So, you want to start a blog. I’m so glad you’re here! My goal is to explain the necessary steps to get off to a good and successful blogging start, no technical experience required.
HOW TO START A BLOG
So, are you wondering how to start a blog? I’m so glad you’re here! My goal is to explain the necessary steps to get off to a good and successful blogging start, no technical experience required. This is the site I wish I had when I started over 13 years ago.
How to start a blog to make money.
I created my first blog in 2013 with zero computer experience. It took me forever to figure it out. This guide contains what I learned along the way and is especially for those who want step-by-step instructions in an easy and simple format.
Why start a blog?
There are many reasons you might consider it. Here are a few popular ones:
Make money while working from home. I make a full-time income blogging and many others do the same. Making money with a blog is hard work, but the barrier to entry is low, making it very low risk.
Become a published author. It’s no secret. These days, publishers rarely work with authors who don’t have an online presence. The reason is simple: it’s a lot easier to sell books to people who already know you. A blog is one of the easiest places to start.
Get more exposure for your existing business. A blog gives anyone–from individuals to large companies–the ability to reach a large number of people at very little cost.
Just write. If you want to write, share your story, encourage others and build a community, a blog is a great place to do that.
How to Start a Blog in 5 Steps:
There’s five main steps you need to do in order to start a blog. If you follow this guide exactly, you’ll have your own blog set up in 30 minutes or less.
- Decide what to blog about
- Choose your preferred blog platform
- Choose web hosting for your blog
- Setting up a blog on your own domain
- Design your blog
Step 1: Decide what to blog about
If you’re part of a business, company or organization, this step will be easy to determine. Your blog should be related to the product(s) or service(s) you provide, or the cause you promote.
If you’re an individual, you have more flexibility with topic choice. I already explained in detail how to decide what to blog about, but the main things to remember are:
Blog about something with plenty of room for discussion. A blog requires a lot of content to get going and to remain interesting. You’ll be at this a while so make sure you have plenty to talk about.
Blog about something you enjoy. If you don’t care about your topic, writing about it will be drudgery. Also, why would readers be interested if you aren’t?
Choose a niche in which you can establish yourself as an authority. You will probably not be the first person to blog about the topic you choose. It’s almost guaranteed someone else has thought of it before you. Don’t fret about this, but ask yourself if you have a reasonable chance at making your blog better than all the others in your niche.
The goal for any blog is to become the go-to resource for its topic or niche.
Step 2: Choose a blogging platform
There are many services you can use to start a blog or website. You may be tempted to use a free service, but know you’ll be limited, and in some cases, quite severely. You get what you pay for, as they say. Using a paid-for service isn’t expensive. It’s a no-brainer in my opinion. Of the many blogging platforms out there, WordPress is, by far, the most popular (source). This is for good reason.
Step 3: Find a host
A host provides server space for your site. Put simply, when your site lives on a server (instead of on your personal computer on your desk), others can find your site on the internet. This is the way to make your site more popular.
Step 4: Pick a domain name
Like I said, a domain is a web address. You may or may not already have a domain. To have an existing domain, you would have registered it with a domain registrar, like GoDaddy or many more other sites.
Tips for choosing a domain name:
- The goal is to make it easy to remember and easy to share!
- Go with a .com whenever possible. People always assume .com before other extensions like .net, .org, .co or others.
- Make it easy to say and spell.
- Don’t include hyphens, numbers, obscure terms or confusing strings of words.
- If you’re not sure what to use, your name is a safe bet to start.
- Be creative or try a phrase if you’re having trouble finding an available name.
Step 5: Design your blog
Once you’re inside WordPress dashboard, you can start customizing your blog. We’ll go through everything you need to do to get your blog ready and your first post published today.
You should get familiar with the look and items of the WordPress admin menu. Here are the various admin menu items:
Dashboard – This is the page you see right after logging in.
Posts – Here you can write and publish new blog posts and view and edit old ones. We’ll go through this once we’ve set up the blog otherwise.
Media – This is your media library with all the images, PDFs, videos, etc. you’ve uploaded.
Links – Many blogs don’t use this at all. You can skip it for now.
Pages – Here you can write and publish new pages and view and edit old ones. We’ll look at this after choosing your blog design.
Comments – Everything related to comments. You can get familiar with this when you’ve published your first post and readers leave the first comments.
Appearance – Here you can change what your blog looks like. We’ll go through this in detail below.
Plugins – Here you can add and remove plugins, which add functionality to your blog. We’ll go through this after selecting the theme.
Users – If you create your content with others, you can add them as users here, so they can edit posts. Otherwise, you can skip this for now.
Tools – Here are some additional tools you can use for publishing posts. You can skip this for now.
Settings – Here you can edit your blog’s settings. We’ll look at the essential settings later.
Choose a FREE Theme for Your Blog
I think choosing your new WordPress blog design is the most fun step.
The good news:
You can do it all on your own.
You can get a FREE WordPress theme that makes your blog look great.
You can change it later (just don’t change it so often that your readers can’t keep up).
The bad news:
You can spend a LONG time looking for the perfect theme.
A WordPress theme is responsible for how your blog looks, so it’s an important decision.
In other words, a WordPress theme is like your car’s frame. It changes how the car looks, but doesn’t impact the features or performance too much.
Luckily for you, WordPress has thousands of great-looking themes already optimized to fit any brand, niche, or industry.
Here’s what to look for in a WordPress theme:
Simplicity: Unclear design makes it difficult for readers to navigate your blog.
Responsiveness: The theme needs to adjust its layout across different screen sizes and devices. In the highly mobile world we live in, responsiveness is a necessity.
Speed: Although most themes don’t slow down your blog significantly, it’s still good to test it. To test a theme’s speed, use the Pingdom Website Speed Test, enter the URL of the theme’s demo, and see how long the page takes to load. If the load time is longer than three seconds, you might want to find a different theme (ideally, the load time is below two seconds).
Ease of customization: It should be easy to customize the theme—otherwise, you’ll struggle every time you want to tweak something. Fortunately, many themes offer plenty of easy customization options.
SEO readiness: The theme shouldn’t make a huge difference to search engines. But it’s still better to choose a theme that’s designed with SEO in mind. (Look for “SEO Optimized” or “SEO ready” in the theme description.)
Security: Themes don’t generally create security issues. But it’s anyway good to check some user reviews and comments—and while doing that, check if people have had security problems with the theme.
Keep these factors in mind when choosing a theme. But most importantly, pick something you love and want your readers to see.
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