A successful blog has so many crucial pieces to it. With a quick Google search, you’ll find hundreds – if not thousands – of tutorials on starting a blog. However, as soon as you start a blog and begin researching the next steps to take, the path becomes a little less clear.

At this point, you have to start taking things into your own hands.

While the list of things to learn as a blogger can feel endless, I’m going to break down some technical questions and problems that I see on beginning bloggers’ sites.

Keep in mind that there are several ways to approach these topics, and if you already have a solution, your best option might be to stick with what you’re already using.

I’m going to show you the easiest (and free) steps that I use and give you step-by-step answers to all of the questions I researched on Google when I first started blogging.

1. Site Security

Type your blog’s URL into your browser and look at the left side of the URL. Does it show a picture of a lock or does it say “Not Secure”?

If there’s a lock, you’ve done your homework to make sure that your site is secure for users (unless you’ve manually typed in “https” into your browser).

If it says “Not Secure,” you can easily make your site secure, and probably for free.

What you need is an SSL certificate. When an SSL certificate is installed, it encrypts the data being sent between your website host’s server and the browser (Chrome, Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc).

This is crucial for several reasons!

Visitors to your site expect security.

Having a secure site helps build trust with your readers and ensures that they are safe to enter any information on your site without the potential for their information to get stolen.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

An SSL certification increases your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), helps you to appear higher in the rankings of search engines, such as Google, and makes your content more likely to gain visibility.

Data protection

If you ever want to sell products on your site where customers might have to enter credit card information, having a secure site means that the data your customers are entering is safe and cannot be easily hacked. Essentially, without a SSL certificate, any computer can see any information being sent between you and your host’s server, including usernames, passwords, email addresses, and credit card information.

Once your site is secure, you’ll notice that the beginning of the URL changes from “http:” to “https:”. This denotes a secure site.

You can get an SSL certificate by reaching out to your site’s host and asking for one. Really, it’s that easy. Since I use BlueHost, I simply started an online chat with them and within 5 minutes, they installed an SSL certificate on my site.

2. A Backup of Your Site

I probably don’t need to stress the importance of a backup. We’ve all lost or mistakenly destroyed our phones and been thankful that all of the photos, data, and information has been backed up and stored elsewhere.

You might be thinking: My site is on the Internet…why would I need a backup?

Here’s the thing: websites are complicated.

The code that makes up your website can get infected with malicious code and potentially damage or destroy your site. I’ve heard stories of countless bloggers who have had issues with this and would have had to start from scratch if it wasn’t for a backup.

The easiest free way to backup your site is by using a plugin called Updraft Plus. Updraft Plus allows you to backup your site and save the backup files to Dropbox.

How to use Updraft Plus and Dropbox

Here’s how to start using Updraft Plus and Dropbox to backup your site if you’re using WordPress.

1. Go into your plugins, click “Add New,” and search for “Updraft Plus.”

2. Install and activate the plugin.

3. Go to all of your plugins, find Updraft Plus, and click on “Settings.”

4. Inside the plugin settings, you’ll see another “Settings” tab at the top. Click on that.

5. Here is where you’ll choose how often Updraft Plus will back up your site and how many backups Updraft will keep. I recommend that you back up at least once a week.

6. As you scroll down, you’ll see where you can choose your remote storage location. This is where you’ll want to choose Dropbox (Google Drive is another option if you prefer). If you don’t already have a Dropbox account, set that up first. Back on the Updraft Plus settings, follow the prompts until your Dropbox account is synced with Updraft Plus.

7. You’re all set now! Should you ever need to restore your blog from one of the backups, you can do that from the main “Backup/Restore” tab inside the settings of the Updraft Plus plugin.

3. Image Compression

I highly recommend having high-quality images on all of your blog posts. As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words, and they really enhance a reader’s experience.

Here’s the catch: if you’re constantly uploading large image files to your website, it can slow down your site. No one wants to click around a website that takes forever to load!

You’ll want to compress your images so that you can still have beautiful, eye-catching images on your site without compromising the speed of your site.

Thankfully, there’s a WordPress plugin that makes this super easy!

It’s called ShortPixel.

Once you install it, ShortPixel will automatically begin optimizing any photos that you upload into WordPress.

If you want to optimize photos that you uploaded into WordPress before you installed ShortPixel, go to your media library. Inside your media library, make sure that you’re on list view.

From here, you’ll see a blue button on the right that says “optimize now” if the photo has not already been optimized. Click the button to begin optimizing the photo.

The free version of ShortPixel only allows you to optimize 100 images every month. For some people, this might be plenty. If you need to optimize more images per month, they have paid versions (starting at $4.99 for 5,000 images per month) that are definitely worth your investment.

4. A Pop-Up Form with an Opt-in Incentive

If you don’t already know, starting an email list is very important when you start a blog. In fact, many major bloggers’ #1 regret is not starting their email list sooner.

It’s very important to make subscribing easy for your readers. This means that your subscription box shouldn’t be hidden in your footer or some other obscure location on your website. Make it extremely easy to find. Unless they’re ridiculously crazy about you, new readers aren’t going to go searching for a place to subscribe to your site.

Many new bloggers learn about the importance of an email list, start their email list, and have a nice place to subscribe on the sidebar or bottom of their site.

This simply isn’t enough.

Case studies and research that prove how much more effective pop-ups are than a simple subscribe button to your site.

While some people find them annoying, they’re not annoying enough that they will turn people off to your site altogether.

You’ve probably noticed that almost every website you visit – whether the site is about food, clothing, technology, or blogging – has a pop-up on the screen asking you for your email address.

There’s a very good reason for this. If it’s up to you to find where to subscribe, you probably won’t. If the opportunity is presented to you on your screen in the form of a pop-up, where you have to either dismiss or subscribe, you’re more likely to consider entering your email address.

Let’s take this one step further.

Have you ever visited one of your favorite online shops and seen a pop-up offering 10% off your next purchase if you enter your email? That’s called an opt-in incentive. An opt-in incentive is anything that is offered for free in exchange for your email address.

Gone are the days when you could simply ask readers to subscribe to your weekly newsletter that’s full of tips and tricks. Readers aren’t willing to give up their email address unless they’re receiving something really good in return.

Common opt-in incentives, or “freebies,” are free printables, ebooks, cheatsheets, mini- courses, and challenges.

Consider your ideal reader and what they would love to receive from you for free. Create whatever that is and offer it as an opt-in incentive for your readers to subscribe.

How to create a pop-up

Creating a pop-up is much simpler than it sounds. You can create it through your email marketing service. If you’re using MailChimp, here’s how you can make a customized pop-up form:

1. If you’re already logged into MailChimp, click on “Lists” at the top.

2. Click on the list for which you wish to create a pop-up.

3. Go to “Sign-up Forms.”

4. Select “Subscriber Pop-up.”

5. From here, design your pop-up form to your liking and hit “publish.” Ta-da!

As a new blogger did you take any of these to consideration when you first started your blog? What are some questions or problems you have encountered as a new blogger? Lets us know!

This post was brought to you by Kayli over at kaylicreative.com.

Kayli is a writer and blogger, inspiring people who create to live their dreams, take big risks, and think outside of the box. You can find her writing everything from novels and love letters to blog posts about marketing and social media.

For more blogging tips and general inspiration, make sure to follow and keep up with Kayli on Facebook and Instagram.

Hope you enjoyed these tips as much as I did! I know I definitely learned something new and beneficial!

As always, talk soon babes!