Are you in search for an easy, free, detailed guide to starting a blog in 2020? With this simple guide, I’ll walk you through the process of creating a functional and beautiful blog.
Yes, it is indisputable that setting up a blog can seem intimidating and overwhelming. With the help of this easy, comprehensible guide, you’ll learn the basics of blogging and I’m going to show you that with just the most fundamental expertise, you can be a successful blogger. Whether you are 7 or 77, you can set up your own blog in less than 25 minutes.
It isn’t a shameful thing for me to say that I made a lot of mistakes at the very start of my own blog. To ensure you do not make the same ton of mistakes, you can leverage on my own years of supper blogging experience. The main purpose of coming up with this post is to help everyone out there learn how to blog easily and quickly.
What is a Blog?
In summary, a blog is a web page that mainly targets the written content known as blog posts. Culturally, we do hear about celebrity or news blogs, but as you’ll learn in this tutorial, you’re going to set up a blog on virtually any topic conceivable.
Pro bloggers frequently create content from a personal viewpoint that enables them to link directly to members of their audience. Additionally, some blogs allow readers to leave their comments while they respond as properly as they can. A strong bond is established between a blogger and the readers through audience engagement and interactions.
The connections you create with the readers is one of the vital advantages of creating a personal blog. This collaboration enables you to build interactions and bonds with other people of like minds. It also enables you to establish trust and credibility with your audience. Gaining the loyalty and trust of your audience is, of course, an open door to making the most out of your blog, part of which I’ll talk about later in this tutorial.
Should You Set up a Blog?
One of the fallacies associated with creating a blog is that you need to be a consistent and passionate writer to achieve success. As a matter of fact, most people read blog posts to pick a personal viewpoint on certain things. Therefore, most bloggers create content in a very chatty and natural style.
Additionally, you do not need to be a pro in your specialty to be successful at blogging. For instance, readers of a pet blog wouldn’t want to read a resource from a Tech blog; they just want to learn the experience of people who have really kept dogs, given vaccines to puppies right from Day One and the likes.
At its core, blogging is mainly about sharing your expertise with others. Selecting a topic you have a passion for facilitates the whole process of setting up a blog. Blogging about a broad topic is equally good. In as much as you’re blogging within your passion, your interest will twinkle through and keep your audience engaged.
So, how do you create your own blog?
Start a Blog in 6 Basic Steps
Follow the steps below and learn how to set up a blog in less than 25 minutes:
- Choose a name for your blog – Make it descriptive
- Publish your blog on the web – Build your blog and host it
- Give your blog a customized look – Select a professional and good-looking template and squeeze it
- Create and publish your first article – The excitement part!
- Spread the word – Drive more readers to visit and read your blog
- Monetize your blog – Select from numerous monetization methods and make the most out of your blog
Let’s create your blog!
Step 1: Choose a Name for Your Blog
In order to find a good name for your blog, you must start by selecting a cool topic. If you aren’t certain what to write about, here are a couple of ways to help you find a nice topic for your blog:
Real Life experience: Everybody has learned from real life experiences through one circumstance or the other. And sharing these can be insanely helpful to other people in like circumstances.
Passions & hobbies: Passions or hobbies you have passion for are an amazing place to get started. Fashion, cooking, sports, travel, and others are all typical examples.
A self-hosted blog: A self-hosted blog is a blog you completely own. This comprises a series of topics ranging from your daily activities to indiscriminate thoughts and ideas. This is a great avenue to share your ideas, thoughts, and expertise with the world without being restricted to just a topic.
Once you’ve got a topic, it’s time you chose a name for your blog. A nice blog name should be elucidatory so the prospective audience can easily understand what your blog is all about just by seeing the name.
Step 2: Publish Your Blog on the Web
Having got a name, it is high time you published your blog on the web. This may seem technical or difficult, but I shortlisted a few steps below that will walk you through the whole process, making things much easier.
To get the blog off the ground, you need blogging software and hosting. And it’s awesome to know that all these are packed in one place
A host is a firm that saves all your blog files and presents them to users when they search for your blog in search results. Your blog must be hosted in order for it to be up and running live on the web.
Also, the blogging software is needed to help you set up and build the blog. In this tutorial, I’m going to illustrate how you can build your blog leveraging the blogging software in WordPress, as it’s known to be the easiest, most customizable, and famous.
For the sake of emphasis in this guide, let’s choose BlueHost as a blog host. BlueHost is one of the commonly-used hosts and I’m going to emphasize on it for the sake of this post.
- Your blog name is registered for you completely free, ensuring that nobody else will be able to take it from you.
- You’re offered a simple, free WordPress blogging software installation.
- You’re offered 24/7 customer support services via a web chat or mobile phone.
- It’s currently hosting more than two million websites/blogs and it’s been recommended since 2005 by WordPress.
- You stand to get a money-back guarantee in case you may not be satisfied with any order for one tenable reason or the other.
Step 3: Give Your Blog a Customized Look
Logging in
If you’re yet to log in, simply visit the site, Bluehost.com and select the Login button which is located on the top right-hand side to display the login pop-up. You can use your domain name and password as set in your former step while logging in. If you’ve forgotten your password, you can have it reset for you by choosing the “Forgot your password” tab.
After logging in, you’ll be redirected to your portal on BlueHost. You can then log in straight to WordPress from your BlueHost portal to get automatically logged in.
Modifying Your Blog Template
Once you’re logged in, you’re automatically in the WordPress administrator section. This is the area where you’re allowed to make important changes to your blog.
Everybody has a varied viewpoint of how their blog should look like. One of the amazing things about a WordPress self-hosted blog is that you’re able to make changes to your whole design and layout in just a few clicks.
Blog layouts, in WordPress, are regarded as “Templates” or “Themes”. What is a theme? A blog theme manages the whole design of a blog. To make changes to your blog theme, you’re to select the Appearance button on the left-hand menu of your WordPress dashboard.
This is where you’ll find the numerous themes that have already been installed on your WordPress blog: Elegant, Twenty Sixteen, Twenty Seventeen, , and many more. They are good-looking, well-designed, beautifully-made themes that are compatible with just any kind of blog. As a matter of fact, most authority bloggers use one or more of these themes.
If you haven’t yet got a particular or specialized blog design in mind, I recommend using any of these blog themes to begin with. To activate any of the themes on your WordPress site, simply hover around the specific theme and select the Activate button. That’s all! The overall design of your blog has just been changed with the click of a button.
If you aren’t satisfied with anyone of these blog themes already installed on your site, you are free to select from hundreds of the themes without paying a dime. To have a new theme installed on your site, select the Appearance button through the left-hand menu and click on the Add New Theme tab.
You have hundreds and even thousands of blog themes to select from. This is the screen for theme search. By activating a new blog theme, you can have the whole of your blog theme changed with a single click of the mouse.
Once you’ve installed your selected theme, select the Activate button to activate your new theme. And to get a preview of your new theme, simply launch your blog using your web browser and have a look.
Making changes to your blog theme is the easiest and simplest way to customize the look of your blog, but so many customizations can as well be used.
Step 4: Create and Publish Your First Article
Creating Your First Post
Now that you’re done setting up your blog, it’s time you wrote your first blog post.
Right in your WordPress dashboard, click on “Posts” on the left-hand menu. You’ll find an already-published post there – this is a post published on your site by default as it is done on every brand-new website/blog and it’s not that needed. To move it to the trash box, click on the delete/trash button which you’d find under the post itself.
To start writing a new article, choose the “Add New” tab. You’re now logged in to your WordPress post/content editor. And you can type your post title in the top space and then start creating your content in the larger box
Would you love to add pictures to your post? Simply select the “Add Image” button and then the “Upload” icon to have the pictures uploaded from your device. You can adjust the image size on the screen that appears next. When you’re set to add the picture, select the “Insert into post” option.
Once you’re done writing your post, simply select the “Publish” icon to publish it right away.
Publishing Your Blog
When you’re set to publish your blog on the web, simply select the “BlueHost” icon which is placed on the left-hand side of the menu in your Admin area, then select the “Launch” tab to get rid of the “Hello World” page.
Hurray! You’ve just mastered creating a blog and publishing blog content!
Step 5: Spread the Word
Setting up a beautifully-designed blog and creating awesome content is just the beginning. To ensure you drive readers to that blog, you must spread the word; you need to create some quality time promoting it, particularly when you’re just starting out.
One of my most-loved techniques to drive readers to my blog is posting content links to my social media profiles, especially Twitter and Facebook. This is excellent because not alone will your friends find those links, but if content links are shared again and again by your friends, it will automatically boost your blog traffic. If you have awesome content on your blog, then Social Media is a good place to make your blog go skyrocketing.
Complete Guide to Getting More Traffic to Your Blog through Social Networks
As part of driving fresh readers to your blog, you’ll also endeavor to keep your existing readers coming back. This is exactly where email marketing comes in. When you continually build email lists and enable broadcasts for your blog, you’ll ensure that your readers will automatically get a share of every new post you publish on your blog.
This doesn’t alone add more readers to your blog over time; it helps you establish a strong relationship with your audience.
Email marketing is just too big as a topic to cover in this guide, so I’ll be creating a separate guide to it in the future. Every entrepreneur who desires more blog readers needs to learn the concept of email marketing.
Step 6: Monetize Your Blog
Once you’ve done the needful in writing quality blog posts and spreading the word, monetizing the blog is literally the easiest part.
You can make money in various ways, from getting paid to review other people’s products or blogs, to selling some personal products (digital products). You can also make money the easiest way by selling advertising space on your blog.
Conclusion
If you’re planning to start a blog of your own, do not derail from the blogging fundamentals. If you want to start it great and get your financial freedom in no distant time, come on; let’s show you how. Learn more about how you can get started and get rolling with your own blog.
I’m loving this article! I never thought blogging could be so easy but you are dead right as it comes down to using a good platform. Many of which are free to join. I love the fact that anyone can blog about anything and get paid for it! It takes persistency and determination but making it fun doing so. If your passionate about a particular subject then this is a great start because it will probably be one that you can talk about all day, every day.
Very informative post so thank you for sharing!
Sure, Michael! Blogging is rewarding and brings long-term profits, but it requires a lot of consistency, persistence, and commitment to do it successfully. You need to follow the pros to start getting pro blogging results. Building your business on the solid fundamentals will bring the expected ROI in no distant time. Thanks for stopping by, drop by anytime!
Hello Sierra!
This is so far the most comprehensive step by step guide to blogging that I’ve ever seen. From stating the benefits of blogging, posting it on the web and even to monetizing it. Well, every aspirant blogger’s much needed information are all found in this one article.
Thank you very much for this informative and helpful article.
Hey Rose, appreciate your visit and comment on this post! Gone were the days when blogging was rocket science to most people. A lot of free and premium tools with an easy-to-use interface have now been introduced. Anyone with or without blogging experience can start a blog in a matter of minutes and get rolling in no time. Thanks for stopping by,drop by anytime!