Do you have a passion for music? And what about writing? If your answer is YES, then you should definitely check out this article. Why? Because we’ll see how you can start your own blog about music. First of all, I’ll give you some reasons why this is a great idea.
Why Create a Music Blog?
A blog in general is great for those people who want to share with others what they know about a certain subject. Music is a good area for doing this too. If you start your own blog, you’ll be able to let others know what you’re interested about.
Having a music blog can get you some perks. But you should know that these will come only when your blog becomes an established source of information for music related ideas. It only works like this, because you need a steady number of visitors each month, to be able to achieve a good rating. Some nice features that come with owning a well-established music blog are listed below:
- Possibility to hear the news first.
- You can attend live events and performances (some for free) to review them on your blog.
- You’ll be able to obtain free concert tickets, new songs, free music and even pre-releases.
Now that you know why it’s a good thing to have your own music blog, let’s see how you can start one. To do this you must go through some steps that will help you accomplish your goal. These are the steps:
- Decide what to blog about
- Pick your blogging platform and hosting provider + domain name
- Set-up, use and market your blog
From here on, I’ll go through all of these 3 steps so you’ll know what to do exactly.
1. Decide what to blog about
You may think this one is obvious. Of course, your blog will be about music. But there is a good reason why we must talk about this step too.
Music is quite a wide area. I mean you could talk about lots of things related to music. For example, you can blog about music in general, or certain types of music (rock, jazz, house, etc.). Another option would be to blog about popular composers or singers. You can even talk about the history of music till our days and how it evolved over time. Talking about musical instruments is another idea that might come to your mind.
You see where I’m going with this? Music is really a big subject. To be able to create a blog that can grow easier in time, it’s a must that you narrow your niche down as much as possible. What does this mean? That you don’t talk about music in general (too much to cover), instead you go for a smaller subject (but still big enough so you can come up with ideas).
Check out this example: instead of blogging about music in general (which means including all the above-mentioned subjects), you could choose to blog about jazz specifically. This way, you can say that your blog’s niche is jazz. It’s a good subject, because it isn’t too general, but still good enough because you can come up easily with new ideas for future articles.
This method works really well with any area, not just music. Work on some research if you have to and come up with a good niche that will help grow your blog easily.
2. Blogging Platform, Name, Hosting
This step is the core of your future blog. It’s true, you can change these later, if you don’t like them, but isn’t it better to go with the right choice from the beginning? I’ll give you the best blogging platform and hosting provider that’s going to help you as a beginner.
Choosing the Right Blogging Platform
Being new to blogging, you must choose a platform that is easy to learn and grants you everything needed to maintain a great blogging site. My first choice, that I absolutely recommend you use is WordPress. This is the name of one of the best Content Management Systems (CMS).
This tool is the best, because it was developed with blogging in mind from the start. These days WordPress is used to power all kinds of websites (and it does it very well). But at the core, WordPress is built to be the best blogging platform out there. It’s very easy to install and set up if you choose the right hosting provider.
There are 2 things that will help you customize and manage your music blog: the themes and the plugins.
The themes are prebuilt layouts that you can use to create your blog. Essentially, this is the part of your blog that your visitor will see. You can easily add a new theme by clicking the Themes button on the left side of the WordPress dashboard. It’s good to know that you can choose from themes specifically built to use for blogging. Even better, there are many themes created for music blogs too. This will make your life a lot easier when setting up your blog.
A plugin for WordPress is basically a small program/software that takes care of a certain problem or gives your visitors a specific feature that will be available on the site for them to use. There are literally hundreds of plugins developed for anything you could think of. For example:
- Emailing plugins
- Payment and checkout plugins
- SEO plugins (to rank better on search engines like Google)
- Form creation
- Music plugins (play a song, add a library, video gallery, podcasts…)
Choosing a Good Web Host
If you have the platform chosen, you should look for a hosting provider. Since the best platform is WordPress, and it’s likely you’ll go with it, I’ll give you a host who has integrated WP hosting. The best company who has WordPress hosting service is called BlueHost.
They are probably the most popular choice when looking for a WordPress host. More than 2 million websites are using BlueHost all around the globe. If this number doesn’t give them a high score, I don’t know what will.
Their WP hosting comes in 3 different packages or plans:
- Basic – $3.95 / month
- Plus – $5.95 / month
- Choice Plus – $5.95 / month
The Basic plan lets you create 1 single WP website with 50 GB of SSD storage. A nice plus they give you is the possibility to own a free domain for a whole year (any of the 3 plans includes this feature). An SSL certificate is also freely given with any of the 3 packages. This certificate is a must, because it makes sure your blog’s data is secure (also your visitors’ data).
The Plus and Choice Plus plans, as you can see above come for the same price of $5,95/month. But there are some differences in what they offer. For instance, both of these plans come with unlimited websites and storage space, 1 free domain and standard features. But the Choice Plus has 1 domain privacy and automatic backups also included.
If you’re just starting out, go for the Basic package. You can upgrade anytime when you see fit.
While picking the plan you like the most, you should think about your blog’s new domain name. This must be something that will instantly tell your visitors what they will find. Be specific and short. The shorter your name, the better your ranking is going to be.
3. Setup and Promote Your Blog
Once you signed up for one of BlueHost’s plans, you have to move on and install WordPress, to be able to create your blog. BlueHost provides you with a one-click installation option. When you activate this, WordPress will be installed instantly to the server.
After you created a new WordPress.com account (or just signed in, if you already have one) you will be taken to the WP Dashboard. This is where the ‘’magic’’ happens. On the left side, you can see all the options that will allow you to manage the blog.
The first important button opens up the Posts section. This is where you can add a new blog post, edit an existing one or delete the ones you don’t need. Most of your time will be spent here, on this page.
Below the Posts option, you have the Page button. Creating and editing pages is almost the same as posts. The difference is that pages will be separate sections (pages) on your site. They will have their own specific space, and can be added to your menu.
To customize the blog, you must click the Appearance option. Here you can add new themes and personalize them for your liking. If you don’t like a theme you can easily delete it and add another one. All the changes are automatically previewed on the right side of the screen. This is very useful, because you can publish the changes when you are happy with all of them.
I mentioned before that WordPress comes with many plugins that can solve your problems. The Plugins button will open up the place where you can add new ones. You can search by typing in the name of a certain plugin, or just browse through the listed ones.
A word of advice though: plugins are great, everybody likes them; BUT, be sure you don’t add too many of them. This is hugely important if you want your blog to work fast and reliably. Too many plugins can slow down your blog. Nobody likes a slow site, so be careful to choose only those plugins that are really needed for the well-being of your blog.
Once your blog’s appearance and functionality are set up, you can start using it. This part is very simple and easy. Just go to the Posts section and add a new one. Since your blog is about music, you could start with letting your audience know why you are so passionate about music (or your specific niche).
Posting regularly will help your blog be more popular. But don’t do it too often. Otherwise, your visitors might feel a bit overwhelmed by the huge amount of information.
Now let’s talk about the marketing of your blog. You want your music blog to become famous or at least popular among music lovers, right? This is where the marketing comes into the picture. Without proper marketing, your site can pass unnoticed.
So, how should you do this? One of the best and most efficient ways is to use social media marketing. Nowadays almost everyone uses some kind of social media platform: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or other. Does this mean that you must use every single one of them? No, you certainly don’t have to use every one to succeed.
You should go for the one that suits your blog the most. Facebook is a pretty good candidate. It’s the biggest among the other platforms and I think you already know how to use it. If you don’t, you’ll learn in no time.
To market your music blog, it’s best if you apply for big groups who talk a lot about your blog’s niche. Most of them will accept your application easily. When you publish a new post, just mention that in every group you got into. This way the people already interested will see that and maybe they will check out your article. If you want to, just ask them to share it in their networks also.
This is a cost and time effective way to market your music blog. Another possibility would be to search for people online who own different podcasts. You can simply ask them to mention your new blog in one of their podcasts. If this doesn’t work, just purchase a gig on Fiverr that does just that. This can be a great way to enlarge your audience.
Another way you can try would be to go to concerts and festivals. Here you can meet your fans and share with them what you do lately. And once you visited an event like this, you can mention it on your blog, or even write a review about it. It’s good if you mention some people you met, especially if you managed to talk to someone famous.
Conclusion
Now you know how to create a music blog. If you follow all the steps, I’ve given you in this article; you’ll set up your blog in no time.
If you’re serious about this, you can grow to become an industry leader, who people come to for advice. Just pick a music subject that you really like. This way, coming up with new ideas for your posts will be much simpler.
Your readers will feel that you put your heart into those posts. They will come back more often and regularly for your content.
