How to Start a Blog (Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners)
Looking to start a blog and make a career as a blogger? Then you are on the right page!
This blog setup guide is drafted for users like you who are just starting out and know a little or nothing about blogging.
It takes less than 30 minutes to start your blog, you will have your blog up and running if you follow the below steps.
You are in right place, this is a step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and follow your passion!
We have been building websites, blogs & eStore’s for the last 10 years, ClueCommerce has helped millions of people like you to start a blog or website.
There can be any reason to start blogging, and some of the most common one’s are as under:
- Sharing knowledge
- Personal thoughts/views
- Passive income and making money online
- To Reviews gadgets and stuff
- Travel documentation
- Or any other.
Personal Blog
Whatever you’re experiencing, personal blogging can be an effective channel for purging. By writing about what you’re going through, you’ll get the chance for self-analysis, allowing you to better understand your feelings.
A personal blog also gives you the chance to develop your own audience, improve your reputation, and show off your expertise via your blog.
Business Blog
Blogging for your business also helps you get discovered via social media.
Every time you create a new blog post on your website, you are actually posting content that people can share on social networks e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
Blog helps you expose your business or brand to a new audience that may not know you yet.
Step 1 : Picking relevant blog topic or niche
Tracking down the right niche is the vital step of building a blog. This single step can guide you on how to start a blog
Imagine you pick a niche with an excessive amount of competitors, your blog will get pounded by already established blogs sites.
In the event that you pick a smaller niche with no interest, your blog will hardly get any traffic.
You need to discover a niche that is not highly demanded nor smaller and that can also be monetized easily.
Step 2 : Selecting right blogging platform
The first question you will ask is, What platform you should use to create your blog?
There are many paid and open-source blogging platforms out there, and people have different experiences with them.
WordPress is the first choice for most bloggers to start a blog. WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that powers over 38% of the web. People choose WordPress because it’s easy to use if you’re new to websites.
However, WordPress is entirely customizable, and its plugin and theme systems enable you to build almost any type of site you’d like.
Step 3 : Register domain name & hosting for your blog
Domain Name:
There are 4 basic rules that you should follow when finalizing a domain name:
The domain name needs to be :
- Easy to Remember name
- Short and Simple
- Word or combination of words which connects to your audience.
A domain name is your blog web URL, which a visitor will use to open your blog.
For example cluecommerce.com
For a custom domain name, you usually need to pay $12/year. However, with the below link, you can register a domain for FREE while ordering hosting which you need in the next step.
There are a few rules which you should follow before picking the best name for your new blog.
- Always go for .com domain name coz its most popular domain extension and easy to remember.
- Domain name must be easy to pronounce and avoid using alphanumeric names.
- Your domain name should not be confusing.
You can use the Bluehost domain suggestion feature to check if your domain name is available or taken.
Hosting for your blog:
Hosting is required to keep your blog/website live on the web.
Hosting service stores your blog’s files, database, and website code in a server environment. A web host allows your site to be accessed by anyone and from anywhere in the world.
Hence, it’s a very important aspect and needs to be picked carefully. In the next step, we have shared step-by-step instructions to buy and prepare your hosting environment.
Any blog hosting site should offer fast loading times and high uptime. A reliable hosting provider also offers reliable security measures from bad guys, regular site backups, at least 99% uptime, advanced customization options, and a simple-to-use interface.
Also Read: Best LiteSpeed Hosting for WordPress
Step 4 : Picking the best hosting for your blog
Now, it’s time to finally build your blog on a live hosting platform. Web hosting is where WordPress will be installed on your domain.
There are plenty of hosting service providers but for hosting a blog Bluehost is the idle solution for anyone looking to set up a new blog.
Bluehost is reliable, cheap, and offers everything to get started:
- FREE Domain for 1st Year (Saving of $12/year)
- FREE SSL Certificate (https)
- Unlimited bandwidth (traffic to your site)
- Unlimited storage space
- Easy to use control panel.
- 24×7 Technical support
- 30 days money back guarantee
- Everything comes in just $2.95/month
Grab Bluehost hosting for a special price
and click on Get started now, as shown in the image below
A basic plan is more than enough to start your blog/website
On the next page, you can get your free domain name.
So, make sure you register your domain as Bluehost will use this to automatically deploy your blog.
On the next page, you need to fill up your contact information in order to create your Bluehost account.
Make sure you uncheck everything under “package extras” as these things are not important and you can save some money.
You can pay via credit/debit card or via PayPal, click on “More payment options” to reveal PayPal payment option.
Once the payment is done, Bluehost will automatically create your blog in the next 10 minutes and send you an email confirmation.
Make sure you check your email for Bluehost CPanel account credentials.
Step 5 : Installing WordPress & Theme
The best thing about Bluehost is, it will automatically install WordPress.
If you are facing any issue you can always contact Bluehost live chat support for help.
You can also go to your Bluehost Cpanel and search “WordPress Manager by Softaculous”
However, we are not done yet, as you need to complete a few more things before you can start writing your blog posts.
So, here is the recap, we have completed the following steps:
- Domain registartion
- Web Hosting setup
- WordPress Installation
Now, it’s time to install a WordPress theme and change how our blog looks.
In WordPress, there is an option called “themes”, which allows you to install ready-made designs that are available for all types of blogs.
The design of your blog is the most important aspect because a good design will ensure that your visitors will stay on your blog for longer. In fact, that is how your readers will remember your blog.
There are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes already available.
However, we always recommend going for a premium, because premium themes come with a ton of in-built features, quality codes, no bloatware, optimization, and premium technical support.
We recommend DIVI theme for wordpress
Divi is a completely new website building platform that replaces the standard WordPress editor with a vastly superior visual page builder editor.
If you love to design things as per your liking you will love DIVI. With the Divi theme, you can customize everything on your blog including fonts, colors, layouts, and even create your own layout.
Also, it’s surprisingly easy to use.
Divi is a visual page builder for WordPress and it is easy to build websites with Divi as you don’t need to know any code such as HTML, CSS, or PHP.
Divi comes with several pre-made modules and layouts which can be further customized to suit your style.
Every Divi module can be customized using the various settings in the Divi builders, the theme customizer, theme builder, and module customizer is easy to use and intuitive.
100s of Pre-made layouts comes free with DIVI which can be easily imported to your blog (in just 1 click)
Also read: Divi Theme Review
Step 6 : Install recommended WordPress plugins
WordPress also comes with thousands of plugins. Plugins are basically plug-and-play modules that add extra features on your blog frontend or backend.
Learn more about WordPress plugins here: WordPress Plugins directory
We recommend following plugins for any newly created WordPress blog:
In order to install these plugins, you need to login into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugin > Add New
- Yoast SEO
- WP SuperCache
With your Divi Theme, you also get two very useful plugins and we highly recommend using them:
- Monarch : A social sharing and follow plugin built to get your blog more share and more followers on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Monarch plugin does this all by using various different social sharing integration methods, such as social sharing sidebars, inline sharing buttons, popups, and fly boxes.
- Bloom : A plugin to let you create automatic opt-in pop-ups that can be triggered by timed delays, when a user reaches the bottom of a post or page, or even after they comment or purchase. This is an extremely effective way to capture email opt-in and convert leads.
Step 7 : Write your first blog post
If you have followed the above steps correctly, I assume your blog is up and ready. If you face any issue do let us know in the commend section below 🙂
Now, it’s time to add content. Blogging is all about writing content related to your niche.
But before you start writing your first blog post, you should make a content publication plan.
It’s pretty straightforward, use an excel file and write down different steps involved in publishing a post on your blog.
Moreover, imagine there is a person sitting in front of you, and you are talking to the person.
This is important because your blog post needs to communicate with your reader.
- Article should cover all the aspects of that topic you are writing about.
- Do not copy images from someone’s else blog or Google.
- Its better also embed a relevant video from YouTube.
Step 8 : Share your writeup with the world
As a blogger, you need to promote your blog to get relevant traffic to your blog.
If you have written something valuable to the reader, it’s time to let them know that your article/post does exist on the web.
Getting readers is easy as long you know how to.
It’s all about promoting your blog to the relevant readers at the right place and at the right time.
There are almost 4.5 billion active internet users and you need a fraction of that.
You need to consider getting traffic from several sources, make sure you generate traffic through content aggregators, social media posts, social bookmarking, or sharing sites.
Below, are a few of the websites to get started :
- Medium
- Quuu Promote
- YouTube
- Facebook Groups
- Triberr
- AllTop
Step 9 : Monetize your blog
Is it really possible to make money from blogging?
The answer is YES
Firstly, the blog is a place where you can share your ideas, experiences, and more but a blog can also make you money. Thousand of successful bloggers make a living entirely off of blogging.
To turn your blog into a moneymaker, you can try out the below methods to monetize your blog.
However, we are not going into details of each monetization method but it’s a good starting point to do further research.
- Banner ads
- Publish an E-book
- Offer Members-Only Content
- Affiliate Marketing
- Accept Donations
- Offer Your Services
- Publish Sponsored Content
Your blog is a place with the potential to help you reach out to the mass audience and ultimately, make money.
With time, you can build up a huge readership and use your blog to leverage multiple revenue streams.
In conclusion, starting a blog is pretty easy and takes less than 20 minutes to make your blog live.
However, it takes effort and passion to make your blog shine and drive traffic.
Happy Blogging 🙂