So, you want to start a blog huh? Great idea!
Well, starting your own blog is not a complicated thing nor its expensive. In fact, more than 50,000 blogs are created everyday for fun or profit.
It seems that just about every person or business have a blog these days, I know you want to learn how to start a blog quickly, that’s why you are here, right?
It’s never been easier to set up a professional looking blog but if you’re like most people you may not know where to get started.
Today is your day! I’m going to walk you through the most comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to start a WordPress blog in 20 minutes (or less).
And if you get stuck with anything, send me an email and I will do my best to help you out.
Every single day I help someone to get their blog started and I seriously enjoy doing it.
Since I believe in transparency, if you use this guide to set up your blog, I will get a small commission from the web host at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain).
So if you’re asking me for help you aren’t annoying me, rather you are helping me to make a little extra.
It’s a true win-win so don’t hesitate to take advantage. I look forward to hearing from you.
How to start a blog (In 9 easy steps)
You are mere nine steps away from launching your very first blog:
- Choose your blogging platform
- Get a domain name for your blog
- Choose your hosting company
- Setting up your blog
- Installing WordPress on your blog
- Learning WordPress basics
- Selecting your WordPress Theme
- Installing plugins on your blog
- Write Your First Blog Post
Let’s Get Started!
Step 1: Choose your blogging platform
What blogging platform should you use for your first blog? Although there are plenty of options out there but I would recommend WordPress.org blog without a second thought.
Because it’s free, easy to set up, versatile (with oodles of cool plugins to beef up your blog) and well supported. (At the time of writing this, there are more than 72 million WordPress blogs on the Internet)
There are various other popular blogging platform options available such as Blogger, Tumblr, Squarespace, Wix and many other but you’ll want to keep a few potential pitfalls in mind if you decide to go with one of these platforms. In many cases:
1. Ugly Looking URL
The web address of your blog will be long and hard to remember, typically it will look like this:
- yourblog.blogspot.com
- yourblog.wordpress.com
- yourblog.tumblr.com
As you can see it doesn’t look catchy and branded at all.
2. No Customization
You are limited to the design themes and styles they offer you, you cannot use any of the free plugins or themes available to a self-hosted blog.
WordPress themes helps you in making your site more beautiful and plugins help you extend the functionality of the blog, but if you go with free platform then you will not have access to any of these.
3. You can’t monetize your blog
You’re not allowed to advertise on your blog, which makes it much harder to make money from blogging.
You cannot do affiliate marketing on free blogs, some of them prohibit Google Adsense and heck they may even place their own ads on your blog.
I have already explained in detail about best blogging platforms in the past, if you need more help to make choice regarding your blogging platform, give it a read.
But the general rule of thumb is to create a self-hosted WordPress blog where you don’t have any sort of limitations.
4. You don’t own your blog
I know it sound silly at first, but it’s true that you don’t actually own your blog, the blogging platform does.
Since your blog is hosted on someone else’s web property (e.g. WordPress.com, Tumblr.com or blogspot.com) and if you violate their terms of service (even by accident) or If the company’s server mistakes your blog for a spam, they can shut you down any time if they want so.
And guess what – you cannot do anything if that happens.
I run all of my blogs on WordPress because it’s flexible, ease of use and powerful.
Step 2: Get a domain name for your blog
The domain name for this blog is blogscart.com, If you type that domain name into an internet browser anywhere in the world you will be sent to this site.
You may or may not already have a domain. If you already have a domain registered, you can skip this step.
If not, keep on reading (I will show you how to setup in both cases later on).
You have to do some research before you choose a domain name for your blog. You should pick something that fits your industry and on the same time it’s unique as well as descriptive, so that your audience will immediately know what your blog is all about.
Here are some tips to consider when choosing a domain name:
- Don’t include hyphens, numbers, obscure terms or confusing strings of words. It confuses people and it makes it hard to explain the domain to others.
- Make it easy to type. There’s no need to go with creative misspellings, it doesn’t make any sense and rather it confuses people.
- Make it pronounceable. The goal is to make it easy to remember and easy to share!
- Keep it short.
- Don’t go with other company’s brand names or slogans which are trademarked. As they will come after you and shut your blog down.
- If you’re not sure what to use, your name is a safe bet to get started.
- Read more tips here if needed.
Keeping this tips in mind, you should put some thought into your domain name, but not too much.
If you come up with something you like within 5 minutes, give it a go.
You may find that the domain name you want is already taken with the .com extension, this happens to all of us.
But don’t give up – it’s 2017.
There are over 250 different domain extensions to choose from such as .co, .co.uk, .co.in, .net, .org etc.
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