When you are first beginning to explore starting a blog, you may feel overwhelmed. You’re probably asking yourself questions such as how to start a blog, if I start a blog how long before I make money, will I even be successful starting a blog? With the endless amount of information and technical terms, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed. When I started my blog, I had no experience in HTML, or any coding language. I never even heard of WordPress. The truth is starting a blog doesn’t have to feel overwhelming, in fact it should be fun! I’ve simplified the process to starting a blog into 5 easy steps.
I’ve now started 2 successful blogs, and designed 2 websites for software companies. With so many blogs on the internet, you really need to make sure you take the right steps to have your blog stand out, be professional to start earning money from day 1. Let’s go ahead and dive in on how to start a blog. This is a general guideline that you can use on how to start a blog. Most of these bullet points have an article specifically dedicated to them in more detail.
First step is to pick a name and register that domain name
When you pick a name you are choosing an identity for that project or your “baby”. It’s not different than picking a name for a child. It’s going to be part of you and your identity so choosing a name is important. For a more detailed description on how to pick a blog name head over to this post to find out why SEO is important when choosing a name.
I always tell people to stick to a blog name that you immediately know what the blog is going to be about or what type of content you can find on the website. For example, “Diane’s Corner” doesn’t explain what type of information you can expect to find on this blog, however “Diane’s Simple Recipes” you know you will most likely find simple recipes.
Sign up for a hosting service
Once you pick a blog name, the next step is to sign up for a hosting service.You may be wondering what exactly is a hosting service and why do you need one? Great question, a hosting service is how you are able to put your blog or website on the internet. Your blog is connected to one of their servers. This is why picking a superior hosting service is extremely important.
There are so many services out there to choose from which. I highly recommend you use blue hosting. Blue Hosting has very very limited internet downtime and is constantly making updates and improvements to ensure your blog runs fast.
Right now Bluehost is offering your first year for free!! Click here to sign up today! You can thank me later!
Choose a CMS (Content Management System)
The next step is to figure out what platform you want your blog to be on. A blog platform is called a CMS which stands for a Content Management System. WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world with 409 million people using the platform. Personally, I use WordPress for all my sites and it works great.
However, I also hear great things about Squarespace, and Webflow. Squarespace offers a great front end user interface, which makes it easy to build something from scratch. On the flip side, the reason why I like WordPress, is there is tons of documentation and resources out there to help you out. In fact, some of the most successful websites and blogs run on WordPress.
Decide what theme you want to use
Now you are ready for the fun part, designing your website. Since this is probably your first time blogging you want to make sure your theme looks professional. There are thousands of themes out there to choose from. It’s important that you identify what is important to you and your blog. While wordpress has several free themes, I recommend that you spend the extra money to get a theme. It will look so professional and it will be a whole lot easier to use than trying to create a website from scratch. I used a theme called Zeen, here is the link and it’s so easy to use, I highly recommend it.
Start writing content and promote your blog!
After you’ve picked a theme and designed your website, now it’s time to add content to your blog. Write articles that are directly related to your blog niche and then promote your blog. First promote it to your friends and family, then promote your blog on social media to everyone else. Once you start gaining traction you can really see your blog grow. I found that when you are starting, the best platforms to promote your content on are pinterest and facebook.
Recap on How to Start a blog in 5 easy steps
In short, if you are looking to create a blog, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Follow these easy steps to how to start a blog today.
- Figure out your blog name and register your blog name
- Sign up for a hosting service
- Decide what blog platform you will use (CMS content management system)
- Pick a theme that best fits what you’ll be blogging about
- Start writing your content and promote your blog