How to Start a Successful Blog

Strategies for planning, creating, and monetizing

your brand's blog
Table of Contents
5 Research and Channel-Fit
10 Setting Up Your Blog
18 Creating and Planning Content
23 Analytics and Measuring Success
28 Starting a Successful Blog Checklist
 Introduction
For many people, the term “blogging” conjures In this guide, we’ll give you the tools and
strategies to start a successful blog including:
up images of personal blogs of the early aughts
—an avid baker sharing recipes or a personal Identifying your target audience
trainer documenting their fitness journey. While
personal blogs are still wildly popular, blogs Setting goals for your blog
have also grown to become a powerful business
tool. Creating strategies to use your blog
as an acquisition and retention tool
With Millennials and Gen Z making up more
than 64% of business buyers, ensuring that your
Content planning and strategy
company appears in online searches and
outranks competitors is essential.
Writing and formatting blog posts
Blogging is an inexpensive marketing strategy
that allows you to open a dialogue with your Choosing a content management
audience and provide useful information, all system and setting up your blog
while keeping your brand top of mind.
Promoting your blog

Tracking metrics and understanding

important data from your blog

Monetizing your blog

How to Start a Successful Blog 3

HubSpot Academy:
How to Start a Blog and
Create a Blogging Strategy
for Your Business
Are you ready to take your blogging skills to
the next level? This course from HubSpot
Academy covers everything you need to
know about creating a successful business
blogging strategy.

Take the Course

Research and Channel-Fit
 STEP ONE
Determine Your Buyer Personas Identifying Buyer Personas for Blogging
When professional bloggers begin writing a blog post,
they often have a fictional representation of their
→ Dig through your data and look for patterns.
Are most of your top customers a certain age?
target persona in mind. They may even have a physical
Do they live in a particular region?
picture of this fictitious person displayed at their
workspace to help them focus. Creating a buyer
persona is a great way to identify how you’ll use your
→ Use forms on your website to collect relevant
data. Ask for company size, title, and other
blog. What is this ideal customer searching for online?
information that may help you identify your
Where do they get their information?
target audience.

Let’s say you are a meal delivery service. Your ideal

customer is a busy, 25-40-year-old professional who
→ Survey your sales team and find out what
attributes the best customers have in common.
lives a healthy lifestyle and earns an upper-middle-
class salary. In business, this is called a buyer persona.
Buyer personas represent your ideal customer guided
→ Interview customers and prospects. Ask
them how they found your product or service,
by your own data and market research.
why they like it, and who they may recommend
it to.

Free Resource
HubSpot Make My Persona Tool

How to Start a Successful Blog 6

 STEP TWO
Connect Your Blog to Your Brand
Consider your blog’s relationship to your company and
brand. Your blog can exist independently or be
incorporated into your website and brand. At HubSpot,
our blogs are a part of our core brand and live on the
subdomain blog.hubspot.com, which is in our main
navigation under “Resources.”

For SEO purposes, this helps your company build

authority for your primary domain while maintaining
your brand. Having a separate domain for your blog
may make sense for certain business situations, like if
three similar companies are starting a blog together
under one domain.

Keeping your blog aligned with your brand identity and

as a subdomain or page on your main website will help
improve rank and authority for your company.

How to Start a Successful Blog 7

STEP THREE
Determining Your Blog’s Goals
Like we mentioned before, blogs can be used for different purposes, meaning they will have different goals
depending on the use. When determining your blog’s goals, start with your purpose.

→ Why are you creating this blog?

→ What do you want your reader to do with your blog?
→ What will success look like 3 months from now? 6 months? 3 years?

Since blogs are a long-term content strategy, you’ll need to choose goals and milestones to track progress and
analyze which posts, times, lengths, and keywords perform best.

We’ll tackle metrics later, but for now, it’s time to explore some blog goals and their pros and cons.

GOAL GOAL
Drive Traffic Generate Subscribers
For this goal, your primary goal for the blog is to To use your blog to grow your subscriber-base,
drive new viewers to your website or product pages. you can incorporate slide-in, pop-up, or in-text
To achieve this goal, your main activities would be CTAs (calls-to-action) asking for an email address
keyword research, frequent publishing, and link- and offering value to your readers. Here are
building efforts. some catchy, clickable CTA options.
PRO
PRO
Effective, good way to bring folks into your ecosystem
Low cost
without asking for too much info
CON
CON
Takes time, not a quick-hit option, competition for
Limited real estate, needs setup, requires email
keywords
nurturing, long-term effects

How to Start a Successful Blog 8

 GOAL GOAL GOAL
Convert Leads Retain/Convert Brand
Customers Awareness
If you want to use your blog to Blogs can be a great way to Brand awareness is the extent to
convert your existing traffic or keep your audience up-to-date which people know about your
prospects into leads, you can with product features, explore company. By sharing your
create specific types of content new or industry-specific ways to knowledge and creating a voice
for those in the consideration use your service or tool, or a and direct dialogue with your
phase of the buyer’s journey. place to feature customers who audience, you can help grow
Offer product demos, premium are using your product extremely your brand identity and reach.
content, and more to get more well. After all, it’s easier to sell to To drive brand awareness, try
information from prospects. current customers than acquire guest blog posts and
new ones. collaborations as well as
Tip: Try HubSpot’s Smart CTAs frequent social media publishing.
to show lead offers for current PRO
Less expensive than attracting PRO
subscribers and subscriber
new prospects, turns customers Promotes your business as an
offers for new visitors.
into promoters and brand expert, allows you to steer the
advocates, success stories help conversation about your brand
PRO
convert others
Assists sales efforts, good way to
CON
repurpose content, organic leads Hard to measure, time
CON
are more likely to be qualified More timely to gather info and consuming to post and analyze
and convert into customers work with partners/product social media efforts, takes time
teams to create content than to see results
CON
just writing evergreen or topic-
Takes time, not a quick-hit
based content
option, competition for keywords

How to Start a Successful Blog 9

Setting Up Your Blog
 Setting Up Your Blog
To get your blog up and running, gather a few tools and helpful collaborators. You’ll need to decide who is
writing, editing, publishing, and promoting, who will be in charge of analytics and data/metrics, who will create
a blog style guide, and more. You’ll also need to choose a content management system (CMS), preferably one
that is easy to use for those who are non-technical

Assigning roles on the blog team

Now that you’re ready to start creating and publishing content, you’ll need to assign roles to everyone who will
be contributing to the workflow. This is an important step in starting a successful blog. If you don’t identify who
will have the final say, chaos will ensue when there is a debate surrounding cadence, tone, CTA use, and more.

Individuals can hold more than one job on the team, but make sure you split up writer and editor to get a fresh
set of eyes for typos, links, and maintaining your brand voice.

Blog team roles and responsibilities

Writer:
writes content and incorporates SEO
Editor/SEO Optimization/CTAs:
edits content, optimizes for search engines, adds CTAs
Publisher:
plans and publishes content, maintains content calendar
Analyst:
tracks metrics, owns CTA tracking, provides regular
reports to the team with best performing content
Developer/IT:
owns blog from a technical standpoint, troubleshoots

How to Start a Successful Blog 11

 Choosing a CMS for your blog What to look for in a CMS
In order to successfully launch and maintain a
blog, you’ll need an effective content management EASE OF USE
system (CMS)—a digital system that enables you If you don’t have a lot of technical support at your
to host digital content. While identifying your company, choose a CMS that’s easy to use. Most
target persona and generating content ideas is the content management systems come with templates
strategic side of launching a blog, now you’ll need you can use or support to help you design it, so make
to consider the equally important technical side. sure you choose one that will work for the skills on
your team.

KEY METRICS YOU CAN TRACK

Does the CMS allow you to track metrics like
conversion rates, page views, and where your traffic
is coming from? Analyzing the success of your blog
will be incredibly important post-launch, so make
sure your CMS allows you to easily track the success
of your efforts.

RESPONSIVENESS
More than 60 percent of all Google searches come
from mobile, which means it’s essential for your blog
to be optimized for any device that your user opens
content on. A CMS that automatically makes your
content responsive to device type is a must for
marketers in today’s mobile and tablet world.

How to Start a Successful Blog 12

 Setting Up Tracking and Analytics
Once your post is out in the world for the first time, you can go back and edit, but you’ll miss out on data
from before the change... if you haven’t set up tracking properly. To set up blog analytics, you can use a tool
like Google Analytics or use HubSpot’s blog tools in the CMS.

Most CMSs will have built-in blog page analytics. From there you can learn how many people viewed a
certain page on your blog and you may be able to see more like what devices they’re on, where they’re
located, bounce rate, and time on page. If you prefer Google Analytics for tracking, install the Google
Analytics code on your blog (usually in the header.) Here’s how to install the GA code on a HubSpot blog.

When sharing blog posts on social media and running campaigns to promote blogs, make sure to use UTM
codes on the end of your blog sharing URLs. UTM codes can track campaigns, sources, mediums, pieces of
content, and terms.

FREE RESOURCE
UTM Link Generator and Tracking Template

Designing Your Blog

Once you’ve chosen a CMS, it’s time to design your blog and optimize it for search engines and lead generation
—turning visitors into prospects and, ultimately, customers. To accomplish this, you’ll need a blog design that’s
easy to access and shareable. Most content management systems will offer you free templates that you can
modify and use if your team has less design experience. Need a little inspiration for designing your blog? Check
out these awesome examples.

How to Start a Successful Blog 13

 What to consider when designing your blog
MAIN BLOG PAGE BLOG POST TEMPLATES
The main page should tell your visitors about the Each blog post should have the same general
blog and include links to the most recent posts. Be layout so readers have a consistent experience
sure to include a search feature and/or an archive of across each page. A simple way to ensure this is
your past posts so visitors can access both new and by designing or using a premade template for
old content. each new blog post.

COLOR SCHEME CALLS-TO-ACTION (CTAS)

To make your blog’s design feels coherent, choose A blog is a tool used to convert visitors, prospects,
a color scheme and stick with it across all your and customers, so linking to pieces of content that
pages. Try using your brand colors as a base and will nurture your visitors is important.
adding a few accent colors to tie the whole design
together.

BRANDING
Make sure your blog’s design looks consistent with
the rest of your site’s branding. While it’s important
to distinguish your blog’s look from other pages on
your site, your visitors should still feel as though
they are on a related page.

How to Start a Successful Blog 14

 Making CTAs and conversion points
Think of your high-performing blog content like real estate. You’re getting lots of traffic through this one central
location and the traffic is people who are at least somewhat interested in the general realm of what you have
to offer. CTAs are a way to flag down those who may be interested in you and offer them something more.

Blogs can have many types of CTAs. These include pop-ups, header bars, slide-ins, in-text CTAs, buttons, image
CTAs, and more. You can also include links or buttons to share posts on social media, email to a friend, or save
the link to your reading list.

When choosing which action you’d like your reader to perform, consider if this piece of content would attract a
visitor/prospect or lead/existing customer. For prospects, offer another piece of related content or a
downloadable template or infographic. For leads, offer a course or access to a personalized demo of your
product or service.

How to Start a Successful Blog 15

 Working with Developers
When working with developers to create your Use a project management software or another way
first successful blog, make sure to include them to organize the plan for your blog launch, and make
in the planning process as early as possible. sure it’s clear who will manage the blog moving
Your developer teammate may note up front forward. Work with your developer(s) to ensure that
that developing in WordPress may not be everyone is on the same page when it comes to
compatible with your CMS or tracking. Then, if updating the blog, being able to edit and publish
your team had already decided on features, posts, and who should be trained on how to manage
templates, or styles, you would have to start the backend or any templates.
from square one with your developer’s
recommendation for a CMS.

Make sure to give plenty of time for

development and give yourself a cushion for
unforeseen technical difficulties. Present your
developer with a vision for the blog and be clear
about what you’ll need. List out requests like:

Slide-in CTAs
The ability to tag posts
A featured image for each post
Comments/no comments
A feed of recent posts
Social shares on each post

How to Start a Successful Blog 16

 WHAT TO INCLUDE IN AN IDEAL BLOG POST
Creating Your First Blog Posts
It’s time to get down to business, writing the first
posts. When sitting down to write a blog post, center
yourself and remember your keywords or topic, pillar
page or umbrella category, and buyer persona or
audience. Use these blog post templates for specific
formats that can help you get in the groove of writing
list-based posts, newsjacking posts, infographics, pillar
pages, and “How To” style blog posts.

Once you’ve chosen keywords, it’s time to

optimize each blog post for SEO. Make sure
you’re optimizing your meta description, page
title, keywords, URLs, etc. for the keywords
you’re trying to rank for.
Want to learn more about SEO?
Check out this On-Page SEO template.

How to Start a Successful Blog 17

Creating and Planning Content
 Mapping and Planning Your Content
Creating and publishing a blog for a certain goal is a
strategic move and requires planning and research.
You can search which keywords are most popular in
your industry or niche and how people search for your
brand, then tailor your content and marketing strategies
accordingly. Since Google is the top search engine
around the world with around 85% of the search market
share, we’ll focus on their algorithm when it comes to
ranking.

When thinking about keywords, Google’s algorithm

considers a lot when surfacing content—beyond the
blog post itself. You’ll need a comprehensive blog
strategy and a willing team to set yourself up for
success later down the line.

You’ll need to think about:

How frequently you can create content
What types of content will you post
Your goals for the blog
How social media will factor in

How to Start a Successful Blog 19

 Keyword Research
SEO (search engine optimization) starts with ranking for keywords that your target
audience is searching for. The best way to rank for keywords is by designing your
blog posts based on the keywords you’re trying to rank for. Start with keyword
research, and use those keywords to brainstorm and tailor your posts.

Keyword Research 101

Make a list of relevant topics and terms
associated with your business or product
Create 5-10 main categories of topics
FREE RESOURCE
List as many keywords/search terms you think Keyword Research Template
your buyer persona would search
Research monthly search volume for each
keyword and related keywords using an SEO
tool like Google’s webmaster tools

While researching, you’ll probably notice that some

keywords have very high search volume with high
competition. This makes them very difficult for any
new publication to rank for right off the bat. Look for
long-tailed, niche keywords with low competition to
start. You may not generate high search volume right
away, but the more niche your keywords are, the
better qualified your visitors will be.

How to Start a Successful Blog 20

 Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages
Topic clusters are the latest and greatest in search
engine algorithm changes. Basically, the algorithm
looks not only at a given page or topic, but how it
relates to other topics that fall under the same
“umbrella” or pillar.

To plan out your own pillar pages and map out your
topic clusters, you can reuse some of your keyword
research. Start by listing out your most broad search
terms. Come up with 5-10 pillar pages. Then,
brainstorm 15-20 content clusters for each pillar page.
Make sure they are specific, long-tail keywords for the
topic clusters.

To plan out your own pillar pages and map out your Pillar pages should be a comprehensive, long-form
topic clusters, you can reuse some of your keyword blog post that include everything someone would
research. Start by listing out your most broad search want to learn about the main subject. For “Pairing
terms. Come up with 5-10 pillar pages. Then, Wine with Food” as a pillar page, you could include
brainstorm 15-20 content clusters for each pillar page. sections on types of white wines, types of red wines,
Make sure they are specific, long-tail keywords for the common flavor palettes in each, pairing wines with
topic clusters. foods, how to set up a wine tasting, and more.

How to Start a Successful Blog 21

 Publishing Cadence Balancing Content Types
How often and when to post will largely When it comes to content matter and post style, blogs
depend on what your company does, how are extremely versatile. You can post infographics, how-
big your company is, and how much of an to posts, list posts, newsjacking posts, slideshares,
audience you’re looking to attract. That editorials, etc. Evergreen content means posts that are
being said, the more you blog, the more always relevant. These types of posts are helpful for
traffic you’ll attract over time. growth, but too many and folks will think a robot is
publishing your content. Make sure to mix it up with
And more traffic means more leads and topical posts, newsjacking articles (jumping on a news
more customers. As a team, it’s your job to trend and quickly relating it to your industry), and
decide how much time you’re willing to announcements. The team over at Flying Hippo swears
invest in your blog. But as a general rule of by the 80% rule—80% evergreen content and 20%
thumb, once a day or a few times a week is topical/editorial/time-sensitive content—as the best
a good place to start. breakdown.

Prior to launch, you can build up a bank of Both post types are beneficial to your business.
evergreen content (content that is always Evergreen content gains momentum over time and can
relevant and isn’t tied to anything time- grow to rank as a top article for a given topic. Editorial or
based) which will give you a cushion to get a newsjacking posts tend to perform well at the start and
team or process up and running to keep up tail off after a couple of weeks. The combination of these
with your publishing cadence. Try a CMS types of posts will help your blog grow and keep growing
(content management system) like HubSpot over time.
where you can schedule and plan content as
drafts or as scheduled posts for the future. Over time, analyze which formats perform best to tailor
your content strategy toward your audience. The more
formats you try out from the beginning, the better your
data will be.

How to Start a Successful Blog 22

Analytics and Measuring Success
 Promoting Your Blog
To boost your SEO efforts and get your content out to a larger audience, get your posts far and wide to
audiences (your buyer persona) who are interested and will share your content.

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS/GUEST BLOGGERS

Work with your social media teams to see how you can Having guest bloggers on your site is free content
leverage Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and and allows your content and brand to be shared
YouTube. Create custom imagery to share on social to a new audience. You can try content sharing,
and remember to always be testing—see where and which is trading a guest post for a guest post.
how your blog posts perform best. With influencers, you can either pay for your
content to be shared or create a deal where
PR
you feature them as an exchange. Here’s a guide
Your public relations team may be able to pitch cutting
on working with influencers to help grow your
edge, topical pieces from your blog to industry
business.
publications. Links from popular magazines and other
blogs can be huge traffic drivers to your blog and PAID ADVERTISING
website. Try pitching to sites like Forbes, Harvard Paying for search and social media ads may
Business Review, and TechCrunch. sound counterintuitive for organic content, but
PARTNER MARKETING/COMARKETING can provide the amplification your post
needs to reach a wider audience. Try boosting
Any time you can get others to write content for your
posts that are already performing well and
blog, you can guarantee another audience’s worth of
retargeting your prospects or subscribers with
eyes on the post. Work with any partners your company
blog posts and related content. You can also use
has and work out a content sharing agreement. For
Google AdWords to bolster your keyword efforts.
comarketing, try featuring a comarketing partner CTA
or shared comarketing offer on a blog post in exchange
for them doing the same.

How to Start a Successful Blog 24

 Analyzing and Optimizing Key Blogging Metrics
Now, you’ll need to set realistic, SMART goals
Blog Performance based on the following metrics:

Your first blog posts have been written,

PAGE VIEWS
everything has been planned out, and
The main way to measure how much traffic
you’ve set your blog up for success. Now, it’s
your blog receives is tracking the number of
time to determine how you’ll measure that
page views each post generates. In other
success. When it comes to blogging, it’s
words, how many visitors are coming to and
important to set up and analyze key
reading your posts?
blogging metrics over time since it’s a both
a short and long-term strategy. CLICK-THROUGH RATE (CTR)
One key component of building SEO juice is the click-
First, reference the goals that you set. Are through rate that each of your posts see. Are people
you trying to drive traffic, generate coming to your blog, then clicking on hyperlinks
subscribers, convert leads, retain or convert within the post? The more visitors click through and
customers, or improve brand awareness? stay on your site, the better it is for the overall
authority of your blog.

SOURCES OF TRAFFIC
One important measurement to consider is where you
traffic is coming from. Are your promotional efforts
paying off? What are the big levers that drive
most of your traffic to your blog? Whether it’s your
social promotion, emails, or paid campaigns, make
sure you’re tracking which channels drive the most
traffic. This information will help you tailor your content
strategy over time.

How to Start a Successful Blog 25

 LEADS AND CUSTOMERS GAINED Use analytics to inform
It’s up to you to decide how you track this future decisions
number. Some companies track leads from their
blog on a monthly basis, while others do so each Once you’ve analyzed how certain types of
quarter. So, how do you track this data? Most posts, topics, and keywords have performed,
content management systems enable you to reevaluate your content strategy and map
track these metrics easily, so make sure you out your content based on the data. A data-
know how to analyze them within your CMS driven approach to blogging works. The
before launch. blogging team at HubSpot found that 90% of
leads coming in every month were coming
Now that you know what and how to track the from posts published months to years prior.
right metrics, it’s time to set post-launch goals They then adjusted their strategy to prioritize
for your team, both short-and long-term. Hold a updating older blog posts and optimizing
planning meeting with your team to set goals for CTAs on those pages.
page views and click-through rates within the
first month, six months, and year after launch.

PRO TIP
Don’t stress too much if you don’t see high metrics right off the bat. Blogging
helps provide exponential growth—the longer you blog, the more authority you will
build over time. No blog goes viral overnight. Start small, and set realistic goals for
the future. If you don’t hit your goals immediately, revisit them and look at your
metrics. Are your promotional efforts working? If not, run as many tests and
experiments as you can until they do.

How to Start a Successful Blog 26

 SET UP AN RSS FEED FOR SUBSCRIBERS
Monetizing
Most blog software already includes an RSS feed (really simple
Your Blog syndication) option, which is an easy way to make sure your subscribers
Traffic and conversions will make don’t miss out on any new content. You can use an RSS feed to syndicate
your company money in the long your content and attract people to your site, generating about $1 per
run, but there are other ways you subscriber per month. Here’s how to use RSS feeds and help supplement
can set your blog up for your promotion effort, effortlessly.
success and its highest earning
DEVELOP NURTURE STREAMS
potential. Content marketing
After you’ve collected email addresses from subscribers of your blog,
receives 3x more leads than paid
send them relevant or related content and additional valuable offerings
search advertising, so you’ll be
like courses, demos, or the opportunity to talk with someone from your
starting off strong using the tools
team. Here’s a quick guide on lead nurturing and how to achieve 50%
provided.
more sales at a lower cost using nurturing strategies.

Some strategies listed to the DEVELOP NURTURE STREAMS

right will take time before they Sales and sales enablement are your direct links to prospects and
can be put into action, but once customers and they can partner with you in blog strategy. Write
you have a steady network of persuasive pieces surrounding your prospective customers’ biggest
subscribers, your list can become pain points, then provide them to your sales enablement team to include
a valuable and marketable asset in lead nurturing efforts. You’ll help them close more deals and they can
to other marketers. give you insights to topics that you can be writing more about.

MAKE CONTENT OFFERS FOR HIGH RANKING BLOG POSTS

Bloggers can see which posts have the most traffic, meaning you can
monopolize on the interest in a particular topic. Create a related content
offer to your high performing blog posts, then add a CTA on the blog
post linking it. Then, you can convert your blog readers into tool users or
qualified leads.

How to Start a Successful Blog 27

 Starting a Successful Blog Checklist

Research and Channel-Fit Planning and Creating Content

Create a buyer persona Determine publishing frequency
Identify your blog’s purpose Do keyword research and create a shared keyword doc
Determine your blog’s goal Create topic clusters and plan pillar pages
Write a backlog of blog content

Setting Up Your Blog Promotion and Analytics

Assign roles on the blog team Create a promotion strategy
Choose a CMS Analyze + create reporting for the blog
Set up tracking and analytics Implement strategies to monetize your blog
Establish design guidelines for your blog
Create blog post templates
Create CTAs for your blog
 Conclusion
You now have the tools to go and
create a successful blog that will
CMS Hub®
benefit your business in every
department. Content management software that's
flexible for marketers, powerful for
Blogs are a low cost strategy that any
business can use, as long as you have developers, and gives your customers a
a computer and the internet, to grow personalized, secure experience.
exponentially.

Because Google’s algorithm is a great Get Your Free Demo

equalizer, everyone has the
opportunity to write incredible content
and reap the benefits of ranking #1,
Fortune 500 company or not.

How to Start a Successful Blog 29