How To Start A Blog (In 2020), Beginner’s Guide
How to Start a Blog in 6 Easy Steps
The Step-By-Step Beginner’s Guide To Create A Blog
Do you love to write? Do you want to share your knowledge, experience and glory with the entire world? If you are passionate about your passion and looking for the ways how to follow it, you are at the right place!
Regardless whether you are 8 or 80, it’s an amazing way to find yourself adding some values to your community or even the whole world just following some simple and easy steps. Not necessarily that your profession will be your passion, rather the profession and passion are quite different for most of the cases. Go through the below steps to learn how to start a blog.
How to Start a Blog in 6 Easy Steps
As a beginner, you can create your own blog by following the below six easy steps:
Step #2: Register your blog and get a web hosting
Step #4: Write & publish your first post (The fun part!)
Before you go into the action steps in detail, let’s go through and understand some basic factors & information about blogging. This is always recommended to the beginners to avoid future mistakes.
What is a blog?
When you search anything (i.e. typing one or more keyword/s) in the internet search engine such as Google, you can see a lot of search results displaying on your computer/mobile screen. There are millions of blog websites across the globe to answer the questions or meet the requirements of the internet users.
We can say that a blog is a type of website which focuses mainly on written content or post. Users can get the required information or details from the blog posts which have been created by the bloggers.
Why blogging?
If you want to communicate something, share your knowledge, idea, expertise opinion to help people or even to promote your services and products, blogging is the right choice for you! You must learn how to start a blog first. You can get directly connected through comments and conversations and thus building trust with your customers or users.
Also there are several more reasons why you should start a blog:
- Share your knowledge and experience
- Enhance your thought process and writing skill
- Make a network with others in the industry
- Make money while blogging
Related Topic: Why Should You Start A Blog in 2020?
Before starting a blog, you need to choose your passion, your niche. You have to opt out what are the things you love to spend most of the time, you are passionate about apart from your profession.
Your niche may be travel, cooking, teaching, sports or even reading books! If you have extensive reading habit and you are passionate about it, you can simply start a blog by writing book reviews. Your niche blogging is very easy to monetize by affiliate marketing and advertisements, sponsors etc.
Also you need to know about the blogging platform whether you should go for free platform or your own hosting account.
You can use free blogging platform blogger.com/ (a Google platform) or go for a web hosting provider with a little cost.
If you want to be free from any restrictions of free blogging platform and like to be the owner of your own website, you need to go for a web hosting provider in terms of a few bucks.
Now, let’s go through the below 6 easy steps to learn how to start a blog to become the owner of your website and show your talent & passion to the entire world!
Let’s start right now!!
Step #1: Pick a domain name
Your domain name will be your identity and the name by which people will know you online. Select your domain name based on your blogging niche. The domain name should be descriptive so that the readers can understand easily what type of website (or niche) it is. This is the basic part of how to start a blog.
If you are fond of fashion and want to create blog about it, you can choose “myowntopfashion” as your domain name subject to availability. Your domain name may be related to your hobbies, your passion, your life experiences, disease, marriage or your personal blog using your own name.
A good and descriptive domain name can create a great impression to your readers and the search engines as well. It’s your unique address in the world of internet. Note that you can’t use any space or punctuation other than dashes in your domain name.
Once you have decided your domain name, you have to choose the domain extension. The most popular domain extension is “.com” domain. Domain extensions may be country specific or niche or organisation specific. You can use “.in” domain extension for India or “.org” for organisation or “.gov” for government sector or “.net”. If you want your blogging to reach to the entire world irrespective of country, “.com” domain extension is the best popular option.
Some hosting service providers offer free domain for one year in their hosting package. It needs to be re-newed every year for a certain amount of cost. Prices for the domain names may vary based on your domain extension choice.
If you see that the domain name you are searching for is already taken, you can do the following tricks to retain your selected domain name:
- Go for a different domain extension – If the “.com” extension is already taken, you can try “.in”, “.net”, “.org”, “.info” etc. However, it is recommended to go for “.com” extension and hence you can follow the below option(s) to get domain of your choice.
- Add dashes – e.g. “myowntop-fashion”.
- Add small words – You can try by adding “my”, “the”, “a”. For example, “myowntopfashion.com” instead of “topfashion.com”.
Step #2: Register your blog and get a web hosting
Once you have selected your domain name, it’s the time to register in blog hosting services. The performance of your website and blogging depends upon the hosting service provider that you are selecting.
Hosting provider will allocate space in their hosting server to store the files online for your website so that the blogs will be available 24/7 to the readers. It’s the hosting service that ensures the speed of your website. It helps your website to rank in the top search results by search engine like Google.
Most of the hosting service providers will come with blogging software “WordPress”. This blogging software is very popular and you can customize it very easily. Lot of plugins are available to help your blog look nice. We are going to discuss in the next step in detail.
HostGator is very popular hosting provider that provides shared hosting services for your website at an affordable price. With the help of Quick-Install tool available with HostGator, you can create any type of website i.e. blog, forum, CMS, wiki, photo gallery, e-commerce store etc. Also HostGator runs on Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, thousands of existing applications and software are compatible with it.
HostGator has plenty of affordable plans that are perfect for starting your blog. You can view these on their shared hosting plans page here.
HostGator is recommended for the beginners because of the following positive points:
- FREE Domain Name for 1st year
- FREE SSL Certificate for your website
- Quick & Easy WordPress Installation
- FREE website builder
- 24/7 customer service support
- Unlimited storage & free email addresses
- 45 days money-back guarantee, in case you are unsatisfied for any reason
The most popular HostGator shared package is the “Baby plan” where you can get unlimited domains facility. In future, if you want to start multiple websites (i.e. multiple URLs), you can register instantly with HostGator. There is no need to change the hosting provider or hosting package. This allows you the flexibility to support multiple brands, or change the name of your site later on.
Follow the steps below to sign-up with HostGator and install WordPress:
STEP#1
Check your Domain Name
You can check to see what domains are available using HostGator’s Domain Registration Tool.
STEP#2
Visit HostGator for special discount
Visit HostGator to get the special discount price upto 70%.
Disclosure: HostGator compensates this blog owner when you purchase their product through any of the links here so that our services are free of charge to you.
STEP#3
Select your plan
HostGator “Baby plan” is recommended for hosting of multiple websites. However, the cheapest plan “Hatchling plan” is also there but for single domain registration only. Click on “Buy Now” to choose your plan.
STEP#4
Register with billing information
After choosing the domain name, HostGator will ask for your personal info, billing details etc. for registration process. Just fill in the boxes.
STEP#5
Add additional services
Choose any additional add-on services you’d like to purchase.
If you go to HostGator by clicking my affiliate link here, you’ll receive up to 70% off. Before making payment, enter the coupon code “MAY70”.
Finally, click that you agree to the Terms and Conditions, then click on the big blue “Checkout Now!” button.
Congratulations! You’re now the proud owner of your very own website.
STEP#6
Create your account and Install WordPress
After the registration process and payment completion, you will get an email confirmation to create your account and password. Now, go to your HostGator cPanel account, navigate to “Software” section and click on “Quick Install” button.
Here you can find your blogging software WordPress. Click on it to install.
Next, you’ll need to select the domain you want to use for installation and click the “NEXT” button.
Now, you have to fill in the form for WordpPress installation:
You can follow the below suggestions to fill in the forms:
- For Blog Title, enter the name of the website. This is what will appear in the header as the name of your site.
- For Admin User, enter your preferred user name.
- Your first name.
- Your last name.
- For Admin Email, enter an email address where you want the admin password emailed to. Make sure this is a working email address.
- Click to agree to the Terms of Service
- Click Install WordPress when you’re ready to proceed.
A progress bar at the top of the page will let you know when installation is complete. Once complete, you will be able to start working on your WordPress site. Check your email for your WordPress username and password as well as a link to your WordPress dashboard.
Now, you can login to your WordPress dashboard with your unique username and password.
Next, you have to set the WorPress theme and customize your blog site in the below Step#3 as a part of how to start a blog.
Step #3: Customize your blog
Once your website is registered in web hosting and WordPress blogging software is installed, it’s now the time to customize your blogging website. This is the most important part how the design and layout will be visible to your readers. It is fully customizable according to your choice and you are the only admin to design & customize your website up to your satisfaction.
First, you have to login into your WordPress administration area to start with the customization.
Blog Theme Customization
In WordPress, blog layout is known as “Themes” that control your website’s entire page layout design. It’s the most important factor to choose the right theme for your website design. It is the theme that will present your website contents uniquely to your readers. It should be like ‘love at first sight.’
You have to ensure that the color and layout design will attract your readers. You have to select the right theme which is relevant to your blog niche to make your website more responsive and attractive to your readers.
Though you can change your installed theme any time later, you may face some issues to adjust that time. Therefore, it’s better to think at the beginning of customization and select your theme wisely to avoid any future problems.
Some themes do not have ‘side bar’; some themes do not have ‘footer’. However, some themes are available with both the side-bars (right & left side-bar) where you can show your ‘search’ option or ‘recent posts’ or any advertisement later. You can check these descriptions by clicking on the themes.
However, there is no need to worry about. WordPress allows you to use a lot of free plugins which will solve the issues and help you to customize your website to look nice.
Related Topic: Top 10 Free WordPress Plugins For Your Website
Click on the “Appearance” tab on the left side menu of your dashboard. It will show lot of themes for your website.
Some themes come as free whereas, some are premium. You can choose a free theme such as “Twenty Twenty”. There are so many successful bloggers who are using free themes. I’ll suggest you to click on the “Popular” tab and find your free theme.
Some beginners may be tempted to go for premium themes. But I recommend you, as a beginner, to install the free themes available in WordPress. Once you learn the basics and confident enough, you can upgrade it later.
Once you install your theme, click the “activate” button. That’s it! You have set your design layout in your website. If you do not like the theme that is already installed, just click on “Add New” to change the theme very easily.
Not looking great? Wait, this is just the skeleton of your website. We will learn how to customize your blog step-by-step by adding images, texts etc. to make it more appealing to the readers.
Related Topic: Customize Your Blogging Website (In-Depth)
Step #4: Write & publish your first post (Fun part!)
As of now, you have completed your website customization with all the required navigation pages, header-footer, plugins. So you are ready to write & publish your first post. Make sure your post is ready with images and thumbnail.
Let’s start now!
Go to “Posts” tab on the left side menu-bar and click on “Add New”.
Firstly, put the post title on the top side “Add title” and copy-paste your post content in the edit section. You can upload thumbnail image in “Set featured image” section. It will pick image from your “Media Library” or you can drag & drop directly from your local drive to the library.
Related Topic: How to write amazing articles for your blog
Before publishing your post, scroll down the same page to provide meta description by clicking “Edit snippet” button. Also put “Focus keyphrase” in the box provided. Check the SEO analysis points to improve your content as SEO friendly for Google ranking.
Finally, go to “Settings” tab on the left menu-bar and click on “Permalinks”. Check the circle as shown to set your blog post permalink by “Post name”. It is SEO friendly and easy for your readers to understand the post type from the URL link.
Now go up and hit the “Publish” button and it is done! Your blog post is live now in the internet.
You have to update one important setting about your blog post. Go to “Settings” tab on the left side menu-bar and click on “Reading”. You can choose how many blog posts will be shown at most and also full text or summary you want to show. Don’t check the box “Search Engine Visibility” since it is very important for search engine indexing. Finally, click on “Save Changes” button to update the settings.
Related Topic: How to Index Your Website in Google Search Engine
Step #5: Promote your blog
Now, you are in the advanced stage of learning how to start a blog. As soon as you create a few posts, you have to start promoting your blogs. You can’t get success without promoting your blog no matter how useful and interesting your posts are.
You have to create your online presence and inform the internet world about your amazing inventions. You have to reach up to your readers so that they can be engaged in your posts.
Many bloggers fail due to lack of their blog promotion and marketing. The fact is that your blog success depends on the ability to engage people in the topics of your niche.
There are some easy and free ways to promote your blog inside and outside of your network. Try to use them without any hesitation. You’re not going to lose anything! Rather, there may have the possibilities to gain something.
So let’s check below some of the useful strategies to promote your blog for free and to become a successful blogger:
- Submit your blog to search engine (Google search console webmaster tool)
- Inform your community inside your network
- Take benefit from social media
- Create account in Question Hub
- Create free YouTube channel (to get double benefits!)
- Comment on other blogs
- Guest blogging
- Email marketing strategy
- Be consistent in posting
- Respond to your readers
Related Topic: 10 Best Ways To Promote Your Blog For Free
Remember that there are lot of ways to create traffic in your blog site. The above are the most effective and FREE ways to create organic traffic. However, there are paid traffics as well to promote your site (like Facebook Ads, Google AdWords etc.). But I recommend you to go for the above free methods which really work nicely for a beginner.
Step #6: Make money blogging
You have done a great job! You are at the final stage of how to start a blog. You have published some blog posts and are promoting your blog site. Now, you can earn money by monetizing your blog site. Keep patience! It may take one or two or more months to get your website ready for running ads.
Before starting, keep in mind that you should concentrate on the quality blog posts that can solve the problems of people. You have to think and do a lot for their wellness. People will come back to your site again and again increasing your traffic & impression. Then only you can earn a lot of money from your blogging.
There are many ways to earn money from your blogging site. You may select one or more of the ways based on the traffic in your site, niche and subscribers.
Follow the below ways to make money blogging:
- Google AdSense by running ads on your blog site
- Affiliate marketing
- Digital products & services
- Sponsored ads by companies
Google AdSense
If your visitors are large in number, Google AdSense is the most popular option to earn money by running ads on your blogging site for a life time. However, there are some restrictions and difficulties to get the approval from Google AdSense. Before applying, you should know these things in details.
Related Topic: How to make money from Google AdSense
Affiliate marketing
Not ready for Google AdSense? Don’t worry! Here is another effective way to monetize your site even in your first month. Some advertisers approve your application instantly, whereas some will take only a few days (one or two business days) to review your site for approval.
Affiliate marketing is commission-based method to earn money by promoting the advertiser’s products. When your readers click on the affiliate link on your blog, they will be re-directed to the advertiser’s site. If they purchase that product, you will get commission as per the advertiser’s commission rate. Just go through the below topic to know about the best affiliate programs and how to sign-up with ease.
Related Topic: Top 10 Affiliate Programs to Make Money Online in India
Digital products & services
This strategy is not suitable for the beginners. You can write e-book from your existing content and sell it as downloadable e-book once your blog gains in readership, authority and popularity. You can sell it through Amazon Kindle program or directly from your commercial platform.
If you are more creative and planning to sell your digital products and services, you can do it by using WooCommerce plugin on your blog. Here, you can create product pages. Also the required set-up like cart, check-out, secure payment gateway etc. are available to sell your digital products.
Sponsored ads by companies
If you can build trust with your readers and create a big network by your consistent effort, companies will come to you to promote their products or services thru’ your platform. You can earn a lot of money directly from the companies by sponsored ads. You can also negotiate the rates based on your blog popularity and network strength.
So you can see that there are numerous ways to make money from your blogging site. You have to choose the right and suitable methods considering your goals, niche, traffic and popularity.
As a beginner, you can start with affiliate programs since it’s easy to sign-up and get approval instantly from the advertisers. Then apply for Google AdSense approval. At an advanced stage, you can go for digital products/services and sponsored ads.
Conclusion
Congratulations! Now you’ve learned how to start a blog. You have your own domain name, hosting space and your blog is set up. It’s a journey and continuous process to grow your blogging site as your own baby. As you continue your journey, you will be more familiar with the WordPress dashboard, plugins etc. to present your website in a more professional way.
Just keep in mind that there is no short-cut for a success. If you really love to follow your passion, it’s a life-time achievement for you. You can and you will! Be consistent! Set your long-term goals! Keep patience and go ahead!
Put a comment to provide your feedback.
FAQs
We can say that a blog is a type of website which focuses mainly on written content or post. Users can get the required information or details from the blog posts which have been created by the bloggers.
You can consider it as a digital magazine, diary or information sharing platform, a place to learn where readers can communicate directly with the author and get solution to their pains & problems.
If you want to share your knowledge, idea, expertise opinion to help people or even to promote your services and products, blogging is the right choice for you! You can get directly connected through comments and conversations and thus building trust with your customers or users.
Blogging is an effective way in today’s digital world to create network world-wide and get popularity inside your community.
There are several reasons why you should start blogging:
-
Share your knowledge and experience
-
Enhance your thought process and writing skill
-
Make a network with others in the industry
-
Make money while blogging
Related Topic: Why Should You Start A Blog?
Your blog should be about what interests you and what you are passionate about. Now, how to find your passion? Ask yourself. The passion is that continuously provokes you to get involved and most of the time you are thinking about. It is that passion which does not let you sleep. It is that passion which gives you mental relaxation during your tough time or stress.
You should be blogging about your passion. It’ll be easy to follow without too much mental stress to create your blog posts. Also it’ll bring success in a better way than choosing the most common topics where you don’t have enough interest.
You can communicate easily with your readers to satisfy their query if you start blogging about your passion and niche. It will help you to grow and even earn money from it.
It’s your passion, determination, perseverance and willingness to open your heart to the readers that are required for your successful blog. No blog is written over-night. You have to keep patience to achieve success like other business start-up or profession. Keep in mind that your blog can be your profession at a time once you build trust and good network with the readers. It’s your creativity, your knowledge & expertise what connect you with your readers and make a bonding relationship.
Finally, it’s you who is the key factor for your blogging success. Follow your passion and make it your earning machine having a chance for unlimited income!
You and your passion!
Firstly, find out the passion that continuously provokes you to get involved and most of the time you are thinking about. It is that passion which does not let you sleep. It is that passion which gives you mental relaxation during your tough time or stress.
Next, set your goal. What good can you do to people with your passion? Find out the problems and pains of people. Can your passion solve any problem of your community or society? If you can do so, you can also earn money in return. Think it broadly.
Finally, here are your action steps. Take action and start sharing your knowledge & expertise to solve the problems and help the community.
Firstly, find out your niche which may be very general topic or segment.
Secondly, make yourself a specialist for a particular area or segment by narrowing down the niche to eliminate competition. It will also help your blog to be recognised by search engine algorithm.
Suppose, you’re passionate about finance and you want to create a blog. There are lot of topics about how to make money and financial management. Now, you can narrow down the topic by starting a blog about making money particularly in stock market sector, if you are passionate about. Hundreds of topics you can get and start your blog as a specialist. This will reduce the competition in your niche.
You can start a blog absolutely free of cost!
However, if you are thinking to start and continue your blogging seriously for a long-term plan, you have to spend a little bit. Before starting blogging, you need to know about the blogging platform whether you should go for free platform or your own hosting account.
Let me clarify this with an example. You can use free blogging platform blogger.com (a Google platform) where you are allowed to sign-up and create your post instantly. So you may be easily tempted to go for the free blogging platform.
However, every free service has some negative sides also and you need to compromise with. This account is not fully controlled and operated by you. The most negative drawback is the limitation in running custom advertisements in your account to make money once your blogging becomes popular. The free platform may run its own ads in your account.
If you want to be free from any restrictions and like to be the owner of your blogging platform, you need to go for a web hosting provider in terms of a few bucks.
You can go with HostGator to get up to 70% discounted rate for hosting services. Domain name is free for the first year. So, you can start with less than $30 for the first year.
Disclosure: HostGator compensates this blog owner when you purchase their product through any link so that our services are free of charge to you.
Related Topic: How To Start A Blog
If the domain name is already taken especially “.com” domain extension of your choice, try for another combination. Sometimes, the domain you are searching for is registered but not in use i.e. parked. You can search in the internet and try to buy it from the current owner. In that case, you have to contact the current owner of the domain which may be a hectic process.
Otherwise, you can try the following tricks to retain your selected domain name:
-
Go for a different domain extension - If the “.com” extension is already taken, you can try “.in”, “.net”, “.org”, “.info” etc. However, it is recommended to go for “.com” extension and hence you can follow the below option(s) to get domain of your choice.
-
Add dashes - e.g. “myowntop-fashion”.
-
Add small words - You can try by adding “my”, “the”, “a”. For example “myowntopfashion.com” instead of “topfashion.com”.
To become a successful blogger, you have to maintain the consistency in posting blogs. At least one post per week is must to be recognised by search engines.
Perseverance! This is very important, difficult but possible to maintain. However, if you can build habit of posting frequently, it’ll be easy to follow. If you publish one or two post(s) monthly, your readers will forget about your topics and lose their interest.
Follow the principle, “Slow but steady wins the race!” No need to publish one post every single day. Don’t be so rude to yourself. Make a plan to publish a post or two weekly.
Also don’t compromise with the quality of your posts to increase the quantity. Not necessarily all of your blog posts need to be of 2000 words, it may be of 600 words only. But it should be informative and useful for your readers. This will build trust in your reader’s mind.
If you don’t have any HTML or coding knowledge, WordPress is the best choice for you, as a beginner. WordPress is the most popular blogging software in the world. It is user-friendly, easy to install in a single click and fully customizable.
You can find thousands of free WordPress themes to choose for your website. Easy yet user-friendly customization process is an amazing experience for a beginner. Check the link below for customization of your site in detail:
Related Topic: How to Customize Your Blogging Website (in-depth)?
Further, the most attractive part of WordPress is that you can use a lot of free plugins to customize and present your blogging site in a nicely look. Don’t worry if your selected theme doesn’t have all the features you are searching for. WordPress free plugins will solve the problems. You can do anything with the help of these free plugins. Visit the below link for in-depth instructions:
Related Topic: Top 10 Free WordPress Plugins For Your Website.
Yes. Bloggers can earn a lot of money from blogging. Blogging can be a full time job because it requires lot of time investment to be an “influencer” in blogging world. Though it’s not easy to be a highly paid blogger, but it is possible. Your hard work, consistency and patience can make you a successful blogger.
Just like any other business start-up, it requires a lot of efforts and trial & error process you may need to go through. You can find so many successful bloggers who started from scratch and proved themselves in the world of blogging. Most of the successful bloggers left their full time corporate job and engaged in blogging earning more money than their fixed pay check.
Many bloggers start a blog and give up only after a few months when they find no money from blogging. But the fact is that you have to create that platform and build trust to increase the traffic in your blog site. Then only you can earn money. Keep patience, follow your passion. Definitely you will get success one day.
There are many ways to earn money from your blogging site. You may select one or more of the ways based on the traffic in your site, niche and subscribers.
Follow the below ways to make money blogging:
-
Google AdSense by running ads on your blog site
-
Affiliate marketing
-
Digital products & services
-
Sponsored ads by companies
Related Topic: Step #6: Make money blogging (How to Start a Blog)
Bloggers start a blog expecting that blogging will bring them a success & money. It’s true but applicable for those who have patience. Many bloggers fail due to some major common reasons. Here are the major possible reasons:
-
Poor Content- Content is the heart of any blog. Bloggers should concentrate on the blog content and it’s quality first. Visitors will come to the blogging site in order to go through the blog contents that are useful for them, that can solve their problems. Unfortunately, many bloggers don’t concentrate on the quality content. Even some bloggers just duplicate from existing posts in the internet or auto-generate the contents. Don’t forget that blog can’t get success without your own great contents.
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Giving-up Too Early- Many bloggers give-up too early before getting success. They give up only after a few weeks or months when they are not getting money from blogging. It may take few months or even a year to be recognised by search engine and get visitors on your blog site. Then only money will come.
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Lack of Consistency in Posting- If bloggers publish one or two post(s) monthly, the readers will forget about the topics and lose their interest. Consistency is very important to build trust in reader’s mind.
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Lack of Blog Promotion and Marketing- Many bloggers are shy to promote their blogs within their community circle. The fact is that the blog success depends on the ability to engage people in the topics.
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Overdose of Ads- People will visit your site to get benefitted from your posts and not to enjoy your ads. They may become embarrassed by the wrongly placed or blinking or too many advertisements on a single post. Try to optimize the number of ads on your blogs.