“Hello, folks! “ good to see you here!
You are in the right place to discover extensively about How to start a blog easily and you can deploy the blog today itself if you are ready.
This is 2020 and blogging is that much easier to pursue, with the little bit back support. For beginners a lot of gurus can be found on the internet, they are giving free support to them. I know 9 years back the only internet having sufficient data, and today’s gurus were somehow a beginner and learning new things as you are doing today.
Today I will show some simple steps to start a successful blog and give me a promise that you will continue your passion to write in your blog periodically. Content writing is somehow boring task, those who overcome it and find it enjoyable, have a positive result in upcoming years.
First I should say some negative points, that you should face if you enter into blogging. Also, read positive points which are more than negatives, so read carefully.
- Blogging is a boring activity if you continuously try to search for new thoughts.
- You will feel alone sometimes.
- A unique niche finding is more difficult.
- As a beginner, you have to spend more time getting quality traffic.
- You have to wait up to 1year for your hard work to be paid off.
- Money making will be in slow-pace and should have more patience.
Let’s come with positive factors.
- Yes, it is a fact that blogging is boring, but this in the case of full-time bloggers. If you are an employee you can start along with the job. That will make you more confident, if you are not getting results in your blog then you have your bread and cheese.
- When you work hard for your future, then you are on the right path. We can overcome the single man’s hard work by setting up social interactions after your work. Or develop this up to as an employer having colleagues in your office.
- I saw newbies were in confusion to start a blog, in which niche they should select. Keep on reading this blog you will get complete idea on the niche.
- As a beginner you have to work hard, that will cost time right? If you get paid after spending over 8 hours a day for your blog and making decent money out of it. To spend hours is worthy right?
- Read today’s gurus on blogging, they will give you a complete idea of how many years they wait to see the results. Most of them tried hard for 3 years to get market confidence on their topic. Some of them got enough confidence to quit their job and joined full-time employees for his blog itself.
- Money making is not that much headache if you have knowledge which should apply to the right place to make money. Internet having full of treasure, as a hunter you should use the right tools, platforms, and expert interactions. These actions will draw unlimited money to you. That point is more appealing, right? Unlimited means, how much you decide to spend on content writing, marketing and get a good reputation among your community, automatically draw money to you.
- I saw newbies were in confusion to start a blog, in which niche they should select. Keep on reading this blog you will get complete idea on the niche.
- As a beginner you have to work hard, that will cost time right? If you get paid after spending over 8 hours a day for your blog and making decent money out of it. To spend hours is worthy right?
- Read today’s gurus on blogging, they will give you a complete idea of how many years they wait to see the results. Most of them tried hard for 3 years to get market confidence on their topic. Some of them got enough confidence to quit their job and joined full-time employees for his blog itself.
- Money making is not that much headache if you have knowledge which should apply to the right place to make money. Internet having full of treasure, as a hunter you should use the right tools, platforms, and expert interactions. These actions will draw unlimited money to you. That point is more appealing, right? Unlimited means, how much you decide to spend on content writing, marketing and get a good reputation among your community, automatically draw money to you.
Other positive factors again can list.
- You can support your family with your blog
- No need to quit your current job
- You will be an internet celebrity
- Free online resources are available over the internet.
- You shouldn’t be a technical person, but learning new things should be on your top list.
- Flexible work time
- The office can be your home
- Be your boss
- Expenditure is less compared to other businesses or you can start blogging free of cost.
- Can tie-up with international brands
- Free travel package from various companies
- Sharing your knowledge is a good thing.
- Now above negatives are not bothering you right? Then we can start the methods.
How to start a Blog
Step 1: Selecting a Blog idea and name of the blog
Table of Contents
It is an important phase of your blog. It is important because, the audience was attracting your skills of writing by your topic itself. The general category of ideas are listed under.
- Travel
- Music
- Finance support
- Sports
- News
- Fashion
- Do It Yourself (DIY)
- Business development
- Personal stories
- Technical blogs
The above categories are trending in google for people visiting mosty. These categories have more audience than other specific niches.
In my suggestion, you can select any trending topic. But another thing you have in mind that, as a beginner you are alone to research and write 2000 word posts. So proper brainstorm will help you get the topic.
Find out the answer to the below-mentioned question , you will get enough clarity on this step.
- In which topic you always try to see in
- Youtube
- Online reading
- Love to discuss with others
2. Are you passionate to start a blog?
3. Are you loving writing or explain things to others?
4.Do you have any unique niche, which draws the audience?
5.Why are you starting a blog?
The answer should lie within this
- I love writing and no need to monetize.
- I love to engage others to explain what I know about it.
- I need another backup job
- I want to monetize my idea
- I have some solution for the audience, which will help to get rid of specific problems.
“Have you got some ideas on how to think wisely to reach your successful niche?”
Just take Paper and pen, sitting in a calm place to think deeply about ideas. The topic should always be loved by yourself and you should be able to write comprehensive posts.
Write more than 5 topics and write a 200-word essay on this topic. This will give you how much you know the topic. Learning and writing will take time and what you know currently can write as much you can. Otherwise, you have to find time to study the topic, then write it.
If you got a specific idea, then google it how people are writing on this topic. After reading you will understand how deeply they covered the topic and how beautifully arranged the contents. So now you are aware of how much you have the knowledge and how much you have to study.
This is the perfect path you are following. Analysis of other bloggers, who were succeeded in your topic. If the idea is unique, then you have to study by yourself. All the master plan in your head only.
Another important information I have to share is that you are thinking about why I shouldn’t select all the topics and attract mass audiences. That’s true, but google always prefers and supports, the blog on a single topic. If you are a singer and have sports interests, then start individual blogs.
If you are a beginner, brainstorm both interests and again find more appropriate to write content.
Note – Use google keyword analyzer for a better understanding of how much google searches comes for your niche.
The main step completed, We are moving in further.
Step 2: Identifying Blog platform
What are the blogging platforms? How can we select one?
Before discussing this, let’s see some notes about CMS.
What is CMS
In simple words CMS is Content Management System, It is a software package, which helps you to build a website in an easy manner.
How CMS works?
A CMS software consists of a web server, database server, programming language. CMS should be installed on hosting servers. So that the contents will be available on the internet.
The CMS software have user supportable modules, which helps to user design the webpage, even you don’t know how to code.
Moving to the world’s best CMS platform with a detailed look.
As per the BuildWith.com the top trends in CMS industry listed below.
Why WordPress is more popular than other CMS. Please read here.
In my suggestion if you are a beginner, use WordPress as a platform. The main uses of WordPress are as follows.
- Easy Installation and Upgrades without knowing the coding
- Simplicity
- scalability
- Flexibility
- Publish with Ease Publishing Tools.
- User Management
- Media Management
- Extended theme and plugins
- Built-in Comments support
- Own Your Data
- Freedom
Here you had decided the platform, then move on to the next step.
Step 3: Finding a Hosting provider with checking your domain name availability
What is the domain name?
A domain name is the Website name, which is unique over the internet. The search engines are pointing the specific server, in which the website’s files are stored. Eg- www.googlee.com is a domain name.
Who is hosting provider?
Hosting is the process of uploading your website data and design to the dedicated web server, which is placed in a data center. As they have the large infrastructure of servers and they provide support for security, website development, error in website loading, etc.
These alike leasing the server space according to the plan. Try to purchase a good plan that suits your blog and your pocket.
A ) Finding a domain name and register it independently.
B ) Registering the domain name and host it in the hosting provider server space.
I suggest option B will be good because the hosting provider itself provides a free domain name registration ( Please see their plans), you can pay only for the server itself. Compare hosting provider’s plans.
Name selection methods
The name of your blog should be available for purchase. For example I have selected my blog niche is food. Then I have a name in my mind www.foodcrazy.com. Check out this name is available or not. Demo purpose I opted Bigrock.in
After searching it is not available. First you should compare the domain itself how much costs. Then explore the hosting provider’s site also.
Before finding the hosting provider you have to search the domain name is available or not.
I choose another name www.foodieonweb.com here.
See the domain is available here, Now I just want to register by entering my details under.
We can see the plan list of both hosting providers.
Hostinger plans
Blue host plans
If you are looking for a free blogging platform, then go for Blogger.com or wordpress.com, etc. But they will give you a subdomain.
Like
- yourblog.wordpress.com
- yourblog.blogspot.com
- yourblog.tumblr.com
Another question arises can you register your name as a domain name. Definitely you can. But as per the user visiting trend , people visit blogs irrespective of their personal names. Independent brand names will attract a much larger audience.
Another question also arises can you change domain name after getting one?
It is not possible to change the domain name, u can change the hosting provider if their service is not good.
Better to choose a name, it should be available with the domain registrar, and shouldn’t be available on social sites. So that you can make a brand on social sites also.
I have chosen the domain name and hosting provider. I am giving the procedure for hosting provider-Hostinger for your understanding. You can compare the prices and purchase them.
Confirm the purchase once again after showing your domain name is available.
Then the payment option windows will come, please fill up the window.
After completing the purchase you will get a confirmation mail and complete the domain registration process after logging into their control panel. Control panel is website owner can log in and manage their purchase or adding other products also.
The popular control panel is Cpanel, it is open-source. The hosting companies are either using CPanel or other customized software for controlling all the administrator activities for the website.
Sample Control panel for the Hostinger given below.
Step on next step
Step 4: Install CMS ( WordPress)
It is very easy to install WordPress on any domain. Because the hosting provider will give you a single-button installation. So search for WordPress and install it. Setup the WordPress by giving the username and password. Now you are the owner of your WordPress site ( I say already you owned it).
There is another dashboard for WordPress itself. The dashboard looks like this ( see below image ).90% of the time you are dealing with this dashboard. Actually this is your website customizer console.
Login method is open web browser and type www.yourdomainname .com/wp-admin
Step 5: Picking a good theme
Themes are coming picture, while you have a domain name and it is hosted on a server. Also installed with a CMS software. Now look into the themes and Plugins.
What are Themes?
Themes are well defined as they represent with the design of the website. The users may allow the install or switch among different themes.
Do you want to play with the websites over appearance? Then you should play with themes for altering the webpage look and definitely you are not interfering core code of WordPress.
Have you ever check that the WordPress site can not build without any theme. Yes! That’s true, It is mandatory to contain any theme within WordPress. And another thing is these themes are designed as per the design criteria from WordPress itself.
The themes we can install either by uploading the theme package or we can directly access the theme center for searching and installing. The flexibility for altering the existing theme comes under WordPress, so if one person is using the newspaper theme still N numbers of website owners can make N design as per their interest. This feature is still viable to opt so that everyone can introduce uniqueness in this field.
What are the Plugins?
Basically the plugins are playing a key roles in the WordPress website. This distinctive software code provides user extensive features along the way. According to WordPress.org has 55,487 plugins available, each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs.
However, this does not include the premium plugins that are available (approximately 1,500+), which may not be listed in the WordPress.org repository. Sometimes these plugins are also said that addons.
Most popular themes are
- OceanWP
- Astra
- Hestia
- GeneratePress
- Newspaper
The above mentioned can be used for all kinds of sites, please refer to what will be other designs of the Home page and draw your design in a paper of the logo, header, menu, footer, website body arrangements etc.
So that you can customize the theme as per your interest. Otherwise you can use sample/ demo pages for website design.
Now we can check the basic parts of the webpage.
If you are a beginner, please follow the image, so that you could get some basic idea or special technical word familiarise.
Basic Parts of Webpage
- Logo
- Header
- Search bar
- Social icons
- Slider images or videos
- Page body
- Footer
- Buttons
- Call of Action (There is an interactive window coming in which website requested your intervention. Such as when you are trying to read a website and it is saying subscribe to their newsletter.)
Step 6: Adding important pages
The website having some important pages. But this is a basic requirement for any webpage. We can create unlimited pages according to your service or product. For example a social media site or E-commerce site having N number of pages. That’s up to the requirement.
Commonly we require these pages
- Terms of use & privacy policy: I know, this is super tedious. However, most countries require websites (even blogs) to include these formalities.
- Contact page: There should be a way for visitors to contact you, and posting your email around may not be the best idea – it’ll get picked up by spammers. To avoid this, publish a contact page with a form hooked to your personal email.
- About me: Every time I see a site without an ‘About Us’ page I go, what are they hiding?’ and I get all suspicious. I suppose this is the same for you, so make sure to create a friendly About Me page. Tips on how to create your About page.
- Sitemap: Most platforms will create this for you automatically. But you should make sure that it exists for your blog as this is a good practice for SEO. Make sure you also submit it to Google Search Console!
If you are integrated into about page on the Home page, it is not a problem. Just include it.
There are so many free templates available for these pages, so do not worry about how to create these.
Step 7: Customizing the blog (Logo, plugins, header design, etc )
Your Logo can be either your website’s name or create a professional logo. Free online logo makers are easily accessible for beginners, who don’t have hands-on experience in editing software like photoshop.
Install the required plugins.
I am listing the main plugins and their uses.
- Elementor – Drag and drop page builder
- Yoast SEO – SEO plugin
- WP forums – create login page, contact page etc.
- Mail Chimp – mail service
- WP rocket- Improves speed of WordPress site
- Woo-commerce – E-commerce plugin
For starting a new webpage we only require theme and page builder, if we require any advance setup like slider, sticky header then additional plugin required.
Step 8: Write sample blog posts
Now coming into action. All the background designing works and thinking comes to an end. Think about the subject and write around 2000 words. And correct its grammatical mistakes. Points to be noted by beginners for writing a blog post.
- Note down the subject and google it once for your reference. Then you will find the competitors were how beautifully breakdown the subject according to the reader experience.
- Blog writing should be interactive with the reader.
- The comment box should be included at the bottom of the post.
- Cover all the aspects of your subject, do not touch partially, if so reader feels this is not a good site.
- Check grammatical mistakes before posting.
- 50 % of the blogs were optimized for mobile platforms. So once created your site, ensures the working of all the buttons in mobiles.
- Check your content quality with experienced bloggers.
- Update the posts periodically, if necessary.
- Write from the reader’s perspective.
- Try to write SEO friendly pages, which will come to search engines’ first pages.
Step 9: Audience buildup programs
The targeted audience will come to your sites with these given paths.
- They google it, getting results from google.
- Reference from any friend.
- Social media group suggestions.
- Direct typing your webpage
- By seeing advertisements.
- E-mail messages, that announcing you had launched a product ( free or paid)
- Any websites have given your link on their site.
Study each and every point and implement it to market your blog. That means you are getting enough audience.
How can you make the audience
- Social media connections
- Guest blogging
- Quality contents
- Unique niches
- Good SEO rank will get you top of the search engine.
Step 10: Monitise after getting enough traffic
The monetizing methods here I can list now. After getting enough traffic. Then definitely do not worry about making money. Readers should get high-quality content always. Thus they will visit your site again and again. Within a month you are not getting the traffic and not will make you rich. initially wait for completing quality content around 30 to 40 articles. Then check the performance of your blog with Google traffic analyzer or any other tools.
Monetizing methods
- Make Money With WordPress Affiliate Marketing
- Display Google AdSense on WordPress.
- Use a WordPress Advertising Plugin to Sell Ads Directly
- Sell Sponsored Blog Posts
- Write posts in other blogs
- Get Paid to Write Reviews
- Offer Freelance Services
- Start Your Own Consulting Business
- Become a Coach
- Start an ECommerce Business With WooCommerce
- Tie Up with Brands for their product first review
- Email marketing
- Sell digital products
According to Forbes top blogs in the world and their earnings per month listed under.
- Huffington Post: $14,000,000
- Engadget: $5,500,000
- Moz: $4,250,000
- Mashable: $2,000,000
- TechCrunch: $2,500,000
- CopyBlogger: $1,000,000
- Perez Hilton: $575,000
- Gizmodo: $325,000
- Smashing Magazine: $215,000
- Tuts+: $175,000
It’s very inspirational that if you had that passion, definitely you will reach the heights. The history of these blogs also showing this.
All the best friend, keep going.
You have shared very good information about how to create a blog in 2020 and continue to share it publishing your article will help every new blogger a lot Thanks for this guide
Hi Deepak,
Thanks for the visit and valuable comments.
By shiju