How To Start A Trail Hiking Blog 2022

Unedited Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to the channel today. I’m going to show you how to start a trail hiking blog and make money step by step. What we’re going to do today is we are going to explain exactly what a trail hiking blog is and does. I’m going to show you how to pick a niche and then niche down with intro hiking.

[00:00:14] And then we’re going to talk about why you need web hosting. If you click the first link in the description, you will get a domain name for free for the first year. Next, I’m going to show you how to install WordPress, install a free and premium WordPress theme, and essential changes that you need to make to your website to start getting traffic.

[00:00:31] And then how to start writing. After that, we’re going to talk about different ways that you can make money. Why do you need to share your content on social media? When about how many blog posts you need to write before you decide if you should continue writing, be sure to click the first three links in the description as those would be the links that I refer to throughout this video.

[00:00:47] All right. So first things first, what is a trail hiking blog? A trail hiking blog is simply a blog that you create to answer questions about trail hiking. It can be talking about shoes. If we talk about accessories, it can be talking about the best places. Hikes. And so, let me just show you an example of a trail hiking blog or website that does an excellent job.

[00:01:10] As you can see, if we’re taking a look at hiking for beginners’ essential hiking one-on-one tips, these are all different. Blog posts are designed to answer questions and solve problems concerning trail hiking, as you can see the best hiking day backpacks for women. And this is a perfect example of niching down because they’re focused on hiking backpacks for women, and you can do this too.

[00:01:32] And there are several ways. The first thing that you want to do is you want to pick a niche. If we scroll down here, you can see trail hiking with dogs. So that could be a niche. Hiking tips are a good one. Hiking gear is another good opportunity as well. You can do to help find a place by going over to a keyword research tool like H roughs.

[00:01:52] Now you don’t have to use a trust, but you could type in something like trail hiking, or you could even just see what other. Other websites are ranking for it. For example, if we go over to this website here, this website is called barefoot theory.com. If we copy this, go back over to the keyword, go back over to site Explorer, and paste this in hit enter.

[00:02:13] You can see all of the different keywords that they’re ranking for, and we could find a niche within these keywords. So if we click on organic keywords here, these are all of the different words. As a new website, what you want to do is you want to target keywords that have a keyword difficulty of five or fewer.

[00:02:30] And so if we do that, we do five or less hit enter. You’re going to see there’s a lot of opportunity hikes near Portland, Maine. As I mentioned, telling people the best hiking spots could be an excellent way to go. If we look through here, you’ll see there are lots of options for the trail, hiking niche, and same niche.

[00:02:48] Now, once you start building something called domain authority, you’ll be able to niche up, talk about keywords that are a little bit more competitive. Like right now, we’re targeting keywords that are five or less. Eventually, you can start talking about keywords that are 15, 20, 30, and even 45. But if we jump back over.

[00:03:03] We’ve talked about trail hype, hiking with an example, we’ve picked a niche, and then we’ve niched down. The next thing that you want to do is you want to go out and get web hosting. You need web hosting so that your website can be on the. Oh, what you’re going to do is you’re going to click that first link in the description.

[00:03:18] And that is a web hosting company that will host your website on a hard drive, which is called a server. So you’ll rent hard drive space from them every month. And people from around the world will be able to access your website. So when you click that first link, you’ll be able to get your domain name for free for the first year.

[00:03:36] And what am I going to do right now is I’m going to walk you through the steps of setting up your web hosting. You’re going to get a domain. Believe it or not, it only takes about six minutes to go through. And I’m going to walk you through that step right now. When you click that link, you’ll be taken to this website, where you’ll go ahead and click get started.

[00:03:52] I recommend clicking the first one on the far left, the basic plan. If you’re just getting started with a website, as you can see, there are several options, but click that click select, and then move on here. You’re going to create a domain name. If you have one in mind, you’re going to type it in here.

[00:04:05] Like you see that I do. What I recommend is to try and find a domain name. It’s going to be related to your niche. Now, what I do is type in a domain name that I know is already taken. When it’s accepted, you’re going to get this error where you can then go back and try different domains. Now make sure again, you want to pick one that’s related to you.

[00:04:23] Click next. And then you’re going to see a green box that says that it’s approved. The next step is simply to go through and enter your contact information. Make sure that you, when you scroll down here and make sure that you leave all of the settings on but again, entering your contact information, the settings right here, where it says domain privacy, leave all of this checked.

[00:04:42] If you don’t leave a check, you’re going to get people reaching out to you. Spamming you, emailing you, trying to get you to sign up for. Web hosting. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to go ahead and sign up and then jump back to you once I sign on. So I moved to the next step. All right. So I’ve signed up, and I’m going to go ahead and set up my website.

[00:04:59] Initially, just create a simple username and password. Make sure it meets the requirements. And then move on, make sure that you write it down to write it down in a safe spot so that you have it. And you remember it because it can be a pain to go ahead and get everything back. You will have to enter in some vital information, but just make sure to write it down.

[00:05:18] It’s straightforward and effortless. Now, one thing that I do want to note is that this part is not sped up. This is real-time. And you can see that you’ll go from absolutely nothing to a complete website in less than probably 10 minutes. And once you click submit, you’re going to move on to the next step, where you get to log in. So here is where you’re going to start creating your WordPress website.

[00:05:39] Now, the great thing is Bluehost does everything for you. And it’s straightforward. So again, I’m not speeding this up at all, and I want you to see what it takes to create a web. So Bluehost is going to do a little bit of work in the background for you. And we’re just going to click on skip this step.

[00:05:55] This first one I clicked on. I started a blog, but just click, skip because we know what we’re doing for the next step. And I’m going to tell you what to do so that we can get up and running. So click get started right here on the left-hand side, and then move on. It’s a quick skip here and clicks skip.

[00:06:14] And then just pick the first one in the far left, make sure that you’re choosing a free theme because they’ll charge you. They have both free and premium articles, which we’ll talk about in just a moment. So right now, it’s creating your WordPress website in just a few moments. You’re going to click on log in to WordPress on the right-hand side there.

[00:06:30] You’ll see it in just a second. And then, we can start looking at some basic configurations. All right. So we click log. And now we have a WordPress website. So what may need to happen is you may need to click refresh a few times to get it to work. But now we have our website. So as you can see, what I’m going to do is I’m going to log in and delete a few plugins because right now, it has coming soon.

[00:06:54] And so if someone tried to get to your website at this moment, it’s going to say coming soon to them, even though we can see it, this is what your WordPress website looks like, but for everyone else outside of your network, it’s going to say coming soon. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go down to plugins eventually, and we’re going to delete some of the plugins that we don’t need.

[00:07:12] Now, I will talk a bit about the plugin later on. Plugins add additional features and functionality. So we are going to deactivate the blue host and the other plugins that are already activated. And then we can go through and make the necessary changes, which I’ll cover in just a moment. So we’re going to deactivate them and then delete them.

[00:07:30] Now, you want to make sure that you only have the plugins you’re using. The more plugins you have on your website, the slower your website’s going to respond and function, and you’re going to lose out on ranking. So make sure you have a lean setup, very few plugins, and then move on. As you can see right now, I simply believe some stuff you don’t need.

[00:07:49] If you want to, you could keep them, but if you’re just getting started, you don’t need this other stuff. What’s more important is the themes that we’re going to talk about in just a moment, as well as getting writing. So I’m just going to go ahead and delete those, deactivate them. And then we’re going to start moving on to settings, which you see right here.

[00:08:06] All right. So now that we’ve installed WordPress, we’ve established a free WordPress theme. I’m going to show you how to get a premium theme and why you need one. We’ve made some changes to your website. So people from around the world can see it right now. You have a free WordPress theme. That theme is boring, it’s bland, and it doesn’t inspire confidence in your audience.

[00:08:25] If we take a look at this website we referred to earlier. The barefoot theory.com. This is a premium WordPress theme. Do you see how it’s more inviting? It’s more congruent with the audience. People that are interested in trail hiking are thinking, this is exactly where I want to be. So what I’m going to help you do is I’m going to help you get and install a premium WordPress theme.

[00:08:44] Right now, what you’re going to do is you’re going to click the second link in the description. When you click that second link, it’s going to take you to this website. So what you’re going to do is you’re just going to type in hiking or trail hiking. And you’re going to find different WordPress themes that are going to be related to your keywords.

[00:08:58] So if I just type in hiking like this and whoops, we’re going to spell some words right here hiking. And you’re going to see. There are a bunch of WordPress themes. The second one here looks like the theme that we looked at over there. But as you can see, you can find a WordPress theme that is congruent with your target audience.

[00:09:15] You can find a WordPress theme for as little as $24 or as expensive as $99. So what you’re going to do next is you will click on the cart of the. You’re going to add this to your cart, and you’re going to buy the WordPress theme. When you buy that WordPress theme, you are going to download a zip file.

[00:09:31] You will unpack that zip file, and there’s going to be a second zip file. So you’re going to take that second zip file, and you’re going to install it into your WordPress website. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go over to our dash. We’re going to go down to appearance. We are going to click on themes.

[00:09:45] When you click on themes, we are going to click on, add new. And then after that, we are going to click on the upload theme, just like that. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to drag and drop that second zip file right here, where you can mainly go. Either one, it’s up to you. Once you find it, you are going to click on install now and then activate once you do that, you will have an updated theme that will look much better than the standard one that came with your website.

[00:10:09] Now, if we jump back over here, we will talk about I’m going to show you and tell you how you can get started writing so that you can write faster and start making money. If that’s your goal, now I get several questions about creating a website. How long should my blog posts be?

[00:10:24] How do I start writing? And how many blog posts should I write to begin writing? We’re going to click on sticks, and then we are going to click on add new. That is where we’re going to write. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to take the keywords that we found over here. For example, hikes near Portland, Maine, we’re going to copy this.

[00:10:41] This is a keyword that people are searching for, and we will paste it into our title. And what we’re doing is we are creating a blog post that is search engine optimized. So we’re giving ourselves the best chance. So for our page, our blog posts are to be discovered. So I might say hikes near Portland, Oregon, everything you need to know.

[00:11:04] We’re doing that because we want to entice our audience to click and read our article. If no one clicks and reads our article, we don’t make any money. And so what we’re doing is we just want to make sure that we have this capitalized product. And then we can get to the writing aspect now to start writing.

[00:11:20] I simply like to follow a simple formula that we started back in elementary school. So who, what, when, where, why, and how I’ll do is take about 10 minutes and brainstorm before I start writing. And I’ll ask and answer questions about the six prompts that you see on your screen.

[00:11:40] So you might say what. To include in a hiking trip near Portland or a hiking trip in Portland, Maine? No. When you were writing. When you’re brainstorming, you mustn’t spend a bunch of time making sure that you’re spelling words correctly. We have plenty of time to do that during the writing phase.

[00:12:05] It’s more important that you get your ideas down on paper or computer in this case so that you aren’t wasting time with something that can be fixed later. For example, when is the best time to hike a hike? Whoops, H I K E I know I just said, don’t worry about the spelling, but here we are. When is the best time to hide?

[00:12:25] In Portland, Maine. Okay. Where are the best mountain Rangers? And so what you’re going to do is you’re going to spend 10 or 15 minutes just really asking and answering these questions so that you can answer the questions for your target audience. Again, the other question that I get is how long I should write?

[00:12:46] And that question all depends on your target audience. It depends on the question, and it depends on what your competitors are doing. And so what we’re doing is we’re just going to do a little bit of research, and we want to see what our competitors are doing as you can see here, barefoot theory.com.

[00:13:01] We were just on that web. What we want to do is we want to take a look and see how long their blog post is. They have five best hikes near Portland. Maine. What we could do is we can write longer to add more information in value you want to skim through here and see if there’s any information that they missed.

[00:13:18] Maybe you want to give the best seven or nine—places to hike. As you can see this as a 1000 word blog post, if you write 1500 words and you use some of the methods that I mentioned, for example, we could talk about things to where the best time we can include that in our blog posts, that’s going to add a little bit more value and that’s going to help build trust with the reader.

[00:13:39] That’s going to help with credibility. To answer the question initially, how long should my blog posts beat? They all depend on the question, and it depends on your competitors. If you can answer the question in 1000 words, that’s how long it should be. You don’t get credit for creating 15,000-word blog posts.

[00:13:56] If you can answer the question in 2000 words, succinct so that you are solving the problem and you’re not adding a bunch of fluff. So now that we have the brainstorming out, the way you go through, you just fill in and just going to, one thing that you want to do is, let’s say, keep this one.

[00:14:12] We’re going to change those from a paragraph to an H two. And then we’re simply going to answer the questions. The best mountain ranges near Portland. Maine is, and then we’ve got to make sure that we’re spelling it right here. And then R, and then you want to answer the question. Once you’ve thoroughly responded to the question, you’ve solved your customer’s problem.

[00:14:37] You will click publish, and then your website will be available for the world to see and read. Once we’ve done that, we’re going to jump back over to our slide deck, and then we’re going to look at different ways to make money. There are several ways to make money on your blog. The most obvious and easiest way is with paid ads.

[00:14:55] If we look at the bottom of the screen here, this is a paid ad. If we look on the right-hand side, this is another app. You can work with different ad agencies, and they will automatically place ads where they need to go. Now, most people in the very beginning will work with Google ad sense.

[00:15:08] It’s straightforward, it’s fast. And they work with just about anything. A drawback to using something like Google AdSense is they do not pay you very much. You will get paid pennies on the dollar for working with this company. Now, after you start getting significant traffic, 5,000, 10,000, a hundred thousand page views per month, you can begin working with other ad agencies like media.net, Zoe Commedia, vine thrive.

[00:15:31] There are several premium ad agencies out there where you can work with and partner with and make even more. Another way that you can make money is simply with affiliate marketing. Now, affiliate marketing is recommending or selling other people’s products and services. The way that affiliate marketing works is you will find a company that is in line or congruent with your target audience, and you will sign up to become an official.

[00:15:53] And then, once you sign up to become an affiliate, you’ll get special affiliate links to a place on your website. For example, if we scroll down here the best, I found the best X for Y that I wanted to share with you. That was an affiliate-based blog article. If we scroll down, I don’t see it, but I’d seen it best.

[00:16:14] Backpacks for women or something along those lines in this website. And that was an affiliate-based article. So what will happen is I can’t find it, but what will happen? If a customer clicks on that affiliate link and there’ll be redirected to something like Amazon. Now, if you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, I do have a free course.

[00:16:34] That explains affiliate marketing step-by-step oh, okay. Here we go. How to protect your knees? Best hikes. I don’t see it. It was here at one point hiking trails—the best back day pack. So here we go. This is an affiliate-based article where people will click on the affiliate links, and they will be redirected to Amazon or somewhere else.

[00:16:54] So yeah, if we click on this goes to. Okay, it’s taking a while. We’ll come back to this. Another thing that you can do is you can sell your own digital or physical products. Maybe you have a checklist of 25 things you need or sell a physical product that will help people hike and hike on trails.

[00:17:13] Maybe you have your shoes. You can sell those right from your website and make money. Now that is actually outside the scope of this video, but that is another opportunity as well. You were. This was an affiliate offer. And if I were to buy this, they would receive a commission on the $99 or a portion of the payment on the $99.

[00:17:36] So now that we know how to make. The next step is to share on social media. Now, in my opinion, you want to share all of your blog posts in the very beginning on social media simply because you’re going to be put in something called a Google sandbox. That means that Google will compare your website and your website’s content to the content that’s already on the.

[00:17:55] And basically what they want to do. And what Google wants to do is make sure that you are adding a new perspective. You’re adding value, and you’re solving problems. And you’re not just regurgitating what’s already out there. And until you can get removed from the Google sandbox, you want to make sure that you share your content on relevant subreddits on Facebook groups, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, anywhere where people are interested in trail hiking.

[00:18:19] You want to share your content there so that you can get it. Faster after that. The biggest question that I get is about how many blog posts should I write? I think you should write 50 blog posts. You should set a goal of 50 blog posts. And the reason why I think 50 is a good number is that you will have 50 posts demonstrating your expertise in a keyword or a topic. You will let Google know you’re going to let the other search engines know that you are here for the long haul.

[00:18:46] You have the expertise, you have domain authority, you’re building domain authority. And 50 blog posts and a keyword or a series of keywords will help you demonstrate your credibility. Many people stop after 10 or 20, but if you can create 50, if you can upload one a day for 50 days or one every other day for 100 days, That’s going to demonstrate to Google and everyone else that you are here for the long haul.

[00:19:10] So I think a good goal is 50. If you fall short, that’s fine. But 50 is a worthy goal. Now be sure to check out the three links in the description because they are designed to help you get up and running faster. The first one is for web hosting, any free domain name for the first year. The second one is for a premium WordPress theme.

[00:19:26] And the third one is for a free affiliate marketing course. So be sure to like subscribe, ring the bell to be notified when I upload my next video. Thanks for watching. And we’ll see you.