Some blogs require less start-up knowledge than others. With some, you can almost learn along the way, and your audience won’t notice any lack of knowledge on your part. This, however, is not the case if you want to start a gardening blog. You must know what you are talking about from the start. Otherwise, you will be found out, and all the credibility you might have had at the beginning will be gone.
You must have a deep interest in gardening if your blog is going to succeed. Your passion will be infectious, and your audience will buy into your blog.
Decide on a particular area of gardening when considering your blog. For example, if your main interest is roses, start blogging about them. You can add to your subject range later after building a loyal following.
The effect of the pandemic
The pandemic had a considerable effect on the gardening sector. When families were forced to live in their cocoons, they started to work on their gardens themselves. For example, most gardening centers in the United States experienced a huge increase in seed sales. The demand for tomato plants went through the roof. Many garden centers ran out of stock and could not replenish them.
Gardening is not a short-term hobby, and the popularity of gardening has remained high even after the lifting of restrictions. So over two years, the gardening market has grown. This new market is hungry for more information on the subject, and, as such, there has never been a better time to start your gardening blog.
Find your niche
When creating a gardening blog, you need to corner the market that you know about. It helps you establish yourself as an authority. If you try to create a gardening blog that deals with everything, you can become overwhelmed, thus making little headway.
Gardening is a broad area, and it can be hard to differentiate yourself. Instead, finding a niche can help you stand out while giving you enough to write over the long term. Therefore, pick a niche where you’ll have many things to discuss or a niche with a big enough audience. This can help you quickly sustain yourself and your blog.
Create a business plan and find a name
Creating a business plan for your blog can help you find the most relevant traffic. It can guide your decision-making, thus allowing you to identify where you need to invest your time to grow your gardening blog. We can help you learn how to create an effective business plan.
On the other hand, picking a name for your gardening blog can be arduous but fun. It’s advisable to take your time and think about the moniker. The goal should be to create a label that’s easy to remember. At Business Name Generator, we help you choose some unique names for your blog.
We make the process accessible and simple by only requiring you to search anything like Gardening Blog to get the best suggestions. Furthermore, you can save ideas to help you narrow down the name that will work for your blog.
You also access multiple industries, names, and a domain checker. The domain checker is crucial since it helps you know whether a specific domain name is available. We use GoDaddy to help you use the preferred domain. Remember that your chosen domain will be the unique website URL for your gardening blog.
You do also need a host for your domain name. Picking a host is crucial since it will affect your growth and traffic. Some main options to consider include Bluehost, Hostgator, and Cloudways.
Create your website and selling platforms
When starting your blog, the first thing you should do is buy a good camera. Your website will need great photos of your flowers or plants. The audience will need to see precisely how you approach a job, and bad-quality photos will do you no favors.
Your website should be centered around good-quality photos with a description of what you are doing underneath. You could employ a professional photographer to take the centerpiece photos, but you will have to take them yourself afterward. It will be too expensive otherwise.
Your website should be interactive with an extensive Q and A section. This section will allow you to interact with your audience and build a loyal following.
Social media
All your photos should feature on your Facebook and Instagram pages. Instagram is made for this, so good before and after examples will be very effective on this platform.YouTube is the perfect platform for your blog business. It gives your audience a birds eye view of how you treat a plant or flower. Your channel will also allow you to introduce yourself to your audience to show them how knowledgeable and interested you are in what you do. The combination of these social media platforms will help increase the traffic to your website.
Create your style
Don’t take your knowledge for granted
If you target beginners that arose from the pandemic, be careful not to skip specific facts or procedures that come as second nature to you, but probably not to them. If you explain everything you do as you do it, you will engage your audience more, and they will become regular viewers of your blog or vlog.
Make it relevant to the season
If you are talking about taking care of roses, start when your blog is in early spring, when they are typically planted, continue through may when they bloom, and finish off in the fall when they perish. This applies to any flower you are blogging about. Keep it relevant to the season to maximize your audience engagement.
Start from the ground up (literally)
When blogging about a gardening process, start from the ground up. Tell your audience what kind of soil the [plant prefers, where to plant it etc. This information is precisely what the beginner will crave at the start of their gardening journey.
Marketing your blog
The best way to market your blog at the start is to create unique content on your website. This content will be interesting to Google, and it will direct traffic to your website. There are other ways to effectively market your blog, a few of which I will mention here.
Share gardening information
Apart from your blog articles, it would be best if you linked to other articles written by other gardening bloggers. Your blog should be about good information, no matter where it comes from. Posting links to other bloggers will be mutually beneficial. They can return the favor when you post an article of interest on your blog. This will result in increased website traffic for you and the other bloggers.
Garden centers
you could hold a talk at the local gardening center informing your audience about your blog. This could be a thirty-minute introduction to what you do and the information you will be sharing in your blog. The owner of the garden center will be happy with this as well as he will benefit from any products you n]may recommend. Your conversion rate will be high after a talk like this. Your new audience will tell their friends about the blog to increase your audience.
Digital marketing
The more likes you get on your Facebook page, the better it is for your website. You can pay to boost your page to potential followers. This is a successful form of marketing with an estimated 105 conversion rate for a relatively small investment. Organic followers on your Facebook page are essential if you want to grow your business.
You also have the option of investing in some GoogleAds.However, I feel that this is something that you should consider further down the road. Concentrating on your local market first is the best option in this situation.
Monetize your blog
When your website and your YouTube channel reach a certain level of traffic, your blog will have come to a crossroads. You will have to decide whether you will blog full-time or keep it as a hobby. If you choose to go all-in, there are many options open to you when you want to monetize your blog.
At this stage, you will need to register your business if you haven’t already done so. You can choose between a sole proprietorship and an LLC(Limited Liability Company). Take advice from an accountant to see which suits you best.
You can earn money from your YouTube channel and your website. Here is how you do that:
Your website
When your website traffic reaches a consistent traffic level, Google and digital marketing companies will want to advertise on your website. This is a good way for you to make money but might compromise the look of your website. These ads can be intrusive and may alienate some of your audience.
Affiliate marketing is when you link your audience to other companies on your website. Other companies on your website. This is far less intrusive, and if you select the right companies, your audience will appreciate the link you have provided them. You will get paid every time someone clicks on this link. The amount will depend on the terms and conditions of the business arrangement.
You can have paid product reviews on your website. Once again, you will have to decide if the product will be suited to your audience before you review it. You should not check a product if the company writes the script for your review. It should be honest and include any downsides to the product if this is applicable.
The website can also sell gardening products directly to your audience. You do not necessarily have to pay or even hold the stock in the majority of cases. Just set up a sales and payment platform, and the product will go straight from the supplier to the customer. You will get a commission from the seller. This sales process is known as dropshipping.
YouTube
A successful YouTube channel can be very lucrative. Once you come over a certain level of views for your channel, you will get paid by YouTube.To reach this level can take time, and it is up to you to make your videos engaging and try to increase your viewership every time. If you entertainingly provide unique content on YouTube, you should be able to earn a very respectable monthly income.
You will also have the opportunity to advertise certain gardening products on your channel. This is an easy way to make money, especially if the product is perfect for a particular job. However, you mustn’t recommend a product if you are not satisfied with it. Your reputation will take a hit if your viewers buy it, and it is not how you described it.
Conclusion
The pandemic has created a whole new breed of gardeners. When families were forced to live in their cocoons, they turned to the garden for exercise and fresh air. One thing led to another, and they started to take an interest in their garden, whether through necessity or choice. This new “green-fingered” community has caught the gardening bug, and therefore there is a demand for information on how to improve their gardening skills.
It will take time for your gardening blog to take traction, but it will if you post unique and informative blogs regularly. That mixed with active and passive marketing will increase your website traffic and make your business more attractive to advertisers. Your YouTube channel can bring your followers through a specific gardening process step by step. It also gives you the opportunity for your followers to get to know you.
If you are lucky enough to get to a stage where you can give up your day job and concentrate on your blog, ensure you make the right decision before taking the plunge. If your interest in gardening is still as strong as when you started the blog, the decision should be an easy one.