How To Start A Blog In 2022 (Complete Guide For Beginners)
How To Start A Blog (Begginers Guide)
Wondering how to start a blog in 2021/2022?
You can do it. Millions of people already have.
Maybe you think it’s too hard, or maybe you worry that no one will want to read your blog.
I started this blog from the same place you’re at right now. But now, this blog become my passive income source and I never expected that just 3 years ago.
Guess what — you’re not alone!
In this step-by-step guide, I’ll show you how to start a most popular type of blog — a self-hosted WordPress blog the right way.
Ready to get started? Let’s dive in!
Introduction to the way
Starting a blog is an exciting adventure that you can remember forever. You get to share what you’re passionate about with the rest of the world.
But, what is the right way to get started with a profitable blog? Still don’t have any idea about blogging? Let’s clarify everything from scratch!
Here’re very basic questions that every newbie blogger ask when they get to start their first blog:
01)What is a blog?
A blog is a type of frequently updated website that contains posts (articles) about a specific subject and is typically run by an individual or small group. The purpose of a blog is to inform, educate and entertain a user, so they will come back for more. Blogs can be used as a way to share ideas, information, and products online.
02)Why you should start a blog?
The one thing that’s certain about the Internet? It never stops changing. There are countless benefits to being online, whether you’re looking for new information, want to build relationships, or are simply looking for a way to share your creative side. Meaning, it lets you spend your time on something worthwhile, even if you’re looking to start blogging as a hobby. In other words, doing something you love is always better than doing nothing.
03)I have no technical experience, can i start blogging?
Put simply, you don’t need to know how to code in order to start a blog. But having any new skill is always an advantage. This guide was entirely created with beginners in mind. All the blogging resources and tools available here are suitable for beginners and easy to use so that you’re able to learn how to create a blog today.
04)Can i make money with my blog?
Starting a blog can be one of the most profitable online businesses you can do with a low startup cost. The key is unique blog content. If your blog can give people what they really looking for, then it will bring you more opportunities. It’s not about just displaying ads on your blog. You can do affiliate marketing, write supported posts, sell ebooks, sell physical goods, and advertisers will find you to promote their products through your blog like I’ve done for many years here. (we’ll get to that later).
Depending on the type of blog you want to start, your blog cost will be around $35.40 to $100 and it will cover your minimum expenses for the first year. And I’ll walk you through where blogging costs can be reduced as you learn about how to start a blog in this guide.
Sounds good? Let’s get started!Follow These 6 Steps To Start Your Blog Today
01)Decide what to blog about?
02)Choose the right blogging platform
03)Pick the best web hosting
04)Setup your Blog
05)Get started with wordpress
06)customize it and launch it
Disclosure: This free article contains some affiliate links. If you purchase any service through one of these links we may earn a small commission, this is at no extra cost to you.
Step One : Decide What to Blog about?
If you’re running a business, company, or organization, your blog should be related to the product or service you offer. So, you can promote them through your blog.
If you’re an individual, you can decide on a topic you are most likely to discuss. I can introduce it as the “Blog Niche”. In general speaking, the blog niche is the specific topic of your blog. It can be about Food, Travel, Tech, or something similar you most love to write about.
But there are two things you need to think about first:
- How passionate you are about the topic or blog niche.
- How passionate other people (or your readers) are about the niche.
If you’ve got a reasonable chance of making your blog better than other blog niches with your passion, skills, and experience, you can go through it!
Whatever you start a blog about, think about whether it would be truly important to others. With one small blog, you can share your passion and build a community around your topic.
Here’s a small example:
Picture this: You’re a coffee-lover, and you want to write about different coffees, your adventures at various cafes, and so on. Can you imagine that how many people love coffee?
If your blog has unique blog content that they are really looking for, then you can attract those people to become readers of your blog and you will be able to gain more readers plus more revenue!
Simply put, start blogging about something that both you and others are passionate about. You can use social media, Google, and all other relevant sites to see how people are really passionate about the niche you have chosen.
Step Two : Choose The Right Blogging Platform
When it comes to starting a blog, you need a blogging platform. It’s something like a kitchen in a restaurant.You need to make your kitchen more healthy and reliable to get more customers.
Likewise, you need a good blogging platform to prepare your blog content.
You have several options when it comes to blogging platforms. Some are simple to use, while others are limited with customization options and require a lot of money to upgrade.
In the world of blogging, WordPress is the most commonly used blogging platform in 2021. The best thing is it’s free to use and you’ll be able to install any tools you like and control the overall blog functionality.
what is wordpress?
WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world, used by millions of bloggers and countless companies and organizations.
Over 39.5% of all websites are powered by WordPress, making it one of the world’s most used platforms for creating blogs and websites.
The reason WordPress is so popular is that it allows you to easily create a website without coding skills.
But WordPress can do everything? Then, why do you need a budget to start a blog?
Let me clarify this for you.
Just think about the restaurant.
It has a kitchen, right?
Then what about the dining area?
The restaurant needs a kitchen to prepare food and also a dining area to serve their food to customers.
Likewise, you need to get web hosting along with WordPress to hand over your blog posts to your readers.
Let’s move to the next step.
Step Three : Pick The Best web Hosting.
In the above step, I have mentioned a restaurant similar to starting a blog. And now you are going to know about its dining area. Right?
The blogging platform (WordPress) will manage all the words, blog posts, images, videos, and everything on your blog. (like the restaurant’s kitchen.)
The Web host will power up and make your blog alive and accessible on the internet by providing a space for the blog. (like restaurant’s dining area.)
Now, you need to choose a good web hosting service to start building your blog.
Step Four : Setup Your Blog
Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, comes with great web hosting packages to start your WordPress blog seamlessly.
It will also help you get started without facing tech-savvy things and it only takes around 30-40 minutes to set up everything.
Now, let’s get started with your hosting setup.
Mainly, they will offer you:
- Free Domain Name for the first year
- Free SSL Certificate included
- One-click WordPress installation
- 24/7 live expert support
- 30-day money-back guarantee
If not, you can also select any other higher package if you want to start more than one blog. Or you can always upgrade your package later if you need.
After that, enter the domain (your blog address) you want to use. It can be your name, company, or organization name, or whatever name you want as your blog domain name.
Bluehost offers a free domain name for the first year and also a free SSL certificate.
What is SSL Certificate?A digital certificate that provides authentication and enables an encrypted secure environment for both visitors and website owners (the padlock icon in your browser’s address bar).
Make sure to keep your domain name short and make it easy to pronounce and spell.
If your domain name of choice isn’t available right now, you can either try another name that comes to your mind or you can click the option “I’ll create my domain later” to set a domain after you purchase the hosting package.
Now, create your Bluehost account. You can sign in with Google or enter your contact info manually. Make sure all the details are correct.
You can choose your plan in 12 or 36 months upfront.
When you pay for 12 months upfront, your monthly cost will be discounted from the regular price for the first term and you will get hosting for 1 year!
With the basic plan, it cost you just $35.40 and you’ll have a 30-day money-back guarantee so no risk.
In addition, watch out for pre-ticked package extras. I recommend keeping the “Domain Privacy Protection” extra.
What is Domain Privacy Protection?
When you register a domain name, your details will be stored in a public directory. Bluehost’s Domain privacy protection will help you protect your personal information online and replace it with generic Bluehost contact information instead.
Lastly, complete your hosting purchase. Enter your payment information, review the Policies and Terms, and hit the green “Submit” button!
Just wait for a few minutes for the next step to come up.
Create a password for your Bluehost account. This is the password for your Bluehost account, not for your WordPress blog (that will receive you via email).
Log into your Bluehost account. Use the password you just created in the above step. Or sign in with Google as you signed up before.
You may be asked some survey questions about your online goals and some website creation-related questions about your experiences. Answer them and continue to the next step.
Pick a theme you love! You can choose a free or premium theme as you want. Premium themes come with more features and updates. Either you can choose a free theme.
Step 05 : Get started With Wordpress
Once everything has been done, you can start building your WordPress blog as you want. Just a thing to remember, you should have two sets of login details:
- Bluehost login details to manage your hosting account-related settings and pay your hosting bill.
- WordPress login details to access the place you’ll write your blog posts, and managing your blog.
However, we have to spend more time on WordPress, remember both passwords, and you will need the WordPress username and password (check your email inbox) to log in to the WordPress dashboard most of the time.
welcome to the wordpress Dashboard!
This is the place you can publish posts, images, and everything on your blog. Also, we can install the required plugins to power up your blog with additional features and more.
Simply, this is the place you can be used to write up your blog!
It may be complicated at first, but don’t worry. It’s much easier than it seems.
Here are a few other settings you make sure all are right:
For now, go to Settings > General
- Site title and tagline: Make sure your site title and tagline are correct. If not you can edit them here. Your tagline should be a short phrase that describes your site or mission well. Those are changeable at any time!
- Site address: Make sure it is started with HTTPS:// instead of HTTP://.
- Admin email: You can change the administrator email by entering a new one. If you’ve changed it you have to confirm it. Make sure that email is active.
- Membership: Do nothing if you are not going to register new members for your blog. Just leave it unchecked.
- Timezone, date: You can change the time zones as you want. But remember, this will be very important if you are going to schedule blog posts.
Go to Settings > Permalinks and make sure “Post name” is selected. That structure is very understandable for readers and it’s good for your blog growth.
Click “Save” if you’ve made any changes there!
Step 06 : Customize And Launch It
Hooray! Now you are in the last step to launch your blog to the rest of the world.
I recommend doing the following things before launching your blog:
Add important pages. Go to Pages > Add New. It’s always better to add an About Page, Contact Page, Disclaimer Page, Privacy Policy Page, Terms of Service Page, as you need them for your blog’s transparency.
It’s not easy to create a Privacy Policy Page and Terms of Service Page yourself. You can use a Privacy Policy generator website like TermsFeed to generate them for you to use on your blog.
Install important plugins. First, I recommend installing the Yoast SEO plugin. It helps you to write SEO-friendly blog posts to get more readers from search engines like Google.
To Install Wordpress Plugins:
01) Go to plugins > Add New
02)Search for "Yoast SEO" on the search bar
03)Click "Install Now" and "Activate" it.
From my experience, I also recommend you install the plugin called “WordFence” to secure your blog from attackers. Don’t worry, most WordPress plugins come with a setup guide.
Customize the blog design. You can change your theme to any theme you like. Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New to search and choose your preferred one. Or you can upload any theme there if you have separately downloaded a theme from somewhere.
Personally, I love the Astra theme, and the Avada theme is another great one. These themes are responsive for all devices such as PCs, Laptops, Mobile even on every Tablet device.
Once you’ve chosen and activated a theme, you can go to Appearance > Themes > Customize to change the view of your blog.
So you can now start writing your first blog post!
Go to Posts > Add New to create a new post.
Now you’re all set!
Let’s launch your new blog!
Remove the Bluehost’s coming soon page. To make sure your blog is visible to others, you must need to remove the coming soon page for all.
To do this,
- Log into your blog’s WordPress Dashboard (yourblog.com/wp-admin).
- Go to Settings > General.
- Scroll down to “Bluehost Coming Soon Page” and turn it off.
- Click Save.
Congratulations, you did it! Now you’ve signed up with Bluehost and have WordPress installed. Now it’s time to start blogging!
Hit your blog’s domain name into your browser’s address bar and see how it looks!
Next What On Blogging?
Just keep writing unique blog posts and build a great audience around your blog. Always write the helping with Yoast SEO plugin. Make sure to share your blog posts on social media including Pinterest.
When your blog performs better with having a valuable audience. You can start making money to plan your life on a decent blogging income. As always excellent blog content is the key to long-term success.
Here are a few other easy-peasy tools that you can use to improve your blog for more readers:
- Canva: This is a free online graphic design platform that lets you create awesome graphics for your blog and social media. It will help you to get more social shares and attract more readers visually.
- WP Rocket: You need to make your blog loads faster to give your readers a smooth experience. WP Rocket is a WordPress plugin that caches your pages and does much more to ensure that your blog loads faster on every device.
- TermsFeed: This tool helps you create and maintain a professional Privacy Policy for your blog that is legally compliant and easy to understand and use. It helps you to protect yourself and your blog legally.
- Google Analytics: This is one of the best tools that Google provides to help website owners and bloggers to measure their website performance and traffic. If you want to set up Analytics on your new WordPress blog, you can do it easily with the help of the MonsterInsights WordPress Plugin.
- Google Search Console: This is the place where you can find out how Google sees your blog in their search engine results. If you want to see your blog on Google, you need to set up Google Search Console for your blog first. It allows you to monitor your site performance in Google search results.
You can contact Bluehost via live chat or phone for any further hosting-related support.
You can also use the WordPress support forum to learn more about WordPress and get help with a specific theme or plugin.
Now, it’s your turn!
Don’t forget to leave a comment below with your blog domain name!
Happy blogging!
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