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How to write a business plan for your wedding blog/business

We all know how important it is to have a business plan in place – especially if it is a new venture. But why should you have a business plan for a blog?

Unless you’re writing for passion, you should definitely treat your blog like a business. It will help you to establish the who, what, when, where, and why of your blog, and also help you to turn your blog into a success.

(Good to know: There are 7 steps when you create you wedding blog. The first step is to create your Blog Business Plan. Once you are finished with this step, you can move on to the next steps, which are discussed in other posts. We have divided the steps into different posts and linked to them, for you convenience.)

How to write a business plan for your wedding blog

THE STEPS

Step One: Create a Blog Business Plan

The next steps can be found here

Step Two: Create a Blog Launch Strategy

Step Three: Decide on a domain name and web hosting

Step Four: WordPress + Theme + Plugins

Step Five: Google Analytics + Webmasters + AdSense

Step Six: Get your first post on there!

Step Seven: Plan, Create and Promote!

Step One:

Create your wedding blog business plan

Not all bloggers plan ahead. No, most of us just go along and plan as we see fit…

We came to a sobering conclusion:

Our Seemingly Professional Wedding Blog was in need of a business plan. Not a fancy, well polished, 300-pager one. But just a basic Blog Business Plan that well help us to take the business where it was supposed to go in the first place: Forward!

We cannot stress the importance of a Blog Business Plan enough!

You blog is a type of business, right? It has a mission and purpose. It has goals, strategies, a target audience and a budget, right? It needs a business plan! A strategy!

Even if you create a rough draft of this business plan, and go with that, it is totally okay!

Did you know, that most successful businesses and large companies review and polish their business plans on a regular basis? So you can, too!

The following sections are covered in the Blog Business Plan:

Aims and Objectives of your Wedding Blog
Target Audience of your Wedding Blog
- BONUS: 12 Things you can offer to make people come back to your wedding blog
Competition of your Wedding Blog
Inspiration for your Wedding Blog
Monetizing your Wedding Blog
- BONUS: 5 Ways you can monetize your wedding blog
Marketing your Wedding Blog
Branding your Wedding Blog
- BONUS: 10 tips on writing the “about” section of your wedding blog
Budgeting for your Wedding Blog
Organizing your Wedding Blog
- BONUS: 9 Ways to keep your blogging business organized
Growing your Wedding Blog
Blogging Goals for your Wedding Blog
- BONUS: 11 Habits of successful bloggers

(We’ve made it easier for you to build your blog from the first step to the last, with our Blog Planner Kit. Plan, manage and maintain your blog with all of our printable sheets and planners + all our freebies in one place. Click here to get our Blog Planner Kit now. The Black Edition can be found here.)

Aims and Objectives of your Wedding Blog

The aims and objectives of your business plan will help you to drive the blog into the right direction.

What are your aims and objectives?

In other words: What are you trying to accomplish by creating this business? Try to write down at least five reasons about what you are aiming to achieve with this blog.

For instance, you are starting this wedding blog, because you simply love weddings! Or, you are a wedding planner and want to start a blog to help other wedding planners?

Why are you starting this new venture?

You need to find a reason why you are starting this blog in the first place, otherwise you will eventually drop it and not follow through with your goals – it happens to the best of us!

Write down the main reason why you are creating a wedding blog, or write down a few, just to motivate yourself to continue.

In fact, write it out on pretty paper, decorate it, frame it, and hang it on the wall! Because THIS is the drive force that will determine the success of your blog!

What will make your blog different from others?

From the top of your head, and without doing any research, what do you think will make your wedding blog different from other wedding blogs?

What can you think of that is different, unique and will spark new interest from potential readers?

This is what we call: The idea generator!

Take a piece of paper, and jot down a few unique ideas that you think will seal the deal for new readers!

Like, what will make them choose to read your article over someone else’s? Will you introduce a new angle, choice of words, writing style? Are you going to include different types of images, infographics or videos? Will you add your own, self-created media to your posts? Will you give away freebies, such as printables, checklists, planners or other digital items with each blog post? What else will you be able to offer?

Do what you think no one else is doing. Otherwise you will become just another wedding blog…

Target Audience

A target audience, or niche, is the people you actually want to read your blog, or buy your products. These people are genuinely and possibly interested in what you have to offer.

A thing to remember with audience (traffic, visitors, views, followers, etc.) is that some organic visitors are not part of your niche!

(So, while you may pride yourself in the 20+ visits you get on your blog per day/week, you should know that probably 70% of them fall into the categories of: “That single Malaysian guy who hates weddings and is into fishing instead” and “Russian bots”. (Russian bots, by the way, are what we call “web-crawlers” created by hackers who want to steal valuable information from innocent bloggers like us – and they are not only from Russia, by the way…)

Some people will reach your blog by accident, and some will intentionally go there. It’s all in the way you promote your blog and the strategies you use to get your content out there on the internet. You will always get accidental traffic, everyone does. But, you need to figure out how to convert most of your traffic into returning readers or people who will purchase what you have to offer.

More about that later…

Who are your target readers?

You have to identify who your niche is, so that you know who you are writing, or selling to. This will set the tone for your blog: How you write, where you promote, what your branding will look like, etc.

How will you determine your ideal niche?

We cannot simply say that there is a type of niche for each type of blog. It’s not that simple. All we know is that your blog is wedding related – so people who are interested in weddings as a topic will form part of your niche. Congratulations! That is 90% of the world’s population!

It is not going to work – it is too broad… Why? Because your competition is everyone else who has a wedding related blog, service, article or product. Let us be honest with you: Most 14 year old girls on Pinterest are also interested in weddings as a topic. Will they read every article you post on your blog, ever? Maybe. Will they buy your product or service? Probably not…

Define your niche by age, gender, location, interests, personality, and such. Because it is better to promote your content to 10 people that will stick around or buy your products, than to a 1000 people that will not.

How are you going to reach your avid readers?

So, you have identified your niche, and now we simply wait for them…

Just kidding! You have to go and find them, fetch them and bring them to your blog! And the only way to do this, is by reaching out to them.

So how will you do it?

You need to have a promotional strategy in place. Will you make use of social media or snail mail for this? (we prefer social media!)

A good promotional strategy is one that you have created for your blog, through trial and error. You need to see what works for your blog and what not. Each and every single blog is different and calls for different strategies.

First, determine what you want to promote and how you will benefit from that promotion – purpose, goals, etc. Then, you need to figure out where you are going to promote it, and to whom. Finally, think of how you will promote it to that person so that they can give you what you want. Sounds simple enough, right?

What will you be able to help them with?

Part of discovering who your target audience are, is by figuring out what their problem is, and what tools, resources and content you can create to help them with a solution to their problem.

People will be more interested in your blog if they have figured out that you can provide them with solutions. And these solutions will come in the form of helpful and interesting blog posts, media, content, etc.

So, focus on what you think most people struggle with, or find entertaining and interesting.

In the case of a wedding blog, common problems will be stuff like setting a budget, choosing a dress, planning your own wedding, etc. What can you offer your readers to help them with these type of problems?

How will you gain their trust?

You have found people to promote to, they found your content interesting (in fact they loved it!) and someone even bought one of your products… Well done!

BUT. Now you have to keep those people from disappearing into the massive void of the internet again. In other words, you need to convince them to come back and also eventually purchase whatever you are offering.

There is a massive list of things you can do to gain your readers’ trust, and get even more new readers… You just have to figure out which method and strategy will work the best with your blog.

12 Things you can offer to make people come back to your blog!

Blog Posts

The main reason why you started your blog in the first place!

If people realize that all of your content are high quality, helpful posts then they will definitely bookmark you, or even sign up to your mailing list. Make sure your blog posts are valuable, carefully worded and of superb quality, because everyone owns a blog these days – and you need to compete with them!

Make sure your blog posts stand out from the rest! And that it is not just another quick 500 word post with self-explaining content everyone has already seen somewhere else.

Freebies (opt-in + no opt-in)

Opt-in freebies will be something you provide to your readers, in exchange for them signing up to your e-mail list. You offer them a 2 page PDF checklist, for example, to get their e-mail address.

A no opt-in freebie is something you give to your readers without any strings attached. They don’t have to give you something back! (But many of them will come back once they realize that you offer many free stuff on your blog – so really, you are winning!)

There are so many things you can offer as a freebie on your blog – just make sure they are all wedding related, because that is what your blog is all about!

9 Freebies to offer on your wedding blog

Checklists

Planners

E-books

Videos

Podcasts

Images

Editable + printable stationery (invitations, thank you notes, etc.)

Printable stationery (name cards, thank you cards, tags, etc.)

Free fonts and images (that you have created)

Infographics

People are visual, and creating infographics is one brilliant way to make people come back to your blog.

Scanning an infographic versus reading an entire blog post is way easier. And once people notice that each of your blog posts have a summarized version in the form of an infographic, they will come back for more!

Make your infographics into longer images, so that it can also be pinned on Pinterest!

Reader engagement

If your readers realize that you actually read their comments and replies, they will trust your blog even more, and come back. Make sure your blog has a functioning comment box at the end of each blog post.

And don’t just read the comments on your blog – do so on your social media as well. And if no one is commenting, seek them out! Ask a compelling question at the end of your post, or on your social media and try to get a response from your readers.

Videos

Like we already mentioned: people are visual. Everyone appreciates a good quality, helpful or encouraging video. So make them!

The fun thing about videos are that you can create them and post them on your YouTube channel, then you can embed them into your blog posts! So you don’t take your readers away from your blog. Also, this is a great way to direct traffic to your blog – use your YouTube video’s descriptions to add links.

However, we do recommend that you share your video everywhere so that people can get to know who you are and what you blog about. Luckily, most social media platforms now have video features enabled, so you can literally share your videos everywhere.

Warning: Video equipment are expensive! Don’t invest in anything just yet, because it will put you back a few hundred. Make sure you budget for equipment, and when you are positive that it will be a valuable investment, go ahead and purchase. For now, your smartphone is more than good enough for recording videos!

Live stream

People will also become more engaged and confident in your content, if they see who is behind that gorgeous wedding blog of yours!

Most social media platforms have live video features nowadays, so post a quick 2 min video just to show people what happens behind the scenes! Or do a live talk on something wedding related – don’t make it too long, though, as people can quickly become bored with someone just talking on a live video!

Make sure you share your live video afterwards, so that people can find it and watch it later, too!

E-mail

There is a debate amongst bloggers about having an e-mail list, and not having one. Some find that an e-mail list is helpful when you frequently have to send out e-mails about updates, such as courses and products you are offering.

Others, again, feel that an e-mail list is a waste of time, no one ever reads your e-mails, and eventually everyone will unsubscribe. Besides, social media is there for giving updates!

The hurtful truth: It really is a personal preference whether or not you are going to build trust and gain more readers through e-mail newsletters. If you want to use e-mail as a strategy, just make sure you do it the correct way:

Don’t be spammy
Don’t make every e-mail a salesy one
Do give people updates about new blog posts
Do give away free goodies
Don’t harvest e-mails and spam everyone (it is unlawful!)
Don’t send an e-mail every 2 seconds
Do send out e-mails once a week or month
Make your e-mails interesting to read
Have an e-mail header and signature
Have e-mail etiquette and be professional
Reply to e-mails from readers
Have an autoresponder for when you are out
DON’T USE COMIC SANS! – You will not be taken seriously.

Social Media updates

If you have a blog, you should probably have follow buttons, too! Let people know that you are on social media and which platforms they can find you on.

This way, you can keep your readers updated about your blog (and they don’t have to sell their soul for that info). You get the chance to go viral, gain likes and followers, and they don’t have to give out their e-mail address yet again – everyone is happy!

Also be sure to check out social media posting times and how frequently you should post, to get the most out of your social media updates.

(By the way, are you following us for updates?)

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Webinars

A webinar is like a seminar, but on the web!

Webinars are great for your followers and readers, because you give more info on a certain topic, for a longer period of time. Some bloggers who have webinars, do it in a series of episodes or with other bloggers (collaborations, or collabs).

The beauty of webinars is that it can be live, contain links and have workshops. You can actively participate with your readers and followers and provide helpful content and information. People love this!

Having a wedding webinar can be so exhilarating, because you can work with other professionals in the industry and provide insight to your followers. You can even do a webinar for wedding planners, which can be a paid or free webinar!

Free courses

If you offer free courses to your readers, they will likely trust your advice and articles even more. You can offer a short 20 min video course or PDF, or, what many bloggers do: Create a 5-day e-mail course!

There are so many wedding related courses you can offer! How-to videos and content, information sessions, planning a wedding course, how to become a wedding planner, etc. The options are endless!

Always make sure your content is valuable, helpful, unique and inspiring, otherwise your efforts will be in vain.

Podcasts

Audio clips and podcasts are not as popular as they used to be, but there are so many people out there that still listens to them. If you feel like creating podcasts, you can focus on certain aspects of weddings, or do an entire podcast series!

Podcasts can also be purchased by your audience, and if you give people a preview of what you offer, they are more likely to buy your podcasts. Make sure your podcasts as professional, clear and of high quality.

Giveaways and Competitions

People love to win stuff, so giveaways and competitions are a good way to get your readers more involved in your wedding blog. You can promote your comps on social media and on your blog (use that sidebar!).

Be ethical about it: Make sure you are offering something valuable and wedding related to your readers, and actually make the effort to announce the winner and send the item to them! (We know of horror stories where comps are run by bloggers, and they didn’t follow through (like, a winner was chosen, but never received a prize!). The result: A dramatic loss in followers and readers, and many unsubscribers!)

Competition

The next part of your Blog Business Plan is scoping the competition. This will determine the success of your wedding blog. It will also help you determine the efforts and strategies you will have to put in to stand out from the rest of the wedding blogs out there.

How to identify a competitor

So, how will you know if that gorgeous wedding blog you just visited, is actually your competition? Here are a few things to look at, to try and identify your competitors (we say try, because in real life, everyone is actually your competition)…

Their niche

By reading some of their content, looking at their branding and checking out their social media, can you figure out what their niche is? Who, do you think, is their ideal reader or follower? And compare this info with your own ideal niche or target market.

Promotional strategy

Can you gather what strategies they have in place to promote their content? Do they have an e-mail sign-up? How do they behave on social media? What type of things do they promote? Compare their possible strategy with your own.

Social Media Networks

You can collect a magnitude of info from any successful business’ social media profile. This is the ‘face’ of their business, so go ahead and see what type of content your possible competition are posting on their networks. Also think of how you will promote your content on social media, that will be different from theirs.

Strengths and Weaknesses

While you are on someone’s wedding blog or website, see if you can identify their strengths and weaknesses. Some of their weaknesses can be that they write short blog posts, have zero social media interaction on their accounts, not having a mobile friendly (responsive) website, etc. Strengths can be things like beautiful, representative branding, high social media engagement, great content, many shares, etc.

What are your wedding blog’s strengths and weaknesses?

Who are your competitors?

Go ahead and make a list of all the possible competitors and what their wedding blogs entail. You will regularly visit these blogs, because you need to improve and polish your wedding blog to be better than theirs! It is a process, because highly active blogs are normally ahead of the game.

Why are they your competitors?

If you consider all wedding blogs to be your competition, then your blog is going to disappear. The best way to eliminate those that are not actually your competition, is by deciding why another wedding blog is. Make a list of reasons for each chosen blog, and focus on the top 3 or 5 blogs. A blog is a work in progress, so you will constantly have new competitors out there.

Inspiration

Who/what inspires you?

To stay motivated and to push through with your wedding blog, you need to constantly be inspired with new ideas to stand out from the rest.

Your competition, for example, can also be your inspiration. Your competitors are not your enemies! They are the ones that you can also look up to for ideas and inspiration! (Side note: Never copy someone else’s hard work! By inspiration, we mean: what are they doing that inspires you to come up with your own great ideas?)

With blogging, you will also have to figure out what inspires you? Will it be sitting outside in the garden and brainstorming outdoor wedding ideas? Or watching your guests play games at your house on game night for wedding guest ice-breaker ideas?

Or does your Instagram feed inspire you to write new content?

Where will you look for inspiration to create more content?

There are so many places to find inspiration! If we had to make a list, it will be endless… But, to mention only a few:

Pinterest and Instagram
Shopping at home and décor stores
Having a brainstorming session
Art, crafts and DIY sessions

Monetizing your Wedding blog

We are including this section, because most people want to monetize their blog and make it a stream of passive income. If you are simply starting a wedding blog for passion, and not for profit, simply skip this part.

If you are going to sell something, what will you sell?

Thinking of a product to sell is a whole other business plan on its own. However, if you have to start somewhere and had to choose something immediately, what will it be?

Some wedding blog owners simply sell digital products, such as printables, calendars, planners, checklists, invitations, wedding stationery, etc.

Other wedding blog owners sell physical items, too. This can be wedding favors, dresses, décor, flowers, gifts and such.

You can also sell your wedding related services on your blog. Are you a designer, who can design lovely mood boards and stationery for your clients? Or maybe you are a full time wedding planner, who have many different packages to offer…

If you don’t have a potential product or service yet, then take your time in coming up with one. In the meantime, you can monetize your blog in other ways…

How can you monetize your blog?

This is such a foreign concept to a lot of people, but you can REALLY make money from your wedding blog!

There are so many different ways to actually do this – without selling a physical item. Let us look into a few ideas!

5 Ways to monetize your wedding blog

Your blog can become an advertising space for others, and you can charge a monthly fee for this. Most bloggers choose well known advertisers, such as Google Adsense, Mediavine and AdThrive for this.

The pro’s:

You can make money from this, and almost immediately if you know what you are doing.
Some ad companies, such as MediaVine, can pay a lot if visitors on your blog are benefiting from ads placed on your website.
The more traffic you have, the more likely your income from ads will grow.

The cons:

You are offering up valuable space on your blog
Many ad companies place random ads on your blog that doesn’t have anything to do with weddings!
Some ad companies’ ads are super spammy and annoying
You need a lot of traffic from the start to benefit from this (i.e. MediaVine requires you to have at least 25,000 monthly views, before they consider your application to their program)

Affiliates

Affiliate programs have taken the internet by storm, since the World Wide Web went global. Then they died. And now they are back again!

An affiliate program is where you sign up, get a special link to put somewhere on your blog, and get commission whenever someone buys something through clicking on that special link.

You can make bucket loads of cash by joining the correct and high paying affiliate programs from the start of your blog – so simply put: You need to find high paying, wedding related affiliate programs to join.

The difference between Affiliate Programs and Affiliate Networks

Affiliate program:

A single program provided by one company. Usually, only that company’s products or services are promoted. Examples: Target, Macy’s and Walmart

Affiliate network:

A wide array of affiliate programs, managed under one company. The perks of a network is that all of your profits are managed under one roof – instead of having to collect your profits from each and every affiliate program you have joined individually. Examples: ShareASale, Awin and FlexOffers

Pro’s:

Affiliate programs are where most bloggers make their money – it truly is a rewarding way of making money from your blog!
You can join affiliate programs from day 1 of your new blog
You get an affiliate program for nearly anything and everything – including all things wedding related!
It is the fastest and easiest way to make money from your blog (but still requires work!)
The more traffic you get, the more potential buyers will visit your blog and click on your links, the more commissions you will make

Con’s:

Different affiliate programs pay differently: Their % commissions varies, payout times and methods also vary – so you can earn a few cents from some, or hundreds of dollars from others…
Just as there are many high paying affiliate programs out there, there are also many affiliate program SCAMS out there – beware!
Locating the perfect high paying affiliate program for your wedding blog can take months or even years! (trial and error is the only way)
Some affiliate programs have a bad reputation – the problem is finding these ones and avoiding them.
Some affiliate programs have strict terms and conditions, or change their terms and conditions frequently – always read up and check! No matter how boring the legal jargon is…

Here are some top affiliate programs to join:

FlexOffers
ShareASale
Awin
Amazon Associates (start with high traffic)
eBay
CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction)
Clickbank
Rakuten
Shopstyle Collective
Check massive online stores for affiliate programs (it will normally be in the footer of their website: Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Target, Walmart, etc.)
Search Google for any topic + affiliate program (example: “wedding affiliate program”) and go through the results – be wary of scammers!

Some sponsored post companies worth checking out:

Blogher
The Blogger Network
Reach out in some of the Facebook groups to find out who is currently offering sponsored post opportunities

Services

You can offer services on your wedding blog for additional income. Just make sure that it doesn’t take up too much of your blog post writing time!

Some ideas for services on a wedding blog:

Virtual wedding assistant – help someone plan their wedding online, by finding suppliers and venues for them, scheduling their appointments and to do’s in Google Calendar, phoning people for them, managing their guest RSVP’s etc. You can possibly charge an hourly rate, or offer packages at a set price.
Online wedding consultant – You can help brides plan their wedding by giving guidance and advice. You can also source suppliers and venues for clients, and ask a sourcing fee.
Additional services – You can offer singular services to clients, such as creating a mood board for their wedding, working out their budget for them, booking something for them, selecting their online registry gifts for them, building their wedding website for them, etc. You can ask a different price for each service you offer
Online coaching – You can coach wedding planners in the industry, and help them to start their wedding planning service or business
Online live courses – Help brides and wedding planners with live courses in wedding planning such as setting up a budget, arranging flowers, setting up a wedding schedule, etc.

Digital Products

The fantastic thing about digital products, is that you only have to create them once, and then sell them forever!

There are many great products that you can design and that fits into the wedding category. You can also design and sell you digital products on an online marketplace. You simply use your blog then to promote your items and to link to them. An ideal online marketplace will be something like Etsy, Creative Market or Gumroad.

You can sell items such as:

Printables – planners, checklists, schedules, etc. (Check out our Etsy shop for examples)
Stationery – invitations, RSVP cards, thank you notes, etc.
E-Books – wedding e-books, wedding planner books

PDFs, Word documents, Spreadsheets – think budget spreadsheets, gift registry lists, etc.

How will your products/services benefit your readers?

Don’t just create products or offer services simply as your main purpose. Think of what you can offer your readers that will truly benefit them.

If they come with a problem to your wedding blog, you should say “oh! I have a printable checklist for that!”. The best way to do this, is by first letting them read a relevant blog posts, then placing links or images to related products or services in the blog post, gracefully.

Realizing which problems your readers have will also help you create products and services to help them – and there is a bigger chance of them making a purchase.

What makes your products/services different from the competition?

If your products or services are well thought out or unique, people are more likely to purchase. That’s why testimonials and reviews are so great: Because people can determine for themselves whether or not your products or services are worth their money.

Again, you need to stand out from the rest, because if you sell a wedding planner printable, it is going to be difficult to compete with the hundreds already out there. If you want to sell something that is already on the market, try to make it different from everyone else’s.

Charging for products and services

Always price your offerings right. If it’s too expensive, people won’t fork money out for it. If it is too cheap, people will wonder what is wrong with it.

Set your prices according to what you think you will pay for it. How much will you be willing to spend on it?

Also, remember that you cannot go with competitive prices, especially for selling products. There are some people who will ask $50 for an item, and others who will ask $0.50 for the same item. You need to ask yourself, how can you convince people to buy your product in stead of someone else’s?

Do a bit of research on this. And if you are just starting out, we highly recommend Etsy. They have a marketplace, so it’s easier to sell to people without the required, and massive, amount of traffic from a blog. And also, they have a magical place called The Etsy Seller’s Handbook. This is the ultimate guide to getting people to buy your stuff!

So, to summarize the ways to monetize your blog:

Ads
Affiliates
Sponsored Posts
Services
Digital (and physical) items

Marketing

The marketing section of your Blog Business Plan is all about how you are going to get your content in front of your audience.

Which social media platforms will you use to promote your blog?

As you have already discovered, there are many social media networks out there. Each comes with its own layout, features and strategies. And you need to fully understand and utilize these platforms in order for it to work for you.

An important note on choosing which social media network is the best one for your wedding blog: Don’t choose all of them. You are going to promote your stuff 24/7 and not have time to actually create lots of content, never mind trying to monetize your blog. (That is why some people refer to blogging as a full-time job! And since it is an entrepreneurial business, you will put in twice as much effort than a normal daily 9-5 job.)

We recommend that you choose one or two networks, get the hang of it, utilize it fully, gain enough followers, learn it, then move on to the next…

We’re going to look at the top ones. We’d be lying if we say there are only 4! But these are the most popular ones right now:

Facebook: The Network of Networks (of Networks)

Facebook is a network of many branches in which you can promote your wedding blog. You can have your personal account to promote to friends (and hopefully they will share your work).

You can create a page for your wedding blog, where you can post updates about new blog posts, videos, images, competitions, events and also shop items.

You can start an open group where people can join and engage, or a closed group which a lucky few can join and participate in. For your wedding blog, we recommend that you create a Facebook Page. Groups can be created at a later stage.

Also, take note of Facebook Ads. You can pay Facebook to run your ads to a targeted audience. Be warned though: Even though it doesn’t look like much, Facebook ads can really ad up in the end. Be sure to have a marketing budget in place!

Twitter: The Now-You-See-Me-Now-You-Don’t Network

This is the fastest moving network of them all, and the “Tweets you have missed” feature really isn’t doing it much justice. In order to be seen on Twitter, you need to post a lot! And frequently.

Numbers are important: If you have plenty of Twitter followers, that means that more people will see your Tweets, like them, comment on them or even share them.

The great thing about Twitter is that you can now add images and video to your tweets as well, and insert working links to your blog posts.

Twitter is hard work and lots of time and patience. But don’t write it off just yet. Many bloggers get loads of traffic just from Twitter alone!

Instagram: The Love-This-Love-That Network

You have probably already seen what Instagram looks like, and it is totally great! On Instagram, you can “heart” someone’s post, or save and share it. (If you hold the ‘save’ button in, you can actually create categories for your saved items)

If you know how Instagram works – and it is worth studying Instagram marketing strategies – then your wedding blog can truly benefit from it. You can post images and videos, and you can also go live. A nice perk about Instagram is, if you have more than 10,000 followers, Instagram enables the “swipe up” feature, which will be able to take your followers immediately to a link in your post – perfect for promoting new blog posts!

The dreadful downside of Instagram is, users can pay people to gain followers – and that makes it difficult for gaining organic traffic. Also, there are many instances where Instagram can ban your account, such as if you post too much, you’re being spammy, you are using the same hashtags over and over, or you post offensive stuff. Carla Biesinger has created a super helpful post of Instagram tips and how to use Instagram properly – it is really worth the read!

Pinterest: The Snowballer Network

Pinterest is a wedding blog’s best friend! It is called the Snowballing platform, because once you have a Pin that starts getting engagement, it will get more and more engagement, causing a snowballing effect.

Create great Pins, and post them on Pinterest with compelling blog titles. Use colors strategically (do some research on Social Media color branding). Also, make sure you have proper Pin descriptions with carefully selected keywords. This will help people to find you pins whenever they search for something.

Set up a Pinterest account right away, to start gaining followers!

How will you use each social media platform to reach your audience?

Whew! That was a lot of basic explaining to do! The next step in marketing your wedding blog is to decide how you will use each social media platform to get your content out there.

The best way to determine this, is by having a social media plan/strategy in place. Take a weekly calendar, for example. Write down which platforms you are going to use, what type of content you will promote, in what media form will you promote it (post, image, video, live) etc. Then you need to schedule your posting times and your posting frequency (how often are you going to post and where). (For scheduling, you can use Hootsuite, Buffer and Tailwind)

We cannot give you a set strategy, because it all depends on your content, media and location + the type of social network you are trying to promote on. Again, you have to tweak your social media marketing strategies through trial and error, to find out what works for your blog.

Social Media scheduling worksheet - social media calendar — (Click the image to download this freebie!)

To e-mail or not to e-mail

Another method of reaching out to your readers, besides using good ol’ social media, is by building an e-mail list. You can then e-mail updates and newsletters to your subscribers to keep them posted on your wedding blog’s latest happenings. There are a few things you need to consider:

Which list-building strategies will you use?

Decide how you will collect people’s e-mail addresses (because simply adding them manually from somewhere is illegal. They need to give consent and agree to receive regular updates and newsletters from you).

Rather promote opt-in freebies, such as a useful checklist, for example, in exchange for their e-mail address. Or, offer a short 3-day e-mail course. Be creative! And make sure you promote an opt-in freebie that people actually want.

What type of e-mails will you send?

There are so many different types of e-mails that your subscribers can benefit from. This includes:

Newsletters
Blog post updates
Latest happenings/events
Free digital product downloads
Giveaways and competitions
Surveys, research and data gathering
Engaging e-mails (ask a question)
Provide an e-mail course

How will you, and your readers, benefit from each e-mail?

Don’t just send an e-mail for the sake of sending one. The best, well converting e-mails are the ones that are sent out with a purpose. Have a strategy for each e-mail that you send out.

How, and what, will you sell through your e-mails?

If you are planning to sell something through e-mail marketing, what will it be? And more importantly, how will you try and sell it? Most readers unsubscribe because bloggers frequently send out salesy e-mails, which can become annoying.

Don’t try and sell something in every e-mail you send out!

How frequently will you send e-mails?

This can also determine whether your readers will unsubscribe to your e-mail list. If you send out too many e-mails in a day, people will become annoyed and unsubscribe!

Have another strategy in place for this, and make sure you benefit from each e-mail that you send out. Otherwise you have to wait before you send the next one out again.

Which e-mail platform is the best to use?

Lastly, you should decide which e-mail service will be the best one for your wedding blog. There is MailChimp, SumoMe, ConvertKit and MailerLite, just to name a few.

If you want to start building your e-mail list, we recommend that you start with MailerLite. It’s free for up to a 1000 e-mail subscribers, and you can create e-mail series which will automatically send out one after the other, with your choice of timing in between e-mails. This makes it great for e-mail courses!

E-mail newsletter ideas - email ideas for subscribers — (Click the image to download this freebie!)

How much time, effort and money are you willing to spend on marketing?

The golden question of the marketing section. And the ugly truth is: Money gets you places – even in the blogging world. But just as you are willing to invest money in your marketing strategies, you should also invest in your efforts and time, too.

The best way to answer this question, is by having a blogging budget in place, as well as a daily, weekly and monthly blogging schedule. Always plan and prepare ahead, to keep yourself from drowning.

*A note on time and effort: Consistency is key! You need to put the same time and effort into each aspect of your wedding blog each day, week and month – to get the results that you want!

Branding

Branding is the ‘look and feel’ of your wedding blog. And it can truly make or break your brand new venture – so make sure you put some effort into this section, no matter how small of a factor you think it is.

What to brand on your wedding blog

Just having a pretty header image on your wedding blog is not enough. You need to brand more than that in order to portray your wedding blog image to the world. You should brand every image that you use, and on every platform (including social media). Use the same colors and embellishments throughout.

The more you brand everything, the more easily people will start recognizing and trusting your content. So every Pin that is created, should be branded accordingly. Each image posted on twitter or Instagram should have your branding, and so forth.

Things to brand on your Wedding Blog:

Header Images
Logo
Fonts used
Color Scheme, patterns and textures
Embellishments
Images and other media
Your e-mail signature and header
Pins
Other promoted content

Be consistent

In order for people to start recognizing your brand, you have to be consistent with your brand elements. Your images, logo, colors, etc. should all be the same throughout everything you create.

People who discover you will soon realize that you are a trusted source, who provides high quality content every time and will most likely revisit your blog again and again. It will be easier for them to find you, let’s say, through your Pinterest pins, because they recognize your branding through your pins!

Review and polish

Don’t be afraid to revisit and re-brand your wedding blog. If you feel the need to change the look and feel of your blog, then go ahead and design new things – but do so in a subtle way…

It takes time to completely re-brand everything, especially if you have already been at it for months. Make sure to recreate images and save them, then have dedicated days on which you update and upload new elements of your brand.

Reasons why you should consider your re-branding your wedding blog:

You have finally discovered who your niche is, and can re-brand according to their interests and personalities – example: You have a funky style in branding, but your niche is more towards classic, late 20’s readers. Think of how you can portray your niche through your branding. A clean and classic look, maybe?
As you blog more, your style changes. So does your knowledge about blogging. You might want to re-brand, because you feel your blogging style have evolved.
When you first start out, you are eager to choose your branding quickly, because you just want to get your content out there. You can always focus on the perfect branding for your wedding blog at a later stage. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Writing the “About” section of your blog

If people are genuinely interested in what you have to say, they may want to get to know a little bit more about what is going on behind the scenes of your wedding blog.

The “about” section of your blog is where you get to portray yourself, what it is you do, what your passions are, etc.

10 tips on writing the “about” section of your wedding blog:

The focus of your wedding blog is about weddings. Try to make the “about” section a separate space. You can introduce yourself either in the sidebar of your wedding blog (in a single paragraph), or create a different page where people can click to read more about you.
The link to your “about” page should clearly be stated somewhere. This can be either in your main menu at the top, or at the footer of your blog (where most people would look if they can’t find it at the top).
Make your “about” section or page interesting and relatable. How can you relate to weddings in general? People are not really that interested in all your childhood memories, what your favorite pet’s name is, what you normally eat for breakfast and so on, no.
People want to be inspired by your story. Make them trust you, by writing about how you came to start this wedding blog, how you have a passion for all things wedding related, etc. After all, you already share a common interest: weddings. Give them something of value, to make them come back to your blog for more.
If you have qualifications and experience in a certain similar field, name it. It is not called boasting if people are actually interest in you – and they came looking for info about you, on your about page! J
Don’t write a 10-pager. People lose interest in large bodies of text that tell stories, in stead of naming the facts. Keep your “about” page short and to the point. Make it interesting by naming a few facts about yourself – you can even create an infographic about this, to make it fun for people to read.
Be sure to include others who help you with your wedding blog. If there is a “team” behind this blog, it will also make it more interesting. Maybe you have a supportive spouse or sibling that occasionally helps you with all they techy stuff? Think of how individuals in your life support your wedding blog – and include a feature for each of them, too.
Be authoritative. Like we mentioned already, name your qualifications and experience if you have them. People also trust your content and will come back for more, if they realize that you know what you’re talking about in your blog posts.
Include links to your social media accounts, so that people can follow you there as well.
Don’t forget to let your personality shine through!

(Click the image to download this freebie!)

Budget

Every Business Plan has a budgeting section. And that includes the Blog Business Plan, too. Your budget is such an essential part of your wedding blog, because it will help you to not go bankrupt before you have even started!

How much are you going to spend on your blog initially?

Before starting your wedding blog, determine how much you are willing to spend on your blog to start it up. You have to take into account that there are expenses such as possible hosting fees and internet usage.

Also consider your time spent on working on this wedding blog = labor fees (and possibly the allowance you pay yourself for general upkeep).

You might also have utility expenses such as the electricity needed to charge your laptop or using your computer, or the coffees you pay for at your local coffee shop with WiFi… Sounds drastic, but you need to determine these expenses, no matter how small, because it all adds up!

How much are you willing to spend on promotion and marketing?

You will soon realize that promotion and marketing expenses can add up to be the most costly of all blogging expenses.

For example, Facebook ads might not look like a lot of money when you first start out, but if you run multiple campaigns at a time, it can become quite costly – and, if you don’t utilize these ads fully, and you are unsure what you are doing, then the cost can be even greater!

Also, if you are constantly active on Pinterest – promoting and growing numbers – which uses a lot of internet data (or cap), that in itself is another costly marketing expense.

Decide wisely where you think your ideal readers are hanging out, and try to work out a marketing strategy to promote to them. If they are mainly on Pinterest, start there. You can always expand to other social media platforms, once you have established a following from one platform.

And on that note: We highly recommend that you do expand to other platforms eventually. Why? Because putting all of your eggs in one basket is never a good idea. What if something is to happen to Pinterest? Or Twitter? Or even, dare we say it, Google?

Your traffic will come crashing down! And, we already know how much time and effort you would’ve put into gaining that traffic…

What other expenses will you possibly have, besides the usual blogging expenses?

In the beginning of this section we have mentioned that you should determine your expenses up front. There are common, well known expenses and then there are not so common ones.

Try to figure out which other expenses you might have besides the ordinary ones. Maybe you need to be able to afford a bus ticket, to get to an internet cafe? Or maybe you still need to buy a laptop, or register for an internet data package? Make a list of all of these possible expenses, and budget for it.

Blog budget worksheet - set up a budget for your blog — (Click the image to download this freebie!)

Organization

We have said before that your wedding blog is like a business. And an organized business makes it easier to reach goals and complete projects, which leads to success. You have to find a way to keep organized when having a blog.

How will you keep your blog organized?

There are many ways to keep organized, you will just have to find a method that suits your needs. Having a wedding blog is a lot of admin (we can assure you), and if your wedding blog looks like a hot mess, people will assume that it is not very professional.

Some key tips and advice we can give:

Have an approachable blog: Don’t scare people away by having a gazillion menu buttons, and loads of ads popping up everywhere, to name a few examples… Remember, people are there to read your content, which will not be possible if your blog looks like the circus just hit town.
Guide your readers by using images, clear wording, readable font, etc. Think: If you were a new visitor to your own wedding blog, how will your experience be? Can you navigate it easily? Does it look like a wedding blog to you? Is it branded accordingly?
Make sure that each blog post is also organized. The way you write your articles should be guided by headers and subtitles. Use keywords and make some words bold so that it stands out. A lot of your potential readers are skimmers – the simply want to skim over a blog post to understand what it is about, in stead of reading it word for word.
The footer of your wedding blog should also be organized. Have a look at some popular websites and blogs that you know of. They use the footer for easy navigation, and to make the menu at the top seem uncluttered. Your privacy policy, contact page, about page and other useful info can be linked in your footer – it keeps it out of the way, but makes it accessible to readers who want more info.

How will you handle blog admin?

There are more admin aspects to your blog than just your website. Your stats and finances are also a huge part and should be organized, so that you can benefit from as much “behind the scenes” info as possible.

Once you monetize your blog, and start to make some money, we highly recommend that your print these statements out, or save it to Dropbox, in case of taxes.

Keeping a thorough record of your wedding blog’s statistics will help you to see progress, and plan ahead. It is a valuable method to see what works and what doesn’t, and it can also help you to reach your blogging goals. Keeping these records electronically is really up to you – make sure to back everything up.

We prefer printing our stats out, as well as our financial records, and filing it. We’re old school like that! (Plus it looks super professional, and pretty, if you use matching binders and a bookshelf!

9 Ways to keep your blogging business organized

Keep a filing system for all your financial records and statistics
Keep track of your social media stats in a Spreadsheet program such as MS Excel.
Save all of your blog posts in MS Word (and also back published blog posts up via Updraft Plus)
Have an editorial calendar on your desk (to see when to create and publish what)
Create a list of potential blog topics or titles and have it on hand if you are having some writer’s block
Have a social media calendar where you can manage where you share what from your blog
Have a backup of your blog posts, page contents, images, files, etc. in MS Word format (or save it to Google Drive or Dropbox for safekeeping or copy it to a USB drive and keep it in a safe place)
Keep your desk organized – a cluttered and untidy desk can be a distraction and demotivate you!
Never underestimate the power of a good, old fashioned pen and paper – some of our greatest ideas come from brainstorming on paper!

Growth

It’s all great when you have a well maintained, up and running blog. But you will have to grow your blog constantly to keep up. Growth can be achieved in many different ways – you need to put a growth plan in place. And remember: always reflect on the growth of your wedding blog.

How will you maintain and grow your Wedding blog?

Have a few action plans in place to maintain and grow your blog. For instance, dedicate one day each month for blog maintenance. You can update plugins, polish some old blog posts, change images, etc. on these days.

Having a growth plan in place will also require a few days each month to review your blog, check stats, think of more ways to draw in readers and make more money with your blog. Think of ways to maintain and grow your wedding blog.

What techniques will you apply to grow your audience and followers?

Growing your blog means to make your blog greater in different areas so that your can gain more readers and followers, and make more money. You need to figure out which techniques work for you, as each and every blog is different and needs different strategies implemented.

Some well known techniques for blog growth:

Have an opt-in freebie (such as a free PDF or e-mail course) so that you can grow your e-mail list
Share on social media platforms to grow your followers
Frequently post new, high quality blog posts on your wedding blog to grow your traffic numbers
Use more high quality affiliate links and programs to grow your affiliate income
Make use of giveaways and competitions to grow your reader engagement

How will you grow your income from this blog?

As we have mentioned in some of the previous sections in this post, there are many ways to create income from a wedding blog. It is all great when you’re already making some income from your blog. But you want to grow your blog income, right?

To grow your income, think of some strategies to implement so that you can potentially gain more possible buyers. Will you make use of more affiliate programs and links? Will you advertise more of your services on social media? Have you considered hiring a virtual assistant to help you reach your blogging money goals more easily?

How can your audience recommend your blog to other readers?

One of the best ways to grow your blog is by encouraging your readers to share your blog on social media.

Your readers will only share your content if:

They find it useful
It is comprehensive and brings a lot of great information to them
It’s a high quality blog post
They enjoy reading from your blog (make use of writing techniques that will draw your readers in!)
They think others will also benefit from your blog post
It is clear to them how much time and effort you have put into creating an amazing blog post
They enjoy following you on social media

Blog growth mini-workbook - how to grow your blog — (Click the image to download this freebie!)

Blogging Goals

How will you know if you are making progress with your wedding blog if you don’t set any goals and achieve them? Having blogging goals in place is essential to grow your blog in the right direction and can help you to grow in all areas of your blog.

What type of reachable goals are you going to set for yourself?

There are many types of goals that you can set for your wedding blog. It is up to you to identify and implement them.

You can have monetary blogging goals, where you set achievable goals in order to make more money from your blog. For example: In 3 months, I want my blog income to be ‘x amount’ and I will achieve this goal by [doing]…’

If you want to gain more followers, an achievable goal will be something like: By January 2019, I want ‘x amount’ of followers on Instagram, and I will achieve this goal by [doing]…

Why are these goals important?

To keep yourself motivated and encourage yourself to reach the goals you set for yourself, think of why you want to achieve those goals. Having a clear vision of how and in which aspects you want your wedding blog to grow should already be in place.

How will you measure if you have reached these goals?

As with blog growth, having a reflection session after your goals have been reached is super important. Reflect on how you have reached your goals, when you’ve reached them, and how successfully you have reached them. Ask yourself what you can do in the future to improve on your goals. That includes goal setting as well as goal reaching.

11 Habits of successful bloggers

Keep up with the Race

Keep your wedding blog active. Make the effort to post often and share frequently. Advance your blog by including new content and blog posts. Make your posts of high quality and great content to stand out from the rest.

Stay informed – RESEARCH!

Research is so important for blogging growth. And not just research about what you should write about, but also research of blog and growth strategies and what your competition is doing.

Keyword research (SEO) is also vital for your blog, so that it can pop up in Google search results.

Try out different techniques

As we have already mentioned: Each blog is different and requires different strategies and techniques to be successful. It’s up to you to find out which techniques work for your wedding blog.

Content, content and more content!

The more content you have, the more likely people will discover your blog and your posts will rank on Google. More blog posts will increase your chance of ranking for keywords in the Google search results.

Tip: Aim for at least 100 blog posts in your first year of blogging. It may sound like a lot, especially if you take into account that it means 100 high quality, informative, great content posts. But the reward of reaching this goal is exhilarating.

Try out different types of media to reach out to your niche

It is amazing that you include blog posts on your blog, but providing information in different formats will also grow your blog at an alarming rate. Make videos and audio clips (podcasts) and embed them in your posts. Make use of infographics and images to help your audience understand what you are saying. Think of ways to use different media on your blog! (If you make use of videos, you can start a YouTube channel and direct traffic from there to your blog!)

Try a different social media platform

If you have already gained quite a following on the popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, why not try out other platforms, too? StumbleUpon and Reddit are both great ways to get your content noticed. You can also try out LinkedIn, Tumblr, Etsy Teams, and other online platforms – you just need to look for them – and there are dozens!

Schedule, Plan, Organize and Manage!

Successful bloggers make it their mission to handle the admin of keeping a blog, like a professional. Use schedules and to do lists (like Asana and Trello) to plan ahead for your wedding blog. Keep your blog organized and manage your blog admin such as stats and financial records.

It’s okay to press delete…

Over time, your blogging skills will become more sophisticated and you will develop a certain style and technique for your blog posts and other media. You can then delete (or improve) those first few blog posts you created when you first started out. Always make sure that you don’t rank for them already on Google or Pinterest and that it doesn’t bring in a lot of traffic, before you delete it! Having a ‘Page not found’ notification page in front of your readers can be damaging. Not to mention, Google can actually penalize you for having too many of those pages and it can affect your ranking.

Don’t forget: You are a human being!

No one expects you to be a robot. Remember to stay healthy when you start a wedding blog. Take it seriously and work hard, but also remember to eat, drink water and get sleep! It’s not worth it if you get sick all the time because of blogging.

Perfection after the launch…

You’ve probably already heard of the saying in the blogging world: Launch now, perfect later! You can waste so much precious time on trying to perfect content for your blog, that it could’ve started ranking on Google and Pinterest long ago if you’ve just launched or published it! You can always go back to content and perfect it later.

Don’t forget why you started this in the first place!

This is what we would like to call: Your Core Motivator! Whenever you feel down, unmotivated or you’re procrastinating like crazy, think of why you have started your wedding blog in the first place.

Tip: Write down a list of reasons in your journal or print it out and stick it on your wall where you can see it. Then, whenever you feel unmotivated, read through it.

And there’s no such thing as a silly reason for doing this! Having simple things such a LouBoutin shoes or Givenchy perfume on your list is perfect! Anything that motivates you, no matter how small, should be on that list!

core motivator list - why you are blogging - why you have started in the first place — (Click the image to download this freebie!)

Where to from here?

Tackle step 2 to 7 by going to this post!

by Tanya Guilfoyle

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Tanya has been an active contributor and planner in the wedding industry since 2016. When not writing useful content for brides and wedding professionals, she can be found designing templates for her Etsy shop, TWCprintables.