Before telling you how to start a successful political blog, let me show you some data. Since I initiated this political website in July 2020, the website Mshomi.com has received more than 21 million views.
And we have users around the globe, apparently from every single country of the world. All this was accomplished in less than two years.
Now let’s get to the topic right away. Starting a political news website can be a tricky decision, considering that many big players are currently dominating the market.
Selecting the Niche of your Political Blog
Until or unless you already have a massive sum of money to invest, you should not be thinking of competing with the likes of CNN, BBC, New York Times, or Aljazeera. Therefore, deciding the niche of your political website is the most important decision that you have to make initially.
If you are a beginner, starting from one specific niche and expanding from there is the best thing that you can do with your website. For instance, if you want to start in this arena, consider picking up one of the following micro-niches and then expand your business outward.
Some of the niches ideas for political blogs are:
- Political commentary
- Opinion writing
- Left-leaning blog
- Conservative political blog
- Racism commentary
- Human rights
- Voter suppression
- Elections
- Congressional commentary
- Political economy
- Election campaigns
- International political economy
Just make sure that whatever niche you choose, stick with it, and write as much content about it as possible, without compromising the quality, of course. This will help you establish your authority in the niche, which Google loves a lot.
It is recommended to start with a small niche and then expand step by step so that you have enough topics to write about.
Choose your Domain Name and Hosting: Get Free Hosting Now
Selecting the best hosting plan is the next most important thing that you have to do in order to set up your political news blog.
While selecting a website hosting, always take care that the downtime of their servers is as little as possible, so your website does not slow down.
Hostinger is one of the best website hosting providers out there, which will help you to kick start your journey toward a political news website business.
If you already have the domain name available, that’s good. Otherwise, get your free domain name now.
Get Your Hosting and a Free Domain Now
How to Choose a Domain Name for your Political Blog?
Choosing a domain name can be tricky at times.
If you want to be a citizen journalist, you can always have a domain name with your name in it, as I have with Mshomi.com.
Otherwise, you can get a domain name that is easy to remember, as it will help you in brand building in the longer run.
Choosing Themes for Your Political Blog
Once you are done getting a domain and hosting, now it’s time to choose your theme to build your own website. I recommend using Thrive Themes for this purpose, as it has a variety of tools that will make your website stand out.
- Create the website
- Make landing pages and sales funnels that convert
- Build an email marketing list
- Create stylish pop-ups and forms
- Create quizzes
- Make and sell online courses
- Increase conversions with scarcity campaigns
And much more.
By this time, you should have completed getting your domain name, hosting, and theme. Now the real fun starts.
Doing Search Analysis for your Political Blog
Before starting to write even a single word on your political news website, you must do keyword research and identify what type of topics people are actually searching for on Google.
But keep one thing in mind. Avoid writing on the topics that the bigger media websites like CNN are documenting, as these websites are considered an absolute authority in the eyes of Google. You will not be able to position on the first page of Google, which is extremely crucial to get traffic on your political blog.
This brings us to the selection of topics for your news website. The best option is the Google Alphabet soup method, which gives you the ideas of what people are searching for in Google for absolutely free. For this, type your major keyword in the Google search bar, and let Google throw the suggestions to you.
For example, if you have a political campaign website, type “How political campaigns” in the Google search bar, and the search engine will have a list of topics as shown in the picture.
These are the topics that people usually search for on Google.
Consider another example. Let’s say your niche is American politics. See the picture below to get possible content ideas that people are searching for.
This is not the only way to do search analysis with the Alphabet soup method. You can type in “What,” “Why,” “How,” or “When,” followed by your niche keyword to get possible ideas to write about.
Get Your Hosting and a Free Domain Now
Maintain a Publishing Schedule to Reach 1 Million Mark
It is time to start building your audience. Remember that at the start of your political news website journey, you don’t have any people who are reading your content. But consistency is the key.
This is how Google rewards people who are consistent. Google just does not want to send its users to websites that have, let’s say, just a couple of articles published. The more you push quality content on your website initially, the more you will be respectable in the eyes of Google.
Follow the method described above for search analysis, and you will start seeing organic traffic after some time. Usually, it takes six months when Google starts ranking websites if they are consistent enough in their publishing routine. So, make sure that you are publishing content consistently.
Final Thoughts
Starting a political blog can give provide you with a great opportunity to kickstart your career in this field, even if you have no experience. Being a political data scientist myself, I can surely suggest that if you follow all the steps mentioned here, touching the 1 million mark will not be difficult at all.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.