Starting a money management blog is a great way to help spread valuable financial advice in an economy where the majority of Americans are in serious debt. Studies have shown that the average American carries $38,000 in personal debt. A large part of the reason why is that they aren’t armed with the resources and know-how to make smart financial decisions. That’s where you come in. Whether you own a personal finance business, consult on finances, or simply enjoy the topic, there are plenty of reasons why you’d want to start a money management blog. Here are a few steps on getting started:
Be Passionate
To many people, finance isn’t a fun topic. But if you want to succeed with a money management blog, passion is a necessary ingredient in the recipe. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself running out of steam fast—rather than being patient with results. Starting a blog with the right hosting plan in any niche is easy enough in terms of technicality, but it can certainly be frustrating when you’re waiting for that blow to experience traction and grow a steady readership base.
Put on Your Investigative Hat
Speaking from experience and drawing upon other people’s experience is great material for your blog, but if you want to continue growing, you’ll have to do some digging and investigating yourself.
For example, let’s say an awesome new mobile application for money management hits the App Store. It’s not enough to just announce it (assuming you want to stand out from your competition). Instead, download the app yourself. Play around with all the features of the app, and take screenshots to include in your blog post. Application and platform reviews are always great for attracting readers, especially when they’re thorough.
In some cases, as your page visits grow, you may even be able to score beta tests from new apps or unlock premium services for free from publishers. Additionally, you can test out store apps. Why not walk through a department store and see exactly how you can save money with their coupons, helping readers understand the true value (or waste) of certain savings opportunities? Over time, readers will come to trust you as a valuable source.
Read Up on the Competition
Money management and personal finance blogs are a dime a dozen today. Choose a handful of the best ones, and scour through their blog posts, focusing on titles, content, and social shares (if visible). You’ll notice some important commonalities, and this will help you draw inspiration for your own blog. After reading other blogs, ask yourself, “what’s missing?” and “what can be improved?” You can also use competitor research tools to determine which keywords they’re targeting.
Create a Content Calendar
A content calendar is a great way to help you manage all the content on your blog. Ideally, you’ll be publishing at least once per week at a minimum. Use an online content calendar to help you manage which pieces of content will be published on which date. This will help you avoid the dreaded writer’s block, which can stall your consistency and ultimately hurt your success.
Don’t Forget About SEO
SEO is an important part of any blog. From the beginning, conduct some keyword research to determine which keywords you should be focusing on as you craft each blog post. You can even add these keywords to your content calendar to help you remember which words to input post by post. The more you consider SEO as you write, the better your chances will be to rank higher in search engines and reach even more potential readers.
Speak From Experience
Part of what makes personal finance and money management blogs a great read is that many of the blog owners are speaking from personal experience. This means they’ve been through financial hardship and discovered key strategies to help them get back on track. Or they bounced back from bankruptcy. Or they started businesses and understand how to navigate the tricky waters of bank loans. Whatever the case, being transparent about how you manage your money is key. It also helps to create use cases for readers to gain a more thorough understanding of how certain money-saving strategies work.
And lastly, it’s impossible to go through every financial situation yourself, so it also helps to talk to and interview people who have been in your shoes or who match your ideal demographic. What happened to them and how did they manage to make their own situations better? You can use platforms like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to solicit knowledgeable advice from business owners and bloggers who are happy to provide rich content in exchange for a blog mention.
