Starting a blog can be such a puzzle though it is so simple in overview. Basically all you need to start a blog website is a plan of the entire blog in terms of the purpose to the goals you have in mind for it. So how do you start a blog in 5 steps?
Start a Blog Website Creation Guidelines
Here are the steps you need to take in order to start a blog website:-
1. Identify your blog objective
This is basically to help you think as to why you want to start the blog in the first place. Here are ideas to start a blog business you can choose from if you are not yet decided.
Blogging will require you to come up with written articles, are you able to come up with the ideas for the articles? And if yes then what is it that you want to talk about or share through the articles.
It could be for example you want to share you poems, beauty knowledge and skills in tutorials format, how to do a particular thing like how to paint, those are just examples of what your objective can be.
That is why here on theonlinepursuit.com we always advocate for you to go for what you love doing most at leisure. That translates to your passion which enhances motivation at the same time since it’s something you’re interested in.
The reason being, your blog will take some time for you to see the results you desire so meanwhile for you not to get disappointed by the slow progress, you need to enjoy the process.
That way you won’t feel the wait as you will be consistently producing content that you love and you are self-driven to do since it is something you love to do and without the blog, you would be doing it anyway.
Make sense? So that is the first step I believe you need to take in creating your blog.
2. Come up with your blog name
Now moving on to the second step, assuming you have already identified your objective depending on your passion in step one above, you will need to give your blog a name.
The name will refer people to your blog whenever someone searches for it on search engines.
This does not have to stress you so much if you already have an idea of what you want to share or talk about in your blog. All you need is to come up with a name that is related to what you want to blog about.
For example let us say you are Dan and you wish to blog about fitness, you may prefer to name your blog danfitness.com. You have to make sure that the name you give your blog gives someone an insight of what they can find on your blog.
Think of the example of danfitness.com, would it make sense calling it dansblog.com or dan.com?
Well I assume you get it that dansblog.com and dan.com are less effective considering that when people are looking for fitness content online, it will be hard for them to discover your blog since it lacks the fitness keyword in it.
So danfitness.com here takes the crown. I hope you understand the logic behind naming your blog as per what you will be blogging about.
This will be so profitable for your blog since it will give you the perfect domain name and SEO benefits in the long run as your blog grows eventually. So that is the second step you should take after identifying your blog objective.
3. Choose your blog platform
In this third step, you have to choose a blog platform that suits you best. You can either choose to go free on a free blogspot.com blog, or go for wordpress.org self-hosted blog.
If you are a total beginner in blogging, it would be best to go free; this is because on a free hosted blog, you have the time to learn the basics perfectly without the pressure of sustaining your blog on a monthly hosting fee, saving money in the process.
Then after you have learned enough about how to run your blog and have got sufficient knowledge and skills to maintain a blog and you really feel the need of going for self-hosting, then you can transfer your blog to a self-hosted platform.
It is that simple, you do not have to worry about having to create all over again when the need for advancing to a self-hosted platform arises. All you will need is just to transfer your blog.
It’s your blog so you get to decide what goes and what doesn’t. However, both free and self-hosted platforms are great each in their own way. Whichever way you choose really depends on your blogging needs.
Perhaps there are differences in terms of features and what you can be able to control between the two. There is no perfect choice here either; all you have to do is identify what you need to run your blog perfectly the way you want.
And guess what, you might find that all you need is available on a free hosted blog, which saves you a lot financially.
And on the other hand if you feel that there are features that are not offered on the free blog, then you can always migrate to the self-hosted platform carrying your blog contents along.
I hope that sounds as wise as I intended it to. If you have no basics in blogging and are just starting up from scratch, you might want to start it free trust me you won’t regret it.
4. Set up your blog
After you have accomplished all the above three steps successfully, you will land onto step four here. Where all you need is to give your blog the appearance and the taste you like.
This will determine how your blog will look like, generally what shows up and what doesn’t.
On reaching this step, you have already done the best part now things are a bit smooth, just set up your blog by giving it a good theme of your choice, the best colors and text sizes and fonts.
5. Create and publish great content
The last step I have for you is to create content for your blog. Remember content is everything. You will realize that majority of the steps to create the blog have been based on the content. Here is a post on how to write a blog post example format.
You will have to come up with unique content that has zero similarities online if you are serious about your blog. And another thing to take seriously is presentation of your content, how you format the content for readability ease.
If people are not able to read and understand your content then it will be hard to increase traffic to your blog reason being readers won’t return or share since they don’t understand your content.
Think of it this way, would you recommend or go back to a blog you had a poor experience on? Definitely not, so ensure you are publishing valuable unique content consistently, and consistently does not mean daily either.
It is way better to publish great content three times a week than just producing poor content on a daily basis.
How to start a blog website and achieve success fast
1. Create a schedule
Having a schedule is very crucial if you really want to grow. This helps you to have a structured way of doing things.
Let us say you create a weekly schedule with some days allocated to writing blog posts, others promoting your content to grow traffic and others for learning new ways of taking your blog to the next level.
That way, you won’t come across any overwhelming situations with your blogging journey because you have it in place when and how to work on the various needs for your blog.
It’s more like preparing earlier and programming your mind to be ready for the tasks ahead of you. You need to be sure to follow up with your schedule; if you skip anything then the schedule won’t have meaning.
So if you decide you will be publishing new content on Mondays and Thursdays for example, make sure to do exactly that.
2. Research on current trends
You will need to stay updated with your niche emerging trends. If you are in the smartphone niche for example, you need to know what’s new and hot currently.
This is because most likely your target audience will be out to search for the trending products online. If you are serious in driving traffic to your site you don’t want to risk this. 22 content marketing types to gain traffic.
Always look out for what is going on currently in your niche to update yourself and your readers.
3. Establish a specific style for your blog
With this, you will need to have some colors for your blog and fonts as well. Think of it like creating a brand.
You want your blog to be associated with some type of font and colors such that when people land on something that’s from your blog, they are able to relate and feel your presence.
This is very important as when your blog is all grown and well established, it will be of great use in coming up with things like trade marks for your blog as a brand.
If you have plans of creating products for your blog also you will be able to know what to incorporate in your product such that if your readers come across the product they are able to relate and recognize it.
4. Always put your readers first
When coming up with content for your blog, be sure to have something solved in the process. Your readers have something they are looking for online and you need to be that person to provide them with answers and solutions to their needs.
If you make your blog about yourself, trust me your readers will be less likely to return since you have nothing for them in store.
You need to treat your blog just like any other business, provide value before you can get any reward. Remember, give before you take and if possible give more before you can even take.
5. Stick to your plan
We have talked about the scheduling, staying updated, establishing specific branding aspects and putting your readers first, now for all of that to work you need to make sure you do not assume anything.
If you use Pinterest to drive traffic, imagine missing to publish that pin today which could have gone viral and got you massive traffic leading to you being eligible to partner with major brands in your niche.
Or failing to do keyword research for your new blog post and missing out on the chance of gaining the organic high quality consistent traffic that search engines has to offer you for free.
You see it is all about the minor things that we have to do. Be sure to take everything seriously just as you would with your 9 to 5 job. That way, you will be more than likely to see growth with your blog.
Want to start free on blogger to get your feet wet? Here isa step by step guide for you to start a personal blog in minutes.
Conclusion
That’s all I had for you on “How to Start a Blog Website Creation Guide for Beginners”. I hope you found the post valuable and enjoyed it. Got any questions or suggestions? Be sure to reach out in the comments section down below.
Wish you all the best in your blogging journey.
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Hey, I’m Frank! A Digital Entrepreneurship enthusiast. I help people understand the fundamentals of digital entrepreneurship. I created this site originally to hone my web design skills, motivate & inspire people who also love to dream big! Read more...