7-Day Wordpress

Blog Launch Checklist

This blogging quickstart guide will provide

you with an easy checklist to launch your
blog in 7 days.

Note: this guide may take longer than 7 days to complete.

However, bookmark this guide and come back to it when you are ready to get
started with a profitable WordPress blog.

*Note: contains affiliate links to my top recommended products

where I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. These are
merely the tools I fully recommend when starting a blog.

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YOUR CHECKLIST
DAY 1

Know Your Why and

Write Down Your Goals
Before you start your blog, you have to deeply
understand why you’re getting started and
what you want to achieve. Write down your 1,
3, and 6 month goals. These may include:
launch my blog, write five 2,500+ blog posts,
get 50 backlinks, generate $1,000/month, etc.
Your short term goals turn into long term
success, so start with the end in mind.

Choose Your Niche

Your blog’s niche should be in an area that
matches both your expertise and interests. It
should also have good search volume and
monetization opportunities. Most importantly,
your niche needs market demand and a
highpaying audience. Read tips from email #2
and use a tool like Ahrefs of SEMRush to do
keyword research.

Get started with a free 7-day trial with

SEMRush today.

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DAY 1

Research Other Blogs

Once you’ve picked your niche, perform
keyword research and look into your
competition. Make a list of the top 10 keywords
you want to rank for. Then check to see who’s
already ranking for them and the sites’ Domain
Rating. Your niche should have keywords with
high search volume, competition levels under
0.3, and one low DR site ranking on page one.

Pick Your Domain Name

Your blog’s domain name is very important for
your personal brand. Make sure your domain
name is catchy, short, matches your niche,
and can be used for a long time. For example,
if you’re not 100% sure of the exact direction
your blog will take, a broader domain name
ensures you’re not pigeonholing your options.

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DAY 2

Get Your Domain and Hosting

for WordPress with Bluehost
Your web hosting plan is one of the most
important choices when starting your blog.
When you sign up, you get a free domain, free
SSL, easy 1-click WordPress install, and a great
24/7 support team. Their plans start at $2.95/
month and they have a 30-day money back
guarantee.

You can get started with Bluehost (63% off)

with my link here.

Install Your WordPress Theme

Design is crucial to your blog’s user
experience, site speed, and lead generation
efforts. Luckily, there are a ton of great
WordPress blog themes to choose from. You
sipmly purchase a theme, download the zip
file, and install it in your WordPress dashboard
under Appearance - Themes. Then you can
make all of your theme edits inside of
WordPress under Appearance - Customize.

Check out ThemeIsle for some excellent and

easy-to-use WordPress themes.

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DAY 2

Plan Your Sitemap

In addition to your blog posts, your site needs
a few key pages that should be included in
your top level navigation. These pages may
include: Home, Start Here, About, Services,
and Contact. Write out your full sitemap
in a document to cover your bases.

Perform Keyword Research

and Plan Your Blog Posts

Create a list of 10 potential blog topics that

you’d like to write about. First, perform
keyword research with a tool like SEMRush to
view your target keyword’s search volume,
competition, and current top 10 results. If your
target keywords have high competition, it will
be difficult to rank for them. If they have less
competition (under 0.3), your new blog has a
chance of hitting page one faster. Remember,
your target keywords will be included in your
blog post title, URL, and throughout the body
of your post. Secondary and semantic
keywords should be added too.

Get started with SEMRush free for 7 days.

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DAY 3

Install Your
WordPress Plugins
Properly choosing your WordPress plugins 5. OptinMonster - Best email list
has a huge impact on your site speed,
builder
SEO, design, and performance. Here are the
top plugins I recommend you install on your 6. ShortPixel - Best image optimizer
WordPress blog right from the start. 7. ThirstyAffiliates - Best plugin for
affiliate links
1. Easy Table of Contents
8. WP Rocket - Best speed plugin
2. Elementor Pro - Best webpage builder
9. Yoast SEO - Best SEO plugin
3. Mashshare Share Buttons
4. MonsterInsights - Easiest way to
install Google Analytics

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DAY 3

Install Google
Analytics
To track your blog traffic and visitor behavior,
you need to install Google Analytics. It’s super
easy with the free MonsterInsights plugin.

First, go to Google Analytics and create a new

Google Analytics property with your blog’s URL
- make sure to use the https version. Next, go
to the Google Analytics settings in your
MonsterInsights plugin and authenticate
your Google account.

Set Up Google
Search Console
Google Search Console is a free service that
allows you to monitor, maintain, and
troubleshoot your appearance in Google
search results. When setting it up, input your
URL and make sure your primary account is
your https version. Next, make sure to submit
your sitemap. This can be done automatically
with the Yoast SEO plugin.

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DAY 4

Optimize Your
WordPress Settings
In your WordPress dashboard, there are a
lot of different items to tweak in your
settings tab. Here are a few to optimize:
• Settings/General: Add your site title,
tagline and URL.
• Settings/Reading: Home page
display, search engine visibility.
• Settings/Permalinks: Make sure your
blog’s URL structure is optimized for
SEO and uses this Custom
Structure: blog.com/%postname%

Design Your Blog

Now that your WordPress theme is installed
from Themeisle and plugins are installed, it’s
time to start updating your blog’s design. To
edit the look of your theme, go to
Appearance/Customize and use the WYSIWYG
editor to update your site information, logo,
colors, menus, and widgets. If you have coding
knowledge, you can go to Appearance/Editor
to adjust your blog’s CSS files.

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DAY 4

Build Out Your Blog’s Pages

Once you’re happy with your blog’s design settings, you can start adding your pages.
Go to Pages/Add New to create a new page. You first want to design your homepage,
as well as the main pages that will live in your menu navigation. Use the Elementor
drag and drop editor to give your homepage a custom look. Also, make sure to check
your tablet and mobile settings within Elementor to make sure your pages look great
on all devices.

Using either Gutenberg or the Classic Editor, it’s easy to add text, images, and links
to your pages. Ensure your pages’ titles and URL structures include target keywords.
Save your pages as drafts and hit publish when they’re ready.

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DAY 5

Write Your First

Blog Post
While it’s easy to assume that you need 10-20
blog posts ready before you launch, this isn’t
the case. Remember, it’s quality over quantity.
One 3,000+ word blog post can be more
valuable than five 500 word blog posts. When
writing your post, start with keyword research
to choose your blog post’s title.

Here are some tips to optimize your blog post titles:

1. Use numbered lists: Numbered lists have very high blog title click through rates.
Additionally, odd numbers at the beginning of your post perform better than even numbers.
For example: 87+ High Paying Affiliate Programs (2019).

2. Title length: Keep your title under 60 characters so that it doesn’t get cut off on search
engine results pages (SERPS).

3. Place your target keyword at or near the beginning of the title (and URL).

4. Add the year at the end of your title if your topic is timely.

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DAY 5

After your pick a title, here are some blog writing

tips with SEO in mind:

1. Structure your headers correctly: Your main post headers should be H2s and include your
target keyword or variations of your target keyword. For subsections, make those H3s and
number them.

2. Strategically place internal links: Time on page and bounce rate are important metrics to
Google. Add links to related blog articles near the beginning and end of your post to
improve the chances readers will interact with more of your content.

3. Add secondary and semantic keywords: Use SEMRush to find keywords related to your
target keyword and leverage a tool like LSIGraph to find semantic keywords to add into your
posts.

4. Write long-form, compelling content: Longer, more useful posts will outrank your
competition. Add infographics and images to keep your readers engaged. If you hit writers
block, add all of your main headings first as an outline. Then work on your middle sections
next as the intro and conclusion are more difficult to write and can be done at the end.

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DAY 6

Optimize Your Blog With Yoast SEO

The Yoast SEO plugin is the best tool to ensure your blog is 100% search engine optimized.
Once installed, this plugin appears at the bottom of every post and page. On every post
and page, plug your target keyword into Yoast, add in your page title and meta description,
and follow their tips to improve on-page SEO. Next, make sure your Yoast settings are all
set up correctly. Here are some of the top settings to update when you first install Yoast.

• Connect Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

• Edit your taxonomies: These settings will change how your sitemap indexes
your content. If you are just starting out, you can turn off Tags in search results as
well as date archives.
• Add your social accounts and turn on Twitter cards.
• Enable your robots.txt file

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DAY 6

Set Up a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network (CDN) is a geographically distributed group of servers
providing faster delivery of Internet content. If you’re using Bluehost, you can easily
connect to a CDN like Cloudflare to greatly increase your site speed.

Optimize Your Plugins For Site Speed

Strategically choosing site speed plugins can improve your page load time - now
a major ranking factor on Google. Here are some of the best tips to optimize your
plugins for site speed:

• WP Rocket: Make sure the following boxes are checked - Minify HTML,
Optimize Google Fonts, Minify CSS, Combine CSS Files, Minify JavaScript Files,
Combine JavaScript Files, Load JavaScript Deferred, Lazy Load Images
• Use ShortPixel to compress your images. Make sure your PNGs are converted
to JPEGs.
• Use a fast social sharing plugin like MashShare to reduce external requests.
• Remove any plugins you aren’t using.
• Use a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights to keep track of your site speed.

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DAY 7

Get Ready to Launch Your Blog

Congrats on making it to day 7. It’s officially launch day! Here are some final tweaks and settings
to check before going live with your blog.

• Ensure your blog’s URL looks correct in your General Settings.

• Uncheck the box “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” under
Settings/Reading.
• Make sure your primary sitemap is in Yoast and there aren’t other plugins like
JetPack submitting a separate sitemap.
• If migrating from another website, double check your 301 redirects.
• Quality check your blog on multiple browsers and devices.
• Input your blog’s domain in Bluehost and turn off the Coming Soon Page.
• Set your posts and pages to published.

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DAY 7

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Launch Your Blog!

With this blog launch checklist, you planned your content and niche, got started with
WordPress, picked your theme and plugins, built your site, optimized your settings, wrote
your first blog posts, and launched your new blog.

Congratulations!

Please stay tuned as I work on a comprehensive video course for New School Bloggers to
launch a successful blog and earn $10k in 90 days.

For more resources, check out my article on How to Start a Blog and join our
Private Facebook Group.

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