How to Create a Profitable Blog While Parenting Young Kids
As a parent, you likely have priceless knowledge to share with others navigating the joys and challenges of raising children. Starting a blog allows you to potentially earn income while creating helpful content for parents in your shoes.
But balancing blogging with the demands of parenting littles ones also poses obstacles like limited time, mental bandwidth and privacy.
With the right strategies, however, you can craft a thriving blog as a parent. This comprehensive guide covers how to launch a profitable blog while caring for young kids.
Choose a Compelling Blog Niche
Your niche focuses your blog content around a specific audience and topical scope. As a parent, blogs in areas like these tend to resonate:
- Newborn care
- Sleep training
- Potty training tips
- Postpartum wellness
- Pregnancy advice
- Working parent life
- Parenting young twins/multiples
- Special needs parenting
- Family finance management
- Creative discipline strategies
- Crafts and activities for kids
- Raising kids mindfully
- Teaching kids independence
- Nature adventures with children
Select a niche you’re deeply knowledgeable and passionate about. Your experiences will provide inspiration and authority around your chosen subject.
Define Your Target Reader
Beyond niche topic, define the core reader you hope to attract:
- Demographic – Are they moms, dads, or families? Any particular age range?
- Lifestage – First time parents? Parents of toddlers or teens? Where are they in the parenting journey?
- Interests – What else do they care about? For example, eco-conscious parents, budget savers, and so on.
- Challenges – What struggles are they facing you can provide solutions for?
- Values – What principles matter most to them as parents?
- Preferred Content Types – Educational posts? Humorous? Detailed how-tos and tutorials?
Really envisioning your ideal reader will help you consistently create content tailored to their needs all throughout the blogging process.
Pick the Right Platform
You’ll need to choose a blogging platform that allows you to easily publish and customize your blog. Top options to consider include:
WordPress – The most popular platform for bloggers. Offers endless customization but requires more tech know-how.
Wix – Drag and drop builder ideal for non-techies. Has beautiful designs and is easy to use.
Medium – Simple publishing directly to their platform. Limited customization capabilities.
Blogger – A free blogging site by Google. More basic features and templates.
Squarespace – Gorgeous designer templates. Pricey but good for non-coders.
For most parent bloggers, WordPress paired with an easy hosting service like Bluehost offers the best value. The platform grows with you, enabling monetization opportunities down the road.
Purchase Your Domain
Your domain name is the unique web address that leads visitors to your blog. Aim for something short, memorable and containing your niche keywords.
For instance – sleeptrainingblog.com, raisingtinyhumans.com, mindfulparentingjourney.com.
Extensions like .com and .net indicate the domain type. Purchase your domain to secure the name early before copying an inspiration. Expect to pay around $10-15 annually.
Design Your Site
Next, carefully craft your blog’s look and feel. Important elements include:
- Logo – Create a simple, recognizable logo incorporating your color scheme. Canva offers easy DIY design.
- Page layout – Organize your homepage and other elements intuitively for readers.
- Color palette – Choose 2-4 complementary colors to make your site visually appealing.
- Typography – Select 1-2 fonts pairing nicely on headlines and body text.
- Brand voice – Informal? Humorous? Educational? Choose a tone matching your blog’s purpose.
- About page – Share your qualifications and story to build a connection with readers.
Remember less is more – avoid clutter that distracts from your helpful content.
Outline Initial Content
Before launch, build up an initial content bank of 15-25 posts to populate your blog from the get-go. This content gets you started providing value to readers immediately.
Ideas may include:
- Introductory post explaining your blog’s purpose
- Popular topics within your niche like “Newborn Sleep Tips” or “First Birthday Party Ideas”
- Parenting confessions or lessons you’ve learned through experience
- Interviews with experts like pediatricians or child psychologists
- Your birth story or anecdotes about parenthood
- Reviews of essential baby products or kid gear
Having compelling content ready allows you to focus then purely on traffic, community building, and monetization rather than constantly content creating.
Enhance Site SEO
Search engine optimization means optimizing your blog so your content appears at the top of Google result pages when users search relevant topic keywords. This is crucial for being discovered.
Tactics to boost your SEO include:
- Researching keywords people search related to your niche and naturally incorporating throughout your content.
- Including keywords in meta titles, URLs, alt text and header tags.
- Creating pillar content focused on popular high-search keywords.
- Generating backlinks by guest posting on other blogs.
- Publishing long-form in-depth content since Google favors lengthier, valuable material.
- Ensuring site speed and security are optimal.
The more optimized your SEO, the higher you will rank, driving consistent organic traffic from Google.
Promote Your Launch
Once your initial site setup is complete, it’s time to announce your blog’s arrival! Promote your launch to drive that critical initial traffic through:
- Emailing friends and family
- Sharing on personal social media accounts
- Joining parent Facebook Groups to introduce yourself
- Having your kids tell their friends’ parents
- Asking parenting influencers to check it out
- Submitting to aggregators like Alltop
- Reaching out personally to other bloggers to say hello
Capitalize on excitement around your fresh blog to spread the word far and wide within your network.
Establish a Content Calendar
To sustain momentum past the launch phase, establish a regular content publishing cadence. Plotting a content calendar helps you stay organized. You might aim to publish:
- 2 long-form posts per week
- Shorter weekly or twice-weekly posts
- Monthly interviews, case studies or expert Q&As
- Recurring columns on the same day each week like “Meal Plan Monday”
Mix up formats like advice posts, thought leadership articles, actionable tips, videos, and interviews. Schedule more evergreen, informational content along with some timelier pieces around holidays, events, or seasons.
Use editorial calendars like CoSchedule to plot and organize content well in advance. This planning prevents scrambling for ideas or publishing inconsistently.
Engage Your Audience
Compelling content alone isn’t enough – you must also build community by actively engaging readers. Encourage involvement by:
- Personally replying to all blog comments
- Sharing user-generated content like success stories
- Running contests readers can enter by commenting
- Asking questions or prompts in posts to spark discussion
- Sending a welcome email when new subscribers join
- Highlighting your most active community members
Devoted readers who feel involved will stick around, continually contributing to the conversation.
Leverage Social Media
Promoting your content across social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest greatly expands your blog’s reach.
- Share posts links natively on profile and in relevant Groups
- Repurpose blog posts into engaging social graphics, carousels and Reels
- Use targeted hashtags and handles to connect with your niche community
- Run giveaways and link-in-bio contests to incentivize follows
- Collaborate with microinfluencers by inviting them to guest post
- Ask followers to tag friends who would find posts helpful
Driving even small amounts of referral traffic from social sites over time contributes greatly to overall blog growth.
Make Mobile Blogging Easier
Creating content can prove challenging while chasing after little ones. Simplify mobile blogging by:
- Using voice-to-text apps to draft posts by speaking rather than typing
- Composing bite-sized social media content during pockets of downtime
- Carrying a portable external battery when on-the-go to charge devices
- Keeping your editorial calendar accessible on your phone to jot down post ideas
- Using notes apps to write snippets as inspiration strikes
- Investing in noise-cancelling headphones to stay focused amidst kid chaos
Look for opportunities like nap time or after bedtime to work on more intensive writing and editing. Take advantage of small windows of time to chip away at tasks.
Invite Guest Contributors
One tactic to lighten your blogging workload is occasionally inviting expert guests to contribute content. Reach out to:
- Complementary bloggers with cross-promotion opportunities
- Brands or authors willing to craft relevant topics
Monetize Your Content
Once you’ve built up a solid audience base, it’s time to start generating revenue from all your hard work. Parenting blogs can leverage monetization avenues like:
Affiliate Marketing – Join programs like Amazon Associates to earn commissions promoting helpful parenting products. Use affiliate links within buying guides, gift ideas and reviews.
Sponsored Posts – Accept paid opportunities to create posts highlighting or reviewing brands that interest your audience. Ensure sponsorships align with your niche.
Digital Products – Sell your own ebooks, courses, printables, membership sites and more based on your expertise. For example, a sleep consultant could offer sleep training plans.
Display Advertising – Sign up for ad networks like Google AdSense to have relevant text and display ads placed on your site. Earn money when visitors click on them.
Consulting Services – Offer personalized 1-on-1 consulting calls based on your specialized knowledge that you’d otherwise give away for free.
Diversify your monetization mix to create multiple income streams from your content. Be transparent when promoting sponsors or affiliate partners.
Set Boundaries
Avoid burning out from blogging and parenting simultaneously by setting healthy boundaries like:
Limiting work to non-disruptive hours after the kids are asleep Telling family you’re unavailable during defined work blocks Minimizing household noise and distractions in your workspace Outsourcing tasks like cleaning or childcare when possible Batching content creation tasks to maximize focus Having older kids entertain themselves or help with younger siblings When you need to concentrate, don’t feel guilty temporarily tuning out the constant demands of parenting. Protect your productivity and mental health.
Stay Consistent
Resist the urge to neglect your blog during hectic parenting periods. Consistency cements you as a reliable resource readers can trust.
Prepare bulk content in advance during lighter times to carry you through busier weeks. Shortcuts like dictating posts on your phone require minimal time investment but keep your blog active.
Schedule social media and email newsletters in advance when possible. Consistent value and engagement, even in small doses, keeps your audience invested.
Patience is key – remain committed to steadily nurturing your blog over the long run. Slow and steady growth will compound and pay off down the road.
Enlist Feedback
Stay connected to your readers’ needs by regularly soliciting constructive feedback:
Run polls asking what challenges they face or what topics they need help on. Monitor blog and social media comments noting repeated issues. Directly ask engaged readers how you can better serve them through your content. Pay attention to bounce rates indicating where you’re losing people. See which posts perform best and worse to hone your content approach. Make reader-focused improvements based on helpful input you uncover.
View Your Blog as a Journey
Recognize that blogging while parenting is an evolving, lifelong process with inherent ups and downs. Don’t compare yourself to others or expect overnight success.
Focus on providing high-value content, loving your readers, and enjoying the creative outlet. With this mentality, your blog's growth and popularity will organically flow.
Through patience and consistency sharing your wisdom as a parent of young kids, you can make an impact while earning income doing what you love. The effort is well worth it.