Part 4 - Blog Setup and Design

1. Choose your blogging platform

First up we need to chose what we’re building our blog on.

ChatGPT is not going to build our blog for us. That’s not what it’s for.

Instead we can use ChatGPT to explore options and make suggestions based on our personal circumstances.

As a affiliate marketing advisor, walk me through my choice of the best blogging platform.

Ask me questions about my budget, my technical experience and how much time I can commit to this project.

Possible blog platforms include but are not limited to Wordpress self-hosted, Wordpress.com, Medium, Ghost, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, Blogger, Substack and beehiiv.

SEO is important for this blog. Traffic will come from Google SEO primarily and social media secondarily.  

Return your ranking of results in order of highest to lowest preference based on my responses, with pros and cons of each platform, in a table.

This prompt will run you through a similar set of questions to what I would personally ask you if we were sitting together.

This helps narrow down the potential blogging platform. Supplement this with your own research of course!

Prompt Output 💬

2. Naming your blog

Next we’re going to generate a killer name for our affiliate blog.

Use the prompt below to generate a list of names.

Plug in your niche and top 2-3 keywords from the previous Step 1.

Act as a marketing consultant. 
Generate 20 potential business names 
My business is a blog that is focused on [niche]
We provide educational content, news and reviews 
Use the following keywords as inspiration: [copy paste top keywords]
Ideally the business name should incorporate a top keyphrase but also generate ideas outside of these keyphrases
Focus on easy to say and write names using simple language that works for SEO
Keep the business name to 2-3 words maximum

Prompt Output 💬

Once you’ve generated a list of names go through and choose the ones you like the sound of.

If you need more just enter “more” into ChatGPT.

If you want a different style, for instance more professional sounding, go ahead and tell ChatGPT: “more professional”.

Continue doing this until you have 10+ names that you like.

Next step is to go to https://www.namecheckr.com/

This website lets you check name availability on multiple platforms at once. Plug your business name in to see if it’s available.

You are looking for name that is available on

• .com

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Instagram

• Youtube

And TikTok, which you need to check manually.

Once you’ve found a name that i) you love and ii) is available on all or most platforms you’re good to go.

3. Brand guidelines

Now we have a name let’s flesh out the brand a bit by building up some brand guidlines.

Here’s the prompt

Act as a branding consultant

Prepare a set of brand guidelines for an affiliate blog in [niche]
The name of the blog is [name of blog]
The main keywords the blog will be ranking for are [top keywords]

Provide me with a brand description, elevator pitch, target market, brand promise, brand mission, value proposition, brand voice/personality and brand culture.

As always, plug in your specific details.

Notice how we are using results from previous steps in each new prompt - we’re iterating and adding more detail each time.

Prompt Output 💬

Adjust as required, specifying changes directly to ChatGPT until you are happy with each section. We’ll be using all of this in the next section so make sure you

4. Basic copy

We’ve got our blogging platform decided. We’ve chosen a name. We’ve got some brand guidelines.

Go ahead and set up the basics of your blog. If you need instructions on how try “steps to set up an affiliate blog on PLATFORM NAME” in ChatGPT or head to Google/Youtube to follow some tutorials.

Whichever platform you chose we’re going to need some basic “copy”.

Copy is short for copywriting and is basically text about our business.

We’re going to use this copy in lots of places: our website, on our social media accounts. Basically generating a whole load of copy that be plugged into your blog and social media whenever needed.

Act as a marketing copywriter

The affiliate blog's topic is [niche]
Create copy for my affiliate blog named [blog name]
The primary keywords are [top keywords]
Incorporate information from these brand guidelines
#brand guidelines begin#
[copy/paste brand guidelines]
#brand guidelines end#

Use this information to generate

Company slogan
Tagline
Blog home page headlines x 5
Blog home page subheadline x5
Primary features/benefits of the blog
Page meta description
Twitter bio description
Instagram description
Facebook page description
LinkedIn Page About Us description
Tiktok description

Provide results in tabular format

Prompt Output 💬

Need additional specific copy? Use the same prompt + details and just change the outputs you want.

5. Logo design

Wrapping up today we’re going to generate instructions for a brand logo.

Here’s the prompt

Act as a visual designer

Based on the provided brand guidelines describe 5 logo ideas

The company name is [company name] and should be the only text in the logo
#brand guidelines begin#
[copy/paste brand guidelines]
#brand guidelines end#

Provide logo description, colors with hex code, text font and size if included.
These descriptions will be used as creative briefs so be exhaustive in your details

Provide in tabular format

Prompt Output 💬

Now that we have a text description we have a few options.

First up you can hire a designer on Fiverr or Upwork to design the logo for you. Provide them with your logo specification as a starting point.

Alternatively you can use an AI generator to create your logo. Here’s Midjourney’s attempt of the first logo (Leafy Muscle):

Teaching how to set up Midjourney is beyond this article. Here’s the quick start guide.

Pulling it together

Wow!

We’ve got a LOT done in these past 5 prompts.

You now have the basics of your brand ready. Go ahead and plug all these details in your blog platform of choice.

We’ve now done the main setup for the business: deciding the niche and setting up the brand basics. Good job!