Welcome to Day 10 and the very last day of this series of starting a blog. These last 10 days have been filled with hard work and anticipation, but today is the day that you will finally press that magic button to launch your blog and open it up to the search engines. Congratulations and let’s get started.
Launching Your Blog
If you happen to be using some sort of Maintenance Mode plugin, go ahead and take your blog out of maintenance mode. If you don’t even know what I am referring to, then no worries; this probably does not apply to you.
Next, we are going to change your privacy settings.
Hover your mouse over “Settings” and click on “Privacy”
Settings >> Privacy
You will see the following settings page:
This is the magic button to launch your blog!
Currently, the second option should already be selected. This is the magic button that I have been referring to in past posts.
- Change this selection to “Allow search engines to index this site.”
- Click on the blue “Save Changes” button.
Congratulations, your blog is now live.
Publishing your first blog posts…
Now it is time to publish one of the drafts that you have been writing during these last 10 days. These drafts should already be saved in WordPress, and we recommend publishing the very first blog post that we had you write back on Day 2 of starting a blog; the one that introduces yourself and your blog to the world.
Once you have published that post, we recommend publishing another that actually gives information about the niche or subject that your blog is going to be built upon. So, as of today, your blog will launch with 2 posts; an introduction post, and a post that actually offers information that will be useful to your new visitors.
Before publishing your posts, ensure that there are no spelling and grammar errors before you hit the “Publish” button. Professionalism is key in the blogging world and if your blog posts are plagued with spelling/grammar errors, you will have a hard time proving that you are a subject matter expert in your niche.
Make sure your blog is working…
Once you have published your posts, navigate around on the front end of your site. Make sure that everything is working as it should. Test your blog out on multiple web browsers. Sometimes, what appears to be working in one browser is not always the case in another. If you find potential issues, fix them as needed. It will be a month or two before you really begin to start seeing traffic come your way.
Now that your blog has launched and you have some physical content published, I must warn you; your work has just begun. But it’s fun. Just take everything one day at a time. This is why we were pushing you to write blog posts each and every day. This way, as time consuming activities begin to eat up your time, you will have some content in reserve and will not feel so pressured to write during these next couple of weeks. But of course, if you have the time, continue your writing efforts. They will pay off in time.
Now that your blog is finally live and successfully launched, this 10 day series of starting a blog will come to a close. We would like to congratulate you on the amount of work that you have accomplished thus far and we wish you and your blog the best of luck. Be sure to check back to learn other tips and tools that might be useful now that your blog is up and running. We are adding tips and updates every day, so you are bound to find something of use to assist you in growing and building a better blog each day, one step at a time.
