How to get organic traffic on your first month as a blogger.

Table of Contents

• How to create a blog from scratch.
• How to get more blog views
• How to rank higher on Google
• How to get 1k+ views on your first month blogging

I am a marketer by training and a healthy living enthusiast by heart. I wanted to create a space to blend my two passions and live with purpose, blogging made a lot of sense.

I decided to take weekly notes as to track my progress, hopefully one day someone else can use my notes on as a guideline. Here is a step by step guide on what I did during my first weeks as a blogger, and how I managed to get 1K views of organic traffic on my first month as a blogger without spending any money. Here is my journey as a new blogger:

Week 1: How to create a blog from scratch.

I. Choosing a blog hosting platform

There are so many options for blogging out there, that it could be overwhelming to come up with your top 3 choices if you are a beginner. According to Forbes the top 3 blogging platforms of 2024 are: Wix, Bluehost and Squarespace.

But I was familiar with WordPress due to my background in marketing, so I decided to go with WordPress. My next decision was to choose between WordPress.com or WordPress.org.

I was looking for some type of plug and play convenience and minimal involvement with technical aspects. Therefore, WordPress.org was not suitable as it has the complexity of separate hosting and more technical involvement from my end. So I went with WordPress.com.

II. Creating the blog

I followed WordPress easy sign up process, step by step, as follows:

1. Give your site a name

I am highly creative but I was strategic from day one. I had some name ideas that were really cool, some were less punchy but more effective in terms of SEO.

I recommend you do the same, if you have many ideas go with the most SEO effective name. Give it some time now, it will pay off in the future.

Consider blog names that include the right keywords, the ones that match your topic and positively impact your future SEO rankings. Use Google and other platforms to brainstorm.

At the same time, be mindful of highly competitive topics such as your money, your life topics a.k.a YMYL. Which includes all finance and health vertical, think about the big pockets of financial institutions, banks, insurance, pharma, etc.

2. Update your site’s design

I selected a free design from the available list. To me less is more, I had decided that my blog was going to have a clean look and feel, to match my theme of healthy living and living with purpose.

I highly recommend considering your visual identity before you rush into picking any design. What do you want your blog to look like ? What colors? Does the template align with your theme ?

3. Update your email address

Before signing up for a WordPress.com account, I opened a new email account for my blog. I thought it was important to give the blog its own identity from day 1. Then, I signed up for WordPress.com using my new email address

4. Install the Mobil app

Just do it. And then go to your site general settings and update the key info, including the site title and tagline. Since you already spent some time on the title, focus on your tagline and meta tag.

The tagline and meta tag are part of the key info that will help search engines understand what your website is about, you have to provide meta-information that helps them categorize your content. So be strategic. Include keywords in your meta description. Think about famous taglines: “ the ultimate driving machine” “because you’re with it” use Google search, and start with something, you can always come back to modify as your blog content evolves.

5. Enable post sharing

Future proof your Search engine optimization from day one, be proactive with external factors that are easy to manage and influence your search engine rankings.

6. Launch your site

When I was ready, I selected my domain. Again, you should spend some time considering your options. Do not rush these initial steps. Otherwise you will have to work harder in the future.

Then, I selected a free plan, followed the steps to create the account, and just like that my blog was born:
https://naturalactivezen.Wordpress.com

My free account gave me a site with a WordPress.com extension. I was ok with this to start. I suggest to take the free plan as a beginner, it has everything you need on your first weeks, experiment and build it from there, there is always the option to upgrade and use dollars when it makes sense. For now just focus on the next step, writing good content.

III. Blogging for the very first time

I had a clear purpose for my blog. I knew what I wanted to write and I had a content structure in my head, so I followed my plan. In addition, I think that done is better than perfect, so I highly encourage you to start writing as soon as you can.

1. Writing your first post

If you made it this far is because you have a good reason; you have something to say, just do it, start writing. do not worry about anything else for the moment. Let your thoughts flow.

Finish your last draft and when you think it is ready to share, consider the following, how would the reader react to my post? What does the post make people think, feel, and do? If you are happy after interiorizing these questions, you are ready to move on to the next step. Share it!

Pay attention to views, likes, comments, during this first week and learn from it. Question everything, how can you improve the post? Does it need additional edits? Etc.

Week 2: how to get more blog views

Continue writing more posts but now, when you are done writing edit as usual, and before posting anything, double check the following SEO tips. And apply it to older posts and new post for better SEO rankings during your first weeks.

1.Titles

Image	Dimensions. W x H	Aspect Ratio
Blog Image	1200 x 630 pixels	3:2
Logo (Rectangle)	250 x 100 pixels	2:3
Logo (Square)	100 x 100 pixels	1:1

4. Word count

In terms of SEO and as a marketer, my opinion is that the ideal blog length is between 600 and 2,400 words, and it is mostly influenced by the writer’s skills on the subject matter.

Therefore, each of your blog posts should have a minimum of 600 words. If you are more experienced, aim for at least 1,200 words, and if you are elite 2,400 words.

If you are a rock star and can go above the 2,400 words, it is also more than ok, but perhaps you can be more strategic by splitting the post in 2 to have people come back for more.

Week 3: How to rank higher on Google

Content

My goal during that time was to get close to 20k words to start building my relevance and get a better idea of my SEO ranking, strategy and next steps to upgrade my WordPress plan.

Stay focused on generating great content, the more you write the better, as long as it is good quality in terms of engagement and SEO. make sure you follow all the steps from week 1.

Internal linking

During my first week I was really motivated, and posted 5 articles. Since I had multiple posts available, I started linking my internal posts when it made sense. And most of the time it does, as all of my topics are consistent with my blog’s purpose. For example, I had a post about fitness, and I linked it to my aromatherapy post by suggesting the use of essential oils after a workout for recovery. Use anchor text.

Social media sharing

This step is really important, make sure you link your social media to your blog as to start building your relevance. One of the key steps for better SEO rankings, is to share your content to improve your external links rating.

Link building strategy

In addition start crafting your link building strategy, think about where do you want to focus to maximize your efforts during this week. Some people find more success on Pinterest, some on instagram, etc. You do you…

Start linking to high-authority websites, think about what applies to your case. I listed my blog on all the free tools that made sense from the top of my head: Google console, blogarama, wiki business, and HARO.
You can do the same, list it at least on 3 free websites and continue building it from there.

Site inspecting

I only Used free tools to understand how my page was performing, and to fine tune as needed. It was still very early so I had plenty of insights just from those free tools.

I suggest you do the same, use what’s free for now, take advantage of the very useful tools and learn as you go. These are the free tools I that I used at the time:

site speed: https://pagespeed.web.dev

SEO checker: https://aioseo.com/seo-analyzer/

Google’s rich result tester: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results

Week 4: how to get over 1k views on your first month blogging

During my first 4 weeks of blogging I had accomplished my goal in terms of content and performance. I was averaging over 1K views a month and I had published 20K words in content.

I was not doing anything extraordinary or putting any money on it. I was just being strategic and applying all the tips I described above. If you want to get at least 1K. Views on your blog, just follow my tips.

By week 4, my blog had 16 posts, each over 1.2k words. In terms of performance, I was averaging 50 views per day, I had a few subscribers and a decent amount of likes.

1K views a month is not spectacular but it is a good sign. It looked like I had some potential. It was time to put more resources on it.

It was time to upgrade my plan…

TBC: Read my upcoming post on what I focused on weeks 5-6 for getting my own domain, and traffic and content optimization, click here

👉do you have more tips? collaborate as a guest blogger.