact with your readers.

Doing this will endear them to your blog and also make them refer people to your blog.

Have a LinkedIn Account

Having a LinkedIn account gives you free publicity and also lets professionals in your field know about the existence of your blog.

If they visit your blog and like what they see, they may want to feature you on their blog.

Link Readers to Your Blog from Your Social Media Posts

You can summarize your blog post to catchy points and then post on your social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, then include the link to your blog where the whole article is published.

This will make a lot of your social media followers to visit your blog.

Don’t forget to include the link to your blog in the bio of every of your social media accounts.

Never get tired of promoting your blog.

As far as blogging is concerned, you need to be always on the move to stay relevant. Make sure to keep your ears down for new promotional ideas and platforms that can take the publicity of your blog to the next level.

Parenting Blog Monetization

All the long hours you spend blogging and posting on social media can’t just be for fun.

If you are spending your precious hour on a daily basis trying to provide an answer to questions of other parents, it is only right that you get paid for it.

This is why it is important to monetize your blog. Monetizing your blog will enable you to stay afloat financially while you are doing what you love, especially if you are a stay at home parent.

Don’t let anyone discourage you by saying that there is no way to make a sizable income from blogging. That’s a lie.

However, you don’t just start earning automatically, there are certain things you need to do and the first is checking that your blog is getting enough traffic on a daily basis.

To check your blog’s traffic you need to install Google Analytics to your blog.

This will help you determine the volume of traffic you get on your blog. Sponsors and advertisers usually ask for analytics figures before they do business with you.

Let’s proceed to examine how you can make money with a lifestyle and parenting blog.

Advertising

Advertising is the simplest way that you can monetize your blog. You can make use of contextual advertising or you can use private advertisements. Private ads are better when you have a specific audience while contextual ads also known as targeted ads are great if you have a lot of organic traffic.

Contextual ads usually appear as banner and text ads on websites, whenever a reader sees the ad and clicks on it, you make money. Contextual ads are made by ad networks like Google Adsense, Infolinks, and Yahoo’s Media.net.

All you need to do is to sign up for an account on any of the ad networks and follow a simple procedure.

The amount of money you earn from contextual ads is not within your control. Your earning is dependent on how much the ad network is willing to pay per click. The earnings differ based on the niche.

Private ads, on the other hand, are within your control especially if your traffic is not huge but is highly refined. You can place ads for companies that have goods and services that are related to what you are blogging about.

These brands may want to place adverts for their product on your blog. You will, in turn, charge them for having their ads run on your website.

A good way to determine how much you will charge for the ads is dividing the number of daily page views your blog gets by10. If for example, your blog gets about 1000 page views daily, you can charge the brand $100 monthly.

As a newbie, it may not be easy to find companies that are willing to advertise on your blog. But if they’re not coming to you, you can go to them.

You can make a list of companies that have products or services that are relevant to your niche, send them a pitch and woo them into advertising on your blog.

Sponsored Posts

This entails writing reviews, testimonials, descriptive content and brand mention for other brands or companies that are relevant to your blog’s niche.

You will definitely get paid for marketing these brands to your audience.

When writing a sponsored post, make sure that it is truthful; your personal thoughts should not be swept under the carpet because you are being paid.

Don’t project any brand or product to be the way it isn’t, if you do this, your audience will lose faith in you and doubt the credibility of the information on your blog.

In determining the exact amount to charge for a sponsored post, you need to consider all the effort you put into the post and how long it will take you to promote the post.

You can also make sponsored posts in exchange for a product.

There are many sponsored post companies that enable you to view sponsored posts opportunities, examples of such companies are: SITS Girls, One2One Network, Pollinate Media, etc.

Affiliate Marketing

This is another easy and lucrative way of monetizing your blog. All you need to do is to market a product that is relevant to your blog’s niche and you will get paid.

Affiliate marketing is pretty simple; all you need to do is to apply to different affiliate programs.

Once you re accepted, log in to the website of the affiliate company and copy the link of the product or brand you want to market.

When you make your post about the product or brand on your blog, you will insert the link so that your audience can visit the site through the link on your blog and make a purchase.

Whenever someone makes a purchase through the link on your blog, you will earn a commission.

Top companies like Amazon and eBay have affiliate programs.

You can pick a parenting book from Amazon and market it on your blog, you can do the same for products that your target audience are interested in, for example, baby seats, baby rocking chair, children toys, etc.

Sell a Product

An info-product is one of the easiest things you can sell as a family and parenting blogger. You can create e-books, webinar series or courses on your blog.

This shouldn’t be hard for you to do since you have a lot of content. All you need to do is to repackage the content into a form that your audience will be willing to buy.

Your blog audience is the customer base you need to purchase your product. You can also market your info-product on your other social media handles.

It is also important to note that, as far as monetizing your blog is concerned, you can use all the available means at the same time.

There are no restrictions on how many avenues you can use to generate money.

Important Things to Consider

Owning a family and parenting blog can be quite tasking and there is a tendency to get absorbed in it.

But no matter how engrossed you are, make sure you consider the following things.

Your Focus Should Always be on Your Audience

You are writing for a particular group of people so you need to constantly think about your target audience.

It is okay to share your personal experiences while blogging, but make sure that the information you are passing across is relevant to the audience.

Your target audience or readers need to know that you had them in mind when you were creating the post. This will help them to become loyal to your blog.

Try as much as possible to respond to the comment to of your blog visitors. Also, be open to criticism and take into consideration the feedback of your readers. You can also make posts based on the request of one or two of your followers.

Take a Stand and Stand Out

As far as family and parenting blog is concerned, you need to stand out from the rest of the pack every once in a while.

Don’t be ashamed to share your opinion or methods that have worked for you even if you are the only one online who seems to think so. This is because there are some people out there doing the same thing and wondering if they are the only odd parent.

But speaking up on your blog will give them hope that they’re not alone.

There are millions of parent’s blogging; you need to have a unique voice in order to be able to stand out. Don’t just get lost in the crowd. If you think a product is dangerous based on personal experience, feel free to let your audience know.

Don’t be too Rigid

You can spice up things by adding a little variety to your content. You can incorporate your life outside parenting into your blog posts.

If you have talents, hobbies or work experiences, you can talk about how those things have influenced your particular parenting sub-niche.

Ensure your blog is Easy to Navigate

The user experience of your blog is very important. If your content is great but your blog is not easy to navigate, a great percentage of your traffic will bounce.

Having a big scroll mat or ads or pop-ups on your blog can be a turn off to users.

The speed of your blog should also be appropriate. It should not be too slow.

Let the layout of your blog be inviting and appealing to the visitor.

Change is Constant

You need to learn to easily adapt to new things. New tools and applications are being released on a regular basis, and to state afloat you need to get conversant with these new tools.

Always make out the time on a daily basis to search for new trends or tools online.

When you stumble on anything new, take out time to study it and learn.

The world of blogging is constantly evolving and to stay relevant you need to learn how to adapt to the changes being made.

Tips, Tricks & Resources

As a lifestyle and parenting blogger, you will need all the help you can get to ease a lot of the work you have to do.

Below are some tips and tricks for you:

Show off your Expertise at Every Opportunity

Talk about your successes in parenting and share your personal tips with other parents. Showcasing your expertise will increase your blog’s authority.

Display Content by Date and Relevance

Displaying content by date and placing the current content on the front page, will give off an air of organization to visitors. You can also group your blog posts into sections and you can rank them by relevance to each section.

Take a Picture

If you don’t have a picture of you in your blog, you need to put up one. Having a picture published endears the readers to you and makes them feel like they know you. But if there is no picture they will find it difficult to let their guard down.

Boost or Promote your Tweets and Posts

Many new bloggers are not aware of the fact that you can pay to hard your tweets and Facebook posts promoted for you. You don’t need to stress yourself, looking for how to make your post reach a lot of people. For a little token, you will be relieved of the stress.

Create a Member Section

Having a member section on your blog is a trick that not many family and parenting bloggers use. By having a member section on your blog, you can give your readers a sense of belonging.

Publish a Poll

You can get ideas of topics to create content on, by publishing a poll. You can ask people to suggest topics they want you to publish posts on. This is a very simple trick that will help you know what your audience wants from you.

If you come across a very good comment in the comment section of your post, you can give the commenter the privilege of writing a full post that you will publish.

This will spur the interest of other users and increase their interaction with your blog.

Now Take Action!

You now have all it takes to start a kick-ass family and parenting blog, so get blogging and make some heavy cash!