Thinking to start your journey as a blogger, but confused about where and how to start a blog?
You know, it is really simple if you follow the correct steps.
Mostly, it happens that people think to start a blog, but due to lack of knowledge, they waste their time searching for a guide and lose hope at last.
This article will help you get started with your blogging career. I have prepared it especially keeping it in mind to make it more simple for you.
I will guide you step-by-step to help you start a blogging career. Here are 7 steps to your blogging journey.
- Choose your blog topic
- Find a perfect domain name for your blog
- Find perfect web hosting
- Choosing a WordPress theme
- Adding essential components
- Creating your first blog post
- Promoting your blog
1. Choose your blog topic
The very first step to your blogging journey starts by choosing a topic for your blog.
I recommend you to think about a thing which you are passionate about enough to write something about. You don’t need to expert, but you should have a better knowledge of it.
Content is the main fuel for your blog. It will be really hard for you to create content if you select your blogging niche without any proper knowledge or experience in it.
Let me explain it with some examples.
- If you are someone who loves to travel a lot then you can make a travel blog and share your traveling experience with your visitors.
- If you love cooking and are really good at making recipes, then you can share your cooking skills and recipes with your audience.
- If you love coding and have projects and experience related to that, then you can share your knowledge with your audience.
- If you are someone with an understanding of fashion designing, then you can share your experience with your visitor with the help of your blog.
Above I have mentioned a few examples to help you understand how to find your topic. The world is large and so is your audience, all they need is correct content that they can fall in love with.
So, go ahead and finalize your interest in the field and enter into the journey of your blogging.
2. Find a perfect domain name for your blog
Before moving ahead let us see what is a domain name?
A domain name acts as the address to your virtual shop. Just like your home address you need an online address termed as the domain name for your blog. Domain helps your audience to reach your blog directly or through search engines.
As now you know about the domain name, let us go through some important tips for choosing a domain name:
Keep your domain short and easy to remember: Nobody is interested in typing a long domain name in url to visit your blog. Always keep your domain name short and easy to memorize.
Better to go with .com: If your planning to target an audience worldwide, .com is the best option and is widely used. You can also go for .org or .net.
Avoid in between symbols or numbers: It becomes difficult for your visitor to type symbols and numbers to reach your domain name. If possible try to think of a domain name that consists of the letter.
Keeping tips in mind, let us decide your domain name. You can also choose your name as your domain name as it will become your brand or you can make it out of the topic of your blog.
However, along with thinking of a domain name, you also need to check if that domain name is available or not. Most of the best domain name is already taken by others. But it does not mean that you will not find one for your blog. You need to check domain name availability online using any domain registrar.
Don’t purchase a domain at this step only check for its availability. You can go to name.com to check your domain name availability.
Once you find your domain name just note it down and move to the next step.
3. Find perfect web hosting
With domain name as your blog address, you do need a space to put your content. Hosting is a service that provides you with storage space, bandwidth, and other tools to help you place your virtual shop(blog).
For hosting service I recommend Bluehost, as it is the best hosting service used by most of the bloggers.
Now follow the steps below to purchase a hosting service and register a free domain for your blog.
Once you visit the Bluehost website by using the link above, click on the Get Started button.
Choose your plan
Bluehost provides you with 4 shared hosting plans basic, plus, choice plus, and pro.
I recommend choosing the Choice Plus plan because it includes free Domain Privacy, which will keep your personal information from published online.
If you are low on budget then you can go for the basic plan also and can purchase Domain Privacy separately.
Add your domain
In the previous step, I wrote about how to choose a domain name for your blog. If you found one suitable for yourself then enter it and click next.
However, if you have not decided on your domain name yet then, you can select the “I’ll create my domain later” option.
Create your Bluehost account
While filling in account information like your name, address, and email it is important to enter everything correctly. Information entered by you will be used to provide you with your login credentials and hosting information.
You can also opt for google sign-On if you don’t want to enter everything manually.
Selecting your hosting term
Bluehost provides you the option to choose the hosting term of 1, 2, or 3 years. Choose a longer term to save more on your selected hosting plan.
Correct hosting packages
Domain privacy protection comes for free with a choice plus plan. If you have selected a basic plan, then I recommend to select Domain privacy protection and uncheck all other extras.
Don’t get tempted with other extras like SEO and security as I will help you get these features for free just continue reading.
Fill out payment information
Now finally enter your payment information, accept the terms, and click on the submit button to proceed.
That’s great now you are done with the major part.
Now all you need to install WordPress from your dashboard and move to the next step.
4. Choosing a WordPress theme
Once you are done with WordPress installation. You can access your website at yourdomain.com. With the default WordPress theme, your website will look something like this.
Changing WordPress theme
Now head over to the WordPress admin panel by using yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
Here, Enter your credentials and click on login.
After entering into your dashboard, go to Appearance » Theme.
WordPress comes with its default themes, but you can add cool themes for your blog. Click on the “Add New” button at the top of the Themes page.
Search for a free theme or you can also use Feature Filter to search for a particular type of theme. Select the features for your theme and, click on Apply filters.
choose a theme you want to install and click on install.
Once your theme is installed you can customize your theme by going to Appereance>>Customize
Use the controls from the left sidebar to customize your website appearance and make it according to your needs.
5. Adding essential components
As mentioned in the earlier step not to choose SEO or security add-ons. Here I will provide you with the list of best plugins that can help you optimize your website and make it search engine ready.
Yoast SEO plugin: Yoast SEO plugin provides the tools to bring your content to the highest standards of SEO and overall readability. It is available in both the free and pro versions. The free version is enough to get started at the initial. You can install this plugin from the Plugins menu of your WordPress dashboard.
SSL Zen plugin: SSL Zen helps you to secure your website, protect your customer’s data, and show your visitors you’re trustworthy and authentic. It provides a free SSL certificate, install it from the Plugins menu of your WordPress dashboard.
WP-Optimize: WP-Optimize is an all-in-one WordPress performance plugin that cleans your database, compresses your images, and caches your site. You must install this plugin to make your website faster.
6. Creating your first blog post
Now that you are done with all your initial setup. Give life to your blog by creating your first blog post.
Head over to your WordPress dashboard and go to Posts » Add New
Give a title for your new post and start adding content to it. After writing your content select a category for your post and a featured image for your post using the right side control panel.
Once you are done with your writing click on the Publish button on the top to publish your article.
7. Promoting your blog
As you are done with your first blog first. Now it is time to get the audience to your website.
To get traffic to your blog, you can share your post on your social media accounts.
Guest posting on other websites is also a great choice to generate traffic for your website.
It is really important to maintain consistency while writing a blog to maintain traffic. Make a schedule with your upcoming articles with dates and stick to the plan.
Keep posting helpful content, optimize it for SEO, and keep sharing to grow your blog traffic.
Conclusion
Everything great in the universe starts with something small. All you have to do is take the first step and keep yourself on that path. In this article, I have provided you with a detailed guide to help you start your own blog. Thanks for reading, please like and share it with your friends also provide your valuable feedback in the comment section below.
Need me to set up your blog, email at admin@7topics.com with your budget and full detail.
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