Starting a blog is one of the best ways to share your ideas and expertise online, or expand your online business. It is also a great tool to promote your personal brand or business. Luckily, in 2018, creating a blog is easier than ever. Even if you’ve never tried blogging before, like many things in life, the secret is just to start! Your new blog will be up and running by the time you’ve completed these five steps. Relax, I’ll hold your hand the whole way through.
1. Register a Domain Name and Hosting
Good web hosting can either make or break your blog. Web hosting is what allows websites to be posted and seen on the internet. This means that your website needs to be stored on a server so it can be accessed by people all over the world via the internet. Though it’s possible to host a website from your own computer, this isn’t realistic for most people as it will limit your reach. Which is why web hosting companies provide this service. You need to consider four things when it comes to web hosting:-
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- Cost. What will it cost per month?
- Speed. You need your blog to load fast. Speed is super-important as users move to mobile.
- Uptime. Every website goes offline sometimes. But a good web host will help avoid problems with downtime.
- Technical Support.
Read more at: https://blogging.com/how-to-start-a-blog/
There are hundreds of different web hosting providers. They all offer you a similar service (domain + hosting) with a similar prices. I recommend namecheap.com or whogohost.com for domain names and web hosting.
2. Choose a Blogging Platform
Before you can even start worrying about how your blog will look like, you’ll need to choose your blogging platform. There’s a lot to choose from. You are able to create a blog with many different blogging platforms, such as WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger and more…
However, given that there are over 72 million active users of WordPress today, it’s clear which platform is the boss. Even my own blogs and sites are built with the WordPress blogging platform. Here’s why:
– It’s FREE for everyone to use (including themes, layouts, and add-ons that many other blogging platforms don’t provide).
– It’s super easy to set up.
– It’s secure: WordPress is always updating their software and keeping everything sound and secure, so there’s rarely a worry of having your blog come under hacking attacks. No wonder Facebook, NASA, and even university blogs are using WordPress.
– It’s HIGHLY customizable: There are hundreds of free themes and plugins that add more functionality to your blog, from contact and subscribe boxes to plugins that improve blog performance and more.
While the other blogging platforms are generally all pretty OK, nothing, in my opinion, has ever come close to matching the freedom and customization options that WordPress offers. So without a doubt, go with WordPress. Especially when you are just starting out.
3. Setup/ Design Your Blog
If you’ve set up your blog, you’re now ready to start using WordPress and customizing your blog. I promise – it’ll be pretty easy and fun at the same time.
Remember: You can log in to your blog by going to www.yourblog.com/wp-admin/ and using the credentials you set up with NameCheap or any other hosting company you used.
WordPress blogging platform uses design templates called “Themes” to figure out how your site should look. Changing your blog’s layout and design is as simple as installing a new theme.
There are over 2,000 professionally designed, fully-customizable and free themes to choose from – so you’ve got a lot of options. If you want to see premium themes and designs like the Genesis Framework, head over to Themeforest.net
4. Create Great Content
High-quality content is critical to gaining traffic for your new blog. (Once the web traffic starts to flow, your blog could become a profitable hobby — or even a full-time job. More on making money from your blog later). But if your content is merely average, you may not attract much traffic – or even none at all! There are millions of blogs on the internet, you need to make yours stand out from the competition.
The length of content on the internet is a hotly debated topic. Word-count is a key contributor to your search ranking results. Longer content typically ranks higher on Google. In fact, the longer the better when it comes to search ranking. This is because longer articles will contain more keywords, more topics, headings, links, and pictures. At the very least, your blog posts should be more than 300 words for Google to rank it. The ideal length of a post for general reading is 1,000+ words. And that’s just fine too. Just make sure that your long posts are extremely easy to read and to skim. Avoid walls of text at all costs! If you’re aiming for a solid number, then between 1000 and 1500 word posts should be a perfect starting point. But feel free to experiment and find what works best for you and your audience.
Read more at: https://blogging.com/how-to-start-a-blog/
Also, you need to be clear about what you want to say, and it helps to imagine who your audience will be. Pick a topic that you are truly passionate about, and think about the needs of your blog’s readers. Blogs exist on more or less any subject you can think of under the sun, from trading bitcoin to rearing chickens. In each case, you need to find the right angle – and find your own voice. More on that in a moment.
5. Promote Your Blog
Once you’ve got your first blog posts live, the next step is to get visitors to read your blog. This isn’t as difficult as you may think. Most bloggers rely on four key sources of traffic:-
Search engines, like: Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Social media, including: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, RSS, etc.
Email newsletters!
Direct traffic, or people typing your domain name (you’ll not have any when you launch your blog)
Promoting your blog on social media is one of the best ways to increase readership. This keeps your followers updated on your new posts, makes it easy for them to share your content with others, and helps create engagement as readers discuss your topics. Take advantage of this valuable, and completely free tool for expanding your blog’s audience. Once you have traffic, you may want to push your visitors to subscribe via RSS or via email list to keep them coming back for more. More on that in a moment.